Lies and Weddings(38)
Arabella could feel her heart palpitations coming on. “Jackie!” she shouted from the bathroom. “Jaaaaackie!”
“Yes, ma’am.” Jackie rushed to the door just as Arabella opened it.
“Is this Bea’s bathroom?”
“No, Lady Beatrice’s bathroom is next door, in the suite you were just in with Lady Augusta.”
“Oh thank god thank god thank god,” Arabella sighed, clutching her chest with relief. “It’s so confusing, I’m not sure where one suite ends and the other begins. Whose suite are we in?”
“This is Dr. Eden Tong’s suite.”
“Eden Tong! How in the world did she end up here?”
“I believe Mr. Farman-Farmihian booked the room for her.”
“Freddy Farman-Farmihian! How interesting…” Arabella’s mind began to race. Did Eden accidentally get preggers with the rich Persian’s baby? If only the self-righteous Dr. Tong realized what that precious daughter of his got up to!
Augie entered the suite, dressed again in the Valentino gown. “Forgive me, Mother?”
Arabella paused for a moment, and then she beamed. “My princess! How beautiful you look!”
Skip Notes
* Literally “chicken” in Cantonese, but it also means “whore” or “prostitute.” Wan Chai is the red-light district of Hong Kong that was made famous in the film The World of Suzie Wong.
XIV
Bellaloha Resort
SOUTH KONA, BIG ISLAND ? COCKTAIL HOUR
Jackie had just successfully transported three hundred VVIP guests—many with their own security details—from a pavilion overlooking the beach at the Four Seasons Hualalai to another pavilion overlooking another beach at the Bellaloha Resort ten miles south. Here, these pampered pashas would be plied with Chilean wine bearing fake French labels till the chef informed her that dinner was ready. Since Arabella could not be convinced to stage the wedding banquet anywhere but in the rain forest of her beloved resort, the chef was forced to cook in a makeshift tent with generators, since the latest eruption had rendered the state-of-the-art kitchen kaput, and it could take a while before three hundred Dover sole fillets could be poached, deboned, and plated. Jackie would also never understand why Arabella had insisted on Dover sole being flown in when they were on an island surrounded by some of the freshest fish in the world. Just as she was trying to make sure her team had lit all eight hundred of the paper lanterns hanging from the aerial roots of the great banyan tree in the center of the banquet site, the earl tapped her on the shoulder.
No sooner had Francis done this than he realized that his mind had gone blank. What was this lady’s bloody name? “Ah…Lee, isn’t it?”
“Excuse me?” Jackie replied politely. What now?
“Isn’t your name Lee?”
“It’s Jackie actually, but you can call me whatever you want, Lord Greshamsbury.”
“Jackie! My apologies. Ah, would you be able to do me a tiny little favor?”
“Yes?” He means a big favor.
“I need to find a place where I can, you know, be with Prince Julius.”
“Where you can be?” Does he want to shtup the prince?
“You know, two fathers having a celebratory toast. Someplace where we won’t be disturbed. Perhaps the wine cellar at the resort…”
“I’d love to get you the wine cellar but the fire department has chained the doors to every building on the property. No one has access until they’ve stabilized things.”
“How unfortunate. Can you perhaps set up a tent, like one of those fabulous tents that the Maasai Mara do, with zebra skins and oil lamps and campaign tables and whatnot?”
Yougottabefuckingkiddingme. “Lord Greshamsbury, I don’t have a single spare Maasai Mara tent at the moment, but you know, there’s a bunch of surf cabins overlooking the beach where we could set you up with a bartender with some drinks.”
“Oh, no, no, no. No bartender necessary. I know how short-staffed you must be as it is. But the surf cabin is a great idea.”
“So you’d like this cabin prepared for you after the wedding banquet?”
“Well, no…I’d like to do this right now.”
Of course he would. “I’ll see what I can do. It might take a little time to get things set up at the cabin.”
“Fabulous. Can you make it a little clubby, like the card room at White’s, perhaps, where I could offer the prince something to smoke and a good scotch?”
Fuck my life. “We’ll make it feel just like the card room at White’s. You’d never know the difference.” Google “card room at White’s.”
“You’re an angel, Lee, you really are.”
Twenty minutes later, Francis found himself in a hipster surf cabin that looked like one of those sickeningly perfect Zen wabi-sabi spaces featured in Kinfolk magazine. The only nod to White’s was the tattered old Oushak rug Jackie had miraculously found, on which she placed a folding games table with a box of Cohibas, two whiskey tumblers, and a bottle of Gordon & MacPhail scotch.[*1] The scotch that Prince Julius now swirled through his teeth in great satisfaction.
“I have to hand it to you, Francis. You and Arabella have really outdone yourselves. I haven’t been to an affair like this since the Earl of Palliser married that Colette girl and her rich Chinese father paid for everything. Even my dear cousin Margrethe told me she’s never been to a wedding this special, and you must know she gets invited to everything. I’m very relieved that I didn’t have to foot the bill, ho ho ho.”