The Christmas Orphans Club(49)
Annabelle, Theo’s actual mother, married Theo’s father at twenty-two and divorced him at the height of his net worth, of which she took a substantial chunk. Now she splits her time between a townhouse in London, a penthouse in Paris, and a spread in the South of France. We’ve never met her, but she sounds more like a fun aunt than a mother, nipping into town once a year and plying Theo with cocktails and shopping sprees.
“By the time I came along, they hated each other, but the divorce took a good decade because dear old dad knew it was going to be expensive,” Theo explained once. He spent most of his childhood in an empty townhouse with Lourdes, his beloved governess, whom we’re also shopping for today.
“So, what does your mother like?” I ask.
“Spending my father’s money and almost nothing else.” He holds up a pair of diamond earrings so they catch the light and refract rainbows on the walls around us.
Miriam returns with two flutes of champagne on a silver tray. “Miriam,” Theo asks, “What’s the most expensive thing in here?”
She picks up a clipboard from the console table and runs her index finger down the list. “That would be the Cartier tennis bracelet.” She crosses the room to show him her list and spare us the embarrassment of hearing the price spoken aloud.
Theo nods. “That’s sorted. Can you have it wrapped and sent to the London address?”
“Of course.” Miriam remains cool even though she’s likely earned an eye-watering commission. “If you’ll allow me a moment, I can have the room switched over so you can select the other gift.”
An army of shopgirls descend on the room with such speed it makes me wonder if Miriam is hiding a panic button up her sleeve to summon them. The women whisk away the trays of white scarves and diamond jewelry.
Miriam, looking like the world’s chicest stewardess in her black pantsuit and pointy heels with a jaunty red scarf tied around her neck, wheels in a cart of new trays, except instead of mini cans of Diet Coke and ginger ale, the trays are filled with strands of gumball-sized pearls and candy-colored gemstone earrings. There are scarves as well, in electric blue and Barbie pink and orange. One of Miriam’s helpers brings in an armful of handbags, all in bold colors. Another wheels in a rack of furs.
“Now this is the fun part,” Theo says. “Lourdes likes things flashy.”
He moves from the sofa to the console table to run his fingers over a fire-engine-red crocodile purse. It’s certainly flashy. “That’s limited edition. Five in the world,” Miriam tells him.
He offers it to me to hold. When I take it from him, I almost drop it. It’s so heavy it may come with its own gold bricks included.
“What do you think?” he asks me.
“I mean, I’m not the best judge.” I have one black purse that I’ve had for years. “It’s heavy?” I offer, unsure if that’s good or bad. Theo smiles at my reply, he knows I’m clueless but wants to include me anyway.
“What about a fur coat?” he asks.
“Doesn’t she live at the beach?”
“Right.”
“Does she like scarves?” Miriam asks. “Scarves are the best friend of any woman of a certain age.” She gestures at her own scarf-clad neck, and I wonder what’s hiding underneath. Gills or a prison tattoo feel equally unlikely but make me giggle to myself all the same.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen Lourdes wear a scarf.”
“What about something more personal?” I suggest.
“Like what?”
“I don’t know.” I sift through the roster of gifts Brooke and I gave our mother as kids: Color Me Mine pottery, Fimo clay bead necklaces, cheap plates screen printed with our school art that she proudly displayed in the kitchen. The Christmas before she died, I made her a photo album. I picked out an expensive pebbled leather album and used the photo kiosk at Walgreens to make copies of my favorite photos of the two of us. One time I found her asleep in the hospital bed in our living room, cuddling it to her chest like a stuffed animal.
“I made my mom a photo album one year and she liked it,” I volunteer.
“Jay Strongwater does some lovely crystal and enamel picture frames,” Miriam jumps in, “and Cristofle has some gorgeous platinum-plated ones. Would you like me to have a selection brought up?”
“Thanks, Miriam,” Theo says.
I don’t bother to correct either of them that this wasn’t exactly what I had in mind. Miriam teeters off in her spindly heels to make it so.
“Do we have to get something for your dad, too?” I ask Theo, who’s sunk back into the sofa.
“No, he doesn’t value things, only experiences,” Theo says, using exaggerated finger quotes to emphasize the word “experiences.”
“I can’t imagine what kind of experiences a billionaire would value,” I reply. “A trip to space? Hunting endangered species? Bankrupting a small-town bookstore?”
Before I can come up with more ideas, Theo chimes in: “He already knows what he wants. He wants us to work together. He offered me a job.”
“A job?” I say, confused. As far as I know, the only job Theo’s had is when he tried to start a private members’ club in London with some of his boarding school friends, a more exclusive Soho House with a younger clientele. It failed spectacularly; there weren’t many twenty-four-year-olds who could afford the exorbitant membership fee. But even then, Theo was the money guy. He didn’t have any operational role outside bankrolling the whims of his cofounders.