Maybe the problem was that it was all a little
too
perfect, she thought; with the meticulously maintained antique houses that lined the beginning of Main Street, eventually blending into the pristine white buildings that housed expensive shops.
Or maybe it was just that the whole place screamed money: The windows of the real estate office behind her featured poster-size aerial photographs of $10 million estates, while the lingerie store next door charged $150 for a pair of cotton underpants. Or maybe it was the reality that being in the Hamptons wasn’t really getting away from New York, and at any moment one might run into an unwelcome acquaintance.
And that, of course, is exactly what happened. Patty’s thoughts were interrupted by a disembodied high-pitched staccato voice, screaming into a cell phone:
“But I told you not to let him in! The client is furious!” and in a moment, the somewhat stumpy figure of Roditzy Deardrum emerged from behind a tree.
Roditzy was one of those public relations girls whose photograph had recently appeared on the cover of
New York
magazine; she was exactly Patty’s age—twenty-eight—and, thanks to her mother’s money, headed her own PR company called Ditzy Productions. Roditzy would later end up in a French jail due to a freak boat-ing accident in the South of France, in which several of her friends would lose arms and legs during an Ecstasy fest arranged by Roditzy herself, but at the moment, nothing bad had happened to her and she was considered the party queen of New York, the girl who was responsible for arranging the most outrageous events and 18947_ch01.qxd 4/14/03 11:22 PM Page 36
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producing the best guests. Her last event had been some ridiculous extravaganza involving dogs dressed up in one-of-a-kind designer dog clothes, and she had managed to convince several unwitting movie stars to attend. Patty knew that if Roditzy spotted her, she was a goner, but in a second it was too late because she heard Roditzy say, “Okay, I’ve just seen Patty Wilcox so I have to go,” and then Roditzy was upon her.
“Pa-a-a-a-a-tty!” she screamed, causing passersby to swivel their heads. “How a-a-a-a-re you?”
“I’m doing fine,” Patty said, as Roditzy did the kiss-kiss thing on both cheeks.
“I haven’t seen you for a-a-a-a-ges,” Roditzy said. “What are you doing now?” This was just the question Patty was hoping to avoid, but as it was now inevitable, she said, “Nothing.”
“Nothing?” Roditzy asked, as if unable to comprehend such an answer.
“That’s right. Nothing,” Patty said. “I’m a housewife now.” Roditzy’s expression indicated the very opposite, but she said, “Ohmigod. That is sooooo retro. Cool.”
Patty crossed her arms and nodded, but inside she was convinced Roditzy was looking at her like she was some kind of freak.
“So, like, what do you do all day?” Roditzy asked.
“Oh, stuff . . . ,” Patty said. She certainly wasn’t going to tell Roditzy that for the last year she’d been trying to get pregnant but hadn’t been able to, that she longed to have a child more than anything because she loved her husband with a crying ache that seemed to dictate that they had to deepen their relationship by producing a child—because what could a girl like Roditzy understand about the magical mystery of being young, in love, and heartbreakingly committed to a man?
Roditzy leaned in, attempting to create a bond of intimacy that didn’t exist between them, and lowering her voice, asked, “How
is
Digger? I mean, with the stuff about . . .”
“Peter Cannon?” Patty said, stiffening. “He’s fine.”
“Good,” Roditzy said. “I don’t understand what happened to Peter Cannon, do you? I mean, everybody thought he was such a great guy. He was best friends with everybody . . . Remember those wild parties at his loft? I mean, if we’d only known that he was paying for that Cristal Champagne with our money . . .”
“Whatever,” Patty said.
“Whatever,” Roditzy agreed. And then demanded, “Are you guys around next weekend? I need you to come to this party I’m having for . . .”
“Digger’s going on tour,” Patty said firmly, cutting her off. “He’ll be gone for two months.”
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“Well, then,
you
have to come,” Roditzy insisted. “I’ll have one of my assistants send a car. That way, you can party without having to worry about driving home.”
Roditzy fixed her with the bright stare of someone who won’t take no for an answer, and Patty was unable to protest. “Great!” Roditzy said, and then, with the air of someone who has important places to go and many people to see, she snapped open her cell phone and marched into Ralph Lauren.
