Four Blondes

I

This morning, I totally got even with him for coming in at one-twenty-three a.m. When he PROMISED, PROMISED, PROMISED he'd be home by midnight. At the LATEST. It was a test, and he failed. Again. But instead of screaming at him when he got home, I ignored the whole thing but lay awake all night again, feeling like my head was going to explode, which I'm sure it is, one of these days very soon. But if I tell him that, he'll just say, Why don't you take some more pills? Well, why doesn't he stop being such an asshole, and then I wouldn't have to take any more pills. As it is, some days I feel like my legs are made of rubber. If s no wonder I can barely walk across the room to answer the phone.

So this morning, when he got up, I pretended to be asleep. As soon as I heard the water running in the bathroom, I went to my secret stash and snorted a large line of that shitty cocaine that N. got from the bartender at M. Sure enough, in about one minute I felt a huge puke coming on and I ran into the bathroom and vomited several times while he stood there in horror with shaving cream on his face. And when I stood up, I was trembling, and I sort of stumbled back against the wall, wiping my eyes.

"Are you okay?" he asked.

I smiled mysteriously and said, "Oh, I'm okay now, I guess. I don't know what came over me.”

“Maybe you should see a doctor," he said.

All he wants is for me to be pregnant. That’s what they all want. They think, once I'm pregnant, mat all the trouble will end and I'll settle down. I'm like Mia Farrow in Rosemary's Baby.

"I'm so sorry I was asleep when you came home. Did you have fun?" I asked. Then I got back into bed, and he came in before he left for that STUPID office, and sure enough he said, "Do you think you're pregnant?”

"Oh, probably not.”

"But you're sick. Do you think you should see Dr.

K. again?”

"ALL I DO ALL DAY IS GO TO DOCTORS," I started to shout, but then I saw that closed-up expression on his face again, so I switched into my sexy voice and said, "It's nothing. Don't worry about me. I'll be fine.”

"But I am worried about you," he said. "Then why don't you stay home and keep me company?" I asked.

Well, fuck him. That was obviously the wrong thing to say as well because he just shook his head, patted me on the leg, and went away.

I HATE HIM. What does he want me to do? Who does he want me to be? Who am I supposed to be, here, please? Will somebody PLEASE tell me?

Went to see Dr. Q. at one-thirty. He kept me waiting for three minutes and forty-two seconds, which is almost four minutes and completely unacceptable. Two and a half minutes is the cutoff for ANYONE.

I always tell everyone I won't be kept waiting for more than two and a half minutes unless I'm the one who's keeping them waiting. That’s one of the reasons why I refused to be on the cover of that stupid Vogue magazine, because that idiotic woman said, I'll have someone call you right back and I said, What do you mean by right back and she said, In five minutes and she called back in eighteen and I said, Sorry, I'm not interested. Plus, I have my other reasons, which are that I hate that woman (I hate her so much I won't even say her name), but more about that later.

So, this is typical, the person who was before me eating into my appointment time with Dr. Q. is some forty-year-old woman wearing sweatpants. They're not even Calvin Klein. And she's holding a tissue.

Why do women always cry in shrinks' offices?

"Well," Dr. Q. says. I think he notices I'm being extremely cold and standoffish. "How are you today? Do you still think that someone in the family is secretly poisoning you?”

"What on earth makes you say that?”

"That," he says, flipping through his notebook, "is what you said yesterday.”

"I did throw up this morning.”

“I see.”

Then I don't say anything. I just sit in the chair, drumming my fingernails on the metal arm.

"I see," Dr. Q. says again.

"And what exactly is it that you see, Dr. Q.?”

“I see that you're wearing a head scarf again.”

“Your point?”

"You've been wearing a head scarf and black sunglasses for the last two weeks.”

I give him a withering smile.

"So ... How does it make you feel when you wear a head scarf and dark sunglasses?”

"How do you think it makes me feel, Dr. Q.?”

“Why don't you tell me?”

"NO," I say. "Why don't you tell me?”

"That would, ah, defeat the purpose of our ... visits.”

Ugh. Dr. Q. is so THICK.

"It makes me feel safe," I say. "From the family poisoner?”

Sometimes I want to kill Dr. Q. I really do.

D.W. called. I haven't talked to him for three months. I've been avoiding him.

HELP.

I used to write that on all my books when I was a kid. I used to wrap my books in brown paper bags and then write my name on the front in different colored Magic Markers. I used to dot my I's with circles.

D.W. knows too much.

Of course, he calls at the most inconvenient time. Right in the middle of The Karen Carpenter Story, which I'm watching for something like the fifty seventh time. The phone rings just at the part when Karen finally moves into her own apartment and her mother finds the box of laxatives. D.W. has on that sugary voice I hate sooooo much. "Hello, my darling," he says. "What are you doing?”

"Shhhhh," I say. "Karen is just about to lie to her mother and tell her that she won't take laxatives anymore, and her mother is actually going to believe her. Can you believe how dumb that woman is?”

"And then ... ?”

"And then Karen is going to get down to seventy eight pounds and have a heart attack after she eats Thanksgiving dinner. In other words, she is basically killed by turkey meat.”

"How fabulously ... charming," D.W. says. "I'm really in the middle of something, so what do you want, D.W," I say, which I know is horribly rude, but if I am rude, maybe he'll get the message and go away for another three months.

"What are you doing later?”

"Oh, later?" I say carelessly. "I think I'll snort a few lines of cocaine and take a few Xanaxes and make crank phone calls to my husband's office. And then I'll walk the dog for the tenth time and scream at a couple of photographers. What do you think I'm doing?”

"You know, you're really a funny, charming girl. That's what no one realizes about you, and if s a shame. If only people could see the real you ...”

There is no real me anymore, but who cares? "Do you think my husband is having an affair?" I ask.

"Oh, come on, my dear. Why would he have an affair when he's married to one of the most beautiful women in the world?" Pause. "Do you think he's having an affair?”

"Not right now," I say. "But I'm just checking to make sure I'm not crazy.”

"You see?" D.W. says gleefully. "This is what happens when you lose touch with your old friends.”

• "We haven't lost touch—”

"And That’s why I absolutely insist on seeing you for dinner tonight.”

"Don't you have some fabulous gala to attend?”

“Only a small soiree in a store. For a very worthy cause. But I'm free after eight.”

"I have to see," I say. I put the phone down and walk slowly through the living room, up the stairs to the master bath. I take off all my clothes and step on the scale: Weight, 117.5 pounds. Percentage fat, 13. GOOD. I've lost a quarter of a pound from the morning. I put my clothes back on and go downstairs. I pick up the phone.

"D.W.?”

"Thank God. I thought you'd died.”

"I'm saving that for next week. I'll meet you at eight-thirty. At the R. But only you. And DON'T TELL ANYBODY.”

I wear Dolce & Gabbana workout pants and a Ralph Lauren Polo sweatshirt, no bra, and when I walk into the restaurant, I remember that I haven't brushed my hair for three days.

D.W. is sitting at the wrong table.

"Oooooh. You look so ... American. So ... gorgeous. I always said you were the quintessential American girl. The American girl begins and ends with you," he says.

"You're at the wrong table, D.W. I never sit here.”

“Of course not. But those pants, darling. Dolce & Gabbana.”

I walk to the back of the restaurant and sit down. D.W. follows. "You should only wear American, dear. It's soooo important. I was thinking about putting you in some Bentley.”

"Bentley hasn't had a client under sixty in fifty years.”

"But I'm making him hot. He's going to be hot, hot, hot again. Those young S. sisters are wearing him.”

I roll my eyes. "I want a martini," I say. "You don't have any pills, do you?”

"What kind of pills? Allergy pills? I don't know ...”

"Can I get off on them?”

"Oh my dear, what has happened to you? You're turning into a little Courtney Love. I sooooo wish you'd become friends with those lovely, lovely S. sisters. They adore you. And think of the parties you could throw together. Toute New York would be abuzz. It would be just like the old days.”

Why can't I be like those darling S. sisters?

They are perfect. They never give anyone trouble.

Not even their husbands. They're twins, and one of them (I always get them mixed up, and so does everyone else) got married when she was something like eighteen. She invited me over for tea once, and I went because my husband said I had to go. "My husband married me because of my hips," she said, even though I hadn't asked her. "I have childbearing hips," she said. "What can I do?" I wanted to ask her where she'd gone for brainwashing, but I couldn't. She seemed so sad. And so lost. And so tiny in a large checkered dress from Valentino. "How is it that you've never lost your hair, D.W.?" I ask, lighting a cigarette.

"Oh. You're such a card. My grandfather had a full head of hair when he died.”

"But don't you think ... that you had less hair three months ago?”

D.W. looks around the restaurant and slaps my hand. "You naughty. I did have a tiny bit of work done. But everybody does these days. You know, times have really changed. Everybody is photographed. I mean, the awful people whose photographs appear in magazines ... but I don't have to tell you about that. Now P., she does it the right way. Do you know that nobody's, I mean nobody's, picture appears in the society pages without her approval? And, of course, they have to be the right sort of person. She has the highest standards. She can spot quality a mile away.”

P. is that editor at Vogue. I yawn loudly.

"Did you see that featurette they did on you last month? The one where they analyzed your hemline lengths? That’s why the long skirt is so big this season.”

"That was only because," I say, tapping my ash on the floor, "the hem on that skirt came unraveled and I was too lazy to have it sewn back up.”

"Oh, but my dear," D.W. says. "Don't you see? That attitude, that insouciance, it's genius. If s like when Sharon Stone wore the Gap turtleneck to the Oscars.”

I fix D.W. with an evil eye. I've been trying to get rid of him for two years, but every now and again I have this AWFUL feeling that D.W. is never going to go away, that people like D.W. don't go away, especially not when you know them the way D.W. and I know each other.

"I threw up today. And I still think someone is trying to poison me.”

D.W. lowers his martini glass. "We know you're not pregnant," he says, with this cozy intimacy that gives me the creeps.

"And how do we know that?”

"Come on, my dear. You're not pregnant. You never have been and you never will be. Not with your body fat hovering at thirteen percent. Your husband may be stupid enough to buy that crap, but I'm not.”

“Fuck you.”

D.W. looks around the restaurant. "Keep your voice down. Unless you want to see yet another item in Star magazine—Princess Cecelia engaged in a lover's spat with the older man with whom she's secretly having an affair.”

I start laughing. "Everyone knows you're gay.”

“I was married. Twice.”

"So?”

"So as far as the press is concerned, my dear, I might be anything.”

"You're a psychopath, D.W. And people are starting to figure it out.”

"And you don't think they haven't figured out the same thing about you?" D.W. motions for another round of martinis. "Princess Cecelia. Maybe the most hated woman in America.”

"Hillary Clinton liked me.”

"Take a deep breath, my dear." D.W. pats my hand. He has horrible ringers that narrow to little points. "Maybe not the most hated. I believe that at one time, people hated Hillary Clinton more than they hate you. But certainly, it must have occurred to you by now that all those horrendous photographs are not a mistake.”

I light another cigarette. "So?”

"So there's a little game played in the offices of photo editors across the country: Let’s publish the worst possible photograph of Cecelia. I believe they have a pool going and the photographers are in on it too. The pot may be up to ten thousand dollars now.”

"Shut up. Just shut up." I close my eyes. And then I do what I'd trained myself to do years ago, when I was a kid. I start to cry.

My life sucks.

If s always sucked, if you want to know the truth. D.W. laughs harshly. "I've seen that act before. And you don't deserve an ounce of sympathy. I've never seen anyone who's been given so much fuck up so spectacularly. Get yourself together. Go do a line of cocaine or something.”

"I'm going home now. And I'm going to forget we ever had this conversation.”

"I wouldn't do that, my dear," D.W. says, gripping my hand. Ah yes. I'd forgotten how strong D.W. can be, even though he's a faggot.

"You're hurting me," I say.

"That’s absolutely nothing, my dear, compared to the amount of pain I can inflict upon you and am perfectly prepared to do so.”

I sit back down. Light ANOTHER cigarette. GOD.

I have to quit smoking one of these days. When I get pregnant. "What do you want, D.W.?" I ask, although I have a pretty good idea. "You know I don't have any money.”

"Money?" D.W. sits back in his chair and starts laughing. He's laughing so hard tears came out of the corners of his eyes.

"Don't insult me," he says.

"You're like that character in All About Eve. Addison DeWitt, The Evil Queen," I say.

"Why don't you order something to eat?”

“I'm not hungry. You know that.”

"I'll order something for you.”

Why is he torturing me? "I'll throw up. I swear to God, D.W. I'll vomit.”

"Waitress," he says.

He moves his chair closer to the table. I move mine back. "All I want," he says, "is to be very, very close to my very, very good friend Cecelia. Who is now about to relaunch herself as the queen of society. Backed, aided, and abetted, of course, by her very, very good friend D.W.”

I sit back in my chair. Cross my legs. Swing my foot. "I'll do nothing of the sort," I say, mashing my cigarette on the floor.

"Oh ... yes ... you ... will," D.W. says calmly. "Oh ... no ... I ... won't.”

"Are you aware," D.W. says, "that there's a Princess Cecelia tell-all book in the works? The writer is a very, very good friend of mine, but I have to say he's quite an excellent investigative journalist. The book would be—well, let’s just say that 'embarrassing' would be the least of it.”

"Are you aware," I say, "that I have now been married for over one year, so therefore whatever you want to say about me makes absolutely no difference?”

“Are you aware," D.W. says, "that your marriage sucks and your husband is constantly considering filing for divorce?”

"My husband is madly in love with me. He won't let me out of his sight.”

"And where is he tonight?”

"You know my philosophy, D.W. I always bite the hand that feeds me.”

"Is that so? Well, take a good look at yourself, dear. You're a mess," D.W. says. "You can hardly afford to have your name raked through the mud. Think about it. The photographers camped outside your door again, people going through your garbage, your face on the cover of the tabloids. You barely escaped last time. Just think of the .. . schadenfreude.”

“I think ... I need ... a Xanax," I whisper.

"Oh, you'll need much more than a Xanax by the time they're through with you. I should think you'll be on Librium by then. Which, incidentally, is what they give to schizophrenics. Just in case you're not up on your pharmaceuticals.”

I slump in my chair.

"If s not that bad," D.W. says. "All I'm asking is for you to attend a few parties and a tea every now and then. Chair a couple of committees. Wear some designer dresses. Maybe a fur. You're not against fur, are you? And then maybe host a trip to India, but by the time we arrange it, India might be passe, so maybe someplace like Ethiopia. We'll do some photo shoots, get you signed on as a contributing editor at Vogue. If s only the sort of life that every woman in America dreams of.”

"D.W.," I say. "Society is ... dead.”

"Nonsense, my dear," he says. "You and I are going to revive it. We'll both have our place in the annals of history.”

I wish I were in Massachusetts, riding around in the back of someone's car.

Smoking a joint. Listening to Tom Petty.

"Come, come," D.W. says. "It's not like I'm asking you to be a homeless person. No one's asking you to urinate in subway stations. You've had a nice long rest, and now it's time to go back to work. Because that's what women in your position do. They work. Or did someone forget to tell you that?" He picks up his knife and smiles into the distorted reflection of his mouth. "People are relying on you, Cecelia. They're relying on you not to fuck up.”

"Why?" I ask.

"Here's what I want you to do," he says. "Number one. Start putting on a happy face. Happy, happy, happy. Weren't you voted Most Popular in your high school class?”

"No.”

"But you were voted something," he says. "No," I say definitely. "I wasn't.”

"You showed me your yearbook, Cecelia. Years ago. I remember the evening. It was right after Tanner dumped you.”

"Tanner never dumped me. I dumped him. Remember? For my husband.”

"Rewrite history with other people, my dear. I was there. Now what was it?”

"Most Likely to Succeed," I whisper.

But there were only forty people in my high school class. And ten of them barely graduated.

"And you have," he says. "You can't use it.”

"You have to stop being so afraid of everything. Really. It's embarrassing.”

"I'm just so ... tired.”

"So go to bed. Number Two. We have to find you a charity. Something with children, I think; maybe encephalitic babies. And then maybe some lessons cooking or Italian, because everyone's going to be summering in Tuscany next year, and we should hook you up with some new spiritual trend thing ... like druids. Druids could be very, very big, and you look like someone who could worship trees and get away with it.”

D.W. holds up his martini glass. "To you, my dear. We're going to turn you into ... into America's very own Princess Di. What do you think?”

"I think/' I say, not even sarcastically, "Princess Di is dead.”

"That’s irrelevant," he says. "Her spirit lives on.”

