Beneath a Starlet Sky Read online

  “Mr. Crimini, again, I don’t know how to thank you enough,” Julian says. That’s more like it.

  “Of course, it is nothing,” Crimini says. “Lola tells me that you’re a huge fan of Hermès. I modeled the boat after the Hermès store in Tokyo. She is called Magic Lantern after Renzo Piano’s design. She glows—like a floating lighthouse. See,” he says, gesturing toward the undulating walls of glass that are catching the light off the ocean. “The walls of hand-blown cubes of glass are inspired by a Japanese lantern. The reflection of the blue of the ocean mixed with the interior colors creates an aura of light.”

  “It’s like an impeccably designed piece of jewelry,” I say in awe.

  “May I give you a tour?” Crimini asks.

  The doors in front of us seem to magically slide open, as if on cue.

  “This is the great room,” Crimini says.

  “I’d say,” Julian says breathlessly at the expansive room before us that’s probably twice the size of Julian’s loft in New York.

  “When do I move in?” I say, sliding a hand along the wood wall. Its dark grain is so intricate it looks like an abstract painting “Is this…?”

  “Cashmere,” Julian finishes my sentence in awe as we both kneel and caress the flawless, creamy floor.

  “My god, no red wine in here,” I say, our feet sinking into the plush cashmere carpeting as we make our way through the room. I have to resist the urge to curl up in one of the orange cashmere blankets strewn on the soft, navy couches lining the walls.

  “Champagne? Pellegrino?” A deck hand appears with a tray of drinks.

  “Thank you,” Julian says taking a glass of champagne as I grab a Pellegrino in a wine glass.

  “Please, follow me,” Crimini says, guiding us toward a staircase.

  “I’m pretty sure that’s not a poster,” Julian whispers to me as we pass a Rothko painting.

  “Oh my god,” I say, clutching the beige, woven banister as we make our way down the steps, “it’s gorgeous, it’s like a Bottega handbag.”

  “These are the guest rooms,” Crimini says, gesturing down the long hallway of wood doors. “All of the wood used on the boat is from old wine vats from our winery in Tuscany. That’s how we get the deep, rich, red tones in the wood. All of that gorgeous color comes from soaking in wine over years.”

  “I’ve always wanted to float in a glass of cabernet,” Julian says, whispering, “de-lish!” as he runs a hand along the wall.

  “Each of the guest quarters is designed after a jewel. This is the sapphire room,” Crimini says, pushing open the gorgeous cherry-colored wood door to reveal a blue jewel of a room, with a sumptuous bed made up in Frette linens, a giant flat-screen television, and a marble bathroom beyond. The pieces of Italian blown glass on the desk facing out to the Mediterranean are all a sapphire blue, and even the collection of books lining the bookshelf have all been chosen for their blue book jackets. Clearly the only thing of Crimini’s affected by the recession is his lighting.

  “This is the most outrageous spot for our show, Lola,” Julian says, grabbing my arm and pulling me toward him. “If we can pull it off, this is going to be gorgeous. Our guests will be blown away.”

  “And this is my daughter,” Crimini says as he guides us into the emerald room. Sitting on the bed is Alexandra, her endless legs stretched out beneath a computer, sun-kissed hair down her back looking like she’s just stepped off the beach. That we’re in the emerald room isn’t lost on me as I look into those green, almond-shaped eyes as startling as the Mediterranean peeking through the window behind her.

  “Hi Alex,” I say, reaching out my hand to her, to which she stretches long, graceful fingers in my direction. “You’re really good in my brother’s movie.” It was a small part but she made an impression. And even more stunning in person, I think to myself.

  “Oh, I was so happy to get the part. It was fun,” she says shyly.

  “Julian? What are you doing?” I whisper, waving him in from the doorway where he’s cowering like a five-year-old on the first day of kindergarten.

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” he recovers, reaching a hand out to introduce himself. Now I’ve seen Julian in many incarnations, but blushing? This is a first. “I have to say, you just took my breath away. I’m not sure I’ve ever met anyone so beautiful.” Which is saying a lot, given that Julian has spent most of his adult life surrounded by models, Turlington, Moss, Crawford, Evangelista among them. I look to Julian and if I know my BGF at all, we’re both thinking the same thing: This girl is going to be huge. And we’re going to be the ones to introduce her to the world.

