Sex and Vanity

“Wait! We need to take some pictures of me and Lucie by her new car. George, would you do us the honor?” Cecil asked.

“Sure.” George grabbed Cecil’s phone while Cecil draped himself over the hood of the car, raising his arms and propping his head up with his hands as if he were Ferris Bueller, all the while directing Lucie. “Now, Lucie, just stand a little to your right and lean back onto me. Legs apart, like you’re a Bond girl. Twist yourself into an S shape. No, Lucie, S shape, not L.”

Lucie contorted herself against the cold metallic hood, mortified by the ridiculousness of the pose. She wondered if this was how Sports Illustrated swimsuit models must feel when they were trying to look sexy balancing on sand dunes. Did these poses just come effortlessly to someone like Viv?

“Where’s your surf buddy Viv tonight?” Lucie asked George with a wink.

“She’s in Miami.”

“Another bikini shoot?”

“Probably,” George answered.

“George, could you put it on beauty mode and raise the phone really high? That’s the best angle,” Cecil called out.

“Sure.”

“Smile, L

ucie,” George called out.

“Don’t smile too much, babe, it won’t look sexy,” Cecil said as he tilted his head ever so slightly.

Lucie stopped smiling abruptly. She felt her face get hot as she tried not to look at George, more out of embarrassment for Cecil than for herself.

After the impromptu photo shoot, the three of them went back into the house, and as everyone began tucking into the aromatic crispy duck drizzled with sweet bean sauce and wrapped in delicate rice-flour pancakes, Cecil looked at his plate in dismay. “My tortilla is filled with nothing but duck skin.”

“It’s not a tortilla, it’s a Chinese pancake,” Freddie said with a laugh.

“The skin is the delicacy in Peking duck,” Marian explained. “It’s air-dried for seventy-two hours and glazed with spices before it’s specially roasted to produce this perfect golden crispy skin.”

“Sorry, I can’t eat the skin of any animal, not even if it’s a delicacy,” Cecil said.

“Hiyah, have some of the noodles with duck meat, then,” Rosemary said, heaping a portion of the braised e-fu noodles with duck onto his plate. “Don’t tell me you’re just like that model lesbian friend of George’s! She won’t eat any animal skin because she thinks it’s too fattening.”

Freddie’s curiosity was piqued. “Is she a model lesbian or a lesbian who’s a model?”

“I’m not sure. Both, I think. But haven’t you met her? Viv?” Rosemary said.

“I haven’t had the pleasure,” Freddie said, glancing across the table at George and noticing that his sister was also looking at him strangely.

Cecil checked his phone and let out a gasp. “Over sixteen thousand likes on the Aston pic already. See, whenever you’re in pictures with me, our likes go through the roof!”

“I’m glad it makes you happy,” Lucie said.

Cecil cleared his throat to make another announcement. “One more surprise: I managed to get tickets to a very special screening of a new movie tomorrow night. The duke and duchess were executive producers on the film, and they are hosting an exclusive sneak preview screening at the East Hampton Cinema before the film officially premieres at the Toronto International Film Festival. A few of the actors will even be there.”

“How cool! What’s the movie called?” Lucie asked.

“Glimpses of the Moon or something like that.”

“Glimpses of the Moon—is it an adaptation of the Edith Wharton novel?” Auden asked.

“I’m not sure,” Cecil said. “I think it’s supposed to be quite groundbreaking. It’s by an avant-garde British director, but the two lead actors are Indian.”

“Indian? Really?” Lucie said curiously.

“Well, unfortunately I’m going into the city to do a live interview with Nima Elbagir on CNN International tomorrow, or I would have loved to come,” Auden said.