“And so is Princess Ava. Dead.”

"So is Marilyn Monroe. And Frank Sinatra. Who cares? They're all dead. You've got to stop being so negative. Don't you wake up some mornings and think, 'By God, we did it.' We accomplished our goal. You're a princess. A real princess.”

"No," I say glumly. "I always knew it would happen.”

Along with a lot of other things, I suppose.

"You're never to say that. Ever again. To anyone," D.W. says. "Good God, Cecelia. That’s why you're so bad at this. You've got to stop telling the truth. When someone asks—and they are going to ask, you've managed to avoid doing interviews so far, but you're going to have to start very soon—you're to say that you had no idea who he was when you just happened to sell him that painting in a gallery—”

“But I did sell him that painting in a gallery.”

"That’s not die point. Destiny only works in Arab countries. In America, destiny makes you sound ... calculating. Which," he says, finishing his martini, "we know you are. But nobody else has to know that. Now about those S. sisters ...”

"No," I say. "They freak me out.”

"Why? They're young, beautiful, rich, and married. Everyone wants to be their friend.”

I glare at him. I want to put my head in my hands, but I'm too tired. I can't explain anything. What it was like sitting there in that big empty room—it had two Regency couches and a coffee table and a fireplace with a marble mantel—with that S. sister. The one who was married off at eighteen. "Cecelia," she had said. "Have you had a lot of lovers? You look like someone who has.”

"What's a lot?" I said cautiously. I didn't understand. What did she want from me? I hadn't gone to private school in Europe.

"I'm one of those women who must be in love to have sex. If I'm in love with a man, I can have an orgasm from him touching my toe.”

I didn't know what to say.

A baby started crying from somewhere in that vast, cavernous Tribeca loft she shared with her husband, an aspiring American politician, and four in help.

"I'm going to let him cry," she said, not ashamed. I got out of there as fast as I could. "I have childbearing hips. What can I do?" she asked and I felt soiled.

She'd told me a dirty little secret I didn't want to hear.

The waitress comes over with two plates. She puts one of them down in front of me. On it is chicken with green beans and mashed potatoes.

"You need to eat," D.W. says.

I pick up one of the green beans with my fingers.

I put it into my mouth. Chew. I manage to swallow it.

I immediately feel full.

"The chicken," D.W. says, "is delicious.”

It has some kind of brownish glaze on it. If s shiny. If s a dead piece of meat.

I cut into it. It's a little pink inside. Like a pink little baby.

"Oh GOD," I say. I put down my utensils, pick up my napkin, and throw up into it.

II

LA LA LA LA LA LA Every day, in every way, I'm getting better and better.

Not.

I'm getting worse and worse. And who can blame me? Everyone.

Everyone blames me.

I can't handle fame. I'm really, really bad at it.

My husband knows this. Isn't that one of the reasons he married me in the first place? I don't care about fame. Or money. I don't want to be famous. I only want to be with him.

He is everything to me. And I am nothing. Without him.

"Leave my wife alone!" Hubert had shouted at the photographers during our honeymoon in Paris and Rome and then on a remote island off Tunisia. "Quit fez ma femme. Quittez ma femme, " he had said over and over, with his arm wrapped around me protectively as I bowed my head and we walked quickly from the hotel to the car, from the car to the museum, from the museum to the boutique, until it became a sort of joke mantra. I'd be in the tub, under heaps of bubbles, and Hubert would come in, and I'd say, "Quittez ma femme, " and we'd both crack up. We haven't cracked up in a long time now.

I think it was the food in Tunisia that first put me off my feed. You had to eat unidentifiable stews God only knows what was in them—yak?—with soggy pieces of bread, and I couldn't do it. Not in front of Hubert. I suddenly felt like he was watching me. And secretly criticizing me. Wondering if maybe he shouldn't have married me after all.

Okay. So I'll starve.

Nobody likes me. Do you think I don't know that? Do you think I don't sit for hours and hours, partly because they're feeding me all these pills all the time (they say they're going to kick in any day now, and then I won't be depressed anymore, but I doubt it), agonizing over every slight, knowing there are people out there laughing behind my back, saying, "Why doesn't she get a clue ... what a tragedy ... what a bummer for him having married her it sure didn't turn out the way he expected I bet and I bet he's miserable," when I'm the one who's miserable, but you can't tell people that, can you?

Especially if you're a woman. Because marriage is supposed to make you happy, not make you feel like a rat trapped in a very glamorous cage with twenty thousand dollar silk draperies.

And this is the best there is. It doesn't get any better than this, does it?

Because this is it. The crown. The dream. The brass ring. No more worries. Not a care in the world. Your mother will never starve in her old age. Your sister will have her new car. Your children will go to private school, have nannies, and all the toys they want, including a pony. Honor will be restored to your family name. Your mother will be proud of you. Your father, wherever he is, the bastard, will realize he made a terrible mistake.

And you will have: 1) A castle. 2) Houses around the world. 3) A chauffeur. 4) Lots of clothes with matching shoes and handbags. 5) Jewelry. 6) A horse. 7) A saddle(s) from Hermds. And 8) No friends. Now here's what really pisses me off: Everybody thinks they could live my life so much better than me. They think, if they had my life, they'd be so happy to be me that they'd do everything perfectly. But they just don't get it. They don't have a clue.

They couldn't get this life unless they had my personality and looked the way I do. If you changed one thing, the destiny part wouldn't work at all.

For instance, Hubert would only be with a woman who was tall, blond, thin, and had large breasts. And was younger. And had a certain kind of face. Classy. He never wanted to be with a model, because he doesn't want to be with a woman other guys might masturbate to.

And personality. You have to really know how to work guys. You have to be able to manipulate them, except "manipulate" isn't really the right word, because it has negative connotations. What you have to do is you always have to be different. You have to be unpredictable. Some days, you're really, really nice and sweet and loving, and other days, you're a total bitch and steely. They keep coming back because they never know what they're going to get.

You have to be able to be aloof, and you have to be willing to make a man jealous. But you can't do any of this unless you have the right physique, because otherwise the guy will just say you're a bitch and who needs it and dump you.

Of course, there are women without the physique who do marry well, but they don't marry men like Hubert.

In fact, right up until I married him, Hubert wasn't totally sure that I was going to marry him. You've seen his face in the wedding photographs. How happy he looked when we came out of the church. Oh. And one other thing. You can never think that your husband, or anyone he introduces you to, is better than you. Just because your husband is a prince does not mean he's better than you are. You could meet a guy who's just won the Nobel Prize, and you have to know that he isn't any better than you are or more accomplished. I've always thought that I was just as good as anyone, no matter what they've done or how many hit songs they've had or how hard they say they've worked. One day, Tanner told me I had no sense of proportion because I wasn't fawning all over his acting career, and I broke up with him on the spot. Life just isn't like that, you know?

I feel better now. I think I can go to sleep.

III

I am confused.

About a small point, really.

Going back to last year, right after Hubert and I were married.

I asked him for money to buy clothes. "I don't understand," he said.

"Hubert," I said. "I don't have any clothes.”

“What’s all that in your closet?”

"I need new clothes," I said, as tears began forming in the outer corners of my eyes. It was the first time my husband had openly refused me, proof that he didn't love me anymore.

"I never saw my father give my mother money for clothes.”

"She had an allowance," I said, not knowing whether this was true, and also knowing that this statement was very brave indeed, as Hubert would probably take it as a criticism against his mother, which he did.

"What are you saying about my mother?”

“Nothing," I said.

"Then why did you bring her up?”

“I didn't. You did.”

"You brought her up. You said, 'She had an allowance.' Didn't you say that?”

"Ye-e-e-e-s," I said. "But—oh, fuck you," I said mildly, and ran into the bedroom crying. He didn't come in right away the way he usually did, and when he did, he pretended to be getting a tie out of the closet.

"Hubert," I said patiently. "I need clothes.”

"I don't want a bunch of reporters following my wife around and writing stories on how much my wife spends on dresses. Do you want that?" he said. "Do you want to be the laughingstock of the papers?”

"No-o-o-o-o," I sobbed, not wanting to point out that I was already beginning to be the laughingstock of the papers, so what difference did it make? I rocked back and forth on the bed, crying and crying like my heart was breaking, (which it was) thinking, What am I going to do now? What am I supposed to do now?

And now—ha ha—I am sitting here surrounded by strange new clothes. So in other words, everything that I was doing in the last year has finally resulted in getting my way. Which was wearing the same old simple black-and-white pieces I always wore before my marriage, until some fashion reporter wrote: "Can't someone get this princess a new frock?”

Which I didn't have to point out to Hubert, because it was in the Styles section of The New York Times, and that's the section he reads first on Sundays. Believe it or not. (I didn't believe it myself, when I first met him: that and the way he secretly reads all the gossip columns, scanning the items for his name. No matter what is written, he never says anything about it; and his face always remains impassive, like he's reading about somebody else, someone whom he doesn't know.) And yet, there is something insulting about all this. As if Hubert didn't want to spend money on me for the first year of our marriage because he wasn't sure he was going to keep me around.

(I so wish that we could talk about these things openly. I really did believe, when we first got married, that we would talk about everything honestly, but the opposite has occurred: We're like two people on separate islands, with only tin cans and string as a means of communication.) And so I must act slightly displeased by it all. Especially since it's really D.W.'s doing. Including the short hair. I have short white hair, and when I look in the mirror, I don't recognize myself. It's part of their plan to wipe me out and start over.

And my husband is all for it.

"I'm on board," he said. (Ugh. I hate that expression. It's so corporate America, which Hubert is not but likes to pretend he is.) "I'm on board. Ifs good for you.”

"I suppose you'll be wanting me to EXERCISE next," I said.

"Exercise is good for you," he said. At which point I told him that it's very difficult to exercise when you're so doped up you can barely lift your hand to your mouth.

When I said this, he said (suspiciously, I thought), "There is no reason to lift your hand to your mouth unless you're putting food in it." To which I smartly replied, "Actually, you have to lift your hand to your mouth to apply lipstick," and that shut him up for a minute.

We were having this conversation yesterday morning while I was still in bed, and in the middle of it the apartment buzzer began ringing incessantly. I put several pillows over my head, but if s no use. Hubert goes downstairs, then comes back up and says, "Get up. D.W. is here." Instead of staying to comfort me, he goes back downstairs and makes another pot of coffee, like he's some kind of real person (he actually takes pride in this), which I can never help but believe is a total act.

I hear some kind of commotion downstairs, and voices, and Hubert calling, "Come on, sleepyhead, come downstairs." And then D.W/s voice: "Get up! Get up, you lazy thing!" I therefore have no choice but to wrench my drugged and tired bones from the comfort of my bed. I go immediately (do not pass bathroom) downstairs with my hair in a mess, still wearing my silk spaghetti-strap negligee, which is all wrinkled and has tiny stains on it because I've basically been wearing it for four days.

Just as I enter the kitchen, I hear D.W. say, "I declare, Hubert, you get more handsome every time I see you," which nearly sets me off, because who does D.W. think he is, acting like Scarlett O'Hara in Gone With the Wind?

Hubert is dressed in a gray suit with a white oxford-cloth shirt and a yellow tie, and unless you're actually married to him, I suppose he does look pretty amazing, pouring coffee into large mugs, smiling and making light conversation about a movie he's seen called The Seventh Sense. "Why didn't I see this movie?" I ask.

He pulls me to him and puts his arm around me. "Because you were sick. Remember?”

"I wasn't sick," I say. "I was only pretending to be sick because I hate movie theaters.”

"That’s right," he says, to me and not to D.W., which actually makes me feel a tiny bit good, "because you think movie theaters are filled with germs.”

"Germs and sick people," I say.

"She's such a princess," D.W. says. "I always told her that if she didn't marry you, the only other person she could have married would have been Prince Charles.”

"I'd be dead then," I say.

"That would be a terrible tragedy. Not just for Hubert, but for the world," D.W. says unctuously.

"I'd like to be dead. I don't think it would be bad at all," I say, and I can see Hubert and D.W. exchange glances.

"Besides," I say, pouring myself a cup of coffee even though coffee is yet another one of the FORTY MILLION things in the world that makes me VOMIT, "if I hadn't married Hubert, I would have married a movie star.”

I hand my cup of coffee to D.W. "Try it.”

“Why?" he asks.

"Just try it.”

D.W. and Hubert exchange glances.

"If s coffee," he says, and hands it back to me. "Thank you," I say. I cautiously take a sip. "I just wanted to make sure it wasn't poisoned.”

My poor, poor husband. He ditched the European girl and got something much worse. Something crazy. Which he has to ignore.

"But you wouldn't be happy," Hubert says, again trading glances with D.W., "because a movie star wouldn't love you as much as I do.”

"Well," I say, "since you love me zero, what difference would it make?”

"Oh, come, come," D.W. says.

"What do you know?" I ask hatefully. And I look over at Hubert and see that closed-down look has come over his face. Again. For the millionth time. He empties the rest of his coffee in the sink and rinses his mug. "I've got to be going.”

"He's always going to that stupid office," I say casually.

"Studio," D.W. says. "When a man is the executive producer of a hit TV show on a major network, he goes to a studio.”

Hubert kisses me on the forehead. "Bye, kiddo," he says. "You two have fun today.”

I look at D.W. balefully.

"Don't," he says. "Don't say anything stupid. Especially after that completely pointless display.”

My poor husband.

I run into the living room and grab Mr. Smith, who is sniffling around the couch, and run for the door, passing the kitchen where D.W. spots me and shouts out, "Keep that beagle away from me!" And I run down the stairs, still clutching Mr. Smith, who has absolutely no idea what is going on, and I run onto Prince Street, where Hubert has just gotten into the limo (he supposedly told them he didn't want a limo, but The Network insisted). I knock on the window and Hubert lowers the glass. He looks at me like "Oh God, here's my crazy wife standing on the street barefoot in a wrinkled old negligee holding a beagle in her arms," and he says (pleasantly enough), "Yes?" And I say, "You forgot to say good-bye to Mr. Smith.”

He says, "Good-bye, Mr. Smith," and leans out and kisses Mr. Smith on the nose. Ifs all so cute, and I actually think I might be okay for the next couple of hours, but then I hear that telltale click, click, click behind me, and I turn, and there's that photographer in full combat fatigues, snapping away and yelling, "Smile!" and the limo takes off, and I hold Mr. Smith (who is struggling viciously now) over my face and run crazily down Prince Street, finally taking refuge in a news shop.

At which point the proprietor of this dirty shop with its overpriced cigarettes has the nerve to say, "No dogs. No dogs in the store." And begins waving his arms like he's just been attacked by an infestation of fleas.

I'm about to hurl a string of invectives at him (and, in fact, have opened my mouth to do so), when I see IT: the cover of Star magazine, which features photographs of a couple of actresses and ME, with my mouth open, wearing baggy shorts and a tank top, arms and legs akimbo. The photograph was taken a few months ago at a celebrity basketball game that Hubert not only made me attend but insisted I participate in (which ended up working in my favor, because I was such a horrendous basketball player and yet so high strung under the stress of competition that Hubert said I never had to do anything like it again), and underneath the photograph the caption reads: Princess Cecelia, 5'10" 117 lbs. And this raft of falsehoods is topped off with the headline: STARVING TO DEATH?, which really pisses me off because I'd actually eaten two hot dogs that day.

I grab Mr. Smith and the Star, and I run down the street and back up the stairs and throw open the door to the loft. D.W. is sitting in the living room, calmly sipping a cup of coffee and perusing the photographs in New York magazine. I collapse onto a chair, hyperventilating madly.

"Really, Cecelia," he says. He looks at his watch. "If s eight-forty-three. Don't you think you ought to get dressed?”

I really do not know what to say to this, so I fall to the floor, shaking and clawing at my throat, until D.W. throws a glass of water on my face.

Riding uptown, wearing sunglasses and a head scarf and clutching Mr. Smith to my chest, I felt the sinking weight of depression, like someone has placed a board piled with cement blocks on top of my body. When I'm in this state I find it hard to move, difficult to make even the slightest gesture—like lighting a cigarette—and sometimes, since I spend so much time alone in the apartment, I end up sitting for hours and hours, occasionally on the stairs or on the kitchen floor, staring into space. I don't want anyone to know how bad it is, so I lie and say, Oh, I've been reading magazines all day or running errands, like picking up a spool of thread at the dry cleaner, but quite often I find myself scratching "help me help me" on the palm of my hand with an old ballpoint pen, but by the end of the day, I have invariably washed it off. My thoughts always run along the same lines, like a small electric train going back and forth, back and forth: Everyone hates me and may or may not be laughing at me behind my back, waiting for me to fuck up, to say something stupid (or anything at all, because when people are judging you that closely, almost anything you say sounds stupid) or give them an evil eye, so they can run to their friends and colleagues and say, "I met Princess Cecelia and if s true what they say. She's a bitch.”

