Nancy’s Theory of Style Read online

  “I honestly don’t know. I look at Todd and all I can think is how I don’t want to be with him. I get so furious that I don’t even want him to touch me.”

  “But he built you that beautiful house and he works so hard for you. Is there another reason maybe? Or another someone?”

  No matter how often Nancy had lectured Junie about the ugliness of the house and Todd’s bad behavior, her friend just didn’t get it. “The house is reason enough,” Nancy said.

  “Nancy, is it that bad? Divorce bad?”

  “I really don’t know, Junie. I’m just glad that I listened to my father about a pre-nup. People told me it wasn’t romantic, but what’s less romantic than being forced to stay with someone because he’ll take half your wealth otherwise?”

  “So your money is well-protected?”

  “Absolutely. The only way Todd could break the pre-nup and ask for community property is if I misbehave, and, Junie, you know I am an exemplar of moral gooditude.”

  “Everyone has secrets. Even I’ve done things you wouldn’t believe,” Junie whispered.

  Nancy stopped Junie from confessing some tedious sin, like not flossing daily, by saying, “Thanks for listening, Junie.”

  The third act of the Carrington-Chambers playlet began shortly after sunrise, as an exhausted Nancy wheeled the first of her cases along the shiny shiny hallway into the kitchen.

  Todd came in through the door that led to the garage. He looked as if he hadn’t slept all night and smelled sourly like sweat and beer.

  “You’re really leaving,” he said.

  “I just need a break. I’ll be at my apartment.”

  He bit his lower lip in the time-honored way of important men who’ve overplayed their hands and been caught out. “I’m sorry, Nancy. You’re right. I screwed up with the house. I screwed up not paying enough attention to you, not taking your business seriously.”

  She felt a pang as she looked at him. Why couldn’t she care for him the way she had? “I’m sorry. I know that I’m…particular.” She stopped herself before she said, it’s not you, it’s me, because it really was his crassness and negligence.

  “About the house…” Todd shook his head. “We’ve got to stay here until the market improves. Otherwise we’ll take a tremendous hit. I told you not to invest so much in one asset.

  “You told me so? You were the one who assured me that this development was a sure thing,” she said. “Anyway, I don’t care if this stupid house sits empty. I can’t stand living here.”

  “I’m not throwing away my share of this property when we can wait and it will recover eventually. Besides, there’s no way your father’s going to let you buy another house if you abandon this one, and you know that.”

  “It’s bad enough that my father is more concerned with my holdings than with my happiness,” Nancy said. “Why do you have to be that way, too? I can’t even get my business going because he says it’s a waste of time.” She began crying out of sheer frustration.

  “Baby, he’s trying to protect you,” Todd said.

  “I’m an adult. Either I should be in control of my life and my money, or I don’t even want it.” She began sobbing, and she let Todd put his meaty arms around her while she blubbered sloppily into his stinky shirt.

  “I’ll do anything for you, Nance, whatever it takes to make you happy.”

  She managed to choke out something that sounded enough like “Really?” for him to understand.

  “Really. I’ll even pay for an assistant for you. You’re always saying you want an assistant.”

  Nancy looked into her husband’s bleached denim eyes, and said, “You’d really do that for me? For Froth? Even if I take a break?”

  “If you need some time off, I can accept that,” he said. “When we’ve had time to regroup, we’ll figure out how we can make this work. You want that, too, right?”

  “Yes,” she said, and she was already thinking about having an assistant, a small bespectacled person who carried a notepad and said, “I’ll get right on that!”

  “A break is what we need,” she said. “If I could focus on my business for a few months and really get it off the ground, maybe I wouldn’t get so fixated on this house and…and other things.”

  “We’re smart people. We can figure this out,” Todd said with a smile. “I’ll contact an agency we use and line up job candidates. I’ll take care of it all.”

  She decided to believe him because a wife should try to believe her husband even when he’s wearing ugly pleated pants and smells a little.

