The Debutante Divorcee Part 14

We all looked up: Marci was leaning over the balcony from the gallery upstairs, waving madly. She looked completely amazing but completely inappropriate in an orange velvet Lela Rose c.o.c.ktail dress with a huge silk ruffle at the neck. "We're having the best time. Absolutely no one from New York's here," she said. "They're all in Antigua, poor tragic things."

Just then Lauren strolled in, trailed by a tall, good-looking teenage boy. He was in ski pants, with the straps pushed nonchalantly off his shoulders. His matted blonde hair grew straight into his eyes, half-covering his face, which added to his cool allure. He couldn't have been more than fifteen years old.

"Have you met Henri?" said Lauren, with a wink. She was wearing faded corduroy pants and a huge cashmere sweater. She seemed extraordinarily relaxed, compared with the last time I'd seen her. "Ooh! Gluhwein! Mmmm. Henri's going to introduce me to all the cute underage guys out here."

"Non! I forbid it!" objected Camille.

"Maman," huffed Henri. He poured a vin chaud for Lauren and one for himself, and stretched lazily into an armchair. From there he glared possessively at Lauren while chewing his blonde forelock.

"Sylvie, why don't you come up and see my new ski outfits," said Marci from the balcony.

"Sure," I said. "Will you be OK without me for five minutes, Hunter?"

"I'll survive, but only five minutes," he replied sweetly.

I followed Marci upstairs. When we were in the bedroom she said, "What are you guys going to do for Hunter's birthday?"

Hunter's birthday! It was on Christmas Eve, and I had completely forgotten about it. I felt terrible. I had vaguely planned to do a surprise party back in New York, but with the last-minute Megeve trip it had completely slipped my mind.

"Well, maybe I could do a surprise party out here," I said. "Our chalet's perfect for a fun c.o.c.ktail."

"It would be so cute. We'll help you," said Marci. "We've got three days till the twenty-fourth, which is enough time. It's going to be amazing. I've met so many new people here already."

I was worried about Marci. Her mood was relentlessly upbeat, but it seemed forced. Surely she must be missing Christopher?

"Don't you love the off-vanilla of the ski jacket?" said Marci, showing off a piece of the gorgeous ski gear that she had bought at Jet Set in St. Moritz. Marci squished the jacket with her fingers. "Isn't the down filling so...mmm...goodgey. Look, it has this little red star on the collar, which is very Jet Set, and the matching pants have another red star right on the s.e.xy part of your b.u.t.t-"

"Are you OK, Marci? Have you seen Christopher?"

"I am sure I saw that gorgeous Swedish Princess Victoria at Jet Set. It's the only place in the world that makes chic ski stuff. There isn't anywhere else you can get chinchilla s...o...b..ots," continued Marci, holding up a cloud-colored fur boot. "Aren't they to die?"

"Marci, what is happening with you and Christopher?" I said, serious.

"Sylvie, you are so sweet to be concerned, but actually, everything is...proceeding."

"What do you mean, proceeding?" I asked.

"I've changed my mind, about becoming a divorcee. It's seeing all those pictures of movie stars shrinking into a swizzle stick when they've become single again. It's really put me off. I'm trying to gain weight now, can you imagine? Christopher's saying he wants to come back. So we're in...negotiations. Sophia's organizing the whole thing. She's been so sweet, talking to him and so on."

"Sophia?" I hoped Marci didn't sense my lack of enthusiasm.

"Yes. She told me to get these. Look."

With that Marci popped a pair of huge, Jackie O style sungla.s.ses on her nose. They looked even bigger than Nicole Richie's eyewear, if that's possible.

"From the Hermes store down in the Place de l'eglise. They're the only polarized Jackie sungla.s.ses in the world. You can ski in them. You can see three miles in them. Four hundred and fifty euros! But you feel so good skiing in them. I won't regret these. No."

"Four hundred and fifty euros is a lot for a pair of sungla.s.ses."

"I'm worth it." Suddenly Marci took the Hermes shades off and looked at me with a mischievous smile. "Listen, don't tell a soul this, but Sophia told me something."

I looked at Marci, my eyebrows raised.

"She's having an affair," she said.

"Sophia's always having an affair," I remarked, blase.

"With a married man." Marci put the gla.s.ses back on and turned back to the mirror, admiring herself. "Hasn't she got the best taste?"

Who cared that I couldn't ski, I said again to myself as I regarded the Alps from the deck of the chalet the next morning. They really do look as fresh and clear as the pale blue mountains on an Evian bottle. I couldn't wait to be up there in the clear air.

"You're going to love it," said Helene, the ski instructor Hunter had hired to teach me. She was twenty-three years old, with dark hair and intensely freckled skin. She'd appeared at 9 A.M. that morning to pick me up, wearing a bright yellow instructor's jacket, and a headscarf printed with strawberries.

"I'm excited," I said.

We'd arranged to meet Hunter, who'd left very early that morning to ski a black run, at a mountainside restaurant, La P't.i.te Ravine, at midday for lunch.

