The Carlyles Read Online Free PDF Page A

treasure.
    She slid her feet into the faded blue J.Crew flip-flops she kept in her bag for when she got a pedicure and sat on one of the low stone benches flanking the reflection pond opposite the Vivian Beaumont Theatre. She glanced at her Treo and saw that her father had called three times while she was in class. She’d consented to bimonthly lunch dates with him at Le Cirque, where he would ask her about school and dance and pretend to care about the answers, but, as a rule, they never called each other just to chat. He wasn’t even aware she’d left the Paris Opera Ballet School of Dance early, and she did not feel like getting into it.
    Jack was the unplanned offspring of Vivienne Restoin, the celebrated French prima ballerina, and Charles Laurent, the sixtysomething former American ambassador to France. Vivienne had gotten pregnant when she was twenty-one, and, as she was so fond of reminding Jack, sacrificed her dancer’s body—and her career—for her only daughter. They’d left Paris as a family when Jack was only a year old, but her parents had divorced after a few years in New York together. Her dad had later remarried (a few times) and now lived in a town house with his new wife and the stepbrats in the West Village. Jack pulled out her pack of Merit Ultra Lights, lit one, and exhaled with a dramatic sigh.
    “I thought you were giving those up this year.”
    Jack whirled around to see her boyfriend, J.P. Cashman, strolling toward her. He was wearing a pair of khaki shorts and a neat, pink Brooks Brothers button-down. In his hand was a dog-eared copy of An Inconvenient Truth . He’d just come back from an expedition to the South Pole with his real-estate tycoon father, who was trying to ward off a slew of bad publicity by championing the environment. Jack quickly stamped out the cigarette with the heel of her flip-flop. J.P. hated that she smoked, and she usually tried to refrain in his presence, but how was she supposed to know he’d surprise her after class? And didn’t she deserve a teeny-tiny break when it was technically still summer?
    “Hi, beautiful.” J.P. pulled her into him and she gripped his strong back as they kissed. He tasted like ginger candy. He rested his hand on her fleshier-than-usual hip.
    While taking classes at the Paris Opera, she’d developed an addiction to the pain au chocolat from the bakery down the street from her dormitory.
    “Want to grab lunch?” J.P. asked, easily snaking his arm around her waist. She stiffened under his touch, feeling like an extra-plump sausage in a pink leotard casing.
    Moving from a size zero to a two is such a tragedy.
    “As long as it doesn’t actually include food,” Jack agreed, leaning against J.P. They walked hand in hand down Broadway toward Columbus Circle. The streets were crowded with families soaking up the last weekend of summer, and the air felt thick and hot.
    “So,” J.P. began, gallantly slinging Jack’s bag over his shoulder, “after the expedition, I was able to connect with this Columbia professor who’s working on sustainability, and I’m actually interning—”
    “J.P.?” Jack interrupted. “You didn’t tell me I look pretty.” She knew it might sound pathetic to someone else, but J.P. always told her she looked pretty when he saw her. It was always the first thing out of his mouth and what Jack loved most about him.
    Self-centered much?
    “Yes, I did. I said, ‘Hi, beautiful.’ That’s the same thing,” J.P. responded, hardly looking at her as he held open the gleaming glass door of the Time Warner Center.
    True, Jack reasoned. She hated to demand a compliment, but ever since she’d been kicked out of the Paris Opera program for drinking muscadet alone in her dorm room, she’d been feeling a little shaky. She’d come home early and spent the last two weeks at her friend Genevieve’s sprawling Maiden Lane compound in the Hamptons. Drinking Tanqueray gimlets on the beach hadn’t been a bad way to end