“Should I be jealous?” Sky whispered in my ear.
“Shhh!”
“She was quite taken with you.”
I shot him an exasperated look.
“If she asks you to dance… ”
I dug an elbow into his ribs. “Shut up,” I hissed while I bit the inside of my cheek to prevent bursting out in laughter but I could feel my eyes watering.
I stole a glance at Sky. He crossed his eyes. Jerk!
A snicker escaped. I coughed, hoping to camouflage the fact, but it was no good. “Pardon.” I pressed through the stately, elegant crowd. Luckily, all eyes were glued to the princess so I dashed behind a huge marble column to release the giggles I had held in. I relished the exchange with Sky. We had been under so much pressure lately, fun had been sorely lacking so it felt like an unexpected drink of mountain spring water in the desert to really connect with him for a moment.
That’s when I saw him. One over-tanned face at the edge of the crowd watched me rather than Diana.
Draper.
I felt studied like a rat in a maze. He had a glass of champagne in his hand that he lifted my way. It could have been a friendly gesture but for the eyes. They were the eyes of a shark, cold, unfeeling and focused only on the next feed.
I tried to smile, determined not to be intimidated, but only accomplished a sort of grimace. Dang. Where were my acting chops when I needed them? I tore my eyes away. The jewels on my ears and around my neck felt heavy. Chloe’s words resounded in my head, “No one owns you. You hold your head high and let Draper know that.”
Alrighty then. I notched my chin higher and turned back to the festivities.
Princess Diana had made the rounds and was now leading off with a dance. I didn’t recognize her partner; most likely an important French politician I would know if I read French newspapers. I had heard Diana once aspired to be a ballerina and this fact was obvious. She moved beautifully.
I peeked around the column and found Sky in the crowd, posing for photos with Elton and Billy Idol. I certainly wasn’t needed for that scene. I stole a glance toward Draper. Good. He was talking to another man. A surge of childish adventure coursed through my veins as I took in the vaulted, sculpted ceiling with the deepest crown moldings I’d ever seen. Aha! A stairway beckoned; glorious, curving, marble stairs with an intricate iron filigree banister. I glided toward it. If anyone asked, I could simply say I was looking for a toilette.
I began to ascend, gazing at carved walls, enormous gold-enhanced sconces held aloft by fat Cupids, and more opulence than I’d ever imagined. Every surface gleamed with just-polished luster. Every flower arrangement displayed monstrous, perfect blooms glowing with fresh-picked perfection.
I continued up the stair, overwhelmed. What was I doing here? Even polished and professionally groomed I felt completely out-of-place.
I reached the top and surveyed the scene below. Some of the most important movers and shakers in the world mingled, danced, laughed, posed for photographs, and basically did what the high and mighty do to remind the rest of the world how important they are.
Then it happened. A game-changer. “An epochal moment” is not too lofty a term. It was just a flash, but the image was tattooed on my mind like a Polaroid photograph.
When I was a little girl, our family had gone through Disney’s Haunted Mansion. The hallway where the portraits flicker with the lightning flashes had made me huddle closer to my father, grasping his big, strong hand as an otherwise normal painting of a stately gentleman morphed to a ghastly specter and a reclining Cleopatra became a gruesome, deformed being. Then the portraits popped back to normal as if to say, “You really didn’t see that. Your mind is playing tricks on you.”
But this flash was not a two-dimensional trick. It was a panoramic view of the three-dimensional reality around me. In actual time, the image lasted perhaps half a second. However, it lingered behind my eyes in vivid relief.
My hands began to shake and my rather empty stomach flipped and pushed up in my throat as a cold, clammy sweat gripped my body. I took a step back only to catch my heel and stumble on the draping train of my gown. No one seemed to notice. I wove through the milling partiers until I spied the promising word, “Femmes” on a doorway and stumbled through to the women’s lounge, grateful for an empty alcove.
I took a deep breath, but the shaking didn’t stop as I revisited the image clamoring for attention in my mind.
