Sex and Vanity

Charlotte got up from the armchair and began pacing the room. “I think I’m still in shock. There I was, stumbling around Villa Jovis in the dark, getting a contact high from all that pot everyone was smoking, and then I saw those two drone operators huddled over a monitor, giggling like schoolboys. I went up to them and peered at the screen, and at first I thought they were watching some sort of porno. And then, when they zoomed in on the poor girl’s face, I thought I was hallucinating. I thought, Why does that girl look so much like Lucie? And what in God’s name is she letting that guy do to her under her—”

“All right, all right, enough. Please stop!” Lucie jammed her hands up to her ears.

“I just knew that drone operator was into you, that little pervert! I could tell just by the way h

e always had that damn drone hovering over you at every event throughout the week! Now, if George wasn’t able to intercept them and destroy the footage, we should go to plan B: we should go straight to Isabel.”

“Come on, it’s her wedding night!” Lucie protested.

“I don’t care! Your future is at stake, Lucie, and she needs to know exactly what happened with her staff. Her people can do all the damage control—that Gillian lady looks like she could direct a covert SEAL team assassination if she had to, doesn’t she? I want her to make sure all the footage gets locked up and destroyed, along with those creeps they hired!”

Lucie’s heart sank. She couldn’t imagine the further embarrassment of having to tell Isabel about this.

“Where is George? Don’t you think we should have heard from him by now?” Charlotte fretted as she kept going from the door to the window.

“Can you please stop pacing? You’re giving me a headache!” Lucie moaned.

“Well, pardon me if I’m giving you a headache. I’m sorry I have to worry that your reputation, your future, your whole life, is in his hands right now!”

“My whole life?” Lucie stared at Charlotte dubiously.

“Do you understand the ramifications of what could happen if that footage ever went public? Let’s start with grad schools—you can forget about getting into any of the Ivys. And then you’ll never be hired by a Fortune 100 company. You’ll never get into any of the good clubs. You’ll never marry into a good family. And let’s not forget, you’ll never be president!”

“I hate to break it to you, Charlotte, but I’m not going to be president. It’s never been a goal of mine.”

“You say that now, but you never know. I mean, do you think Michelle Obama ever dreamed she would be president one day?”

“What are you talking about? Michelle Obama isn’t even running.”

“Nonsense, she’ll run after Hillary runs, and she will surely win. We will have two kickass female presidents in a row beginning in 2016, just wait and see. But you—you might have jeopardized your chances forever. And do you want to know the most terrible thing of all?”

“What?”

“Your name will no longer be in the book,” Charlotte said ominously.

“What book?”

“Ugh, don’t be dense, Lucie. There’s only one book, and that’s The Social Register. It would be a tragedy if you were struck out of the book!”

Lucie rolled her eyes. “I could give two fucks about The Social Register.”

“Language, Lucie! You might not feel like it’s important now, but just wait and see how you feel when the next edition comes out, and your mother and Freddie are listed but your name is conspicuously absent. I’ve had friends who were excised in this way, after marriage, divorce, or murder, and they all felt like they no longer existed. Like they were dead.”

Lucie lay back on the bed wearily. She wished Charlotte would just get out of her room.

“I don’t understand it, Lucie. I just don’t know how you could let this happen. In all these years you’ve never, ever put a wrong foot forward! I didn’t see this coming from even a mile away. You and George Zao? How is that even possible? I thought you detested him!”

Lucie remained silent.

Charlotte let out a deep sigh. “On some level, I can understand it. After all, he is Chinese. I mean, it’s in your blood, your recessive genes. I always wondered when it might happen for you. You’ve always been caught between two cultures. No matter how or where you’ve been brought up, you would be predisposed toward someone like him.”

Lucie felt like she had been punched in the gut. Of all the many hurtful, insensitive things Charlotte had said to her over the years, this was the worst. She should have been furious at her cousin, but instead she felt nothing but shame—a numbing shame buried deep within her that had always been there, the sort of shame only a family member could inflict that rendered her helpless, unable to defend herself. Suddenly, a chorus of voices began to crowd her head. The voices of her relatives, her neighbors, her college friends, her classmates back at Brearley…

“You’ll never guess what Lucie was caught doing in Capri.”

“Who would have imagined that Lucie Churchill, who only dated the preppiest guys and wouldn’t even give Stavros Theodoracopulos the time of day, would end up falling for a Chinese boy from Hong Kong?”

“A Chinese boy who goes to Berkeley, of all places.”