Sex and Vanity - Kevin Kwan Page 0,1
sex,” Olivia clarified, although Charlotte clearly hadn’t been listening to a word she had said. She simply leaned against Olivia, trying to catch her breath.
“Are you okay?” Olivia asked, registering the shell-shocked expression on Charlotte’s face for the first time.
“I’m okay … but Lucie … God help the girl!” Charlotte gasped, reaching for a flute of prosecco. Charlotte gulped down the drink, and then, slumping against the stone balustrade, she started to hyperventilate.
“What happened to Lucie? Should I get help?” Olivia asked.
“She doesn’t need any help, she’s fine. Actually, she’s not fine. Oh, my poor Lucie. Everything’s ruined! Abso-fucking-lutely ruined!”
Olivia frowned, not sure what to make of this outburst. She hadn’t known Charlotte Barclay very long, but they had become thick as thieves over the past week, and Olivia would never have imagined that this unflappably poised woman in her early forties would suddenly, apparently, lose it. “Charlotte, how many glasses of champagne did you have at dinner?” Olivia delicately inquired.
Straightening up and brushing off the stray twigs caught on her Oscar de la Renta gown, Charlotte said furtively, “Olivia, can I trust you? Can I count on your help?”
“Of course you can.”
Charlotte continued. “You know I’m only at this wedding as a favor to Lucie’s family. I’m just the plus-one here, and my only job was to keep an eye on my young cousin. But I’ve failed in my duty. Utterly, epically failed. We should never have come to this wedding. We should never have come to Capri. Jesus Christ, her mother’s going to lose her shit when she finds out! And my grandmother’s going to skin me alive!”
Charlotte buried her face in her hands, and Olivia could see that she was legitimately anguished. “Find out what? And where is Lucie now?”
“I don’t know. I don’t want to know. I don’t know how I’ll ever look her in the face again.”
“Charlotte, please stop being so cryptic. I can’t help you if you don’t tell me what’s happened.”
Looking her dead in the eye, Charlotte said, “You’ve got to promise you’ll never tell a soul.”
“I promise.”
“Swear on it. On your mother’s grave.”
“Mother still lives and breathes, but I’ll swear on her life.”
Charlotte exhaled. “When did you last see Lucie?”
“I’m not sure … on the dance floor with the bridal party? She was dancing with Sandro, and I thought they looked like such a lovely pair—him with those long Botticelli curls, and Lucie in that gossamer dress, dancing amid all those candles. It looked so gorgeous, I almost wanted to take a picture to remember it for a future scene.”
“Yes, they were dancing. But after the fireworks, I noticed that Lucie had disappeared. I heard that some of the young ones had gone up to Villa Jovis again, so I went up to the ruins looking for her.”
“You trekked all the way up the hill again? In my Viviers?” Olivia reflexively peered at Charlotte’s feet, wondering how obliterated her shoes were.
“This fellow in a golf cart drove me up. Anyway, when I got up there, would you believe what I found? A whole bunch of kids smoking weed in the chapel. It looked like a drug den in Tangier!”
Olivia rolled her eyes. “Charlotte, please don’t tell me you are upset because Lucie was doing that. All the kids have been smoking every night behind the pool. That kid whose family owns Ecuador brought a whole trunk bursting to the brim with goodies, so I’m told.”
“Olivia! Do you really think I’m that much of a square? I went to Smith,fn1 remember? Lucie’s nineteen years old, and I couldn’t care less if she wants to get baked as a Pop-Tart. Let me finish! I went through the great hall, and then I climbed up to the watchtower, but I couldn’t find Lucie anywhere. I was wandering around those godforsaken ruins lit only by lanterns, and just when I thought I was completely lost, I found a passage leading outside to the cliff walk—that precarious path right by Tiberius’s Leap.”
“Dear God, please don’t tell me Lucie fell!”
“No, it’s nothing like that! I went out to the edge and saw some steps leading down to a little grotto, so I went down and that’s …” Charlotte paused for a moment, steeling herself. “That’s when I saw them.”
“Who is them? What were they doing?”
“Olivia, I couldn’t believe it. I just couldn’t believe my eyes,” Charlotte moaned.
“Let me guess … were they doing bumps?”
“Noooo!” Charlotte said dismissively.
“Sacrificing goats?”
“Olivia, it was … unspeakable!”
“Oh, come on, nothing is that unspeakable.”
Charlotte