Perfect (6 page)

T  E  N

“Bienvenu, Princesse.
We were pleased to receive your call.” The gentleman smiled courteously at me when I emerged from the elevator.

Other than the doorman, who’d greeted me at the discreet street entrance three floors below—he was flanked by two dark-suited security guards with clear plastic earpieces and the outline of guns visible beneath their jackets—it seemed we were the only people around.

Located in the upper stories of an office building owned by Naxos on the Champs Elysées at l’Etoile, the boutique-style hotel—known only as III, or Trois—had been created for the safety and convenience of his friends and colleagues. It was also selectively available to those who knew about it and who could pass the hotel’s background check. Trois was so exclusive its phone number was unlisted.

I knew about it the same way I knew about Mont-St.-Anges—it used to be my business to know who and where the wealthiest were, their hiding places and haunts. And I must admit, I’ve continued to keep my antennae tuned to a certain degree. It’s part of me. Like breathing. I still keep my hand in. I stay up to date. I listen at cocktail and dinner parties more than I talk.

“Please.” He indicated a straight-backed armchair in front of a large Boule desk behind a screen of potted palms in an alcove off the empty lobby. The only things on the desk were an enormous vase of white roses, a telephone, and a sheet of paper. It looked like a still life. “Be seated.”

“I’m pleased you have room for me at the last minute.”

“We are at your service.” He slid the paper across, laid a black pen on top. “Your signature, please.”

I signed. “Margaret Romaniei.” And slid it back.

“Do you have baggage?”

“Non.”

In the sedan on the way into the city from the airport, I’d considered a number of answers to this inevitable and reasonable question about my nonexistent baggage, and decided no answer at all was the best. He could draw his own conclusions.

Over the years, I’ve worked hard to develop a number of identities. Some are very disposable—such as Mme. Garnier, who flew today from Marseilles to Paris—requiring only a driver’s license and a working credit card or two. Others, such as Margaret Romaniei, Princess Margaret of Romania, I’d worked on for a long time.

Her history was detailed, complicated, and private. In fact, she had never existed, but her late husband, Prince Frederick Romaniei, had.

Frederick Romaniei had been an oddball, a drunk and a café darling, a heavy marijuana smoker and LSD user. A devotee of the hedonistic hell of the ’60s, Prince Frederick would fall into the category of what’s known today as a combination of unredeemable loser and Eurotrash—a poorly raised young aristocrat with a fool’s arrogant, unfounded aura of entitlement. The possibility of his assuming the nonexistent responsibility for which he’d been birthed—the throne of the kingdom of Romania—was virtually zero. In fact, at that time, Romania was very much behind the Iron Curtain and under the rule of a totalitarian despot, and even if it hadn’t been, Frederick was way down the line in the order of succession. He’d never been to Romania and probably wouldn’t have recognized the language if he’d heard it. Freddy, as he was called, was killed in an avalanche in Switzerland in 1967 when he was twenty-three, skiing where he shouldn’t have been. He’d never been married, that anyone knew of, but he’d lived such a reckless, useless life and was forgotten so quickly, no one knew or cared about him anymore—not that they ever had in the first place. His parents, from whom he was famously estranged, were now both dead and there were no siblings.

His widow, me, “Princess Margaret,” was from an aristocratic Norwegian family, the daughter of a diplomat, brought up and educated in England. Appearance-wise, I could easily pass for a Norwegian, and as far as being married to Prince Freddy . . . well, the antics of any number of today’s solid citizens, centers of influence and decision makers, captains of industry and elected politicians who did things in the ’60s and ’70s under the influence of mind-bending drugs, would leave most people with their mouths hanging open.

There were many, many long-ago marriages to someone met on a beach in Majorca or Ceylon or Hawaii, the wedding ceremony attended by stringy-haired, guitar-playing, barefooted, unwashed, like-minded strangers in tie-dyed T-shirts and sarongs, conducted by a self-proclaimed, flower-draped, stoned swami or guru of the Temple of Eternal Bliss, or some such similar phony-baloney sect dreamed up while on a “trip.” Everybody singing and full of love. The bride or groom’s horrified parents—when they were finally informed of the union, generally in a spaced-out phone call from the newlyweds asking for money—put hysterical calls in to their lawyers, paying dearly, whatever it took, for annulments. It was a very strange time with many unwise actions lost in the fog of hallucinogens.

