"No one is as beautiful as my wife," said Hunter, looking at me lovingly.

Hunter's return last night had not, through a conscious effort on my part, been marred by the seed of doubt Lauren had planted in my mind about the pendant. (So what if Sophia was sending boho-glam Christmas cards. It didn't mean a thing.) I had decided to remain optimistic about the jewel-and my marriage. Hunter would produce the trinket at Christmas, I was sure of it. He'd gotten home late last night, looking tired but well, and given me a wonderful cream fur stole that he'd bought when he'd stopped off for one day in Copenhagen. We'd sat up late watching Letter-man, catching up, and making out.

Between kisses, I gave Hunter a rambling account of the Moscow trip, and told him how Lauren had decided to fall in love, inconveniently, with an engaged man. Hunter was intrigued by the story and asked endless questions about why Lauren liked Giles so much and what I thought of the two of them as a potential couple. Of course, I reminded Hunter, they couldn't be a couple-he was getting married. Lauren was right, I thought as I'd drifted off in bed later that night. There was no point saying anything about that photo of him with Sophia in London. I fell asleep, contented, in Hunter's arms.

Now, there's nothing like a Christmas card depicting blissful family life to drive a stake straight through the heart of even the merriest divorcee. About a week after Thanksgiving, Lauren called, completely freaked out. Louis, her ex, had sent out a card with a picture of himself, a strange woman named Arabella, and their newborn son, Christian. Lauren had seen it on Alixe Carter's mantelpiece, and flipped.

"We've only been divorced four months!" she cried. "He hasn't even had time to meet someone, let alone have a child. It must have been going on before we separated. I can't believe it."

What incensed Lauren most was that the photograph had obviously been taken in one of the Royal Suites of the Gritti Palace in Venice. Louis and his new family looked rather like a clan of minor royals posing for h.e.l.lo magazine.

"He just had that kid to upset me," said Lauren, in a moment of monumental self-obsession. She found their blatant display of happiness to be "completely unacceptable. It's so...nouveau riche. Christmas is ruined."

At this point Lauren went into divorcee crisis mode. Louis's Christmas card so disturbed her that she was rumored to have been spotted wandering down Gansevoort Street in her nightdress and socks at 3 A.M. one night looking for Louis. She received invitations for Christmas to Cuba, Rajasthan, and Palm Beach-and accepted all of them. Finally, she fell into a deep depression because, try as she might, she couldn't complete her challenge: she couldn't seem to nail down Make Out Number Three, or connect her own surround sound, despite spending nine hours one Sat.u.r.day attempting it.

"Even Sally Rothenburg agreeing to sell me Princess Letizia's heart hasn't cheered me up," she complained miserably to me in a room full of beaded dresses at an uptown Christmas c.o.c.ktail party one night. "Louis has wrecked Christmas for me this year. I'll never recover. I honestly think the stress has given me an incurable disease, like polio. Can you get me another gla.s.s of champagne?"

For a girl with polio, Lauren's recovery was miraculous. The day after the c.o.c.ktail party, Lauren received a hand-delivered note from Giles Monterey. It read: I am in town. Meet you Grand Central Oyster Bar one o'clock Thursday to exchange. Regards, G. M.

A meeting with Giles was just the thing to cheer Lauren up, though I hoped her infatuation with him was pa.s.sing. He was not available, and even if he had been he was too elusive for my liking.

Lauren's aesthetic preparations for her business meeting, as she called her a.s.signation with Giles, were, she said, more labor-intensive than those for her own wedding had been. Her main obsession was that her makeup artist achieve perfect "Hooker Eyes," the secret of which was black kohl flown in from Egypt. After careful consideration, the outfit selected consisted of Lauren's favorite skinny cream pants, a feather-light black knitted mink jacket, and, underneath, a cobweblight tulle top. She left her hair loose and wavy, having decided, on the basis of no evidence at all, that a blowout wouldn't appeal to Giles. She called me every thirty minutes that morning to report her progress, makeup-, outfit-or mood-wise, the latter of which I can report was violently upbeat. She left her house at 12:15, accompanied by a discreet security guard hired to protect the jewel. Lauren was convinced she was headed for a professional and romantic success: she was determined to get the Faberge cuff links and score Make Out Number Three simultaneously.

You can imagine my surprise when Lauren showed up at Thack's studio at five that afternoon, her face pale and smudged with traces of mascara. She had been crying.

