Epilogue

Two Baccarat champagne flutes clinked like little bells as Joan and Wendy, dressed for friends and flashbulbs, ushered in the new social season at the Winter Antiques Show’s opening-night benefit. It was the post–St. Bart’s and Aspen see-and-be-seen extravaganza that had the social set falling over themselves (literally, as they often had to travel through a fog of sleet, hail, and snow) to get to the Sixty-seventh Street Armory on time. Next to old master vanitas paintings, antique suits of armor, medieval books of hours, and Chippendale furniture, cheeks were air-kissed, hair complimented, and outfits looked over. There were the fake-interested questions about how the vacation was (the holidays were a complete shutdown uptown; Park Avenue was so empty you’d think an H-bomb had been dropped on it).

Wendy and Joan, who had fortunately been able to get the charges against them dropped if they promised to be good girls, were determined not to suffer any social setbacks due to a small “misunderstanding.” They’d talked of lawsuits against the city and how they had been set up and then quietly dropped the matter, hoping that everyone else would as well. So, with determination and confidence, they strutted into Leigh Keno’s booth, where, after thirty-five minutes of being open for business, there were already red dots on half the loot. Joan drank in the scene; there were aggressive shoppers anxious to fill their new co-ops with top-of-the-line pieces, trophy wives scoping vintage jewels, and people who didn’t give a shit about art but didn’t want to miss a photo op.

Wendy looked at the crowd as it poured in. She had been nervous about showing her face around town after the embarrassing shahtooshgate at the Powells’, but Joan had shrugged it off. They told everyone how Mimi had used them as patsies when she struck a deal so she wouldn’t be arrested for her own party. It shifted the blame and would have made Mimi temporarily a social leper, but, hey, it was Mimi. Soon the whole matter was dropped.

“The usual suspects,” said Wendy, her tone ho-hum.

“It’s getting tiresome, isn’t it? We need some fresh blood,” mused Joan.

“Oh, there’s that godawful Tom Fairbanks with Ginny what’s-her-name,” said Joan.

Wendy felt herself redden as she watched them stop and examine a grandfather clock. They were holding hands.

“I can’t believe I ever thought he was right for you. He’s so immature, and tacky, tacky, tacky. Those two belong together.”

“Yes,” murmured Wendy softly. She took a sip of her champagne to hide her quivering lower lip. That could be me, she thought.

Billy Crispin walked in and posed with two ladies who were flanking his Zegna sleeves.

“I see the ladies have adopted Billy Crispin as the new walker of choice,” said Joan, eager to change the topic.

“Well, it’s a natural choice,” said Wendy. “They’re almost guaranteed to have their picture in Women’s Wear tomorrow.”

Olivia Weston sauntered in, her blue eyes wide as she scanned the foyer. Her two friends—Lila and Rosemary—rushed up and greeted her immediately. She was never one to have to stand alone in a crowd.

“Hmm, Olivia Weston,” said Joan.

“She’s over,” stated Wendy.

“Ugh, and Melanie Korn.” Wendy sighed deeply. “She must have nine lives.”

“How everyone seemed to have Alzheimer’s regarding that Observer article is beyond me.”

Arthur and Melanie were chatting with a couple in an Oriental rug dealer’s booth about where to get the best nursery furniture when Olivia walked up to the bar beside them. At first the sight of her gave Arthur a mini-jolt, but it simmered and died after a millisecond. Yeah, she was a looker, but now that he knew the truth, she didn’t do it for him anymore.

Patrick McMullan snapped her smiling coyly as Arthur looked on, but now, instead of watching her with admiration, he studied her at a scientific distance. As she posed like a model for the other shutterbugs who danced around the light of her smile, Arthur realized this species really did exist just in photographs. A party picture, like the girl had said. Funny, Arthur had thought her to be so confident and comfortable in her own skin. Now he looked at her and saw a spoiled, shallow girl who never had to work for anything—all this was handed to her because she was in the lucky sperm club.

