Nancy’s Theory of Style (16 page)

“I want that.” Eugenia stabbed her
finger against the glass case toward a muffin studded with chocolate chips.

“Okay, but only because this is a
special treat. Don’t think that I approve of this sort of food.”

“Yes?” asked the impatient clerk.

“Two chocolate chip muffins, one carton
of milk, and what kinds of coffee do you have?”

“Café or decaf.”

“Café, please,”
Nancy
said, feeling the thrill of slumming.

The clerk put the muffins on beige
Buffalo
china saucers and
poured coffee into a matching cup.

After
Nancy
paid, they sat at a wobbly Formica table and
Nancy
took two thin paper napkins from the
metal dispenser. She opened the milk carton and put the straw in it for
Eugenia.

“Isn’t this lovely!” she said. “Put your
napkin on your lap, Eugenia. How old are you?”

The girl lifted one hand, smeared with
chocolate, and made a claw-like gesture.

“Three?”
Nancy
guessed. She took a sip of coffee and
immediately regretted it. She put a paper napkin to her mouth and
surreptitiously spit the alleged coffee into it.

Eugenia said, “I’m almost five.”

Ah, the gesture was her attempt at the
half. “Wipe your mouth, please. Where are you and your mother staying? At a
hotel?”

“Mommy stays with Yannis. We stay at the
airport.”

“You came from the airport, but you
don’t stay there. Where do you sleep?”

The question puzzled the girl. “My
grammy has a room for me with a big bed and pictures of fairies.”

Nancy
smiled. “That’s where I sleep when I
visit your grandmother. Those painting of ballerinas are by a painter named
Edgar Degas. I used to want to be a ballerina. Then I wanted to be a fairy
princess.”

“Like Tinker
Bell
?” The girl wiped at her mouth with her
napkin, smearing chocolate over her face.

“Yes, like Tinker Bell and like Glinda,
the good witch in ‘The Wizard of Oz.’”

“You look like Tinker Bell. I like
living at Grammy’s, but Grammy was crying and Yannis called her a bad name, so
mommy took me away and said I could stay with you.”

Nancy
thought the word “stay” was ominously
inexact. And why hadn’t Aunt Frilly told her about the argument?

The girl brightened and said, “Mommy
said you have a pony.”

“I do! His name is
Willoughby
and he lives at my parents’
house.”
Willoughby
was a handsome and
untrustworthy miniature horse that
Nancy
had gotten in high school. “I have a cart for him and we ride around a little
track and I wear a wide-brimmed straw bonnet and hold a pretty whip of silk
ribbons.”

“I saw a cow. Her name was Lulu and he
had spots. Can I see your pony?”

“You can meet him the next time your
mommy takes you to visit my mother and father.
Willoughby
lives in a little stable and has
his own corral. He has a luxurious long black and white mane and tail.”
Nancy
had wanted to build
a small stable and paddock for the pony at her house, but Todd said no. Just
because
Willoughby
had bitten him once or twice.

Eugenia said, “I want a pony.”

“Really?”
Nancy
was about to offer her the horse when
she realized how unlikely it was that Birdie would settle down anywhere long
enough to raise an animal. “Maybe you’ll get one someday.”
Nancy
sorted through her berry-colored
patchwork bag and took out a packet of verbena-scented towelettes. Reaching
over she wiped the girl’s mouth and then her hands.

“That smells good,” said Eugenia as
Nancy
wiped her own
hands.

“Yes, it does. Little girls and big
girls should smell nice. Boys can be stinky and dirty.”

Eugenia’s laugh startled
Nancy
. It was a pretty
little laugh, a child’s version of Birdie’s.

“We better get back in case your mother
wonders where we are.”

“Mommy said to stay with you, Auntie
Nanny.”

“Yes, I know. But we have to be ready
when she comes back.”

“I have to go to the bathroom.”

“Okay.”
Nancy
saw a sign for the restrooms. “It’s
back there.”

“You have to come with me.”

“You are very high maintenance.”
Nancy
walked the girl to
the back of the building and the unisex bathroom. She issued several ewhs as
she used a paper towel to lower the seat and then placed two seat covers on the
seat. “You should never sit directly on the seats,” she advised. “Full of gross
cooties.”

Nancy
looked away politely as the girl used
the toilet. “Wash your hands with soap and hot water for as long as it takes
you to count to thirty.”

“I can count to ten.”

“Count to ten three times, then,”
Nancy
said, but Eugenia
could not grasp simple multiplication concepts.

Nancy
held the girl’s hot little paw as they
headed back toward Chateau Winkles. They were near a posh children’s boutique
when
Nancy
spotted Junie Burns coming out with a floppy-haired boy wearing a blazer and
slacks. Junie was carrying several shopping bags and chatting to the boy.

If Junie saw her with this tiny fashion
disaster, she would lose all respect for
Nancy
.
Nancy
hefted
Eugenia up so that the girl’s body hid her, and the red towel covered her face.
She walked blindly ahead and
Nancy
thought they must be safe, when
 
Eugenia
cried, “Watch out, Auntie Nanny!”

Nancy
peeked from behind the towel just as
she was about to collide with an elderly woman. “Oh, sorry!”

At the moment that
Nancy
’s
face was visible, Junie said, “
Nancy
!”

Nancy
smiled and put the child down. “Oh, hi,
Junie.”

