The Darlings by Cristina Alger Page A

boyfriend’s parents’ annual “Thanksgiving Eve” party began promptly at 5 p.m., and she would feel much better with a blowout. The Morgensons’ party was a very big deal. Their apartment was on Eighty-first Street and Central Park West, a prime perch from which to watch as the balloons for the Thanksgiving Day Parade were inflated on the street below. Since 1927, New Yorkers and tourists had gathered in the cold for this spectacle. They jostled behind police lines, their faces growing red in the frigid night air. Some had staked out small squares of the sidewalk for their kids, who invariably had to pee or had forgotten their hats in the car. It never felt worth it until the balloons came alive overhead, puffing up like giant, animated cumulus clouds. The Morgensons’ guests enjoyed it from seventeen floors up, beside a crackling fire and a tower of cocktail shrimp. For one night a year, The Beresford was the best building in Manhattan, and Grace Morgenson made sure to capitalize on it. She invited everyone. Friends, cousins, business associates. Also, any New Yorker of particular note with whom she shared even a tenuous connection: a
Times
columnist; the mezzo-soprano from the Metropolitan Opera; a principal dancer from the New York City Ballet; a state senator; a talk-show host; the head of the teacher’s union; a designer known particularly for her wedding dresses; a hotelier who had recently made the papers for leaving his wife for a minor British royal.
    Tanner had asked Marina twice what she was planning to wear. Nervously, she had modeled three outfits for him; he seemed most content with the tweed skirt and cable-knit sweater combination from Ralph Lauren that was now hanging in the office coatroom. She’d brought it to work in a hanging bag so that it would not wrinkle, and planned to change into it in the women’s bathroom. It was clear that the Morgensons and their friends would be evaluating her as potential wife material. She had been unfocused all day, unable to think of anything other than last-ditch measures that might improve her by the evening. Now, it was game time. Every minute mattered.
    â€œDuncan,” Marina said, trying not to sound anxious. “How’re you doing?”
    He looked up from the light-box table and frowned at her, as though he was trying to place her. “These photos are atrocious,” he said, finally.
    â€œWhich photos?”
    â€œThe ingénue spread!” He exclaimed, waving her over to look. “These women
do not
look like The Ingénues of Fashion Week to me. They look like tarts. Tarts or hookers.”
    Marina sighed, audibly this time, and crossed the threshold into his office.
Tart
was Duncan’s new favorite word. It would bore him in a few weeks, but for right now, everyone was a tart. Paris Hilton was a tart; the night receptionist was a tart. Duncan was certain that the Bush twins—and possibly their mother—were tarts. For all Marina knew, she was a tart when she wasn’t around. He had that difficult tone of voice, the one that meant that nothing was going to be good enough. She took her place next to him at the light-box table but refused to look through the loupe. She had seen the photos countless times; everyone had. This was the first time she had heard him complain about them.
    â€œLook at this one!” He plunged back toward the table, like a porpoise after a fish. “She’s far too thin. She looks like a heroin addict! You can practically see the track marks on her arms.”
    â€œDo we have the time and the budget to reshoot?” Marina said, knowing the answer.
    â€œOf course not. Of course not,” Duncan snapped. “This is for
the January issue
. We’re absolutely out of time. And we’re so far over budget it is appalling. No. These are going in. Well, some of these are going in. That can’t be helped. But it just upsets me, printing this sort of