The Gilded Life Of Matilda Duplaine

“Yes. Sorry. A gimlet, please. On the rocks.”

“A gimlet—how old-fashioned and moneyed of you. I’ll have to remember that,” she said. “I love anything old-fashioned. Right, George?”

“And moneyed, which is the only reason you fell in love with me,” George said with a glint in his eye, as if he knew it was true but was also flattered by it.

“Fell in love maybe, but stayed in love no. California’s a community property state. Even half your money would’ve kept me in couture and a G5,” she said as she squeezed three slices of lime into the drink she had prepared.

George walked over and preemptively sandwiched my hand in both of his. His squeeze was more appropriate for a long-lost high school chum than a random dinner-party crasher, and I immediately liked him for it.

“George Bloom. My wife, Emma, has many wonderful traits—I love her dearly—but introductions aren’t one of them. Welcome to our humble abode.”

So this was why Rubenstein had so easily moved my deadline.

Everyone knew George Bloom as the most powerful man in the music business. He grinned, and his large-toothed smile was as wide as his jaw was formidable. It was easy to imagine him bestowing that same charming grin on musicians he wanted to sign to his record label—with great success. Unlike his wife, whose outfit must have been the result of vintage binge shopping and weeks of planning, George wore a golf shirt and khakis more appropriate for a round of links than a dinner party. I was sure his casual attire was neither picked nor approved by Emma, so George’s message was clear: he was boss of this castle.

“Nice to meet you,” I said. “Thanks for having me.”

“It’s our pleasure, truly. Lily’s on her way. In the meantime, come in. Meet the rest of the group.”

George placed his hand on my back, nudging me deeper into the drawing room.

A gimlet magically appeared in my hand, and I studied it, not knowing if I was supposed to wait for a toast. George saw my hesitation. His eyes said, “Go ahead, drink, young man.”

I took a hurried sip of my drink. In the corner, I caught a glimpse of David Duplaine, undisputedly Hollywood’s most powerful man. He leaned back in his chair, tips of his fingers together so his hands formed a pyramid, his legs crossed. I diverted my eyes from his and focused on the sofa.

“Carole, Charles, David...everyone, this is Thomas. Thomas is a close friend of Lily’s.”

Carole Partridge was one of the most famous actresses in the world, and here she was, within ten feet of me, lounging on a purple velvet sofa, stroking the leopard cat. She balanced herself on a bony elbow and a curvy hip, and her pale bare feet were the equivalent of George’s golf shirt—proof she was important enough to do whatever she damn well pleased.

Reality and fantasy briefly merged and I felt as if I was looking at Carole on-screen from the first row in a movie theater. Her retro-hourglass figure was the stuff of Playboy. Her arms and legs were lean and muscular. Her hazel eyes were sleepy in a seductive way, and her flawless, milky-white skin seemed as if it belonged in a black-and-white film—Technicolor, or real life, made it appear almost fake.

“Would you like me to get up?” Carole asked in a bored manner, as if after three minutes in the room my presence was already growing old.

“Not necessary,” I declared.

Carole’s husband, Charles, stood up in her stead.

“Thomas, nice to meet you,” Charles said. “Sit down, join us. We were thrilled when Lily said she invited you. We need some new blood around here.”

Charles had the general aura of someone for whom work had always been optional. His speech was tinted with a rarified East Coast accent that was most likely cultivated with lacrosse buddies at Choate or a place like it. At Harvard I knew plenty of guys who were born into a lifetime of financial security, and they, like Charles, always seemed to have a general calm about them, as if their money was a superpower.

“Thanks,” I said, settling into a chair and taking a long sip of my gimlet.

“Lily tells us you’re a reporter,” George said.

“That’s correct.” I focused intensely on my drink, experiencing a bit of stage fright. At the mention of the word reporter the tape recorder felt heavier in my interior pocket, reminding me of my second-class and gauche life.

“A friend of mine—may he rest in peace—always said that the difference between journalists and reporters is that journalists lie, reporters just make shit up,” George said.

“In that case I’m a journalist. I’ve never had a good imagination. If I did I would have been a novelist or written for the movies,” I replied.

“Charles just wrote a screenplay DreamWorks bought for seven figures,” George said genially. There was a ring of pride in his voice.

