I look up to see my best friends since college, my Spa Girls: Lilly Jacobs and Dr. Poppy Clayton. Lilly is the designer who got me into this mess. Poppy is the accessory who helped her, convincing me I was the perfect showstopper. Well, if that wasn’t the truth. . . .
“You know,” I say accusingly to them as they approach. “If I hadn’t been in a couture wedding gown during fashion week, my humiliation would have been my own private misery. Perhaps even a figment of my imagination. But no—” I hold up the paper for them to see. “No, being in a wedding gown made me the talk over San Francisco cornflakes. The West’s newest, dumbest blonde.”
“Get over it,” Lilly says, plopping down into a chair and fingering a nearby Lladro figurine. “Life is full of bad surprises. Think of mine when I had to take a cab home that night. I mean, I get a write-up in
Women’s Wear Daily
, and I have to take a cab. What a letdown. So are you coming with us to the spa?”
I sit up on the sofa. “Actually, I’m not really up to a spa date. I was thinking about what I was going to do with my life now that I’m a convicted adulterer without so much as a trial.” Well, I may not be an adulteress, but I’m certainly guilty of extreme lack of common sense.
Poppy shrugs. “So you can do that at the spa. Ask Lilly— her life was crap a few months ago. The spa helped, right Lilly?”
Lilly purses her lips. “As Poppy so eloquently puts it, yes, my life was . . . less than stellar. The spa and thinking through things definitely helped. Come play with us.”
Lilly comes toward me, takes the newspaper from my hands, and gazes at Andy’s mug shot. “I gotta say, he’s a fine-looking specimen. Even in a mug shot. If it makes you feel any better, I’d have gone willingly, too, Morgan. It’s not just that he’s handsome; he’s got that Tom Cruise charm, the kind that makes you say, ‘I know better, but what the heck?’”
“Come on and get ready. What else are you going to do?” Poppy asks.
“The media might follow us,” I explain. I seem to have become Madonna overnight, with flashing bulbs and microphones stuffed in my face. It wouldn’t have been any big deal if I hadn’t been engaged to another man a few months ago. But between one fiancé dying and this one going to jail, I am currently the Black Widow. Or more appropriately, the Spinster of Death.
Poppy shrugs. “So the press will see Lilly trying to sneak pickles and Diet Pepsi into the spa. It’s not like we have a lot to hide, Morgan. We’re far too boring for that.”
“I’m not bringing pickles,” Lilly fires back. “Nana made us biscotti. That new boyfriend of hers has her baking.”
At this point, my father comes walking into the room carrying a big, silver box. “Hi, girls,” he says absently, then bends over an outlet and plugs in the box. It’s a sign that reads (in sparkly lights, I might add), “San Francisco’s Jeweler. Your Jeweler for Life.”
“What are you doing with that, Dad?” I ask, knowing full well I don’t want the answer.
“The press is at my door every day hoping to get a glimpse of you, and look at this!” He lifts the newspaper and shakes it. “They don’t get the store name when they shoot the shop.” He starts to shake his head. “But this way—” He drops the paper and holds up his index finger. “This way, they can’t help but show the shop name. If we’re going to get publicity, we should make use of it. Bring all these gossip-mongers into the shop and bam!” He slaps the box. “Before they know it, they’re applying for in-store credit.”
“Maybe we should just get a sandwich board made and I can walk around Union Square handing out flyers,” I suggest.
“Would you do that?” he asks excitedly, then notices my expression. “No, no, of course, you’re kidding. She’s kidding me, girls. She likes to make fun of her old man.” Then he wags his finger at me, though I notice he doesn’t relinquish his grip on the tacky sign. In all likelihood, the upscale merchants of Union Square will have his sign down in a week, but he won’t care; it will be long enough to serve his purpose. I’m sure he factored all that into the cost.
“You know what they say, Dad. Any publicity is good publicity.”
“All my male customers are afraid to come in. They don’t want to be caught on the front page of the
Chronicle
. The least we can do is market new business—mine the ore, as it were.” Then he drops his head, and his mouth comes open as he pauses.
I love his dramatic pauses; they’re meant to give you the impression that he just can’t bear to say what he must. Naturally, he always says it, and if there ever is any remorse, I’ve certainly never seen it.