"So much for Hooker Eyes. I look like any old call girl," she said when she arrived.

"G.o.d, you're dramatic, I love it," said Thack when he saw her. "It's so inspiring. I could make you a dress just for weeping in. Emmy," he called out to his a.s.sistant, "make a note: Hooker Eyes for the next show."

"Thanks, Thack, you're a dear," sighed Lauren, dabbing at her eyes with a sc.r.a.p of fuchsia silk from the cutting table. "Gosh, this would make lovely handkerchiefs. Hi everyone," added Lauren, waving at the group of interns embroidering in one corner. They shyly nodded back and stared at Lauren, no doubt just as inspired as Thack by her particular brand of glamour.

"What happened?" I asked, getting up from my desk. It was piled with a stack of paperwork, and I needed a break. "I'm going to order tea for everyone," I said, dialing the deli downstairs.

"He didn't show," said Lauren weakly. She flopped onto the only sofa in the studio, which was overflowing with sample fabrics and the odd sleeve and ruffle.

"Can you send up tea for everyone in the studio? It's Sylvie...OK, thanks," I said, putting down the phone. Then I turned to Lauren. "What are you going to do with the heart?" I asked.

Lauren sighed. Her face was wracked with disappointment.

"Oh, he has the heart, all right. I guess his lucky fiancee will have it soon."

A lone tear squeezed itself from Lauren's eye. It rolled along the side of her nose and stopped on her lip, where it perched, tragically.

"Sorry, I'm such a loser." She half-cried, half-laughed, wiping the tear away. "I don't even know the guy, and look at me!"

Monterey, it turned out, had sent an envoy to collect the jewel. As we drank our tea, Lauren recounted how an immaculately groomed Russian man, probably in his late twenties, Lauren thought, had appeared, claiming he was to take the heart on behalf of Monterey. He had produced the Nicholas II cuff links from a velvet pouch inside his jacket, plus a letter stating the change of plan. Lauren's security guard had handed over the jeweled heart. The whole transaction was over in five minutes, and Lauren hadn't even gotten a raw oyster, let alone a Make Out, out of it.

"I hope Sanford liked the cuff links after all that thwarted romance," mumbled Thack through a mouthful of pins. He was carefully pinning a piece of lilac paper tafetta to a dressmaker's dummy.

"That's the awful thing. I go to all this trouble, and then I show up at Sanford's suite at the Mark and everything just...it was absolutely...awful, awful."

Lauren had, slightly showing off, told Sanford about the escapade to Moscow to acquire the cuff links, but Sanford had cut short Lauren's excited account of Monterey at the polo match.

"It was so weird...like he was jealous or something," said Lauren. "Can I smoke?"

"Just this time," said Thack. "If I can have one too."

Lauren pulled out her little green lizard case and handed Thack a platinum.

"How divine," he said, regarding it and lighting Lauren's cigarette and then his own. He took a drag, then, exhaling, went on, "Of course he's jealous. Sanford's infatuated with you, and you're infatuated with someone who isn't Sanford. Moguls can't take rejection like normal men."

"Then he kissed me," continued Lauren, wrinkling her nose at the thought of it. "Against my will. He was shaking, like he was afraid. But I guess if you've been married for twenty years, you probably haven't made out in forever...it must be terrifying. The whole thing was so embarra.s.sing. He just moved his tongue from left to right, and right to left, horizontally. It was this mechanically weird kissing, and all I could think of was, did he have garlic mashed potatoes tonight? I guess every girl should have a Mogul Make Out once in her life just so she knows what she's not missing."

By this stage, everyone in the studio was hooting with laughter. But suddenly Lauren's cheeky demeanor vanished.

"What happened?" I said, sensing her bleak mood.

"He said if I didn't agree to have an affair with him, the friendship's off."

"How bizarre," I said.

"It's really sad," said Lauren. "I thought he was a really...you know...solid friend."

At this, Thack tutted, shaking his head.

Lauren took a long drag of her cigarette. She looked at me wistfully and said, "He says he wants to divorce his wife and marry me! I can't bear it. I can never see Sanford again. I was so naive, letting Sanford hang with me, and thinking he was cool with only that. He's such a great man, but he's not...Giles Monterey, is he? There's nothing worse than romantic disappointment, is there? I was hoping for a make out session in Grand Central with Mr. Moscow and all I got was a lousy pair of Faberge cuff links and a kiss with a waterbed. This is the worst Christmas ever."

