The Crasher Page 20

  “Huh?” There was surely only one way to say Huh? Out of the corner of her eye she saw Sandra Bullock and someone of indeterminate sex who’d shaved his or her head.

  “Yep… it’s a very cool new music magazine.”

  By midnight they’d dropped into Nell’s, a party at an art gallery on Prince Street, and Barocco, which she loved because there were a couple of real stars on the premises—Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon (was she pregnant again?). More important, there was food. She was consuming a kind of hot bean sprout patty with a glass of delicious white wine when she saw in the corner Dolores, her lucky omen.

  Ginny crossed her fingers. Perhaps it meant Tony was going to back her. If he’d backed Huh, why not Her?

  “Oopla, there’s going to be a nasty little scene, I believe. Did you see who just arrived? Let’s get out of here before the fur starts flying.”

  So far she hadn’t seen Tony take a drink, but as he pulled her toward the door he downed a couple of glasses of champagne in two swigs. “Hi, Johnny,” she heard him say as she went ahead into the street. “Your ex-missus is in there with Mr. Oilwell himself.”

  “Was that Johnny Peet?” she asked as she got in the car.

  “None other. Good guy, Johnny. We knew each other at Princeton.”

  “I wish I’d known. I’d love to meet him. My father’s crazy about his father. I wonder if I’d like his son…”

  “You will never know, Mademoiselle Chanel. Après le déluge, après Dolores, he’s sworn off women for good.”

  “A likely story.”

  Because Tony hadn’t attempted to touch her, in or out of the car, she didn’t think twice when, arriving at the loft, he asked to come up for a nightcap.

  No sooner had she closed the door than he lunged, like a rapist, pushing her down on the floor and yanking away at her tuxedo jacket. She screamed so loudly he sat back on his heels, looking mildly surprised for a few seconds. It was enough time to unpin the safety pin in her sarong and stab him furiously in the arm.

  His face slowly flushed a deep, unbecoming red. She said her prayers, knowing there was no one in the building at night, sure her end was about to come. Instead he stood up, bowed like a Japanese dignitary, and left.

  Ginny quickly locked the door and went to the window. After what seemed an interminable time, she saw him come out and the Mercedes slowly drive away.

  Two days later he called with profuse apologies. He called three more times before she relented and agreed to meet him—for dinner at La Grenouille, a restaurant she’d always wanted to visit.

  She sat poker-faced, well into the second course, when Tony made a confession.

  “I’m an alcoholic, Ginny. Even a sniff of the stuff turns me into an animal. Don’t let me near it and we’ll never have a problem.”

  She looked suspiciously at his glass. It was true, he’d ordered Perrier for himself, white wine for her.

  “Okay, now let’s talk about your business.”

  She started to, but it was hopeless. He interrupted, meandered around the subjects of his ex-wife, his ex-mistress and how greedy women could be when love was out the door. “Look at poor Johnny Peet…”

  She didn’t want to hear a word about poor Johnny Peet. It was time for poor Ginny Walker.

  Except for an attempted foray under her skirt in the Mercedes going back to the loft, there were no more passes, and when Tony gave her his business card, Ginny decided it was all going to be worthwhile after all. “Best come to the office. As I told you, I do like to back the occasional wild card. Come up and we’ll get into margins.”

  She called him three times to set up the meeting. Twice he was out of town, once “unavailable.”

  “Che sarà, sarà,” she said with a sad smile, telling Esme the story over dim sum one rainy day in Chinatown.

  Esme had her own troubles, seeking Ginny’s advice on how to pin down an irresolute fiancé and set a wedding date sometime in ‘95.

  “I know he loves me, but he’s sooo busy,” she moaned. “He just hasn’t got time to sit down and work it all out with me.”

  “Too busy counting his millions.” Ginny tried to laugh, but it wasn’t funny. Despite Esme’s many attempts to help, although Ted was always talking about how rich he was, Ginny had never been able to talk him into giving her a loan.

  When Esme frowned, Ginny put her arm around her. “Cheer up. You said yourself Ted loves you. Men are lazy. Why don’t you choose a date yourself, something you know won’t screw up his itinerary. Are you friendly with his secretary?”

