Original Sin

‘You want to be a woman like that?’

Becky looked surprised. ‘Who doesn’t?’

‘But have you seen who she’s with? He’s wearing a pashmina!’

‘Darling, every woman in this city wants to land a rich husband. Some women, most of my friends in fact, devote their whole life to finding one. And these days you can’t be too picky.’ Becky let out a dramatic sigh. ‘Ah, the joy of not having to work.’

Tess smiled. ‘You love work.’

‘Completely beside the point,’ said Becky flatly. ‘It’s the option of not having to work.’

She leant forward conspiratorially.

‘Speaking of women with very rich men, how’s your new friend Brooke Asgill? You are going to get me an interview with her, aren’t you?’

Tess pulled a mock-outraged face. ‘After the stunt your newspaper has just pulled?’ she cried. ‘Seriously though, you do realize you have royally pissed off two of the most influential families in New York – and what for? A two-column pot-shot story that has to run an apology the next day?’

‘Actually, my editor loved the story,’ said Becky. ‘Anything to do with the Billingtons is big news, and David and Brooke are the sexiest New York couple since JFK Jr and Carolyn Bessette. It’s not like a tabloid is going to be best friends with them anyway.’

The waiter arrived with their ravioli and the girls started eating.

‘I need a favour,’ said Tess. ‘Two actually.’

Becky looked up. ‘Shoot.’

‘I need an introduction to all the media high-rollers you know. Newspaper editors, society column writers, editors-in-chief, and features editors on all the big glossies. I know a few people out here but I need to know everyone worth knowing very quickly.’

‘No offence, but I was surprised when I heard the Asgills had got you in. PR gigs are all about contacts, aren’t they?’

Tess pulled a sarcastic face. ‘Thanks for reminding me.’

‘What else did you want?’

‘Tell me who gave you the story about Brooke.’

Becky gave a long slow laugh and wagged her finger. ‘Come on, Tess. You worked in papers; you know we never reveal a source. We have journalists on the paper who have been to jail rather than give up the name of their contact.’

‘Since when did you become Miss Integrity!’ laughed Tess. ‘I clearly remember you giving endless column inches to no-hoper bands on your music page in the Sun in return for a press trip – or even a glass of Cava!’

Becky smiled at the memory of their shared time on the loose in London.

‘So what can you do for me?’ she asked.

So much for friendship, smiled Tess. Becky hadn’t got this far simply by being a good laugh. Beneath the fluffy, party-girl exterior she was as hard as nails.

‘Help me now and I’ll see if I can get you a story exclusive on Brooke and David’s wedding.’

‘Honeymoon shots?’

Tess shook her head. ‘Can’t promise that, but certainly something exclusive, something that will earn you big brownie points.’

Becky took a big orange leather diary from her expensive-looking tote and began flicking through its pages. She scribbled down an address on a fluorescent pink Post-it note and handed it to Tess.

‘There’s a bunch of us going down to Soho House tonight. There’s a Cinema Society screening of the new Coen Brothers’ film. Very cool crowd,’ she said. ‘Everyone from Glenda Bailey to Col Allen should be there, and there will be drinks afterwards. That should start you off.’

‘Sounds good,’ said Tess, folding up the paper. ‘Now what about the source?’

Becky laughed. ‘Tess, you’re like a dog with a bone!’

‘Tell me,’ said Tess, but Becky held up her hands.

‘I don’t know, honestly. It wasn’t my story.’

‘Come on, Becks, you know everything.’

Becky looked at Tess for a long moment, then leant forward. ‘I think it was an ex-girlfriend of David’s,’ she said. ‘You know what they say about a woman scorned? Well, in New York, that fury is multiplied. Never underestimate the damage a vengeful social climber can cause.’

‘I’ll bear it in mind,’ grinned Tess.

Becky put her hand on Tess’s. ‘Honey, it’s so good to have you over here. Honestly.’

‘It’s good to see you too. Especially as you’re doing so well. I mean, just look at you. Where did Bonkers Becks go?’

Becky laughed out loud, again causing heads to turn. ‘You know, I used to think that New Yorkers have no time for love because they throw themselves into their careers,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘Now I think it’s the other way around – they become workaholics because it’s so hard to find love.’

