“I’ve known her forever. I remember when she first came to New York. She had big hair. Used to hang out at Au Bar. She was wild. I can’t figure out what happened to her. I mean, she got the guy that everybody wanted, right? Champagne?”
“Yes, I’d love some.”
“Ooooh, Mrs. Sneet,” Patrice says to an elegant woman in her early fifties who is passing by, “Mrs. Sneet, I’d like you to meet Rebecca Kelly. She’s Cecelia Luxenstein’s cousin. She’s been in Paris for the last five years, studying . . . art. This is Arlene Sneet, the head of the ballet committee.”
I hold up my hand. “So lovely to meet you,” I say. “The ballet . . . I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything so beautiful. I was so transfixed I had to remain in my seat, digesting it all, and I’m afraid that I kept my dinner partners waiting as a result.”
“My dear, I completely understand,” Mrs. Sneet said. “It’s so lovely to see new faces at the ballet. And I must say, you’re making quite a stir. Everyone is wondering who you are. You must allow me to introduce you to some eligible young men.”
“Did I hear you say you studied art at the Louvre?” came a voice from my right.
I turn. “Why yes. Yes, that’s right, Mr. Tristam.”
“I always wanted to be a painter, but then I got caught up in this acting business,” Maurice Tristam says.
“Oh yes,” I say. “It’s so difficult, the way one often has to sacrifice art for commerce.”
“You should see some of the parts I’ve had to take just for the filthy lucre.”
“And you’re so talented.”
“You think so? I ought to bring you in to talk to some of my producers. What did you say your name was again?”
“Rebecca Kelly.”
“Rebecca Kelly. That sounds like a movie star. Well, Rebecca Kelly, I must say I’m an admirer of yours already.”
“Oh, Mr. Tristam—”
“Call me Maurice.”
“You’re too kind. And who is your lovely date? Why, you naughty man. You’ve brought your daughter.”
“I’m not his daughter!” says the lovely date, who, at no older than eighteen, already has obvious breast implants and a hardened expression.
“This is Willie,” Maurice says with obvious embarrassment. He leans toward me and whispers in my ear. “And she’s not my date. She’s my, er, costar in this movie we just shot.”
Willie leans across Maurice. “Are you friends with Miles?”
“Miles?” I ask.
“Miles Hanson. That guy you’re with.”
“Oh. You mean that pretty blond boy. Is his name Miles?”
Willie looks at me like I must be an idiot. “He just finished that movie. Gigantic. Everyone says he’s going to be a huge star. He’s the next Brad Pitt. I’m trying to get Maurice to introduce me—”
“I told you, I don’t know him,” Maurice says.
“But he won’t. And I think he’d be a great boyfriend for me,” Willie says.
“Champagne?” I ask, pouring myself another glass as the lobster quadrilles arrive.
Forty-five minutes later they’re playing that song “I Just Wanna Fly,” and I’m quite drunk, dancing wildly with Miles, when I look over and there is D.W., in a damp tuxedo, smoothing his wet hair and trying to look calm although I can see that he’s fuming, and he spots me and marches over and shouts, “Cecelia! What are you doing? Hubert and I have been searching half of Manhattan for you.”
Miles stops and I stop and the whole room seems to stop, expanding away from me, and I can hear Patrice shouting, “I knew it! I knew it was Cecelia all along!” And suddenly a black swarm of photographers descends and I am caught, with one hand in Miles’s and the other clutching a bottle of champagne, and Miles jerks my arm and we start running through the crowd.
We run down the stairs with the photographers following us and run outside where it’s really pouring now, across the plaza, down more steps, dodging limousines and four traffic cops, right onto Broadway, where a Number 12 bus is just pulling up.