  “Alex, I’d like you to meet Julian Tennant,” I say.

  “Oh, Mr. Tennant,” Alex breathes, “thank you so much for the incredibly gorgeous dress you made me. I felt like a model wearing it!” Julian made Alex the most romantic, flouncy chiffon dress with itsy bitsy strawberries embroidered all over it. Style.com called it “magical” and WWD said it looked like Alex walked straight out of a fairy tale. Of course, no one other than Crimini could afford that dress right now. The embroidery alone was over a thousand dollars.

  “That’s wonderful,” I tell her. “Because we have a great favor to ask you. Would you consider modeling in Julian’s show?”

  “Modeling? Me? In a real show?” Alex blinks in shock and looks at her father.

  “That’s exactly what we mean. Do you know Aria Fraser?” Julian asks her.

  “Of course,” she and her father answer in unison.

  “Well, she’s had an … unfortunate accident”—if you can call getting completely blotto and skinny dipping in the most visible lobby in Cannes and smashing up the world’s most perfect Roman nose an “accident”—“and Julian and I think you’d be an absolutely smashing”—that word again—“replacement for her. That is, if you’re ready,” I say, looking her square in the eye. And she doesn’t have to say anything for me to know it. Those piercing green eyes say it all.

  * * *

  Julian doesn’t even threaten to swim back from Crimini’s boat, he’s so excited about our new venue and our new model. In fact, not only does he get onto the helicopter without a fight—or a Xanax—but he giddily whips out his sketchbook the moment we take off and starts sketching the new touches he’s planning on making to the dresses for Alex. “Now I know what having a muse feels like,” he says without looking up from his Moleskine notebook.

  “Oh my gosh, Julian, it’s already seven o’clock,” I say, looking at my watch. “Once we get back to the hotel, we have to get ready and go. I told my mom I wouldn’t be late for her party.”

  “I’m sorry, Princess, but I’m not going. I’m way too inspired. I have to get these dresses done for Alex,” Julian says.

  I wish I could argue with him that he has to come with me, but he’s right. I only wish I could do the same.

  “You’re right Julian, get your work done. We don’t have a lot of time to get ready for the show. Chili’s around so he can help you with whatever you need—and will you please make sure that he triple-checks that all the arrangements have been made for the change of venue?”

  But Julian’s too deep in his sketches to even answer me.

  * * *

  “We Are Family,” by Sister Sledge is blaring through the windows of the massive chateau my mother rented for “Fête-ing Santisi.” Old home movies of me, Christopher, Mom, and Papa are playing on giant screens throughout the massive gardens, as well as specially cut-together trailers for San Quentin Cartel and Forgetting Petunia Holt.

  As I make my way through the candlelit courtyard hemmed by hundred-year-old towering limes trees and fairy-tale turrets, I hear a loud whooshing sound coming from above my head. I turn to find flame-throwers on eight-foot-tall stilts bounding toward me. I don’t know who’s more likely to topple over: me in my six-inch Louboutin stilettos, or the men now circling us in this surreal circus. It seems my mother took me literally when I suggested that the party should be called “Cirque du Santisi”
instead of “Fête-ing Santisi.” She clearly didn’t get the joke. Judging by the number of contortionists, fire-eaters, clowns, and trapeze artists, I’m wondering if she actually got Cirque du Soleil to come to Cannes. My mother is obviously trying to outdo the annual Chopard party, the D&G bash, the AmFar Gala—and every other lavish soiree in Cannes—with this party. And of course she’s called in extra camera crews to capture it all for her show. I think I even spot a camera in the hands of one of the clowns.

  I make a quick beeline for the mosaic marble entryway of the chateau, quickly pinning up my hair as I go. This rat’s nest is a fire hazard. I didn’t have the time to wash it, let alone do anything with it. And I’m feeling pretty dismal as I pass by Gwyneth, looking perfection as usual in a shimmering silver micro-minidress, with those sculpted legs that go on for days. I overhear her telling Kylie Minogue about Tracy Anderson’s new baby food cleanse. Baby food? Really? I’m sure I’ll read about it on GOOP next week.