‘So I take it you haven’t found your pashmina-wearing Prince Charming yet?’ smiled Tess.

She laughed again, casting a glance towards the couple at the next table. ‘No. The problem is, I think those banker types are pricks,’ she whispered.

Tess giggled.

‘Not that I’ve given up, of course. I even went to this “Fashion and Finance” speed-dating thing the other week,’ continued Becky. ‘Very popular right now, full of pretty girls and rich guys all looking for love, but I have to say I was absolutely bored to tears. I ended up going home with a woman.’

Tess’s eyes opened like saucers.

‘Her name was Dita,’ smiled Becky. ‘A freelance fashion PR. We had much more in common than any of those boring farts in their sensible shoes.’

‘Wow,’ gasped Tess. ‘So what happened?’

‘Nothing,’ laughed Becky. ‘Mother Nature kicked in; I couldn’t do it. But that’s New York, baby. That’s how desperate it is out there. I think it was God’s way of telling me I am destined to be alone. Anyway, how’s the very sexy Dom?’ she asked, sipping her water. ‘I think he always wanted to work in New York more than both of us.’

Tess’s smile faded at the mention of her boyfriend. ‘Dom’s still in London.’

‘You guys haven’t finished, have you?’ said Becky, her expression softening.

‘No, no, nothing like that. He hasn’t got a visa, so we’re having a transatlantic affair.’

‘Very chic,’ said Becky. ‘Are you missing him?’

‘Working fourteen-hour days I’ve not had a chance to miss him.’

‘Hmm. Or maybe you just don’t,’ said Becky, raising a brow.

Tess looked thoughtful. ‘No, I think it’s more that I had to come here to get out of my comfort zone.’

Becky laughed. ‘You two are hardly in a rut, are you? Whenever I hear from you, you’re always flying off to some exotic location.’

‘Maybe not, but we’ve been together for nearly nine years. Sometimes distance can bring you closer together.’

Becky hesitated, playing with her fork.

‘Do you trust him, Tess?’ she asked softly. ‘No disrespect to Dom, but I don’t think I would leave a man that fine alone two minutes in big, bad London. More to the point, do you trust yourself to be let loose in this big city?’

‘The answer is yes,’ said Tess firmly. ‘Yes and yes.’

Although she couldn’t help thinking back to the one time she’d been unfaithful. It had been eighteen months into their relationship when she began struggling with the idea of commitment. She was only halfway though being twenty. Should she not be young, free, and single, and enjoying all London had to offer? One weekend, Dom had been away on a snowboarding trip with his friends, and Tess had been invited to a party by an associate editor on the Globe. It had been at a big Victorian villa in Barnes, stuffed to the gills with media types she recognized from the TV or from their photo by-lines in the papers. The moment she saw Charlie, she knew something was going to happen. He was thirty, an advertising director and the son of the old chief executive of the Globe group. He was also engaged, but that hadn’t stopped him stroking Tess’s neck. She’d been flattered by the attention of someone five years older and infinitely more successful, so they’d gone back to her flat in Clapham and the sex had been explosive. Charlie had left at seven the next morning, but not before telling her about a features editor position he knew was coming up at the Globe. ‘Keep what happened last night between us,’ he’d told her and she had kept her word. Three months later she was the youngest senior journalist at the Globe.

She looked up and had the uncomfortable feeling that Becky had been reading her thoughts.

‘Don’t get too comfortable without him, honey,’ she said seriously. ‘Let Dom go and you might be single for the next five years. Some people call New York a jungle. Well, let me tell you, when it comes to love, it’s a fricking desert.’

9

David grabbed Brooke’s hand and led her past the doorman into the lobby of 740 Park Avenue, one of Manhattan’s most prestigious apartment blocks.

‘It’s going to be fine,’ he whispered, his voice almost lost against the tip-tapping of Brooke’s heels on the black-and-white chequered marble.

