the Overnight Socialite Read Online Free PDF Page A

her face blood-blister maroon. Clarissa was on her heels, looking petrified.

    " How could you ?" Nola bellowed.

    "It was an accident!" Lucy Jo felt hot tears spring to her eyes. No! No crying. She had already just humiliated herself enough for three lifetimes. "You think I meant to--"

    "Don't you dare cry! Do you realize that you single-handedly destroyed my entire show? Do you know how much effort went into this night? How much money? And time? And now all anybody will be talking about is how some fat-assed cater-waiter broke the fucking runway and flashed her Spanx to the entire crowd!"

    Oh God. Lucy Jo was going to be sick again.

    "Don't even think about coming into work tomorrow, or ever again," Nola raged on. "You're fired! You're over!"

    Lucy Jo grabbed her parka, and her bag, heavy with portfolio and business cards, and dashed for the exit.

    5

    My dear, descended from apes! Let us hope it is not true. But if it is, let us pray that it will not become generally known.
    --Attributed to the wife of the Bishop of Worcester, upon hearing Darwin's theory of evolution

    C ornelia, devastated though she was by Wyatt's abrupt departure, was not about to let his blowup ruin a perfectly good party--especially one that starred her as its prime attraction. She'd spent three hours getting her hair and makeup done, and her outfit--a one-shouldered green mini by Zac Posen, not available to the public for months--demanded an audience. And so did she. She swallowed her hurt at how Wyatt had treated her. He just didn't understand the immense effort it took to be a prominent social, and she had to forgive him for that. Wyatt was old school; if he had his way, they'd hang out with the same dozen couples all year long, living exactly the way their parents all lived. He'd come around, once she opened his eyes to how much fun the spotlight could be.

    "Ta, Cornelia!" Binkie Howe, one of the old crusties (her parents' friends), blew a kiss in her direction. "Divine cover photo of you."

    Cornelia smiled. Now that she had made the rounds with the Manhattan media types, and done kiss-kiss with her friends and frenemies, she needed to find Theo Galt.

    Theo, only son of a private-equity king, had his own record label in L.A. She'd met him several times, but they'd never exchanged more than a few words--perhaps because of the supporting role Cornelia had played in his father's last divorce, four years ago. During cocktails at their Park Avenue triplex before the season's opening night at the Met, Wife Number Three had caught Cornelia, then twenty-three, and Howard Galt, then fifty-two, in the master bathroom, engaged in the kind of clinch that was undeniably what it looked like. Theirs wasn't much as far as affairs went--they'd never gotten past the initial grope--but it was enough. At first Number Three had been surprisingly cool--stepping around them to freshen up her lipstick, then sharing the same box at the opera without any visible sign of distress. She'd even kissed Cornelia goodnight. But the next day she hired a team of bulldog lawyers to take Howard for close to half his net worth. Cornelia's mother had made a few calls to keep the Rockman name out of the gossip columns, but Theo knew the truth--and whether it was because of his fondness for that particular stepmother or, as sole heir, for the lost half of his father's megafortune, he'd seemed a bit aloof afterward.

    Before she set her sights on making an album, Cornelia had never given Theo Galt or his cold shoulder much thought. But in the past year, Cornelia had realized that she deserved a fate greater than marriage, children, and the Junior League. Watching her peers settle into that life made her itch. Who said adulthood had to be so boring? Why shouldn't it resemble one long debutante ball, only with just one debutante and much more interesting dresses? She could have it all, just like that old lady who used to run Cosmo had said. She could be a brand, pulling the Rockman