25
Paulina and Celeste, 1993
Paulina Pavlin stretched under the covers of her luxurious king-sized bed at the Four Seasons Hotel in Florence. The suite had frescoed ceilings and overlooked the Giardino della Gherardesca. It had been her home for the past two months.
She’d only intended to stay in Florence for a week before meeting up with friends skiing in Zurich, but she quickly realized the only thing more delicious than Italian food was Italian men.
Beside her, her uomo del giorno snored softly. She’d met him two days earlier when she stopped by a café after visiting the Uffizi. Three hours of looking at Renaissance art got her in the mood for romance; Alessandro served her a shot of espresso and when she left a few lire for the bill, she included a scrap of paper with her hotel phone number. He called her as soon as his shift was over and arrived at the hotel on a red Vespa. He hadn’t left since. For now, she was more than content to have him in her bed. But she knew it was just a matter of time before the restlessness set in; it always did.
Paulina was in love with the idea of love. Unfortunately, she had yet to fall in love with an actual person. No matter how handsome the stranger, how great the sex, how fabulous the setting, she lost interest after a week or two. He’d start talking about the screenplay he hadn’t finished, or his ex, or his mother issues, and the bubble would burst and she’d be over it.
Maybe this was normal for age twenty-three, but Paulina wasn’t a normal twenty-three-year-old. She was a Pavlin, heiress to a jewelry fortune, with the tabloid following to match. And they were relentless. A few months ago, the New York Post ran a piece about her with the headline “The Count, the Duke, and the Wardrobe”—a play, no doubt, on the book The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe—documenting her consecutive flings with a French count, a British duke, and one of the Missoni fashion heirs. To top it off, it included a paparazzi shot of her topless on the latter’s yacht.
Ever since, she found it easier to have affairs with more low-profile men, and so . . . the barista in her bed. Who knew how long this particular fling would last, but she hoped at least until the weekend; she was meeting friends on the coast for a day of yachting, and she knew her barista would look beyond hot in a bathing suit.
Paulina slid gingerly from under the covers, not wanting to wake him. But she couldn’t wait another minute for coffee. The strong Italian coffee had exacerbated her caffeine addiction. She slipped on her jeans and well-worn ankle boots for the trip down to the espresso cart on the street.
“Ms. Pavlin, un minuto,” the front desk clerk called out.
“I’ll be back soon, Umberto,” she said. “I need caffeina.”
Italian had proven so much easier to pick up than French. Maybe it was because the people were kinder about it, quick to let her mistakes slide and eager to offer help.
“I have a telephone message for you—from two days ago.”
She’d turned her room phone off and asked not to be disturbed. Her heart skipped a beat in alarm.
“Oh?” She hurried closer to the desk. Umberto handed her a slip of paper with three words on it: Call your father.
Of course, she imagined the worst: that something had happened to her mother or one of her sisters. She hadn’t heard from Celeste, toiling away in grad school, in a while. And she never heard from Elodie, who worked long hours in the family business and was about as much fun as a root canal.
Paulina did a quick time difference calculation and realized it was only five a.m. in New York. But her father was an early riser. She hurried to the phone banks on the far side of the lobby. Her hand shook as she punched in all the numbers for the collect trans-Atlantic call.
“It’s about time!” her father said without so much as a hello. She supposed she deserved it.
“I’m so sorry,” she said. “I literally just got the message from the front desk.” Well, it wasn’t a lie. “Is everything okay? Is it Mom?”
“Everything—everyone is fine. But I do need you to come back to the city.”
“When?” She knew she would have to go home eventually, but she was in no rush. She felt better out from under the shadow of her older sisters, brainy Celeste and ambitious Elodie. She didn’t want to have to answer her parents’ nagging questions about what she planned to “do” with her life. As far as she could tell, she was doing what she planned to do. It seemed self-evident to her.
“I want you on a plane tomorrow. We have a big family event coming up.”
“Dad! I need more notice than that.”
“You’d have had more notice if you returned my first message forty-eight hours ago. Oh—one more thing. Bring a boyfriend. Your sisters are bringing dates.”
“I’m not seeing anyone right now, Dad.”
“Well, that’s a first,” he said. “Either way, let me know what time your flight lands so I can send the driver.”
She hung up the phone with a sigh. So much for seeing the barista in his bathing suit.
No matter how much time Celeste spent away from her parents’ Park Avenue apartment, it always felt like she’d just left. It never changed.
The first thing her boyfriend, Brodie, said when they walked into her parents’ duplex was, “I didn’t believe people really lived like this.”