Something about George reminded me of Mr. Wayne, the gentleman with the hot-rod collection I had worked for in high school. They both oozed charm and seemed inclined to grab your hand, squeeze it and escort you to that glorious and splendid place where they had ended up.

Charles smiled good-naturedly. “The stock market was flat so I was bored. I copied one of Spielberg’s movies scene by scene, inserting different names and monsters.”

There was a hearty round of laughs from the group.

Though I had only just met Charles, I could already imagine him alone in a plush home office, sitting at an old-fashioned typewriter, a heavy glass of Macallan 21 beside him, and the rest of the bottle close enough to be in eyesight but too far for a refill. The television on the wall would be paused on a scene from Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

I cast a sideways glance at Carole. Her fingertips were so deeply burrowed in the leopard cat’s neck folds they disappeared to the knuckle. She hadn’t joined the group in laughter, hadn’t cracked a smile.

“How did you meet Lily, Thomas?” Carole was thirty-eight, but her voice was forty-eight and smooth as cognac. It was more of a purr than a voice.

“I’m doing a story on her father.”

The question didn’t seem like small talk, and I hoped I answered correctly. I had never been in the close presence of someone so famous, and I had yet to find that gray area between feigned ignorance and asking for an autograph.

“A great man, Joel Goldman,” Emma said, as she adjusted a feather in her hair and gave a peripheral glance to her husband. “George did the music for many of Joel’s films. Right, love?”

“David and I both worked for him. Were it not for Joel we wouldn’t be sitting here, or it would have had to happen some other way.”

An imaginary breeze rolled in. David Duplaine was still sitting, silently, in the corner, and now the group shifted their attention his way. Even the leopard cat gave a lazy glance in David’s direction before settling back under Carole’s palm.

David Duplaine was the chairman of a movie studio—the pinnacle of off-camera stardom in Los Angeles. But that wasn’t all. In addition to producing many of the world’s top-grossing movies, David had grown the studio’s subsidiary television network from infancy to its presently dominant state. He was now in the process of gobbling up major market newspapers and technology companies to create a media empire across all platforms. David was the most powerful media titan in the world.

My job at the Times wasn’t as much writing as it was reading—people. And I knew from the moment I saw him that David Duplaine would be a difficult man to read.

I avoided eye contact at first, homing in on his sneakers, which in any other city would be too young for a man of fifty. He wore a white T-shirt that might have been Hanes or Gucci but whatever the case fit perfectly. He was small of stature and build, and his head was shaved in the manner fashionable for men who are balding. His brown eyes were heavily lidded and bored looking, his eyebrows lively and interested and his strong nose as crooked as if it had survived a few street fights along the way. Yet the combination came together to form someone who was quite interesting looking and, in fact, he was always included in eligible-bachelor lists throughout the globe.

David hadn’t bothered to acknowledge me in any manner, but I felt his presence the way a gazelle feels a cheetah in the depths of night on the plains—he was there, waiting, and whatever my next move was it wouldn’t matter.

“Hello, everyone,” announced a woman’s voice.

I felt an extraordinary sense of relief when I saw Lily in the doorway. She was draped in black silk and her ivory necklace was gone in favor of wide cuffs that covered half her forearms in gold webs of pearls and emeralds.

“Lily!” Emma stood up and handed Lily a drink. “How are you, sweetheart? Those cuffs... I hate you for them.”

“Oh these—they’re terribly old and I never think to wear them. You can have them, in fact. I’ll messenger them to you tomorrow.” Lily smiled at me. “Most important, has everyone met Thomas?”

“Yes, yes. He’s lovely, absolutely lovely. And so good-looking,” Emma said, as if I weren’t in earshot. “Now let’s eat. I’m bloody famished.”

* * *

We passed through an arch to a saffron-colored formal dining room prepped to comfortably seat seven, though it could do the same for forty if larger-scale entertaining were in order. The first thing I noticed were the flowers—gothic, untamed arrangements of twigs, branches, berries and deeply colored, oversize, drooping roses.

The rectangular table was set with heavy gold plates, glass goblets and a tall candelabra that held so many candles the room seemed on fire. Emma was not one for fine china and dainty centerpieces.