Splendor: A Luxe Novel (33 page)

Authors: Anna Godbersen

Tags: #United States, #Juvenile Fiction, #Girls & Women, #Historical, #General

BOOK: Splendor: A Luxe Novel

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Perhaps it was the weather up high on the open ocean, or maybe the little tremors over what she had done, but Diana was experiencing a heightened sensitivity to everything at just that moment. She believed it to be born of a profound relief that this kind of marriage was not her own fate, in the way that colors appear especially bright to a person who has just cheated death. Of course, Elizabeth’s marriage would not be like that, for she had finally found herself with someone so entirely devoted to her that his eye would never wander and his tongue would never be capable of cruelty. They would have a child, Keller Cutting, and then several more. They would use the Holland oil windfall to decorate beautiful homes in New York and Newport. There would be grand parties, to rival Mrs. Schoonmakers’, with whom Mrs.

Cutting would maintain a wary, knowing camaraderie. The columns would always refer to them as rival hostesses, although in truth Mrs. Cutting never took the socialite part of her life so seriously again.

That world was over, anyway. The most talked-of parties of the coming years would be those thrown by the Broad sisters, Claire and Carolina, whose humble origins everyone was happy to forget under a great swell of champagne and exotic party favors and the sort of antics that become calcified into legend almost as they occur. Names like Holland and Schoonmaker and Hayes would soon sound old-fashioned amongst that new, fast set.

But those stories are in the future. The city of Diana’s birth grew miniature in the distance, like a diorama for schoolchildren. It was manageable that way; she could explain everything she had seen and done there. In time, she would: There would be intricate novels of drawing room betrayals and love that couldn’t be. Her brain was beating with them. From far away, on a clear day, she saw how all those mighty mansions were only temporary delusions, and how fashion would march on, and the chateaus and palazzos of American merchants would fall to the wrecking ball so that department stores might rise above.

Slowly the sky turned from the color of cornflower to that of hyacinth, and the Ferris wheel at Coney Island appeared like a ring of diamonds against the twilight. New York—that city made of canyons between tall buildings, and ornate houses filled with glittering things that might trap a girl forever—was nothing more than a few dots on an infinite landscape. The atmosphere was crystalline and afforded her a perfect view. Only from this place was she able to see how limited the city was, after everything, and how wide open the world could all of a sudden become.

Acknowledgments

I am incredibly grateful to everyone who has worked so hard to turn The Luxe series into real live books.

Thank you, thank you, Sara Shandler, Farrin Jacobs, Josh Bank, Les Morgenstein, Andrea C. Uva, Nora Pelizzari, Lanie Davis, Joelle Hobeika, Allison Heiny, Kristin Marang, Cristina Gilbert, Melissa Bruno, Kari Sutherland, Barb Fitzsimmons, Alison Donalty, Ray Shappell, Elise Howard, Susan Katz, and Kate file://C:\Documents and Settings\nickunj\Desktop\book.html 10/28/2009

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Jackson. And thanks also to James McLeod, for always asking what Hem would do.

About the Author

ANNA GODBERSEN was born in Berkeley, California, and educated at Barnard College. She currently lives in Brooklyn, New York.

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ALSO BY ANNA GODBERSEN

THE LUXE

RUMORS

ENVY

Credits

Jacket design by Andrea C. Uva

Cover: Dress by Maggie Sottero

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Adobe Digital Edition September 2009 ISBN 978-0-06-193590-9

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