“Poor bears.” Lou wrinkled her nose. “Jane wanted to go to the circus last week, and Alex’s new girlfriend—she’s vegan, of course—insisted on giving her some literature from PETA. Jane is six. She can barely read, yet she understood enough to cry for an hour, and then she insisted we all sign an anticircus pledge. I pray to god that the next one doesn’t teach her about vivisection.”
“Does your ex-husband always introduce his girlfriends to the kids? Doesn’t that…annoy you?” asked Cat, slightly incredulous.
“Honestly, it’s not usually that bad. They’re so sweet, even this PETA one—the problem is just that they’re all completely witless,” Lou explained. “They mean well, they do, but they’re basically very expensive blow-up dolls. I don’t think it’s affecting my girls too much. I tell them the girlfriends are ‘Daddy’s assistants.’ I do feel for them, though, these poor beautiful women who all think they’re going to be his next wife.”
Alexander Lucas, heir to a multibillion-euro industrial fortune protected fiercely by a variety of boards, attorneys, blind trusts, and two determined ex-wives with five children between them, wouldn’t be getting remarried anytime soon.
“It’s Claire’s girls I worry about,” Lou continued, her voice brimming with genuine concern. “They’re in their twenties now. I wonder if they’re going to have, you know, daddy issues. It was hard enough with me, although they came around eventually. It helps that their mum and I are so close.”
“You and Claire are so cool,” Cat said. “I was actually thinking that maybe we could do a piece on you two—maybe something for the holidays? Maybe the two of you could be a MATRIARCH piece together.”
“I’ll check with Claire. She’s redoing the house in Tahoe to fit the whole gang with enough privacy—maybe she’ll be open to shooting it. It’s got ten bedrooms now.”
Cat glanced at the clock on her computer. The afternoon was flying by. “Shit. It’s almost four. Let’s choose these shots already.”
Their favorite was the one of Criselda pretending to eat a beet; she couldn’t keep the look of wild hunger off her gaunt face with food so near. Cat was sure Margot would veto it, though—too real—so instead they selected a variety of images that showed Criselda in a glamorous white cotton suit reminiscent of a tampon commercial, directing her hardworking and mostly female staff.
After completing the copy and preliminary layout, they sent it off to Production.
“I have one more thing,” Cat asked, pulling up the HW file before Lou could get out the door. “Can you edit this? We have to turn it in next week, and I’m done with my draft, I think.”
Lou looked shocked. “But…I wasn’t that close with Hillary. We went skiing together last Christmas, but that was with a group. I don’t really think I should have the final say on her international obituary. What about Constance?” Lou said kindly, referring to the managing editor. “They seemed much closer. Maybe she’s a better fit.”
“No, you definitely should.” Cat placed her hand on Lou’s arm. “MATRIARCH was your idea. Don’t give it up to Constance. All of these shots are worthy. Really. You can’t make a bad choice. But somebody needs to cut half of them, and I just can’t do it. It might be a tribute, but it’s also a magazine—I need an objective eye to edit the best composition here. And society stuff is your bag.”
Lou nodded. “Send it all over, and I’ll work on it tomorrow.”
“Thanks, Lou. I’m sure you’ll make it look amazing.”
Cat spent the rest of the day with Bess and Molly, researching options for Lou’s RAGE Gaia pitch for the November issue. Lou gave intermittent aid between Skype sessions with Princess Sophie and dialing for dollars over possible sponsorship of the elaborate renovation Sophie’s Bavarian summer castle would need. Cat’s hangover slowly wore off, and by the time she hopped on the subway at 8:00 p.m., she was nearly recovered.
When Cat got home the bell rang with a delivery; Delvaux had messengered over their entire spring collection. For Cat: Please take a closer look. Yours, Ekaterina. Her morning hangover must have read as unimpressed. She smiled and signed for the box. There must have been thirty thousand dollars’ worth of bags in there. Cat unpacked it slowly, examining each piece with care. The briefcase in particular was exquisite. She was pleased to discover it was already stamped with her initials, as was the matching weekend duffel bag.
Cat lit a Diptyque candle and gathered her books from around the apartment, tucking them back one by one into the wall-length bookcase. Hutton hadn’t called her back, she realized as she found a home for a dog-eared copy of I Have It All and So Do You, Margot’s autobiography from a few years earlier. It was just a twenty-four-hour fantasy, she reminded herself, fueled by booze and the way he smelled and a whole bunch of crazy drugs.
Cat wondered how anyone ever managed to make it through the awkward phases of dating into an actual relationship. Andrew, the only serious boyfriend of her twenties, had struggled through three years of long distance, flying into New York once a month while finishing his PhD in Chicago—until the day he was offered a full-time, tenure-track position at Pomona in California. Cat had flat out refused to move to Los Angeles. “I don’t know how to drive,” she’d argued. “I don’t have any friends there, I’ll be lonely, and you’ll be my whole life.”
“I want to be your whole life,” he’d replied.
“Then move to New York,” she’d demanded, unable to admit she was so jealous of his job it would eat her alive, and knowing that this was the end.
“You know I can’t,” he’d said. “You want me to give up my career for you? This is my shot, Cat. Pomona is a really good goddamn job.”
“So I should move and give up my career? Sorry. I don’t think so. Maybe if it was Stanford,” she’d spit back.
After a few more phone calls and one very sad weekend when she flew to Chicago to help him put down his aging dog, they were done for good. Since then Cat’s romantic life had been a succession of weird dates and six-week love affairs with men she respected but didn’t actually like. Now that she’d finally found someone she definitely liked, it seemed that she was the one who wasn’t good enough.
Just eat some dinner and go to sleep, she told herself. It’ll be better in the morning. It’s always better in the morning. She cooked a quick dinner of ready-made udon noodles and poached eggs before climbing into bed with a book. She managed to read ten pages further into Welcome to the Desert of the Real before falling into a peacefully deep and dreamless sleep.
Hutton hadn’t expected Callie to come by his office after their early-morning breakfast, if only because she usually slept all day. But when she knocked on the doorframe—squeezing the shoulder of the dumbstruck officer she’d convinced to bring her through security straight to his office—he’d just dialed Cat, who picked up and said “Hello” at the exact same time that Callie purred out a “Hey there” in her low voice.
He pointed to the phone and tried his best to sound officious, keeping his voice steady and clear while Callie stood in the doorway obviously eavesdropping. Cat sounded exhausted anyway, like she couldn’t wait to get off the phone either, so he hung up quickly.