Gilt, p.9
Gilt, page 9
Why had Elodie manipulated her? Wasted her time? She would text her. No, she’d call her. But first: coffee.
Gemma pulled on a pair of denim shorts and a black tank and pulled a comb through her long hair. She peeked into her suitcase, comforted by the sight of her charm necklaces. She fastened one around her neck, then covered her sleep-puffy eyes with her sunglasses and made her way down the narrow staircase to the first-floor kitchen. The shop was dark and quiet.
Yesterday, after Gemma had tentatively accepted her offer of hospitality, Celeste gave her a quick tour of the house. Aside from the shop on the ground floor, there was a kitchen in the back and a screened-in porch overlooking a small yard. A narrow staircase led to the second floor, and then there was the third floor, where she had her room.
“Who are you?” a voice said from out of nowhere. Gemma shrieked, then the voice shrieked.
A tall and striking young woman appeared from behind a hanging tapestry. She was dressed in an orange halter top, orange and white striped cinch-waist pants, and had oversized gold hoops in her ears. Her dark skin was accentuated by the platinum blond tips of her pigtails.
“We’re not open yet,” the woman said, hands on her hips.
“I’m staying upstairs . . . I’m Celeste’s niece. Gemma.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Well, Gemma, I’ve worked here for two years and never heard of a niece.” She crossed her arms and stared at Gemma in appraisal. “The only reason I’m not calling Celeste right now to report an intruder is . . . I have to know where you got that necklace.”
Gemma smiled. “I made it. Now, can you tell me the nearest place to get coffee?”
* * *
Commercial Street curved around and she followed the water on her left, visible between neat clapboard homes. To her right, more houses were hidden behind green hedges. Bikers whizzed past her, and a large dog-walking contingency streamed in the same direction. Lots of French bulldogs and pugs.
Celeste’s employee/watchdog Alvie told her to find a place called Relish—and to get her a latte while she was at it.
Coffee in hand, walking back to the store, she noticed a spectacular house across the street from Relish. It was white clapboard in an octagon shape, with a widow’s walk that had to offer a panoramic view of the town. It was lovely and dramatic. She had always appreciated grand homes and apartment buildings, wondering about the lives unfolding within the walls, always imagining that it was impossible to be truly sad in a place of great beauty. A man wearing a Harvard sweatshirt sat on the front porch looking at his phone. He looked up as if sensing her gaze and smiled when he saw her.
It was the guy from the art gallery. Lord, he was attractive.
She quickly looked away.
* * *
Elodie knew the expression “Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.” But staying at Jack’s relative’s house was simply too much, even for her. And so, first thing in the morning, she made a trip to a Realtor.
Clifford Henry & Associates was just two blocks up the street. The office was a storefront on the ground floor of a yellow house on Commercial. She walked in and was surprised to find a man sitting at a neatly ordered desk just a few feet from the door.
“Hello, welcome,” he said, looking up from the magazine he was leafing through. It appeared to be called ptownie. The man had bright blue eyes, a pleasant face, and brown hair with chunky highlights that he styled slicked back. He wore a pink button-down with a plaid bow tie. She guessed he was in his forties.
“Is there someone I can speak to about a house rental?” she said.
“You’re looking at him: Clifford Henry, at your service.”
“Wonderful. I just recently arrived in town and I’m looking for a waterfront house. I’m flexible on the number of beds and baths. Although yesterday I saw a home with the loveliest widow’s walk. That would be a plus.”
The man frowned. “I don’t do Truro or Eastham or Wellfleet. Just Provincetown.”
“Yes, that’s where I’m looking.”
The man laughed. “Listen, gorgeous, I know I have a reputation as a miracle worker, but I don’t have a time machine. Hello—it’s June!”
All Elodie heard was the word “gorgeous.” No one had ever called her gorgeous in her life. She’d read once that the light in Provincetown was special. Maybe that was true.
“I’m willing to go beyond the asking price. I’ll make it worth their while,” she said.
“I’m renting for next summer. Why don’t we plan ahead for you, hmm?”
“Mr. Henry, I have no intention of being here next summer. I simply have some business to attend to and need a rental for a few weeks.”
“Where are you staying now?”
“I have a room at the boatyard.”
He nodded. “Manny and Lidia’s place. Sweetheart, I suggest you stay there.” He handed her a business card. “If you change your mind about next summer, you know where to find me.”
This was ridiculous. Elodie walked back outside in a huff.
Her phone rang. It was Sloan Pierce.
“Sloan, I was just thinking about you,” she said, stomach tightening.
“I don’t mean to push but . . .”
Elodie felt a flash of anger. How could her parents have put her in this position?
“Working on it. Just a few bureaucratic loose ends. Just keep the ball rolling on your end and I’ll do the same.”
“Elodie, I am extremely excited to get to work on this. We all are. But we do need the legal formalities out of the way. Do you want to come to the office sometime next week to finalize the contract?”
“Actually, I’m on Cape Cod at the moment.” Across the street, a woman with a curtain of blond hair blowing in the breeze caught her attention. “Provincetown. Quite a distance.”