Seeing the place fresh through Brodie’s eyes, it all looked like a cartoonish version of the opulence she remembered. The ceilings looked higher, the sunlight pouring into the living room brighter, her mother’s stark minimalist décor (the brainchild of her interior designer, a woman so pricey Alan called her CV, for cash vacuum) more dramatic. Every inch of the place screamed “expensive.” Celeste was embarrassed; she wished she hadn’t let her father pressure her into bringing Brodie. Especially since Paulina, apparently, had managed to fly solo for the weekend.
A housekeeper informed her dinner was scheduled for six o’clock in the dining room. While Brodie was getting changed, Celeste slipped down the hall to Elodie’s room. Even though Elodie had been working for the company since graduating college, she still hadn’t moved out of her childhood bedroom. While Celeste hadn’t been able to leave fast enough, Elodie was clearly in no rush to cut the cord.
“I wish we were going out to a restaurant,” she said, sitting on the edge of Elodie’s bed. Elodie sat at a mahogany vanity, trying to pin her hair back. “It just feels so . . . intense with all of us here.”
Elodie, who had always been game to join in for a session of complaining about the quirks and vagaries of their parents, was in no mood to play along.
“I think it’s nice,” she said. “It’s more intimate this way.”
More intimate? When Celeste moved to Philly, Elodie declared that New York City wasn’t big enough for her and Paulina without Celeste around as a buffer. Clearly, something had changed. She took a closer look at her sister. Elodie had replaced her old tortoiseshell glasses with a sleeker pair of black lacquered frames. Her hair, naturally a mousier color than Celeste’s and Paulina’s golden blond, seemed to shimmer with new highlights and it was longer than Celeste had seen it since they were teenagers.
“Look at you. What happened to my sister Elodie? I demand you return her immediately,” Celeste teased.
Elodie turned away from the mirror to face her. Her blue-green eyes seemed lit from within.
“I think I’m in love,” she said.
At dinner, she could see why. The twenty-seat table—white Carrara marble imported from Italy—was set for seven. Celeste was next to Brodie and across from Liam Maybrook, Elodie’s guy. He was handsome, seemed intelligent, and when he looked adoringly at Elodie, it warmed Celeste’s heart. He was mid-story about something at an advertising agency when she took her seat. She had learned from Elodie that they met at a brand strategy creative meeting.
Beside her, Brodie sat stiffly without saying a word. She reached for his hand under the table.
“Sorry I’m late,” Paulina said, strolling in wearing a spaghetti-strap black dress with a plaid shirt tied around her waist and black combat boots. Her pale hair hung down to her waist. She looked like the poster girl for grunge chic.
Elodie’s boyfriend stared at their youngest sister. Who could blame him? Still, it made Celeste shift uncomfortably in her seat when Paulina stared right back. No one else seemed to notice.
“Celeste, when are you moving back to civilization?” her father asked while the sommelier filled everyone’s wineglasses. “I’ve got a desk with your name on it.”
“Philadelphia isn’t exactly a desert island, Dad,” she said. “And I’m getting my master’s degree so I can teach.”
“How about you, Brodie?” Alan said. “You have your head stuck in the books, too?”
“No, Mr. Pavlin,” Brodie said. For the first time, Celeste could detect the slight muddiness of his Delaware accent. And she hated herself for noticing. “I’m a first-year associate at a law firm.”
“A lawyer!” Alan said, smacking his palm onto the table. “We can always use more of those around here.” He turned to Paulina, seated to his left. “Why don’t you try dating someone with a job for a change?”
“Because it’s so much more fun dating someone with a title,” she said.
Even the new-and-improved Elodie rolled her eyes at that.
“Alan,” Constance said, her lips pursed in displeasure at the direction the conversation had taken. Paulina was Constance’s favorite, always had been, and Celeste had finally reached an age where she accepted this without judgment or too much emotion. “Why don’t you give the kids a little preview of what you have planned for tomorrow night.”
Her mother looked elegant as usual in a navy Chanel suit, her blond hair parted at the side and tucked behind one ear with a diamond clip. Her blue eyes were perfectly made-up with smoky shadow and liquid eyeliner. Her nails were polished a deep crimson, her lips nude gloss. She smelled like her Opium perfume.
“Excellent idea, my love.” Her father, for all his faults (controlling, workaholic, judgmental), had one unimpeachable quality: He adored his wife. “Everyone, tomorrow night will be a historic moment for Pavlin & Co. As you know, I’m introducing the Electric Rose to the press and the public. But I also want to bring Pavlin & Co back to its roots; as my father put it, ‘A diamond says love.’ That’s why I wanted everyone together tomorrow night. Because there’s no greater love than my love for my family.” He raised his glass. “To my girls, my greatest treasure.”
Everyone raised their glasses, and Celeste felt a lump in her throat. It was the warmest expression of feelings she’d heard from her father in years.
Maybe some things could change.