Three hours later, a burning pain shooting into my foot, and with my right ankle wedged at a sharp right angle to my calf, I couldn't have been more desperate to get off the slopes. Why people called skiing a vacation I could no longer fathom: this wasn't a vacation, it was like being the guy who almost died in Touching the Void, I thought miserably as I tried to move. Two toddlers shot past me on mini-skis. How were they doing that, and why were they smiling? Didn't they know they were about to die? G.o.d, being married is a nightmare, I thought, feeling the agony sear up into my ankle. Suddenly, just because you're married, you have to join in a husband's life-threatening pursuits, like skiing, while they do not have to join in on your life-enhancing ones, like Pilates cla.s.ses.

"We must go up," said Helene. "Your husband is expecting us, and there's no way to find him now."

"I can't," I wailed miserably. Maybe I had fractured my ankle.

"Then we have to go back down in the car," said Helene.

"I just...can we just stay here and..." I burst into tears.

Suddenly I felt a tap on my shoulder. I twisted my stiff neck to find myself looking up into a man's mirrored sungla.s.ses. They belonged to Pierre, Sophia's ex-boyfriend from Paris.

"Pierre," I groaned.

"Oh my G.o.d, are you all right?" he asked, concerned.

"She won't get up," said Helene, with a frustrated sigh.

"Are you in pain?"

"Yes, and I promised to meet Hunter at P't.i.te Ravine. I can't even move."

"Here," he said, gently pulling me up with Helene's help. I managed to stand, shakily.

"You should go home. I'll go find Hunter."

"Really?" I said gratefully.

Pierre nodded. Why Sophia had let this one go for a married man I knew not.

"You must come to Hunter's surprise birthday party at the chalet," I said, regaining my composure a little. "It's on the twenty-fourth."

"I'd love to," said Pierre. "Now, you should be going."

Melania Trump wouldn't get on at all well, clothes-wise, in Megeve. There are only two nights of the year when one is allowed to dress up-Christmas and New Year's. The rest of the time, the dress code is strictly informal, or smart-casual at the dressiest. The most important accessory at a Megeve party, I soon realized, is a cell phone with a camera. As the drawing room filled up with guests the night of Hunter's birthday, all they did between sips of champagne or bites of raclette was compare pictures of each other mid-ski jump. By ten o'clock the chalet was packed, and Hunter seemed to be having a great time. There was only one person missing: Marci. She hadn't appeared, and endless people she'd invited were showing up asking for her. Where was she?

I spotted Camille, her seventeen-year-old daughter, Eugenie, her son Henri, and Lauren sprawled on the sheepskin rugs picking at bowls of flocon de Megeve by the fire. Maybe they would know where Marci had got to. Hunter and I went over and joined them.

"There's an eighties moon-boot revival going on," Camille was saying. She was sporting a giant pair of fluffy white boots. They looked like enormous marshmallows on her feet.

"They're a little out, Mom," said Eugenie, regarding her mother as one would a loser cousin. "All the Monaco kids were wearing the pink and violet puffy boots apres-ski last year. Now it's all about seventies s...o...b..ots."

Eugenie got up and headed over to her friends, who were all clad in skin-tight jeans, fur gilets, and vintage boots of pony skin or tan suede. Their look was very Ali MacGraw in Colorado.

"She's unbelievably cute," I said, as she walked off. I sat down next to Camille.

"Isn't she?" said Camille, looking fondly over at her daughter. "Now, Sylvie, please encourage your friend to remarry."

"I'm not sure if I can under the circ.u.mstances. Husbands make you do things like ski," I joked.

"Husbands are terrible, darling, aren't they?" said Hunter, kissing my hand affectionately.

Everyone laughed. My ankle had been so inflamed by my fall that I'd avoided the slopes and spent the last few afternoons at the spa at Les Fermes de Marie getting physiotherapy. Today I'd stopped by the Hermes boutique, where I, like Marci, had been seduced by the Jackie O ski gla.s.ses. When I'd gone to pay for them I realized that Marci had wildly underestimated the price tag: they were actually y650, a price based on Hermes' rule that anything by Hermes costs at least seven times as much as it would anywhere else. Still, the gla.s.ses were so fabulous I was sure they would speed my recovery. I wouldn't regret them.

"Lauren," continued Camille, "you are spoiled. You are rich. You like incredible homes, a lot of travel. You should marry an older man. Otherwise you'll be bored-"

"Camille, I'm not interested in marriage. Old, rich guys are boring. The only one I could do is Barry Diller," joked Lauren. She looped her arm over Henri's shoulders and sighed, with an exaggerated wistfulness. "But this little Henri here! Soooo cute!"

She took Henri's hand and dragged him off into the crowd. Camille rolled her eyes and groaned.

"Camille, have you seen Marci yet?" I asked.

"She's having dinner with Pierre," she said. "Then they're picking up Sophia D'Arlan and coming late-"

"But I didn't invite Sophia D'Arlan tonight," I interrupted, slightly annoyed.

"You don't get Pierre without Sophia," said Camille.

"But Sophia isn't dating Pierre anymore," I said.