And then everywhere you go, people look at you like they expect to hate you, and their reactions are like stones, hitting you again and again until finally you shut down, you stop, you put your arms over your head and then you begin to slowly disappear.

D.W. is drumming his nails on the armrest. "I've been married .../' he says. "Twice.”

"Yes," I say blandly. "I know/' in a small voice, truly upset now by that photograph in Star and the accompanying article that accuses me of being an anorexic, which I'm NOT, but what I am is so complicated that I can't begin to explain it to myself.

"I've been married," D.W. says again, "and the one thing I've found is that the superficialities of marriage are the most important. In other words, pleasant conversation at breakfast, amusing banter at parties, and a compliment once or twice during the day matter more than whatever one is actually feeling, which, frankly, no one really cares about anyway.”

I nod mutely, wondering why it is that D.W. and I have the same conversations over and over again, so that I don't even have to point out that D.W.'s last marriage ended so horrendously (in a war on Page Six) that his wife, who is at least eighty now but has had a dozen or so face-lifts and always wears rose-colored sunglasses, will leave a party if his name is mentioned.

"In fact," D.W. continues, oblivious, "I would say that the superficialities are the most important thing in every aspect of life. I mean, who cares that you're really a piece of shit if you're sitting at a dinner with lovely flowers and a fabulous person on your left and a fabulous person on your right, and the photographers are taking your picture, and your socks, for God's sake, are cashmere, and you're smiling just so, and the photograph ends up in the society pages of Vogue. That’s what really counts, isn't it? Of course, you probably wouldn't understand that because, like all people with mental problems, you're completely obsessed with yourself. You don't really care anything about me, or the fact that that dog of yours is liable to dribble on my Prada suit at any moment.”

“Mr. Smith doesn't dribble," I say, unable to even get angry because of the aforementioned state I'm in. "Oh. I'm sorry. I meant you," D.W. says.

I allow myself (still clutching Mr. Smith) to be led from the town car out onto Madison Avenue, where someone is jack hammering the sidewalk, and a Mercedes sport-utility vehicle passes blaring rap music, and people walk by all emitting high-frequency vibrations of "Look at me, look at me, look at me," so that even in this brief moment the noise of the city is crushing and I feel like everything is collapsing in on me. We walk up narrow terra-cotta stairs and enter the beauty salon, which is all skylights and marble columns with a fountain in the middle (meant, I believe, to be some kind of imitation Roman baths), around which women in white robes with turbans on their heads lounge reading magazines.

I'm whisked off to the private area, where they minister to "celebrities," and someone dressed in a sari keeps trying to give me coffee, tea, or water (when I ask for a Bloody Mary, they all look shocked) and keeps shoving bowls of water with lemon slices floating on top under Mr. Smith's nose, which he sensibly refuses.

And then they begin cutting. Cutting away my long hair which I've had all my life (which is my life—long hair, men 'ove it), and which has gone through various and sundry colors of blond, depending on whether or not I actually had money at the time to pay someone to color it or if I had to do it myself with Sun-In or if one of my gay friends took pity on me and arranged for someone to do it for free (that was easy, as soon as it came out in the gossip columns that I was dating the prince of Luxenstein), and D.W. comes over and says, "So many people have worked so hard to get you here, Cecelia," blowing smoke out of his nostrils. I say, "So I am supposed to feel guilty?”

"Just grateful," he says, and walks away.

And I swear, as they're cutting, I keep hearing people talking about me Whispering my name. Until finally, ifs too much and I scream, "Will everybody please shut up?" And they all do, except for one unfortunate soul who goes on and on, speaking into his cell phone in a high-pitched nasally voice, ". .. That’s right, Dick. She's here now. Complete makeover. And completely loony. She won't let go of that dog. Won't speak to anyone. She's got the worst energy of anyone I've ever met. Maybe she should try crystals....”

Finally, he looks up, and after that, nobody says anything at all.

"What did I ever do to you?" I whisper hoarsely.

I stare at myself in the mirror. My eyes are very wide and blue. Very wide because I KNOW this isn't a good time to start crying, not with all these PEO PLE (if you can even call them that) standing around in various forms of emotional attitude, ranging from disdain to shocked horror to pity, reminding me of the first time I had to go to that school in Massachusetts when I was ten years old and taller than all of them and they stood around in the playground and called me "Miss ... Cecelia," the colorist says. She has a long face and large teeth and she looks like a talking horse, but a kindly one. "I hope you don't think that was a reflection of ... our salon. He's new. I'm going to fire him immediately.”

I could have someone fired?

"Oh," I say softly, nodding over the top of Mr. Smith's head.

"That was very, very wrong of him," she says, pumping the back of my chair so it goes up and down. "David," she snaps. "Pack your things and don't come back.”

This David person, who is lurking around the edges, is thin and dark-haired and sloe-eyed with dark circles, and he reeks of anonymous sex. "Whatever," he says haughtily. Our eyes meet for one second in the mirror and I see his whole pitiful story: fresh off the bus from some lousy town in the Midwest, ambitious and a born hustler, will do anyone for a piggyback to the next rung (for fun or profit), anything to erase his dirty origins and make believe he is someone else. Mostly, though, he'll talk about how I got him fired, and talk and talk, and he'll spread this topic of conversation among his acquaintances like a virus.

I know. I used to hang out with people like that. I used to be like people like that.

I can deny it. Even to myself.

"I'm really very ... normal," I say softly.

And isn't this one of my problems? I'm normal? "Oh yes. I can see that," the colorist says.

I'm just like a million other girls in New York. "Aren't you from ... ?”

"Massachusetts," I say.

"My grandmother was from Massachusetts.”

"That’s nice," I say. Realizing that for the first time in—what? weeks?—I'm having a normal conversation. She paints white goop on my hair.

"What’s your doggie's name?" she asks.

IV

Dr. Q. licks the tip of his pencil.

"You think that ...," he says, consulting his notebook, "your husband and this, this friend of yours, D.W., the publicity man, have formed a conspiracy against you and are forcing you to become ... let me see here ... the American version of Princess Di. Who, you so adroitly pointed out, is dead. Meaning ... you believe that, consciously or subconsciously, your husband secretly wants ... you dead." Pause. "Well?”

"I heard them discussing it on the phone.”

“Your death.”

"NOOOO," I scream. "The conspiracy.”

“Oh. The conspiracy.”

"D.W. told me there was that tell-all book.”

“Cecelia," Dr. Q. says. "Why would anyone want to write a book—an 'unauthorized biography about you?”

"Because the press ... they're always after me ...

and there's that girl, Amanda. The one who ... died.”

"You call someone who was, according to you, your best friend 'that girl'?”

"She wasn't my best friend by then.”

“That girl?”

"Okay. That woman." Pause. "My photograph was in all the newspapers this morning. From last night. At the ballet ...," I whisper.

"Was that you, Cecelia? That girl with the short white hair, running down the stairs, looking over her shoulder, laughing, holding the hand of an unknown boy?”

"Yes! YES. Didn't you see my NAME ... ? Princess Cecelia...." I'm breaking down, crying, covering my face with tissues. "There are photographers outside the window!”

Dr. Q. stands up and pulls back the blind. "There's no one there. Except the doorman and old Mrs. Blooberstein and that disgusting Chihuahua.”

“M-m-maybe the doorman sent them away.”

“Cecelia," Dr. Q. says, returning to his chair. "Where were you in August 1969?”

"You know where I was.”

“Where were you?”

"Yazgur's Farm," I say defiantly.

"And what were you doing there? Gonna join in a rock 'n' roll band?”

"Dr. Q., I was three years old. My mother dragged me there. No one paid attention to me. I had shit in my pants for hours. My mother was on an acid trip.”

“And everywhere was a song and a celebration. “

“It wasn't a celebration ... the hippies made me dance ... I was lost ... my mother was on an acid trip....”

Dr. Q. turns into Mrs. Spickel, the guidance counselor. "Hello, Cecelia. Your mother is dead. Aren't you lucky it happened now, when you're seventeen, and not when you were a little girl. I hear your mother was very wild....”

I'm crying. I'm crying hysterically like I'm going to break in two. I wake up.

Of course, ifs Hubert's mother who is dead, not mine.

She died in a freak skiing accident when Hubert was seventeen.

Poor little lost prince, standing on the deck of his twenty-two-foot racing sloop, one hand on the rudder, staring out at the sea, wistful and a little bit fierce (like someone training himself to hold back tears), a forelock of dark hair falling over his forehead. He is a teenage girl's dream: hurt, in need of rescue, a prince, a teen idol.

"I can save him," I think, staring at the black-and-white photograph on the cover of Time magazine, sitting on the cheap, Scandinavian-wood coffee table in the living room with the nubbly green polyester couch in the house in Lawrenceville, Massachusetts, where my mother has decided to settle with the man who works in the fish business.

"I can save you, little prince," I think, although he is not little (six-two) and just on the edge of manhood, and forever away, staying at the home of rich society people in the Caribbean and planning to attend Harvard in the fall. I stare at the photograph and fantasize that he is in the hospital, felled by an accident, with bandages on his head, and he says, "I want Cecelia. I must have Cecelia," and I rush into the hospital room and he kisses my face.

I am ten years old.

What has happened to me?

I used to be so strong. And determined. And aggressive, people said. They were scared of me. It was obvious that I wanted something, but no one knew what.

I knew.

I wanted the prince.

Ever since I was ten, I worked at putting myself in the path of the oncoming train of destiny. How did I know that I should major in art history in college? (I just knew.) And that I should finagle a job at a famous Soho art gallery where I would meet rich and glamorous men and women (mostly men), who would embrace a beautiful young girl with attitude and a sense of humor and take her up and show her off on the town, so that, even without the approbation of family money or name, her picture would appear in the newspapers and magazines as having attended this or that event? And how did I know, when Tanner walked into the gallery that day, that I must do everything in my power to become his girlfriend, so that when my real object of desire walked in, which I knew he would eventually, given the laws of consequence, those being that he lived in Soho and bought art, I would already be taken by a worthy opponent and this would make me more valuable in his eyes?

You just know these things. They're instinctual. I was all instinct then. Raw, aggressive instinct, and I lived my life like an alien thing was driving me.

But now that thing is gone. It has failed me. (Where did it go? Can I get it back?) And I am FRIGHTENED nearly all the time now.

By EVERYONE—doctors, lawyers, politicians, photographers, gossip columnists, anyone who might use words I don't know or talk about events that I should know about but don't, all actors and journalists, women who go through natural childbirth, women who speak three languages (especially Italian or French), and anyone that other people say is talented or merely cool or simply English. As you can imagine, this encompasses pretty much everyone in Hubert's life, and that is why, if we have to go out, I tend to become deathly ill beforehand (in which case I can usually get out of going); or, if I cannot muster a life-threatening illness, I sit in a corner with my hands folded in my lap, my head tilted and a blank expression on my face, which seems to prevent people from attempting to converse with me.

But on this particular evening, no amount of vapors can prevent the inevitable: attending the fiftieth anniversary of the ballet.

Without my husband.

Who is actually having a CARD GAME instead.

He's sitting in the living room in a red-and-white striped shirt, suspenders still looped over his shoulders, drinking a beer with his buddies from the network whose names I still can't be bothered to remember, when I come down the stairs, wearing a white brocade dress with gray mink trim and long gray gloves. My mother is married to a fishmonger. My father is gay and lives in Paris. I am going to the ballet.

Doesn't anyone understand how TERRIBLE life is? I used to beg to go to these events. I used to connive and cadge an extra ticket, suck up to gay men who wanted to help me, buy a dress and tuck the tags in and arrogantly return it the next day, all with the specific ambition of landing myself in the position I'm in tonight.

"Hello," Hubert says nervously, putting down his beer as he stands. "I ... I wouldn't have recognized you.”

I smile mournfully. "Is D.W. here yet?" I shake my head.

He looks at his buddies. "I guess we'd know it if he were. D.W. He's Cecelia's friend. He's—”

“An escort," I say quickly.

The buddies nod uncomfortably.

"Listen," he says, approaching to take my arm, leading me a little bit out of the room, "I really appreciate this, you know?”

I stand with my head bowed. "I don't know why you're making me do this.”

"Because," he says. "We've been over this before, and ifs a good thing.”

"It's not a good thing for me.”

"Listen," he says, nodding at his buddies over his shoulder while pulling me deeper into the library, "you've always said you wanted to be an actress. Just pretend you're an actress and you're in a movie. That’s what I always do.”

I look at him pityingly.

"Hey," he says, touching my shoulder, "ifs not like you don't know how to do this. When I met you ...”

What?

He stops, seeing that he has said the wrong thing. When he met me, I had crashed the event. Looking for him. He found out six months later, over pillow talk, and thought it was funny; but then he realized the story would make me look bad, so ifs one of the many awful truths about my past that we have to keep hidden.

I am standing stiffly, my eyes wide, staring into space.

"Oh no," he says. "Oh no, Cecelia, I'm sorry, I love you." He grabs for me, but it is too late. I gather up my skirts and run out the door, run down the stairs and out onto the sidewalk, panting for a second, looking around, wondering what I should do, and then I see a cab, run to the street and hail it, and as I get in and slam the door and look back I see the photographer in the camouflage outfit, who stares at me with a sort of muted curiosity on his face and then shrugs.

"Where to?" the cab driver says.

I sit back on the seat. I touch my hair. "Lincoln Center," I say.

"Are you an actress?" he says. I say yes, and he lets me smoke.

I consciously think of nothing as my heels click briskly across the plaza at Lincoln Center. I hurry slightly because of the February drizzle and flow into the crowd that gathers at the door, laughing, stomping their feet, shaking umbrellas. I somehow manage to blend in, passing the photographers, who look at me and then turn away to take someone else's picture, and I am relieved until a short young woman, dressed in black and wearing a black headset, approaches and says, "Can I help you?”

I look around in confusion and open my mouth and then close it and look at the girl again (who is smiling at me, not unkindly), and I narrow my eyes, not believing that she doesn't know who I am.

I m ...

"Yes?" she says, and I suddenly realize that she doesn't recognize me. If s the short white hair. I look around, lower my voice. "I'm Cecelia Kelly's cousin. Rebecca Kelly. Cecelia wanted to come, but she's ... sick ... and she felt so bad about it, she insisted I go in her place. I know if s an inconvenience and all, but I've been in Paris for the past five years and—”

"Don't worry about it," she says cozily, reaching across a table and picking up a card that reads PRINCESS CECELIA LUXENSTEIN. " N O one ever objected to a beautiful woman, you know, and you're sitting at a table with Nevil Mouse, who has been bugging and bugging and bugging me to set him up with some 'eligible woman' even though he's here with that model, Nandy, and, well, I hope Cecelia feels better, you know?" She hands me the card. "She seems to be sick a lot. Which is really too bad, because"— the girl leans in conspiratorially—"she's kind of our secret hero in the office. I mean, our boss is such an asshole, but the thing about Cecelia is that you can tell she thinks it's all such a bunch of ... crap ... and after you've done this for a couple of years, I can tell you that it is.”

"Well, um, thank you. Thank you very much," I say.

"Oh. And watch out for Maurice Tristam. That actor? He's at your table too. He's married, but he cheats on his wife. Constantly.”

I nod and move away, making my way into the theater, passing more photographers (one of whom lamely lifts his camera and takes one picture, in case I might be someone important they don't know about), and I cross over knees and ankles to my place, Row C, seat 125, in the middle of the third row. The seat next to me is empty, and a man nearby smiles at me as the lights dim and I nod imperceptibly, and the music starts.

I begin to drift away. I'm thinking.

About days and days of lying on a dirty sleeping bag on a dirty mattress on the floor, staring out the window at the bare branches of trees turned black from the endless drip, drip, drip of rain. It was Maine and the sky was always steel gray and the temperature was always 33 degrees with 100 percent chance of precipitation and the insulation was coming out of the walls. There were too many people in the house or too few, there was no food or too much bags of potato chips and cans of chicken soup and ice cream in paper cartons—and I had a rotten tooth that someone pulled out by tying one end of a string around the tooth and the other end around a door handle and then slamming the door. I was six years old, and we were making an important political statement. We were rejecting society, we were rejecting Mother's family and Mother's husband's family and the kind of person they expected Mother to be. We were rejecting false values and the evils of capitalism (although we didn't reject the tiny bits of money when they came), and we were running, running, running, but all we were running away from was clean linens and blue water in the toilet bowl and Sunkist oranges in winter.

