Diamond Girl

Chapter 23



After that, I guess Mom and I were best friends; at least that is what anyone would think if they studied the pictures taken of us during that couple of years. Of course, no one would be able to see the pictures unless they collected clippings from Page Six and W.

I was so flattered that she suddenly wanted to be with me that I began attending all the usual fundraisers open to a girl from my world: an evening with Don Giovanni for Lupus research, a ball in honor of an endangered purse.

I made that up but, honestly, in New York you can go out nearly every night of the winter to some event that requires an opulent dress and be photographed for having done nothing more than attending. So, for a while, in my own tiny world I was as much photographed in ballrooms as Milan was in the clubs.

Since pictures of women of a certain age, with their dead white skin stretched too tightly over bones, wearing dresses that only they think are flattering, are not very appetizing, I was one of the girls who was photographed a lot and, in almost every frame, there is my mother, her long fingers with their blood red nails resting on my shoulder, her head tilted towards mine, lips stretched back as far as her remaining skin allowed, in a smile.

She was the very essence of a loving mother in every single two second photo-op.

Neither Michael nor Daddy was thrilled at my new closeness to her. Michael had detested her on sight and Daddy, well, he had learned to detest her long before. I kept attending though. I couldn’t say no when she would call me up and ask me to be her 'date' for the evening.

Michael thought I should. “Just tell the old bitch to go away. She didn’t want you before this, so why should you run to her now? Jesus, Carey, come on, baby, can’t you tell when you’re being punked? She’s just using you to get her picture taken and to piss off your dad at the same time,” said the boy whose mother had always adored him.

He was right about one thing, though. Daddy was pissed about it.

“Carey, why is it every time I pick up the paper there is a photo of you with your mother? And why have you taken to including her in foundation events after I specifically asked you not to and, moreover, you promised me that you would handle removing her?”

Carly didn’t say anything after I showed up for the first foundation event arm-in-arm with my mother. She just shook her head. I could tell she thought I was skating on thin ice, not emotionally, which is something she wouldn’t have cared about, but with my father’s good will, and, brash and noisy though she was, her own father’s good will was something she worked hard at maintaining. P.R. companies come and go, she once told me, but family is forever, and by that I understood family money is forever, if there is a lot of it, and it is the smart heiress who remembers that.

I hated having Michael mad at me. I hated letting him go out at night without me. He said he had to be out at night, his whole business was networking and, up until I became my mother’s escort, I had almost always gone with him, but more and more I was on call for her.

I think I believed him, or mostly believed him, that he had to be out at night. Well, I wanted to believe him. I asked Carly once that winter if she ever got tired of having to go out night after night, schmoozing the clients.

Carly was always sharp-as-nails in every way. She tilted her head and gave me a half smile. “Is that what your little boyfriend is telling you, Carey, that he has to be out at night for …” she made quote marks in the air, “… public relations?”

I didn’t want her to think I was an idiot, but I was too cowed by her tone of voice to do anything but nod.

She smirked. “And yet you work for me and I think we both know I’m a little bit more successful than Michael is ...”

“That’s not fair, Carly. He is building a major client list and maybe ...”

“Maybe nothing, Carey. Maybe he’s just feeding you a line of crap because, let me tell you, my clients see me as the help, no matter who I really am, and no matter that most of them won’t even be remembered by next year. No matter what, they don’t want me sitting beside them at Nobu sharing their sushi rolls. I don’t party with my clients, Carey, I see them at events I am repping for them, I send out media packets for them, I organize photo ops and, duh, why I have to tell you this is beyond me. You work for me and you know what we do.”

She was right, and as soon as she left the office I called Michael, waking him up though it was past noon.

“Michael, I’m sorry I woke you, but you know I was just talking to Carly and ...”

“And whatever it was couldn’t have waited, because I didn’t get home till five, baby, and ...”

“And that’s what I’m calling about. Carly says that P.R. people don’t normally party with their clients and it made me wonder, are you going out every night, even when I can’t be with you, because you have to or because you want to?”

