Tatiana Boncompagni - Gilding Lily

Gilding

iLily

Tatiana Boncompagni

For my parents

To gild refined gold,

to paint the lily,

to throw perfume on the violet...

is wasteful and ridiculous excess.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, King John

i j

Contents

Sweeping up the main staircase of the Ludwig Collection, the 1

It was during the first long shower Lily had taken

Rising from the vanity, Lily walked across the room and

A couple of weeks later, while eating a breakfast of

Later that day, when Lily returned home from her walk,

It was all so humiliating. Her husband spent more time

On Friday afternoon Lily took the subway down to Wall

When Lily returned home, arms aching from lugging the

stroller

The first time Lily laid eyes on Robert was at

The day after her meetings with Victor and Helen, Lily

Panting slightly, Lily finally reached the Madison Avenue townhouse

in

Lily arrived forty-five minutes late to Lexi Fosters first

birthday

The afternoon after Lexis birthday party, Lily recharged her

laptop

Do you think well be out later than ten? Lily

You should have eaten that cheesecake, Allison yelled, slapping

a

It took Lily a few days to recover from overhearing

On Saturday morning, still in good spirits from her (overall)

On the Thursday morning her article was slated to appear

New York in December is a magical place. The department

Lily was in high spirits the weeks before Christmas. Rebecca 144

Exactly one week later Lily found herself on the same

The following Monday, Lily got a call from Peppy Brown,

It was at half past noon on Wednesday afternoon when

Josephine had decided on a Czarist Russia theme for this

The first thing Lily did on Christmas morning was take

According to the sheet that had been slipped underneath Robert

The following morning, after drinking fresh-pressed orange juice

and

espressos

Back in New York, Lily spent the first week after

Walking home from lunch at Freds, the cold January wind

Entitled The Modern Girls Guide to Social Climbing, the

article

In early February, after canceling twice on Christians secretary,

Lily

The following day Lily had a lunch scheduled with Josephine 222

As a Save Bucharest cochair, Lily was scheduled for a

Lilys next duty as a Save Bucharest cochair was to

When Jacinta laid eyes on Lilys mascara-streaked cheeks and

red

Lily started getting ready for the ball at about 3:00 p.m.

Lily woke up the following morning in a fog. As

Lily spent the rest of the week talking on the

New York in March is depressing. The weather cant make

In the middle of July the article by Beth Janklow

In August, Lilys mother came to New York for a

At the end of August, Lily began to write again.

In late November, Lily was invited to a fund-raiser benefiting 284

The night of Allison and Kates gala Lily washed her

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One and a half years earlier...

Sweeping up the main staircase of the Ludwig Collection, the Upper East Side cultural landmark and ultimate beneficiary of that evenings Spring Showersthemed fund-raiser, Lily Grace managed to ruin what would have been a perfectly splendid entrance by stomping on the hem of her silk gown and falling down in the middle of the stairs. The dress, a sea green riot in airy chiffon, had been shipped directly off a Milan runway and delivered via messenger to her apartment that day, and in her haste to get to the party, she hadnt noticed the gowns perilously long hem.

Lily looked around, noting thankfully that her face plant had gone unobserved by the party guests and paparazzi milling about at the top of the stairs, and with her right hand gathered the excess material of the dress. Shed have to hold it up all night if she didnt want to take another tumble in front of tout le monde New Yorkwhich, of course, she most assuredly did not.

Proceeding more carefully this time up the white marble staircase, she made it into the Ludwigs second-floor ballroom without further incident, surveying the room, which had been elaborately decorated to reflect the evenings theme. Swaths of blue silk blan-2 Tatiana Boncompagni

keted twenty-five round tables, each set with white candles, floral arrangements, and dinner service for ten; while a hundred potted trees draped with ropes of Austrian crystals, white Dendrobium orchids and fairy lights formed a natural border around the dining area. The room smelled expensively of narcissus, fresh cut grass, and French perfume.

As Lily maneuvered through the room toward Roberts table, she returned waves from a perma-tanned socialite who had recently posed in a bikini for the cover of Hamptons magazine (showing off a brand-new breast enlargement) and the daughter of a Caribbean rum exporter who was known as much for her tireless social climbing as she was for her not one but two gentleman walkers, who were themselves attached at the hip (and, apparently, to the idea that ascots were remotely fashionable). Next to them stood a contingent of South American bombshells, their tagalong hair stylists and makeup artists hovering nearby, and a clique of gossiping, half-drunk fashion publicists, all thin, all dressed in trendy sequined minidresses and platform heels.

Even though Lily had been on the gala scene for less than a year, she had already deduced what these evenings were all about. They werent about charity (if she polled the room, probably only half the guests were aware of the cause their thousand-dollar-a-plate tickets were benefiting) and they werent about romance (the men, at least those of the hetero variety, were entirely inconsequential) but about status, the preserving of it and the getting of it. The latter being the more interesting of the two.

It was remarkable to Lily how being seen or, even better, photographed with the right people, in the right dress could transform a young woman from slender wallflower to hothouse diva within a fortnight.

Lily was well past fashionably latethe waiters were already clearing the striped bass and fennel gratin entres from the tablesbut Robert had told her over the phone not to worry. Finish your work and then come as quick as you can, hed said over Gilding Lily 3

the din of the cocktail hour. But try to be here by dessert. I took a sneak peak at the menu and theyre serving your favorite.

Profiteroles. She spotted another tuxedoed waiter threading through the room with a tray of the ice-cream-stuffed pastries, making her stomach gurgle with hunger. The last thing shed eaten all day was a ham and cheese croissant from the Au Bon Pain in her office building. Then a Silicon Valley law firm declared bankruptcy, and all hell broke loose on the newsroom floor. By the time shed filed her story and gotten out of the bureau, shed had just enough time to wash her face, slap on some makeup, and slip into her dress before hijacking a taxi on Park Avenue and zooming uptown for the party.

She heard the machinations of a camera lens focusing and turned to see a slim, white-haired photographer holding his camera aloft. A photo? he asked, and Lily obliged with a quick nod, gently angling her left hip away from the camera while sucking in her stomach and holding her right arm slightly away from her side.

Getting snapped with fat-looking upper arms was a monstrous no-no in this crowd.