Кэндес Бушнелл - Four Blondes

“Actually, I didn't," I say, lighting another cigarette, figuring that surely even she can't smoke two cigarettes at the same time. "If s true," she says. "Bitch wanted to sue, but Norman and me, we had the biggest, most powerful lawyers you could get in show business.”

She sits back against the gray leather seat. I stare at her, unable to help myself. Her face is at once beautiful and ugly, the ugly part being original and the beauty the result of skilled plastic surgeons. "Yep," she says. "Everybody loved Norman. I mean everyone. The first time I saw him on that movie set—it was in the desert—I knew I'd seen Jesus. And everybody else knew it too." She turns to me and takes my hand. "That’s why I love Jesus so much right now, Cecelia. I love Jesus because I've seen Jesus. Right here on earth. He was only here for a short period of time, just enough to make three movies that grossed over a hundred million dollars. But he touched everyone, and once he'd touched everyone, he knew it was time to go back up to heaven.

So he went.”

"But—didn't Jesus consider suicide a sin?" I say, wondering how much more of this I can take and if Hubert and Constance are having lunch and whether or not if s some secret love-nest lunch place that they go to practically every day where Hubert says things like "I love you, but my wife is crazy.”

Dianna stares into my eyes. "He didn't commit suicide, Cecelia. Norman's death, as you may have suspected, was a complete mystery. No one knows exactly how he died. They don't even know what time he died....”

"But surely," I say, "modern medicine ...”

“Oh no," Dianna says. "Modern medicine is not as modern as everyone thinks. There are some things even the doctors can't figure out....”

Yes, I can't help thinking, and you are one of them. "Like the fact that his body wasn't found for four days.”

"And," I say, unable to help myself, "weren't parts of it missing? Eaten by wild animals?”

Dianna looks out the window. "That’s what everyone thinks," she says finally. "But the truth is ...

the body parts may have been carried off by ... special disciples.”

Oh dear.

"I'm almost certain my husband is having an affair," I say.

"And these special disciples, they're really ...”

“With Constance. That bitch.”

" ... they're like angels, sort of. Sent down to kind of watch over him but ...”

"And I really don't know what to do about it," I say.

" ... the fact is that several people, I mean several people, think these special disdples are some kind of ...”

"I suppose I have to think about divorce.”

“Aliens," Dianna says.

I just stare at her.

She leans toward me. "You do believe Norman was Jesus, don't you, Cecelia? Please say yes. Please. Because I really want us to be best friends. I could use a best friend in this town, you know?”

Luckily, at this moment the limo pulls up in front of Cipriani's.

After a more-than-usual amount of fuss, we're shown to a table in the front of the restaurant by the window. There are whispers all around us: "That princess ... Cecelia ... who's that woman? .. . Oh, Dianna Moon ... Norman Childs ... Dianna Moon and ... Luxenstein ... Prince Hubert Luxenstein ...

dead, you know...." And I know this will be an item in Page Six tomorrow, especially when I look up and see D.W. staring at me from five tables away, waiting for me to catch his eye so he can come over. He's sitting with Juliette Morganz, the "little girl from Vermont" who's marrying Richard Ally of the giant Ally cosmetics family at the end of the summer, at the Ally estate in the Hamptons.

The waiter comes over, and Dianna nearly slugs him when he attempts to place her napkin on her lap, but the brawl is averted by the appearance of D.W. He leans over and, in what is commonly called "syrupy tones," says, "My dear. What an absolute delight to see you. I can't imagine anyone I'd rather see more. You've made my day.”

"Dianna Moon, D.W.”

Dianna lifts her face to be kissed, and D.W. complies, kissing her on both cheeks. "Yeah," she says.

"What do the initials stand for?”

“Dwight Wainous," I say.

"I was Cecelia's first boss," D.W. says. "Years ago. Since then Cecelia and I have been great, great friends.”

I just look at him.

"And I hear congratulations are in order," he says to Dianna.

"Yeah," Dianna says, completely unimpressed. "On your Ally cosmetics contract.”

"Can you believe that?" Dianna says. "Me, selling blue eyeshadow.”

"The Allys are great, great friends of mine. In fact, I'm lunching with Juliette Morganz, Richard Ally's fiancée, right now.”

"Yeah?" Dianna says, squinting across the room. "You mean that little dark-haired thing?" Juliette waves eagerly.

"I think I'm supposed to go to their wedding," Dianna says.

"She's a very, very good friend of mine as well," D.W. says.

"Sounds like everyone in this town is a very, very good friend of yours. Maybe I should get to know you better," Dianna says.

"That," says D.W., "would be a delight.”

“Sweet Jesus," Dianna says as D.W. walks away from the table. "That guy looks like something someone dug up from under a rock in Palm Beach," and I start laughing, even though Palm Beach reminds me of the two-week holiday Hubert and I took after we first got engaged, during which it became apparent to me that we may have had different expectations for our future together. Mine were: Louis Vuitton luggage, my hair always perfectly straight, jeeps in Africa, khaki jodhpurs, white columns set against the blue Caribbean Sea, dry-yellow Tuscan fields, a masked ball in Paris, emerald jewelry, the president, Lear jets, hotel suites, huge beds with white sheets and down pillows, an open roadster, my husband always kissing me, notes in my luggage that said "I love you," and the wind always blowing through our hair. This is what I got instead: an "exciting" tour of America. Which began in Palm Beach.

Where "the glamorous, just-engaged couple" stayed at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Brian Masters. Brian Masters (Hubert's uncle) was a fat old man with moles all over the top of his head, whom I was seated next to at every meal, and who, on the first evening, leaned toward me and whispered, "This family was actually okay until Wesley went out to Hollywood and made all that damn money," as a black man wearing white cotton gloves served lamb chops. His wife, Lucinda, who spoke with a slight English accent but was actually from, I think, Minnesota, had an odd sort of vagueness about her, and I discovered the reason why after a particularly frustrating game of mixed doubles in which I swore at Hubert and threw down my tennis racket.

"Come with me, Cecelia," she said quietly, with an odd sort of half smile, and I followed her, still stomping mad, through the house and up to her bathroom, where she closed the door and directed me to sit on a yellow silk-covered stool. "There's only one way to survive as the wife of a Masters man.”

“But Hubert—”

"His mother was a Masters. And so is he," she whispered. And I saw with alarm that she was really quite beautiful, and much younger, maybe forty/ than she had appeared at first, surrounded by this grand house and faux servants, and I thought, What’s going to happen to me?

"Dolls," she said, revealing the inside of the medicine cabinet, which contained such an array of prescription bottles I was sure it could rival that of any pharmacist. She removed a brown bottle and handed it to me. "Try these," she said. "They're completely harmless. Just like candy. Makes you feel sweet.”

"I don't need pills," I said. Which was really rather strange, since I was always a little bit on coke back then and, in fact, had a small vial in my bag which no one knew about and never would, and I said, "My marriage is going to be fine. It's going to be great.”