But Mother never did figure that out. Not even after she "reformed" and we went to live in Lawrenceville. Where we tried to act "normal.”

The ballet ends. I sit.

Long after the audience has leaped cheering to their feet, the champagne has been poured, and the cloud of balloons has descended on the crowd, I remain seated in the theater. Row C, seat 125. The crowd swells then falls back, thins out, and eventually disappears for dinner. Ushers shift through the theater, picking up discarded programs.

"Are you all right, Miss? They'll be starting dinner soon. Lobster quadrilles. You don't want to miss that.”

"Thank you," I say. But I remain, thinking about my dirty Barbie doll, stained and naked with matted hair, which I took everywhere, crying once when someone's dog tried to take it away. "She's a little princess, isn't she," people had said as they picked me up in my worn flowered skirt, and I howled even louder, tears streaking my face.

Even back then I couldn't believe that I'd never have a pony.

I look up and am not astonished to see the beautiful boy from my dream threading his way through the rows until he stands above me, smiles, and sits down.

"Memory is just an alternate version of reality," he says.

We stare at the empty stage.

They are serving the foie gras with mango slices on the mezzanine level of Lincoln Center as we stand at the top of the stairs. It could be my imagination, but it seems there is a tiny, perceptible hush, and people swivel their heads to look at us as the boy takes my arm and we make our way slowly down the steps and across the floor to my table. The photographer, Patrice, is squatting next to Nevil Mouse, the Australian media wunderkind who once tried to hire me but then rejected me when I wouldn't go on a date with him. As the boy pulls out my chair, he whispers, "Your table looks as bad as mine," and winks just as Patrice whispers to Nevil, "Who's that girl?" Nevil, who is nervous and high-strung, stands up awkwardly and says, "Excuse me, but I think that seat is reserved for Princess Cecelia Luxenstein.”

“It is," I say calmly, adjusting the shoulders of my dress. "But I'm afraid Cecelia couldn't make it. She's sick. I'm her cousin, Rebecca Kelly.”

"Well, I suppose ... if s all right then," Nevil says. I put one elbow on the table and lean toward him. "Are you in charge of this event?" I ask demurely. "No. Why should you ask that? If s just that ... the committee works so hard to get the tables ... just right.”

"I see," I say. "So it wouldn't be unfair to assume that your greatest preoccupation is ... being seen at the right table with the right people.”

Nevil looks for help from Patrice, who kicks Nevil under the table and slides toward me, taking the seat that I suddenly realize is reserved for D.W.

"I didn't realize Cecelia had such a beautiful cousin. Do you mind if I take your picture?”

"Not at all," I say, smiling as Patrice leans back and fires off several shots. "You look so much like Cecelia, you know. But Cecelia hates to have her picture taken. I can't figure out what's wrong with her.”

"She's ... shy," I say.

"With me? I'm one of her oldest friends," Patrice says.

"Are you? I've never heard her mention you, but that must be because I've been in Paris for the last five years.”

"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.

We run up to the bus, waving and shouting, and we get on and Miles has two tokens and we're laughing, walking to the back of the bus, where we sit down and look at each other and crack up, then we look up and everyone on the bus is staring. I hiccup and Miles takes a swig from the bottle of champagne. Then our clasped hands fall apart as we stare out opposite windows, watching the thick streaks of rain against the glass.

"Good morning.”

“Good morning.”

Hubert is sitting at the kitchen table, drinking coffee and reading The Wall Street Journal.

"Is there, ah, coffee?" I ask.

"In the coffeemaker," he says, not looking up.

I wander over to the counter and bang some cabinet doors, looking for a coffee cup.

"Try the dishwasher," he says. "Thanks," I say.

I pour the coffee, sit down. "You're up early," he says.

"Mmmnmvhmmm,'' I say. He slides the Post toward me.

I take a sip of coffee. I open the paper to Page Six. The headline reads PRINCESS BRIDE LIFE OF THE PARTY.

And then the copy: "It seems ifs Prince Hubert Luxenstein who is keeping back his glamorous wife, Cecelia, and not the other way around. Cecelia Kelly, the former art dealer, has been laying low ever since her nuptials two summers ago in Lake Cuomo, Italy, at the 200-acre family castle owned by the groom's father, Prince Heinrich Luxenstein. But last night at the fiftieth anniversary of the ballet, the beautiful new princess, sporting a new gamine hairstyle and wearing a gown by Bentley, arrived solo and charmed dinner guests who included ... before making a dramatic exit with new screen heartthrob Miles Hanson.”

I fold the paper. "Cecelia ...," he says. "Do you still love me?”

“Cecelia ...”

I hold up my hand. "Don't. Just don't," I say.

V

Dear Diary: I think I'm getting better.

Today I get up and put clothes on and have a cup of coffee and read Hubert's leftover papers, and I look at my watch and it is nine o'clock and I suddenly realize that I could do something today. This is such a strange feeling that, for a moment, I consider taking a couple of Xanaxes, but then I realize that, for the first time in—what? years?—I don't want to be high. I am actually thinking about going uptown and—HA—making a surprise visit to my husband's office.

And the horrible thing about it is that the more I think about it, the more compelled I am to do it. After all, Hubert is my husband, and what could be more natural than a wife's going to visit her husband at lunchtime? Especially if she thinks he might be having an affair (which he might be), and especially if she thinks that he probably has other plans for lunch (which he most likely does). This conundrum will force him to choose his wife or the previous lunch plans. His choice will tell the wife just about all she needs to know about her husband, which is a) if he chooses work over his wife, he's a shit and he doesn't love her, or b) if he chooses his wife over his work, he's probably still a shit but he may love her. Either way, I have a feeling that Hubert is going to lose today, and I want to be there to witness it. For some reason, I am wearing a navy-blue hat and navy-blue-and-white-striped gloves when I tap on the receptionist's desk with a gold Dunhill lighter. I also have a cell phone that doesn't seem to work in my bag, along with two old tampons and a crumbly dog biscuit. "H.L., please," I say to the receptionist, who doesn't do anything at first and then says in a cold, bored voice, "Whom shall I say is here?”

and I say, "His wife," and she looks me up and down and says, "Just a minute," and all I can think about is that she hasn't recognized me, for some reason, and this infuriates me and makes me want to KILL her, so I bang annoyingly with the lighter again.

Then I remind myself that I am getting better. She picks up the phone and says to someone, "Is H. there?" and then, as if there's some question about it, she says, "Well his wife is here?" Then she puts down the phone and says, "Someone will be out to see you.”

"What do you mean, someone will be out to see me? Where's my husband?" I say. "I didn't come here to see someone, I came to see my husband.”

"He's not in his office.”

"Is anybody ever in their office these days?”

“Does he know you're coming to see him?”

“Of course he does," I say, realizing that this is beginning to go badly.

"Well, he's probably on the set. Dianna Moon is on the show today.”

"And am I supposed to care about Dianna Moon?" The receptionist seems to look at me for the first time. Her nails are fake, lacquered in red, white, and blue stripes. They appear to be her only distinguishing feature.

"A lot of people ... care ... about Dianna Moon." I remove my gloves, pulling at each of the fingers. "Is that because she ... murdered her husband?" The receptionist looks around nervously. "He died of a drug overdose. And besides, Dianna Moon is a ... hero. The ratings are going to be huge.”

I yawn loudly. "But what has she ever done?" I ask, realizing this is a totally arrogant question on my part, as it could be argued that I've never done anything myself, except for marrying Hubert, supposedly one of the world's most eligible bachelors.

The receptionist glares at me. "I'll just see if I can find H. for you.”

At that moment, Constance DeWall walks through the gray armored door that leads to the secretive maze of studios belonging to The Network. "Cecelia," she says, holding out her hand. "So nice to see you again. Unfortunately, this isn't a good day for a surprise visit. We've got Dianna Moon on the set and she's ... well, she's Dianna Moon.”

"And I'm Princess Cecelia Kelly Luxenstein/' I say, somewhat casually, cringing about the princess bit, knowing that it's the kind of thing that sets people off and makes them ring up gossip columns. "And I'd like to see my husband.”

"Is this urgent, Princess Luxenstein?" Constance says with extreme sarcasm, which I will make her pay for later, perhaps by trying to get her fired. She is, I've heard, a "younger, nicer, smarter" version of me. What I know is that she's madly in love with my husband (just like all those other dummy Harvard graduates), has been trying to get him into bed since she first started as his line producer two years ago, and truly believes he would be better off with her instead of me.

"Does the situation have to be urgent for me to see my husband?" I ask, with equal sarcasm. "It's just that ... we've got a lot of security around.”

"To protect Slater London from Diartna Moon, I assume.”

Constance and the receptionist exchange a quick look. The receptionist looks down, pretending to rearrange phone messages.

"I can put you in the green room," Constance says finally. "But I can't guarantee anything.”

Minutes later, illegally smoking cigarettes in the green room, I'm half watching the TV monitor as Dianna Moon, wearing a satin evening gown (one strap carelessly fallen off her shoulder) leans toward Slater London and, with complete earnestness, says, "I never look back at the past. I've been lucky and staring directly into the camera—"I thank Jesus every day." Then she sits back triumphantly, crossing her legs and throwing her arm over the back of the chair so that her cleavage is exposed. She giggles.

Slater London, who is half English and half American, former teenage screen heartthrob whose own career ended (briefly) when he was discovered wearing women's clothing, leans across his desk and says, "Dianna. Have you become a Jesus freak?”

Dianna Moon's face goes blank, and without seeming to be able to help herself, she says, "Slater. Do frilly pink underpants mean anything to you?" Slater, who is caught off guard but covers it up by running his hand across his blond crew cut, says, "Wasn't Alice in Wonderland wearing them when she went down the rabbit hole?”

"Hole," Dianna says flirtatiously. "Is that a word you like?”

Slater looks at the camera. "Okay, folks. That’s all the time we have. Dianna, thank you so much for being on the show, and good luck with your new movie...." Then he smiles at the camera for a few seconds before ripping off his mike and screaming, "I hope we can cut out that last bit." The sound goes off as technicians walk onto the set with Hubert following. Dianna throws her arms around him as she looks over her shoulder at Slater, then they all walk off and the screen goes blank.

I suddenly feel sorry for my husband.

Does he know he's being USED? What IS his job, really? Booking guests and making sure that Slater isn't convicted for statutory rape? Who would choose to do this?

Hubert. EUROPEAN CROWN PRINCE IS NOT ONLY GORGEOUS, HE'S A REGULAR GUY, a headline screamed three years ago when Hubert first took the job. On his first day, he was photographed buying a sandwich from the corner deli, and when he came out, brown bag in hand, he actually waved the bag at the photographers and smiled. PRINCE'S FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL was the cover of the New York Post the next day, and I actually did not, at the time, think it was strange. "I just want to do something normal. Like a regular person," Hubert had said. And I had agreed. "I just want us to be able to walk down the street and buy an ice cream cone," I had said, pouting, even though I HATE ice cream because it makes you fat, and Hubert had said, "So would I baby, so would I." Mournfully.

I encouraged him to take the job. Show biz. How difficult could it be? Hubert had already had a spate of jobs in banking, all of which, strangely, had turned out to be disasters. He had no head for numbers; in fact, he left generous tips because he couldn't calculate 20 percent. I ignored this back then.

But now I suddenly realize: My husband is charming, convivial, and beautifully mannered. But also kind of ... dumb.

They're USING him for his connections.

I light a cigarette in disgust, and as I do, the door to the green room opens (that damn Constance probably locked me in), and Hubert comes in with Dianna Moon, who for some strange reason rushes over to me and throws her arms around me like a two-year-old, nearly knocking the cigarette out of my hand.

"I've always wanted to meet you," she gushes. Then she stands back and says, "You are as pretty as everyone says." She takes my hand and says, "I hope we can be really good friends.”

I want to hate her but I can't, at least not right then.

"Constance told me you were here," Hubert says lamely. "And Dianna said she wanted to meet you.”

“I was hoping you might be able to have lunch,”

I say. Wondering, Is it me or is his Dianna comment subtly hostile?

"Let’s all have lunch together. At one of those Ladies Who Lunch places," Dianna says. "I'm feeling very, very ladyish today.”

"Can't," Hubert says casually. "Bob and I have a standing invitation for lunch every Wednesday.”

“Oh really," I say.

"Of course, there's no way you would have known that," Hubert says. "If you'd called before you came....”

"Oh, who's this damn Bob person? Blow him off," Dianna says. "Tell him you're having lunch with me. I'm sure Bob will understand.”

"He'll understand, but he's the head of The Network," Hubert says.

"But don't you want to have lunch with your wife?" Dianna asks, in what seems to be genuine confusion. "She's so pretty....”

"We hardly ever see each other," I say in a completely neutral tone, pulling on my gloves.

"Norman and I used to spend every minute together," Dianna says. "Every minute. We couldn't get enough of each other. We were obsessed. We'd spend days and days together in bed...." She screws her face up. "I miss him. I miss him so much. No one really understands." And then she begins to cry. Hubert and I look at each other in alarm. Hubert does nothing. I cough politely into my glove.

"He was the greatest love of my life. My only love. I don't think I'll ever be able to date anyone, even,”

she says, although it's a well-known fact that she is at the moment not only dating someone (the head of a movie studio) but, according to Star magazine, living with him (or at least leaving all her stuff at his house), but if s clear the tears are just part of her little performance, because she suddenly grabs my hand again and says, "Well, at least you'll have lunch with me. I just can't be alone right now.”

Hubert looks relieved. "Why don't you go to Cipriani's? The Network will pick up the tab, of course,”

he says, adding, "Cecelia, just be sure to bring me the receipt, okay?”

And I just stare at him in horror, not believing that he is saddling me with this woman and treating me like some kind of ... EMPLOYEE, for God's sake. "I'll have Constance make the arrangements," he says. And just at that moment, Constance walks into the room and appears to "immediately sum up the situation.”

"I'll call Giuseppe," she says, nodding at Hubert. "I'll tell them to be expecting you. That way you won't have to wait.”

"I never have to wait. Anywhere," I say to Constance, not believing her insubordination. I look at Hubert for confirmation, or at least some kind of support, but all he can do is smile uncomfortably.

"Well. Good-bye then," I say coldly.

"I'll see you later. At home," he says, like I'm annoying him or something.

"Right. I'll make that phone call," Constance says, looking at Hubert but not actually going anywhere. "Slater was a real comedian today, wasn't he?" she says, like she and Hubert are the only ones in the room. "It's all because of that damn Monique. That’s what you get for dating a child. Except now if s our problem." And then she actually touches Hubert's arm. Specifically, his bicep.

I was right. He is having an affair with Constance. "Who was that fucking bitch?" Dianna demands as she falls into the limo. "Christ. If I were you I would have smacked her. Listen, honey, rule number one: Never let any other bitch mess with your man. Because, guaranteed, that bitch is after your man. If you knew how many women I had to beat up, I mean, literally beat the FUCK off Norman, you wouldn't believe it.”

I want to say that I would believe it, since Dianna Moon's barroom brawls are legendary, but I am either too afraid or too polite or too pissed off at Hubert right now to say anything, so I just nod and light a cigarette, which Dianna grabs out of my hand and begins smoking rapidly with large gestures. "I nearly cut a bitch's tit off once, did you know that?”

“Actually, I didn't," I say, lighting another cigarette, figuring that surely even she can't smoke two cigarettes at the same time. "If s true," she says. "Bitch wanted to sue, but Norman and me, we had the biggest, most powerful lawyers you could get in show business.”

She sits back against the gray leather seat. I stare at her, unable to help myself. Her face is at once beautiful and ugly, the ugly part being original and the beauty the result of skilled plastic surgeons. "Yep," she says. "Everybody loved Norman. I mean everyone. The first time I saw him on that movie set—it was in the desert—I knew I'd seen Jesus. And everybody else knew it too." She turns to me and takes my hand. "That’s why I love Jesus so much right now, Cecelia. I love Jesus because I've seen Jesus. Right here on earth. He was only here for a short period of time, just enough to make three movies that grossed over a hundred million dollars. But he touched everyone, and once he'd touched everyone, he knew it was time to go back up to heaven.

So he went.”

"But—didn't Jesus consider suicide a sin?" I say, wondering how much more of this I can take and if Hubert and Constance are having lunch and whether or not if s some secret love-nest lunch place that they go to practically every day where Hubert says things like "I love you, but my wife is crazy.”

