fame as the plastic surgeon to the Park Avenue set. Their bonding was one
of the more controversial ones in recent memory, as it had taken each quite a few attempts to
find the other. He was her second husband and she his third wife.
She was also one of New York’s
most popular socialites. Jealous rivals sniped that the public just took a liking to her name. It
was so outrageously preppie it sounded like a joke. But it was not; it was the real thing, like
Muffie herself, who embodied a horsey, Bedford, WASP authenticity in an age of brash
nouveau-riche hordes adding “von? or ‘de? to their names and who didn’t
know a Verdura from a Van Cleef.
Every year Muffie opened up
her sprawling Hamptons estate, “Ocean’s End”, for a fashion show to benefit the New
York Blood Bank. It was the highlight of the August social calendar. Located at the end
of
Gin Lane
, the property sprawled over six acres and included a manor house with a separate and equally
lavish guesthouse, a twelve-car garage, and staff quarters.
The sweeping grounds featured
two pools (saline and freshwater), tennis courts, a lily pond, and professionally maintained
gardens. The Bermuda grass was cut by hand, with scissors, every other day, to keep it at just
the right length.
Balthazar shook Bliss’s hand
with a limp handshake and passed her on to Muffie with a wan smile.
“I’m so glad to see you
looking so well, my dear,” Muffie said, giving Bliss the most insubstantial of embraces. Muffie
had a broad, recessed forehead with nary a wrinkle (her plastic-surgeon husband’s most effective
advertising) and the perfect blond coif pervasive on the Upper East Side. She was the epitome of
the breed: tanned, slender, graceful, and appropriate. She was everything Bobi Anne had wanted to
be but could never match.
“Thank you,” Bliss said,
trying not to feel too awkward. “It’s good to be here.”
“You’ll find the rest of the
models in the back. I think we’re running late as usual,” Muffie said cheerfully.
Bliss walked toward the
backstage area of the tent, swiping a canape from a tray and a glass of champagne
from one of the buffet tables. Henri was right: this was an easy gig. It wasn’t a real fashion
show, merely a presentation to wealthy clients in the name of charity. Whereas a real fashion
show was a chaotic commotion of energy and anxiety, attended by hundreds of editors, retailers,
celebrities, and covered by hundreds of media outlets around the world, the Balthazar Verdugo show on Muffie Carter’s estate was more like a glorified trunk show, with
models. It was so odd to be back in the real world, to be walking on damp grass (sinking in her
heels, really), munching on appetizers, and looking out at the Carters’ amazing ocean view, an
unbroken line of blue stretching over the horizon, and to find out that in some parts of the
world, even their world, the world of the Committee and the Coven, there were some who remained
indifferent and downright disinterested in what had happened in Rio.
Muffie and the other women on
the Committee whom Bliss bumped into at the party did not bring up Bobi Anne’s death or the
massacre of the Conclave. Bliss understood that they simply went on about their lives: planning
parties, hosting benefits, doing the rounds of couture shows, horse shows, and charity causes,
which filled their days. They did not seem too worried or distressed. Cordelia Van Alen had been
right: they were in the deepest denial. They didn’t want to accept the return of the Silver
Bloods. They didn’t want to accept the reality of what the Silver Bloods had done and were
planning to do. They were satisfied with their lives and they didn’t want anything to
change.
It had been so long since any
of them had been warriors, soldiers, arm-in-arm and side-by-side in battle against the Dark
Prince and his legions. It was hard to imagine this
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