I, on the other hand, found Christmas enchanting this year. It wasn't always so. Christmas as a single girl had become grimmer and grimmer, but now the season seemed delightful, charming. This year I found the midtown traffic gridlock caused by the lighting of the Rockefeller Center tree enchanting, the endless "jingle-bell-jingle-bell-jingle-bell-TARGET!!!" tune on TV filled me with festive spirit, and the prospect of Barbara Walters' Ten Most Fascinating People gave me a warm and mushy feeling inside. Being married made the whole thing bearable: there were no lonely Christmas parties, no wrapping presents alone, no who-am-I-going-to-kiss-on-New-Year-type anxieties. The only thing that occasionally marred my mood was wondering about that sketch of the S. J. Phillips jewel: Hunter had never even mentioned it. Not so much as a hint. As the lights went up all across the city, twinkling white up Park Avenue, glowing a chic pink in the windows of Bergdorf Goodman, I told myself-again and again-that it was destined to be my Christmas present.

Although it was a little early for a tree, I'd bought ours a few days after Thanksgiving from a Vermont family selling trees on lower Fifth Avenue. Hunter and I merrily spent the first Sunday in December decorating the pine with pale pink grosgrain ribbons, old-fashioned clear gla.s.s b.a.l.l.s, and white vintage canaries. (Can you believe ABC Carpet now has a whole section devoted to antique tree ornaments? Obviously, irresistible. Obviously, daylight robbery.) As we did so, I recounted Lauren's latest romantic disaster.

"I feel a little sorry for Lauren now," I said. "I think she really likes this Giles Monterey guy. Can you pa.s.s me that silver tinsel?"

Hunter handed me the glittery decoration, saying, "Very interesting. You think she wants to marry him?"

"She says she isn't interested in marriage and that it's all about business and her Make Out Challenge, but you should have seen her when he didn't show up that day at the Oyster Bar. She was beside herself. I honestly think she'd marry him. If he wasn't engaged."

I sat back and regarded the tree. "Doesn't it look pretty," I said.

"It's lovely, darling. I thought you said Lauren would never marry again," said Hunter.

"This guy, I don't know, it's different. Mind you, if he got all interested and was suddenly available, she'd probably freak out and say she wasn't interested."

"Really," mused Hunter, gazing at the crystal ball he'd just hung on a branch. He seemed distracted, as though he was pondering something. "So Lauren's the type where the more engaged a man is, the more she likes him."

"Exactly," I agreed.

"I don't think she should give up on him. Engaged is not married," said Hunter. "Oh, Christ-I just remembered, I have to call someone."

He left the room, and through the door I heard him mumbling, as if in some conspiracy. Obviously some work call. At seven o'clock he finally reappeared in the drawing room, where I was tying the last bow on the tree, holding a jacket in his hand, saying, "Listen, Sylvie, something's come up. I have to go out tonight."

"But what about Barbara Walters," I responded, disappointed. We'd planned a cozy evening in, watching TV with j.a.panese takeout. "Can't you rearrange? What do you have to do so urgently on a Sunday evening?"

"My old college friend's in town, and I'd arranged to have dinner with him ages ago. I must have forgotten to tell you."

"Not the guy you wanted to set Lauren up with?" I asked.

"Actually, it is him," Hunter replied. He started to pull the jacket on.

"Well, why don't I call Lauren and we'll all go out? It'd really cheer her up. Take her mind off Monterey-"

"I don't think it's a good idea," said Hunter quickly.

Why was Hunter being so strange? Why didn't he want me to go with him?

"You did say once that you wanted to introduce Lauren and your friend. Christmas is the perfect time for dating and-"

"There's no point. Blind dates never work. People who are meant to fall in love do it very well all by themselves."

"But he sounds so cute. Who is he?" I asked.

"He's only here for a few hours, I better run. See you later darling, and sorry about tonight," said Hunter, dashing out.

That was all very rushed, I thought later, as I ate my j.a.panese alone in front of the television. I usually find Barbara Walters to be compelling viewing. Her choices are so bizarre (remember the year Karl Rove was Most Fascinating Person?), her questions so wonderfully polite, that you can enjoy the whole thing immensely if you pretend it's a Sat.u.r.day Night Live spoof. Then, the way Barbara's hair stays the same each year is endlessly comforting. But tonight I felt distinctly uncomfortable, despite Ms. Walters' rea.s.suringly immobile coiffure.