Brooke smiled weakly, feeling her anxiety grow. The last thing she felt was fine. She had spent the last three days torturing herself over the revelations in the Oracle about her relationship with Jeff Daniels, swinging back and forth between disgust, disappointment, and anger. Her first instinct was to run away and hide, but she knew deep down that the only thing to do was put on a brave face and ‘step up to the plate’ – wasn’t that what they said? She had been able to keep up a façade of calm at work, where she knew and trusted most of her colleagues, but it was quite another thing to face people on David’s extensive social circuit. Brooke didn’t understand David’s insistence about coming tonight – Graydon and Estella Winston were not particularly good friends of his – but she had not felt in a strong enough position to argue. David had been a rock since the scandal had broken. He’d been in Boston on a CTV conference and had rushed back to Brooke’s apartment to be with her. Although Brooke was sure he’d had to endure a severe tongue-lashing from his father, David had been calm and relaxed, running her a bath and giving her a heavenly foot massage while he had said lots of reassuring things about how none of it mattered and how much he trusted her.

Brooke pressed the button for the elevator and turned to her fiancé. ‘If people are whispering about me, we’re staying twenty minutes and then we’re going home.’

David chuckled. ‘Honey, these people are not Oracle or Page Six readers – most of them consider the Wall Street Journal light reading. Anyway, they fancy themselves as having more important things to talk about than your college adventures.’

Just then the lift doors pinged open and a smartly dressed couple stepped out. They walked past, and Brooke heard the woman give a low laugh that echoed around the lobby.

David read her thoughts and shot her a crooked smile. ‘Don’t be paranoid, darling,’ he said. Brooke knew he was right, but this crisis had only confirmed Brooke’s love-hate relationship with the Upper East Side. She had called this, the wealthiest pocket of Manhattan, home for over twenty years, and in many ways it felt safe and familiar, but it could be a cold place, its inhabitants mocking and judgemental. The truth was, whether David’s friends were Page Six readers or not, they thrived on gossip as much as any celeb-obsessed housewife. Gossip was the lifeblood of polite society.

The elevator doors slid open and the sounds of smooth jazz and lively conversation met them from the open door of Graydon and Estella Winston’s sixth-floor apartment. There were already about fifty people in the room as a waiter took their coats; most were in their thirties and forties, although their conservative clothes and stiff bearing made them seem about ten years older. Women were in trouser suits or little black dresses, sporting short, serious haircuts and few accessories except for the aura of self-confidence. Graydon was the editor of a glossy political magazine; his wife the daughter of one of New York’s biggest Republican donors. According to David, the rest of the guests were a mix of media players, academics, and politicos.

‘Don’t leave me,’ she whispered as she accepted a flute of champagne with a smile.

Before he had time to reply, a slim man in a black polo-neck jumper and grey sports coat came over to shake David’s hand. She recognized him as Niall Donald, a right-wing columnist, TV commentator and author of Power and Prestige: America’s political future on the world stage.

‘David, Brooke. How are you both? You look lovely, Brooke,’ he smiled, although Brooke noticed how he had directed all of his pleasantries to David, never even glancing at her.

‘We enjoyed your report on China the other week,’ said Niall, taking a thoughtful sip of Krug: Brooke had been dismissed. Niall Donald was the sort of society bigwig that Brooke loathed most of all. Pompous, smug, arrogant. She remembered another interminable dinner party when she had been forced to listen to Niall boast that he had not only attended Harvard, but had been a Rhodes scholar at Oxford, then later had heard him quip how David had only ‘scraped’ into Yale. Brooke wanted to hit him.

Instead she touched David on the arm and whispered, ‘Excuse me.’ She drifted off, looking for sanctuary. She’d been to dozens of parties with David, and while most of them were fun, she found these gatherings of New York’s intelligentsia self-important and boring.

But while she didn’t enjoy them, she at least learned how to survive them. Small talk with the host about bland, uncontroversial topics, letting other people ramble on about themselves (there was nothing a New Yorker liked better than talking about themselves), or spending long periods ‘touching up her make-up’ in the powder room, Brooke was an expert at making herself invisible.

But one thing she always loved was having a discreet snoop around other people’s homes, and Graydon and Estella’s duplex was a spectacular space. Lofty ceilings, virgin cream carpet, original art – including, she recognized, Dufy and Chagall – sleek, expensive, bespoke furniture. It was the sort of place that demanded you wear something beautiful to complement its sophistication, but Brooke was glad she had dressed down in a black sleeveless Alice Roi dress worn with a simple gold choker. She had even dispensed with her favourite black Louboutin heels, fearing them a little too racy; she knew how suspiciously she would be viewed tonight. New York society women were notoriously icy at the best of times, but encountering someone with a newly minted reputation as a home-wrecker might drive them to freeze her on sight.

