A Match Made on Madison - Softcover

DEE DAVIS's highly acclaimed first novel, Everything In Its Time, was published in July 2000. Since then, she's won the Booksellers Best, Golden Leaf, Texas Gold and Prism awards, and she's been nominated for the National Readers' Choice Award, the Holt and an RT Reviewers' Choice Award. To date, she has written fourteen books and three novellas.  The time Dee doesn't spend at the computer is spent with her husband, daughter, cat, and cardigan welsh corgi.

Chapter One
 
Bemelmans Bar. The Carlyle Hotel, 35 East Seventy-sixth Street (corner of Madison Avenue), 212.744.1600.
 
Best remembered as the creator of the classic Madeline books for children, Ludwig Bemelmans once joked he'd like his tombstone to read: "Tell Them It Was Wonderful." Well, wonderful it was, and still is, at Bemelmans Bar. Named in honor of the legendary artist, Bemelmans is a timeless New York watering hole that has drawn socialites, politicians, movie stars, and moguls for more than five decades.
 
--www.thecarlyle.com
 
Another round please." I signaled the tuxedo-clad waiter with an impervious twist of my hand, the gesture undoubtedly not nearly as regal as I supposed. But then dirty martinis will do that to you. Two is really the limit even for the most dedicated of drinkers. And we'd already had three.
 
But this was a celebration.
 
And I wasn't paying the bill. Which was just as well.
 
Bemelmans is my idea of heaven when it comes to a bar. Small and intimate, with killer drinks, fiery-hot toasted eda-mame, and folksy art that puts one in mind of a children's storybook, it's absolutely perfect. But you could mortgage a Park Avenue apartment and still not have enough to pay the tab--especially on a martini bender. So better that it was Althea's headache.
 
I'd save mine for tomorrow.
 
Althea Sevalas was my friend, mentor, and sometime rival. In truth, I'd absorbed all she had to teach me with the voracity of the young and hungry and then proceeded to go out and apply what I'd learned on my own.
 
Actually, I'm making it sound easier than it was. I don't know that I'd ever have taken the leap, so to speak, if it hadn't been for Franklin Pierpont's tendency toward dramatic scenes. Franklin is a billionaire geek with absolutely no social skills.
 
Althea had taken him on in a fit of absolute pity. And when his first match ended in a somewhat less than desirable way, he'd wound up standing on a ledge outside my office window--nineteen floors up. Obviously this sort of behavior is not good for the matchmaking business, and Althea, who suffers from vertigo, tasked me with talking him down.
 
Suffice it to say, it was not one of my favorite assignments, but after showing half of Manhattan my Perele panties, and losing a Manolo to windowsill gymnastics, I managed to talk sense into the man.
 
Of course it didn't hurt matters when it turned out that the policewoman who'd come to our rescue was not only a looker but also the heir to a computer fortune. A definite sign from on high. So when Althea insisted on taking credit for handling the whole fiasco, I saw the writing on the wall, and with a little help from the Pierpont-policewoman merger, I started my own agency.
 
At first there'd been understandable friction between us. After all, I'd walked away with all Althea's tricks of the trade, so to speak. But with a little time she'd realized that Manhattan was big enough for both of us and, albeit warily, accepted me back into her circle of friends.
 
She wasn't above twisting the knife a bit now and then, though. And having been invited to the wedding of the century was a coup she'd no doubt lord over me for years to come. It was a first and something I had to admit I aspired to achieve. Not that it was likely.
 
This one was a fluke. Matchmakers simply aren't considered wedding guest material. Too much a reminder of things best forgotten.
 
Which explains the reason for celebrating. And though it wasn't really my triumph, I didn't have a problem swizzling Bemelmans martinis in Althea's honor. Of course, I'd brought reinforcements--my friend Cybil Baranski.
 
"So I heard that even though the gown cost half a million, the bride still looked like overfed farm stock." Cybil adjusted her Oliver Peoples frames and leaned forward, eyes sparkling in anticipation.
 
Cybil and I have been friends since Trinity, and believe me, her love of gossip was a well-developed art form even then. Just ask Roberta Marston, the first girl in our class to go all the way. And, of course, being Cybil, she'd found a way to capitalize on her talent for digging dirt, getting paid handsomely by the Murdochs to write a syndicated international column that's become a glitterati must-read.
 
The bride in question was Susannah Barker, a long-shot latecomer in the race to secure the hand of multimillionaire Robert Walski. Of course, she had Althea on her team, which meant the odds were upped considerably despite what the rumormongers (excluding Cybil, of course) would have had one believe.
 