There was a silence. “Both, and you knew you were always welcome. It wasn’t my call for you to become ‘little miss perfect mommy’s favorite debutante', Carey.”

All I could hear was that one word. “Were always welcome? Baby, aren’t I still welcome? Listen, I was supposed to attend the … never mind, I don’t care, you come first. Wherever you’re going tonight, anywhere, I want to come too, even if it’s in Bergenfield, New Jersey.”

I laughed. He didn’t. “Not tonight, Carey. Actually you might as well do whatever you were planning on. I have to fly out to L.A. for a few days.”

“L.A.? You didn’t say any … Never mind, I’ll come with you. Carly won’t care.”

“No, I’ll be busy all week. It’s a last minute thing. I’m thinking about investing in a club.”

“Oh, in L.A.?”

He sighed. “No, here, I mean out in the Hamptons, but the money guys on this are in L.A. Listen, I need to get off the phone. I should start getting ready to head out.”

“But you said I woke you up. Why do you have to go now? Please wait till tomorrow, baby. I’ll bring home dinner. We can eat in bed. I’ll feed you in bed.”

His voice, when he answered was tight, but with anger or boredom I couldn’t tell. Either way made me afraid. “Well, I’m up now, so I’m going now. I’ll call you in a day or so, okay?”

“No! I mean please no. Will you promise to call tonight?”

“Yeah, okay, whatever. Talk to you soon. I mean I’ll call you tonight.”

He didn’t.



* * *



I wasn’t worried about Daddy cheating on me but he was becoming as unavailable as Michael. Whenever I called him, he was short. He had brought Sarah along as a buffer to our last two lunches and he had even had Herbert call me to complain about my monthly credit card bills, something he had never done before. I knew I had screwed up with him since a few months before. At my mother’s constant urging, I had asked him what his plans were for the future as far as she was concerned.

You just didn’t go there with Daddy, the most private of men. He reacted as if I had told him that I wanted him to become a porn star and had left the restaurant before I could pull myself together enough to realize how badly I had screwed up.

I ran after him but he had raised his hand and shook his head. “Not now, Carey. I am far too upset with you to discuss this now. Suffice it to say that I would prefer if you stayed far away from any subject concerning my personal life and, in return, I will extend you the same courtesy.”

Tears streaming down my face on a public sidewalk, I tried again to apologize. “Daddy, I am so sorry. It was really stupid of me. Please, I’ll never do it again. Mother said ...”

His face had hardened and he signaled his driver. “I cannot tell you how sorry I am that you are choosing at this late date to view your mother as a source of wisdom and emotional support. I have always felt a special closeness to you, felt, or I should say hoped, that you and I understood each other better than anyone else. I see I was wrong.”

“Daddeee, please.”

He slid into the car. “No, Carey, and please try to control yourself. I’ll see you next month.”

After that Sarah began to join us and I received my first early money warning call from Herbert. Like the stupid girl I was, I turned to my new source of emotional support, as Daddy had put it, but she wasn’t interested in my near-hysterical fears at losing my place in Daddy’s heart. She was focused only on his refusal to discuss his plans.

“That tight-assed son of a bitch. Emotional support, my ass. He is emotionally stunted, is what he is. And for God’s sake, Carolyn, what do you have to be upset about? This isn’t about you. Pull yourself together. Your father is right about that much. You are far too emotional. You want to know what trouble is, Carolyn? It’s when you are hobbled, totally hobbled by a man who took the best years of your life and then deserts you without reason, leaving you to try to maintain some semblance of dignity on twenty-five thousand dollars a month. Twenty-five thousand, and I am the Mrs. Kells Kelleher.”

“Mom, I’m sure that when you guys finally see lawyers … and anyway, isn’t that a lot of money? I mean your home and staff are paid for so ...”

“Oh, you think that’s a lot of money, do you, Carey. Tell me, what are your monthly expenses?”