‘What’s your view on the trade deficit?’ asked a smooth female voice behind her.

Brooke’s throat felt thick with anxiety. She felt as if she was about to go into an exam.

She turned to face an elegant brunette in a wasp-waisted dress that was the reddy-gold colour of a Japanese maple leaf. She had an outrageously pretty face, and she was not much older than Brooke.

‘Yes, er, the trade deficit …’ stuttered Brooke, before the woman’s wide mouth broke out into a smile. Brooke laughed.

‘Sorry,’ whispered the woman. ‘It can get a little tedious at these things, so I like to have a little joke.’

Brooke smiled, grateful that she had found at least one kindred spirit.

‘I thought the whole point of a party was to enjoy yourself,’ agreed Brooke. ‘Although no one exactly looks as if they’re having a good time tonight.’

‘Well, parties like this are all about alignment. David always used to say, “We can’t socialize with who we want to all of the time.” He’s right, of course. The people in that room will be advising government in five years’ time. Some already are.’

She took a sip of champagne and held out a pale hand. ‘Alicia Wintrop,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry I couldn’t come to the engagement party. I hear it was fantastic.’

It took a second for Brooke to make the connection, then her heart lurched. David had once dated a girl called Ally Wintrop.

‘You’re Ally Wintrop?’

Alicia laughed. ‘Oh I know, old names die hard, don’t they? David and I dated when we were kids. Our families had cottages in Newport just by one another. Everyone knew me as Ally back then.’

‘Oh, I thought you dated more recently than that,’ said Brooke as casually as she could.

Alicia nodded. ‘I worked in Rome after college … I was at Brown two or three years ahead of you, I think.

‘You were at Brown?’ replied Brooke curiously.

She nodded. ‘Anyway, David and I started dating again when I came back to New York, but when David got the foreign news job at CTV I just couldn’t handle all that travel. It felt like I was dating a nomad. I think we were just both too busy to be together.’

‘Oh really. Too busy?’ said Brooke with as much politeness as she could muster.

‘Um-hmm,’ said Alicia. ‘I curate a gallery downtown. The Halcyon on Spring Street. Fabulous exhibition on at the moment of Masai warrior painters. They paint with spears; it’s so conceptual. You must come down. I do some art consulting too, in Europe. I spend an awful lot of Russian money.’

Brooke started planning her escape strategy. She knew, of course, that David had a past with plenty of ex-girlfriends, but she didn’t particularly want to stand there talking to one. She realized that she was squeezing her champagne flute a little too tightly.

‘I’m sorry about that business with the Oracle,’ said Alicia. She sounded sympathetic, but Brooke wasn’t convinced.

Brooke shrugged. ‘I guess it goes with the turf.’

‘Luckily I didn’t have it so much,’ said Alicia lightly. ‘Perhaps it would have been different if we had become engaged. Or perhaps we were too obvious a couple to be interesting.’

Brooke smiled thinly. Before she could feign a headache to get away, David came over and handed her a glass of champagne. He looked buoyed up and happy.

‘So you too have finally met?’ he said.

‘Don’t worry, I’m not telling her any of our secrets,’ said Alicia, nudging David playfully, tilting her face up to smile at him.

‘I don’t want to know,’ said Brooke, forcing a smile.

‘Well, I’ll leave you two lovebirds to it,’ said Alicia. ‘I simply must go and compliment Graydon and Estella on their new Lucian Freud.’

As they spent the next half-hour drifting from group to group, Brooke floated at the fringes, keeping a close eye on both David and Alicia. David’s ex had now returned to the man she had come with, a sombre-looking man in a dark suit and heavy-framed glasses – an architect, according to David. To a disinterested observer, Brooke was simply standing by the window, enjoying the view, soaking up the rarefied atmosphere, whereas in actual fact she was looking for any telltale signs that David was still interested in Alicia – a sly glance or an ever-so-casual touch, perhaps. There was nothing; they barely even spoke. Slowly Brooke’s irritation at having been ambushed by David’s ex turned to fascination as she watched them both expertly working the room. David was magnetic, and not just because of the good looks she had fallen in love with; he had a natural composure and a good-natured confidence. He spoke with conviction and authority and he had an indefinable presence that seemed to fill the space he was in. Alicia had another tactic entirely. When Brooke was close to her, she eavesdropped on Alicia’s conversation, and it was soon clear that she had nothing particularly clever or interesting to say, but she had something more powerful than intelligence or wit. Alicia was a world-class flirt. She flirted not with sexual invitation, but in a way that the person she was talking to felt like the most important person in the room. Consequently, they responded to her as if she were spouting Descartes.

