It was a hot day in mid-July, not even noon yet, and already in the low nineties. Lindsay was regret-ting her long walk to the Demos Agency, but she’d gained two pounds, and walking and sweating was the easiest way to get it off. She came around Fifty-third Street and looked up, half-expecting to see Glen waving from the eleventh floor of the pre-World War II building, a solid brick, dark and dirty, needing a good hosing down, like most of the other buildings on the block. She didn’t see Glen. Still, she smiled, knowing that today would be as much fun as she could expect from the modeling grind. She was doing a makeup layout for Lancôme and the ad-agency people in charge of the shoot were funny and bright, and practical jokers. Well, today she’d be the one to get the laugh—she looked like dog meat and when they saw her they were going to scream.
Lindsay bent down to pull up her baggy army socks, a nice touch she’d thought, especially with the puke-green stretched-out cotton sweatshirt pulled over the tops of her ragged jeans. When she straightened, she saw a beautifully dressed woman emerge from a taxi, a vision really, in cool pink silk that should have clashed with her shining auburn tapered bob, but didn’t. Lindsay could only stare at her. Inside, she jolted, recognition warring with deep, deep pain. She shook her head, as if to deny what she saw, then said very quietly, “Sydney, is that you? Sydney?” Her half-sister turned and stared at her, taking in the moussed-backed ponytail held with a rubber band, the shiny face devoid of makeup, and the hideous green sweatshirt.
She said nothing, merely stood there looking beautiful and slender and perfect, as always, now looking at Lindsay’s face, her hair, the dangling Coke-bottle earrings.
“Sydney? It is you, isn’t it?”
“Hello, Lindsay. It’s been a while, hasn’t it?”
Lindsay didn’t know what to say. There’d been no warning of any sort, no one had bothered to tell her Sydney would be here. Pain and anger and hurt rolled through her. She just stood there staring at her half-sister. This cool exquisite creature was very different from the hysterical woman of five years before in Paris. Then that woman of five years before had become vicious, siding with her father.
“Yes,” Lindsay said, still not moving, “it’s been quite a long time. You look beautiful, Sydney.”
“And you, well, you’re still Lindsay, aren’t you?”
“I suppose one doesn’t change all that much.” Lindsay was surprised at another feeling that crept through her at her half-sister’s words. Inferiority, that was it, she felt sudden and utter inferiority. She felt ugly and worthless, no more than a clumsy lump. She straightened her shoulders, towering over Sydney, who was only five-foot-seven in her stylish heels.
“It appears you have changed quite a bit. At least in those glossy photos you certainly look different. How do they do it—with smoke and mirrors and doubles?”
“Very nearly.” Lindsay laughed. “There’s the photographer, who can be a pain in the butt and who can have an attitude, the person directing the shoot, who’s usually yelling and making threats and throwing fits, the makeup person, the hair person, the clothes person, all the technicians—well, you understand. It sounds manic but it isn’t. Normally it all goes pretty smoothly. It’s just that everyone is always talking and yelling. Sometimes I feel like a block of wood with all these people working on me and around me.”
They were still standing on the sidewalk, people walking around them, the sun beating down overhead.
Neither woman had moved.
Sydney said suddenly, “I came to make peace with you, Lindsay.”
Lindsay searched her sister’s face but found no clue there, only the endless perfection of her features, the startling beauty of her hazel eyes that only emphasized her cool intelligence. “It’s hot out here. I don’t have to be upstairs for a while yet. Would you like to go across the street and have something cool to drink?”
Sydney Foxe di Contini, known as La Principessa to all those who weren’t intimate with her, still didn’t move. Five years was a long time, a very long time, she thought. It had come as quite a shock to her to pick up April’s Elle and see her half-sister on the cover, so hauntingly beautiful, thin, stylish; she’d realized after close study that it wasn’t just a beautiful woman she was looking at, not classic beauty anyway. It was Lindsay’s face, filled with that elusive, quite indescribable quality that transcended a woman’s looks or lack of them. Sydney could only stare then; she stared now at the ordinary creature in front of her. No, not ordinary, a mess. Those high-top sneakers were god-awful. She wondered if Lindsay found it amusing to present herself like this and then undergo the incredible transformations for the fashion photos.
Sydney thought again of that exotically gorgeous creature on the cover of Elle with the thick lustrous hair, the arrogant smile, and those sexy blue eyes. That couldn’t be Lindsay. No, Lindsay was the awkward pathetic mess of a girl she’d last seen in Paris after Alessandro had raped her. She’d picked up the phone to call her father. Why hadn’t he told her about Lindsay? Then she’d slowly replaced the receiver. Her father never spoke of Lindsay. It would only make him angry, and Sydney didn’t like his anger, for it was cold and hard and unrelenting. Then she’d gotten an excellent idea, brilliant, really. She was La Principessa, after all, renowned for her beauty, her charm, her taste. It didn’t take her very long to execute her idea to its fullest. Everything had gone just as she’d envisioned it, but then, she’d never doubted that it would. Three days ago she’d left Melissa with her grandmother and great-grandfather and three di Contini servants, and taken the first plane to New York.
How odd that no one had told her that Lindsay was a successful model, she’d thought many times on the flight over. She hadn’t known where Lindsay lived, hadn’t ever cared, and she’d been hesitant to ask Grandmother Foxe for her address because the old lady might think her unloving, not even knowing where her half-sister lived. How to explain to anyone that knowing Lindsay’s address brought that horrible time in Paris back to her, in spades? It forced her to confront those hours of weakness, the dismal pathetic hysteria, the woman who hadn’t really been her. She made herself sick whenever she thought about what she’d been in Paris.
She smiled at the very ordinary-looking woman in front of her. Seeing Lindsay in the flesh brought back her confidence. Seeing her didn’t bring back Paris. Lindsay was just the same. There was no magic in her look or in any of her features, no elusive qualities. None. She looked a wreck, tall and skinny and in those disgusting clothes that made her look like a reject from the seventies. Slung over her shoulder was an old bulging bag that could hold a kitchen. Who had dressed her? It was laughable. There was no guilt from Paris. Nothing. She was vastly relieved. She was soon to be on her way, the stars the limit.
“Sydney?”
“Sure, let’s go over to that little bar. I’m here for a couple of days—on business—and I thought you and I should speak together. Are you in a rush? Do you have a little time, perhaps, now? A glass of wine would be welcome in this ghastly heat. I’d forgotten how much I detested New York in the summer. I don’t know how you stand it.”
“No one does. One just puts up with it.”
When they walked into Jay Glick’s Saloon, Lindsay immediately went to the phone and called the agency. She got Glen at his bitchiest.
“Yes, sweetie, I’m here but you’re not. Where the hell are you? I looked down and saw you chatting with this utterly gorgeous woman. Is she a woman, sweetie? Or maybe I lucked out. A queen?”
“No, Glen. She’s my half-sister. Please tell Demos I’ll be there on time. I’ve still got close to forty-five minutes before the ad people for the Lancôme shoot arrive.” She paused, listening to Glen’s outpourings. When he slowed, she said, “No, Glen, my half-sister just showed up. Yeah, right, the famous principessa. Okay, later. An hour, no longer. No, tell Demos I’m eating éclairs by the dozen. Sure, Glen, give him a coronary at the very least. Harden some of his arteries. And yes, I’ve got a real treat for the ad folk. Yes, outrageous, and this time I’ll get them. You’ll declare me the winner of the practical jokers. See you soon.”