looked at her in complete fascination.
“Okay!” he agreed, a wide smile lighting up his already extremely agreeable features.
“I like this one,” Anthony said of a portrait of Phoebe Robbins in one of her theatrical costumes from a Shakespearian play. Phoebe had the proper waist and bosom for a low cut velvet bustier gown.
“What a delicious young woman,” Amanda observed, to cover her embarrassment at having thrown herself directly at the dashing young gallery owner.
“That’s Pascal’s wife,” Newton explained to Amanda, handing Raphael his card. “Send it to my house tomorrow if you can,” he said, not asking the price.
“Of course!” Raphael said, delighted.
Then Amanda handed Raphael a card from Hugo’s shop.
“See, I brought you business. Now you have to come visit me at my shop,” said Amanda. Raphael looked at the card.
“You work for Hugo Sands? I’ve always wanted to meet him. Is he here tonight?”
“No, he’s on his honeymoon in Italy. I’m his daughter. I’m watching the shop for him this month. Then I’m going to Europe for the rest of the summer.”
“And after the summer?”
“Sophomore year at Harvard.”
Raphael raised his expressive brows at this disclosure.
“Lovely,” he said, looking at her with doubled interest.
“I heard you just got a house on Shadow Lane. I’m staying on Shadow Lane too, in Hugo’s house. I’m house sitting. All by myself.”
“Are you?” Raphael continued looking at her with a bemused smile.
“Who were those two girls I saw you with today? Are they here?”
“Oh yes. That was Tori Allston and Luz Martinez. They're working at the gallery this summer. Then they go back to the Art Students League,” Raphael explained while drinking in every inch of Amanda as she stood before him in the white a-line dress that flattered her slender body while exposing her satiny white shoulders and slim arms, clinging attractively to her deep, well developed bosom.
“You should come visit me,” Raphael told her, producing yet another card to write his address on. “There’s a path that leads directly from the woods behind my house to the beach.”
“Are you inviting me to visit you at your house?”
“Yes! Come by anytime.”
“I don’t know,” Amanda demurred. “Having already been so forward, perhaps I should take a step back now.”
“By all means, allow me to court you a bit,” Raphael agreed, pressing both her hands between his momentarily.
His touch wrought the exact effect upon her she had anticipated, her chest and stomach filling with butterflies.
“I’ll come visit your shop tomorrow,” he promised.
Amanda made a small bow to her host then fled to the outer courtyard to look for Pamela and report her success at attracting Raphael Price’s attention. As she searched the tiled enclosure for her new friend Amanda found herself resenting the fact that Pamela was married to the problematical Ambrose Bartlett. It would have been so much nicer if Pamela had been currently single and free to come and spend the night with Amanda, so that they could watch black and white movies together and discuss sex long into the night. Amanda was still young enough to never think of wanting to spend any time alone, no less a whole night in a large house, empty except for the resident cats. The cats were kind enough to sleep with her, of course, but they weren’t the exact equivalent of a human.
Amanda had decided that she could no longer keep a diary. With Colby now become so close, it was far too dangerous to commit every naughty thing she thought or did to print, for at any moment her lap top might repose unguarded in her room and in the midst of an innocent Google, he might inadvertently stumble onto her confessions. Her heart might have been his, but her favors and affections were still bestowed rather freely around and about everywhere that she went. So it was doubly important to her that she have her confidant close at hand to help her analyze her adventures. Pamela was so like her, in form and stature, in taste and sensibility, even in sexual orientation, that the smart brunette was the happiest choice for a new female friend that Amanda could have made. Pamela was even a few years older and had been about the world as a model and professional fashionista, which enabled her to give Amanda highly specific advice and provide excellent counsel on the subject of accepting jobs, for example.
According to Pamela, Mr. Pascal Robbins, the photographer whose work was being exhibited at the gallery that night, was one of the best friends a model could have. Pamela had traveled with him for a year as he photographed her for the fashion book, in which she had portrayed historical and fictional characters in rich outfits, and he had never once made a pass at her, honoring his marriage vows to the bewitching Phoebe Casper to the letter. Pamela held Pascal in high esteem for his fidelity and courtesy and never hesitated to introduce him to a lovely female friend. What Pamela couldn’t know was that even Pascal Robbins now and then encountered temptations he couldn’t resist, and Amanda was about to become one of them. For Pamela was ever Pamela, exquisitely chic but remote as a somnambulist and tense as a wire, whereas Amanda was glowing with warmth and bursting with animal spirits, the kind of girl Pascal truly admired on top of being stupefying beautiful.
Of course, Pamela was not blithe in the manner of a Hope Spencer Lawrence or a Susan Ross, two friends who were completely secure in their power over their men and their friends. The Parsons educated young designer was insecure and ridden with self doubt, jealous and suspicious, perpetually distressed and upset at being less than perfect on any given day and at any given moment. She never let herself relax long enough to enjoy the happiness she had as the fashionable young matron she thought she had longed to become above all things. She knew what happened when her husband’s first wife had relaxed enough to let herself swell to a size 8 or 10 with cappuccinos and cream tortes. Mr. Bartlett had fallen out of love with Paula and began to look at Pamela instead. And Pamela had not only her social x-ray figure to maintain, but much more. She also ran the Damaris boutique at Bartlett’s, while continuing to design dresses and suits for the Damaris label, in which she had become a partner with Damaris Perez Random several years before and which had just acquired its own factory in Puerto Rico to supply its numbers, another enormous pressure weighing on Pamela’s mind. She took pharmaceutical amphetamines to maintain the size 2 that she wore and that contributed to Pamela’s high-strung eccentricities and obsessive compulsions. Amanda suspected Pamela was doing this daily and had resolved to try to get Pamela to practice yoga instead but their relationship hadn’t gotten quite close enough for even gentle criticism. Though Amanda was quite sure that coming from another slim, though more athletic girl, her advice would resonate.
“Oh my god, you went Mia Farrow?” cried Ambrose Bartlett as Pamela led him towards the girl he only just recognized as Amanda. Smiling shyly back at her new best friend’s husband, (who had now spanked her twice, once to orgasm, unbeknownst to Pamela), Amanda recalled the fuss Bartlett had formerly made about her hair, which had reached to the middle of the back and was of a nature pale, ash blonde hue that always attracted attention. In addition to possessing the fine hair color, the texture of Amanda’s hair had always been silky and straight, with plenty of body and the tendency to fall back into place with the slightest shake and finger comb. It was