  There’s no baby food on the buffet, thankfully. On long, ornate tables there are tray upon tray of iced oysters, lobsters, and crab legs interspersed between flickering candelabras that are casting a glow on the honey-colored, thirteenth-century stone walls and exposed timber beams. The chateau’s heavy, wooded windows offer views of the Mediterranean beyond, the smell of lavender and rosemary float up from the immense garden stretching out to the sea, and the cobblestone floors are dotted with more stars than there are in the sky.

  I pass by Al Pacino, Jack Nicholson, and Mick Jagger huddled in conversation on one of the sumptuous crimson velvet couches. I wonder what it would have been like if one of them had been my father—my mother dated them all at one time or another. On another sofa Russell Brand and Salman Rushdie are seated beside one another. Only my mother could bring those two together. What could they possibly be talking about? Across the room is another odd coupling: Woody Allen and Kid Rock.

  I spot my father and Christopher posing for photographs against an ornamental wall hanging by the fireplace. My father looks as angry as the wild boar goring the deer in the tapestry; he’s clearly miffed that he’s being forced to share his moment and the spotlight with Christopher, who looks no more pleased than the deer breathing its last. Gigi, on the other hand, seems to love the spotlight. I must say she’s looking ravishing in a long, slinky, white silk column dress with a daring slit up to her hip, canting her legs this way and that, wrapping and rewrapping her willowy arms around Christopher’s waist. I overhear one of the photogs saying, “Can someone get this girl out of the two-shot please?” Mom’s Wristwatch Wives camera crew, with Alex at its helm, pivots around the herd of lensmen. Cameras taking pictures of cameras. When will the snake stop biting its own tail?

  I feel awfully alone at what’s supposed to be at least in part a quote-unquote “Santisi family celebration.” I look at my BlackBerry. Lev texted me two hours ago that his plane had landed in Nice. He should be here anytime.

  “Sweetheart,” my mother calls out with outstretched arms as she makes her way across the party looking like a blond Cleopatra by way of Karl Lagerfeld. She seems to float across the antique Persian carpets in her swooping ivory chiffon gown with intricate Egyptian-style gold embroidery across the bodice. Thank god she’s not being trailed by her crew. “What’s the matter?” she says, hugging me. “You look so sad. Where’s Lev?”

  “He’s on his way, but I’ll be surprised if he even makes it.”

  “Oh sweetie, I’m so sorry,” my mother says, continuing to hold me, and I don’t want her to let go. “Darling, is there something else the matter?”

  “Can I talk to you off camera?” I ask.

  “Of course, darling, just as long as you promise me that you’ll also talk to me on camera as well. Did you bring the script I sent you? I had cue cards made up in case you didn’t have time to memorize your lines,” she says.

  “Mom, I really need for you to be my mother for one second and not a Wristwatch Wife, okay?”

  “Of course, darling,” she says.

  “I’m really scared that I’m not going to be able to save JT Inc. this time. I finally found a new venue for the show, but with the RSVPs so dismal I’m not sure it even matters. And I don’t know how on earth I’m going to convince Saffron to pose on the cover of Vain. She was on board with doing the cover with Markus, and then all the tabloid nonsense started and she backed out. Kate says that she’s tired of lying to the world and pretending that she’s straight.” All of it comes gushing out of me like a BP oil spill. And at the word “straight” I suddenly notice a very strange glint in my mother’s eye and wonder why she seems to be inching closer and closer to me, practically stabbing me with the giant white tulle Chanel camellia pin on her left shoulder. “Mom?!”

  “So Saffron Sykes is really a lesbian,” she says.

  “Mom, why do you keep shoving that flower in my face?” I say. And then I get it. “Oh my god, Mom, no, no, no, no, no … Mom is there a—” I can’t even get the words out. I’m scared if I say it aloud it will make it all too real. That I just confirmed on camera that Saffron is gay. “Mom, is there a hidden camera in your camellia?”

  “Oh, Lola, sweetheart, come on,” she whispers.

  “Mom, you cannot use that footage! You have to promise me! You told me you weren’t filming.”

  “Darling, it’s all going to come out anyway, why shouldn’t it come out on my show? Can you imagine the ratings? This is just what I need now!” she crows. “Christine’s been lording her footage of her dermatologist’s biopsy over me. She’s been telling everyone it was cancer, and it was just a measly basal cell—”

  “Are you freaking kidding me right now, Mom? This is not happening!” I can feel hot tears burning at the corners of my eyes.