It was entirely possible, even likely, that Freddy had been married. Maybe even more than once.

Freddy and George Naxos had been roommates at Le Rosey, the exclusive all-boys boarding school on the shores of Lake Geneva.

“May I offer you a little lunch or a snack?” the fellow at the check-in desk asked.

“A bowl of tomato soup and a pot of coffee would be wonderful.”

“Let me take care of that immediately.” He picked up the phone and spoke quietly authoritatively. “The princesse would like hot tomato soup.” He glanced over at me. “A little cheese sandwich?”

“Oui, merci.”

“Un croque-monsieur et café. Merci.”
He replaced the receiver. “Do you know how long you’ll be with us?”

“Non.”

“Please stay as long as you wish. We are at your service.” He raised his hand and another man, dressed similarly in a well-cut business suit, materialized. “The princesse is in the Blue Suite.”

The porter picked up my case and I followed him down a short corridor to the elevator.

E  L  E  V  E  N

The Blue Suite opened onto the Etoile where gray clouds had descended and begun to spit out a steady gray February drizzle. The normally busy traffic that circled the Arc de Triomphe had, for the most part, disappeared, leaving me with an extraordinary bird’s-eye view of what the Etoile and the Champs Elysées must have looked like in the middle of the last century when there were about one-tenth as many cars.

In spite of the gray day, my rooms were large and bright, extremely cozy and feminine with pale blue and white toile everywhere—on the furniture, the walls, the bed. Comfortable downy cushions filled the chairs and sofas. A gold-rimmed plate with the Roman numeral III sat on the coffee table with five neatly arranged petit fours. I picked one up, a little mocha confection iced in coffee fondant, and went into the bedroom, which was done up in the same fabric. It was just beautiful. The bathroom was as large as the bedroom, with two windows and what looked to be a dozen thick towels stacked on heated racks. A hint of carnation scented the air.

In the distance, I heard the doorbell chime and by the time I got back to the living room, my lunch was waiting on the desk—small silver domes covered the soup and sandwich—and the waiter had vanished.

A number of foods revitalize me. Cream of tomato soup with a dollop of sherry, grilled cheese sandwiches, chocolate and Champagne are close to the top of the list, right after my complete favorites: nut bread sandwiches with cream cheese, apples, raisins, and chutney. Of course, the petit fours didn’t hurt. I am well aware that experts claim that the high that comes from sugar has an immediate and opposite effect—a deep, depressing down. I have not experienced that phenomenon and can only surmise that the experts aren’t getting enough sugar in their diets.

I’d just swallowed the last bite of sandwich when the phone rang. It was the man at the front desk.

“Mr. Naxos wishes to know if you will join him and his wife for cocktails.”

“Well, yes,” I answered, surprised. “Of course. I’d like that very much. Thank you.”

“Someone will call for you at eight o’clock.”

“Merci.”

Of course, I wasn’t really surprised. Step one complete.

An hour and a half had passed since I landed, and I needed to accomplish a great deal by eight o’clock and . . . I needed for all of it to be in white. That’s what I’d decided years ago when I created the persona of Princess Margaret of Romania: she would wear only white. It would be her signature, add to her mystery and cool demeanor. The rightness of the concept was confirmed when I met Odessa Niandros in London, the smoky, sultry, latte-skinned sister of the late Princess Arianna. Odessa had come to Ballantine & Company to have her sister’s jewelry auctioned and she wore only white and always looked like an unapproachable ice goddess. I thought that would be a good look for enigmatic Margaret. Everything white. I would be as cool and mysterious as Bianca Jagger.

Back downstairs, the doorman helped me into the hotel car, a custom-made black Mercedes 500S with an extended wheel base, dark-tinted windows, and nicely worn black leather seats. It was not as big as a proper limousine but had significantly more leg room than a regular sedan and smelled of leather and citrus, which unfortunately gave me a quick, rueful twinge of Thomas and his brisk lime cologne. I wondered if he was in his study, or walking the dog, or packing his bags to go to Zurich tomorrow.

