Of course he looked fine when we first met. It was the day of his thirty-fifth birthday party.
A week earlier, my agent, Lauren, had received an email from a Wilmont family secretary. They wanted to invite me to a party, it said. Lennox Wilmont in particular was a fan of my book, The Rich Are Different, it said. The party would be at their estate outside Atlanta. If my agent could provide my address, they’d send me a formal invitation.
Lauren called me and told me she thought it was real. I was surprised, to put it mildly; I’d have bet money that the Wilmonts would have hated the novel. Of course they knew it was loosely based on them (everyone knew that; after all, I’d said it in People), and it was not exactly a loving tribute. Critics had called the book “a vicious, razor-sharp indictment of America’s super-wealthy”; Amazon reader reviews just said, “I couldn’t put it down!!!!”
“Do you think I should go?” I asked Lauren.
“What, are you kidding me? Damn straight I think you should go. You’ve talked forever about wanting to get past those estate gates. Now they’re handing it to you, and you’re asking if you should go?”
She was right. I’d have to book a plane—
“They’ll handle all your travel arrangements, by the way,” Lauren added.
I told her to give them my address. The official invite arrived by courier the next day. There was a card in a foil-lined envelope, first-class round-trip plane tickets, and a little handwritten note about how they’d love to see me. The note was signed “Madelyn.”
As in, Madelyn Wilmont, one of the wealthiest women on the planet, and the basis for the matriarch in The Rich Are Different. I’d made her older in my book—in real life she was only forty, not fifty-something. I’d imagined what it would be like to meet her, get to know her… be her.
Five years ago I wouldn’t have hesitated. But five years ago I was still married to Derek. Then I’d found Derek at the office Christmas party kissing his secretary nowhere near any mistletoe, and divorce had followed. I was just thankful we’d had no children to permanently fuck up and I was still young enough to conceivably find someone else.
Except… I hadn’t. I’d tried a few dates, but my confidence was shot. I felt middle-aged (at thirty-four), overweight, dowdy, despite the best clothes book royalties could buy. I knew rationally that I wasn’t, but… well, seeing your husband with his tongue halfway down the throat of a woman you never considered especially attractive apparently had some unexpected side effects.
So I’d buried myself in my work instead. It had paid off: I’d given up the celebrity pieces for EW and gone into novels. The first one, Paper Cuts, had been well reviewed and just barely successful enough that I was given a contract for a second book. That one had been The Rich Are Different, and it had scored big-time. The advance had provided a generous down payment on a house in Chicago’s suburbs. The movie option had allowed me to pay off the house. Lauren had joked with me about being rich enough to be different.
Of course, that’d been a year back. Since then my writing skills seemed to have migrated with my physical self-image. I spent too many days scrolling idly through social media instead of working on Book Number Three. My editor was concerned. Lauren was concerned. My ex-husband was… well, getting blow jobs from his secretary.
I spent too many hours telling myself I wasn’t a failure. I might have gotten lucky once, but I was incomplete, purposeless. Friends (all married) told me I needed a man. I scoffed, we laughed… and then I went back to the house, where I lived alone, and tried to tell myself it wasn’t like that at all.
Maybe a visit to the Wilmonts’ would reinvigorate me. What the hell. I wrote back to the email address on the card and told them I’d be delighted to come. Someone named Jasmine replied instantly and said she’d add my name to the guest list, plus a limo would be waiting for me at the airport. I’d stay overnight at the Wilmont estate and fly out again the next morning. No presents, please. The date was two weeks away.
I spent those fourteen days fussing and fretting—could I lose weight in two weeks? Should I change my hair color? What would I wear? Were they expecting me to be hipper and younger?
I shopped. I saw my hairstylist (but we stuck with my usual auburn). I didn’t really lose any weight.
Of course, I read up more on the Wilmonts, but I knew most of it. They stuck pretty much to themselves; no reality TV show for them, no trashy affairs with rock stars or DUI busts. They were rarely photographed in public, but when they were, they were beautiful. Given how much money they had, how could they have been anything else? Lennox had the sort of boyish, broad face and floppy dark hair that could have earned him willing women even if he hadn’t been rich. Madelyn was sleek and serious, like a Maserati in human form.
Their wealth had always been something of a mystery. Way back in the 1840s, a Wilmont ancestor had migrated here from the Old World to grow tobacco and cotton. He’d already been well off, but he’d made even more money in America, mainly because he’d also invested in the slave trade, and their assets had continued to accrue. Madelyn was married to a man named Alan Ashton; rumors circulated that he spent most of his time in a wing of the family mansion, drunk and enjoying the company of Prince Valium. They had one son, Grant, who should be sixteen by now, but he hadn’t been photographed in public since infancy. Lennox had never married. Their father, Harris the Third, still ran the family corporation, but he’d spent most of his life living in New York. Their mother had died young of cancer. There were no other siblings.
The big day arrived. I took so long making last-minute decisions, changing outfits over and over, that I nearly missed my flight. I tried to relax in my spacious first-class seat, but I was tense and distracted.
I got off the plane with my bulging carry-on (ridiculous, I know, for an overnight stay) and when the escalators spilled me out into the baggage claim, I saw a man holding a sign with my name printed on it.
I stopped for a second, there at the bottom of the escalators, staring, as other passengers bumped into me. The man holding the sign was at least seven feet tall, with a bulky, stooped frame. A cap was pulled low over his eyes; flat, sand-hued hair spilled out from under it. He wore oversized sunglasses, leaving me to imagine what color his eyes must be, and an overcoat that was too heavy for the southern warmth. For a second I considered turning around, or taking a cab out to the Wilmont estate… but then he saw me and dropped the sign.
Well, I thought, he’s probably great security.
I stepped forward, slowly. He reached one massive paw (his large pink hand had stubby fingers) out and, wordlessly, took my bag. He turned and headed out of the baggage claim. With no other real choice left, I followed.
His limo was parked curbside. He opened the rear door for me, and I was glad to be separated from him by the sheet of glass between the driver and the rear passenger area.
We headed away from the airport. At least he was a cautious driver. I tried not to look at the back of his massive head, square and furry beneath the cap.
It took about forty minutes to reach the Wilmont estate. We left the freeway and got on a two-lane blacktop that wound through scenic hills and lush, wooded valleys before coming to a private drive that began with a guard booth and gate. He waved to whoever was in the booth; as we passed it, I tried to peer through the glass of the enclosure to see who was inside, but it was tinted, opaque.
It was late afternoon as we rolled onto the Wilmonts’ private grounds. The sun was at the horizon, its long rays now silhouetting trees and outbuildings with golden auras. The driver slowed, moving at no more than ten miles per hour. I was wondering why when I saw something running through the trees maybe one hundred feet to the right. It was difficult to see clearly, as it darted in and out of shadow and sight, but I saw enough to know its movements weren’t right—it ran on two legs but loped as if it was off-balance, flailing too-long arms wildly. I couldn’t make out color or facial features, nor even guess at what it could have been. It was so improbable that I wondered if it was some sort of puppet or illusion.