Part One
Hot Topless Beaches in December or Bust
“I used to strive to live my life for happiness, not money or status. I don’t know what happened or why I stopped.” —Warner Truman, CEO of Truman Enterprises, and third richest man in the world
Prologue
Her Measurements 36C-25-35
Fifteen Years Ago
Upper West Side, New York City
Tabitha Adelaide Brillford stood back from her bedroom wall where she’d measured her height with yellow tape then marked it in pencil. “How tall is seventy-two inches?” she asked her best friend, Lex Easton, who sat on her pink canopy bed.
Lex put down the latest Manhattanite Times issue she was reading and replied, “About six feet.”
“Holy shiiit! Mommy and Daddy are both under five ten. What other measurements did I give you?”
Her friend grabbed the Hello Kitty notepad off the pillow and read, “Thirty-six C, twenty-five, thirty-five.”
A few weeks shy of starting the seventh grade, Tabitha had blossomed over the summer into a woman.
“Remember when my mom took us to Milan to see her friend’s spring show?” Lex’s mother, Birdie Easton, a rock-n-roll legend, received invitations year after year to the best parties, extravaganzas and fashion shows in the world.
“Valentine?” She puffed on a cigarette. Unable to inhale yet, Tabitha exhaled from her mouth.
“Valentino,” Lex corrected. “Anyways—there’s a resemblance between Elle Macpherson, the model who wore the red dress, and you.” She held Vogue’s fall issue up. Macpherson graced the cover. The season’s periodicals were spread out on Tabitha’s bed. At twelve, Lex was already a slave to fashion, especially couture.
“Red is my favorite color, it goes with my look.” Tabitha laughed. She happened to be the only redhead in her class, as well as the only girl rich enough to furnish a complete wardrobe from Yves Saint Laurent. “Why do you read those crummy gossip rags? You know our folks told us not to pay the press any attention.” Since her parents announced their trial separation a few weeks ago, she’d stopped looking at the tabloids.
“They also told us not to smoke.” Lex’s face sobered as she shoved a Swedish fish in her mouth. She chewed the candy, swallowed and announced, “There’s an article in here titled ‘High Society Marriages Headed for Ruin’.”
“I bet my parents are featured.” Tabitha didn’t have to ask. She took the page from Lex’s sticky hands and glanced at the exposé. It shed light on America’s most prominent family—hers. Considered fierce academics, the Brillfords remained regular art patrons and noble philanthropists. With five generations celebrated in their community, they were the town’s toast and invited to all social events, but not in recent weeks. No, they’d become outcasts. “This is why my parents have been fighting all summer.”
She’d heard her parents’ hoarse voices ringing through their eight-thousand-square-foot residence pretty much night and day.
“When my parents argue, Dad sleeps in the guest room. Yours?”
“Daddy moved his stuff into the east wing.” Tabitha frowned. Countess Irma, Taddy’s mother, had remained in the west quarters.
Lex shifted on the bed. “I saw it mentions why your mom spent time in the hospital. Didn’t you wonder?”
“Yes, Daddy wouldn’t tell me.” Tabitha focused on the article, reading closely and hanging on every word. “Says here, after one knock-down, drag-out fight my mom flew headfirst over a spiral staircase with a pair of shears in her hands. That’s when the NYPD arrived.” Tabitha recalled the incident where Irma had lost her little finger after a botched effort to cut her husband’s penis off.
“Why didn’t your dad press charges?”
“Daddy knows better.” Jesus. I can’t believe this is in the paper about my parents.
“Keep reading,” Lex bossed.
“Says the fight started after Daddy filled her lingerie chest with South American killer insects, whoa!”
“Killer bugs?”
“Do they exist?” she asked Lex, hoping this wasn’t true. However, she remembered her mother being in the hospital. This made perfect sense.
Her friend rolled her eyes. “If you’d come to biology class, you’d learn from Mr. Kauffman there are many insect species known to harm animals—and humans. They live in South America. So what brought on the bug attack?”
“Mom tried to run his ass over with her car.”
“When?”
“While Daddy was jogging alongside the West Side Highway.”
“Get outta here!” Lex shouted.
“Her car flew off Pier 92.” In horror, Tabitha held up the paper showing Lex the photo of Irma’s Rolls-Royce being pulled out of the Hudson River. “They’re going to kill each other.” She threw the paper in the trashcan next to her desk. “This started when my daddy ordered that test.”
“What test?” Lex asked as she switched her attention to Marie Claire. Lex’s own family life equated to heavy metal groupie hell, but she escaped into the glossy fashion magazine pictures. Her favorite designer, Donna Karan, lived in their building.
“The parent test.”
“Don’t you mean the paternity test?” Lex popped another candy and continued with a mouthful, “Explains my mom’s call with yours a few days ago. She blabbed on and on about some test results.”
“Right.” Tabitha wished Lex would ease up on the candy. The boys in class already tormented her over her weight. It seemed the more they teased, the more Lex ate. “You better quit with the sugar. Birdie will lock the fridge again.” Lex’s mother believed starvation preserved one’s figure.
“Tabitha Adelaide.” Knocking and a voice came from the other side o her bedroom door.
“One sec.” She extinguished the cigarette in Lex’s grape soda can.
Lex scrambled and threw everything under the bed. In her jersey knit sweats with honey-blonde hair pulled back by a headband, Lex knew the drill. She ran for the window and climbed out onto the fire escape. Sticking her head back in, she whispered, “Call me after dinner. Mom passes out by eight. She mentioned some gibberish about having a serious talk about school tonight.”
“Where’s Eddie singing this week?”