“You couldn’t get into the paper for getting engaged to San Francisco’s wealthiest bachelor like Lilly? Lilly, when am I going to see that boy in my store?” He holds up a finger before she can muster an answer, and I give him the look that politely tells him to shut up. Not that he usually listens, but I see him snap his jaw shut, and I feel a wave of relief. “Before you all go running off, I have something for you, Morgan.” He opens a velvet box and inside is an extraordinary blue diamond ring. “You need to wear this. We’ll get more publicity if you put it on your left hand.”
“But that’s not going to happen,” I tell him.
“Fine, fine. Wear it on your right. But if anyone asks, I am now the purveyor of the best blue diamonds in the United States. That’s just a taste. That’s three carats, VVS-quality surrounded in platinum. The ring can be designed to their taste.”
“Whose taste, Dad? I’m not invited anywhere.”
He waves me off. “You will be. Slide it on.”
I put the ring on with a big sigh. “Happy?”
“You sure you won’t wear it on the left hand? Then, the newspapers would wonder if you were engaged again, and—”
“Dad!”
“All right.”
Lilly and Poppy are both staring at my dad with their mouths ready to catch the next fly that passes by. We’ve all known each other since college, but my dad isn’t usually in his sales mode when my friends are around. I guess he’s finally decided to tear the veil. All this time, everyone thought I was a princess. Well, even princesses have their calendar of duties.
“I’m concentrating on my business just now, Mr. Malliard, but when the time comes, you’ll know.” Lilly winks at my dad.
“I don’t understand this generation. Businesses, spa trips . .. Whatever happened to good, old-fashioned getting married and having babies?”
Silence.
“So, Morgan,” Lilly finally says through the icy stillness. “The spa?”
“I’ll pack my bags,” I say hastily as I reach for the newspaper in Lilly’s hands and head to my bedroom.
Once inside, I let out a deep breath and slide to the floor on the Iranian carpet my father paid a fortune for. (“Six hundred knots per inch!” he boasted.) I lift the paper and look at Andy’s picture one last time. I keep thinking that with just one more glance, I’ll have the answers I need. But they aren’t there. Not before. Not now.
Sure, there were signs he was slick like a water slide, but truthfully, I loved his quiet bravado and mistakenly took it for the nerve he’d need to face music rejection in Nashville. I pictured him standing up to the country version of Simon Cowell, and my heart clenched for him under such pressure. I was thankful for his solid personality and Bond-like arrogance.
What a putz!
Gazing around my professionally decorated room, I stare at all the “homey” touches given by the designer to
generate the impression of warmth and comfort. In reality, someone could rip a picture out of
Architectural Digest
and it would feel more like home than this. I have lived my entire life like a piece of exquisite sculpture, careful not to disturb my surroundings or move from my appointed spot. I’m just one more piece of furniture.
I know my friends are waiting, but I suddenly feel like there’s so much to be gleaned from this bedroom. So much about me that I need to understand before I venture out into the world again. I pull myself off the floor and cross the room to the oversized, arched window. It’s a gorgeous day. Sun beams into the room, and I can see clear to the Marin Headlands. One thing about San Francisco’s fog, when it’s gone, the view is unparalleled. No one has a truer appreciation for a clear view than a San Franciscan who generally spends her days buried in a misty gray world. At least, the beginning and the end of the day are spent in soggy bookends of clouds.
From my window, I can observe the litany of city traffic below: the cable cars, the ferries on the Bay, even the halted cars lined up on the Golden Gate Bridge. I wonder how many of those people read the
Chronicle
this morning. I wonder how many know me only as the Jilted Jewelry Heiress.
As I look across the water to Alcatraz, it suddenly dawns on me that the jail I’ve created for myself is probably harder to escape than that jutting hard rock in the middle of the frigid San Francisco Bay. Mine has Richard Malliard as the warden.
I’ve waited up here on Russian Hill, hoping for Prince Charming to rescue me. And when I finally let down my hair, I placed it smack in the hands of a con artist. What I’m seeing for the first time in my bedroom, with the absence of anything I’d really call my own without the decorator’s help, is that I have no idea who I am. I’m not interesting enough to rescue is the sad fact of the matter, and I have made my own bed.
Okay, not technically speaking—Mrs. Henry actually makes my bed. But my mental bed? That’s all mine. A tangled mass of 600-thread-count Egyptian cotton sheets that no one wants to bother straightening. The thing is if I don’t do it, no one will.
