Several weeks later, Andrew and Elizabeth were at Kings Lord Manor with their daughters in their Easter finery. Elizabeth was excited to see Andrew’s reaction to the new development. He grew up in Cannondale and was heartbroken by the way the landscape kept changing. Andrew sometimes felt so defeated by it that he threatened to move the family to Litchfield County, which had retained a more rural, natural charm. When they drove by new developments, Andrew always had a story about the field or the farm or the antique home that used to occupy the space.
Being the youngest in his family by many years, he’d often been on his own after school and during the summers. As was customary in the late 1970s in suburban America, he and his pals rode bikes all over town. They were always in search of a new fishing hole, a creek to wade in, or an awesome tree to climb. The Kings Lord Manor development was especially poignant for him. The house he grew up in abutted the Sterling estate’s property, and he used to play there with the Sterling boys.
“They had a huge old barn that we made into our fort,” he’d told Elizabeth when he was reading about the sale of the property to Whole Brothers Construction Co. “We met there every day for a few summers. It was before we were old enough to get jobs other than part-time caddying at the country club. I knew every inch of that property—where its streams were located, the apple orchard, the best swimming holes…”
“Be prepared,” Elizabeth whispered when the black gate swung open that Easter weekend. “The change will be heartbreaking for you, but remember, the girls will repeat anything you say.”
“Are you kidding?” Andrew said in astonishment as he surveyed the transformation. Then he whispered to Elizabeth, “I feel like I’m looking at a really bad movie set. These homes are the worst McMansions I have ever seen.” His eyes moved to Leigh’s ivy-covered castle. “And why does one property have all the trees?”
“That’s a landscape designer’s home,” Elizabeth whispered back. “She actually spent a ton of money putting back the trees that Whole Development ripped up. The neighbors haven’t gotten around to it yet.”
“Of course she did,” muttered Andrew. “Well, girls, today is like a trip to Disney. There are several very different kinds of manor homes to see. Keep an eye out for your favorite princesses and princes. I’ve heard a few live here.”
Andrew handed the car keys to the valet hired for the party.
This party is much bigger than I anticipated, Elizabeth thought as the family of four approached the Worth’s front yard. Alexis and Alice noted a ribboned, sectioned-off area sprinkled with blue dots.
“Why are all the eggs blue?” asked Alexis.
“I’m not sure, girls, but it looks like a robin has been very busy,” Elizabeth responded.
“Hello!” trilled Brianna as she hurried over to greet them. She was wearing a 1950s-style silk blue dress with matching bonnet. The hat had giant blue plumes coming out of the brim. She couldn’t look more genteel. “Welcome, welcome!” she said as she reached for the flower arrangement of stargazer lilies, roses, and eucalyptus leaves that the Kellys had brought. “How lovely. Edward never buys me flowers anymore. He thinks they’re a waste of money.”
“We’re admiring all the blue,” Elizabeth said.” It’s Alexis’s favorite color.”
“Oh, sweetie,” Brianna cooed as she pet Alexis’s hair. “Thank you. Since you all are new to this party, let me explain. I was VP at Tiffany’s for years and the classic Tiffany Blue is my favorite color. I have our kids make all our Easter eggs in my favorite blue each year. Isn’t it lovely?”
Elizabeth imagined Brianna’s children’s boredom with coloring well over two hundred eggs the same color. No experimenting with dyes. No accidently creating brown ones from too much color mixing and egg dipping. Her kids probably colored a few and then escaped to the backyard while she and her housekeeper made the rest. Elizabeth smiled at Brianna and moved on to meet Edward, who’d walked up behind his wife. He was handsome in a classic way, although he wasn’t aging well. He was in his late forties but looked well into his fifties.
“Hi, Elizabeth,” he said, gesturing with the iced drink he held in one hand. “It’s nice to meet you. Sorry I couldn’t be home on the day of the Cannondale Cottages & Gardens photoshoot. Work has been insanely busy lately.”
“No need to apologize,” Elizabeth said. “Given it’s typically wives who want their homes featured in design magazines, most husbands usually aren’t around the day of the shoot.”
“Brianna is definitely the one driving our home’s publication,” he said. “It was in her mind with every purchase she made. I think we spent an extra $300,000 on antiques just to ensure our home would make it into one of the design magazines. She really wanted Architectural Digest to feature it, but after its editor rejected us, she set her sights on the magazine you edit.”
“Well, at least she and Meredith Fox did a nice job decorating your home,” Elizabeth said. “It’s lovely.”