Junie was dressed in a tailored gray
pinstripe pantsuit. She and the boy stared with open curiosity at Eugenia.

“Junie, this is my cousin’s daughter,
Eugenia. And your little friend…” She flashed a smile while looking at the prep
school crest on his jacket.

“This is Fielding, my nephew,” Junie
said, her soft voice almost blown away by the evening breeze. “We were just
shopping for his little sister. What have you been doing?”

“We ate donuts,” Eugenia misinformed
Junie. “Auntie Nanny spit her coffee and she has a whip.”

 
“Really?” Junie said, as she bent closer to
the child. “What a bright cape. Did your Auntie Nanny make that for you?”

“No. Yannis took it from the hotel. He’s
Mama’s new bedfriend and he has a beard and paints pichers of her fanny.”

“Really!”

Fielding frowned and said, “My father
says that stealing from a hotel is wrong.”

“Your father sounds like a charming
man,”
Nancy
said to the nascent bore. “Junie, it’s crazy that we haven’t been able to get
together.”

“I know! I’m going back to the office
after I take Fielding to his oboe lesson. But I’ll call you as soon as I have a
free moment. I’m so concerned about you, especially with that photo going
around.”

The friendly fire caught
Nancy
by surprise. “What
photo?”

“The one from Gigi’s party of you
collapsing,” she said. “Oh, my god, I can’t believe you haven’t seen it! Lizette
sent it to me because she was so worried. Bill saw it on some site about, uhm,
the city’s party girls.”

Nancy
could have asked what Bill was doing on
a party girl website, but Sun Tzu had advised that victory was more important
than protracted battle. “Oh, that photo! My publicist said that I need to be
edgier to promote Froth. I just assumed it wasn’t going to work. How fabulous
that it’s being circulated.”
 

“So it was planted?”

“Please don’t tell anyone,”
Nancy
said with a smile. “It’s
really ludicrous to pretend to be naughty, but it gives a girl cachet. Like
that rumor about me and Lizette.”

“What rumor about you and Lizette?”

“Between us, that’s only part of the
image branding,”
Nancy
said. “Although I do think she’s pretty and if I was going to, well… So
wonderful to see you!”

“Oh,” Junie said, looking confused,
while her puritanical ward shifted from foot to foot impatiently.

 
Nancy
smiled. “My cousin
will be coming by at any moment to pick up Eugenia, so we’ve got to dash. Ciao!”
She took Eugenia’s hand and hurried down the street. She had to find that photo
and see if there was any way of figuring out who had taken it and how to get
rid of it.

Half-way back, Eugenia said, “I’m
tired.”

“It’s only a little ways more,”
Nancy
said, but the child
was lagging behind. “You shouldn’t be tired. You’re young. You should be
bursting with energy.”

“I didn’t get my nap and last night
Yannis and Mama kept yelling. My feet are sweaty.”

“Horses sweat, men perspire, and ladies
merely glow.”
Nancy
felt as if she were towing the child whose steps got slower and slower. “All
right, I’ll carry you, but only this time because it’s a special occasion.”

Nancy
lifted the girl. She seemed very heavy
for such a small person. The tiny hot arms around
Nancy
’s neck were choking her. Once they got
to Chateau Winkles,
Nancy
said, “You have to walk up the stairs by yourself. Walking up stairs has all
sorts of health and beauty benefits, which is why I always use stairs.”

The child stared at the steps and
gripped
Nancy
’s
neck tighter.

Nancy
loudly exhaled and said, “Fine, we’ll
take the elevator, but only because it’s a special occasion.”

Once inside the apartment, she looked at
the clock. Einstein was so right about the relativity of time. One hour with
Eugenia had seemed like five.

Nancy
set the girl down on the sofa, and
Eugenia flopped over bonelessly.
Nancy
put her hands on her hips and waited until she’d caught her breath. “Your
posture is abominable. Let’s get these shoes off.”

When
Nancy
pulled off the galoshes she saw that
the plastic shoes had rubbed large angry blisters on Eugenia’s bare feet. “You
see, that’s why you should always buy the best shoes you can. It isn’t just
looks – it’s the comfort and fit you get from well made…”
Nancy
said.

The girl curled up and closed her eyes.

Nancy
untied the cape and then got a
comforter and a pillow from the hall closet. By the time she put the pillow
under the girl’s head, Eugenia was asleep.

Nancy
got on the computer and did a search
for “Nancy Chambers party girl.” She found the photo on a site called Decline
and Fall Down of the Rich Bitches.

She felt sick when she saw the photo. She
looked like a scabrous, beat-up smack addict taking a tumble, with one pink
butt cheek visible in the shot. The heading said, “How the mighty (stuck-up)
have fallen! Nancy Carrington Chambers in the dumps after being dumped by hawt
hubby on the grounds of felony skankitude.”

It was awful, awful, and
Nancy
didn’t know what to
do. She stared at the sea-green wall, overtaken by panic. Then a noise startled
her. It was Eugenia shifting in her sleep.
Nancy
thought that when her cousin returned,
she’d probably shove the galoshes back on the child’s feet and drag her out.

The sleeping girl barely flinched when
Nancy
used a sterilized
needle to pierce the blisters. She drained them with cotton balls, dabbed
antiseptic ointment on them, and then put Band-Aids over them. She tucked the
comforter around the child.

Nancy
’s phone rang and she ran to it, hoping
it was Birdie.