Page 99 of All These Beautiful Strangers

Twenty-Six

Grace Calloway

Fall 1999

I leaned against the stall wall until the room stopped spinning. At least I hadn’t thrown up. That would have been the pinnacle of my humiliation—kneeling on the porcelain tiles of the bathroom of the Carlyle Hotel in my Oscar de la Renta evening gown as the sharp-tongued wives of the Upper East Side overheard me heave my lunch into the toilet. By the time I’d reentered the party, half the crowd would have heard that I had an eating disorder and the other half would have been vehemently proclaiming I was an alcoholic.

I hadn’t wanted to come out tonight at all but it was the Calloways’ annual charity ball and Alistair was giving a speech. Earlier that evening, as I’d fastened his tie for him in our bedroom, he’d practiced his speech, going over all the lines, noting where he would place emphasis and where he would pause for laughter or applause. I had thought about saying something then—telling him I wasn’t feeling well, mentioning that it was probably best I stay home—but things had been so tense lately between us, and I hadn’t wanted to cause another fight.

Barely five minutes after arriving, he had wandered off to talk with colleagues and socialites in low-backed evening gowns and I had been left, once again, by myself. I’d caught a whiff of the warm salmon-puff appetizer trays the waiters were proffering around the room, and my stomach had turned. I’d headed straight for that bathroom stall.

But I couldn’t hide in there forever. I took a deep breath and exited the stall. I stood at the sink and held my hands under the cold running water. My pallid complexion stared back at me in the mirror. I looked as awful as I felt.

They called it morning sickness, but I felt it all day long.

I’d discovered I was expecting two days ago, sitting alone on the bathroom floor, three empty water bottles and five sticks with five plus signs lying next to me. I hadn’t told anyone yet, not even Alistair.

I heard a toilet flush and a stall door open. I glanced behind me in the mirror and my heart stuttered as I caught her reflection—Eugenia.

Eugenia had taken my union with Alistair even harder than Teddy had. The Thanksgiving after Alistair and I were married, she’d disinvited us to the family festivities, and the Calloway Christmas card had arrived with Alistair’s head cropped out of the photo. Her anger had only started to thaw when Teddy married a pretty girl by the name of Grier Greymouth a few months ago at the Vineyard. The Greymouths were old money; they had made their fortune in shipping. Grier’s mother was a friend of Eugenia’s, and Eugenia had arranged the match. Grier was currently getting her doctorate in psychology at NYU, which was one of her many accomplishments that Eugenia liked to spout on about—that, and her shiny hair and her blue ribbons in dressage.

As for the rest of Alistair’s family, Alistair’s father paid me no more or less attention than he had previously, Teddy had stopped speaking to me altogether, and Olivia had moved to Paris after graduating from Vassar. She was working at an art gallery on the Seine and living with a morose-looking expat thirty years her senior.

Eugenia grimaced when she saw me, which was not an unusual reaction from her.

“You’re sweating like a pig,” she said as she joined me at the sink. She rummaged in her clutch and handed me a blotting paper, which was the kindest gesture she’d shown me in years.

“Thank you,” I said, pressing the paper to my forehead.

“Really, dear, you do look terrible,” Eugenia went on. “Are you sure you’re all right?”

“I think I might have caught a stomach bug,” I said. “I feel a little nauseous.”

Eugenia inched away from me as she washed her hands. “Yes, well, you should probably go home and lie down,” she said as she reached for a hand towel. “We don’t want you getting everyone else sick if you’re contagious.”

I could see the horrors projecting in her mind—her event taking down half the Upper East Side with the flu, me patient zero.

“I think I will,” I said. “Will you tell Alistair, when you see him?”

“Of course, dear,” Eugenia said. “You just go on home and get some rest.”

I cut a beeline through the ballroom to the coat check in the entrance hall, but there was no one there. The coatroom girl was probably taking a smoking break. It was past the time that people were arriving and too early for anyone to be leaving. I checked my watch, wondering how long she would be.

“Leaving already?”

I turned to see Teddy standing in the dark hall behind me, a glass of scotch in his hand.

“I’m not feeling well,” I said.

“Alistair will be disappointed,” Teddy said. “He hasn’t even given his big ‘Look at me, look at me’ speech yet. I hear he’s gotten so good at it, he can fit his entire cock in his mouth.”

Teddy leaned against the wall. I could smell the alcohol on his breath.

“I should be getting back,” I said, stepping away from the coat check window.

Teddy mirrored my movement with his own, taking a step so that he was blocking my path.

“I thought you said you were leaving,” Teddy said.