"Honey," Althea leaned in as well, her nose almost colliding with Cybil's. Dirty martinis are hell on depth perception. "When you're wearing a size twelve at your wedding, there's just not a lot a designer can do." We all looked down at the newspaper Althea had brought. In this case the picture was beyond words.
 
Judged against the ordinary world, Susannah would be considered attractive, I suppose. But Manhattan is a sea of size twos. I've always believed that the reason restaurants open and close with such velocity here is due at least in part to the fact that while most women deign to visit restaurants out of social necessity, they very seldom actually eat anything.
 
Anyway, suffice it to say, Susannah holds up her end in the support of Manhattan restaurants. However, her size wasn't the issue here. Her father's upstate mills were. And when Walski realized the advantages of merging his assets with hers . . . well, the rest is history.
 
But that's what it's all about, isn't it? Finding someone whose social background and financial assets are equal to or enhance yours? All this nonsense about true love and opposites attracting is ridiculous at the social strata we're discussing. Marriage is a merger. It's as simple as that.
 
The waiter arrived with our drinks and a fresh assortment of nibbles.
 
The only really bad thing about overdoing martinis is that they're worse than cannabis when it comes to the munchies. At least I can delude myself into believing that wasabi-dipped edamame aren't going to break the calorie bank.
 
I stared down into the smoky depth of my gin, swirled it a few times for effect, then looked across the table at Althea, cutting to the chase. "Did they acknowledge your part in the nuptials?"
 
"No. But everyone knew anyway. I mean it's not a state secret what I do." She tilted her head in a practiced way, the light hitting her tightened and tucked face in just the right places. Althea couldn't be considered young by anyone's standards. But she was well preserved. Thanks in part to good genes. And mostly to her plastic surgeon on the corner of Park and Seventy-third.
 
I used to think plastic surgery was only for the aged or repulsive. I think most people in their twenties would agree with that. But I'm not in my twenties any longer. And suffice it to say, I am on good terms with Althea's doctor. So far only for a little Botox lift; I mean, I haven't hit forty. But the little wrinkles at the corners of my eyes aren't exactly getting smaller. You know?
 
"I think it says a lot that they invited you at all," Cybil said, picking up a peanut and then dropping it guiltily back in the silver bowl. "I mean, no one really wants to admit that they need help finding true love."
 
"Well, in point of fact," I said, waving my martini at her, "we're not really interested in love--true or otherwise. It's all about combining assets--two parts making a more productive whole."
 
"You make it sound like a corporate merger." Cybil wrinkled her nose in distaste.
 
"And you, my friend, are entirely too sentimental." I frowned at her over the rim of my glass. It was an old argument. Cybil, for all her sophistication, was a hopeless romantic. Which meant that when it came to men, she invariably chose losers. Case in point, her current lover, Stephen Hobbs. But I won't go there.
 
"I'm not sentimental. I just believe marriage should be about more than just bank accounts."
 
"Well, of course it's more than that." Althea reached over to pat Cybil's hand. "There's the sex."
 
I almost choked on an olive. Althea was overly proper by nature. You know, the type who never curses and uses words like "bedroom frivolity" to talk about doing it. Obviously, the martinis were loosening her inhibition.
 
"And how exactly do you think an arranged marriage guarantees good sex?" Cybil either hadn't noticed Althea's slipup or just wasn't interested. She'd leaned forward, eyes narrowed in concentration. Or maybe just so that there'd only be one Althea.
 
I mean, we were on martini number four.
 
"Because--like attracts like," Althea intoned, as if the words held the key to all wisdom.
 
"Um, I think you mean opposites," Cybil said, still squinting.
 
"No, I mean like. Two people of the same background, the same financial circumstances, and the same ideology will invariably be happier than two people who simply respond to chemical combustion."
 
"Maybe in a merger. But in the bedroom, I'll take combustion." Cybil sat back, sipping her martini.
 
"In the short run, possibly," I said, picking up on Althea's theme. I did say she was my mentor. "But when the combustion fizzles--and it will--you need the bedrock to maintain the marriage. And besides, pleasure isn't limited to the perfect partner."
 
"That's why there are affairs." Althea nodded in agreement.
 
"Actually, I was thinking of vibrators. But that'll work." I smiled at her through my gin-induced haze.
 
"You two are entirely too cynical to be in your line of work," Cybil said, her glasses shining in the candlelight. "I mean, Vanessa, you even call your business Happily Ever After. How in the world can one have that without...