  “Absolutely. I made sure of it.”

  “Well, then, collaborate with her. Find out what, if anything, he has planned for ‘95, then work the wedding date in somehow… I’m sure he just doesn’t want to be bothered with the details.”

  Esme beamed. “You really think so? Oh, Ginny, that’s a marvelous idea. Why didn’t I think of that?”

  “Because you’re a shy shrinking violet, I don’t think.”

  Esme smiled. “Okay, now let’s plot something for you. Where shall we start?”

  Ginny sighed. “I’m trying to keep my spirits up, Es, but my luck’s getting worse, not better. Whenever an appointment seems to be leading somewhere, it ends in a race around the desk or some heavy trying to get me into bed.”

  “I’m not surprised, Ginny. You’re looking gorgeous and so skinny.”

  Ginny was too proud to tell her best friend that she used what little money she had to spare to buy fabric, not food, that with the Gosman severance pay almost gone, along with the two thousand dollars Poppy had given her for the two dresses, she often relied on crashing to provide her main meal.

  There was something else new about her crashing. She hadn’t, as Alex had feared, turned into a crashing junkie. She was still selective, but she no longer crashed just to show off her clothes (or to eat). She’d grown to love crashing for other, more complex reasons.

  She loved the rush of adrenaline it delivered as she mingled with the “in” crowd. She felt a sense of triumph, chatting up potential investors at night, the same people who promised but never returned her phone calls during the day. She was vaguely familiar to some of the security guards now and some PR party people, who acknowledged her with a smile or a wave.

  In some convoluted way crashing had become her act of revenge to everyone who let her down, to the smooth strangers who wanted more, much more, than her designing talent, as a return on their investment.

  Not that she’d dream of telling Esme she’d turned crashing into a major occupation. Esme thought it was a fun thing she did sometimes—rarely—on the spur of the moment. Ginny knew Esme didn’t approve of that, either.

  “I thought you were making clothes regularly for Poppy Gan?” Esme asked now.

  “She talks about getting a ‘real wardrobe,’ but she’s as impossible to pin down as ever.”

  “Well as soon as we—I—set the date,” Esme started to giggle, “you’re going to be too busy to do anything for Ms. Gan. I’ll need you full-time to design my dress, my trousseau, the bridesmaids’ dresses… yours, of course, and one for Ted’s sister, Carol, and my cousin Sue Jane.”

  As they watched the rain turn into sleet outside the window on Mott Street, they ordered rice wine and more dim sum. Esme always made Ginny feel optimistic, and the feeling stayed with her until she got back to the loft.

  It was really sleeting the evening she planned to crash a party at New York’s Guggenheim Museum. She was already dressed in a lilac-colored diaphanous sheath made from delicate embroidered material Lee had brought back from a trip to India as an early birthday present. She was tired after helping Lee style a shoot that day. Should she go? Shouldn’t she go? She started to play a game with herself. If the phone rang before seven P.M.—whoever it was—she’d go. If not, she’d put the dress away, give herself a bubble bath and go to bed early. But it wasn’t the phone that rang; it was the intercom from the front door.

  “Hello?”

  “Gi
nny Walker?” She didn’t recognize the accent.

  “Yes.”

  “I’m Angus Tollmach, a friend of Alex. He called you, didn’t he?”

  “Nooo,” she said slowly. “He didn’t.”

  “Oh, shit… sorry, Ginny, but your cousin promised…”

  Ginny decided as he knew Alex was her cousin, he was probably bona fide. “I’ll let you in, but I’m actually on the way out.”

  “Oh, don’t worry. I’m in a rush myself, but I’ve got something for you. If you could buzz me in and come down for it soon, I’ll leave it just inside, okay?”

  She was ashamed of her suspicions, but after Tony, she was wary of letting any strangers in. “Oh, please come up for a quick drink…” She pressed the front-door buzzer.