“Where may I take you, Princesse?” the driver asked when the door was closed.

“Carita, please.”

Carita, one of Paris’s leading
maisons de beauté
for more than fifty years, has grown from a small salon frequented only by those in the know to an international presence in the world of beauty products. Its modern salon and spa now fill three stories on the Faubourg St. Honoré, three stories dedicated to nothing but beauty and well-being. It is a delicious eucalyptus-scented sanctuary.

“This way, please, madame,” a sylph in a tight black dress said. She escorted me to the second floor, showed me into an all-pink powder room and handed me a smock. “François will meet you at the desk.”

“Thank you,” I said. I locked the door. It was a huge relief to take off the glamorous dark glasses and tight black turban, pull the pins out of my French twist and shake out my shoulder-length blond hair that I spend a fortune on to keep just the right shade. I hated to see it go. I put in contact lenses that tinted my blue-green eyes to enough of a deeper hue that they were completely different.

By the time I left Carita, no blond remained. My coiffeur was now much darker. Francoise had dyed all my hair a sort of medium brown and then streaked it with three different shades of light brown, tan and gold. He cut it to chin length, parted it in the middle and pulled each side back with tortoise shell combs. It was a sophisticated, elegant style that suited my face and coloring and, besides, I’d always wanted to be able to use matching combs—some of the jeweled ones from the ’30s and ’40s are stunning. The makeup artist had created a whole new palette for my face.

I was unrecognizable.

My next stop was Galleries Lafayette, Paris’s landmark department store. Entering its multistory atrium is to be transported to a vast wonderland filled with the best the world has to offer. Thank goodness, they’ve moved all the domestic goods, such as gourmet delicacies, kitchenware, linens, and garden tools to their new Maison store across the street. It used to be agony for me to go through the gourmet department where you could find a canned, jellied canard next to a basket of rare black truffles, or a jar of tapenade and ten different brands of marrons glacée, or the latest in cookware. But now all those traps are gone, replaced by chapeaux and cosmetics, somewhat slightly easier for me to move past to the escalator, and get to the business at hand.

I went to the second floor and began assembling the proper wardrobe for a wealthy Romanian princess, widow of a long-forgotten Romanian prince, to take to the Alps.

Here’s what I learned: buying an entire all-white wardrobe isn’t as easy, or as interesting, as you may think. First of all, it’s not particularly flattering unless you’re terribly petite and have, like Bianca or Odessa, a little tone to your skin, which I don’t. Secondly, it doesn’t bring out the roses in your cheeks—just the opposite, actually. And finally, white doesn’t show diamonds off to their best. Unless you’re wearing quite dramatic colored stones or displaying a décolletage full of healthy, taut, tanned skin, white pulls the fire out of diamonds and the luster out of pearls. Why on earth I ever thought Princess Margaret should wear only white, I have no idea. I think I’d gotten carried away envisioning myself ice-skating on a frozen alpine pond in a hooded, full-length white mink cape and a white velvet dress. I don’t know. But the fact was, this entire alpine caper was about jewelry, about showing it, and me, off to our absolute best, and a major expanse of white on my body was just not going to do it. I made a number of strategic adjustments and ended up with a collection that included some white, but also lots of black, taupe, and coffee bean, and trimmed with wonderful passementerie stitching and mink, fox, and leopardskin collars and cuffs.

All right, I’ll admit it. I did buy that full-length mink cape with a hood, a hat, and muff to match. But I got it in black. And it looked sensational. Who knew, I might get an invitation to go ice-skating, and black would look much more dramatic twirling on the ice than white.

On I marched, up to Lingerie—a wonderland of frills and femininity. Choosing was so hard, it almost made me cry—I was afraid the time pressure I was under was going to make me sick. It did give me a headache. A fairyland of silk and satin and lace, ruffles and bows in every color of the rainbow, the negligées and peignoirs, cotton nighties, robes and pajamas, bras, panties, bed jackets, bustiers and teddies poofed out of the racks like the corps de ballet’s wardrobe room at an especially lavish production of
Sleeping Beauty.
I wanted all of them. It made me lightheaded.