“Yes, and as a result, filled with expensive stuff we have to tiptoe around,” he responded. “It’s a good thing I was able to get another job this year.”
“Where do you work?” Elizabeth asked.
“I work for a boutique firm called Standard Bearer out of Westport,” he said. “I’m a commodities trader.”
“Where were you before?” asked Elizabeth, who vaguely remembered someone gossiping about the family and Edward being out of work for a period of time.
“I had been at AIG in Cannondale for ten years but lost that job in late 2008 when the firm was bailed out by the government.”
American International Group, Elizabeth thought. The credit derivatives department in the Cannondale office was blamed for bringing down the entire multi-billion dollar company and helping to create the current financial crisis. When it happened, picketers stood outside the AIG executives’ homes daily. It appeared on national news. Maybe that’s why the family moved to a gated community? she wondered.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Elizabeth said. “Andrew was out of work in 2007. It was very stressful for everyone in the family.”
“It wasn’t stressful for Brianna,” responded Edward. “She was in complete denial about our financial situation and continues to be so. She hasn’t adjusted her spending habits, and she is exhaustively positive. I keep telling her we need to cut back, especially since we bought and decorated this house, but she completely ignores me. People are still losing jobs in finance. And look at this party. It’s ridiculously over the top. Kids don’t need all this. On a nice day like this, they just want to play outside and collect a few eggs.”
Edward wearily surveyed the party scene: expensively dressed children racing from bouncy castles to pony rides to arts-and-crafts stations. “Want a drink?” Edward offered Elizabeth. “I’m drinking mojitos today.” Edward took a long, last chug of his spiced rum-and-mint drink. The ice crashed against his mouth and part of the drink dribbled down his cheeks and chin. He smiled as he wiped the liquid away, his teeth littered with bits of wet mint leaves. He looked around the party again. “Time for another,” he said, forgetting he’d offered her one.
Elizabeth looked over and saw that Andrew was still speaking with Brianna. She scanned the crowd. No sign of Abby and her kids yet, she thought.
“Hi, Elizabeth,” called Adair Burns, who was on her way over, trailed by her four young children. Adair’s husband, Hugh, went to college with Andrew, and they now worked at the same Manhattan-based hedge fund. The association brought the two families together a lot. Elizabeth liked Adair. She was a perfectionist, but she had a sense of humor about it. And she was very nice—ultimately, she just wanted everyone to like her. “I’m a hopeless people pleaser,” she would say when she caught herself volunteering for something no one else would do, such as make four dozen tea sandwiches for a teacher luncheon or drive home kids whose parents forgot to pick them up after a Daisy troop meeting.
“Hi, Adair,” Elizabeth said. “How are you?”
“I’m great,” Adair enthusiastically said. It was her usual response. She was never “fine” or “okay.” She was always upbeat and positive, ready for whatever the day might bring.
“Don’t my kids look adorable in their matching Easter outfits?” she said, forcing Elizabeth to note their perfectly ironed and miraculously still-clean outfits.
“Matching Burberry,” Elizabeth noted. “Yes, very cute and matchy. You won’t lose them at this party.”
Adair’s two girls were wearing jumpers made out of the trademark Burberry tan plaid with matching wide headbands. The boys were in “John John” suits also made out of tan plaid with matching plaid sneakers. The girls looked okay, but the boys, who were eight and seven, looked ridiculous. They were much too old for the suits, and the matching sneakers were comical.
Adair always took things like this too far. It was as if she’d watched too many Kennedy home movies and wanted to recreate Jackie O’s stylistic charm. Her kids were always matching. Not just on holidays or other special occasions, but every single day. If the girls were wearing navy-blue dresses with colorful striped tights and coordinating headbands, the boys wore matching striped colored shirts with navy-blue khakis and baseball caps.
I hope her boys aren’t being teased today, Elizabeth thought. She’d seen them bullied at the country club for their outfits by some older kids once.
Adair’s home was meticulously ordered in a similar way. If she could control something and make it fit her desire for a more perfect world, she did. “I just can’t fall asleep when things aren’t in order,” she once confessed. “I don’t feel settled and safe otherwise.”
“I know what I’m getting you for your next birthday,” Elizabeth joked. “Six ‘Team Burns’ shirts.”
“Oh, that would be so cute,” she said. “I love that idea, although Hugh wouldn’t wear it. He thinks it’s ridiculous how much time I spend coordinating our kids’ outfits.”
“Were you able to get Hugh to play along with the Burberry today?” Elizabeth asked.