Patty collapsed weakly onto the bench, suddenly acutely aware of the fact that with Digger away on tour, that was another two months when she wouldn’t be able to get pregnant. And on top of it all, now she would be forced to go to some party she had no interest in attending—why was it that everyone in New York was always demanding your presence at something or other?—and it was all Janey’s fault for being late. If Janey had been on time for once, she probably would never have run into Roditzy.
But now, here came Janey at last, roaring up Route 27 in her Porsche Boxster.
You could hear her coming a mile away because she drove that car like it was a racehorse—she shifted the gears so you could hear the engine turning over, and she did it on purpose, so people would look up and see her. She always wanted everyone to see her now, and that made Patty worried. Because in the past, people hadn’t always said the nicest things about Janey . . .
The car pulled up in front of Patty, and with a great flourish, Janey got out and slammed the door. She was wearing a red Prada halter top and white jeans (white jeans had just come into style, but Janey had been wearing them forever), and with a completely natural smile that wasn’t at all like the phony, slutty smirk she wore on her billboard, waved to Patty. And in that moment, Patty crumpled inside as she always did and took back every bad thought she’d ever had about Janey: After all, how could anyone as beautiful as Janey be as evil as she’d imagined?
And then it was even worse, because with a chirpy “Hi Sis,” Janey took her arm (much in the way Mimi had taken Janey’s arm a few nights before) and said, “Listen, I didn’t want to tell you this on the phone because I knew you’d say no, but I want to buy you something at Ralph and then take you to lunch at Nick and Toni’s”—one of the most exclusive restaurants in the Hamptons—and Patty felt like a heel all over again.
“Do you mind if we skip the shopping?” Patty asked, wanting to avoid another chance encounter with Roditzy Deardrum. “I’m starving.”
“Of course not,” Janey said. And then, fixing her sister with a gimlet eye, she asked, “By the way, how’s Digger?” Her tone was nonchalant, but her eyes seemed to pierce right into Patty’s brain as if she could see the truth, and for a moment, Patty had that terrible feeling she’d been having lately, as if she were drowning.
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“Well, he’s . . . ,” she said lamely, and Janey nodded wisely. But with that simple assent, Patty felt that Janey understood everything. And as they walked up the street to Nick & Toni’s, Patty reflected that the really good thing about Janey was that she made you feel like you could tell her all of the terrible, deep, dark thoughts you had in your head, and that she would understand.
At the age of eighteen, Janey came to think of herself as the sort of person who could draw out confidences, and had quickly understood that getting information was power. It wasn’t always the information itself that was important (which was the mistake that most people made), but the act of being told things: It formed a bond between her and the confessor—a sort of unspoken pact of friendship, which she could draw on later to get what she needed.
And now, seated at a table in the front section of Nick & Toni’s, her face was arranged in the soft lines of commiseration appropriate to these kinds of situations, and although she appeared to be concentrating, another part of her brain was attuned to the door. At any moment, she expected Mimi Kilroy to arrive, which would require the employment of a different set of her considerable social skills.
Earlier that morning, Janey had telephoned Mimi’s house under the pretense of thanking her for the party. Mimi wasn’t there, and Janey, by telling the housemaid who answered the phone that she was a “very good friend of Mimi’s,” managed to extract the information that after her riding class, Mimi was expected to lunch at Nick & Toni’s. At that moment, Janey decided that she, too, would be lunching at Nick & Toni’s. The only hitch was that she couldn’t eat at Nick & Toni’s by herself, and doing a quick mental tally of potential lunch dates, decided on Patty.
She didn’t have a moment’s hesitation about using her sister to further her own ends; after all, it wasn’t like she didn’t genuinely adore her. She’d always loved Patty, of course, in the automatic way people do in families, but it was only in the past two years that she’d begun to like her. And that was, she insisted, only because she didn’t
know
Patty before—they’d never moved in the same circles until Patty had become a producer for VH1 and had met Digger and, last year, married him. Since then, Janey had come to appreciate Patty’s simplicity and kindness, and her refreshing lack of ambition: Three months after marrying Digger she’d given up her job in order to run their lives and hopefully raise their as yet unborn children. Of course, Janey also understood the value of having a sister who was married to a rock star.
