Eleanor’s party chitchat ran the gamut from children’s nutrition to pre-school education to ‘downtime’. Her only son, Hammond (Why did so many Americans have names that should be surnames?) was 18 months old. Poor little bugger. Poppy didn’t think Eleanor was a bad woman, but she was just so bloody earnest, so desperate not to get things wrong. She had a face that hovered between plain and pretty. Her smile was sweet, her jawline delicate and her pale skin flawless, but her forehead was just too narrow, her eyes just too small, her lips just too thin for her to be a proper beauty. Her light brown shoulder-length hair was side parted, very straight and very shiny. A beautifully cut Narciso Rodriguez beige silk shift dress, a few shades lighter than her hair, skimmed a slender body that bore no visible signs of childbirth. Apparently, she’d been a trader on Wall Street, pre-Hammond. Poppy found this very hard to believe.
Marco, the assistant director, who was short, swarthy and good-looking, with several piercings, was wearing skinny black jeans with a corduroy biker’s jacket and a vintage Alexander McQueen skull-printed scarf around his stubbly throat. His partner, Chase, a model for Ralph Lauren, was dressed entirely in Ralph Lauren and as ludicrously handsome as you’d expect a Ralph Lauren model to be, with a broad jaw, high cheekbones and golden-blond hair swept back from a magnificent brow. He appeared to have about as much personality as the shop dummy he resembled.
The conversation had not, so far, been what you’d call sparkling. For the first time since she’d been in NY, Poppy was missing grey old London enormously.
A waiter came to the table.
‘Can I take your order?’
‘We’re still waiting for one of our guests,’ said Marty, who was wearing a black T-shirt under a black Armani jacket and heavy-rimmed glasses that he thought made him look intellectual.
‘It’s OK, Marty, order without him,’ said Poppy. ‘I’m so sorry Damian’s so late. It’s very unlike him.’ Inside, she was seething. Where the fuck was he?
‘No, we’ll wait for your husband,’ said Marty, smiling at his latest protégée, who was looking gorgeous in a sage-green suede sleeveless minidress that matched her eyes and showed off her coltish brown limbs. With her streaky blonde hair loose around her shoulders, he thought she was just delicious. ‘In the meantime, why don’t we get some wine?’
‘Sounds great. A white and a red as some of us are having meat, and some having fish?’ Poppy looked around the table.
‘Two bottles?’ Eleanor looked horrified.
‘Hey, it’s only a couple glasses each,’ said Marco, kicking Poppy under the table. Poppy remembered Fabrice’s tales of Martinis, crystal meth and amyl nitrate with Marco the night before and hid a smile.
‘My nutritionist says there’s so much sugar in wine. And sugar is poison.’
Marty laughed heartily and patted his wife’s hand.
‘Eleanor’s been a lot more aware of her mortality since we had Hammond. Kids do need their moms to be alive, after all.’
Everyone laughed weakly.
‘What about their dads, Marty?’ Poppy couldn’t help it, even though he was her boss.
Marty looked taken aback.
‘Sheesh, well, of course they need their dads too! But their dads can handle their poison as they bring home the bacon –’ he did an excruciating Cockney accent – ‘while their mommies stay home and look after them. And you don’t want a poisoned mommie in charge of the kiddies now, do ya?’
He actually wished Eleanor would lighten up a bit. He was glad his wife was such a great mom, but after two miscarriages that had nearly destroyed their marriage, Ellie’s overwhelming joy when Hammy had been born perfect was rendered almost maniacal by the relief. Her subsequent quest for perfect motherhood was both laudable and intensely wearing.
Poppy looked at Marty askance. She had thought that only the Americans in the middle of the States thought that way. The ones on the East and West coasts were meant to be a tad more liberal.
‘I’ve never been more fulfilled than I am now, staying home and looking after Hammy.’ Poppy couldn’t tell whether Eleanor sounded smug or pleading, as she turned to her with that earnest, slightly scared expression in her pale blue eyes.
‘It must be wonderful,’ she started, trying to be nice, but her words were drowned out by two very drunken male voices. One was singing something that sounded like a Scandinavian folk song. The other – oh, good God, it was Damian – was trying to whisper, very unsubtly, ‘Shhhh, mate, they must be here somewhere.’
‘You musssht not worry, my friend, I have shhooo many shhhhares here, I practically OWN THIS PLACE!’
Poppy was just wondering whether hiding under the table or doing a runner would be the better option, when Eleanor leapt to her feet.
‘Omigod! Lars!’
The enormous blond man took a moment or so to register, then swept Poppy’s boss’s wife off her feet in a huge bear hug.
‘ELLIE!’
Once the Viking had put her down, Eleanor turned to Marty, eyes shining, cheeks flushed, and said, ‘Hey, honey, remember Lars, who used to work with me at Merrill Lynch?’
Marty stood up and held out his hand. ‘I believe we did have the pleasure once.’
‘Oh, Lars, all those hours you kept us going on the trading floor with your smorgasbord and schnapps!’ Eleanor’s mouth was running away with her. ‘Such fun times!’
Damian took advantage of this fortuitous new development to sneak up behind Poppy and kiss the back of her neck. She turned round, glaring at him, and whispered,
‘You are pissed as a fucking fart.’
‘I know. Sorry. I’ll do anything to make it up to you.’
Poppy turned her back on him, only to see that Marco and Chase (who clearly was not made of wood after all) were pissing themselves laughing, giving her the thumbs-up and pulling up a chair for Damian.
Eleanor, Lars and Marty were still standing up, talking, when Lars boomed, in his enormous voice, ‘ASH IT ISH MY BIRTHDAY, I WANT TO BUY SCHNAPPS! FOR ALL!’ He turned to Damian and gave him an almost imperceptible wink. Damian, sitting in a chair between Poppy and Marco, smiled nervously.
‘Oh, honey, don’t you think that sounds grand?’ Eleanor said to her husband. Lars’s arrival seemed to have relaxed her attitude to poisons somewhat. ‘It is his birthday, after all! And – oh, jeez, you cannot be Poppy’s husband? My, what a coincidence. So how did you meet my old friend and colleague Lars then?’
Poppy pinched the tiny bit of flesh on the back of Damian’s ribcage to tell him to think of something cool. To her relief, he came up trumps.
‘Hello. Eleanor, isn’t it? I’m so sorry, we haven’t been introduced properly. Yes, I am Poppy’s husband. Damian …’ He gave a repulsively insincere grin and stood up, holding out his hand. ‘I’m a journalist. I was interviewing Lars about the Scandinavian markets earlier. What a wonderful coincidence.’
Chase said to Poppy, with the first proper bit of animation she’d seen all evening, ‘Man, your husband is hot.’
‘My bloody husband is a useless bloody drunk,’ she started,