Arthur turned to look at his wife and the barely there bump of their growing baby. Seeing her throw back her head in casual laughter made his heart warm. Oh, Melanie, you gotta love her. With her, what you see is what you get, thought Arthur. Sure, she’d tried to get in with all those society broads, but she was always, sometimes to her detriment, unabashedly herself. But thank god. All these people around—they were the phonies. Melanie was the real thing. Arthur took his wife’s hand in his and gave it a loving squeeze. This whole shindig wasn’t just about art and charity: it was a masquerade. And in a packed gilded hall, she was the only one without a mask. And he loved her for it.

Across the crimson-carpeted, cavernous room, Joan and Wendy were yakking away, still installed in their omniscient corner, when they spied Morgan and Cordelia walking in hand in hand.

“Hmph,” snorted Joan. “Cordelia’s quite lucky that everyone was so sympathetic to her plight that they overlooked that she was a jewel thief! They almost applauded her, thinking it was chic.”

“It sure got Morgan’s attention,” said Wendy, staring at them as Morgan delicately put his hand on the small of his wife’s back and brushed a lock of blond hair out of her face. “I thought he was having something on the side, but that must be history—look at them! They’re all over each other.”

“Even if he did have something on the side, no one would ever know. That man was born under the right stars,” said Joan. “He’s one lucky bastard.”

“Some people just get everything.”

“Such is life.”

Morgan kissed Cordelia’s cheek, and they held hands and marveled at the art around them. Since her arrest and the arrival of Schuyler, Cordelia had felt as if a two-ton weight had been lifted from her shoulders. She felt like she was truthful for the first time in ages. She and Morgan had spent a lot of time over the past few weeks just talking and getting to know each other again, and they actually began to look at their lives together with some perspective.

They had come to the conclusion, with the help of the top therapist at Columbia Presbyterian, that perhaps she had stolen to get the attention she so craved at home. She had been desperately unhappy and yet she had everything, so she was creating problems and putting herself in danger. Now, she no longer felt the need. Morgan had become more than attentive—really a better husband. And little, precious Schuyler had brought back worth and meaning into her life. After all, wasn’t that what it was all about? Taking care of another life? She felt as if her family had been given a second chance, and she wasn’t going to waste it.

And, strangely, although she would never admit it to anyone other than Morgan, Cordelia sometimes felt a kind of relief not having Jerome around. She would have been horrified to think that previously, but in retrospect, his malicious and constant gossip had depressed her. When people focus so much on the negative and other people’s shortcomings, life becomes so petty and irrelevant; but she had needed his love so badly, and he had always given it to her and stood by her side. But now, with her baby’s love and her husband’s newfound affections, all those compliments about perfect outfits and stunning hair would not have packed the punch they once did. It’s so easy to say something mean, thought Cordelia. But it’s so exhilarating to think and say something nice. It makes you know you are happy and latching on to what makes life worth living.

As Morgan kissed his wife’s hand, Wendy’s spying eyes squinted.

“I heard they were just in Lyford having a second honeymoon,” she whispered to her comrade in the gossip trenches.

“I think second honeymoons are kind of tacky,” pronounced Joan.

“They are, aren’t they?”

“Well, whatever floats your boat, I suppose. I mean, I never thought shoulder pads would come back into style.”

“I’m always amazed at how you can get used to things,” agreed Wendy.

They glanced around the capacious atrium, their eyes gliding past the Vances, Olivia, old Mrs. Cockpurse, who was wearing a miniskirt with no stockings. Their eyes finally landing on the Korns.

“You know, Arthur and Melanie just sold their apartment at 741,” said Wendy, as if the couple had just let go of the Holy Grail. “Can you believe that they’re moving to the West Side? I heard they just bought a place on Riverside Drive!”

“I haven’t been there in years, and I don’t plan on going anytime soon,” said Joan with a snort, as if they were relocating to Abu Dhabi and would need vaccinations.

“But you know what?” continued Wendy. “We’re all going to be lying dead in a Korn casket in forty years, so we might as well live it up while we can.”

“Oh, Wendy,” squealed Joan, laughing, “you are too much.”