Sex and Vanity(41)

Lucie sat in the bathtub, knees curled up to her chin, the shower turned on to its highest, trying to drown out her headache. Even with the full force of the water beating down on her, her head felt like it had been put into a vise that was tightening by the second. Any moment now it would explode, and nothing would be left but a big, messy splatter against the blue-and-white painted tiles. Her one contribution to this planet: a Jackson Pollock in the bathtub. And not a good one at that. Too much red, the critics would say. What a waste, her mother would say. What would her mother actually say? She couldn’t bear to even think of it.

She had fucked up, she knew it. She had tried to be someone she wasn’t. She tried to do something daring, unpredictable, and carefree, and look what happened. Isabel was right. She was far too innocent, far too much of an angel, to try playing in the deep end. How would she ever face it? The embarrassment. The utter humiliation of being caught with George Zao, of all the boys in the world. Caught and exposed like that. All her life she had been so responsible, so virtuous, so perfect, and the one time she had tried pretending to be the sophisticate, the bad girl, it had all gone up in flames.

The moment Charlotte started banging on the door at Villa Jovis, everything entered this strange liminal space where it all seemed to happen in slow motion but somehow also sped up. They scrambled to untangled from each other. George opened the door to a shrieking Charlotte, bolted out of the chamber, and started chasing after the two guys who had been controlling the drone. The guys ran into the woods, and George disappeared after them. Lucie stumbled out and began running herself, but in the opposite direction. She couldn’t face Charlotte. Not now, maybe never.

At some point, Lucie willed herself somehow to get out of the tub. The steam had helped, maybe. She threw on the plush white bathrobe and padded out into her bedroom, letting out a quick gasp when she found Charlotte sitting in her armchair.

“You left the door half open. I just wanted to make sure you’re okay.”

Lucie caught her breath, her fists still clenched. “I’m okay.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yesss!” Lucie hissed.

“Okay, okay. I just wanted to be sure, that’s all. You don’t have to be so defensive. I’m on your side, Lucie,” Charlotte said, trying to sound calm, even though she was boiling with panic.

“I’m sorry, I’m a little on edge,” Lucie said, sitting down on her bed.

“I can only imagine.” Charlotte arched her eyebrows. She sat back in the armchair, crossed her arms, and all pretense of caring gave way to the old Charlotte that Lucie had been dreading. “Oh, Lucie, my poor Lucia. What were you thinking? I don’t mean to overreact, but this is bad. This is very, very bad.”

“I know very well how bad it is. You can stop saying it.”

Charlotte got up from the armchair and began pacing the room. “I think I’m still in shock. There I was, stumbling around Villa Jovis in the dark, getting a contact high from all that pot everyone was smoking, and then I saw those two drone operators huddled over a monitor, giggling like schoolboys. I went up to them and peered into the screen, and at first I thought they were watching some sort of porno. And then, when they zoomed in on the poor girl’s face, I thought I was hallucinating. I thought, Why does that girl look so much like Lucie? And what in God’s name is she letting that guy do to her under her—”

“All right, all right, enough. Please stop!” Lucie jammed her hands up to her ears.

“I just knew that drone operator was into you, that little pervert! I could tell just by the way he always had that damn drone hovering over you at every event throughout the week! Now, if George wasn’t able to intercept them and destroy the footage, we should go to plan B: we should go straight to Isabel.”

“Come on, it’s her wedding night!” Lucie protested.

“I don’t care! Your future is at stake, Lucie, and she needs to know exactly what happened with her staff. Her people can do all the damage control—that Gillian lady looks like she could direct a covert SEAL team assassination if she had to, doesn’t she? I want her to make sure all the footage gets locked up and destroyed, along with those creeps they hired!”

Lucie’s heart sank. She couldn’t imagine the further embarrassment of having to tell Isabel about this.

“Where is George? Don’t you think we should have heard from him by now?” Charlotte fretted as she kept going from the door to the window.

“Can you please stop pacing? You’re giving me a headache!” Lucie moaned.

“Well, pardon me if I’m giving you a headache. I’m sorry I have to worry that your reputation, your future, your whole life, is in his hands right now!”

“My whole life?” Lucie stared at Charlotte dubiously.

“Do you understand the ramifications of what could happen if that footage ever went public? Let’s start with grad schools—you can forget about getting into any of the Ivys. And then you’ll never be hired by a Fortune 100 company. You’ll never get into any of the good clubs. You’ll never marry into a good family. And let’s not forget, you’ll never be president!”

“I hate to break it to you, Charlotte, but I’m not going to be president. It’s never been a goal of mine.”

“You say that now, but you never know. I mean, do you think Michelle Obama ever dreamed she would be president one day?”