  Todd carried Nancy’s bags from the bedroom to the cavernous garage. When she had done a final check to see that she had everything she needed, she went to join him. She automatically stepped toward her silver Lexus, but she didn’t see her bags or her husband. “Todd?”

  “Here,” he said and walked into view from behind his Range Rover.

  She looked at her car and said, “Where’s my stuff?”

  “In the Mini. I’m going to need the Lexus because the Rover has to go in for repairs. The transmission’s fucking up.”

  “You take the Mini!” She walked around the Rover to stare at the dented and dirty white and black Mini Cooper. Todd and his buddies had each ordered one on the internet one night after watching “The Italian Job.” They spent a few months racing them around tracks and desert roads before forgetting about them.

  Todd said, “I can’t use it because we go to meetings as a team. It’s a great city car. It hauls ass on the hills and it fits in any parking space.”

  “I’m not taking your filthy dash and crash.”

  Todd made a face and said, “I thought you were going to try not to be so picky.”

  “I thought you were going to try to be supportive.”

  “I’m paying for your assistant, aren’t I? Can’t you compromise for once?”

  “Whatever, Todd,” she said, remembering what Junie had said about Todd’s devotion. “I want my car back as soon as your behemoth is fixed.”

  As she was about to get into the little car, stuffed with her things, Todd said, “I’m going to miss you. You’re sure there’s not…you’re not seeing someone else?”

  “I told you already. There’s no one else. I should be worried about leaving you alone for long. Some slutty girl will set her sights on you,” she joked. Nancy saw Todd anew for a second, in a strobe light flash, as a big, blonde, successful manly man, and she realized she was taking a risk leaving him.

  “I don’t like slutty girls. I like you.” He gave her a dry-lipped peck, his standard kiss when there wouldn’t be a payoff of sex, and she got in the car.

  “Pull out front and I’ll hose the car off,” Todd said.

  So on April Fools Day, after a year of entombment, Nancy backed the Mini out of her prison and swung into the long pavered drive. While Todd hosed off the car’s thick layer of grime, Nancy glared at the house, all 8270 square feet of gangrenous stucco, disproportionately narrow columns, slapdash masonry, and shoddy workmanship.

  Nancy drove out of Villagio Tuscana, past the sad mix of ostentatious houses, abandoned construction, and empty lots. Along a sandstone wall bordering a foreclosed house, huge cats sunned themselves, the biggest cats Nancy had ever seen, with beautiful spotted fur. She was already down the street when she realized they were bobcats reclaiming their habitat.

  She headed north, toward San Francisco, She had tried all her life to do everything right, yet mediocrity had descended upon her like the grit that settled on everything at the revolting house.

  She’d lost forever all those evenings waiting for Todd to come home from work, his office, business meetings, and hanging out with his friends. She tried to fill her time with the small parties she put together, but she’d begun to avoid seeing her friends, because she thought her smiles must have seemed as false to them as they felt to her.

  There was a turn on the freeway when the San Francisco skyline suddenly appeared before her, a sight that had exhilarated her
ever since she was a child. As the temperature dropped into a civilized coolness, Nancy relaxed.

  She drove to the classical gray apartment building in Pacific Heights that the Carringtons had owned since the 1930s. She loved the building’s garland and rosette moldings in pure white and vistas of Alta Plaza Park on one side and the bay, glimmering pewter and green, on the other. Lavenders and white alyssum filled the mossy stone planters out front.

  After parking in the street-level garage, Nancy began unloading her suitcases. She usually took the stairs to her fourth-floor apartment, but she had too much to carry. She made several trips in the small elevator, balancing her bags on the narrow mahogany bench.

  She was on carrying the last of her bags to the elevator when she ran into Miss Elizabeth “Binky” Winkles. The elderly spinster came into the lobby, looking like a sack of flour wearing a blue knit suit, a pillbox hat, white gloves and carrying a red patent leather handbag. She saw Nancy and said, “Look who’s here.”

  “Good afternoon, Miss Winkles. How lovely you look today!”

  The woman shuffled in, her ankles swollen above the low black pumps. Nancy couldn’t believe she was still walking the hills in heels.