Brooke glanced at her watch. It was almost eleven.

‘I know that look,’ whispered David into her ear. ‘You want to go, don’t you?’

She smiled at him gratefully. ‘Is it that obvious?’

They had only been at the party two hours, but to Brooke it had felt like an eternity. She didn’t miss all the surreptitious glances sent her way, or the whispered comments when she was just out of range. Her mouth was aching from the permanent smile etched on it. She felt like the village idiot.

They rode down in the elevator and, when they stepped outside onto Fifth Avenue, Brooke felt her shoulders relax. A cone of moonlight shone down on them and he turned to her and kissed her, his tongue licking the inside of her mouth. It was delicious and quite unexpected – spontaneous kisses, especially those in public places, were becoming thinner on the ground as they were constantly watched. His driver was parked across on the far corner and they walked to the car with his arm around her shoulders.

‘I’m sorry we were there so long,’ he said, opening the door of the Lexus for her. ‘But it wasn’t that bad, was it?’

‘Oh honey it was,’ she laughed.

‘I didn’t hear one person mention Jeff Daniels.’

‘They would hardly discuss the ins and outs of some scurrilous tabloid story with you,’ she said. ‘But believe me, they all knew the details.’

He was silent for a moment as the car engine started. ‘You seemed to be getting on well with Ally.’

‘She’s nice …’ said Brooke obtusely.

‘You’re not jealous?’ he said, laughing softly.

‘I don’t trust her,’ she blurted out.

‘Trust her? What do you mean?’

‘Call me crazy,’ said Brooke, ‘but I’ve just got this feeling.’

‘A feeling about what?’ asked David. His words were measured, clipped. She could tell he was annoyed at the ‘trust’ jibe. Brooke supposed he had a point, considering how understanding he’d been about the Jeff Daniels accusations.

‘I just wondered if it was Alicia who leaked the Oracle gossip story,’ said Brooke.

‘What?’

‘Look, I spoke to Tess Garrett today and she said the story came from one of your ex-girlfriends.’

‘It sounds to me as if Tess Garrett is trying to justify her existence.’

‘She sounded pretty sure.’

‘On what basis?’

‘A source at the Oracle.’

He pursed his lips together.

Brooke paused before saying anything more. She never liked bringing up the subject of past girlfriends. In her experience it only made you look jealous or needy or both.

‘Aren’t you going to say anything?’ she asked.

‘How am I supposed to react?’ he said, anger in his voice.

‘Well, don’t you think it was Alicia? It had to come from somewhere.’

‘On what grounds?’

‘Well, she did go to Brown …’

‘Brooke, you’re being ridiculous.’

‘Am I?’ she said, challenging him.

David was a serial monogamist: through his twenties there had been at least five girlfriends who had all lasted between six months and two years, and the Jeff Daniels leak could have come from any of them. They all had the same potential motivations: sour grapes, mean-spiritedness; some sense of thwarted entitlement, perhaps.

But it had been Alicia’s bright-eyed friendliness and a feeling of gleeful pleasure when she mentioned the Oracle story: it all made her suspicious of Alicia. Call it female intuition, but she was sure she was behind it.

‘Yes you are being ridiculous! After all, it was your friend, that Matt Palmer, who was quoted.’

She frowned. ‘It wasn’t him. I told you what he said. A journalist tracked him down and misquoted him.’

‘And you believe that?’ he asked.

‘Yes I do. He’s got less motivation for doing it than Alicia.’

He turned on the seat to face her.

‘Alicia’s parents and my parents have known each other forever,’ said David tightly. ‘She is a lot of things, but she is not deliberately evil.’

‘It sounds to me like you’re defending her.’

David rarely sounded angry. He always dealt with problems in his usual cool, composed way, but now his voice was raised. ‘I am not defending her. I just wonder what motivation she’d have for doing something like that.’