She bounded up the red-carpeted steps, past the gray-suited doorman, and breezed through the shiny brass revolving doors of the Plaza. Her plan was going even better than she’d expected. After leaving Roberta a semi-rambling message saying that she had business to discuss, Roberta had texted her minutes later and given her a meeting on the spot: Palm Court, Plaza Hotel, four o’clock. That was the power of the Jurgensen name, she’d thought, tucking her phone back into her Botkier bag and turning west on Fifty-seventh Street. People always got back to you, even on a Saturday.
She hurried through the hushed, marble-floored lobby, and the memories floated back to her. This was where they’d come, she and her mom, the day they’d left her dad. They’d taken a one-bedroom suite with a king-size feather bed and a majestic view of Central Park. For five days her mom cried in the bathroom and her dad made threatening phone calls and her mom’s therapist, Dr. Carla, made a few emergency visits. It was weird to be in the middle of such high drama, but she’d loved being here. They ordered room service from a white-gloved butler named Godfrey, took long freezing walks in Central Park, crunching over frozen snow, and one night even slipped into a party taking place in one of the private event rooms. Best of all, her mom called her in sick to school every morning, just so Carina could stay in the hotel and keep her company.
When the Jurg finally showed up, he was with a police officer and a lawyer, both of whom threatened to arrest his wife if she didn’t allow Carina to come home. Carina wasn’t surprised, and neither was her mom. They’d said good-bye to each other in the hotel room. Now as she made her way through the lobby, past the softly lit boutiques and the slow-moving tourists, she remembered the smell of peppermint shampoo in her mom’s blond hair, and the touch of her freckled hands, and felt that same tightness in her chest from the night before. She’d gone home with her dad that day four years ago, thinking that she hadn’t had a choice. Now she wondered whether she’d actually had one. At least if she’d gone with her mom, she would have had one parent who cared about her. Right now she didn’t have any.
Carina rounded the corner and walked out into the entrance to the Palm Court, a large open dining area lined with potted palms and crammed with pink linen-covered tables.
“Excuse me, can I help you?” asked the skeletal hostess behind the podium.
“I’m meeting someone here,” Carina said, craning her head. “Roberta Baron.”
“Oh, right this way,” said the hostess, beckoning Carina to follow her. They made their way past ladies in dresses and pearls sipping tea from china cups and nibbling on tiny crustless sandwiches. Carina felt her spirits instantly lift. This place was stuffy, but a little luxury was just what she needed right now.
Roberta was at a table in the corner, bent over her BlackBerry as she sipped a glass of ice water. Her flame-colored bob looked like it had just been blown out that morning, and her bony wrists were draped with jewel-encrusted gold bangles. A fat yellow diamond glinted on her finger. If there was anyone who could teach her how to pull off being a successful party planner, Carina thought, it was Roberta.
“Carina, my darling,” she said, standing up and giving Carina a hug. She smelled faintly of lemons and her beige cashmere twinset felt supersoft and superexpensive. “What a nice surprise. How are you, my dear?”
“Great, great,” she said. “Thanks for meeting me.”
“Please, sit down,” Roberta said, and then turned to the hostess. “Could you please tell our waiter, wherever he is, that we’ll have the English tea service with no clotted cream? And absolutely no watercress or milk—just lemon. And a plate of those little candied gingers. And no dawdling, please.”
The hostess just nodded, mildly frazzled, and walked away.
“So, my dear, I was just thinking about you, and I’m so glad you called,” Roberta said, focusing her ice-blue eyes on Carina. She had to be almost sixty, but her pale face was eerily smooth. “If you’re planning a sweet sixteen, you really should start thinking about venues now. The best places are always taken a year in advance. What about the University Club?”
“Actually, I wanted to ask you some questions,” Carina said, circling the bottom of her water glass with her finger. “About your job.”
Roberta’s face went completely slack, as if she were trying hard not to make any unnecessary expressions.
“I’ve just been asked to plan the Silver Snowflake Ball this year,” she said, leaning forward on her elbows. “It’s this fancy private-school dance—”
“I know what it is,” Roberta said abruptly.
“And um… since this is my first party-planning job, I thought I’d ask you, the party-planning queen of New York, to give me a few pointers.”
“Pointers?” Roberta repeated, as if she’d suddenly forgotten how to understand English. Tiny frown lines appeared between her eyebrows.
“I mean, I get the basic idea,” Carina continued, “you kind of oversee everything, and tell people where to put stuff, and yell at people when things go wrong, but I’m sure there’s more to it. Tricks of the trade, that kind of thing.”
