“So full of maternal advice. Good-bye, Mums. Give my love to Aunt Julie.”
I lay on the bed for a moment with the telephone at my side. I loved high-ceilinged Paris hotel rooms, the feeling that you were sleeping in the middle of someone else’s history. My cubbyhole here wasn’t the Imperial suite, not by a grand étoile, but I subscribed to the general theory that the worst room in the best hotel was better than the best room in a second-rate hotel. For one thing, you had Pierre-Auguste, the Georges Cinq concierge. I picked up the receiver and dialed him up.
“Mademoiselle Schuyler! What may I do for you this afternoon?”
“My favorite words. Could you find me the address of the Maxwell Institute, please?”
“The Maxwell Institute. Do you perhaps know the quarter in which it is found, this institute?”
“I haven’t the least idea, Pierre-Auguste, but I have every confidence you’ll be able to find it for me.”
“Right away, Mademoiselle Schuyler.”
My second-favorite words. I thanked him, hung up the receiver, and swung my legs over the side of the bed. I was wearing my best Chanel suit—quality over quantity, Mums always said—and naturellement it suited me perfectly, down to the bracelet sleeves and matching pillbox hat. Look the part, that’s what you did in Paris, or anywhere for that matter. But. Especially Paris. I lifted myself across the room to the mirror, where I reapplied my hat and reapplied my velvet pink lipstick. The phone rang.
“Pierre-Auguste?” I said.
“Non, mademoiselle. This is the hotel switchboard. You have a call from New York.”
I sank into the chair and propped my feet on the bed. “Put her on.”
But it wasn’t Mums. It was . . .
“Hello, Vivs.”
I didn’t recognize the voice, all distorted from the overseas connection, all subdued and borne down by conviction. But no one else called me Vivs quite like that.
“Gogo! Dear. How are you?” I wrapped my hand around the arm of the chair to steady myself.
“Vivs. Honey. How are you?”
“Fine, fine. Having a marvelous time in Paris. Research for my story.”
“Your mother told me where to find you.”
A tremor of a pause. I imagined her winding the telephone cord around her finger, unwinding it again. The image was so vivid, I began to fiddle with my own cord, loop it round and round. Strangling myself.
“Good old Mums,” I said.
“Why didn’t you tell me, Vivs? Why didn’t you? I thought we were friends.”
“We were friends. We are friends. What’s happened, Gogo?”
“David told me everything. Yesterday morning, lunchtime actually, he came by the office and we had coffee and he told me everything. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“How could I tell you? You had your heart set on him. You were perfect for each other.” I tightened the cord another notch. “You are perfect for each other. I’m just . . . I’m wild oats, Gogo. I’m nobody’s true love. I’m a selfish old broad and always will be.”
“Vivs, you’re an idiot. You’re beautiful and brave and magnificent and he loves you.”
“Sweetie pie, there’s love and there’s love. If he’s confusing the two, he’s the idiot.”
“Anyway, I gave him back the ring.”
“You did what?”
“Gave him back the ring.” A laugh came down through the snap crackle pop. She was strengthening now, strengthening and lightening all at once. “And then I marched down to Daddy’s office and told him he could take his money and stuff it . . . stuff it in his mattress. And then I went out and got drunk, Vivs, drunk! With Agatha!” Another laugh. “And it felt good, and I called you in London to tell you, but you didn’t answer.”
“Jesus, Gogo. Are you all right?”
“I am a-okay, Vivs. Hunky dory. I really am. I am looking down at my finger, and I’m so glad, Vivs, so damned glad there’s nothing on it.”
“Gogo, listen to me. You need to sit down. You need to . . . to think this through . . . You’re not yourself. I’m flying back to New York right now. Don’t . . . Jesus, Gogo, don’t even leave the apartment.” I stood up, with the receiver caught on my shoulder, and reached for my suitcase against the wall. My hands were all a-flutter.
“No! God, Vivian. You think I’m a child, don’t you? A helpless child. That’s what all of you think. But I’m not, I’m really not. I’m a grown-up, and I’m not”—laughter again—“not going to marry a man my father bribed with a million dollars, a man who’s in love with my best friend . . .”
My best friend. I put my hand on my eyes. “He does care for you, Gogo. It’s not just the money.”
“He doesn’t care for me like he cares for you. You should have seen his eyes, Vivs.” The last part was buried under a flurry of copper-wired interference. “He was a wreck.”
“A what?”