My appet.i.te disappeared. I couldn't even seem to digest my favorite tuna sashimi. Why was Hunter suddenly refusing to introduce Lauren to his perfect college friend? He'd been so excited a few weeks ago about his mysterious buddy meeting Lauren. And why wouldn't he tell me his name? When I thought back over the past few days, the fact was, Hunter had been acting strangely. He'd been spending hours at a time on the Internet. There were whispered phone calls that were suddenly cut off whenever I walked into the room. He responded vaguely when I asked him what he'd been doing. Even stranger, there was no sign of the S. J. Phillips jewel. Whenever I hinted at it, he acted as though he had no idea what I was talking about. When I went around the tree that evening shaking the Christmas boxes (as I do most years), it was apparent that it wasn't there. He must have picked up the necklace by this time, I thought. But where was it? And now this: standing up Barbara W. and his wife, whom he'd barely seen in the past few weeks, in favor of dinner with an anonymous college "friend." On a Sunday! No one ever had anything important to do on a Sunday.

Just as Barbara was about to introduce her Most Fascinating Person, I forced myself to take a bite of the tuna sashimi. Not eating would only make things worse. Just then, my cell phone rang.

"Sorry, Sylvie! You must think I'm the worst, most unreliable movie star ever."

It was Nina Chlore. Predictably, she had failed to follow up on our meeting in Paris and actually be fitted for her dresses, which were hanging in the studio waiting for her.

"Filming in Morocco took an extra two weeks, and there's literally not a phone anywhere in the desert. Can I come into the studio tomorrow for the fitting? With Sophia? We've been missing you so much!"

I almost choked on my tuna. Sophia was back in town. And my husband had just rushed out to meet a "college friend." Maybe Christmas wasn't going to be so warm and mushy after all.

"Sophia's really sorry she can't make it," said Nina when she arrived, on time, the next day at the studio for the fitting. I, on the other hand, was not sorry. She was the last person I wanted to see. "I am so stressed out! I've been offered seven movies! I feel like I'm going to die," Nina went on from behind a screen in the studio as she changed. "I'm twenty-three years old and I feel like I'm sixty-two, I'm so tired."

A few moments later Nina appeared wearing the ruched Grace dress that we'd made up for her in oyster-colored chiffon. It drifted around her body like a breath of air: she looked soft and old-fashioned in it. She gazed at herself in the mirror and then said, "Oh, look at this. This is The Dress for the premiere. Can I take it with me now?"

When Nina was snapped by a paparazzo leaving Thack's studio carrying one of his bags, two things happened: first, the supermarket tabloid magazines went crazy calling us, trying to find out which dress Nina was wearing to her premiere. (The truth was, even I didn't know. Nina had ended up taking four dresses, two of which were loans to be returned immediately after the event, and two of which were gifts from us. She was so secretive she wouldn't even tell Thack which one she was most likely to wear.) Second, every girl in New York suddenly wanted to be dressed by Thack for Alixe's Winter Ball, which was only a couple of weeks after Christmas.

Neiman's sold out of our dresses, and Bergdorf Goodman called and offered Thack a trunk show. If this was the result of a photo of Nina carrying one of our shopping bags, it was clear that an actual photo of Nina in the Grace dress could change Thack's business dramatically. Designers around actresses are a sorry sight. Thack, normally so blase, started twitching every time he opened a magazine and saw a photo of Nina. He perspired when her name was mentioned on TV. His temperature shot up to feverish levels when she appeared in another designer's gown. The Nina Effect, as Thack called it, had hit him worse than avian flu.

17.

Jailbait Make Out.

There is nothing more chic, I swear, than a white Eres one-piece worn on the deck of a 1920s ski chalet in the French Alps. Tanning when there's two feet of snow on the ground, the sky is electric blue, and the sun is beating down at 70 degrees has to be the most luxurious thing ever. I think it's the white-on-white thing. It's insanely flattering, especially when there's a mountain of terry toweling robes and matching slippers to add to the effect.