Rather than the beautiful, richly attired, graceful elite, I had glimpsed… what? They had been hunched, sunken-cheeked, desperate-eyed, with hands grasping like feeble beggars. The bright colors morphed to filthy gray and dingy black while the multiple skin tones—from creamy ivory to shimmering onyx—drained to ashen, bloodless gray and smooth, unblemished limbs revealed scabby, festering sores. The mounds of gourmet, artistic, fragrant food decayed to worm-filled excrement while even the air around me transformed from heavenly golden beams to reeking, toxic fumes.
In that one instant, all the faces in the room had turned to me. It was those eyes that had pushed me over the edge. They were empty, tormented and desperate for something to ease their pain.
That did it. I stumbled to the nearest toilette, closed the stall door and upchucked.
~~
I peered at the traumatized eyes reflected in the bathroom mirror. My skin beneath artistically applied make-up had a greenish tinge so I dabbed at some smeared mascara as I pressed a damp paper towel to my forehead and back of my neck. No good. My hands shook, heart raced and stomach threatened to repeat the earlier performance.
The unwritten code at high-profile functions was to appear at ease, cool, and collected. Uh, not happening.
What could I do? If I tried to eat or drink anything I’d surely be sick. That horrible image was still so vivid. When I shut my eyes it was there, clear as a work of art at the Louvre. Was I losing my mind?
“Are you alright, dear?”
I jumped at the woman’s words. I’d thought I was alone in the restroom and hadn’t heard any other sounds of life. Then again, one doesn’t hear much when expelling intestinal contents.
“Um, I think so,” I replied. “Just a little sick to my stomach.”
“Here you go, Sweetie. This will help.”
The woman opened a little tin of antacid tablets so I took a couple and popped them into my mouth. The chalky, cherry taste was familiar and soothing.
“These events can be a bit nerve wracking, eh?” When she smiled, friendly crinkles came to life around faded blue eyes. She patted my shoulder. “Don’t worry, my dear. God is with you, especially in such a time as this.”
With that, she bustled out of sight around the partition that shielded the entrance.
“… such a time as this.”
The phrase played over in my mind. I knew those words. They came from the Bible, specifically the book of Esther. I’d read it often since that happened to be my name. Queen Esther is in a position to save her people, the Jews, from being wiped out because, hey, she’s the wife of the most powerful man in the world. She’s afraid though because the king could kill her for appearing to him without being summoned. To encourage her, her uncle writes, “Who knows but that you have come to the kingdom for just such a time as this.”
I replayed the encounter with the woman. She looked older, at least seventy years, in a simple blue tunic dress, not an evening gown. Was she part of the staff? She had not sounded French.
There was a knock on the bathroom door and the door hinges popped. “Ma’am?” Sky’s bodyguard Lex called out.
“Be right there.” I glanced again at my reflection. Still a bit green around the gills but it would have to do.
I pulled the noisy women’s lounge door open to find Lex standing two feet away, his customary glower fixed on the room as if defying anyone to answer the call of nature. I stopped. The door was old and had loud hinges. Why had I not heard them when the woman left?
“Are you alright, Ma’am?” Lex asked.
I looked around the room for a glimpse of the kind lady in blue. “Where did that woman go?” I asked.
“Woman?”
“Yes. I was sick to my stomach and a nice lady gave me some Tums. She just left. Did you see which way she went?”
Lex’s eyes darted my way. “I’ve been standing here since you went in. No one else came out.”
“She must have slipped past you.”
Lex didn’t answer but his nostrils flared. If the woman had slipped under Lex’s very nose, it would be the first time I’d known him to miss a detail.
“Oh well. Doesn’t matter. Was Sky looking for me?”
“Yes Ma’am. Follow me.”
I fell into step behind Lex’s broad back. I had thought once that having a security guard on hand would get aggravating but it was nice to have a big, intimidating person watching out for us especially since I thought of him as a friend and had even seen a few of his rare smiles. But when he was on the job, Lex was all business.
As we walked between foreign dignitaries, celebrities and women wearing gems larger than I had seen in jewelry store windows, I glanced about for the Tums woman but she was nowhere to be seen. When Lex stopped and stepped aside I was face-to-face with Sky… and Draper.
“Ah! And here’s the bride.”
Somehow, when Draper said the word, it sounded like the punch line of a racist joke.