  And as though it’s been timed, Lev walks into the room. Finally. Lev is here. The man who is going to take me away from all of this. The man who is going to save me from Hollyweird. The man who is going to be my husband. My new family. I want to run to him and fling my arms around him. But something’s different, something’s not right. No, not right at all. I barely recognize him in his ultra slim-fit black linen suit. I mean, it’s a gorgeous suit. And he looks gorgeous. But it’s the kind of suit I’d expect to see on Brad Pitt, not my Lev. My Lev who wears jeans and T-shirts and thinks Hanes is a designer brand.

  “Lev darling!” my mother calls out.

  And that’s when a bribe comes to me. I put a restraining hand on her arm. “Mother, if you even think you’re coming to our wedding, you will make a solemn vow this very second that you will not use any of that footage.”

  “You would really do that?” my mother asks in shock.

  “The same way you would use that footage. Yes, you better believe it.”

  There is the very briefest of stare-downs. “Oh, fine, Lola,” she says, shrugging her slender shoulders in surrender. But I know better.

  “I want you to promise on your life.”

  “Stop being so dramatic,” Mom says. “I said I wouldn’t use it but I really don’t see what the big deal is.”

  “Promise me,” I demand. “This very minute.”

  Mom rolls her eyes. “Fine, yes, I promise. But you’ve got to let me—”

  I turn to my fiancé, but he’s already been enveloped in a swarm of photogs snapping away. And I feel a jolt to my system, because he looks awfully comfortable there in front of those cameras. It’s not until I get closer that I realize that it’s not just the flashes that make his complexion look odd. He has a Mystic Tan.

  “Yeah, thanks, man, I just flew in on Dempsey’s G4,” I hear him telling one of the photographers.

  This is when the room starts spinning.

  Fortunately, Lev picks that moment to cross the room and wrap me in his arms. “Hi honey,” he says, kissing me. Okay, now that feels like home, I think to myself with relief when I’m folded into him. That’s my Lev. But then when I pull back to look at his face, something’s not right.

  “Lev, what�
�s with the Mystic Tan? And what happened to your eyebrows?” I ask in shock.

  “Oh I forgot about that! Yeah, the makeup artist did that,” he says, rubbing his fingers along his newly waxed brows.

  “Makeup artist?”

  “Yeah, for the show.”

  “Oh,” I say, trying to get used to his new brows. “Did I hear you say something about Dempsey’s G4?”

  “Oh yeah, I ended up getting a ride on Dempsey’s plane, because shooting ran over and I missed my other flight,” he says before I can fully digest that Lev is calling Patrick Dempsey “Dempsey.”

  “Oh, that’s so great,” I force myself to say. “Is that a new suit?”

  “Yeah, it’s a gift from Dempsey,” he says.

  “That’s quite a gift,” I say. “Should I be jealous? Is there a bromance brewing?”

  “No, no, Hugo Boss sent him a bunch of suits and he didn’t want them all so he gave this one to me. Did you know they’re, like, a thousand bucks? I could never afford one of these.” He brushes the lapel admiringly.

  “Oh,” I say and as I look into his green eyes it hits me how much I’ve missed him. Even though he’s standing right in front of me the feeling of missing him hasn’t gone away. It’s like a gaping hole that I could just crawl into and get buried in.

  “And guess what?” Lev says. “I have the most amazing news!”

  “What?” I say.

  “The Coen brothers were on the flight here with us, and I guess they’ve been trying to cast this role of a doctor in their next movie. They seemed to be interested in me. It’s a small part, but I think it could be fun,” he says with a big smile. I didn’t think he even knew who the Coen brothers were. “It’s about a Jewish Orthodox gynecologist who has a midlife crisis after falling in love with his nurse. He decides to leave his wife and family and converts to Catholicism because that’s the only way his shiksa nurse will be with him. I’d be playing the brother he shares a practice with who tries to talk some sense into him.”

  “A gynecologist in a Coen brothers movie?” I ask in shock, shaking my head in disbelief. With as much calm as I can muster, I ask, “What about Lenox Hill Hospital? Have you heard back from them yet?”