“Well I … I don’t really know. The bills go to Herbert and then Daddy ...”

“Exactly, and then Daddy pays them. Well maybe you had better start knowing because what Daddy giveth, Daddy taketh away, and no one knows that better than I do. Oh, stop crying. Come on, darling, it’s not today. You and Kells will kiss and make up. You’re his little Carey, aren’t you?”

I sniffled and nodded hopefully.

“Good, then I’ll tell you what we’ll do. We’re both feeling all gloomy for no reason, let’s go have our nails done, my treat, and then maybe you can put some little dress for the ballet benefit on your charge for your poor old mother. How does that sound?”

It sounded terrible but that is just what we did.



* * *



During those hectic months that turned into years, I hadn’t been seeing as much of Milan or Christy as I usually did.

Christy graduated and was immediately snapped up by a Japanese firm who offered to bankroll her purse designs in exchange for the use of her name and her sister’s name in advertising campaigns. She was jetting back and forth to Tokyo like some people commuted to Connecticut.

Milan was even busier than usual and was by then commanding a hundred thousand dollars to appear casually lounging around the place of the minute, being the girl of the minute. She still called and invited me along, but between Michael and my mother, I had been mostly unavailable. She wasn’t unavailable to me, though, when I called her in the midst of my twentieth winter, the winter of my growing discontent.

She was warm on the phone. “My little Care Bear, I miss you. What have you been doing, and is Michael still the only one you are doing?” She laughed. I couldn’t and I unloaded on her all my misery … my new relationship with my mother, my fears about how my relationship with Michael was going, or not going, and she listened. When I was done, she said, “Oh Careybeary, you are a crazy girl.”

“Yeah, that’s not much of a news flash, Mills. Could you be more specific?”

“Sure. I’m all about being specific. Let’s start with your mother. Get away from her. I might not always be around to rescue you from the bad rooms she puts you in.”

We were both silent remembering the worst room of my life, down in Kansas.

I said, “She’s different now. She wants to be with me. It’s like she needs me and I ...”

“You are betting on a proven loser, is what you are doing. She’s down and she’s using you. She’ll make a comeback, her kind always does and, when she does, she’ll kick you to the curb again. Are you up for that?”

Resentfully I answered her, “You’re one to talk. You’re always flying out to L.A. to spend time with your mom.”

She didn’t get pissed at me. “You’re right, I am. We’re close now. She’s all settled and happy out there with Daddy. She went soft after having my little brothers and I like being with my family. Who knows, maybe I’ll move to L.A. one of these days. Anyway, Carey, we’re not talking about me.”

“I know but, Mills ...”

“No, you’re screwing up, Cares, and you’re going to piss off your Dad, and anyway you need to start spending more time with Michael.”

“Oh my God, what do you mean? Have you heard something?”

Her voice was light but there was an uncharacteristic seriousness to it. “No, maybe, or not anything I’m sure of, and who cares? He’s a boy and boys can be bad when they’re alone. A smart girl ...”

“A smart girl does what?”

“A smart girl watches her back and she watches her man too. He’s a little hottie, Care, and you need to be around more.”

“What if he doesn’t want me around? I told you about L.A.”

“You did and all I can tell you is that you need to make him want you around. But, Cares, don’t get all clingy, just …” she sighed, “… just be where he can see you, you know, being beautiful, which you are, and having fun, which you can do if you lighten up a little. No tears, no Where are you? crap, no Do you still love me? Just be out there beside him, being the hottest thing in the room.”

I thanked her and told her I loved her, and then I sat alone in my bedroom holding Petal long after it got dark outside.

Just be the hottest thing in the room, just be fun.

Milan was describing herself and she was the girl we all wanted to be, me most of all. What people like her don’t understand is that people like me would be her in a heartbeat if we only knew how. Insecurity, sadness, desperation, these aren’t things you exactly cultivate in yourself, they are just the bad things you are born with, like your hair and the shape of your face. I could change those if I wanted to but what was inside was too deep down for scalpels and dye.