ONE
The black-tie affair, to benefit animal activism, takes place in the Shelteere Museum. Chandeliers hang from the double-vaulted ceilings, illuminating the work of Hopper, Eakins, O’Keeffe. Coiffed and studied, women wear gowns glimmering in taffeta, satin, and jewel-encrusted silk, while men sport their mandatory tuxes. A sense of promise bounces around the salon. It’s the first gala of the 2014/2015 season—anything is possible. No one has yet been excluded, shunned by a seating chart, or bewildered yet again at how clannish Palm Beach can be. Together, Faith and Edward Harrison whisk through the galleries, passages filled with guests—charmers, climbers, and interlopers.
“We should leave by ten,” Edward says quietly to Faith.
“We’ve just gotten here,” Faith says. Isn’t he the one who likes to stay past midnight?
“Faith, Edward!” Neighbors, friends, and clients are gliding toward them.
Edward lifts his hand in a gallant wave. “By ten at the latest.”
“Let’s see how it goes.” Faith smiles outwardly and waves along with her husband.
His hand is on her elbow in too tight a grip. Faith shakes her arm slightly for him to let go. Gamboling into the ballroom, she focuses on the festivities of the night ahead. What could be more critical than the kickoff Rose Ball for keeping count of exes and present wives, mistresses and lovers, stray friends? Who knows better the intricacies and hypocrisies than Faith, owner of Vintage Tales, the famed resale shop on Worth Avenue? Almost every woman at the Shelteere is a client—treated carefully and discreetly. “I make a living keeping women’s secrets. I’m better than a shrink or a psychic,” Faith likes to tell Edward.
The band plays “Moondance” by Van Morrison, selected when the charity wants to be less than stodgy, not quite adventurous. Together, Faith and Edward join those on the dance floor, Edward sidestepping as if it’s a dance move, Faith slightly swaying to the lyrics, wishing she dared to twirl and dip toward the center. She lip-synchs her favorite lines, “A fantabulous night to make romance” … Edward puts his mouth to her ear.
“Listen to me.” He is edgy, his voice sotto voce.
Couples collide briefly—the Norrics, the Carltons, the Finleys—and pull away deftly. A spinning disco ball lights the room, and Faith notices dark and bright spots across the dancers’ shoulders. The band shifts to sing “Bette Davis Eyes,” ramps the sound up a few decibels. Suddenly Edward stops and slouches, morphing from tall to muffled, slightly spasmodic.
“Are you all right, Edward? I can’t hear you.” Faith poses in a wifely, majestic mode.
As he leans nearer, Edward’s lips brush her jawline. “I said we have—”
“Faith, at last,” Mrs. A interrupts, leading her dashing young escort, supposedly Romanian, precariously close to the Harrisons. “You are impressive! How gorgeous you are.”
Alicia Ainsworth, known only as Mrs. A, a ripened debutante, favors Faith. She takes in Faith’s dress and jewels, upswept hair, and height in heels. Although Mrs. A might overlook one’s social register or lack thereof, she is all about women at least five-seven and thin, mostly blondes (such as Faith), those who know paradise is a tricky game. “Perish the year-rounder,” Mrs. A likes to say. “Anyone who lives north, west, or south might be in Palm Beach County but isn’t in the same league as islanders.” Mrs. A plays hard in season and leaves with her pack by May. It is she who taught Faith to divide her summers between Greenwich, Aspen, and the Hamptons. Occasionally Faith imagines what it would be like to have a mother such as Mrs. A, a taskmaster who believes that beauty and money are the criteria for friendship, love, and country club memberships.
To Mrs. A’s left is her team of dowagers, women aged sixty or more. Faith calls them “the mighty” and secretly admires their tenacity. Short of a 104-degree fever, these women buy a ticket and fill the chairs.
As Mrs. A drifts off, Edward tugs Faith to his chest. “Faith, listen to me.… We have no…”
Faith gazes at him, hearing enough of what Edward is saying to wonder at how concerned he seems. “No” might mean no progress on the Maserati Quattroporte GTS that he is customizing. Or no time for next week’s couples’ golf tournament at Longreens. Or something more routine—no room left for more bougainvilleas meant to grace the front of the house.
“No what?” Faith speaks up against the cacophony of five hundred guests.
“No need for you to steal a husband,” Priscilla, Faith’s loyal client and former neighbor, comes close and announces. Priscilla’s fiancé, Walter, hangs on to her. Shriveled and short, at the age of eighty-four Walter is a future husband on the wane, except for his great wealth and charity standing. Priscilla is part of a clique Faith labels “the aspirationals.” In their mid-thirties to mid-forties, these women might be matriarchal in their own sphere, but rely on the men, husbands and fiancés, to provide “the life.”
“Edward is devoted.” Priscilla still speaks only to Faith. “And he looks good.”
“Usually,” Faith says. She admires his thick head of hair, which is neither transplanted nor yet gray, how he moves—toned and fit. At the moment he is squinting his sky-blue eyes. Perhaps looking for someone, perhaps toward the door.
Copyright © 2019 by Susan Shapiro Barash.
