Sex and Vanity(42)
“What are you talking about? Michelle Obama isn’t even running.”
“Nonsense, she’ll run after Hillary runs, and she will surely win. We will have two kickass female presidents in a row beginning in 2016, just wait and see. But you—you might have jeopardized your chances forever. And do you want to know the most terrible thing of all?”
“What?”
“Your name will no longer be in the book,” Charlotte said ominously.
“What book?”
“Ugh, don’t be dense, Lucie. There’s only one book, and that’s The Social Register. It would be a tragedy if you were struck out of the book!”
Lucie rolled her eyes. “I could give two fucks about The Social Register.”
“Language, Lucie! You might not feel like it’s important now, but just wait and see how you feel when the next edition comes out, and your mother and Freddie are listed but your name is conspicuously absent. I’ve had friends who were excised in this way, after marriage, divorce, or murder, and they all felt like they no longer existed. Like they were dead.”
Lucie lay back on the bed wearily. She wished Charlotte would just get out of her room.
“I don’t understand it, Lucie. I just don’t know how you could let this happen. In all these years you’ve never, ever put a wrong foot forward! I didn’t see this coming from even a mile away. You and George Zao? How is that even possible? I thought you detested him!”
Lucie remained silent.
Charlotte let out a deep sigh. “On some level, I can understand it. After all, he is Chinese. I mean, it’s in your blood, your recessive genes. I always wondered when it might happen for you. You’ve always been caught between two cultures. No matter how or where you’ve been brought up, you would be predisposed toward someone like him.”
Lucie felt like she had been punched in the gut. Of all the many hurtful, insensitive things Charlotte had said to her over the years, this was the worst. She should have been furious at her cousin, but instead she felt nothing but shame—a numbing shame buried deep within her that had always been there, the sort of shame only a family member could inflict that rendered her helpless, unable to defend herself. Suddenly, a chorus of voices began to crowd her head. The voices of her relatives, her neighbors, her college friends, her classmates back at Brearley …
“You’ll never guess what Lucie was caught doing in Capri.”
“Who would have imagined that Lucie Churchill, who only dated the preppiest guys and wouldn’t even give Stavros Theodoracopulos the time of day, would end up falling for a Chinese boy from Hong Kong?”
“A Chinese boy who goes to Berkeley, of all places.”
“He wears a Speedo and Birkenstocks. Together.”
“Ewww!”
“Have you seen that mother of his? NOCD.”fn1
“I suppose it’s fine that she’s fallen for someone like him, since Lucie’s never cared about joining Piping Rock.”
“Have you fallen for him?” Suddenly Lucie realized Charlotte had been speaking to her all along. “Answer me, Lucie, so I can best help you clean up this mess.”
Lucie shook her head vehemently. “I haven’t fallen for him, Charlotte. I’m not even attracted to him! It was all a mistake! I just had a wild moment.”
Charlotte let out a deep sigh that Lucie interpreted as relief. “You’ve been such an angel all these years, something was bound to crack. Your mother always had a bit of a wild streak, which I actually found rather refreshing in our family, and I guess you’ve inherited a bit of that after all.”
There it is, Lucie thought. That backhanded compliment toward her mother all the Churchills were so good at delivering. Even after all these years, there was always this politely veiled implication that Marian Tang, the hippieish Asian girl from the Pacific Northwest, was never supposed to marry their darling Reggie. She wanted to defend her mother, but she knew she wasn’t even in a position to defend herself.
“This has nothing to do with Mom. It’s this wedding … I got caught up in everything that’s been happening on this island, that’s all.” It was the best Lucie could muster up.
“Yes, Capri is rather intoxicating, isn’t it? It lulls your inhibitions, seduces you, and makes you do crazy, impulsive things. Look at me—I never in my life thought I’d eat this many carbs in one week! Just think, what would have happened if I hadn’t come looking for you? What if I hadn’t arrived at the moment I did and saw what those boys were up to?”
“What’s there to say? You did come looking for me.” Lucie sighed.
“I don’t even dare imagine what might have happened if I had not. The footage would be streaming twenty-four-seven on TMZ already!”
“I’m not famous, Charlotte. No one would care.”
“You are a Churchill! Our ancestors were some of the earliest settlers of America and count two signers of the Declaration of Independence! Our great-great-great-grandfather practically invented Wall Street! The press loves this kind of stuff, whenever our kind are caught doing naughty things. They would label you something nasty like ‘Park Avenue Princess’ or ‘Churchill Heiress,’ and it would be all over Page Six!”
“Well, I’ve always wanted to be in Page Six,” Lucie said facetiously.