When Hunter had announced, just a few days before Christmas, that one of his French partners had offered him his ski chalet in Megeve over the holiday, I'd packed in a heartbeat. The quaintest village in the Alps, Megeve makes Aspen look like the Mall of America. There are twisting cobbled streets, scrumptious patisseries, charming boutiques, and an immaculate church square. Our journey had been exhausting-we'd taken an overnight flight to Paris and an early flight the next morning to Geneva, but it was worth it when we finally arrived.

Thick with icicles, our little chalet looked like something from Hansel and Gretel. Inside, the drawing room was furnished with faded sofas and sheepskin rugs, and our bedroom was so romantic I wondered if we would ever leave it. The bed was made up with antique linen, and a fur coverlet was thrown across it. It was better than being in a Ralph Lauren Ski ad. Who cared that I couldn't actually ski?

"It's divine, Hunter," I said, as we dropped our things in the bedroom. We'd finally arrived in mid-afternoon, and the sun was casting its last silvery rays across the pristine mountainside.

A happy smile on his face, Hunter enveloped me in his arms, saying, "Aren't you glad we're out of New York for Christmas?"

"Yes, I am," I replied, excited.

Hunter had been so sweet over the last few days, and looked after me so well on our trip over, that the whole mysterious Barbara Walters episode started to seem unimportant. Now that we were here, in this beautiful spot, the concerns of the last few months dissipated. Just then there was a knock at the bedroom door. A maid appeared with two chocolats chauds on a tray and an envelope addressed to me. I opened it and read, Darling Sylvie and Hunter, You won't believe it. I am next door in Camille de Dordogne's chalet. Come for c.o.c.ktails tonight?

x.x.x Lauren Lauren, predictably, had flaked on all three of her Christmas invitations. At the last minute she'd decided to spend the week with Camille, a beautiful, thirty-seven-year-old French countess. Camille was famously happily married to Davide de Dordogne, a banker, to whom she'd lost her virginity at seventeen in the Palace Hotel in Gstaad ("I wouldn't consider mislaying it anywhere else," she always says). She married him six weeks later, and her three children were now virtually adults. She ran a chic porcelain store in Paris and loved matchmaking her friends. With Camille's help Lauren was determined to complete her Make Out Challenge on the slopes.

"I'm hoping Camille can hook me up with the Monaco son," Lauren told her friends. "Don't you think Andrea Casiraghi would be the perfect Number Four? I may even consider marrying him. One offer I can't turn down is Princess Lauren of Monaco."

Hunter and I drove over to Camille's chalet early that evening-we were tired, and to be honest, fond as I was of Lauren, I didn't much feel like socializing after our long flight. We decided to drop in briefly, and then go back and snuggle up together in that heavenly, fur-covered bed. Chalet Dordogne had been built by Davide's family in the 1920s and was half hidden up a steep mountain lane.

Camille greeted us at the door. She was pet.i.te, and dressed in wide tweed pants and a pale blue satin blouse, which hinted at a milky decollete. How do French women pull off that bourgeois-s.e.xy thing so well, I thought, as I regarded her wonderful outfit. She was an oxymoron-so conservative, yet so provocative at the same time, like a modern Romy Schneider.

"Ah, bon soir. Mwah. Mwah. Mwah. Mwah," she said, clutching my shoulders and kissing me twice on each cheek. She then repeated the exercise with Hunter. "Welcome."

The drawing room had a high, arched ceiling with an ornate galleried balcony leading to the bedrooms. The house was bulging with guests and children who were gathering around the fireplace for pre-dinner drinks. Just as we arrived, Camille's husband, Davide, appeared. Neatly dressed in a white shirt, moleskin pants, and loafers, he was the very picture of the suave European banker on vacation-BlackBerry on hand at all times.

"Vin chaud?" he asked.

"Mmm! Merci," said Hunter.

Davide poured a couple of gla.s.ses, and we all lounged on sofas by the fire.

"Lauren brought that amie Marci with her, which is no good at all," said Camille, with a little frown.

"Why?" I asked, sipping my wine. It was warming and delicious.

"Marci isn't a good influence. She just wants to party, like a teenager. I have told Lauren, she's been through enough. She must make an executive decision to marry a rich man. None of her friends want to see her suffer."

"Lauren would hardly suffer if she didn't marry a rich man," Hunter remarked.

"No one suffers more than a rich woman with a man who isn't-"

"-Sylvie! Hunter!" came a voice from above us.