Although she didn’t inherently
like
Digger, she would have to admit that if Patty had married a plumber instead (the way Janey had once pictured she might), the two sisters wouldn’t have been nearly as close.
And indeed, with their blond heads bent together in familial intimacy, there 18947_ch01.qxd 4/14/03 11:22 PM Page 39
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couldn’t have been a prettier picture of sisterly affection. Of this, Janey was happily aware—it was exactly the image she wished Mimi to see, knowing that it would cast her in a broader, more human light. And so, wrenching her thoughts away from her own selfish advancement, Janey forced herself to concentrate on Patty, who was struggling with a white linen napkin that had been folded into a complicated origami swan.
“Patty?” she said.
“Yes?” Patty asked.
“How are you?
Really?
”
“Well,” Patty said, having tamed the napkin and spread it on her lap, “I’m okay.
I saw Roditzy Deardrum going into Ralph Lauren.”
“How
is
Roditzy? I actually like her, you know? I think she’s
fine,
” Janey said.
“You
do
?” Patty said. “I think she’s awful.”
“She
is
a little obnoxious,” Janey agreed, “but at the end of the day, all she’s trying to do is to make it just like everybody else. She’s always nice to
me
. . .”
“Of course she’s nice to
you
. . .”
“Isn’t she nice to you?”
“She’s trying to force me to go to this party on Saturday night.”
“What’s wrong with that?” Janey signaled to the waiter. “You probably
should
get out more.”
“But
why
?”
“Why not?”
“What’s the point?”
“Maybe there isn’t one. Maybe it’s just about people going out and seeing their friends.”
“But most of those people don’t even
like
each other.”
“How do you
know
that? People aren’t perfect, you know? They’re limited.
Maybe they like each other as much as they
can
. . .”
“That’s not enough for me . . .”
“Oh Patty. What’s
wrong
?”
“I mean,” Patty said, “why is everyone always trying so hard to be these
people
. . . to prove that they’re important? When I saw Roditzy, I thought, I know what her problem is. She has low self-esteem.” Janey smiled. “Is this a Digger thing?”
“No,” Patty said, slightly insulted. “
Think
about it. Why is she always running around, making so much noise on her cell phone like a big, squeaky mouse? For that matter, you and I probably have low self-esteem. Have you ever wondered why we’re never really happy?”
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Janey considered this. It
was
true. She never was
really
happy. She always had the slight feeling of having been cheated by life in some way, although in exactly
what
way she couldn’t name.
“You see?” Patty said. “It’s because of something Mom and Dad did to us when we were kids. They never really encouraged us to do anything. Have you noticed that they never once told us that we could succeed? That we could make anything of our lives?”
“They encouraged
you,
Patty,” Janey said.
She sat back in her chair. She was beginning to get annoyed. Patty was one of those lucky people who managed to get whatever they wanted in life without trying. When they were kids, Patty had been the cosseted youngest child, adored by both her mother
and
father—Patty seemed to have a special way of talking to each parent, while Janey couldn’t connect with her father at all, and had only a combat-ive relationship with her mother—and on top of it, Patty had actually been considered the pretty one in the family. She’d even been a cheerleader, and although she’d never made particularly good grades, somehow she’d been accepted into Boston University. It passed through Janey’s mind that maybe Patty had slept with an admissions officer to get in (which is what, she had to admit,
she
would have done), but you could tell just by looking at Patty that she was one of those women who had never sacrificed her moral values to get ahead. And then she’d met Digger and fallen in love. Janey had never really been in love herself, at least not in the way that Patty was, but she still held it in the highest regard, and still believed that if you had true love, you had everything. The problem, of course, was finding it, and she said, with slight exasperation, “Patty, you have
every reason
to be happy.” Patty looked down at her napkin, shifting her reddish blond hair over her shoulder—
It would be so much better if she would only lighten it a bit,
Janey thought—