Was that Gemma? So she’d come to town after all.
“Sloan, I have to call you back.”
* * *
On her walk back to Celeste’s, Gemma stopped in front of a store called Ball Beachwear, the windows dressed with bathing suits for men and women and two dresses in a 1950s silhouette, a white one with a cherry pattern and the other blue polka dot. She wondered what it would be like to simply be in town on vacation, hitting the beach and having drinks with friends.
She checked her phone to find the departure time for the afternoon ferry.
“Gemma?”
She looked up to find her aunt Elodie crossing the street, dodging a bike soaring against traffic.
What was she doing here? Had she mentioned in her phone call that she was in town? No, she hadn’t. Gemma would have remembered. It would have made her think twice about heading out here herself.
“So you made the trip after all,” Elodie said, her pale cheeks shiny with perspiration. Her faded silver-blond hair was pulled up in a clip, large solitaire diamonds in her ears. “Why didn’t you contact me?”
“So you could waste more of my time? No thanks,” Gemma said. “Why did you lie to me? Celeste doesn’t know anything about the Electric Rose.”
“You should have told me you were coming,” Elodie said.
“You should have told me you were here!” Unbelievable. “Are you playing games with me? Is this some sort of payback for showing up at your party?”
“No,” Elodie said. “But we do need to talk. All three of us.”
“I’m leaving,” Gemma said, flashing her the ferry schedule on her phone. She turned and walked back toward Celeste’s house, Elodie close behind on her heels.
“Oh no, you’re not,” Elodie said. “This conversation is a long time coming. And I’m not waiting another minute.”
22
Celeste, 1993
Bryn Mawr College was only two hours from Manhattan, but felt like a world away. That, along with its excellent graduate program in art history, was its selling point for Celeste.
The Philadelphia suburbs were the perfect place for her to lose herself in her studies. There were only two main newspapers, The Philadelphia Inquirer and the Daily News, and neither devoted much ink to gossip pages. For the first time in her life, she wasn’t one of the Pavlin sisters; she was just Celeste. She even went by her mother’s maiden name, Lowe, to stay under the radar completely. But she didn’t have to worry; the Main Line functioned like its own universe, with its local celebrities and socialites and big-money power players. And in her academic niche, her neighborhood populated primarily by health food stores, yoga studios, and coffee shops, no one cared about even local notables.
She lived in an apartment building just off Lancaster Avenue, shedding her Manhattan socialite skin like a chrysalis. She wore Birkenstocks and flannel shirts and hadn’t picked up a mascara wand in ages. She spent most of her time on campus or down the road at Ludington Library. Sometimes she ventured out with friends to hear indie bands play in Center City or passed entire afternoons at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. And best of all, she hadn’t gone to a Pavlin & Co event for at least a year. She told her parents she was studying or working and couldn’t get away. Her mother always quipped, “When you’re ready to be a member of this family again, you let me know.”
Celeste didn’t take the jab too seriously; her parents were guilty of a gross double standard. Her younger sister Paulina dropped out of school to run around Los Angeles and Europe, but because she was dating men with titles and was written about in Town & Country and Vogue, she was deemed “good for the Pavlin name.” Celeste’s descent into academic bohemia . . . not so much. As for Elodie, who had worked in the family business since her undergraduate years at Columbia, she now seemed to be pursuing a master’s degree in kissing their father’s ass.
After a while, both her parents stopped asking—aside from Thanksgiving and winter break—when she was coming to visit.
So Celeste was surprised one afternoon to return to her apartment to find an urgent answering machine message from her father summoning her to New York. She called him at the office, expecting that her usual excuses would work. But Alan was having none of it.
“This is non-negotiable. All three of you girls will be at this event.”
“Paulina’s coming in for it?” she said.
“She is indeed,” her father said.
And then the conversation took an even stranger turn: “And please bring your young man friend. We’d like to meet him.”
This left her speechless. She didn’t know how her father even knew of her boyfriend; Elodie must have mentioned it. She knew she shouldn’t have told her! But she was lulled into a false sense of safety when Elodie had uncharacteristically confided in her. Her wallflower sister had fallen in love with some guy who worked at the ad agency the company used. In their last few phone conversations, she’d been like a different person, bubbly and chatty. Celeste was happy for her, and when Elodie asked about her own dating life, she told her the truth: She’d met someone.
His name was Brodie Muir, a recent Villanova law school graduate toiling at a small Center City firm. Tall with dark hair, he’d been the only other person at a midnight showing of the movie In the Name of the Father. They both left the theater sobbing and ran into each other in the lobby. When they began chatting about the film, it was the first time she missed New York City. If they’d been in Manhattan, they could have gone to an all-night diner and talked about the movie. But since there was absolutely nothing open in the suburbs at that hour, they reached an awkward moment when the usher kicked them out of the theater and they walked to their respective cars in the parking lot.