I couldn’t help it—lingerie has been one of my passions since Sir Cranmer rescued me on Carnaby Street. I’m an addict. He taught me to appreciate myself—all of me.

“You are absolutely delicious,” he said one day when I was apologizing about my extra pounds. “Don’t lose an ounce.”

I’d realized by then there was no possibility that I was going to lose that twenty-five pounds. And Sir Cranmer helped me see I didn’t need to penalize myself for that my whole life, and feel obliged to wear Carter’s cotton shorts and bras that covered my bosom like catcher’s mitts. I made the decision then that I would wear only beautiful underthings that would show me off to my best advantage.

So now, today, you can imagine how the selection that lay before me in the lingerie department at Galleries Lafayette was a terrible, heart-tearing wrench because I had so little time. Darling Cranmer would have loved it.

After much back and forth, I settled on sixteen or seventeen silk, satin, and lace peignoirs ranging from champagne to silver pink to black, and three quilted pale pink silk robes (I have a number of these robes at home. They’re like security blankets to me.). Two cashmere robes with leopardskin trim, because I was going to Switzerland where it was freezing, several sets of lacy bras and panties, camisoles and slips, and stacks of lightweight cashmere socks and stockings.

Finally, I was almost totally set. I had evening gowns, cocktail clothes, a dozen pairs of lightweight wool slacks and cashmere sweater sets, an entire wardrobe of ski clothes(!), slippers and shoes, several colors of kid gloves, scarves, shawls, fur mufflers with matching hats and muffs, a number of handbags and a set of large Vuitton suitcases.

“Et en suite, Princesse?”
my driver asked. “Back to the hotel?”

“No. Please take me to Chanel on Avenue Montaigne.”

“Bien.”

I’ve never considered myself a power shopper, but after a total of three very fast hours, I got back to the hotel fully equipped for any contingency—you name it, I could dress for it. I was completely exhausted. My Galleries Lafayette purchases had already been delivered—shopping bags and boxes filled the living room. It was an extraordinary array and while I was searching through them for one of my new pink robes, the doorbell rang and in came the porter with my packages from Chanel. (I’d already stowed my purchases from Cartier and Van Cleef in the bottoms of my Hermès travel bags along with the rest of my jewelry.) As I’ve said before, I wasn’t sure exactly what budget Thomas and the queen had had in mind for this adventure when he’d said “St. Moritz” and “unlimited,” but it was very dear of him to think he could imagine it, and in fact, no matter what it was, I’d exceeded it in the first six hours. And I wasn’t any closer to Switzerland than I’d been when I got up this morning.

I gave the porter twenty euros, double locked the door behind him, and turned on a Rachmaninoff concerto. A bottle of Dom Perignon sat chilling on the sideboard in the living room so I poured myself a glass, and then slowly pulled off all my clothes and tossed them on the bed and dragged my robe behind me into the bath, and turned on the tap. While I waited for the tub to fill, I studied myself in the mirror. Age has wonderful compensations. Not a single one of them, however, is physique related. My body was my body what can I say? Nothing is where it used to be, except the
Pasha of St. Petersburg
that Sir Cranmer had hung around my neck on a terrace at the Hôtel du Cap in Cap d’Antibes, all those years ago. Now almost a part of me, it lies there—a reminder, a comforter, a constant companion. I held the diamond between my fingertips and twisted it so it caught the light and sent a shimmering kaleidoscope of color across my body. I loved my body. We’d been together a long time. I patted myself on my heart and climbed into the steaming tub and stretched out luxuriously under the bubbles.

Any minute now, Thomas would hear from his associate, David Perkins. “She wasn’t on the train,” he would say. And Thomas would know exactly what had happened, that I’d disappeared and he’d never be able to find me until I let him. He’d lost control of the situation.

“Dammit to hell,” he would say, and slam his tumbler of Scotch down on the kitchen counter, scaring the dog. “She’s done it to me again.”

Hundreds of miles away, from my bubble bath on the Place de l’Etoile, I raised my glass.

“Trust me,” I said.