Just then, I saw Marci squishing into the crush on the far side of the room. She looked flushed and excited from the cold night air. Behind her followed Pierre, and after him, Sophia. Why was she always around? Wherever Hunter was, Sophia was, it seemed. Or...maybe I was being unfair. Maybe she was just here with Pierre, by chance. After all, I had invited Pierre myself. As it turned out, Sophia immediately disappeared into the guest bedroom with Pierre. No one saw either of them again all night. I didn't even get to say h.e.l.lo to her that evening, which was a relief.

Christmas day in Megeve is like something from The Snow Queen. A heavy overnight snowfall made the village look like it had been dipped in Chantilly cream, the church providing a meringue-like spire. After a charming church service, Hunter and I bought chocolats chauds in the main square, then went home and spent most of the afternoon relaxing in the hot tub on the deck.

"Thank you for organizing the party, Sylvie," said Hunter as we sat in the steaming bubbles. "It was so wonderful, and so different from New York."

"I loved it too," I said, wrapping my dripping arms around him and kissing him. Everything was so s.e.xy and romantic here. "You are the best husband-"

Just then, I heard my BlackBerry beeping. I'd left it on the side of the tub, knowing that my family would send a few emails today. Gingerly avoiding covering it with water, I picked it up and read the email out loud: To: [email protected]

From:

Re: Jailbait Make Out.

Darling Sylvie, Henri is so growth-spurty and awkward. That geeky teen thing is so cute. He thinks he fell in love with me last night, which might be a bit tricky with his mom and dad. I'm not in love, but I highly recommend making out with someone less than half your age at least once in your lifetime.

Just to make gross generalizations, which you know I love to do, the thing about fifteen-year-old men is that all they want to do is f, because they're so young and virile and they don't know what else to do. It all started when we were dancing. Henri was so tall, and he did this really weird thing where he would keep holding my hands up in the air, high above my head, and then finally I realized what was going on and I said, "Stop looking at my b.r.e.a.s.t.s! Stop it!" Then, I don't know, I thought it was kind of adorable that he was so into my b.r.e.a.s.t.s like that-after all, he hasn't really gotten to see any yet, and literally a second later he was on top of me on the deck. He came after five minutes, and then he blacked out. I took that as a compliment actually. I always used to black out at that age at Studio 54 when I was having the best time. Thanks for a great party. Four down!

"Oh, Jesus," laughed Hunter. "What about her big love with Giles Monterey? Has she forgotten about him?"

"Listen to this," I said. I read the end of the email: You will be pleased to hear that Henri's youthful b.u.t.t has started to erase the haunting memory of Mr. Moscow's beautiful blue eyes. If I don't hear from Monterey soon there is real hope for me that I can completely forget about him. Here's to moving on to number five.

"I think he'd better make a move on her soon," said Hunter.

"He's engaged, darling, you seem to keep forgetting that."

"So he is. Now," said Hunter, coming close to me, "I think we should go and make full use of that incredible bedroom we have in there."

Later that evening we lounged lazily in front of the fireplace, chatting about the rest of our trip. It was perfect-cozy, s.e.xy, everything. Camille was right. I should encourage Lauren to get married. There was no other way to get this feeling.

"Why don't we open the gifts now?" I said, just before dinner. "I'm so excited about my pressie."

"Oh, darling, my gift for you is very humble, I'm afraid. Don't get all excited."

It was sweet the way Hunter was pretending he hadn't bothered at all. I couldn't wait to see the necklace. While Hunter disappeared off into the guest bedroom, where he had been storing his gifts, I went to find mine from under the bed in our room. I had wrapped up two books and a photograph of Hunter and me in Paris that I'd had framed and engraved. I retrieved them and went back into the drawing room.

I put them in front of Hunter, who was sitting cross-legged on the rug by the fire. He had a small square box in front of him, wrapped in bright red paper with a silver bow. Ooh. It was definitely jewel-size.

"You open mine first," I said, trying to act casual.

"How adorable, darling," said Hunter, when he saw the photograph. He kissed me on the lips. "I'm very touched. Now why don't you open this?"

He handed me the little package. He was looking edgy, I thought. That was a good thing. He must be nervous about whether I was going to like the jewelry. I picked up the little red box and started unwrapping it. The layers of red paper came off. Underneath was a black leather box.

"Oooh!" I said, looking up at Hunter.

He swallowed, worried. It was very endearing. I lifted the lid of the velvet box to see several layers of white tissue paper.

"I'm so thrilled, darling..." I said, as I lifted the layers of tissue. There was something glinting underneath. I took it out and looked at it. "A...silver napkin ring?" I exclaimed, trying to sound ecstatic.

"I thought you'd like the roses engraved on it," said Hunter. He looked upset. Maybe he could tell I was disappointed. I didn't want to hurt him, so, trying to sound happy, I said, "I love roses," planting a kiss on his nose. "They look so...romantic...on a napkin ring."

Where, oh, where was my necklace?

"Do not confront him. It's not hard evidence of an affair," said Lauren.