The Crasher Page 23

  “And the rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain.”

  “What?”

  “Never mind.”

  He gave the doorman twenty dollars to send Ginny’s car away when it arrived, and in a chilly wind they walked a couple of blocks fast down Fifth Avenue into the Hotel Pierre.

  They settled at a corner table in the bar, a good pianist playing Andrew Lloyd Webber in a soft, romantic way.

  “What would you like? A glass of champagne?”

  Out of nowhere Ginny remembered seeing Dolores Peet for the first time at Doubles, almost next door to where they were now. How impressed she’d been, sitting there with Alex, drinking piña coladas in the afternoon. What an innocent baby she’d been.

  “A Perrier, please.” To show her sophistication, she added, “with bitters.”

  She had to be in charge of the conversation if she was going to convince Johnny Peet there was nothing about her behavior that could possibly interest his readers. How should she begin? Chitchat?

  “Marvelous apartment, Luisa’s, isn’t it?”

  Johnny laughed. “Marvelous. How well do you know her?”

  “Oh, not well.” Ginny toyed with one of the fringes on her skirt. “She’s a good friend of my cousin Alex—Alex Rossiter.” She hesitated, wondering whether to say “from Scotland,” but decided against it. “She’d heard about my business and wanted to meet me.”

  “Oh, yes, your business. Ginny Walker Fashion, right? Or is it Virginia Walker?”

  He didn’t miss a thing. Ginny took a deep breath. “My name is actually Virginia. I was named after my mother. She’s always called Virginia and sometimes Alex—er—our, er, my mother’s nephew—forgets and introduces me as Virginia, but I prefer Ginny. What do you like to be called? John or Johnny?”

  “Johnnyw’

  “Of course, the Q. in your byline stands for Quentin, right?”

  “Yep.”

  “After your father…”

  “Yep.”

  “Of course, I knew that. My father’s one of his most fervent fans. He’s been writing to him for years, xeroxing his columns, quoting from them in the lessons he sends out. He runs college correspondence courses.”

  “Really.” This was pretty boring stuff. It was time to change the subject.

  “So tell me about your business? What kind of fashion?”

  “Oh, it’s small, but it’s developing nicely. Moderately priced, day, evening clothes, like that…”

  “Like what you’re wearing? It’s… it’s different, but very pretty.”

  “Thank you.” There was that slight pink blush again. “Well, no, I mean I designed this, of course. I always wear my own clothes, but this would be too expensive to go in one of my lines…”

  “How many lines d’you have? Or should I call them seasons?”

  She was relaxing. “There’s an old saying in the rag trade that there are five seasons, fall, winter, spring, summer, and slack.” She paused and he obliged her with a laugh. “Now there are more, resort, holiday, prespring, pre-fall because stores demand a constant influx of new stuff. Of course, I can’t possibly cover all that…”

  He could see she really loved her work and was beginning to unwind.

  Until a second round of drinks arrived, they went on chatting pleasantly, she describing a business that didn’t exist, he describing a close relationship with his celebrated father that didn’t exist.

  As she talked, he studied her, an idea beginning to formulate. This strange wild card, Ginny Walker, had to view society from a uniquely jaundiced vantage point, if, as he suspected, she was no novice at crashing. She must have plenty of stories to tell, stories about behavior that could be useful when he went ahead with the book. He noted he was already thinking “when” as opposed to “if.”

  After the miserable no-win, tense lunch with his father, of course he’d decided to do it; he just hadn’t admitted it to himself until that moment. He’d kick himself forever if he didn’t take a stab at it.

  It was time to get down to business. “Now explain to me why on earth you wanted to crash that party the other evening?”

  “But I didn’t.” She was mortified that she couldn’t stop a flicker of fear crossing her face.

