How to Teach Filthy Rich Girls (5 page)

I ate half the salad, then dug
Vanity Fair
out of my backpack. There was a piece by Dominick Dunne about a murder in Nashville and the husband‘s conviction ten years later. A feature on the former members of Talking Heads. Both interesting but seemingly irrelevant to me, Florida, or why I was going to Florida.

Then I turned another page and stared straight at a full-page photo of two blindingly gorgeous teen girls fully dressed and half submerged in a swimming pool. The simple caption said that they were Sage and Rose Baker of Palm Beach, Florida.

THE FABULOUS BAKER TWINS

by Jesse Kornbluth

Paris who?

If you‘re still snickering over her sexcapades or getting your gossip on over tabloid shots of the on-again-off-again best friend who wears anorexia like a couture accessory, then you‘re already five minutes ago. Welcome to the new millennium in white-hot-celebutante hype: Sage and Rose Baker, the Fabulous Baker Twins of Palm Beach, Florida.

Sage and Rose Baker are objectively better-looking than the tabloid titillators who came before them, and if the eighty-four-million-dollar fortune that will soon be theirs can buy it, they will be much,
much
more successful. They are also only seventeen years old.

They are nearly identical redheads—Sage is older by six minutes. Rose tans, and Sage keeps her flesh so pale she is nearly opalescent. Each is breathtaking, with cut-glass cheekbones, a slightly clefted chin, enormous emerald-green eyes, and full, pouty lips.

They are a pair of throwbacks to the beauty of Jean Shrimpton, although when I mention this, they look at me blankly. Evidently, their ideas of beauty icons don‘t go further back than Christina Aguilera.

The Fabulous Baker Twins are the granddaughters of Laurel Limoges, founder and CEO of Angel Cosmetics.

Laurel Limoges. That‘s who the captain—

This was
her
plane?

Pay dirt. This was what Debra wanted me to read. I rewarded my brain synapses with a long swallow of some of the best burgundy I‘d ever tasted and kept reading.

They lost their parents in a private-plane crash nine years ago, when they were in the fourth grade. Looks plus youth plus money plus pedigree plus tragedy plus unbridled lust and not just for fame equals what? Pop-culture platinum has been earned on much less.

Ever since their parents‘ death, the twins have lived with their grandmother on her vast Palm Beach, Florida, estate, called Les Anges. They share their own private eight-thousand-foot pink stucco mansion. Palm Beach, just south of Jupiter and north of Boynton Beach, is a sixteen-mile stretch of subtropical barrier island separated from the mainland by Lake Worth. Its ten thousand residents have more combined wealth than the inhabitants of Beverly Hills, Bel Air, Santa Barbara, and the United Arab Emirates collectively. Its estates are the most magnificent in the world.

J. Paul Getty once made this pithy remark: ―If you can actually count your money, then you are not really a rich man.‖ By this standard, when the twins‘ trust funds come due on their eighteenth birthday, less than two months after this issue of
Vanity Fair
is published, they will be truly rich.

Like the rest of young Palm Beach royalty, they attend Palm Beach Country Day. Both are candid about their dislike for, and boredom with, all things academic. When pressed, Rose murmurs that she ―kind of likes music‖; Sage bats her sooty lashes and says,

―School is repungent [
sic
].‖ I don‘t correct her.

With care for the language of Shakespeare eliminated, what do the twins like? Rose shrugs and looks to her sister for the answer—she seems to do this a lot. Sage tosses the strawberry lioness curls from her perfectly made-up face. ―Shopping, parasailing, driving fast, surfing, and sex, not necessarily in that order and sometimes all at once.‖

She leans forward to look at what I‘m jotting down in my little notebook. ―I love sex.

Be sure to write that down.‖

The hair artist sets Sage‘s hair in a tumble of flaming curls. Rose‘s locks are slicked back off her face. The makeup artist comes at them with loose powder on a makeup brush, and Sage shoos her away, complaining about the heat and the waiting around.

―Why the fuck aren‘t we starting the shoot?‖ A worker ant explains that there‘s a problem with the light and hands her a frosted flute of Cristal and honeydew juice, her current favorite drink.

But Sage won‘t be placated; clearly, she‘s had enough. She stands, slides both slender hands into the bodice of her priceless gown, and rips it down to her navel. Time seems to stop. Even her sister gasps.

