“Do you know the daughter?” Max asked. Bambi thought back to a few vague conversations with Anna. The day the girl had first come to the apartment and solemnly shaken Bambi’s hand and thanked her. For what? Who knows. People were always thanking Bambi for something.
“Not really,” Bambi admitted, realizing she couldn’t even remember her name . . . Elissa?
“What about Mercurion?”
“I don’t know him either.”
“Just say the opera picked him.”
“Right. I’m sure he’ll ask about Opal, too, but we are on excellent terms,” Bambi said, feeling like the truth of her statement was enhanced just in having made it aloud. They were almost at their destination . . . Sable’s. She unnecessarily smoothed her hair and her cashmere silk skirt. When the car stopped, Bambi reapplied her lipstick and waited for the driver to open the door.
“One more thing!” Max whispered urgently and annoyingly. “He’s known for springing things on his subjects. Like the time he brought up Charlie Petzer’s first wife with Pippy.”
“Well, I don’t have any skeletons in my closet, and neither does Peter,” Bambi said as a matter of fact. There was absolutely no way STT could know about the heated arguments Peter and she had been having about the opera payment. He railed on about whatever it was that was happening at work. Bambi could have thrown Anna under the bus, but Bambi was secretly thrilled to have all those gift cards. Botox, fillers, and lasers forever!
“Of course not!” Max instantly agreed. The driver opened the door, but Max gently held Bambi back by her elbow. “Just, you know, if he surprises you, say something like, ‘I’d so much prefer to talk about Josefina, her gifted daughter, and the extraordinary school we are trying to save.’”
“Right,” Bambi tossed over her shoulder as she allowed the driver to help her out of the car. Couldn’t Max understand the important thing was how she looked? Even if she did everything else right, if she failed to look like the toast of the town, there was no reason to even go. Her jacket was a feat of proportioning, making her taller, thinner, younger, more chic than ever before. It had taken six fittings to achieve this effect. The wide sleeves ended at just the right point—one-third of the way from her elbows to her wrists, which were encased in long custom gloves in a matching shade of gray. The strap buckle on her glossy gray Louboutin stacked heels glimmered with a tiny green faux gem to match her bracelet. Did Max think it was easy to look so world class?
A New York institution with a landscape of niche-famous regulars, Sable’s was the place to see and be seen by anyone and everyone who mattered in publishing between the hours of noon and 2:00 p.m. Bambi thought of it as a royal court of old: each person’s location in the room indicated their place in the hierarchy. Dead center, that publishing tycoon who counted all the boldface names of twentieth-century literature as friends. In the light by the window, a former model who’d married a millionaire she’d met under much whispered-about circumstances and now did interior design for sultans’ and sheiks’ New York pieds-à-terre. There, just by the door so he could jump to his feet and greet potential customers, the duke of a defunct European province with his own overblown jewelry line. Everyone was ensconced at their usual tables.
Because one knew exactly what to anticipate, Sable’s felt like a safe space. There were always friends here. And often, photographers.
Bambi appeared in the dining room’s entrance and paused, her bag held at her waist, turning just a smidge this way and that as if looking for STT, when of course she knew exactly where his table was. But the top of the stairs was a stage, and it was 12:47 p.m.—prime time. She gave a quiet wave to the tycoon and the model, snubbing the duke. Bambi didn’t want any more of his baubles. A few other heads swiveled: the half-in-the-bag banker in his sixties; the envious, less well-preserved socialite; the wide-eyed magazine intern on a onetime lunch with her boss. Bambi basked in the attention for a two count. No photographers. Yet.
STT’s spot was a prime table just left of center in the sunken dining room, his back to the wall radiating caricatures of the dining room’s most famous inhabitants, with the seat best for seeing and being seen—after all, his was a powerful pen. He regularly wrote about his lunches at Sable’s, always with a picture of him and his universally female guests.
The man himself, white haired and round faced, besuited with a pocket square, raised his manicured hand. His veneered smile said, Tell me everything. Mrs. Von Bizmark sashayed across the dining room, willing him to include a description of her grace and style at the very top of his article. He stood; they held hands and kissed each other’s cheeks before sitting again and settling into lunch, which would follow the usual agenda.
Small talk with menus open—no more than thirty seconds. Drink orders. More small talk about the kids, vacation spots, country homes. Background. They ordered food, not to eat it but because it was required. Two chicken paillards. Bambi’s anticipation grew—she herself would have to be a little extra today to dazzle this man. Internally, she began marshaling her charismatic resources: the interested expression, the insignificant intimacies, the casual flattery. Her smiles, at the ready. Her eyes, clear and focused. Her mind, sharp. As soon as their glasses were full of sparkling water, the bread basket safely deposited at their table, and the servicey part of the “lunch” over, the heart of the interview would start to beat.
“So tell me about this school you are saving? Max said it was for gifted and talented poor kids? Is that right?” STT quietly placed a digital tape recorder on the table between them and fixed Bambi with his most encouraging, expectant face.
“I know, isn’t it wonderful? It came to my attention because one of our ladies at the apartment who’s been with us for nearly twenty years . . . her daughter goes to the school.”
“How fabulous!” STT purred. Bolstered, Mrs. Von Bizmark continued, dutifully dropping her talking points about an inspiring principal and talented student body. Their salads arrived. STT sipped his iced tea from a straw. Bambi dared one small bite of food, and as she chewed, he said, “So, tell me a little bit about your background . . .”
“In a nutshell, I grew up in the city. Sacred Heart. Wellesley. All that. Studied art history. Worked at Sotheby’s. Met Peter at an auction, and it was love at first sight.”
“Yessss,” STT said, stirring his drink with the straw now. The ice cubes tinkled.
“Of course, he didn’t have the sort of money we do now, but he just loved nineteenth-century Russian oils. Our Russian expert was out that day, so I had to run the auction. And right out of the gate, there’s a bidding war between Peter and . . . well . . .” Bambi leaned in closer to STT. “Off the record, it was Michael Bloomberg.” STT’s eyebrows shot up, just as Bambi had intended. “Anyway, they blew through the reserve, through anything like an appropriate price, and they’re going back and forth and back and forth. I didn’t know what to think—it all felt like a strange dream. And as I’m watching this man do battle with one of New York’s most famous self-made billionaires, I’m thinking more and more about how attractive he is. How his hair looks so touchable and his face so kind.” Bambi gave STT her gee-I-love-my-husband smile. “And he wins! Peter wins! And afterward, he comes right up to me and says, ‘I need you to know I don’t have money like that yet, but I had to meet you.’”