The Shadow of Your Smile
DENIS GLARED AT THE sight of his fiancée with the Satan Twins in tow. He reached for my hand under the table and squeezed it. “How does she know we’re here?” “The concierge?” I said. “Did you tell your mother where we were staying?”
“I gave her the number.”
“That must be how they found us.”
“Darling,” Sydney said, setting her weights on the table and giving her fiancé a peck on the forehead. “Don’t get up. We’ll join you.” She pulled up a seat, wedging herself between Denis and me.
“Hello, Holly,” Tanya said. “How are you? Oh, never mind. I don’t care.”
“Yoo-hoo, waiter,” Sydney said, summoning the uniformed man over to take her order for a glass of club soda with a splash of chardonnay.
“Oh, and a sloe gin fizz for me,” Sammie said.
“Now, Denis,” Sydney said. “What is all this nonsense about putting me out of our suite? Have you gone mad?”
Denis’ face reddened. “I know you had an affair with Manny.”
“I did no such thing,” Syd lied, shooting me the hairy eyeball.
What? Like your screwing the manny is my fault? I don’t think so.
“A witness saw you,” Denis said.
Sydney turned to me. “You had to tell him, didn’t you?”
“I didn’t tell him,” I said. “John did. But I should have.”
“Denis,” Sydney said. “Oh, thank you,” she added as the waiter delivered her drink and Sammie’s sloe gin fizz. “Even if I had a dally, so what? Your own father took lovers. He slept with my mother. She told me. They never meant anything.”
Sydney looked right at me when she said those words. And for the record, I resented that. “Maybe you had a fling with Holly here,” she continued. “If you did, consider us even. Have your giggles with girls like Holly; don’t marry them.”
Denis shot her a withering look. Bitch, it said. How dare you talk like that about the woman I love and in whose womb I desire to plant my seed (at least, that was my interpretation).
Sammie was oblivious to Denis’ angry reaction. “You see, Holly,” she said, “that’s what Tanya means about you never being able to fit in our world. Our men fuck girls like you; they don’t marry them.”
“Why, you heartless guttersnipe…” I picked up her ridiculous pink drink and threw it right up her fat nostrils.
Sammie sprang out of her chair. “Ha,” she squealed, spraying gin-laced snot from her pug nose. “You just proved my point. No one in our circle would do that.”
A pox on your circle, I thought miserably.
Sydney ignored the brouhaha and gently stroked Denis’ arm. “The important thing,” she said, “is that the Basses and the Kings are finally coming together to create a force that is impenetrable. Darling, it’s up to us. Other things being equal, I’m not sure I’d marry you either, but our families, our employees, and our shareholders are depending on us.”
Denis shook his head. “No, Sydney, forget it…” he said firmly.
I raised my hand like the class nerd, straight up like a missile, not all floppy at the end like a bunny ear. It wasn’t effective. No one called on me. “Excuse me, but last I checked this was the twenty-first century. Who in God’s name marries to create a dynasty anymore?”
“There you go again, Holly,” Sammie said as she blotted the sticky drink off her face. “That’s another thing you’ll never understand. Denis comes from a rarefied milieu. The right union is expected. The Denis Kings of the world align themselves with women of consequence and hardly ever for love.”
“Love,” Tanya said, practically vomiting out the word.
“Sammie, I am so sick of you and Tanya telling me I’m not of your world,” I started. “The difference between a woman of consequence and a nobody has nothing to do with where she is brought up, but how she’s treated. I’ll forever be a nobody to you because you treat me as a nobody and always will. But to Denis I’m a woman of consequence because he treats me as one and always will.”
“That’s right,” Denis said, touching my cheek. “Holly has more substance than any woman I’ve ever known.”
Sydney grabbed Denis’ hand possessively. “Darling,” she said. “You may think you have something special with Holly here, but trust me, you don’t. The only reason she’s with you is because she bet her boss that she could fleece you out of a million-dollar donation.”
Denis looked at me with suspicious bewilderment. “That’s not true, is it?”
Blood drained from my face. “I…I never said fleece.”
“You knew I would be on the ship,” he said in a sad but gentle tone. “You followed me?”
I grabbed his arm. “Please, I may not have started out with the purest intentions but everything changed. You have to believe me.”
“Holly,” Tanya said, all gloaty and superior-like, “you’ll be interested to know that Sammie won our little bet. She arranged for Sydney and her mother to make that million-dollar donation before you got your check from Denis. Sammie and Sydney went to Spence together. Naturally she was able to convince them. So she gets the curator position. And as for your assistantship, well, your services are no longer needed. You’re fired.”
“Don’t bother. I quit. And you’d better watch your ass,” I hissed, “because I just might decide to write one of those Devil Wears Prada books about you.”
Tanya laughed. “What a marvelous idea. You’ll need something to keep busy in jail.”
“The dresses will all be returned; no one’s going to jail, no thanks to you, Sammie,” I said, giving her a bitter stare.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Sammie lied.
“Denis,” Sydney said, checking her watch. “It’s time to go. The ship leaves at sunrise. Tomorrow’s a sea day and you have to talk with that daughter