  “Come on, Ginny, I’m not going to bite. Remember that list I showed you, the guest list? Whatever you call yourself, Ginny, Virginia, Veronica, Venezuela, your name wasn’t on it and I happen to know that group is very sticky about their guest list. They practically wanted it certified before they gave it to me. In any case, the reason I rescued you from that battleship was because I remembered seeing you being put through a similar hard time before, somewhere. What’s up, Ginny? Why do you put yourself through the wringer like that? It’s not good for your psyche, your soul. It surely can’t be good for your business. People must know what you’re up to and the word gets around.”

  There was a long, painful silence. Soul! Who was Johnny Peet to talk about souls? What could he, the quintessential insider, know about what happened to your soul when you were always on the outside?

  Was it any use continuing to deny his accusations? Would he understand more if she also confessed she’d never yet been able to start her fashion business, because she’d been let down financially so many times? Her euphoria at being a welcome guest at 834 disappeared.

  “Ginny.” Johnny touched her hand. It was cold. “Ginny, I was going to leave you a message telling you not to worry. I know at the Museum you thought I rescued you because I wanted to use your vile crashing habit as material in my column. Perhaps initially the idea interested me, but not now. When you left that message, saying you’d be out of town until the weekend, I thought it would be more fun to tell you so in person and perhaps discuss a project where you might be of help to me.”

  “Help?” she repeated. He could see she didn’t trust him.

  He was right.

  Once I admit I’m regularly into crashing, Ginny thought, I’m finished.

  Johnny gave her the winsome smile Dolores always said was modeled on his father’s. Perhaps it was. It was usually effective. “Yes, help. If I trust you with a secret, will you trust me with yours? I know there has to be a fascinating explanation for your crashing.” Johnny looked at his watch and pretended to scowl. “You’re making me ravenous again with all this talk. Let’s stay here and have dinner. The food isn’t bad and at least it’s quiet.”

  Before she could answer, he beckoned a passing waiter. “We’ve decided to eat. We’d like a table for two in the back.”

  It was pointless to resist, and over dinner Johnny strongly reiterated that he had no interest in writing about her crashing in his column. “Zilch. There are lots of crashers out there, just as there’s an army of place-card shufflers and people who use the names of people they don’t know to get others to dinner. It’s all part of the social con game. Boring!”

  “What d’you mean? Ask people they don’t know…”

  Good. He’d captured her interest. It was the first time she’d responded since he opened his attack.

  “Example: Mrs. Up and Coming wants to know Madame Already Arrived a whole lot better. She calls. She’s giving a small dinner for Madame A.A.’s pals, the Very Socials. She would love her to come. If she accepts, she then calls the Very Socials and tells them the Already Arriveds are coming and wouldn’t it be lovely if they came, too… and so on and so on.”

  “Don’t these people ever talk to each other? To check things out?”

  “You’d be surprised how many Already Arriveds are really Also Rans and love a free dinner when you get to know them. ‘The penalty of success is to be bored by people who used to snub you’—one of the truest remarks ever made, by Nancy Astor, a remarkably feisty American-born English politician, as you probably know.”

  She didn’t, but she nodded appreciatively as he went on, “The only reason I want to know why you want to be part of this nonsense is because I sense you aren’t just another no-see-em.”

 
“Now what d’you mean?”

  “No-see-ems are what I call people who don’t know they exist unless they see their names in print, in the gossip columns or their images on the idiot box.”

  “How weird.”

  “Well, I am weird. I thought you’d guessed that already. That’s why we’re going to get along as colleagues.”

  Colleagues? The word depressed her. It confirmed what she’d already guessed—that he had no interest in her as a woman.

  What did he want? Anxious for the evening to end, Ginny decided to tell him the truth.

  “For the past year I’ve been…” She stopped. She found she didn’t want to use the “c” word to him. “I’ve been going to parties wearing my designs, getting photographed, meeting people who I hoped… I hoped through seeing my clothes, might help me find financial backing, enough to put my company on a firm foundation.”

