Last Night at Chateau Marmont (43 page)

She wanted to scream, but thankfully she was able to calm herself enough to close the phone and power it off. Her hands were shaking when she set it down on the coffee table. No one but her immediate family and closest friends had her new private number. How had this happened?

There wasn’t any time to think about it, though, since she’d already grabbed her laptop and pounded in the web address for “Page Six.” And there it was, at the very top of the page, taking up almost her entire computer screen. Two pictures: one of her crying the day before at Cookshop with Nola, clearly wiping tears away with her napkin, and the other of Julian, stepping out of a limo somewhere—judging from the old-fashioned taxi in the background, probably London—leaving an extremely attractive young woman behind in the backseat. The caption under her photo read, “Brooke Alter mourns the end of her marriage over a girls’ brunch yesterday,” and there was a circle drawn around her tear-wiping hand, presumably indicating the absence of a wedding band. It continued: “‘They are definitely over,’ a source very close to Mrs. Alter says. ‘She’s even going alone to a family wedding next weekend.’” The caption accompanying Julian’s photo was no less charming. “Scandal can’t slow him down! Alter takes the party to London after his wife throws him out of their Manhattan apartment.”

There was no stopping the vicious anger-and-nausea combo that felt so familiar now, but Brooke tried to take deep breaths and think through it. She suspected there was a perfectly logical explanation for that girl—delusional or not, she was absolutely positive that Julian would never be that disrespectful, or just plain
stupid
—but the rest of it was enraging. She looked at the photo of herself again and realized from the angle and graininess that it was probably taken by a fellow patron using a cell phone. Disgusted, she pummeled the couch with her fist so hard that Walter yelped and jumped down.

The landline rang and the caller ID showed that it was Samara.

“Samara, I can’t take this anymore!” she said in lieu of hello. “Aren’t you supposed to be managing his publicity? Can’t you do something about pieces like these?” Brooke had never before shown even an inkling of rudeness to the girl, but she couldn’t keep quiet for another second.

“Brooke, I understand why you’re upset. I was actually hoping to reach you before you saw the piece, but—”

“Before I saw it?” she screeched. “Some scumbag already called my cell phone asking for my comment on it. How do they have this number?”

“Look, there are two things I need to tell you. One, that girl in the back of Julian’s limo was his hair and makeup person. His flight from Edinburgh was delayed and there wasn’t time to get him ready before his performance, so she worked on him in the car. A gross misrepresentation.”

“Okay,” Brooke said. She was surprised by how much relief she felt considering her certainty that there was a logical explanation.

“Second, there is not much I can do when your people are talking to the press. I can only control so much, and it certainly doesn’t extend to chatty friends and family.”

Brooke felt like she’d been slapped. “What are you saying?”

“That someone is obviously giving out your unlisted number, and knows about the wedding this weekend, and is going on the record discussing your life. Because I can assure you, it’s not coming from
our
end.”

“But that’s impossible. I know for a fact that—”

“Brooke, I don’t mean to be rude, but I’ve got another call coming in and I need to run. Talk to your people, okay?” And with that, Samara hung up.

Too keyed up to concentrate on anything—not to mention feeling guilty from not having done it sooner—Brooke leashed Walter, dug her Uggs and some gloves from the hallway closet, and hit the pavement almost running. She didn’t know if it was the pom-pom hat or the massively puffy coat, but neither of the two paparazzi she spied on the corner so much as glanced in her direction, and she felt a surge of pride for this small victory. They cruised over to Eleventh Avenue and then uptown, moving as quickly as they could through
the weekday crowds. She paused only to let Walter drink from a water bowl outside a grooming shop, and he was panting by the time they hit Sixty-fifth Street. Brooke, however, was only just getting started.

In the span of twenty minutes, she managed to leave semihysterical messages for her mother, father, Cynthia, Randy, and Nola (Nola was the only one who answered; her response: “Good god, Brooke, if I were really going to tattle about your life to the press, I’d have far juicier stories to share than freaking Trent and Intern Fern’s wedding. Come on now!”), and was getting ready to dial Michelle’s cell phone.