Dianna stares into my eyes. "He didn't commit suicide, Cecelia. Norman's death, as you may have suspected, was a complete mystery. No one knows exactly how he died. They don't even know what time he died....”

"But surely," I say, "modern medicine ...”

“Oh no," Dianna says. "Modern medicine is not as modern as everyone thinks. There are some things even the doctors can't figure out....”

Yes, I can't help thinking, and you are one of them. "Like the fact that his body wasn't found for four days.”

"And," I say, unable to help myself, "weren't parts of it missing? Eaten by wild animals?”

Dianna looks out the window. "That’s what everyone thinks," she says finally. "But the truth is ...

the body parts may have been carried off by ... special disciples.”

Oh dear.

"I'm almost certain my husband is having an affair," I say.

"And these special disciples, they're really ...”

“With Constance. That bitch.”

" ... they're like angels, sort of. Sent down to kind of watch over him but ...”

"And I really don't know what to do about it," I say.

" ... the fact is that several people, I mean several people, think these special disdples are some kind of ...”

"I suppose I have to think about divorce.”

“Aliens," Dianna says.

I just stare at her.

She leans toward me. "You do believe Norman was Jesus, don't you, Cecelia? Please say yes. Please. Because I really want us to be best friends. I could use a best friend in this town, you know?”

Luckily, at this moment the limo pulls up in front of Cipriani's.

After a more-than-usual amount of fuss, we're shown to a table in the front of the restaurant by the window. There are whispers all around us: "That princess ... Cecelia ... who's that woman? .. . Oh, Dianna Moon ... Norman Childs ... Dianna Moon and ... Luxenstein ... Prince Hubert Luxenstein ...

dead, you know...." And I know this will be an item in Page Six tomorrow, especially when I look up and see D.W. staring at me from five tables away, waiting for me to catch his eye so he can come over. He's sitting with Juliette Morganz, the "little girl from Vermont" who's marrying Richard Ally of the giant Ally cosmetics family at the end of the summer, at the Ally estate in the Hamptons.

The waiter comes over, and Dianna nearly slugs him when he attempts to place her napkin on her lap, but the brawl is averted by the appearance of D.W. He leans over and, in what is commonly called "syrupy tones," says, "My dear. What an absolute delight to see you. I can't imagine anyone I'd rather see more. You've made my day.”

"Dianna Moon, D.W.”

Dianna lifts her face to be kissed, and D.W. complies, kissing her on both cheeks. "Yeah," she says.

"What do the initials stand for?”

“Dwight Wainous," I say.

"I was Cecelia's first boss," D.W. says. "Years ago. Since then Cecelia and I have been great, great friends.”

I just look at him.

"And I hear congratulations are in order," he says to Dianna.

"Yeah," Dianna says, completely unimpressed. "On your Ally cosmetics contract.”

"Can you believe that?" Dianna says. "Me, selling blue eyeshadow.”

"The Allys are great, great friends of mine. In fact, I'm lunching with Juliette Morganz, Richard Ally's fiancée, right now.”

"Yeah?" Dianna says, squinting across the room. "You mean that little dark-haired thing?" Juliette waves eagerly.

"I think I'm supposed to go to their wedding," Dianna says.

"She's a very, very good friend of mine as well," D.W. says.

"Sounds like everyone in this town is a very, very good friend of yours. Maybe I should get to know you better," Dianna says.

"That," says D.W., "would be a delight.”

“Sweet Jesus," Dianna says as D.W. walks away from the table. "That guy looks like something someone dug up from under a rock in Palm Beach," and I start laughing, even though Palm Beach reminds me of the two-week holiday Hubert and I took after we first got engaged, during which it became apparent to me that we may have had different expectations for our future together. Mine were: Louis Vuitton luggage, my hair always perfectly straight, jeeps in Africa, khaki jodhpurs, white columns set against the blue Caribbean Sea, dry-yellow Tuscan fields, a masked ball in Paris, emerald jewelry, the president, Lear jets, hotel suites, huge beds with white sheets and down pillows, an open roadster, my husband always kissing me, notes in my luggage that said "I love you," and the wind always blowing through our hair. This is what I got instead: an "exciting" tour of America. Which began in Palm Beach.

Where "the glamorous, just-engaged couple" stayed at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Brian Masters. Brian Masters (Hubert's uncle) was a fat old man with moles all over the top of his head, whom I was seated next to at every meal, and who, on the first evening, leaned toward me and whispered, "This family was actually okay until Wesley went out to Hollywood and made all that damn money," as a black man wearing white cotton gloves served lamb chops. His wife, Lucinda, who spoke with a slight English accent but was actually from, I think, Minnesota, had an odd sort of vagueness about her, and I discovered the reason why after a particularly frustrating game of mixed doubles in which I swore at Hubert and threw down my tennis racket.

"Come with me, Cecelia," she said quietly, with an odd sort of half smile, and I followed her, still stomping mad, through the house and up to her bathroom, where she closed the door and directed me to sit on a yellow silk-covered stool. "There's only one way to survive as the wife of a Masters man.”

“But Hubert—”

"His mother was a Masters. And so is he," she whispered. And I saw with alarm that she was really quite beautiful, and much younger, maybe forty/ than she had appeared at first, surrounded by this grand house and faux servants, and I thought, What’s going to happen to me?

"Dolls," she said, revealing the inside of the medicine cabinet, which contained such an array of prescription bottles I was sure it could rival that of any pharmacist. She removed a brown bottle and handed it to me. "Try these," she said. "They're completely harmless. Just like candy. Makes you feel sweet.”

"I don't need pills," I said. Which was really rather strange, since I was always a little bit on coke back then and, in fact, had a small vial in my bag which no one knew about and never would, and I said, "My marriage is going to be fine. It's going to be great.”

"Oh Cecelia," Lucinda said, handing me the bottle. "Don't you understand? It isn't, and it's never going to be.”

But it wasn't until the end of our holiday, when we went on that "fishing expedition" in Montana and I was dirty and my hair was frizzy and I was sleeping in a cabin with a scratchy army blanket and getting up at five in the morning and not having any decent place to take a shit, much less a shower, and Hubert and I had hardly anything to say to each other, that I opened the bottle of pills and shook one into my hand. It was small, white, and oval. I took one, then another.

I immediately felt better.

And I continued to feel good; even after we drove twenty miles in the rain to that honky-tonk bar Hubert had found in the guidebook and he danced with that waitress with the frizzy hair and saggy tits (she was only twenty-five) and I consumed six margaritas, I continued to maintain an aura of laissez-faire.

And Hubert was convinced he'd made the right decision in asking me to marry him.

Isn't that what if s all about?

"White or yellow?" Dianna asks, and I snap back and say, "What?" and we break out laughing because it seems we are on something like our tenth bellini.

"Xanax," she says.

"Blue," I say. "Yellow is for homosexuals.”

"I didn't even know there was a blue," she says, putting her hand over her face and laughing at me through her fingers. "Hey, guess what? I ate dog food too. I made Norman eat dog food. Come to think of it, I made Norman do a lot of things.”

“Don't start crying again," I say.

"Oh sweet Jesus. Norman. Norman," she wails. "Why did you have to go and die and leave me a hundred and twenty-three million dollars?”

“Why Norman?" I ask.

Then we have to pee, so we stumble upstairs, and sure enough, Juliette "that little girl from Vermont" follows us into the bathroom. Dianna takes one look at herself and stumbles back, screaming, "I need makeup," and Juliette slips in and whispers, "Hi," and before anything else can happen, Dianna grabs Juliette's Prada handbag and shakes it upside down, and sure enough, a pile of MAC cosmetics spills out, along with a junior Tampax, a brush containing a tangle of hair, and a condom.

"Oh Juliette," I say. "Don't you even use Ally cosmetics?”

"I use Ally cosmetics," Dianna says, carelessly smearing lipstick all over her lips, "and look at me. I've gone from crack addict to society lady. And guess what? You can too.”

"Cecelia," Juliette says meekly, "you're coming to my wedding, aren't you?”

"I wouldn't miss it," I say. "Even though I hardly know you.”

"But isn't that the great thing about New York?

It doesn't matter," Juliette says. "I mean, everyone is—”

"I'm gonna conquer this town. Just the way I conquered Los Angeles," Dianna says.

"You're coming too, aren't you?" Juliette says to Dianna.

"Ask my publicist," Dianna says.

"Oh. Well, I've got a publicist too," Juliette says. "D.W.”

"So get your publicist to call my publicist. Let the publicists figure it out." And with that, we leave Juliette in the bathroom, wiping her tube of lipstick with a tissue.

The phone is ringing when I walk through the door of the loft, and sure enough, if s Dianna.

"Hi sugarpuss," she says. "That's what I used to call Norman. Sugarpuss.”

"Well, hi there," I say. "Hello Norman.”

"Are you lonely, Cecelia? Because I sure am. I sure am lonely," Dianna says.

"I guess I'm lonely. Yeah," I say.

"Well, we won't be lonely anymore. We're going to be best friends.”

"That’s right," I say, the champagne beginning to wear off.

"Hey. I was wondering if you wanted to hang out. Maybe we could go shopping tomorrow. I've still got the limo and the driver. Hell, I've always got the limo and the driver. Sometimes I forget, you know?" My husband is having an affair. With Constance. "Hey Dianna," I say, looking out the window as a bus from the Midwest deposits a gaggle of tourists onto Prince Street. "Is it true what they say? That you killed your husband?”

There's a pause, then Dianna gives a short, loud laugh. "Well, let me put it this way. If I didn't, if s the kind of thing I would do, isn't it?”

"Is it?”

"Well ... I'd know how to get it done. If that's what you're asking. And just remember. It's a lot cheaper than divorce.”

She laughs and hangs up.

VI

I'm going away.

Sitting in Dr. Q.'s office, watching the dirty gauze curtains fluttering in the breeze coming off of Fifth Avenue, I think about yachts and movie stars in satin dresses and Louis Vuitton hatboxes like the one I just bought for the trip even though I don't have a hat, and Dr. Q. interrupts this reverie with one word: "Well?”

"You can see in through those windows," I say.

Dr. Q. puts down his yellow legal pad and looks out. "Is that a problem?" he asks. "You've been here for—what?—a year and a half now, Cecelia, and you've never mentioned it before.”

Like I never mentioned Hubert's affair with Constance. Until a few days ago. Right after I told Hubert I was going to the Cannes Film Festival with Dianna.

"Maybe I'm getting paranoid," I say, half attempting a joke.

"You are paranoid," Dr. Q. says, looking down at his legal pad. "We all know that's why you're here.”

" 'We?' Who's 'we'? What is this? Some kind of conspiracy?”

"Me, your husband, the press, or should I say 'the media,' and probably this D.W. character you're talking about all the time ... should I go on?" Dr. Q.

says in kind of a bored voice, so I say no, and then add suddenly, "Maybe I use my paranoia as a sort of weapon. Did you ever think about that, Dr. Q.?”

“Do you?" he says. "Use your paranoia as a weapon?”

Shit. I don't KNOW.

Dr. Q. sits staring at me, the way Hubert stared at me when I told him I was going away. Without him. But he couldn't say anything about it, just as he couldn't say anything about the four pieces of Louis Vuitton luggage I purchased after a boozy afternoon with Dianna, not to mention the several pairs of shoes, handbags, and dresses. "I need to get away," I had said. "I have to think.”

"I need to get away," I say to Dr. Q.

"What will," he says, "going away do for you?”

“Nothing," I say. "But it will get me away from my husband. Did I mention that I think he's having an affair?”

"You mentioned that"—Dr. Q. flips through his legal pad—"months ago. Along with that tell-all book.”

"So?”

"So the point is ... all of this is probably in your imagination.”

"I think I can distinguish between fantasy and reality.”

"Can you?" he says.

"I SAW him with her.”

“Were they ...”

"WHAT? Doing it? No. But I could tell. By the way they acted.”

"What does he say?”

"Nothing," I say, swinging my foot. "But he doesn't deny it.”

"Why won't you at least DENY it?" I had screamed. "Cecelia," Hubert said coldly, "that kind of assertion doesn't merit a response.”

He can be so cold, my husband. Underneath the beautiful manners is absolutely ... nothing. "He's definitely having an affair," Dianna said later. "Otherwise, he would have denied it." Well, we ALL know that, don't we?

I can tell this session is going absolutely nowhere, so I say, pretty much out of the blue, "I have a new ... friend, " suddenly realizing how PITIFUL this sounds, just like when I was four years old and I told everyone I had a friend, but it was only an imaginary friend named Winston. I'd tell everyone I was going to play with Winston, but in reality I was going to my favorite mud puddle, where I tried to float bugs on matchstick covers.

"And this friend ...”

"Is real," I counter, realizing that this, too, sounds insane, so I quickly cover it up with, "I mean, I think we're going to be friends. We're friends now, but who knows how long it will last.”

"Do your friendships with women ... usually end quickly?”

"I don't know," I say, exasperated. "Who knows? That's not the point. Don't you even want to know ... who she is?”

"Is that important? Who she is?”

"The point is that I haven't had a girlfriend in a long time. Okay?" I say, glaring at him.

"And why is that?”

"I don't know. Because I'm married. You tell me.”

“So this girlfriend ...”

"Dianna—”

Dr. Q. holds up his hand. "First names only.”

“What is this? Some kind of AA meeting?”

“It's whatever you think it is, Cecelia. Now let’s see. Dianna," Dr. Q. says, writing the name in block letters and underlining it.

"You know EXACTLY who she is," I scream. "Jesus. It's Dianna Moon. Don't you read Page Six? They've been writing about us for two weeks. How we're seen everywhere together.”

Dr. Q. sucks the end of his pen. "I don't read Page Six," he says thoughtfully.

"Goddammit, Dr. Q. Everyone reads Page Six," I say, crossing my arms and swinging one foot, clad in a beige silk Manolo Blahnik shoe, four hundred and fifty dollars and completely impractical, which Dianna and I bought two days ago when we went on a "shopping spree." I picked them out, and Dianna said that we should both buy a pair because we were "sisters," and this was confirmed when it turned out that we wore the same size shoe: nine. "I have good taste," I say suddenly. And Dr. Q., probably relieved that I'm not going to go bat shit on him after all, says mildly, "Yes, you do. That’s one of the things you're known for, isn't it? Good taste. It's probably one of the reasons why Hubert married you.”

He looks at me. I just stare at him, so he continues, floundering, "After all, that is one of the reasons why men like Hubert get married, isn't it? They want the wife with good taste, who will wear the right things to ... charity benefits .. and decorate the house in the Hamptons ... or no, aren't the Hamptons over? ... according to you people...." And I lean back in the chair and close my eyes.

I think about what Dianna would do in this situation.

"You know what, Dr. Q.?" I ask. "What," he says.

"Fuck you," I say, and walk out.

VII

This morning I wake up and say to Hubert, "Do you think Xanaxes are illegal?" while he's in the bathroom, shaving, and he says, "Why?" and I say, "Because I don't want to have any scandal. With customs. When I go to France," just to rub it in. And he gets this sick look on his face, which he's been pretty much sporting ever since I told him, two weeks ago, that I was going away, and he says, "I don't think you have to worry about it. You know, if there's any problem, you can always call my father.”

"Oh la," I say gaily, for absolutely no reason. "I just love calling the castle.”

He brushes by me, lifting his chin to button his shirt and pull a tie under his collar, and I see that hurt look in his eyes, like the outer corners of his eyes are drooping downward, and for a minute I feel like a corkscrew's been thrust in my stomach, but then I remember that he SHOULD feel bad.

He's the one who's having the affair.

Which, by the way, I don't plan to mention again. Actions speak louder than words.

I pick up Mr. Smith, who is still, naturally, sleeping on the bed, and I kiss the top of his head and say, "Do you think that Mr. Smith will miss me?" all sweet and girly.

"I think so," he says neutrally. But he does not add the natural rejoinder: I'll miss you too.

Oh GOD. What’s going to happen?

"Good-bye," he says. "We're shooting two shows today, so I'll be home late.”

"Whatever," I say.

He gives me the sick smile, and it suddenly hits me: He's going to divorce me.

He's going to get rid of me the same way he got rid of his first wife. Anastasia.

I can't even bear to say the name. She was crazy too.

