Read Online Jacqueline Susann's Shadow of the Dolls by Rae Lawrence - Free Book Online Page A

the years. Maybe she can help out.”
    Curtis turned to Anne. “Oh my God,” he said. “How do you say ‘perfect’ in French?”
    “ Parfait ,” said Anne.
    “So, imagine this is your party, what would you do?” he asked.
    “We never gave theme parties. We always thought, I mean, Lyon thought … you know. They’re so …”
    “Vulgar?” Curtis said. “You can say it, I won’t be offended. Okay, then: your party, if you had a zillion dollars to spend and you wanted to make sure every penny of it showed.”
    “Let’s see. Jenn’s old music teacher in the city is from Paris—she and a few of her friends play parties on the weekends. It’s a delightful little group with an accordion and a singer who sounds just like Edith Piaf. For the right amount of money I bet they’d love to come out and play.”
    “ Sacré bleu! Now keep going,” said Curtis.
    “No fair,” said Anne. “You invited me here for a nice dinner and now you’re trying to put me to work.”
    “Annie, darling, I’m in a jam and I need you to help. How can you say no?”
    “ Non ,” she said in her flawless accent.
    “You have no choice, you have to help. That’s what friends do.” He got out a notebook and a fresh bottle of wine. They spent the next two hours making plans.
    The meeting with Mrs. Lightman and her daughter was a success. They loved Curtis’s sketches, and they loved all of Anne’s last-minute ideas: decorating the altar with lavender-scented candles, getting seat cushions in eight different mix-and-match fabrics from Pierre Deux, buying antique toy sailboats to float in the swimming pool.
    “You’re a genius,” Curtis whispered to her in the car on the wayhome. “Come work for me this summer. They adored you. All my clients are going to adore you.”
    “Some of those clients used to be my friends. Wouldn’t it be awkward?”
    “Awkward for who? Not for me.”
    “Okay, awkward for them.”
    “Maybe twenty years ago, but these days divorced women are expected to work. They buy their houses from divorced women. They buy their art from divorced women. It’s no different from being an interior decorator, really.”
    “Okay, then. Awkward for me.”
    “Don’t be so old-fashioned. And by the way, these parties are a wonderful way to meet eligible straight men. There’s always an uncle or a business partner lurking around. I’m promising you dozens of rich, eligible, good-looking heterosexuals. How can you turn me down? Even if you get this advertising job, it doesn’t start until September. I can pay you in cash. These clients of mine, it’s almost all about new money, they’re dreadfully insecure and when they get a load of you, well, it will be just like today. You put them at ease in a way that I can’t. They trust you.”
    “There’s a lot I don’t know.”
    “I agree. But you’ve got style, and you’ve got those glorious cheekbones, and you have just the right pedigree. Everything else can be taught. Please. As a favor to me.”
    They had pulled up in front of Anne’s house. The shutters needed repainting, and the hot-water heater was on its last legs. At Southampton prices, the money from the sale of the earrings would go only so far.
    “All right,” Anne said. “Promise me it will be fun.”
    “It will be fun, and crazy, and sometimes impossibly busy. You’ve never really seen me when I’m cranky.”
    “Curtis, you’re cranky all the time.”
    “And that’s just one of the many reasons you love me,” he said.
    She kissed him on the cheek. “Love you to bits,” she said.
    I n May, the town began to hum in anticipation of the summer season. All around Main Street, trucks delivered heavy cardboard cartons filled with additional inventory for summer visitors. Restaurants extended their hours. Window boxes began to bloom.
    Anne felt like a young girl watching her older sister get ready for a party, a party Anne wasn’t invited to. She was starting to see what the summer would be