restaurants where she’d gone with Ed, where she had to wear a nice dress and high heels. But he was older, and moved in a different crowd. His wife was known to be one of the best dressed women in New York, which set a standard Coco couldn’t match. But she had youth and her natural beauty on her side, which Ed preferred.
By the end of her first week at Time, Coco was starting to feel comfortable and confident in her job. She and Sam had FaceTimed several times, she showed him around her tiny house. He was impressed. The rooms were small, but it had a cozy atmosphere with a sense of history to it, and there was a fireplace in every room. Central heating had been added a century after it was built, and it had been modernized since. She told Sam she was going to a party on Saturday night. It sounded like fun to him, and he was happy for her. He had a date with Tamar Weiss that night himself. He’d been out with her a couple of times since Coco left.
When the day came for the party, it was still pouring. Coco wore a black sweater and jeans, and high heels. She had her long dark hair loose down her back, and she wore a heavy raincoat. She ran to find a cab on the street nearest her house.
By the time she got to Leslie’s apartment in East London, about forty people were already there. They were a good-looking group of young people, mostly in their thirties, and Coco guessed that she might be the youngest person there. Everyone greeted her warmly when Leslie introduced her and Coco said she was freshly arrived from New York. They asked where she had been working before, and she explained that she was officially still a student at Columbia, but had gotten the job through the Time bureau in New York.
“They must have been desperate to get rid of you, or thought you were fantastic to send you to us,” a handsome blond man in his early thirties teased her. His name was Nigel Halsey-Smythe. He was very handsome and seemed intrigued by Coco. He was obviously taken by how beautiful she was. “I’m a younger son,” he rapidly explained with a grin, as he handed her a glass of wine after introducing himself. “In our system here that means a fancy name and no money. My older brother got it all, so he’s got the family seat in Sussex, the estate, and the title, and I’m left to eke out a living. I sell advertising upstairs at Time. We’re paid mostly on commission, which means that if we go to dinner, you’ll have to pay. Although you probably make less than I do, so we’ll have to go to parties at art galleries with champagne and free hors d’oeuvres.” He was funny and she was touched by his honesty about his situation. In the British system, younger sons often had no money. The eldest brother got everything, while everyone else had to struggle and got nothing. As they talked, she learned that he had gone to Eton, the best boys’ boarding school in England, and Cambridge, one of the finest universities. He also mentioned that he was thirty-three years old. He said he’d never been married, although his older brother had been married twice. “Younger sons are not in high demand,” he said, pretending to be mournful, and they both laughed. He introduced her to a dozen other people. There was a plentiful buffet with Indian food, and she noticed that the caterer was pouring good French champagne. The assembled group, which grew in size rapidly, was an interesting mix of aristocrats, working-class people, mostly from the magazine, and a number of foreigners, including a group of Italians and two very pretty French girls who worked for British Vogue and looked like models themselves. They had a cluster of men around them at all times. Coco felt like a bumpkin compared to them. Nigel saw to it that she met nearly everyone, and they settled in a corner on a couch with some others to talk.
“So how long are you here for?” he asked her. He had made her the focus of his attention for the evening so far, and went through the buffet line with her. He seemed mesmerized. They were balancing their plates on their knees, as Leslie continued to greet