BUT, I remind myself, he didn't actually divorce her. The marriage was annulled. They were both young, and everybody said she was horrible. A spoiled little spitfire from one of those aristocratic European families who probably went to the same Swiss finishing school as the S. sisters, and who still turns up regularly in the completely outdated gossip column "Suzy." Where "former wife of Prince Hubert Luxenstein," is always written after her name, even though this is not technically correct, because if their marriage was annulled, if s supposed to be like they were NEVER MARRIED—right? And when I was first married to Hubert and this offensive name with its offensive moniker would appear, I would tremblingly point to it and say, "Can't you DO anything about this?" And he would say, fearfully at first, and then after the seventh or eighth time with great annoyance, "I don't even talk to her anymore.

I haven't had a conversation with her for six years." But of course, that wasn't good enough, and I would brood about that damn Anastasia for hours. And sure enough, today, having thought about her once, I have to torture myself by walking past Ralph Lauren on my way to meet D.W. at lunch.

Which is where I met Anastasia, probably seven years ago. Right there in Ralph Lauren on the third floor. I was, UGH, actually working there, a fact that I couldn't believe myself, because I was so bad at waiting on people, but at the time I felt like I had no choice. My mother had taken up painting, and my father was busy being gay in Paris. Everyone had forgotten about me, as I had suspected that someday they would, and I had no other way to survive but to take a job as a shopgirl at Ralph Lauren. Where the pay was bad but they gave you 70 percent off on the clothes.

My job seemed to consist mostly of folding sweaters, a feat I could never master. The other girls, the girls who had already worked there for six months or a year, were always trying to give me tips on how to fold the sweaters so I wouldn't get fired. As if I cared. And one afternoon, when I was wrestling with pink cashmere, Anastasia turned up. With a girlfriend. I recognized her immediately.

She was tiny and dark-haired, with huge brown eyes, and she was stunningly, heartbreakingly beautiful, and she knew it. She actually snapped her fingers and motioned to me.

"Can you help me PLEASE," she said. It wasn't a question, it was a command, given in a heavy Spanish accent and with an attitude that made it clear she didn't enjoy dealing with peasants.

I walked over and said nothing. "You work here? Yes?”

"Yes," I said noncommitally. "I want the latest.”

"The latest ... what?" I said.

"Everything. Dresses, shoes, handbags ...”

“But I don't know what you like.”

She rolled her eyes and sighed like a soap opera queen. "Bring me the clothes in the ads, then.”

“Very well," I said.

I returned with one pair of shoes. ONE. She was sitting in the dressing room with her friend. Discussing Hubert, even though by then their marriage had been annulled for six months. What was she still doing in New York? "...'s going to his aunt's house this weekend," she said to her friend, as if she were spilling state secrets. She suddenly looked up at me.

I smiled and held up the shoes. Thinking, AHA. She's trying to get him back by looking American. But it won't work. If s over. And I remember thinking very clearly that I was going to get him, but also wondering how she had managed to develop that aura of arrogant confidence—was she born with it and whether I could get it too.

"Well?" she said. "Yes," I said.

"What are you waiting for?”

I stared at her, slitty-eyed. I took the shoes out of the box.

"Put them on my feet, please," she said.

"I'm sorry," I said "This is America. We don't treat people like servants here." And I stormed out of the dressing room and bumped into a tall, still good-looking middle-aged but WASPy man who said, "I'm looking for a something. For my wife." And I said, "Is that MY problem?" And he said, "If you work here it is," and I said, "It isn't because I'm about to get fired.”

"Really?" he said.

And sure enough, I broke into sobs.

"I know a famous art dealer who's looking for an assistant for his new Soho gallery," the man said. "Will he treat me like a PROSTITUTE?" I said. "Prostitutes are very in right now. Everyone wants to be one. No woman wants to pay for her own Christian Lacroix and shouldn't have to." Naturally, the man turned out to be D.W.

And now he's sitting at an outside table at La Goulue, trying to work his cell phone. I slip onto the rickety white metal chair and say, "You're wearing ... seersucker?”

He says, "If s Valentino. Italian WASP.”

“Ooooh. The newest thing, I suppose.”

"As a matter of fact, it is. What’s your problem? Aren't you leaving tomorrow?”

"Can you get Bentley to lend Dianna a dress for the film festival?”

"Dianna," D.W. says, "is from Florida.”

“You go to Florida.”

"I go to Palm Beach. Palm Beach is not Florida." D.W. pauses while the waiter pours fizzy water. "I've heard she's from somewhere like ... Tallahassee? I mean, who is from Tallahassee? That we know.”

“No one," I say.

"Why does Dianna Moon want to wear Bentley, anyway? She could wear something from Fredricks of Hollywood and it would look the same.”

"That's right," I say.

"I don't like this friendship with Dianna Moon. You understand, don't you, that she's just like Amanda. A more successful version of Amanda, if you can call what girls like Dianna Moon do 'successful.'“

"She's a famous actress ...”

"Her career is, most likely, going nowhere. For some bizarre reason, possibly due to magazines like Vogue, this little upstart wants to come to New York and become the Leader of Society. And she's going to use you to get there. She wants to be you. Just like Amanda.”

"D.W.," I sigh. "Society is dead." He just looks at me.

"She doesn't want to be me. Maybe I want to be her," I say.

"Oh please," D.W. says.

"She's enormously rich. And she doesn't have ... a husband.”

"Because she killed him.”

"He was killed by ... evil forces. And parts of his body were carried off by aliens.”

"Why are you hanging out with a Jesus freak?" D.W. asks calmly, signaling to the waiter.

Good question. Because my mother is ... strange? "It's a very bad look for you. Very bad," D.W. says.

My mother came from a normal, upper-middleclass family, and her dad was a lawyer in Boston, but even today, years after she left the commune, she still refuses to dye her hair and wears Birkenstock sandals.

"Dianna Moon could ruin everything," D.W. says. "Your mother is so ... charming," Hubert said the first time he met her. But the implication was there: We don't really want the press interviewing her, do we, darling? We don't really want the press scratching around in your backyard.

And in a lot of other places as well. "Dianna Moon is ... fine," I say.

D.W. looks at me. "Well, just make sure you don't get rid of Dianna the way you got rid of Amanda. That might be rather ... obvious.”

For some reason, we find this hysterically funny.

VIII

I'm in a car and Dianna's driving way too fast and I know something bad is going to happen and sure enough, the car flies off the curve, launching itself over a cliff. We're airborne forever and below is a giant slab of cement and even though this is a dream and we're going to die, I can't believe I haven't woken up yet. Dianna turns to me and says, "I just want you to know that I love you. I really love you," and she grabs me and hugs me and I can't believe that I'm having a dream and I'm actually going to die in the fucking dream, which isn't supposed to happen, and I say, "I love you too," wondering what it's going to feel like when we hit the cement. We plunge down and down and I'm going to die in this dream and doesn't that mean you're supposed to die in real life? And we hit the cement but it doesn't feel as bad as I imagined it would, we just sort of squish through it and tumble out into this other place that is corridors and blue light.

Okay. Now we're dead, but we have to make a decision about whether or not we want to go back. I don't know what to do.

"I'm going back," Dianna says.

"What about me?" I say. "Should I go back?”

“I wouldn't if I were you, darling," she says. "Your face is kind of ... messed up.”

She laughs meanly.

If s probably eleven a.m. and I do wake up, curled in the fetal position, wearing one of Dianna's silk negligees with my white Gucci jacket on top and no underwear. Dianna is on the other side of the bed, lying on her back, breathing heavily through her mouth, and in between us is a small Frenchman, whose name, I think, is Fabien, whom we picked up last night on some other yacht. There's a spilled bottle of Dom Perignon on the carpet. I roll off the bed and crawl toward the bottle. There's still some left in the bottom, and I sit up and polish it off sloppily so champagne dribbles down my chin. I look over at the small Frenchman, who might actually be Swiss, and note that he is wearing blue Ralph Lauren boxer shorts and has too much hair on his chest.

My thoughts: I hate the French, so why should I go to Saint-Tropez?

I get up and stumble out of Dianna's cabin and into my own stateroom, which is littered with clothes (mostly tiny see-through Prada pieces with the labels prominently displayed) and Louis Vuitton luggage. I kick a small hard-sided suitcase out of the way and lurch into the bathroom, where I sit on the toilet and take what feels like an endless crap. As usual, the toilet doesn't flush, and my shit, light brown and in the shape of a large cowpat, sits there defiantly.

"Fuck you," I say to the shit. I look in the mirror and pluck some eyebrow hairs, even though there's supposedly a makeup artist on board who takes care of these things, and while I'm plucking and thinking that one of these days I'm probably going to need Botox, I'm also wondering if I did anything with the small Frenchman, but I'm quite sure I didn't because it isn't the kind of thing I WOULD do.

I've only HAD four boyfriends. Officially.

Dianna, on the other hand, will fuck anyone. I didn't know that about her.

And, I realize, I didn't want to.

Why am I here? For that matter, why am I anywhere? I go upstairs, reeling from the sudden impact of relentless white light. I'd forgotten about the white light in the south of France, so blinding that you always need sunglasses, and even then, it reveals too much. The captain, Paul, a good-looking Australian who is always wearing khaki shorts and a navy-blue polo shirt with the name of the boat, Juniper Berry, discreetly stitched on the pocket, is fiddling with some instruments. "Good morning," Paul says, like he's surprised to see me but is prepared to ignore whatever went on the night before. "Oh, your husband called. Hubert? He says he can't make it today, but he's going to try to get here tomorrow.”

My HUSBAND is coming? Did I KNOW about this?

I am so hungover, I can only nod numbly. After a few seconds I manage to stutter, "Are there any more cigarettes?”

"You smoked the last one an hour ago.”

I just stare at him, realizing that is probably some kind of JOKE that I don't get and never will, and I say, "I think I'll just go and buy some.”

"There are photographers outside.”

"Paul," I say wearily. "There are always photographers outside.”

I walk down the gangplank clutching my Prada wallet, still barefoot and wearing the negligee and the Gucci jacket, which, in the bright sunlight, I see is stained with large patches of what might be wine or raspberry puree or even vomit. I suddenly remember that I have no money because I'm in France and foreign money confuses me, so I stop and ask one of the photographers, all of whom have huge telephoto lenses in hopes of getting a topless shot of Dianna Moon (and maybe me, but I'm not as famous as Dianna is in France), for beaucoup d'argent.

I smile fakely, and the photographers are so surprised they don't take any pictures.

"Comment?" says one, who is short with floppy gray hair and bad teeth.

"Pourfume, " I say badly.

"Ah, pourfume, " they say, and nudge one another jocularly. One of them hands me twenty francs and winks at me and I wink back and then I set off, walking down the red carpet that lines the sidewalk of the harbor in honor of the festival, thinking: Every day this carpet gets dirtier and dirtier and I get more and more polluted, and why is Hubert coming, he's doing it on purpose. Again.

I wander into the narrow streets of Cannes, which are filled, predictably, with French people, all of whom seem to be smoking. I pass a small cafe filled with gay men, who, unlike gay men in New York, have long hair and are trying desperately to be women. One of them looks at me and says, "Bonjour. “

And that's when I realize I may or may not be being followed.

I turn around.

A small girl with long blond hair, clutching three red roses wrapped in cellophane, stops and stares back at me.

I glare at her and move on.

I find a tabac and go in. More French people smoking and laughing. Near the entrance, a Frenchwoman says something to me which I automatically tune out, although I believe she's asking me if I want a croissant or maybe a ham sandwich, so I snap, "Je ne park pas Franqais. " Then I ask the man behind the counter for Marlboro Lights, and once outside, I light up a cigarette, fumbling with the awkward French matches and I look up and there's the little girl.

Again.

"Madame ... , " she says.

"Vous etes un enfant terrible, " I say. Which is basically all the French I can remember that has anything to do with children. She says, "Vous etes trds jolie. “

I begin walking quickly back to the boat. "Madame, madame," she calls after me.

"What?" I say.

"You would like to buy a rose? A lovely red rose?”

"Non, " I say. "]e n'aime pas lesfleurs. Got it? Get it, kid?" And I can't believe I am being so mean to a small street urchin, but I am.

"Madame. You come with me," the child says. "No," I say.

She tries to take my hand. "You come with me, Madame. You must come with me.”

I shake my head, holding the cigarette up to my lips.

"Come, Madame. Come. Follow me.”

"Non, " I say weakly. And then for some reason, standing on the crowded street in the middle of Cannes during the film festival in the terrible heat, I begin crying, shaking my head, and the small child looks at me and runs away.

Another evening, on the—what?—third or fourth day in the south of France, and Dianna Moon and I are riding in the back of an air-conditioned Mercedes limousine with The Verve blaring as we crawl along the crowded streets of Cannes toward the Hotel du Cap, where we have been invited to have dinner with prominent movie people. Dianna won't stop talking, and I keep thinking about how, when Hubert and I first started secretly seeing each other, my phone was tapped.

"The thing about it," Dianna says, once again oblivious to anything but herself, "I mean the thing about this whole movie star business which no one gets is that you have to work so hard. You're my best friend, Cecelia, so you know I'm not being an asshole about this, because God knows, Jesus knows actually, that I was always going to be a star and I think I make a fucking good star, but it's never-ending. So, you know, people ought to understand why I get fucked up. Getting fucked up ... if s like a mini-vacation. It's the only way I can ever get any fucking relaxation." And she takes a swig out of a bottle of champagne and I want to tell her to stop talking because I'm still so hungover I'm going to get sick or kill someone.

"What did you think of Fabien?" she says. "Oh. Was that his name?" I say. I look out the window at the white tents of the festival as the Mercedes crawls to a stop.

"I thought he was adorable. I've always wanted to sleep with a Frenchman," she says. And I do not point out that she must have already slept with four or five. Not counting the one in the bathroom at Jimmy'z in Monte Carlo.

Through the window, I see that the small girl with the flowers is standing by the side of the car.

"I wonder if I should import him. To L.A.," Dianna says, laughing loudly as the girl taps on the window with the flowers.

"Madame," she mouths. "Madame, you must come with me.”

The Mercedes lurches forward. I turn to stare out the back window at the little girl, who waves sadly.

"Ohmigod," I say.

Dianna takes a moment to focus on me, and I find, sadly, that I am grateful. "I can't believe Hubert is coming," she says. "I told you my plan would work. As soon as you left, he realized he was a complete fuckwad, and now he's crawling back. Aren't you happy?”

She takes my hand and kisses it as I open the window a crack to let out some of the smoke.

In the bar of the Hotel du Cap, if s the same scene as it was the night before and the night before that and lunch the day before and lunch the day before that. Everyone is drunk on champagne and raspberry cocktails. There's the same group of twenty-five-year old women, all tall, all good-looking, dressed in evening clothes, who spend half their time in the bathroom and half their time trying to pick up anyone famous. There are the badly dressed up-and-coming English movie directors. The perfectly dressed German distributors. Kate Moss. Elizabeth Hurley, whom I hate more than any of them because she's "overexposed." And Comstock Dibble, the five-foot tall mega-movie producer who, even though he must be at least forty-five, still has acne. Out on the balcony, he's mopping his face with a napkin and shouting at the waiters to put two tables together and to take chairs away from other patrons. Dianna is dressed in Goth. We sweep through the lobby the same as we always do. We are someone and we will always be someone, especially when we come to places like this.

"Comstock! Carol Darling!" Dianna screams, in case anyone hasn't noticed her. She's already too drunk, tottering on black strappy sandals, steadying herself on a stranger's shoulder who pats her arm and rolls his eyes.

"Hello, Dianna," Comstock says. "You were in the papers today.”

"I'm in the papers every day. If I'm not in the papers, it's not a good day.”

"You were in the papers too," Comstock says to me, sweating inexplicably, since the temperature has cooled down to about seventy. "But I know you hate being in the papers." He leans in intimately, as if we are the only two people in the place. "That’s the difference between you and Dianna.”

"Is it?" I say, lighting what is probably my fiftieth cigarette of the day.

Suddenly there are other people at the table, but no one introduces anyone.

"They say you're here without your husband.”

“He has to work.”

"You should have an affair. While you're here. In France. Everybody else is.”

"Hey Comstock. I hear you've been looking for a mistress," Dianna says loudly. "I hear you've propositioned every French actress under the age of twenty-five.”

"I'm casting. What can I say?" Comstock says, and I put my napkin on my lap and wonder what the hell I'm doing here.

But where else is there?

"Tanner is the one who's fighting off the girls," Comstock says.

I look up and see that it is indeed Tanner Hart, my Tanner, who is older but thanks to the wonders of plastic surgery doesn't look much different than he did five years ago when he was selected as one of People magazine's Fifty Most Beautiful People, and he sits down and puts his hands up and says, "Don't hassle me, baby," as I stare at him in a sort of alcoholic shock.