  The phone started to ring. She looked at the time. It was well before seven. “Just a minute…”

  It was Alex. “Alex, Angus is downstairs. Hold on.” She put the phone down and hollered down the intercom. “Come on up, Angus. Alex is on the line.”

  “No, tell him I’ve done my bit. The package is in the hall.”

  Alex said excitedly, “Go down and get it, Ginny. I’ll call back in five minutes.”

  She ran down the flights and retrieved a small box. She had only just opened it when Alex called again.

  “Do you like it?”

  “Like it! I adore it.”

  “It” was a gold bracelet, heavy with gold petals, decorated with, she supposed, sparkling rhinestones.

  “It’s entailed, Ginny darling.”

  “What on earth does that mean?”

  “You can wear it as much as you like, but you can never own it. It has to be passed on to future generations.”

  “But I don’t have any future…”

  As usual Alex wasn’t listening. “Half the good stuff you see on the dolly birds, including your friend Poppy, is entailed, although they never know it. I’ll need to borrow it back sometime, but meanwhile take care of it for me. It will look great on your skinny arm. What are you up to?”

  She looked at the time again. Six thirty-five. “I think I’m going to the Guggenheim Museum—to a reception and a dinner. Where are you?”

  Alex cut right across her. “Wear it tonight with joy, Ginny dear. I have a feeling it’s your lucky night.”

  “Where are you?”

  “On my way back to New York.” He sounded more serious than usual. “And Gin…”

  “Yes?”

  “You were right to be wary of Svank. Now I know him quite well. He’s greedy, dangerous—”

  “Oh, Alex. Do be careful.” In a rush she told him the Poppy birthday story.

  There was silence, then, “Don’t worry, pigeon. If you have something he wants, he’s still very much someone to know.”

  By the time she put the phone down it was ten past seven. It was now or never. Okay. Now.

  The bracelet lit up her pale skin. She felt a surge of confidence. Perhaps tonight would be the night her luck changed.

  There was that kooky girl, gate-crashing again, well, not so kooky, quite cute really. What trouble was she talking herself out of this time? Or, for once, perhaps into trouble.

  Standing inside the garlanded circular entrance hall of the Guggenheim Museum, smoking a frowned-upon cigarette, Johnny Peet watched with cynical amusement as the skinny swan, draped in veils of lilac, at first coolly and then more heatedly argued with an overbearing dowager holding a list, obviously the keeper of the gate.

  The more he observed, the more he remembered the girl, mainly because of her outlandish, extraordinary clothes and… what was the other reason? It came to him in a flash. She was the girl who’d worn what he’d described as “the two-faced dress” in one of his columns. In a way he couldn’t begin to fathom, she was the girl who still in some way reminded him of Dolores. But what exactly was behind her modus operandi?

  From the dowager’s sour expression he saw the girl wasn’t getting very far. There was something he glimpsed for a second on her face, a scared, lost look that struck a chord. There could be a story here.

  Without thinking it through, Johnny strolled over. “I wondered where on earth you’d got to,” he scowled as he approached. He tucked her arm through his (not surprised to feel it tremble). “You said you’d only be a second, but as usual…” he exchanged another scowl with the dowager, “as usual you’re about to miss the first course. I’m ravenous, even if you aren’t.”

  The girl shot him a furtive look that mingled astonishment with gratitude, but without missing a beat she smiled sweetly at the lady with the list. “I’m sorry to have been such a nuisance, but I did tell you I’d been in before. Sorry to have troubled you.”

  He couldn’t help smiling himself. She really was a well-trained con artist, not making the mistake of turning into a prima donna and dressing the dowager down now that she’d been rescued.

  “Oh, I didn’t know she was with you, sir. She didn’t say so.”

  “I can’t think why!”

  As they climbed up and around the soaring staircase, Johnny already regretted getting involved. There may be a story, but he had other stories on his mind.

  “Thank you, Mr….” She obviously didn’t have a clue who he was. For some reason that irritated him.

  “I can’t imagine why she was giving me such a hard time,” she blithely chattered on. “I’d just gone downstairs to collect my wrap—it’s a bit cool upstairs, and—”

  “Where is it then?”