  “Hold the elevator, Girl Carrington!” The woman used the term for Nancy and all her female cousins.

  Nancy took a suitcase out of the elevator. “You can go ahead and I’ll take it up later.”

  “Nonsense. You’re a puny thing. There’s enough room for both of us.”

  Nancy stood taller. She wasn’t as tall as the older woman, but she was by no means puny. Then she reluctantly got in the claustrophobic elevator, pulling the suitcase after her, wondering why Miss Winkles smelled so deliciously like a patisserie, until she spotted the white cardboard box in her shopping bag.

  Nancy politely observed, “Very nice weather.”

  “It’s the same as yesterday and will be the same tomorrow. What are you doing with all this luggage? Running away from that husband of yours?”

  Nancy continued to smile. A lady was respectful to her elders. “I’ll be staying here while I establish my event planning business, Froth. Todd is being unbelievably patient with this brief respite! We have a modern relationship.”

  Miss Winkles snorted. “Nothing new hidden in the fog, Girl Carrington. One of my sisters, I don’t recall if it was Dody or Ferny, dated a Chambers, some relation to your fellow. He played the ponies and had a weakness for light opera.”

  According to Miss Winkles, the last of the famous Winkles Triplets to remain in San Francisco, she and her sisters had dated everyone and knew all their unsavory habits, be it mass murder or a fondness for Gilbert and Sullivan.

  “There’s nothing wrong with that,” Nancy said, nonetheless thinking about Todd’s appearance in the chorus of “The H.M.S Pinafore” during campus follies. The elevator bell dinged softly for the fourth floor. “It’s always wonderful seeing you!”

  Nancy pulled her suitcase out of the elevator, leaving Miss Winkles to go up to her four-bedroom penthouse apartment with 360 degree views and a terrace. The Winkles Triplets had taken the flat in their heyday, when they’d been sought after for every advertisement and public function.

  Sometimes Nancy fantasized about cutting the elevator line. She’d hear Miss Winkles’ muffled shriek of terror and the building would shudder as the elevator hit the garage level. There would be a somber city-wide day of mourning for the icon, and after a respectful week or so, Nancy would take possession of the top-floor.

  The penthouse was even big enough for a married couple, she thought before realizing that it wasn’t big enough for Todd. He liked owning a swimming pool, home gym, movie room, and game room, so Miss Winkles was safe for one more day.

  Chapter 3: Creating Ambiance & Mood

  As soon as Nancy walked into her one-bedroom apartment, she felt a wave of melancholy. She’d painted the walls sea-green with ivory trim, like the sea and sand of her honeymoon. When she’d married, she’d replaced her pink velvet furniture with Louis XVI reproductions in mahogany, which weren’t nearly as amusing, but much more appropriate for Mrs. Todd Carrington-Chambers.

  Nancy opened the sash windows to air out the rooms and unpacked and put everything away, because she couldn’t function without perfect order. “Order brings harmony, and harmony brings happiness,” she said aloud and then jotted the sentence in a black-and-white pasteboard composition book.

  The notebook, which was titled Theory of Style, was filled with her opinions about style and beauty. Most of what she wrote had been said before by someone bitchier and wittier; but the individual comments weren’t as important as the process. Nancy was waiting for some great truth to reveal itself to her like the concept of gravity to Sir Isaac Newton – in a single blinding epiphany.

  She placed the notebook back on her writing table, beside the silver dish of Froth business cards. When she ran her finger over a letterpress card, white with sea-green type, she noticed that her Louis Ghost Chair was a little dusty, so she went to the laundry room, one of the luxuries of this city apartment, and took out the vacuum cleaner, duster, and polishing rags. In 30 minutes, the rooms were up to her standards.

  Nancy was hungry so she went to her small kitchen and opened the retro buttercup yellow refrigerator. She surveyed the neatly arranged bottles of water and picked out the one at the top left hand corner. She then shifted the remaining bottles so that they were evenly spaced.

  She wasn’t puny. She was elegantly slim. Water was elegant and refreshing and it didn’t stain or get stuck between your teeth.