“I tried to,” she said, rolling her eyes. “I bought him a pair of plaid Burberry pants, but he flat-out refused,” she said. “The closest he would come was to wear a Burberry white oxford. You can’t even tell it’s made by Burberry.”
Elizabeth looked over at Hugh. He wasn’t paying attention to where Adair and his kids were at the party. He always ignores her, Elizabeth thought. Based on Hugh’s gesticulations, it looked like he was talking about fly-fishing with some of the men near him. He was casting with two hands and then pulling an invisible line back with one. He was drinking a bottled Heineken and had a second one full and uncapped waiting for him on the table.
Abby had arrived and was walking her kids over to Elizabeth’s, who were in line to have a go at an enormous bunny-shaped piñata. The kids embraced and then appeared to discuss the best strategy for breaking open the piñata.
“This is some party,” Abby said as she approached her sister. “So far I’ve seen three horse-drawn carriages taking the kids on tours of the neighboring conservation land, a petting zoo, countless costumed bunnies, and three egg-coloring and face-painting stations. I feel like I’m at a country fair.”
Adair smiled sweetly at Abby, and Elizabeth introduced them. After hellos, Adair brought up Jack’s upcoming benefit. “Jack told me you would be willing to help with the final planning and execution of the benefit,” she said to Abby.
“Did he?” Abby said, smiling.
“Yes, he said you agreed to help during a private session,” said Adair. “When did you start taking private sessions with him?”
“A few weeks ago,” Abby responded.
“He seems to be offering them to everyone now,” Adair said with a hint of annoyance.
“I guess I did agree,” Abby said, choosing to ignore her comment, “although I could claim that the agreement was made under duress. I was at the end of shavasana when he asked.”
“Elizabeth, will you help, too?” Adair asked. “I’m feeling completely overwhelmed. Many of the women who volunteered have turned out to be halfheartedly involved and haven’t followed through on what they promised. Brianna is the only volunteer who has been a real help to me. Jack’s assistant Leaha is helping, but she also assists him with his yoga business and the clothing aspect of the charity. I’m scrambling to get things done. It would be great if you two could help me.”
“Aside from reading to my kids’ classes, I don’t volunteer for much, but since White’s a sponsor, I can ask my secretaries to help,” Abby said.
“That works,” Adair enthused. “We’ll have a planning meeting shortly. I’ll email you the details. We always meet at Pound Ridge’s Mon Petite Café. Have you been there? It’s staffed by absolutely beautiful young French men. Do you think you can come?”
“Yes,” they both responded.
“Thank you,” said Adair. “I know I can trust you to follow through. You have no idea how much weight you just took off my shoulders.”
The children were soon called to the front yard, and the ribboned area was opened for egg hunting. The older children ran wildly through the yard, grabbing as many eggs as possible. The toddlers’ adorably picked up one at a time, staring at them and then shaking them, hoping to hear candy inside. Once all the blue dots disappeared from the Worth’s front yard, Brianna awarded large, stuffed Steiff bunnies to the kids who’d collected the most eggs. The children were then asked to congregate near a series of white picnic tables. They were served a sit-down lunch provided by Kate Musto’s catering company, Katherine’s. Neighboring the area, a secondary station of more sophisticated offerings—prepared gourmet sandwiches and salads—were brought out for the adults. Some of the food was dyed the trademark Tiffany Blue.
“Tiffany Blue deviled eggs and Tiffany Blue egg salad sandwiches are on!” Brianna called out.
“Disgusting!” rang out in the distance.
“That sounded like Edward’s voice,” Elizabeth whispered to Abby.
After lunch, the catering staff brought out platters of dessert and placed them on the children’s and adults’ tables. They were filled with individual cakes, each one expensively made to look like a Faberge egg. Some of the partygoers admired the eggs and ate them, but most people did nothing more than pick at them. The children not being watched by their parents—who were in the majority since alcohol was being served—started sticking the tables’ Easter decorations into the cakes. That led to throwing them.
“Want to play egg toss?” said one mischievous boy to another before chucking a chocolate ganache egg at his head.
At the end of the party, Brianna was in the front yard saying good-bye while Edward was nowhere to be found. Andrew offered to find him to say thank you for all of them. He had seen Edward walk into the conservation land behind the home. That’s where Andrew found him, but upon seeing the state Edward was in, Andrew chose not to disturb him.
Edward was standing alone with a pitcher of mojitos, a tall glass half full, and a basket of eggs. One by one, he picked up colored eggs and whipped them at a large oak tree. As the eggs smashed against the bark, Tiffany Blue pieces flew into the air.