Jacqueline Susann's Shadow of the Dolls by Rae Lawrence Read Free Book Online Page A

said.
    “Men,” Marianne said.
    “Men,” said Anne.
    “They think life is nothing but a big game,” Stella said.
    “And they make the rules,” Marianne said.
    And then they go and break them all , Anne thought.
    In the hallway, a handsome man with brown hair and a gray mustache grabbed her by the elbow. “You still owe me a dance from last year,” he said. “I haven’t forgotten.”
    Anne smiled, trying to remember which woman he had arrived with. Keith ran the news division at one of the networks and had a house in Sag Harbor. Every year he brought a different date to the party, and every year he flirted with Anne.
    “Yes,” she said. “But first I have to peek in on my daughter.” Jenn was sleeping calmly through the noise, one hand tucked under her pillow.
    One more pill. There were all sorts of new things out now, but she still preferred Valium. It was the Grace Kelly of sedatives: both modern and classic at once.
    It was three A.M . before the party really thinned out. Unless one lived within walking distance or had a private car, getting home would be a chore; there were never enough taxis on New Year’s Eve. At four there were still six guests left. Arthur and Stella, collapsed against the sofa cushions. A young couple they knew from Southampton, two lawyers who could not stop talking about their new apartment on Riverside Drive. A woman named Pamela, whom Lyon had been flirting with all night—at one point they had gone out together to buy cigarettes and not come back for half an hour—but Anne was too tired to care. And someone named Gregory, who seemed to be Pamela’s date and was annoyingly peppy, considering the hour.
    Anne brought out coffee. They gossiped about the party … who had danced, who hadn’t, who had gotten too drunk, who was wearing clothes just a little too sexy … and picked at leftover cookies. Arthur dozed off and began to snore lightly.
    “Well,” Stella said. “This was the best party ever, and now it’s time to go home.”
    Everyone stood up. Stella and Arthur had a car waiting downstairs; did anyone need a ride? They discussed the geography of who lived where. Stella and Arthur were headed to the San Remo in the West Seventies, yes, they’d be happy to give a ride to the couple on Riverside in the Eighties. Pamela’s date also lived on the Upper West Side, and yes, there was room for him, but of course he had to see Pamela home to her apartment off Gramercy Park, in the opposite direction.
    Anne cleared the coffee cups, and when she returned to the living room a plan had been made, and people were pulling on their coats. Lyon had a coat on, too: the five West Siders would pack themselves into one limousine, and Lyon would see Pamela into a taxi.
    Goodbye! Goodbye! Happy New Year! Happy New Year! Anne was in her pajamas within minutes. She sat on her bed and smoked a cigarette. It was delicious to be alone, and she suddenly wasn’t one bit tired.
    She reached under the bed for the shoeboxes full of things the maid had hidden there, because you never really knew about guests, even your friends: the pills, the better jewelry, the zippered leather case with their passports and credit cards.
    She laid the jewelry across her pillow. Most of the pieces represented something she and Lyon had celebrated together: a Tony Award, a movie deal, a stock split, a big client signed. All of Lyon’s biggest triumphs were recorded here, in gold and platinum and precious stones.
    Some of it, she knew, was what Stella called “guilt baubles”—those seemingly spontaneous “no special occasion” gifts that had perhaps marked the end of a complicated affair. Anne had always wondered whether husbands regretted these later: how much harder it was for a man to forget a mistress when his wife wore a glittery reminder around her wrist.
    There was only one gift here that celebrated something they had done together: the strand of pearls Lyon had given her when she brought Jenn home