Sex and Vanity(38)
Bending down to peer more closely at the cards, Charlotte said, “You know, I do love looking at seating charts. They’re always a fascinating indicator of who’s considered important at any event. See, you’re at table three, which is a prime spot as one of the tables orbiting the bridal couple. I’m at table nineteen, which is most certainly Siberia. Last night I was seated in between the second wife of the De Vecchi’s tax lawyer and Isabel’s dog psychic from Ojai.”
“I would have preferred them any day over Mordecai von Ephrussí,” Lucie replied, annoyed that Charlotte was so attentive to where she was sitting. How could she possibly change her table now? They wandered through the villa’s inner chambers for a while, and when Charlotte became engrossed in a discussion with Auden on the benefits of intermittent fasting, Lucie saw her chance to slip away. She rushed back to the seating chart table, thinking that the best thing to do was swap out George’s seat so that he would be at her table.
Arriving there, she discovered to her dismay other guests swarming around the table in search of their own seating cards. The cocktail hour was about to end, and guests were making their way back toward the fleet of golf carts to head down to Villa Lysis for the banquet. By the time the crowd had dispersed, Lucie saw that she was too late. George’s seating card was missing, so he must have already come by and taken it.
Returning to Villa Lysis, the wedding guests were greeted by a battalion of footmen holding lit torches, dressed in costumes straight out of nineteenth-century Sicily. Entering the villa, the guests gasped in delight to discover interiors that had been utterly transformed since the wedding ceremony an hour ago. “I was inspired by Visconti’s Il Gattopardo,” Isabel told everyone after she made her grand entrance, sweeping down the vine-twined staircase in a Valentino couture ball gown that looked as if it was constructed entirely of silk rosettes and billowing white ruffles, reminiscent of the gown Claudia Cardinale wore in the legendary film.
It was the understatement of the year. Studio Peregalli, the famed Milanese design atelier, had been commissioned to re-create the set of the film inside the villa, and when the guests entered the banquet room, they were treated to a magnificent space draped from floor to ceiling in yellow moire silk, towering antique tulipieres bursting with apricot peonies, and tables set with heirloom china from the royal house of Bourbon-Two Sicilies. The entire space seemed to sparkle, lit only by thousands of tapered candles hung from the ceiling in crystal lanterns.
Lucie took her seat at table 3, feeling giddy as she admired the voluptuous surroundings and watched the waiters crisscrossing the room in nineteenth-century livery and powdered wigs. The decadence of it all was almost too much to bear, and she felt as if she had suddenly been transported into the pages of her favorite childhood fairy tale, “The Twelve Dancing Princesses.”
“Hey there,” said a voice to her right. Lucie turned and saw George taking the seat beside her.
She glanced at the place card in the silver holder, and sure enough, it read MR. GEORGE ZAO.
“Wait a minute! Did you change seats?” Lucie asked in surprise.
“Er … would you like me to?” George asked.
“No, no, I meant … I just thought someone else was sitting next to me.”
“Sorry to disappoint.”
“That’s not what I meant,” Lucie said, getting flustered.
“I know,” George said, suddenly flashing a disarming smile.
“Oh.” Lucie felt like a fool.
“How are you today?”
“I’m good,” Lucie replied automatically, before wondering what exactly he meant. Did the addition of the word “today” mean that he was checking if she was hungover? What exactly was he implying? Oh god, she was never ever going to get drunk ever again. Fed up with the never-ending cycle of doubt she seemed to have trapped herself in, she decided it was time to rip off the bandage, hard. She took a deep breath and looked him in the eye. “Okay, I just have to ask … were you on the yacht last night?”
George grinned. “You don’t remember?”
“I do … kinda … Weren’t you wearing some strange furry costume?”
“Says the girl who was dressed like Madonna.”
“I know what I wore. I’m asking what you came as.”
“Myself.”
“Did anything, you know … happen?”
“What do you think … happened?” George asked, clearly amused by her apparent amnesia.
Lucie gave him an exasperated look, and he decided to put her out of her misery. “Lucie, nothing of significance happened that I can think of. I went home pretty early. You were dancing with the girls when I left.”
Lucie let out a quick sigh. Thank God she didn’t make a fool of herself with him, at least. She wondered if what she was feeling was relief or regret. Then she remembered the Neruda poem. Just as she was about to ask if he had slipped the poem under her door, a pretty blond girl in her thirties sat down in the chair to George’s right.
“Hallo! I am Petra [Munich International School London School of Economics Barbara Brennan School of Healing The Omega Institute Esalen],” she said with a German accent.
“Hi, Petra, I’m George.”
“Are you from Australia?”
“I’m from Hong Kong, but I went to school in Australia.”