Page 70 of Meant to Be

CHAPTER 18

Cate

In our deal with Eduardo andPeople,selling them exclusive rights to our photograph, they agreed to play by our rules and print only what we wanted them to print. Which is to say the most basic information about me. Name, age, hometown, job title, and a reference to the fact that I had once been an Elite model. And, of course, there was a quote from a fake Kingsley insider declaring us an official item.

Joe’s plan worked to a T. Our relationship was legitimized overnight—hell,Iwas legitimized—and it was impossible not to find that gratifying, and, if I admit, a little exciting.

Of course, the elevation to Joe’s legitimate girlfriend came with a price, as everything in life does. I was no longer anonymous—which was one of the things I’d always loved about the city. I mourned my sudden loss of the privacy that I’d taken for granted for so long, even during the peak of my modeling career. I’d never been a known name like Cindy, Christie, or Elle.

I was maybe being a little paranoid, but I felt as if I was constantly being watched—on the subway, in the park, everywhere. Even when I wasn’t, I feared that I would be at any second. I could never let my guard down, and it was physically and mentallydraining to know that I was always one headline away from being exposed as an impostor. As in:High-School Dropout Dupes America’s Prince.

I decided I needed to tell Joe the truth about not finishing high school before the press found out first, so I worked up the courage one night as we made dinner in his kitchen. The fleeting look of shock on his face crushed me, though he quickly recovered, saying all the right things. It was a painful, mortifying couple of minutes, but it also felt like a weight had been lifted. I was so relieved, in fact, that it crossed my mind to confide everything about Chip’s abuse and my real reasons for leaving home. Ultimately, though, I decided against that, just as I had with Wendy in high school. I’d rather be judged than pitied, especially because I understood that the latter doesn’t necessarily immunize one from the former.

A few days later, Joe invited me to the Hamptons for the upcoming weekend. His mother and Berry were going to be there, and he wanted me to meet them. I said yes, trying not to overthink things, which was difficult to do when Curtis kept peppering me with giddy questions.

“What are you going to take as a hostess gift?” he asked me a couple of days before our departure as the two of us hung out at my place.

“I don’t know,” I said. The thought hadn’t crossed my mind—which worried me. What else could I be forgetting?

“Well, you need to nail that.”

I nodded, then said, “I can’t go wrong with a nice bottle of wine, can I?”

“Yes, ma’am, you most certainly can go wrong with a bottle of wine. Depending on the bottle,” Curtis said. “Besides, wine as a hostess gift is a cliché.”

“Sometimes things are cliché for a reason,” I said. “Wine feels like a safe choice.”

“It’s not the time to be safe,” Curtis said, shaking his head and pacing around my bedroom. “You’re having a moment, and you need to seize it.Amplifyit. Make a statement.”

“Alrighty, then,” I said. “How about a bottle of champagne?”

“Too presumptuous.”

“A bottle of pastis?”

“Too French.”

“Dottie’s half French.”

“Butyou’renot. So it’s pandering…and can we please think beyond alcohol.”

“Okay. How about a nice scented candle?”

“Ugh. A candle? That’s more cliché than wine. And anyway, scents are too personal.”

I sighed and asked for his suggestion, which I should have just done to begin with.

“I don’t know…. But it needs to be expensive…yet not comeoffas obviously expensive. Like one of those home goods that catches your eye…until you pick it up and get sticker shock.”

I nodded, thinking that it was the reverse of the usual rule of thumb—to have something look more expensive than it was.

“Think ABC Carpet & Home—notBarneys or Tiffany,” he said.

“Well, yeah. Obviously notTiffany,” I said, picturing the absurd overkill of showing up with a blue box and white silk ribbon.

“It can’t be a known brand, but it needs to signalluxury…like a fabulous serape-stripe Turkish robe that’s chic enough to double as a poolside cover-up.”

I laughed, amused by his specificity. “Oh, sure. The serape-stripe Turkish robe, of course.”

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