“Well, my parents have never kept their opinions to themselves.”
“All right, ol’ girl. I’ve got just the ticket for your ennui. We’re going to Shangri-la tonight.”
“What?” Shangri-la was the hottest bar of the moment, in a city where “the moment” changes faster than the revolving door at Macy’s.
“Yes, my little Mafia darling! Lady Di has done it again. So what will you wear?”
I sighed. Lady Di tried to dress me in fuck-me pumps, a micromini and a halter top with a “jaunty” scarf tied around my neck…some sort of Euro-look, with bright red lipstick and sultry, smoky eyes to boot. However, she just could not transform me into a mystery woman. She could carry off a look like she was born on Page Six of the Post, where she actually appears from time to time. Me? Between my unruly hair and my slightly lopsided smile, my dimples (which admittedly are cute—but cute isn’t what we’re aiming for) and full cheeks, I always look like I’m playing dress-up.
“I don’t know, Di. I’ll figure it out when I get home.”
“Think about it, darling. Because I have a feeling tonight will be lucky. My Chinese horoscope says so.”
Leave it to Lady Di. The regular zodiac doesn’t do. She consults the Chinese version. She’s a dragon. I’m a mouse or a rodent of some sort. Need I say more?
“Well, let me go, Di. I need to start today’s soup.”
“Kisses, love!”
“Back at you.”
Much as I adored her—with all my heart—she just didn’t understand. She only heard from her parents once a month, if that. They saw one another every other year. Remembering my conversation with my mother, I rolled my eyes. Lady Di had no idea just how lucky she was.
Shangri-la was packed with the black-clad denizens of Manhattan. The women all seemed to be tall (I’m only five foot four) and anorexic, and the men looked like refugees from the fashion spreads in GQ. But Lady Di, of course, had access to the VIP room, where we promptly headed. She spotted one of the owners, a restaurant impresario who always filled his restaurants and clubs with supermodels, hip-hop stars and A-list Hollywood. He immediately gave us a table and sent over a bottle of champagne. Lady Di’s PR skills were unparalleled. She knew all the right people, and she charmed the ones she didn’t know until they couldn’t resist her. And unlike a few other “über-bitches” who worked PR in New York City, she somehow managed to do it by being tough yet never alienating anyone. It also didn’t hurt that her father was wealthy beyond imagination—even if, as she put it—he was as “stiff as a piece of plywood.”
We sat down, and our champagne was uncorked and placed in an ice bucket. Lady Di was dressed in a simple black minidress with a Hermès scarf wrapped around her thick blond hair. Her makeup wasn’t even a brand you could buy in the States. Her father flew to Japan on business regularly; she gave him a list and he bought it there, then shipped it to her. She wasn’t someone who dressed outlandishly in the hopes of being the center of attention, yet she had her own distinct style—not to mention perfect porcelain skin. If we weren’t best friends, I could hate her.
I had decided, with Lady Di’s prodding, to wear a black miniskirt and a silk kimono-style jacket her father brought me back from Japan on Lady Di’s orders. It was a brilliant blue, and though I felt out of place in New York with its sea of black clothes, it did feel beautiful on, and I caught admiring glances. I envisioned myself, for a change, as glamorous, rather than like the Italian girl from Brooklyn with the mass of unruly hair. I had even blown dry my hair nice and straight, and it had cooperated for once.
We sipped champagne, and Di leaned in close to me and gave a running commentary on every person who walked past.
“A-list actor… Cocaine fiend.”
“That one’s wife left him for another woman.”
As for the women: “Fake tits…real…real…oh, my God, fake. They’re like boulders perched there.”
She went on: “Does she not own a mirror? She’ll be in the next edition of Us Weekly under the ‘what was she thinking?’ category.”
“Her hairdresser should be shot.”
All right, taken out of context, she sounded catty, but she just likes to “dish.” I bet she could make even the guards at Buckingham Palace laugh, if given the chance.
Suddenly a WASPish blonde approached our table. “Robert Wharton.” He smiled. “And you two appear to be the only interesting women in this place. Can I join you?” We were seated on a bloodred velvet couch, and Di immediately scrunched closer to me.
“Okay…we’ve moved on over. But you can only join us if you are terribly amusing and promise to make us laugh,” Di said, and smiled.
“Promise.”
Turned out Robert Wharton, who looked vaguely familiar, was an on-air reporter for a major cable news network. He had the bland yet handsome looks of a news anchor, a side part in his perfect hair, and an angular build encased in an expensive suit jacket. His chin was dimpled, and his nose was straight without a trace of ethnicity. Everyone in my family looked like they had been on the wrong end of a strong right hook. His hazel eyes peered out from behind wire-rimmed glasses.
“I scored the first post-trial interview with Connie Benson,” he said when Di pressed him to tell us just where we’d seen him before.
“Oh, my God! The Hamptons Harlot!”
Connie Benson was a 40DD porno actress who married the king of Long Island real estate, who promptly died under questionable circumstances. And despite a murder trial that lasted for six months and riveted the media, she’d been acquitted, though the prosecutors had thought it was a no-brainer.
“So dish. Do you think she did it?” Di asked.
He nodded.
“Well…” I chimed in, “she’s laughing all the way to the bank. He froze out his kids in the will.”
Robert nodded. “And she has the spending habits of a Rockefeller. She went through a cool half million just adding mirrored ceilings in all the bedrooms, and her own state-of-the-art screening room. She likes to watch her old porn movies with popcorn and her new lover. The old man was forty years older than she. This new guy is only nineteen.”
“Truth is always stranger than fiction,” I said.
“I’m so glad you sat down,” Di added. “I was hooked on that case. Watched the recaps every night on Court TV. Cheers!” She lifted her glass and elbowed me to lift mine, and the three of us toasted.
“You look familiar, too.” Robert studied me.
I wriggled uncomfortably in my seat. Of course, he could have eaten in my restaurant and have recognized me out of context. But A&E also profiled my family a year ago, complete with family trees and fuzzy photos. Because I was the only granddaughter of Angelo Marcello in a sea of seventeen male cousins, I had been filmed from a distance crossing the street and labeled “The Mafia Princess.”
“Do you work out at Parallel Spa?”
He shook his head. We were all growing hoarse talking over the music.
“Ever eat at a tiny little place called Teddi’s?”
“No. Where is it?”
“East Side. Mid-Sixties.”
He shook his head. “You work there?”
Lady Di wrapped an arm around me. “She owns it. And it has absolutely