Sage smiles, obviously pleased to have all eyes on her. She takes five steps to the saltwater pool and jumps in. The curls and makeup are destroyed in an instant. As she floats on her back, her pierced nipples become visible beneath the soaked, ripped gown.

She crooks a beckoning finger toward her twin.

Rose hesitates, but only for a moment. Then she jumps in, too.

―Shoot
this
!‖ Sage laughs and gives the photographer the finger.

For the Fabulous Baker Twins, being fabulous means never having to say you‘re sorry.

Maybe they weren‘t sorry, but suddenly, I was. Oh God. What on earth was I in for?

The wealthy and fabulous, having suffered as children, deserve all of the privilege and
prestige that society affords them. They should be able to do what they want, when they
want to, with no consequences. After all, they’re worth it.

Discuss how well-reasoned you find this argument. Write your answer in the book labeled ―Analytical Writing: Argument.‖

Megan Smith, I presume.‖

Those words found me gazing at the glorious view of the Atlantic through the picture window in Laurel Limoges‘s home office at Les Anges, an estate that
Vanity Fair
had not oversold. Thick raindrops hit the surface of the infinity-edged pool outside. It was hard to tell where the pool ended and the ocean began.

I whirled around and found myself face-to-face with a woman of a certain age. ―Laurel Limoges.‖

―It‘s a pleasure to meet you.‖ That was your basic nicety. I had no idea if it was going to be a pleasure to meet her, or whether in fifteen minutes I‘d be asking her driver to bring me back to the Palm Beach airport.

As we shook hands, I was struck by her beauty. Anyone would be. Her alabaster skin was taut and flawless, stretched over high cheekbones. She wore a gray suit with a fitted jacket and a straight skirt that fell just below her knees. Her pearl-gray open-toe pumps matched the buttons on the suit. She wore a silver bracelet on her left wrist but no rings on her fingers.

―Please.‖ She nodded toward a carved mahogany-framed couch and took a seat opposite me on a paisley chair. ―Your flight was satisfactory? You did not get too—how do you say—drenched?‖ She had a slight French accent.

―Your driver had a
parapluie très bon et très grand.
‖ Translation: a very big and good umbrella. Thank you, four years of French at Yale.

The sky had opened up as soon as the Gulfstream landed in Palm Beach. During the limousine ride from the airport I could barely see out the windows. I‘d flicked on the limo‘s mini TV and watched a Miami weatherman warning people in Palm Beach County to beware of hail as said hailstones pinged off the limo‘s roof.

The hail had abated by the time we pulled in to a circular gravel driveway in front of an enormous mansion the color of cotton candy. The car door swung open, and a very bald, cadaverous man in a black suit held an umbrella over me as I stepped out into thick, fetid air. ―Miss Smith? This way, please.‖

He guided me toward an enormous mahogany front door and then into a foyer larger than my entire East Village apartment. It had a white tile floor, intricately carved woodwork, and a round marble pedestal in the center. On that pedestal rested a three-foot-high white onyx vase and dozens of enormous orange and purple bird-of-paradise.

―Welcome to Les Anges
,
Miss Smith. I am Mr. Anderson, Madame‘s butler,‖ he intoned, touching the Secret Service–style earpiece in his left ear. ―Your rucksack, please, Miss Smith?‖

The butler—I immediately dubbed him the Skull—took my backpack and pushed a recessed metal button. A well-disguised elevator door swung open.

―Take this to the second floor,‖ the Skull instructed. ―Madame Limoges‘s office. She‘ll be with you shortly.‖

―Okay, thanks.‖ I stepped into the elevator.

―And Miss Smith? Madame doesn‘t like her things to be touched.‖

The elevator closed automatically. The last thing I saw was the Skull two-fingering my backpack like week-old roadkill.

And now here I was, face-to-face with the woman to whom all this wealth and power belonged. I didn‘t have to be a Yale grad to figure out that she‘d flown me eleven hundred miles to offer some kind of position involving her granddaughters, the Fabulous Baker Twins. But the what, where, why, and most of all,
how much,
were still a mystery.

―The flight was great,‖ I told her now. ―I mean, it was fine. Your plane is very nice.‖

Your plane is very nice?
I sounded like an idiot.

―Thank you. Perhaps you‘d like some tea or some other refreshment?‖ Laurel motioned to a silver tea set in the corner. I‘d assumed it was for decoration only.