  “Where’s what?”

  “Your wrap.”

  Her eyes were almost on a level with his. They were a strange greeny-brown color. She had very long lashes which looked like her own. Now she batted them a few times, and without a pause, went right on, “Well, I changed my mind. I didn’t want to hide my dress. I decided to be… well, chilly for the sake of fashion.” She laughed charmingly. “I’m Ginny Walker.”

  What chutzpah. He didn’t respond or introduce himself as they reached the main room where the party was taking place. It didn’t strike him as cool, although the air, sweet with the scent of a hundred thousand roses (as he’d been told several times already), made him feel light-headed.

  “Well, thank you,” the girl said again. “I better go find…” She held out her hand.

  He ignored it. “Watch them move.” He pointed to all the grand dames milling about. “They never rub their noses, never move their hands to their faces or sip a drink at the wrong time. Their heads will rise on cue and the turkey necks will disappear.”

  She gave him the furtive look again, not sure where all this was leading.

  “As one takes out her perfect little gold compact to powder her nose, so one by one will the others follow suit. Oh, the misery of all those lifted faces without the hands to match, because you can only lengthen a sleeve so far, right?”

  There was an awkward silence as he waited for her to speak. “Well, yes, well, yes, you’re right.” Ginny turned as if to look for someone else to rescue her. He enjoyed her obvious discomfiture.

  “Well, thank you, Mr…. I’d better be going.” Now she looked wary. She was no doubt convinced, he thought with more amusement, that she’d been shanghaied by a madman.

  “The reason for that little monologue is simple. It’s leading up to an important question. Why, ma’am, do you want to be with these people? I’ve watched you before in similar situations. You’re crashing this party, aren’t you? You’re what I would call a professional crasher. There’s no one out there waiting for you, is there?” He waved a hand casually at the chattering crowd. “But why bother?”

  She blushed, a pretty pink blush all the way from her collarbone to her forehead. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen a woman blush. Trained to blush? An interesting thought, but then women could train themselves to do anything if it suited them. Perhaps this little episode wasn’t going to be such a waste of time after all. Why would anyone, least of all a cute young woman, as this one appeared to be, want to put h
erself in such a potentially demeaning situation?

  As she moved her hand to brush a stray piece of hair from her face, he noticed her bracelet. Spectacular. If she owned a bracelet like that, she could surely afford to attend this dinner and any others without crashing.

  Despite the blush, there was no sign of embarrassment on Ginny’s face. She stared at him loftily. “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean. I’m a guest of Poppy Gan. I’ve just forgotten the number of her table.”

  “Poppy Gan isn’t here. This isn’t her crowd. That’s new money, a downtown fast crowd. This is old money, slow, not half so much fun. I’ll give you a thousand bucks to buy a real ticket for yourself if Poppy Gan’s here. Try again.” Johnny gave her an amused sardonic grin.

  The blush was still on her face as for the next few minutes she obstinately clung to her Poppy Gan story, even throwing in the monstrous Svank’s name. Johnny decided he’d had enough of her mental contortions. He pulled a crumpled sheet of paper out of his pocket and handed it to her.

  “What’s this?”

  “A list of the table holders as of six o’clock tonight. So what’s it all about, Ginny? I really want to know why you’d sooner be here than in a cozy little bar with pals of your own age.”

  She looked like a cornered deer. “Why… why do you have such an up-to-date list? How can you be so sure Poppy isn’t here?”

  Before he could speak, a languid blonde came up and placed a proprietary hand on his arm. “Hey, Johnny, so glad you finally made it. The Rockefellers are at your table. We’re all waiting for you so the party can really begin.” She smiled, showing perfect bonded teeth.

  Johnny clapped a hand to his head. “Susan, did I tell you I was bringing a date? Ginny Walker, meet Susan Barker.”

  Susan flicked a glance in Ginny’s direction, then averted her eyes quickly as if the sight was too painful. “No, you didn’t, Johnny. That could be a problem.”

  Squirming, Ginny couldn’t wait to make a getaway. “It doesn’t matter, really. I can’t stay long…”