Kwan Kevin - Sex and Vanity

“I’ve swum in the Atlantic and the Caribbean. I think I can handle swimming in a little cave on an island,” Lucie said lightly. She hoped Charlotte wouldn’t be fretting over her safety throughout their trip like her mother would. Thankfully, Charlotte was already distracted by the view out her window.

“Quite stunning, isn’t it?” Charlotte remarked, marveling at the dramatic peaks of the island swathed in clouds.

“You know, Emperor Tiberius thought it was the most beautiful place in the world, so he moved the capital of the Roman Empire here in the first century A.D. Issie’s wedding is going to take place at the ruins of his palace,” Lucie said.

Charlotte smiled. “This is why I love traveling with you. I can always sit back and rest assured that you’ve done all the homework. You’re like my personal Wikipedia and Yelp all rolled into one! Remember that trip to Quebec one Christmas where you mapped out the whole itinerary based on where we’d find the best hot chocolate?”

“I was actually trying to find the best poutine for Freddie,” Lucie corrected.

“Ugh, Freddie and his poutine! I weep for your brother when he loses that teenage metabolism. Jesus, is that where we’re landing?” Charlotte pointed out the window at the helipad atop a majestic hotel with arched terraces.

“Looks like it.”

“That’s not where we’re staying, though?”

“No, we’re at the Bertolucci. I think this is the place where all the celebrities like Mariah Carey and Julia Roberts stay,” Lucie remarked.

“Then I’m glad we’re not staying here! Hotels that cater to celebrities are generally always awful. If you’re not famous, they treat you like pond scum,” Charlotte commented as the AgustaWestland AW109 made a dramatic swooping turn before landing on the rooftop of the hotel.

Several attendants rushed out to assist with their luggage, while a lady in a stylishly retro white shift dress came out to greet them. Checking their names off a list on her iPad, she said, “You must be Signoras Churchill and Barclay? Welcome to Anacapri! Please enjoy our welcome refreshment.” A crisply attired waiter presented them with ice-cold Bellinis in tall Venetian glasses, while another waiter bore a platter of fresh strawberries dipped in white chocolate.

“Thank you! But you do know we aren’t staying here?” Charlotte said cautiously as she reached for a strawberry.

“Yes, of course. As wedding guests of Ms. Chiu, you are naturally our guests too. Your hotel is in Capri town, and we will send your luggage ahead to the hotel.”

“But is it safe?” Charlotte fretted.

“Don’t worry, signora, your luggage will be very safe with us. Meanwhile, we have arranged your transportation downstairs,” the lady graciously explained as she escorted them down to the lobby, where a magnificently restored candy-apple-red 1950s Fiat cabriolet taxi awaited them in the driveway.

“ Buongiorno! I take you to Capri—just ten minutes away,” the driver said with a flourish as he opened the door for them.

Making herself comfortable in the car, Lucie commented, “Well, if that was the pond-scum treatment, I want to know how Julia Roberts gets treated when she arrives.”

“Well, maybe they googled me and saw who I was,” Charlotte remarked with nary a hint of irony. As one of the senior editors at Amuse Bouche magazine, Charlotte behaved with a distinct entitlement that came from being an employee of the influential magazine and its even more influential parent company, Barón Snotté Publications. Now, she turned her attention toward the handsome cream-and-yellow-striped linen awning of the vintage convertible. “Wouldn’t it be wonderful if all our taxis in the cityfn1 looked like this? So much better than those ridiculous ‘Taxis of Tomorrow’ that already look so worn out.”

“I don’t think this linen roof would survive one week in the city,” Lucie said, laughing while fingering the fabric and letting her hand dangle out into the breeze. As the taxi made a hairpin turn around the steep curve, she exclaimed, “Oh, wow! Check out the view on your left!”

Charlotte caught a quick glimpse of the cliffside plunging down to the sea hundreds of feet below and gasped, “Sweet Jesus, I’m going to get vertigo! I’m purposely not looking!” She searched around for something to grip on to but found nothing except a chilled bottle of champagne with a jade-green ribbon around it. Tied to the ribbon was a card embossed with their names. “Oh, look, this champagne’s for us! Your friend’s being rather generous, isn’t she? Two first-class plane tickets, the helicopter transfer from Rome to Capri, this gorgeous car, champagne—and you’re not even one of her bridesmaids!”

“Issie’s always been tremendously generous. She was my neighbor back when we lived at 788 Park, remember? She used to pass along her hand-me-downs. She wore many of her outfits only once or twice, and that’s how I got that little—”

“That little white Chanel purse when you were in the third grade!” exclaimed Charlotte, finishing Lucie’s sentence. “That’s right. I had forgotten—I thought you knew Isabel from Brown.”

“Not really—she was so many years ahead of me. But she’s always been like the big sister I never had.”

“Well, you are being quite spoiled by your big sis, aren’t you? A week of grand parties culminating in a wedding that I bet will put Kate Middleton’s to shame,” Charlotte remarked in a tone that sounded excited and disapproving at the same time. “How much did you say her father was spending on the whole affair?”

“Issie didn’t say. She’s much too polite to ever tell me anything like that, but I’m sure the wedding will be everything !” Lucie said, still not quite believing her luck. Not only was this the first wedding she’d been invited to as a grown-up, rather than just one of the kids dragged by default to some family wedding, but this was also the first real trip she’d been on without her mother and brother.

When Lucie first received the ornate hand-engraved invitation, her heart sank when she caught sight of the date: July 19. Though she was nineteen and could of course do as she pleased, Lucie, being the dutiful daughter that she was, still deferred to her mother. The third weekend in July was reserved for her mother’s annual fundraising summer gala for the Animal Rescue Fund of Long Island, of which she was president of the board, and she relied heavily on Lucie’s help at the event. It was only after UN-level negotiations that her mother finally relented—Lucie could attend the wedding, with the caveat that her older cousin Charlotte would accompany her. Her brother, Freddie, nicknamed their forty-four-year-old cousin “Madam Buzzkill” behind her back, but Lucie felt that she could handle her cousin well enough, and any little annoyance would be well worth it.

Lucie might have grown up in the same prewar Rosario Candela–designed building as her friend, but Isabel’s life was several notches more glamorous. For starters, her father was a diplomat who, according to the building’s elevator men, hailed from one of Asia’s most successful business dynasties, so the Chiu family occupied the sprawling eighteen-room duplex penthouse, while the Churchills lived in a classic seven on the tenth floor.fn2 Likewise, the doormen whispered that whenever the Chius went away, it was always via Teterboro Airport, which was a dead giveaway that the family only flew private.

With her striking beauty, effervescent charm, and academic drive, Isabel was easily one of the most popular students at the Lycée Français. When she turned eighteen, she made her debut at Le Balfn3 in Paris and graced the cover of Taiwan Tatler, and by the time she graduated from Brown, she had more than thirty thousand followers on Instagram. Nowadays she worked in Los Angeles for a film production company, and Lucie mainly kept in touch by following her on social media, admiring the places she got to travel to—London for the Frieze Art Fair, Park City for Sundance, Bahia for a party at Caetano Veloso’s—and the cool friends who surrounded her wherever she went.