Brodie had grown up in a blue-collar Delaware town he visited often, always without her. He came from a close-knit family of six boys. His mother taught middle school math and his father worked for the postal service. They were old-fashioned; if his mother called him on a morning when Celeste had stayed overnight, Brodie never let on that she was in his bed.
“I don’t want her to get the wrong impression of you,” he said.
And she didn’t want Brodie to get the wrong impression of her, either. Celeste never said much about her own family, except that her father was in the jewelry business and she had two sisters.
Eight months into their relationship, she still hadn’t met the Muirs. She wasn’t offended when Brodie said he was waiting until things were “serious.” She wasn’t in a rush to introduce him to her family and the circus that would inevitably follow, so living in their own little bubble suited her just fine. Besides, he worked long hours at the firm and she was committed to her studies. Neither of them wanted to put pressure on the relationship.
So when her father insisted she bring a date, she was at a loss. She tried to explain that they weren’t even serious, but her father wouldn’t take no for an answer. “If you want to continue making the most of my tuition dollars, I suggest you make an appearance with your beau. Really, Celeste—do we ask so much of you?”
The truth was, she did think she might be falling in love with Brodie. The day would come, sooner or later, when she had to admit that she wasn’t just a simple grad student. That there was a limestone building engraved with her family’s name on one of the most illustrious corners of Manhattan. That she’d been photographed in her mother’s arms by Scavullo for Vogue when she was born. That, unlike the Muirs, she would never have to work a day in her life.
Maybe it was better to get it over with. If he loved her, it wouldn’t matter. And it might be nice to bring someone home who she could roll her eyes with. She might actually have fun for a change.
Maybe the summons was a blessing in disguise.
23
The way Gemma saw it, things were pretty simple: Either Elodie told her where her mother’s ring was or admitted she was hiding it from her. A famous thirty-carat diamond ring didn’t just disappear.
But Elodie insisted she wouldn’t talk without Celeste and followed her into the antiques store.
“Celeste has nothing to do with this,” Gemma said. “You’re playing games with me.”
“I’m playing games? What do you call pretending to be a journalist to crash my party?”
“I should have been invited to that party,” Gemma said. “I only had to crash it because for some reason you people decided to pretend I don’t exist!”
“I see you share your mother’s sense of entitlement,” Elodie said.
Gemma wanted to punch her, and Alvie clearly sensed this because she stepped in between them. “Why don’t you two take this outside?”
“What is going on here?” Celeste appeared, rushing toward them.
* * *
It had been many, many years since Celeste had played the part of peacemaking big sister. How many times had she been caught between Elodie and Paulina, who bickered over everything? Who got to ride shotgun during the drive to the Hamptons? Who got the bigger room on family vacations? Who had this, who had that. It never ended, the battle over things large and small. Until the ultimate battle that tore the family apart.
She had no interest in seeing history repeat itself.
“You two: Follow me.” She sounded more weary than commanding, but still, Elodie and Gemma listened to her. As in many stressful situations, one thing was needed: food.
Liz’s Café was just around the corner on Bradford. The restaurant was a relative newcomer at only two years old, but the owner, Liz Lovati, was a town fixture. She’d owned and operated the mainstay corner market Angel Foods for the past two decades.
The café, with its maritime décor and Italian comfort-food menu, stood where the former Tips for Tops’n restaurant had been for forty years. Tips had been well-known for its breakfast specials, and a section of Liz’s menu paid it a tribute. Celeste loved that every place in town had a story behind it. It made it particularly ironic then that she chose to celebrate these places steeped in history while being confronted with the avoidance of her own.
When Elodie and Gemma realized Celeste intended for them to have a meal together, and the length of time that implied, they balked. “We have to eat, don’t we?” she said. No one could argue with that, at least. They were seated at the front, next to a window. Her sister and niece were too agitated to even glance at the menu.
“We’ll have three orders of the pancakes, two sides of bacon, three coffees . . . and that should do it,” Celeste said to their server.
“I prefer not to eat anything but fruit before noon,” Elodie said. Celeste turned to her.
“And I prefer not to have a major emotional event before noon. But I guess we’re all out of our comfort zone. Look, I have a peaceful, wonderful life out here. You can’t just show up and create drama. Do you understand?”
“I’m happy to leave—as soon as you sign the auction paperwork.”
“I told you I can’t sign paperwork until Mercury is out of retrograde,” Celeste said.
“Hold up,” Gemma said, looking back and forth between her two aunts. “What paperwork?”
“Contracts for an auction of the Pavlin Private Collection,” Elodie said, looking directly into her eyes. “And I need your signature, too.”
24
Gemma couldn’t believe what she was hearing: Elodie couldn’t sell pieces from the family’s private collection without her signature? She’d been cut off from the Pavlins—and the company—since she was a child. It didn’t make any sense. But it did give her leverage.
“Well, I’m not signing anything . . . unless you hand over my mother’s ring.”
Elodie pursed her lips. After a pause, she said, “That’s a big ask. But I am willing to negotiate—with both of you. That’s why I wanted the three of us to talk in person.”