“Oh, hey, Michelle,” she said after the beep. “I’m, uh, not sure where you are, but I just wanted to touch base about a piece in ‘Page Six’ this morning. I know you and I have talked about this
multiple
times, but I’m really concerned that you may have, um, accidentally answered some reporter’s questions, or maybe told your friends something that found its way to the wrong person? I don’t know, but I’m asking you—actually, I’m begging you—to please just hang up if someone calls to ask any questions about Julian or me, and to not discuss our private lives with anyone, okay?” She paused for a moment, wondering first if she’d been firm enough and then if she’d been too firm, decided she’d probably gotten her point across, and hung up.

She dragged Walter home and spent the rest of the day finalizing her already worked and reworked résumé, hopeful that she’d soon be ready to start sending it out. It was disappointing that Neha was out of a potential partnership, but she wasn’t going to let it derail her plans: another six months to a year of clinical experience, and then hopefully a chance at opening her own practice.

Around six thirty, Brooke considered picking up the phone to cancel on Amber that night—the idea of meeting an entirely new group of women suddenly seemed like a very bad call—but when she realized she didn’t even have her number, she forced herself to shower and put on her jeans, boots, and blazer uniform.
Worst case scenario, everyone will be hateful and horrible and I’ll make up an excuse and
leave,
she thought as the cab made its way from Times Square to the central Village.
At the very least I’ll be leaving my apartment at night, something that hasn’t happened for quite some time.
She thought she’d calmed herself, but Brooke felt a rush of nerves when she stepped out of the cab on Twelfth Street and saw a reasonably pretty girl with a pixieish blond bob smoking a cigarette on the stoop.

“Brooke?” the girl asked, exhaling a plume of smoke that seemed to hang in the cold, damp air.

“Hi. Are you Amber?” She gingerly stepped over some accumulated curb slush. Amber was standing two full steps above her, but Brooke was still an inch or two taller. She was surprised to see flame-red tights peeking out from under Amber’s coat, topped by a fabulous pair of sky-high heels. That, combined with the cigarette, was not what she was expecting from Heather’s description of her naive, sweet, churchgoing friend.

Amber must have caught her looking. “Oh, these?” she asked, although Brooke hadn’t said a word. “Giuseppe Zanotti. I call them my man-stompers.” Her Southern accent was sweet, almost syrupy in its slowness, completely at odds with her appearance.

Brooke smiled. “Let me know if you’re renting those out.”

Amber motioned for her to follow her up the stairs. “You’re going to love everyone,” she said, pulling open the door to a small foyer with a mini Persian carpet and two mail slots. “It’s a great group of women. Added benefit being that whenever you think you have it bad, guaranteed someone here has had it
so
much worse.”

“Gee, that’s great, I guess?” Brooke said, stepping onto a small elevator after Amber. “Although after that piece on ‘Page Six’ this morning, I’m not so sure. . . .”

“Oh, that silly little bit with those amateur photos? Puh-lease! Wait until you meet Isabel. The poor girl’s had her cellulite circled in a full-page bikini shot. Now,
that
sucks.”

Brooke cracked a smile. “Yeah, that definitely does suck. So, you, uh, saw the ‘Page Six’ piece?”

The elevator opened into a plushly carpeted hallway softly lit with tinted glass sconces, and they both stepped out. “Oh, sweetheart, everyone read it. We all agree that it was nothing, a blip. The crying shot of you with your friend will be a total sympathy evoker—women everywhere can relate to that—and that ridiculous suggestion that your husband was getting it on in the back of a limo on his way to a very public performance? Come on. Everyone knows that must have been his publicist or hair and makeup girl. I wouldn’t worry about it for a second.”

With that, Amber swung open the apartment door to reveal one massive open room that looked a whole lot like a . . . basketball court? There was what appeared to be a regulation-size basket at the far end, complete with a shiny hardwood floor, sidelines, and a free throw line. The wall nearest them looked painted for racquetball, or maybe squash, and a giant bin of various balls and rackets took up the street-facing side between two floor-to-ceiling windows. A sixty-inch flat-screen hung on the only remaining wall, and parked directly in front of it was a long green couch with two brown-haired, mesh-shorted teenage boys. They were eating pizza and playing a football video game Brooke should’ve been able to identify, and each looked more bored than the other.

“Come on,” Amber said, traversing the basketball court. “Everyone else is already upstairs.”

“Whose apartment is this again?”