“Yes, Halwell Draper, my wife, Esther.” As Sky spoke he slipped an arm around my shoulders, a gesture that always made me smile. I doubted that proprietary move would ever lose its charm for me.
The greetings spoken between us were benign and the smiles never slipped. All was gracious, calm and could have jumped right from the pages of Emily Post’s book on etiquette. Nonetheless, tension crackled. It dawned on me, truth was just one negative away. In my mind, I added it.
“So pleased to meet you.” Not. Nevertheless, I accepted his cold grip.
“The pleasure is all mine,” Draper countered with eyes colder than his hand.
“I’ve heard so much about you,” I replied. All rotten.
As he made small talk with Sky, I made mental notes. Bald. But not in the “comfortable in my own skin” manner, rather it removed any softness to ease the harsh planes of his stark eyebrows, sharp nose and high cheekbones. Blue eyes. Not the blue of a cloudless sky but rather of glacier ice mixed with steel.
“You must help me encourage Sky to record a song I’ve found for him.”
“Sky has usually been able to make up his own mind about music,” I replied.
“Not the time or place,” Sky muttered toward Draper through a pasted-on smile.
“It’s business, and it’s Esther’s affair as well since these days your good fortune is hers.”
Sky started to answer but was pulled away for more photographs, this time with David Bowie.
“Oh, you mean the song I heard earlier?”
Draper’s smug smile tightened. “You heard it. Obviously, it is exactly what is needed to jumpstart a rather stalled career.”
I glanced toward Sky and David Bowie who stood back-to-back, arms crossed. An iconic pose. The way people, even celebrities, fawned over Sky, his career certainly didn’t look stalled to me. If anything, his recent brush with death had added to his mystique.
“Sky has never had to compromise his artistic principles before. Besides, I thought the song was kind of irresponsible.”
Draper laughed. “Irresponsible? It’s a sure Top-Ten at the very least.”
“It’s very catchy,” I admitted. “But he might protest on moral grounds.”
“Moral grounds?” Draper said the phrase as if I’d mentioned an alien encounter.
“The song blatantly pushes irresponsible sex.”
Draper threw back his head and laughed. “Doll, music is sex.”
As I opened my mouth for a comeback, Draper walked away. I watched him as he made the rounds: a comment here, a kiss to the cheek there, a handshake. No one needed to tell me why Draper was in this. To him, people were measured by profit. I guessed, by his standards, I didn’t even tip the scales. P.I.T.A. Our secret acronym for him was right on the money.
I looked around the grand room to the grand people paying homage to the gods of success and prestige as the earlier image came to mind. Could it be the beauty and polish hid desperation? Did people like Draper deserve pity? If so, the disguises were very effective.
I spied Sky, shaking hands, posing for photographers. He glanced around the room until his gaze locked with mine. His smile assured I was in his thoughts even in the mayhem.
How did Sky fit into all this? Was he desperate as well? A few months ago I would have answered with a quick negative. Now, I wasn’t so sure.
He came toward me, seemingly at ease with the constant attention. “Ready to go, Love?”
“Of course.” The thought of escaping the intense social scene for a quiet supper alone with Sky flooded me with relief.
“We have one more stop.”
“What’s that?” Disappointment washed away relief.
“A little after-party.”
“Where?”
“Downtown Paris. We won’t stay long. Patrick Phillips extended a personal invitation. You’d like to meet him, wouldn’t you? I’ll introduce you at the club.”
I looked across the room where Patrick, surrounded by admirers of both sexes, burst out laughing. “I guess,” I said. Truth was, I was like a kid who’d finally had their fill of candy. The thought of meeting even one more famous person sounded exhausting.
We said proper goodbyes to important people, smiling and shaking hands as we made our way to the waiting limousine.
I slumped back in the seat and pressed my cold hands against throbbing temples. Sky slid in beside me and reached for the wine decanter.
“Is this party at a night club?”
“I believe so. Some new Paris hotspot.”
“Do we have to go?” Yep. I sounded like a whiney teenager.
“We’ll make an appearance. That’s all.” We were silent as Sky sipped his wine.
An appearance, huh. I braced myself. I could do this. What was twenty minutes or so in the grand scheme of things?