Sex and Vanity

“She’s partially right. The design is from his haute couture line in 1955, but I managed to lure Monsieur de Givenchy himself out of retirement just this once to re-create it for me.”

“Stop it!” The cousins squealed in unison.

“Yep, I had to go to Le Jonchet*2 for all the fittings.”

Lucie and Charlotte shook their heads in awe before moving down the receiving line to congratulate the newlyweds’ families. Entering the grounds of the villa afterward, they were handed delicate flutes of prosecco laced with elderflower syrup as they strolled around the palace ruins. Almost all the original decorations—including once magnificent frescos that must surely have outshone the best of Pompeii—had been lost to time and looters, but the structures still retained the impression of the majestic complex that had once stood here.

As they walked toward the cliff to look out at the view, they came upon Olivia and Rosemary staring intently into a monitor held up by one of the younger drone operators.

“What are you all staring at with such fascination?” Charlotte asked, ever the busybody, as she peered into the high-definition screen.

“Oh, this man is showing us a rather curious spot that he’s making the drone fly over,” Olivia said.

“We are standing right above Salto di Tiberio—Tiberius’s Leap. This is where the emperor would make all the subjects and servants that he didn’t like jump to their deaths,” the young man explained as he piloted his drone to fly sharply off the edge of the cliff toward the rocks hundreds of meters below.

“Well, that’s a view to die for!” Olivia quipped.

“There are a few servants of mine I wouldn’t mind doing that to,” Rosemary said.

Charlotte glared at her in horror.

“Hee hee hee—joking! I love all my servants.” Rosemary giggled. “Except maybe Princess. Princess has gotten rather lazy, which I guess goes along with her name.”

“Come, Lucie, we forgot to deliver our congratulations to the Count and Countess,” Charlotte said, pulling at Lucie’s arm.

As they pretended to walk in the direction of the receiving line, Charlotte fumed. “Ugh, that woman! I couldn’t take one more second of her. I know there are vast cultural differences between us, but I’m sorry, I find everything about her to be offensive. Her jokes, her snobbery, her inability to accessorize with any semblance of restraint.”

“I get it, Charlotte,” Lucie said quietly, feeling quite exasperated with Rosemary herself.

“With any luck, we’ll never have to cross paths with her again after this weekend,” Charlotte said as they passed the table where little cards embossed with each guest’s name had been carefully laid out in circles in preparation for the wedding banquet. “Ah, the seating chart! Let’s see where they’ve put me. If that woman is seated at my table, I will simply change the cards. Oh thank God, she’s nowhere near me.”

Scanning the cards, Lucie saw that she was assigned to table 3. Almost reflexively, she found herself searching for George’s card and saw that he was at table 8. Damn, was this going to be yet another night where they wouldn’t have the chance to talk at all? Did she dare to quickly swap cards when Charlotte wasn’t looking so that she would be at table 8 too?

Bending down to peer more closely at the cards, Charlotte said, “You know, I do love looking at seating charts. They’re always a fascinating indicator of who’s considered important at any event. See, you’re at table three, which is a prime spot as one of the tables orbiting the bridal couple. I’m at table nineteen, which is most certainly Siberia. Last night I was seated in between the second wife of the De Vecchis’ tax lawyer and Isabel’s dog psychic from Ojai.”

“I would have preferred them any day over Mordecai von Ephrussí,” Lucie replied, annoyed that Charlotte was so attentive to where she was sitting. How could she possibly change her table now? They wandered through the villa’s inner chambers for a while, and when Charlotte became engrossed in a discussion with Auden on the benefits of intermittent fasting, Lucie saw her chance to slip away. She rushed back to the seating chart table, thinking that the best thing to do was swap out George’s seat so that he would be at her table.

Arriving there, she discovered to her dismay other guests swarming around the table in search of their own seating cards. The cocktail hour was about to end, and guests were making their way toward the fleet of golf carts to head back down to Villa Lysis for the banquet. By the time the crowd had dispersed, Lucie saw that she was too late. George’s seating card was missing, so he must have already come by and taken it.

Returning to Villa Lysis, the wedding guests were greeted by a battalion of footmen holding lit torches, dressed in costumes straight out of nineteenth-century Sicily. Entering the villa, the guests gasped in delight to discover interiors that had been utterly transformed since the wedding ceremony an hour ago. “I was inspired by Visconti’s Il Gattopardo,” Isabel told everyone after she made her grand entrance, sweeping down the vine-entwined staircase in a Valentino couture ball gown that looked as if it was constructed entirely of silk rosettes and billowing white ruffles, reminiscent of the gown Claudia Cardinale wore in the legendary film.

It was the understatement of the year. Studio Peregalli, the famed Milanese design atelier, had been commissioned to re-create the set of the film inside the villa, and when the guests entered the banquet room, they were treated to a magnificent space draped from floor to ceiling in yellow moire silk, towering antique tulipieres bursting with apricot peonies, and tables set with heirloom china from the royal house of Bourbon-Two Sicilies. The entire space seemed to sparkle, lit only by thousands of tapered candles hung from the ceiling in crystal lanterns.

Lucie took her seat at table 3, feeling giddy as she admired the voluptuous surroundings and watched the waiters crisscrossing the room in nineteenth-century livery and powdered wigs. The decadence of it all was almost too much to bear, and she felt as if she had suddenly been transported into the pages of her favorite childhood fairy tale, “The Twelve Dancing Princesses.”

“Hey there,” said a voice to her right. Lucie turned and saw George taking t

he seat beside her.

She glanced at the place card in the silver holder, and sure enough, it read MR. GEORGE ZAO.

“Wait a minute! Did you change seats?” Lucie asked in surprise.

“Er…would you like me to?” George asked.

“No, no, I meant…I just thought someone else was sitting next to me.”

“Sorry to disappoint.”