the Chanel logo, when she spotted us walking toward her. She hopped to her feet, past a man who I had to assume was their bodyguard from the grim expression on his face, black-on-black uniform, and foreboding presence, and came over to greet John and then me.
‘Kisses, love,’ she said, bussing John on both cheeks before turning to me. ‘Did you find everything all right? Is the room okay?’ she asked.
‘Yes, absolutely,’ I said. ‘Thank you so much for having us.’
John walked toward the table, where Caroline’s husband Fred, a large man in both stature and girth, with a potato-shaped nose and pink skin that suggested German ancestry, slapped him on the back and poured him a glass of champagne.
Caroline assessed my hat. ‘That’s a nice one,’ she said, before turning on the heel of her boot and returning to the table.
I decided to take her stilted compliment as progress, and made my way over to the table. Dahlia nodded a frosty hello to me before flicking her attention back to Caroline, and there were a couple other women I didn’t know but knew of seated around the table. One of the women, Magdalena, was married to Herb Zimmer, the head of ZAC Capital, an equity-market focused hedge fund. She had dark olive skin, large breasts, flashing dark eyes, and masses of chestnut-colored hair, and as I would later learn (in one of Caroline’s saunas, from another houseguest) was often the subject of mean-spirited gossip.
It came with the territory since Herb was one of the wealthiest and most successful of all the hedge fund kings; his net worth was close to seven billion according to Forbes magazine’s annual survey. He’d grown up on Long Island, the son of a prominent local businessman and librarian, went to Harvard business school and eventually, after a stint in arbitrage, started his own fund. His first marriage ended in divorce after twenty years—the wife was said to have grown tired of his eccentricities—and Herb suddenly found himself alone and desirous of female companionship but not interested or willing to go through the usual dating rigmarole. So instead he asked his psychologist to help him make a list of all the attributes he wanted in a new wife—from physical traits to professional background and weekend hobbies—and he forwarded this list of ‘requirements’ to his closest friends. Hundreds of women sent in pictures and biographies and Herb, again with the help of his psychologist, narrowed the applicant pool down to ten candidates. Over the course of the next six months he took each of the women out on a date (always to the same restaurant, the Four Seasons in New York) and asked them each to complete a Myers-Briggs test to determine their personality type. With each round of dates he came closer to finding his candidate and eventually, after only four rounds, settled on Magdalena.
They married in a simple ceremony with Mayor Bloomberg presiding, and Magdalena, an interior designer from Argentina, quickly settled into Herb’s life as, it was often joked, ‘the forty-third staff member’. (At the time of their wedding, ZAC Capital had forty-two employees.) Magdalena couldn’t care less that everyone gossiped about her behind her back. Say what they liked, Herb was king of the hedgehogs, she was queen, and no one could take that scepter away from her.
I took a seat on the far end, as far away from Magdalena, Dahlia, and Caroline as I could manage, and ordered a Coca-Cola from one of the waiters perpetually hovering around the table. The altitude was making me a bit nauseous, and I was feeling overwhelmed by the buzz of chatter and competitive energy in the room. Not two seconds after I took my first grateful sip of pop (we Minnesotans call Coke and Sprite and most other carbonated, sugary beverages ‘pop’) Jill Lovern Tischman floated into the room, looking cozy and warm in a chocolate mink cape that she held closed with her delicate hand. A massive sea-green opal sparkled from one of her fingers.
Fur and baubles aside, I couldn’t have been more excited (and relieved) to see her. She spotted me in the crowd and came right over, enveloping me in a big Gardena-scented hug, and made me feel instantly at ease. Across from me, Fred Reinhardt made room for Jill on the banquette and she instantly began peppering me with questions: Had I ever been there before; did I snowboard; and had I gotten a room at the Sky Hotel? I barely had a chance to tell her where John and I were staying—she and Glenn had their own ‘little’ chalet on Red Mountain and were there with her children and two nannies, plus some friends with their own brood in tow—before Irina Khashovopova descended on the table and took the seat next to mine.
Dressed in a chinchilla vest and hat, gray leopard print jeans, and fur-lined boots, Irina scooped up the champagne bottle and poured a glass out for herself and Jill before sitting back down and sighing dramatically. She whipped out her phone, punched out a telephone number with a finger that was adorned with a pink tourmalineencrusted frog, barked into the mouthpiece in Russian for thirty seconds before snapping it closed and slipping it into her vest pocket. After draining her glass of champagne and ordering five more bottles for the table, she announced gravely, ‘I just come from the boutique in Little Nell. They will not honor my discount.’
‘What discount?’ Jill inquired, running a hand through her light brown hair.
‘I told lady, Bergdorf give me twenty percent off
J. Mendel but she no listen. I try to buy a hat. Just a fucking hat. Do you know how much I spend on J. Mendel fur? Hundreds of thousands, and they will not give me a twenty percent discount on a fucking hat? I told lady I never shop J. Mendel again. From now on, I get all my fur from Fendi.’
‘But how can it be J. Mendel’s fault if the Little Nell won’t give you a discount? They’re just a retailer,’ I said.
Irina sneered at me. ‘You obviously don’t know who I am. Karl Lagerfeld put me front row at his Chanel show last season. Denise Rich won’t throw a party on her yacht unless I am there. Angelina Jolie sends me Christmas cards, so who the fuck are you to question my right to ask for a discount?’
‘Irina, I get that you’re mad, but that’s no excuse to take it out on Marcy,’ Jill said.
Jill’s comment only served to fluff Irina’s feathers more. Gritting her bright white teeth, she said, ‘Is the principle of the matter. I spend so much money. I’m good customer. And they want to argue with me over a measly three hundred fucking dollars. Nyet.’
Jill wisely decided that she wasn’t going to engage Irina any further and we let the matter drop. As the hour wore on, I removed my hat and set it on the seat next to mine. The lounge was heating up and one of the bodyguards, this one belonged to the Kemps, kept bumping me on the head as he reached over me to hand Dahlia her phone and then take her coat and ear muffs away from her.
As the hour wore on, the group jostled around—I noticed several of the guys, including John, heading to the bathroom with suspicious frequency—and I ultimately found myself seated next to Caroline, who was by then well into her cups. She slurred as she addressed me, and reiterated how glad she was that we had made it, that her husband really, really loved John, and that she wanted us to go out to lunch in the city when we got back. I was pleased that she was being nice to me—I’d thought I’d blown it when I couldn’t tell her what color I thought she should paint the walls of her nursery—but also highly skeptical of her true motivations. I was smart enough to know that Fred could have put her up to hosting us and getting to know me, in order to find out more information about John. We were playing in the big leagues now, literally rubbing elbows with some of the wealthiest people in America, and I had to be on my guard.
I sipped my Coke and asked Caroline what she had in store for all of us. The Reinhardts were hosting a 100-person dinner in a heated tent on the great lawn of their home on New Year’s Eve. This was the third year they were throwing the party, and John said that in years past they had blown everyone away with private performances from Jay-Z one year and Mariah Carey another. This year it was rumored that they had lined up Rihanna, but Caroline wouldn’t confirm that for me. She, however, did divulge that she and Fred had flown in the acclaimed Belgian artist and photographer Jean-Luc Moerman to paint temporary tattoos on guests and a number of ex-Cirque de Soleil contortionists to perform during the intermission. Before she stood up she placed her hand on mine and gave it a good squeeze. ‘Oh you have no idea what it takes to put this party together. Even working with an event specialist, it all ends up resting on my shoulders,’