I stuff the newspaper into my desk drawer and pull out my designer luggage before realizing this is part of the problem. I hate this luggage. My father bought it in Paris, hoping to impress someone, I suppose. Tossing the fancy stuff back, I yank out a duffle bag I got as a freebie and fill it with a few T-shirts and some sweats. It looks like something Lilly would bring, and this makes me smile.
Reality . . . here I come.
I
emerge from my room to find Lilly and Poppy wringing their hands over me. Not physically, but they stop talking when I enter and grin at me in a placating way. As if I’m in the “special” classroom.
“I’m fine,” I announce. “Are you fine, Lilly?”
“Why wouldn’t I be?”
“I haven’t been the best friend to you lately.”
Lilly shrugs. “Whatever. Max and I took a cab, no big deal. You have bigger fish to fry. The fact that we haven’t seen you in two months was more nerve-racking.”
“Be sure and smile for the cameras, girls. And Lilly, you should make sure they spell your name right in case there are any fashionistas wanting to buy your stuff.”
“What should I do?” Poppy, our gauze-wearing chiropractic friend asks.
“Tell them you’re the ‘Before,’” Lilly jokes. “Or the
Glamour
‘Don’t,’ and we’re on our way to make you over.”
“You know,” Poppy says angrily, “people just really don’t think that much about what you wear, Lilly. You have an over-inflated ego or a deep-rooted insecurity that should be addressed.”
Lilly gasps. “Heresy! You’re speaking to a designer. In my world, people care what you wear. If they didn’t, I’d still be poring over spreadsheets in finance.”
“I’m just saying, I show up like this everywhere,” Poppy lifts her gauzy, Nightmare-on-Polk-Street skirt. “People don’t really care.”
“That’s because you look like Nicole Kidman, Poppy.” Lilly shakes her head. “People don’t care because you’re gorgeous. Don’t kid yourself—you make it acceptable. Try being homely and dressing like that and see how far you get. Quasimodo in gauze does not have the same reactions. Case in point? If I went on
Oprah
and jumped on her couch to tell her I was in love? They’d come out with a straightjacket. Tom Cruise gets away with it because he’s gorgeous.”
“You both worry too much what people think,” Poppy accuses. Then she gets her natural-healing expression on and takes her Zen tone. Here it comes. “Self-esteem comes from the Lord, not other people. Why should we care what others think?”
“Well, my church congregation seemed to care,” I say, recalling with too much emotion my Sunday experience. “When I walked into church, there were whispers, and they didn’t even try to mask their disdain that I should enter a holy place. They’d convicted me, painted me the scandalous woman, and I never even had the chance to defend myself.”
Lilly nods. “Yeah, your church always stunk, though. You just never saw it. I knew when we showed up that night to your singles group that that gang didn’t feel the love.”
Lilly is right. She usually is. True, she’s often right without much thought given to tact, but still.
“It would be really nice to believe people didn’t care.” I sling my bag over my shoulder. “That they gave you the benefit of the doubt. But people love to witness failure.”
“You didn’t fail,” Poppy says. “You made a mistake. Anger doesn’t do any good.”
I feel said anger well up within me like a marshmallow boiling over an open flame. “You know, if it was Johnny Depp I was accused of adultery with, well, so be it, gossip away. But a guy without a job, who was living off his wife in Daly City while I thought he was off in Nashville making his way as a Christian artist? Now that’s just humiliating. Scandal with Brad Pitt is one thing, but it takes on a whole different feeling with Andy Mattingly, bigamist and small-time con artist.”
My friends just let me rant. They know scandal with Brad Pitt really holds no better appeal.
Scandal
is an ugly word for a reason, and the scarlet letter is alive and well in today’s free society. Even in liberal San Francisco.
Poppy grabs my duffle from me and nearly knocks herself over. “What do you have in here? Are you toting pickles now, too?”
She opens my bag, and I look away.
“Need a little self-help fix, Morgan?” Poppy pulls out the first book:
The Purpose-Driven Life
. The second:
Dr. Phil’s Life
Strategies
. The third:
Making Peace with Your Parents
. And the fourth: Max Lucado’s
It’s Not about You
. Both of them are staring at me as though I’m a complete stranger now, as I’m not exactly the inner-search type. I’m all about the outer search and heading to Nordstrom when the pressure mounts.