  By the time coffee arrived, and because, Ginny supposed, John Q. Peet was so good at his job, using interview techniques she wasn’t even aware of, she’d told him about her nomad childhood with the Walker School, run by a peripatetic father, who still thought he was Socrates, about the greatest influence in her life, her cousin Alex, and her subsequent disastrous venture into modeling, and about her on-again, off-again relationship with Poppy Gan (without mentioning the monster Svank), which had led her into taking Lee Baker Davies’s advice literally, “to get out and about socially, so my designs can be seen.”

  “So I was wrong. Crashing helps rather than hurts your business?”

  Was it time to tell all? Ginny sighed, not knowing how vulnerable and sad she looked.

  “What business? ” she said with a defeated shrug. “I don’t know why I’m telling you everything now, but I don’t think I’ve got much choice. You might as well know Ginny Walker Fashion doesn’t exist…” she paused with a residue of defiance“… yet.”

  The more Ginny talked about her crashing experiences, the more pleased with himself Johnny became.

  He’d struck pay dirt. Ginny was a natural observer of the cruelty alive and well in New York society. She saw through the hypocrisy, the hype, the hysteria. She could be invaluable as an undercover agent.

  Although, luckily, she didn’t realize it, despite her fashion designs, it was her… Johnny searched for the right word… her very unobtrusiveness that allowed her to crash so successfully eight times out of ten. It also helped her become so much part of the crowd that people gave things away, not realizing she was there.

  There was no way he could explain this without hurting Ms. Walker’s feelings; nevertheless, it was something he could turn into an incredible asset.

  By the time Ginny finished telling him how many times the promises made of financial backing had ended in dead ends, if not in humiliating games of sexual hide-and-seek, they were alone in the restaurant, with the waiters clearly showing them they wanted to close up for the night.

  “Where d’you live?”

  “In Chelsea.”

  Downtown. That was a bore. He had to write tomorrow. “D’you mind if I put you in a cab?”

  “Of course not.” There was that sad, lost look again. Generally he avoided what he called wounded birds like the plague, but from what she’d told him and from what he’d already seen of her in action, he knew this Ginny Walker was no wounded bird.

  Out on the sidewalk, when a cab came along he got in beside her. Immediately she tensed up.

  He felt like laughing. She didn’t have to worry about him, but women were funny. One minute they were afraid you’d make a pass; the next they were offended when you didn’t. “Relax, Ginny. I’m already tied up with someone…” It was a useful line he’d been using to extricate himself if and when a woman came on strong, scarcely the case with Ginny.

  They didn’t speak much on the way downtown. When they reached her address, he was going to take the cab immediately back uptown, but again he did what he hadn’t planned to do.

  They stood awkwardly on the pavement. “I haven’t told you my secret, don’t you want to know?”

  “It’s late.”

  “A cup of coffee?”

  “Only if you don’t mind instant.”

  He wasn’t surprised by the way she lived. Before hearing the story of her life, he’d guessed she might be living in a loft, spacious enough to double as a showroom for Ginny Walker Fashion.

  He was strangely touched to see a small Christmas tree by the window, decorated with flowers, which on closer inspection he saw were cleverly made out of scraps of ribbon. On the drawing board, next to the tree, were some terrific sketches. Perhaps he could help Ms. Walker by showing them to Next!’s fashion editor.

  On a side table was a photograph of a much younger Ginny, laughing up at a tall, dark, and handsome guy. He’d seen him before somewhere.

  “Who’s that?”

  “Oh, that’s Alex, my cousin.”

  Did the girl realize how often she referred to him? Johnny made a mental note to try to meet him sometime. Although he accepted the professional reason behind her crashing, he still felt there was more to it. Perhaps Alex could supply the answer.

  Sipping coffee, Johnny told her about the book he’d been asked to write, “about New York society from my own, some would say, captious point of view, but don’t misunderstand me. It’s to be a serious book, a serious look…”

  “How can I be of help?” Ginny interrupted, starting to laugh. “I can’t even type. D’you want some illustrations?”

  Johnny shook his head impatiently. “Remember Susan whatserface’s look when I told her I’d brought a date?”

  “How could I forget it?”

