Further Lane Read Online Free PDF Page B

without being pushy. “She’s some sort of publishing hotshot from London. Works for Random House,” I was authoritatively informed by a man I knew from the Maidstone Club. “Out here for the care and feeding of one of their best-selling authors, I suppose. Got some sort of title.” I assumed he meant this in the corporate sense. In the crush of admirers I couldn’t tell if the girl was with anyone in particular. She was awfully pretty, with a wonderfully husky Belgravia voice, slurring her speech in a London manner I knew by now pretty well and found irresistible (could I still be carrying a small torch?) and I was considering whether just to barge into the scrum, when someone else came along and said “Hi.”
    This was Hannah’s grown daughter, Claire. Her “plain daughter” was how the unkind put it.
    Claire had her mother’s coloring and good bones and a vigorous twenty-something body bordering on the spectacular, but the wire-rim glasses and a sulky, resentful look spoiled the effect. I don’t know if Claire squinted because she had the wrong lenses but it scrunched up a face that could have been a lot more attractive. Hunched up her shoulders as well, forcing her to peer straight ahead by bending forward. The peerless Hannah clearly had a set of East Hampton values to which her only child was not even attempting to live up. And when someone told the girl, “Your mother’s looking for you,” Claire’s shoulders slumped and she cringed slightly, as if anticipating a blow.
    Hannah, it was said, demanded of her daughter a certain standard.
    As a journalist, I was interested in relationships, curious about this one; as a polite guest I said to hell with it and took a fresh glass off a waiter’s tray, enjoying the spectacle of rich people queued up for the free lunch at buffet tables, nudging each other for advantage at the smoked salmon and toast; the small, chilled local lobster with stiff homemade mayonnaise; the caviar being spooned up. As we waited our turn at the Beluga, one sleekly tailored gent introduced himself as “Donna Karan’s orthodontist.” Now what the devil do you respond to that, “I’ve long admired her molars”? I nodded and half-grinned instead and he took his caviar and went on across the lawn, quite pleased and introducing himself to other fortunate folk.
    â€œOh, champers. Do let’s have some, Teddy; there’s a good fellow.”
    It was the English girl, the one with the Belgravia voice who worked for Random House. I was about to say something when I recognized the man with her, the one on whom she was urging the champagne.
    â€œAnd D.P. at that,” she was going on. “I say, this Hannah does have style.”
    I looked over her shoulder at the bottle from which they were filling the young woman’s flute and, she was right. The champagne was Dom Perignon. The flute wasn’t shabby either, Waterford at a glance.
    Her escort was Crossman, the Wall Street man. Odd, according to the columns he was attached at the hip to that pretty Foley girl. Well, when you’ve got that much money …
    The young Englishwoman was right about the champagne. And about Hannah’s having style. Further Lane wasn’t chardonnay-in-plastic-cups and never had been. Even the New Money people seemed to understand and be happy about it; having earned their way up to Waterford and Dom from chardonnay and plastic. I wished I knew Crossman better; then I could have said hello and been easy about it, and he would have had to introduce me and … but by now they’d wandered off and I watched her go; even in departing, she was lovely.
    I took mental notes on the more notable guests; you never know when you might have to write a piece and it’s better to have taken notes and not use them than to need notes and not have them.
    There were plenty of names from the columns; you know who they