“So this isn’t about an actual event that you’d like me to do?” Roberta asked. Her eyebrows edged closer and closer to her hairline.
“Oh no,” Carina said. “Just advice.”
Roberta pursed her lips so hard that they turned into a narrow pink dash. “I rescheduled a meeting for this, Carina,” she said icily. “I thought you wanted to discuss an event.”
“Oh,” Carina said. “I thought I said I had some business to discuss—”
“Which I thought meant something for you and your father, not a school dance.”
There was a sound of rolling wheels and trembling silverware, and Carina looked up to see a white-jacketed waiter roll their tea service up to their table. On his cart were the largest silver teapot she’d ever seen, gold-edged china cups and saucers, several plates of scones, and a three-tiered tray that held various tiny sandwiches.
“Wow, that looks delicious,” Carina said, as the waiter began to serve the tea.
But Roberta didn’t even look at the food. Instead she pushed her chair back. “Do you mind if we do this another time? I have more important things to do with my day.” She slung her cream-colored Chanel satchel impatiently over her shoulder.
“Um… okay,” Carina stammered. “But don’t you want to eat?”
Roberta waved her hand dismissively at the cart. “Just tell your father we need to discuss what he wants to do about his holiday party this year. Everyone else already has their invitations printed. Good-bye, Carina.”
With that she wrapped her cashmere cape around herself, wheeled around on her spike-heeled Jimmy Choo boots, and set off toward the exit.
Carina watched her totter away in shock. What had just happened? Why was Roberta so angry with her? Or at least, why had she blown her off like that?
“Is everything okay?”
She looked up to see the skeletal hostess hovering over the table, fake smile blazing.
“Oh, yes,” Carina said. “My friend had to leave.”
“So you’re done?” the hostess asked brightly.
“I guess.”
“Then I’ll have the waiter bring you the check,” the hostess said, before walking away.
The check. Carina eyed the untouched stacks of sandwiches and scones, the huge teapot, the pots of butter and jam. Then she remembered that Roberta had left. Which meant that she would have to pay for it.
Her heart started to thump inside her chest like she was about to jump out of a plane. She had no idea how she was going to pay for this. Especially because this was probably the most expensive tea service on the face of the planet.
The waiter glided by the table and dropped the bill off.
“Everything all right, miss?” he asked.
“Fine,” she said, barely able to look him in the eye.
Carina waited for him to leave, and then, holding her breath, she opened up the little leather book that held the bill.
1 English tea service…………. $75.00
She gulped and slammed the leather book closed. She had no idea what to do. She knew kids who’d “dined and dashed” before, but they’d done it at some broken-down diner on First Avenue under the Roosevelt Island tram, just for the fun of it. This was high tea at the Plaza Hotel. They probably arrested people for running out on the bill. But right now, it was the only option. If she could get away with it.
Slowly, she turned around. The restaurant seemed to be emptying. The hostess was at another table, speaking to the mother of three squirmy kids taking turns throwing mini quiches at each other. Carina reached down and grabbed her bag. It was now or never.
She got up and calmly began to walk to the exit. If anyone asked where she was going, she would say that she needed to use the bathroom. No big deal. As she threaded her way past the tables, she imagined that she could feel the hostess’s eyes boring into her back like lasers. Any moment now, she was going to notice Carina and ask her to stop. Any moment now…
“Excuse me!” a woman yelled. “Are you leaving?”
Carina slipped past the empty podium.
“Excuse me? I’m talking to you!” It was the hostess.
That was it. Time to run.
She zipped past the fancy boutiques, past the check-in desk, past a cluster of Japanese tourists who watched her, puzzled and amused, like she was another New York attraction. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see one of the clerks behind the front desk reach for his phone as she ran by, but she didn’t care. With a push, she was through the heavy revolving doors and down the carpeted steps. Outside she didn’t stop, zigzagging across Fifty-ninth Street, until she reached the lineup of smelly hansom cabs waiting to take tourists through the park, and hid behind a big white horse. She stopped and bent over, panting. She could see the headline splashed across the cover of the New York Post: MOGUL’S DAUGHTER SKIPS OUT ON TEA TAB.
Finally she stood up. Her throat burned, and the skin under her turtleneck dripped with sweat. The sun had set, and it was getting cold. So Roberta wasn’t going to help her. Fine. She didn’t need her help. She needed to get home and come up with a plan B for Ava’s party. Which right now looked like it would be called Winging It.
She took a deep breath and made her way to the subway. It was only when she’d reached the stairs to the N and the R that she realized that she’d forgotten one crucial part about the dine and dash. She hadn’t eaten a thing.