  “What you’ve been telling me this evening, perhaps without even knowing it, is what I suspect but don’t often have an opportunity to see for myself…”

  She still looked puzzled.

  “D’you want to hear a joke?”

  He really was a weirdo. “Okay.”

  “I’ll make it quick. A woman is talking on the phone about another woman. ‘D’you know the two things I most dislike about her?’ Answer: ‘Her face.’ ”

  It was her turn to oblige him with a laugh. “Okay. I get it. Society is two-faced”—she puckered her face into a cheeky grin—“like the dress I designed once, the one you called two-faced, remember? What else is new.”

  He laughed along with her good-naturedly. “What’s new?” he repeated. “You are.” He hoped she’d blush again, but she didn’t

  “You mean despite your opinion of crashing, you still want me to go on doing it, so I can record what happens, as opposed to what happens when you walk through the door? Why should I? That’s about as hypocritical as it gets.”

  “Not really. Think of it as carrying out a survey. Sometimes I’ll send you to parties on my behalf, a bona fide invitation, a sort of alias Mr. Peet. Similar to what the New York Times food critic did—whatsername, Ruth Reichl, remember?”

  Ginny shook her head. “What did she do?”

  “She described what happened when she went to Le Cirque as a ‘somebody’ and then as a ‘nobody.’ There was quite a difference, although Le Cirque denies it to this day.”

  Visions of waiting for Poppy Gan, sitting at the right table, sharp right from Le Cirque’s entrance, the day she heard Gosman was going to close, came to mind. How had she been treated? As a ‘somebody’ or a ‘nobody’? That day, in shock, she wouldn’t have been able to tell the difference. It seemed like another life ago. It was.

  It was time John Q. Peet went home. It was too late for her to think straight anymore.

  But Johnny was still talking. “I’ll pay you for your reports and, by the way, for what you’ve told me tonight, too.”

  She looked frightened again and he hurriedly said, “Of course, your name will never be used and no one will know. It’s just between us.”

  He could see she wanted him to go. She was standing by the rattan screen. When he got up to stand beside her, he was aware of her long lashes again and t
he fact they were almost eye to eye. Idly, he wondered if she always wore the same incredibly high heels that Dolores liked to totter about on.

  Ginny could feel his breath on her forehead. She wanted so much to lean on him, to be close. She moved back. She must be tired. Johnny Peet of all people. Was she crazy?

  “Well?”

  “Let me think about it. I still don’t quite get it. Why me?”

  “I admire your spirit, the way you look at the New York goldfish bowl, and let’s face it, you do view society from a unique position.” He pulled on her fringed sleeve. “Look on the project as a fringe benefit.”

  And then he kissed her, a sweet, quick kiss on the mouth. He was as surprised as she was. He couldn’t imagine what had prompted him to do it. Neither of them moved, not toward or away from each other.

  Later Ginny wondered what would have happened if the phone hadn’t started to ring.

  “Who on earth can be calling you at this time of night?” Johnny sounded indignant.

  She was wondering the same thing but, “How d’you know I’m not tied up, too?” she laughed.

  By the time she reached the phone it had stopped, but he was already at the door, waving goodbye with a “You’ll be hearing from me soon.”

  She didn’t tell anybody about the book or the crisply worded letter of confidentiality she was asked to sign that came by messenger in a Next! magazine envelope later that week. There was a check for five hundred dollars in the envelope, too, and by signing the letter there was the promise of more checks to come.

  It all seemed so simple. She would meet with Johnny Peet every other week or so and talk about her crashing activities, past, present and future (what events she planned to crash and why). Then occasionally she would act as his substitute without telling the host in advance that was to be the case. She was to note down everything she could remember, about the reception she received, the conversation around her, the objective of the evening, those who made the most impression, whether for good or bad reasons, and anything else she felt she should tell him.

  Yes, it was simple, and it was flattering that he thought her observations would be useful, and exciting that she would have a chance to get to know him. She signed the agreement.