"Have a bellini," he says, pushing one toward me. "When this festival is over, Tanner is going to come out the big winner. We sold Gagged all over the world today," Comstock says. "I'm thinking nominations. Best Actor. Best Picture.”

"Hey Comstock," Dianna says. "How come you never propositioned me?”

"Because you're a Jesus freak and I'm a nice Polish boy?" Comstock says.

"I could convert you," Dianna says.

"Baby. You're a star. We all know that," Comstock says. "Right, Tanner?”

But Tanner isn't listening. He's staring at me in tently and I remember why; after we split up, I climbed up a fire escape and broke into his apartment to have sex with him.

Without taking his eyes off me, Tanner says, "By the way, is anyone going to Saint-Tropez? After this?”

There's a full moon as I excuse myself, ostensibly to go to the bathroom. Instead, I hurry down the long marble staircase out to the manicured gravel walkway that leads to the pool. The summer she died, Amanda had decided to "get into the movie business," and she came here with a middle-aged character actor who sent her home after she stayed out all night with an up-and-coming young screenwriter. It was just so Amanda to get everything wrong.

I veer off to the left and into a small enclosed garden with a fountain of turtles in the middle. I sit on a bench.

Sure enough, in about a minute Tanner shows up, fingering a joint. "You look like you could use this," he says.

"Do I look that bad?”

"You just look like ... you're not having any fun.”

“I'm not.”

"How are you, baby?" he says, sitting with his legs open, delicately holding the joint between his thumb and forefinger as he inhales deeply. "I told you not to marry that poofster. Didn't I? Didn't I tell you he'd make you miserable? You should have run off with me when you had the chance.”

"That’s right," I say miserably, thinking about how after Tanner and I had sex, we would both be ripped and slightly bloody. He grabs my wrist now and says, "I'm still hot for you, baby. Still very, very hot," and I say, "Is this a compliment?" and he says, "If s a reality," and I say, "I have to get out of here." I run back up the path, looking over my shoulder to see if he's following and he isn't and I don't know if this is a good or bad thing, and I cross through the lobby and out the front door, where Dianna is standing in front of the hotel, shouting for the car. And moments later we're all drunk and stoned and fucked up and in the Mercedes again, driving back to the yacht in Cannes and there are people, men mostly, in the car whom I've never seen before and never want to see again.

This guy with spiky dark hair and a black T-shirt keeps leaning over me, chanting, "Where I have gone, I would not go back," which is a line I think he read in a Bret Easton Ellis novel, but while I'm seriously wondering if he even can read, I respond, "I don't know why I'm here, I guess because Dianna invited me.”

"I'm a big fucking STAR," Dianna screams.

And then, I don't know exactly how to describe it, I feel like the world is pulling away while at the same time becoming seriously claustrophic. I shout, "Stop the car," and everybody turns and looks at me like I'm insane, but they sort of expect me to be insane anyway, and the car does come to a stop in the middle of Cannes and I do climb over three men and fumble desperately with the door handle, which finally releases and before anyone really knows what's happened I've spilled out of the car and into a crowd of people on the sidewalk. I look back at the car and slide out of my high heels, grasping them in my hand as I begin running through the crowd toward the Majestic Hotel, where there's a swarm of photographers and kleig lights. I veer onto a side street, passing a gay bar where there's a man wearing a tutu, and I nearly run into the little girl with the red roses, who grabs my wrist and says, "Madame, come with me.”

And this time, I do.

In the early morning I am walking back to the yacht, feeling even MORE hungover and wasted than I ever have in my life, except maybe when I was younger and I first met Tanner and we would spend whole weekends snorting cocaine and drinking vodka. I would very often call in sick on Monday, but I never got in trouble because everyone knew I was seeing a big movie star and that was more important for the image of the gallery than having someone answer the phone. And it was especially useful when Tanner used to come into the gallery to pick me up. He was obsessed with me at first and would stop by the gallery quite often, just to make sure that some other man wasn't trying to seduce me, and these incidents were usually faithfully recorded by the gossip columns (although they didn't mention my name, because I wasn't "somebody" then), providing free publicity for the gallery. Everyone treated me awfully well and seemed to really like me, but did they have a choice? Even back then I was being USED by other people for my ability to attract men. And I have never wondered about this before, but I do now: Would I be ANYTHING without a man?

A taxi pulls up in front of the yacht, and a tall, handsome man wearing a polo shirt and jeans gets out and turns toward me, and I realize it's my husband.

The sun is shining; it must be later than I thought.

The bustle of the harbor begins to fill my consciousness the first mates hosing the decks, a young woman walking by with produce from the farmer's market, people scurrying by with press passes—and as Hubert approaches, holding his beat-up leather valise, I see, for the first time, his prodigious blandness. How, underneath all the fuss about his family and his looks and his background, he is still, in the end, JUST SOME GUY.

"Hey," he says. "What happened to you?”

“What do you mean?" I ask.

"You're bleeding. You've got blood on your hands." He looks down. "And on your feet. And ink stains. What happened to your shoes?”

"I don't know.”

"Well, how are you, anyway? Did you get my message?”

"That you were coming?”

"About renting a speedboat. Hey, as long as I'm here, I thought it might be fun if we spent the day waterskiing.”

Waterskiing?

Hubert carries his bag onto the yacht. "Marc De Belond has a house here. I thought we might hook up with him.”

Hook up?

"Hey baby," he says. "What's the matter? Don't you like Marc De Belond?”

I turn and hold up my bloody hands. I say, "The gay men took my shoes.”

IX

Dear Diary: You're not going to believe this, but I'm STILL on this DAMN boat floating around in the Italian Riviera.

And Hubert is still here.

Okay. Here's the problem. Number one, I think I'm going insane, but I'm not sure if it's because I'm sick to death of being stuck on this boat with Hubert and Dianna, or if maybe I really am a NUT JOB like everyone says.

Because number two: People saw me that night at that cafe with the little girl. And her little friends. And the strange gay men, who tried to take my dress—they kept saying the word "copier," which I supposed meant they wanted to copy the dress and then give it back—but there wasn't enough time. And all the glasses of cognac. And the broken glass on the floor. And sure enough, this "yet another embarrassing incident" was reported in Paris Match.

"I don't think I'm going to change much," I said to Hubert, quite threateningly, after he'd read it and, without saying anything, evinced his displeasure by raising his eyebrows. Dianna defended me: "Sweet Jesus, Hub, I've been accused of killing my husband. Aliens took away half of my husband's body. And you're upset about your wife being spotted with underage street urchins and a couple of gay guys in dresses?" And then I said, cunningly, I thought, "All I wanted was a little attention.”

Which is true. That was all I wanted. Because I still don't feel like I get attention from my husband, which is really crazy because he did fly all the way here to be with me and then took an unexpected week off, but I don't just want him to BE HERE. I want him to pay a certain and specific kind of attention to me, and he just doesn't.

When I'm with him, I don't feel ... significant. I want to be everything to him. I want to be essential. I want him to be unable to live without me, but how can I be these things if he won't let me?

And if he won't let me, what am I doing with my life?

Naturally, these thoughts put a horrible expression on my face. At least I think they do, because this morning, when I'm lying in bed and Hubert comes into our stateroom supposedly looking for sunscreen, he turns to me and says, in a tone of voice that I can only interpret as RUDE, "What's your problem?”

I know my response should be "Nothing, darling," but I'm tired of mollifying him. Instead, I say, "What do you mean, what's my problem? What’s your problem?" and I turn over.

"Whoa," he says. "Maybe you should go back to sleep and try waking up again.”

"Yeah," I say. "Maybe I should." Then he leaves the room.

I HATE him.

I jump out of bed, pull on my bathing suit, and storm up to the top deck.

Dianna is there, drinking coffee and polishing her toenails, which, as we all know, is verboten on this boat because the nail polish could spill and ruin the teak decks. As we also all know, Dianna doesn't give a shit. She's already caused thousands of dollars' worth of damage to the boat by walking around in spike heels and greasing her body with tanning oil, leaving indelible footprints that the crew keeps pointlessly trying to scrub away. "Hey, I could buy this boat if I wanted to," she keeps reminding them. But the point is, people like Dianna Moon never do. "Hi sugar," Dianna says, not looking up. "Want some coffee?”

"Coffee makes me vomit. In fact, everything makes me vomit.”

She looks up in alarm. "I don't, do I?”

"No," I say, resignedly. I move to the railing, leaning over the side. The wind ruffles my hair slightly.

This Dianna Moon business—her self-absorption, her prodigious insecurity—is getting to be too much.

"Do I look fat?" Dianna asks, and I automatically respond, "No," although the truth is, Dianna is a bit fat. She has the kind of body that will be matronly at thirty-five, no matter how much she diets or exercises.

"Are you going to Hubert's aunt's house today?" SHIT. Princess Ursula. I'd totally forgotten about her and nod glumly, remembering that Princess Ursula hates me. Once, at a funeral, she came up to me and said, "Oh Cecelia, you're such a natural at funerals, because you always have a sour, downturned expression on your face.”

And these are my relations?

"Do you think," Dianna says, examining her large toe, "that Lil'Bit Parsons will be there?”

This is such an unexpected question, so out of left field, that I say nothing as the terrible feeling of other people knowing something I don't descends upon me like a shade blocking out the sun. "Lil'Bit Parsons?" I croak.

"I don't want to upset you, but I read in the Star that she's in Europe. Vacationing with her two kids." Dianna screws up her face as I begin hyperventilating and stumbling around the deck, unsure as to whether or not I'm going to throw up, and she says, "There was a picture of her in ... Saint-Tropez?”

"That fucking BASTARD," I say, somehow getting ahold of myself and tripping down the stairs and into the galley, where Paul, the captain, is talking in whispered tones to the cook, whose name I can never remember.

"Where's my husband?" I ask.

Paul and the cook exchange looks. "I think he's on the aft deck. Getting ready to go scuba diving.”

"That's what he thinks," I snap, making my way to the back of the boat, where Hubert is pulling on a dive skin.

"Hi," he says nonchalantly.

"What are you doing?" I ask coldly.

"I'm going to scuba dive into the port. I thought it'd be cool.”

"That’s a smart idea," I say sarcastically. "Maybe you'll get ground up by a propeller.”

"Oh for Christ's sake," he says, rolling his eyes. "You just don't give a shit about me, do you?”

“Leave me alone, huh?" he says, pulling the dive skin over his shoulder.

"I am so sick of your shit," I scream, running to him and hitting him until he grabs my wrists and pushes me roughly away. "What the FUCK is your problem?" he says.

I reel back, stunned. Recovering somewhat, I say, "I want to talk to you.”

"Yeah? Well, I don't want to talk to you.”

Has my husband ever spoken to me like this before? "I HAVE to talk to you," I say. "Right now.”

"You just don't get it, do you?" he says, shoving his feet into a pair of flippers.

"Get what?" I demand.

"That I am sick and tired of you trying to control me all the time. Okay? Just let me be. Just let me do my thing for a change, okay?”

"Your thing? All you do is your thing.”

For a moment, he says nothing and we stare at each other hatefully. Then he says, "What do you want from me, Cecelia?”

I want you to love me is what I want to say, but can't.

"I came on this vacation for you, okay?" he says.

"You wanted to come on Dianna Moon's yacht and we're on her yacht. I'm here. You're always complaining that we never do what you want to do. And when we do it, it still isn't enough.”

"Then how come we have to go to Princess Ursula's this afternoon? We always do what you want to do.”

"Princess Ursula is family, okay? Do you think you can understand that concept?”

"It's not that.... “

"Oh yeah? Well, what is it? Because I'm getting pretty sick and tired of your attitude.”

Oh God. Why do these arguments always go nowhere? Why can't I make myself heard?

"You're seeing Lil'Bit Parsons again, aren't you?" I say triumphantly.

That stops him dead. "Wha ... ?" he says, but he looks away quickly, and I know I've got him. "Give me a break," he says lamely.

"You are seeing her. I know everything. She's in Europe, vacationing with her kids. She was in Saint-Tropez.”

"So?”

"So you snuck out and met her," I say, even though I have no actual knowledge of this incident and can't even recall when it might have happened. "Stop this," he says.

"You saw her. You're guilty.”

“I am not going to discuss this, Cecelia.”

"You're not going to discuss it because I'm right. You saw her again. Why don't you just admit it?”

“I said, I'm not going to discuss this.”

"Well remember this, buddy," I say. "The last time you didn't want to discuss it, it was in ... all ... the ... NEWSPAPERS," I scream. So loudly that I feel like my head is going to explode.

Hubert looks at me (sadly, I think), then jumps into the water. I turn and pass Paul and the cook, who have the fucking temerity to give me their wimpy half smiles as if nothing at all has occurred. I wonder how I can bear living like this, and I go up on the deck and thank God Dianna is there. I sit down and put my head in my hands.

"There are photographers on the dock," she says. "There's going to be a great photo of Hubert shoving you," she says.

"Definitely cover of Star magazine," she says. "I can't take this," I say.

"She's never going to give up, you know?" Dianna says. "She's a movie star. And movie stars can't stand to be rejected. She can't believe he chose you over her. She'll be tracking him down until the day he dies, baby. And even then she'll be elbowing you out of the way at the funeral. Just like Paula Yates." She yawns and rolls over, spilling the bottle of nail polish on the deck.

One of the things you learn about being married is that you don't have to continue every fight to the death. You can take a little break. Pretend that nothing has happened. I've found this works with Hubert, who, I'm beginning to realize, gets confused easily. Which is probably why he ended up dating Lil'Bit Parsons in the first place. She completely manipulated him.

And so, when he returns to the boat, water streaming off his dive skin (which shows off all the muscles in his body, including his washboard stomach), Dianna and I are laughing and drinking champagne as if nothing in the world is wrong. I pour him a glass of champagne, and he is relieved, thinking that maybe the fight is over.

But it isn't.

I pick up the fight again when Hubert and I are in the taxi, making our way to Sir Ernie and Princess Ursula's villa in the hills of Porto Ercole.

"Why did you break up with her?" I ask innocently. Hubert is holding my hand, staring out the window at the grape arbors, and he turns and says, "Who?" but there's a tiny edge in his voice, as if he knows what’s coming next.

"You know," I say. "Lil'Bit.”

"Oh," he says. "You know. I met you.”

This answer is, of course, not satisfying, or at least not satisfying enough, so I say, "Didn't Lil'Bit stay with Princess Ursula every September?”

"I don't remember," he says. "They're good friends. They've known each other since Lil'Bit was in high school in Switzerland.”

"High school in Switzerland. What a lovely expression," I say nastily. And he says, "What’s wrong with it?" And I say, in order not to divert us from the main topic, "Did you go with her? To Porto Ercole? Every September with your aunt?”

"You know I did, okay?" he says.

"It must have been so cozy," I say. "Everyone getting along. Everyone best friends.”

"It wasn't bad," he says.

"It's not my fault that Ursula hates me.”

"Ursula doesn't hate you. But she thinks you don't treat me well." This is an astonishing bit of information, which I decide not to pursue. Instead, I yawn loudly and say, "Lil'Bit Parsons has had the easiest life of anybody I've ever known.”

"She hasn't had an easy life," Hubert says. "Her boyfriend beat her up.”

"Oh, big fucking deal. Her boyfriend beat her up. She had a few bruises. If he was so horrible, why didn't she leave him?”

"She's not that kind of person, okay?”

"Her daddy was rich, and when she was seventeen, she started modeling and then she got her first part at nineteen. Tough life.”

"Just because she didn't grow up in a commune doesn't mean she hasn't had a hard time.”

"Yes it does," I say. "Okay? Do you get that?”

“No," he says. "I don't. And I don't get you." We ride the rest of the way in silence.

At the villa, Princess Ursula greets us by the pool, wearing her bathing suit with a sarong wrapped around her waist (she's fifty-five but still thinks she has an excellent figure and shows it off on every possible occasion), and in a casual voice which is tinged with both French and English accents, mentions "nonchalantly" that dear Lil'Bit is indeed in Porto Ercole, having taken her own villa for two weeks, and is, "ha ha," coming for lunch, and isn't this a "wonderful surprise.”

Hubert looks at me, but somehow, miraculously, I don't react (much as a prisoner brought into an enemy camp knows not to react), and Hubert reaches out and takes my hand and says, "That's so funny. Cecelia and I were just talking about whether or not Lil'Bit might be here. Cecelia said she would.”

Aunt Ursula looks at me as if seeing me for the first time, then says, "Well, Cecelia may be psychic. She may have hidden talents none of us could ever imagine.”