  Then Nancy walked down the hill to Fillmore Street to see if there was anything new and interesting in the chic shops since her last visit. A trio of chattering young mothers with double-strollers hogged the sidewalk, making it impossible for Nancy to window-shop.

  “Hey!” one woman said rudely, jerking her stroller sideways when Nancy accidentally bumped into it.

  Nancy glanced down at the woman’s blobular offspring in terrifying tiny velour warm-ups. “Hey is for horses,” she said and kept walking.

  It was really remarkable how everything essential could be found in one neighborhood, she thought as she entered a favorite boutique. Fresh-faced clerks with shiny hair and solemn expressions refolded the already neatly folded garments.

  Sometimes Nancy felt as if she had more in common with these shop girls, who understood that texture and construction were more important than color, than she’d ever have with Todd.

  She bought a short pale pink dress with a side seam folded like paper -- it would be perfect for Lizette’s wine country weekend. Nancy had helped to make the semi-annual event a highlight in their crowd, so she was expected to look fantastic. It would be odd going by herself, but Todd hadn’t liked the weekend of wine tasting and amazing meals anyway. He preferred falling asleep in his king-sized bed with ESPN blaring.

  Nancy went to other shops, buying lotions, magazines, and flowers. She was thrilled to find a set of etched pink tumblers in the collectibles section of a charity shop, and she picked up a copy of Simon Doonan’s Eccentric Glamour for a friend.

  Then she went to the wine shop to order a delivery.

  The man at the counter took her address and said, “That’s Chateau Winkles. How’s Miss Binky?”

  “She’s as fascinating as ever.”

  The man grinned and said, “When I was a kid, I was always excited to see the Triplets. I’m throwing in a bottle of cream sherry for her. Older ladies like their sherry.”

  “You’re too kind,” Nancy glanced at the total on the receipt and thought she would have to be more careful.

  She carried her purchases back to the apartment building, and by the time she walked up to the fourth floor, she was exhausted. She put everything neatly away and washed before she drank another bottle of water and went on her laptop to schedule delivery of Blue Bottle coffee beans.

  She looked out the window toward the park at the gauze of fog blowing in. She was so deep in her thou
ghts about the importance of good neutrals that the ringing of the house phone startled her. The house phone was reserved for family calls.

  It was Todd’s dull little secretary, who said that three candidates had been identified for the assistant position and that she’d set up interviews.

  Nancy took down the names and appointment times and thanked her. Todd was trying. He always tried.

  Her personal phone rang. She glanced at the screen, answered and said, “Hi, Junie.”

  “Nancy, I wanted to call earlier, but I was stuck in meetings,” Junie wisped. “How are you doing?”

  “I’m at my apartment and everything is fine. Todd and I agreed that I should stay here and focus on Froth.”

  “Oh, Nancy, you seemed so angry last night…”

  “That’s how relationships are. They go through ups and downs. This is one of the difficult times.” Nancy regretted talking so honestly about her problems. “But, Junie, the important thing is that Todd and I deeply heart each other and we’re committed to the success of our marriage. So please don’t take the things I said seriously.” She forced a little laugh and said, “No one takes anything I say seriously anyway.”

  “I have to go, but promise you’ll call later me if you need to talk.”

  “Why don’t we get together for lunch? Or dinner? My schedule’s open.”

  “I’d love that, but work’s so intense right now. I barely have time to breath,” Junie said, but Nancy could hear her dramatic little intakes of air. “I am sneaking out of the office for an appointment with your hair stylist tomorrow.”

  “You will adore her. She’s the Leonardo DiCaprio of hair design.”

  “Do you mean Leonardo da Vinci?”

  Nancy sighed. Junie was as linguistically limited as Todd. “No, DiCaprio, all windblown, I-am-the-king-of-the-worldish.”

  Nancy ran water for a bath, thinking that her conversation with Junie had extremely well. She’d set the right tone for this separation, making it sound friendly and professional, like a sophisticated bi-coastal marriage without the annoying luggage searches.