―No, I‘m fine. I would like to hear about the position, though. If you don‘t mind.‖

―Ah. Normally, it is the employer who asks the questions in an interview, no?‖

―Yes, normally,‖ I agreed, feeling a little bold from the carafe of red wine on the plane.

―But nothing today has been normal.‖

She laughed, and I liked her for it. ―Actually, there is very little I want to ask, Miss Smith.‖

―Please, call me Megan.‖ I leaned back a little on the settee, trying to look comfortable.

―Megan, then. Debra Wurtzel is a dear friend. We have known each other a long time.

We spoke at some length about you. She recommended you very highly. You read the article about my granddaughters in
Vanity Fair
, yes?‖

―Yes. On the plane. They‘re beautiful.‖ I glanced behind her at the dozens of framed photographs lining the shelves. There were pictures of Laurel with heads of state and Hollywood elite, but not one of her with her granddaughters.

She offered a Gallic shrug and smoothed a nonexistent wrinkle in her skirt. ―The good fortune of a gene pool. How much do you know about me, Megan?‖

―Honestly? Only what I read this afternoon,‖ I answered, and resisted the urge to put my fingernails in my mouth.

―Everyone, it seems, has written about me. Tom, Harry, Dick. No one gets it right.‖

I bit my lip to keep from laughing at the Harry-Dick thing.

―I started with nothing, Megan. I like to work hard, and I like this quality in others.

Everything I have, I have earned.‖ She entwined her fingers. ―I have succeeded at many things. Anything worth doing is worth doing with excellence, don‘t you agree?‖

I nodded. I did agree. But even if I didn‘t, what was I going to say?

―There is one thing—one important thing—at which I have failed. Raising my granddaughters.‖

For the briefest moment, I thought I saw a flash of genuine sorrow in her eyes. Then it was gone.

―Perhaps, over the years, I would not allow myself to see the truth,‖ she continued. ―But now the entire world is aware that my granddaughters do not use their brains for anything more complex than choosing a shade of nail polish. I blame myself for this.‖

As she looked toward the ocean, I thought I saw another flash of pain in her clear gray eyes. ―I‘d like to change that. I shall provide the motivation, which we shall get to in a moment. Unfortunately, I cannot be the one to help them put their minds to better use.

For one thing, I travel far too much on business. You‘ll see me here at Les Anges only rarely. That is why the person to help them, dear, will be you.‖

So she wanted me to teach her granddaughters. But why? The twins were about to come into an eight-figure trust. Maybe they weren‘t bright, but they were filthy rich. I‘d met enough legacies at Yale to know that filthy rich could get you a long way in this world even without a functional IQ.

Laurel waited for my eyes to meet hers. ―You are wondering why this matters so much to me, no?‖

―Yes,‖ I admitted.

―Megan, the twins‘ late parents went to Duke University, in North Carolina,‖ Laurel explained. ―As did my late husband. I have always expected that the girls would go there also. To Duke.‖

I knew Duke. It wasn‘t Yale, but it was a really good school and hard to get into. But the twins were legacies, legacies whose grandmother could surely donate a building or ten to the school. The rules for mere mortals—grade point average, SAT score, killer application essay—simply didn‘t apply to legacies like that.

That‘s what I told Laurel, albeit a bit more diplomatically.

―In ordinary cases, you may be right,‖ Laurel agreed. ―But I received a phone call from Aaron Reynolds yesterday. He is the president of Duke. I‘ve known him for years—my late husband and I donated the performing arts center.‖

See?

Laurel went on, ―Yet he informed me that after
Vanity Fair
, he could not admit the girls. There would be—I believe he called it ‗an alumni uproar.‘‖ She held her palms up at the impossibility of it all. ―Sage and Rose shall have to
earn
a place in next fall‘s freshman class, like anyone else. Or at the very least, demonstrate the ability to do so. I believe he will be willing to overlook some of their indiscretions if they can meet some specific standards.‖

From what I had read, the chances of these two earning legitimate spots at Duke was about as likely as the Gap using me instead of my sister in next season‘s ads.

―How are their grades at school?‖ I managed to ask with a straight face.

―Appalling.‖ Laurel knitted her finely arched brows together. ―Here is the thing, Megan.

I know something about my granddaughters that they do not know. They are
not
stupid.

Nor are you, evidently.‖