This remark is soooo unbelievably cutting, but in a way that Hubert would never notice, that I decide to say absolutely nothing. I give Aunt Ursula a supercilious yet bored smile, and she says, "I hope you don't mind about Lil'Bit. You two are friends?”

“I've never met her," I say casually. "In fact, Hubert never even mentions her.”

"You'll love her," Aunt Ursula says. And just at that moment, Sir Ernie Munchnot walks up in his swimming trunks, showing off his chest which, I have to admit, does look pretty good for a guy who must be sixty, and he hugs Hubert and then me. I giggle loudly when if s my turn and look over at Aunt Ursula, who is definitely watching this exchange and is not particularly pleased, and I say, "Oh Uncle Ernie. It's soooo great to see you. Gosh, you're in awfully good shape." And he says, "How's my favorite niece-in-law? I always told Hubert if he didn't marry you, I would." He puts his arm around me and we begin walking toward the patio, where lunch will be served by three small Italian women in white uniforms. "Hey," Uncle Ernie says, "I still swim five miles a day. Exercise. That’s the key to life. I keep telling my kids, but they don't listen." Princess Ursula makes a face and shakes her head. And then, she just can't help rubbing it in. "Lil’Bit s coming for lunch.”

"Lil'Bit? Well ... good," he says. "Now there's a gal who needs to get some sense in her head. I keep telling her to stop running around and get her life together, but I think she's been all mixed up ever since Hubert here broke up with her." Princess Ursula gives him a disapproving look and says, "Lil'Bit is absolutely fine. She's just not like the rest of us." She directs this at me: "I always say she's one of God's heavenly creatures.”

At that moment, a car pulls into the driveway, and we all look over to where the "heavenly creature”

is extracting herself, her two illegitimate children, a nanny, a stroller, and various nappies from the car. Lil'Bit is wearing—get this—an Indian sari. She picks up one of the children and takes the other by the hand. Amid this picture of motherly bliss, she looks up and waves girlishly.

"Just look at her," Aunt Ursula exclaims. "I always say Lil'Bit is the most elegant woman I know.”

“Come and see Kirby," Lil'Bit says to everyone in general, but mostly, I think, to Hubert. Her voice is soft, sweet, almost a whisper. She's all shy, with her long blond hair in front of her face. Jesus. I used to look like that. I used to do that with him. That’s what he likes. That’s what works on him. It makes me sick. In fact, I'd actually like to jump on her and rip her eyes out, but I remind myself that I won. I got him and she didn't. I got him because I was smarter than she was. I played a completely different game. I was unavailable. Mysterious. While she played the victim. He got bored. But was that really the reason? Or was it because she had two illegitimate children, and Hubert couldn't, in the end, "handle it"?

"Hi," she says to me, holding out a long, bony hand. "You must be Cecelia.”

For a moment, our eyes meet, and then she hands the "baby"—a two-year-old girl—to Princess Ursula, who coos disgustingly all over it, while pushing Kirby, a sullen-faced six-year-old boy, toward Hubert.

"Hey Kirby," Hubert says, lifting the boy and shaking him slightly. "Remember me?”

"No," Kirby says (sensibly, I think), but Hubert won't have it; he laughs loudly and says, "Don't you remember playing baseball? Batter up!" He swings the boy around, which makes him start screaming, and then, as is always the case in these situations, the children are whisked away, probably to be fed some sort of gruel in the kitchen.

"Still no children of your own?" Lil'Bit says, looking up at Hubert from underneath that sheaf of hair, as if this is some private joke. And then, for absolutely no discernible reason, Lil'Bit Parsons runs to the middle of the small, rocky yard and begins spinning around until she falls to the ground.

I want to scream, "This woman is a fucking nutcase," but as I am the only one who apparently thinks so (because the rest of them are laughing delightedly, as if they'd just witnessed a performance by Marcel Marceau), I hold my tongue, pursing my lips in disapproval.

And after that, there is nothing to be done but to endure this long, boring lunch in which Lil'Bit dominates the conversation by talking about how she's studying with gurus (indeed, she has been told that she will become a guru herself, having been one in a past life), the importance of animal rights, the evils of caffeine, and how she's decided to start her own Internet company and (gasp) move to New York.

Throughout this, she basically ignores me, and even though ifs clear this woman is an absolute idiot, I'm feeling smaller and smaller, wondering why I ever let them cut my hair and thinking maybe I need to buy new, flashier clothes, and I sit up very straight in my chair and handle my utensils formally, saying little and allowing a slight smile to play across my lips from time to time.

"Oh Cecelia ... that's it, right? Cecelia," Lil'Bit says toward the end of the meal, "Do you work or ... or anything?”

"Cecelia is going to start doing some charity work," Hubert says firmly, although, as far as I can remember, I have never expressed an interest in charity work, nor do I plan to do so.

"Oh really," Lil'Bit purrs. "What kind of charity?”

“Encephalitic babies," I say. "You know, those kids with big heads?”

"Really," Princess Ursula says, shaking her head. "You shouldn't joke about ...”

"Oh, I have something for you," Lil'Bit says to Hubert, reaching into her bag and pulling out a deck of cards. "They're American Indian tarot cards." She giggles. "From when I stayed in the tepee on the reservation in Montana. Doing the Indian rights thing.”

"Thank you," Hubert says.

"Really," I say. "I didn't know you were interested in the paranormal.”

"Dianna Moon is with us, and she says her husband's body parts were taken away by aliens," Hubert says somewhat uneasily.

Lil'Bit shuffles the cards. "That’s true, you know. I don't think they ever found his spleen.”

"Am I actually having this conversation?" I say, to no one in particular.

"Dianna Moon is your best friend," Hubert says. "After you, darling," I say, touching his arm and smiling, fakely, across the table at Lil'Bit.

"Let me read your cards," Lil'Bit says to Hubert, in what she evidently thinks is a low, sexy voice. "I want to see your future.”

Will she never go away? Lil'Bit looks at Hubert's cards. She takes his hands in hers. "Oh my darling," she says breathily. "You must be ... careful. Don't do anything ... dangerous.”

This is quite simply too much for me. "Don't be ridiculous/' I snap. Everyone looks at me. "Let me give it a try. Let me read your cards, Lil'Bit.”

“Oh, but—you have to be ... trained, " she says. "How do you know I'm not?" I say.

I wave Hubert out of his seat and sit down across from her.

"But I already know my cards," she says. "I do them every day.”

"Do you?" I ask. "Are you sure?”

“You lay them out," she says.

"You know that wouldn't be right, Lil'Bit. You know you have to ... touch the cards. “

"Well," Lil'Bit says, looking up at Hubert. "This should be .. .fun. “

She begins laying out the cards. And, just as I had a feeling they might be, they're all upside down. "How ... interesting," I say.

Lil'Bit sees the cards and gasps. She looks up at me. My eyes bore into hers. I can feel her squirming under my power, but she can't do anything about it. "You know what this means, don't you?" I ask.

"It means," I say, looking around the table at Hubert, who is standing there with a disturbed yet uncomprehending look on his face; at Princess Ursula, who is readjusting her sagging cleavage; and at Uncle Ernie, who is using a knife to clean under his finger nails when he thinks no one is looking, "That Lil'Bit is a complete ... fraud.”

In fact, I want to scream, you're ALL complete frauds.

But I don't.

I smile and gather up the cards. "Game over, " I say.

X

I light a cigarette.

I'm dressed in a baby-blue Bentley gown, and I'm crunching across the gravel driveway with Hubert following behind me in black tie and we get into the Mercedes SL500 convertible to go to the wedding of Juliette Morganz, the "little girl from Vermont" and I think, Why can't we be normal? Maybe we can be normal.

Do I really care?

I can tell Hubert is in a good mood, driving the car expertly along Appogoque Lane, blaring Dire Straits, glancing over at me, and it suddenly hits me: Who is this man, really? Who is he? I've been married to this person for two years and with him for two years before that, and I don't really know him at all.

And he doesn't know me. At all.

This realization is so depressing that I sit back and fold my arms, and I can feel the good vibes suddenly expire like air leaving a balloon. He looks over again, and I can feel his mood shifting downward, and ifs all my fault as he says, "What's wrong?”

"Nothing," I say.

"Something is wrong," he says, in a bored and kind of disgusted voice, "again.”

"Ifs nothing," I say, contemplating the futility of it all, how we don't really get along that well and probably never will, as I stare out the window at a big, dried-up potato field.

"Why do we have to fight all the time?" he asks. "I have no idea," I say, fingering my dress, which is made of finely wrought mesh, artfully constructed so that it appears see-through but really isn't. "Does it matter?”

"I'm tired," he says.

"So am I," and I look away and see that we are passing the duck pond where the "incident" occurred, the incident that brought us together in mutual horror and terror. Another thing that we simply don't talk about.

We ride the rest of the way in silence.

I feel like crying out of self-pity but I can't, because we're at the church now, and there are streams of cars and people, and a valet opens my door and I slip out of the car elegantly. Hubert walks around the front of the car and our eyes meet. And then, as we have been doing for the past couple of months whenever we go out or are seen in public, we pretend that everything is perfectly ... all right.

And as we walk toward the church, he has one hand in his pocket and one arm around my waist, and I can't help but notice how well we fit together, how we have this perfectly easy physicality, which means pretty much nothing now, and the photographers suddenly spot us and one of them shouts, "Here comes the happy couple." The flashbulbs go off like crazy as we stop on the landing and smile, our arms around each other, and then one of the photographers says, "Hubert! Mind if we get a photo of your wife alone? No offense," and everyone is laughing and snapping away as Hubert moves gallantly to the side.

I stand with my hands clasped behind my back, my head high, smiling, one leg in front of the other. When I glance toward the entrance of the church, I see Hubert standing with his hands in his pockets, looking on proudly.

D.W. is right. It is all about appearances. And later, at the reception, walking carefully across the marble floor strewn with rose petals, I am all over Hubert and he is all over me, just like we were in the old days when it first came out that we were seeing each other but as far as the world was concerned, I might just have been another girlfriend. He is holding my hand behind my back, and my hand caresses his neck, while people look at us enviously and I wonder how long I'll be able to keep this up. Luckily, I run into Dianna almost immediately, which is a good excuse for Hubert and me to go our separate ways without arousing suspicion.

Dianna is talking to Raymond Ally, the head of Ally cosmetics. Raymond, who is at least ninety, is in a wheelchair, and Dianna is smoking a Marlboro red, seemingly oblivious to the fact that she's not really in the right kind of shape to wear the dress she's wearing, which is: pink Bentley, gossamer thin, a dress that works if you're flat-chested, which Dianna isn't because she's had breast implants. Dianna is one of those girls who looks good in photographs, but in person, there's no hiding the fact that she's a dirty girl, a fact that Raymond seems to appreciate. "Look at our girl," Raymond says to me, talking about Dianna, who has put both arms around my neck. "She's turned out to be quite a lady." I look at him and wonder if he's being stupid or sarcastic, but realize, with a certain degree of HORROR, that he is being completely sincere.

"Yes, yes she is," I say, because it really is easier to agree with people on the surface, even if you know they're full of shit.

"And I'll bet you don't know what I know about her. You two are friends, right?”

"Best friends," Dianna says, kissing me on the cheek.

Raymond tugs at my arm. "Well, as her best friend, you ought to know this. This young lady is very, very smart. I'll betcha she's smarter than my grandsons, and they went to Harvard. This young lady didn't even go to college!”

"Thank you, Raymond. Isn't he a doll?" Dianna says.

"And I'll tell you a little secret," Raymond says, now that he has our attention. "Most people don't know this, but every woman who makes it on her own is smart. She's got to have it here/' he says, pointing to Dianna's chest. "But she's got to have it up here too," touching his head.

"And you can buy that," I say, indicating his chest. "Oh, men don't care if they're real or fake, as long as you got some. And if you got none, go out and buy them, or else you're a loser. But this," he says, tapping his head again, "this you can't buy. You've either got it or you don't. And this girl's got it." Suddenly, his gnarled hand shoots out and grabs Dianna's hand, which he pulls to his mouth and gives a large, ferocious kiss. "There," he says. "Now you girls go and have some fun. You don't want to be hanging around with an old man like me. Go on.”

I look at Dianna inquiringly as we move away. She shrugs. "Old men love me. Come to think of it, all men love me. Hey, I'd give that old guy a blow job if I thought it'd help. But I don't care about men, Cecelia. I only care about you.”

"And I only care about you, too," I say, which may or may not be true but doesn't really matter as we make our way, nodding and smiling, through the crowd.

"Did I ever tell you that I'm the best in bed?" she asks, taking a glass of champagne off a tray. "Yes," I say, laughing a bit uneasily because that is exactly what Amanda used to say about herself. I believe her exact words were: "I can get any man I want because I know exactly what to do to men in bed.”

And I always wanted to scream, "Yes, but you can't keep them.”

And look what happened to HER.

Dianna is probably just as crazy and fucked up as Amanda was and will probably go ape shit someday the way Amanda did and try to do something horrible to me, but for the moment, that is all in my future. And then D.W. approaches with Juliette Morganz, whose wedding dress consists of beads and lace and bows (definitely not Bentley) and Juliette gushes all over us and drags us off for photographs with her mother and about fifteen other assorted relatives.

I just smile. I don't want to make any waves.

And then I'm kind of bored, so when Sandi Sandi, the hot new singer, is playing, and everyone is dancing and drunk, I wander through the house and go into a marble bathroom on the second floor and snort some cocaine, which I remind myself is just for old time's sake, and then I go back to the party, cross the dance floor, and walk out of the tent, following a boardwalk down to the pond and onto a white dock, where I light up a cigarette.

Dianna Moon follows me.

"Hey, hey," she says. She's stumbling a bit and pretty drunk. "Let’s get out of here.”

There's a charmingly beat-up old rowboat which she gets in. I follow, and we almost tip over, but then we sit in the bottom of the boat and try to row a little. There's a current and the boat drifts away from the dock.

"Hey," Dianna says. "I have to tell you something.”

“Not about Jesus, okay?”

"Oh Cecelia. Someone told me you killed your best friend.”

"Who?" I say. "Nevil Mouse.”

"Nevil Mouse is so ... stupid," I say. "I think he hates you," Dianna says.

"He hates me because I wouldn't go out with him. Years ago.”

"He says you're not what you appear to be. I told him to go fuck himself.”

"What did he say?”

"He said you killed ... Amanda? Your best friend? You put something in her drink?”

Oh GOD. Where do people get these lies? "It was a long time ago," I say, as if it really isn't important. And it does seem long ago, almost as if it couldn't have happened, although it was actually four years ago, to be exact. At the end of that long, crazy summer right after I'd met Hubert and was seeing him secretly. Amanda and I were sharing a house. "She killed herself," I say.

"Jesus took her.”

"No." I shake my head. "She was drunk, and she took too much coke. She got into her car and drove into the duck pond and drowned.”

She had been on her way to Hubert's house. On the sly.

"Fuck. Do you think I care?" Dianna said. "People think I killed my husband.”

There are lilies in the pond. I trail my fingers in the water. We both look over at the shore, where the party is in full swing.

"What I like about you," Dianna says, "is that we're both outsiders. Neither one of us fits in with this ... society crowd.”

"Society is dead," I say, for what I think is the second or third time this year.

"My mother was a prostitute. She doesn't even know who my real father is.”

"Marriage is prostitution.”

"But my mother ... wasn't married.”

"Oh so what," I say. "My mother was a fucking drug addict.”

"I'm going swimming," Dianna says. She basically falls out of the boat, and for a moment, as she flails in the water and I realize she probably can't swim, I wonder if I'm going to have to rescue her. Luckily, the pond isn't deep, only about three feet, and she finds her footing and wades to shore.

I watch her with some degree of relief. I sit there alone.

After a while, I begin to row back to the dock in the charmingly beat-up old rowboat. I have a cigarette between my lips and I'm aware of my short blond hair, a slight pink blush on my cheeks and my bare shoulders.

And when I'm almost at the shore, Patrice shouts, "Hey Cecelia," and I look over my shoulder and he fires off as many pictures as he can in five seconds. The following week, this photograph is beamed all over the world. In it, the expression on my face is: frowning slightly, yet a little surprised; still young, and I'm wearing the nearly see-through baby-blue Bentley dress, the lines of my slim yet shapely figure clearly visible. The caption reads: RICH, BEAUTIFUL, AND FIERCELY INDEPENDENT, PRINCESS CECELIA KELLY LUXENSTEIN IS THE LEADER OF THE NEW MILLENNIUM SOCIETY.

And I realize: This is my life. SMILE.