“Oh, you know Diana Wolfe? Her husband, Ed, was a congressman—I can’t remember what district, but Manhattan somewhere—and he also headed up the Ethics Committee, of course.”

Brooke climbed the open staircase behind Amber. “Okay,” she murmured, although she knew exactly where this was going. You’d have needed to live in a cave for six weeks last summer to
not
know where this was going.

Amber stopped, turned toward Brooke, and lowered her voice to a whisper. “Yeah, well, you remember good old Ed had a thing for
prostitutes? Not even high-end escorts, mind you, but full-on street-walking hookers. Double whammy because Diana was running for city attorney general. Not pretty.”

“Welcome!” A woman in her early forties trilled from the top of the stairs. She wore an impeccably tailored mauve skirt suit, a truly gorgeous pair of black snakeskin heels, and the most elegant strand of chunky pearls Brooke had ever seen.

Amber reached the top of the stairs. “Brooke Alter, this is Diana Wolfe, the owner of this lovely home. Diana, this is Brooke Alter.”

“Th-thank you so much for having me,” Brooke stuttered, instantly intimidated by this older, extremely put-together woman.

Diana waved her off. “Please, it’s nothing so formal. Come in, help yourself to some nibbles. As Amber surely filled you in, my husband has—had—or rather, I don’t know whether he
had
or currently
has
since he’s no longer my husband, but old habits die hard, so—my husband
has
a penchant for prostitutes.”

Clearly Brooke was unable to disguise the shock, because Diana laughed. “Oh, darling, I’m not telling you anything the entire country doesn’t already know.” She leaned over and touched Brooke’s hair. “Actually, I’m not sure if everyone knew how much he loved redheads. Lord, I had no idea myself until I saw the undercover FBI videotapes. After the first twenty-five or so girls, you can really start to detect some patterns, and Ed definitely had a type.”

Diana laughed at her own joke and said, “Kenya’s in the living room. Isabel can’t make it because her babysitter canceled. Go say hello, I’ll be in in a minute.”

Amber led the way into the all-white living room and Brooke immediately recognized the statuesque African-American woman in stunning leather pants and a sumptuous fur vest as Kenya Dean, ex-wife of gorgeous leading man and lover of all underage girls Quincy Dean. Kenya immediately stood up and hugged Brooke.

“It’s so nice to meet you! Come, sit down,” she said, pulling Brooke next to her on the white leather sectional.

Brooke was about to say thank you when Amber poured Brooke a glass of wine and handed it to her. She took a long, grateful drink.

Diana walked into the room carrying a large platter of fresh seafood on ice: shrimp cocktails, all different size oysters, crab claws, lobster tails, and scallops, accompanied by little dishes of butter and cocktail sauce. She set it down in the middle of the coffee table and said, “No putting Brooke on the hot seat! Now, why don’t we go around the room and tell her a little bit about our experiences, so she can feel at home, okay? Amber, why don’t you start?”

Amber nibbled a large shrimp. “Everyone knows my story already. I married my high school sweetheart—who, by the way, was a huge dork back then—and the year after we got married, he won
Idol.
Let’s just say Tommy didn’t waste any time enjoying his newfound fame, and by the time he finished the Hollywood round, he’d slept with more girls than Simon has V-necks. That was really just a warm-up, though, because if I had to guess, I’d put his current numbers well into the triple digits.”

“I’m so sorry,” Brooke murmured, not really knowing what else to say.

“Oh, don’t be,” Amber said, reaching for another shrimp. “It took a while to realize, but I am so clearly better off without him.”

Diana and Kenya nodded.

Kenya refreshed her own wineglass and took a sip. “Yeah, I’d have to agree, although I don’t think I would’ve when I was still as early on as you,” she said, looking pointedly at Brooke.

“What do you mean?” Brooke asked.

“Well, just that after the first girl, I didn’t believe it would happen again—or even that he’d done anything wrong. I thought maybe he was being framed by some fame chaser. But then, as the accusations kept rolling in and then the arrests, and the girls were getting younger by the second, sixteen, fifteen years old . . . let’s just say it’s harder to deny.”

“Be honest, Kenya. You were like me—you didn’t believe any
thing was wrong after Quincy was arrested for the first time,” Diana said helpfully.