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I want to say that I would believe it, since Dianna Moon’s barroom brawls are legendary, but I am either too afraid or too polite or too pissed off at Hubert right now to say anything, so I just nod and light a cigarette, which Dianna grabs out of my hand and begins smoking rapidly with large gestures. “I nearly cut a bitch’s tit off once, did you know that?”
“Actually, I didn’t,” I say, lighting another cigarette, figuring that surely even she can’t smoke two cigarettes at the same time. “It’s true,” she says. “Bitch wanted to sue, but Norman and me, we had the biggest most powerful lawyers you could get in show business.”
She sits back against the gray leather seat. I stare at her, unable to help myself. Her face is at once beautiful and ugly, the ugly part being original and the beauty the result of skilled plastic surgeons. “Yep,” she says. “Everybody loved Norman. I mean everyone. The first time I saw him on that movie set—it was in the desert—I knew I’d seen Jesus. And everybody else knew it too.” She turns to me and takes my hand. “That’s why I love Jesus so much right now, Cecelia. I love Jesus because I’ve seen Jesus. Right here on earth. He was only here for a short period of time, just enough to make three movies that grossed over a hundred million dollars. But he touched everyone, and once he’d touched everyone, he knew it was time to go back up to heaven. So he went.”
“But—didn’t Jesus consider suicide a sin?” I say, wondering how much more of this I can take and if Hubert and Constance are having lunch and whether or not it’s some secret love-nest lunch place that they go to practically every day where Hubert says things like “I love you, but my wife is crazy.”
Dianna stares into my eyes. “He didn’t commit suicide, Cecelia. Norman’s death, as you may have suspected, was a complete mystery. No one knows exactly how he died. They don’t even know what time he died. . . .”
“But surely,” I say, “modern medicine . . .”
“Oh no,” Dianna says. “Modern medicine is not as modern as everyone thinks. There are some things even the doctors can’t figure out. . . .”
Yes, I can’t help thinking, and you are one of them.
“Like the fact that his body wasn’t found for four days.”
“And,” I say, unable to help myself, “weren’t parts of it missing? Eaten by wild animals?”
Dianna looks out the window. “That’s what everyone thinks,” she says finally. “But the truth is . . . the body parts may have been carried off by . . . special disciples.”
Oh dear.
“I’m almost certain my husband is having an affair,” I say.
“And these special disciples, they’re really . . .”
“With Constance. That bitch.”
“. . . they’re like angels, sort of. Sent down to kind of watch over him but . . .”
“And I really don’t know what to do about it,” I say.
“. . . the fact is that several people, I mean several people, think these special disciples are some kind of . . .”
“I suppose I have to think about divorce.”
“Aliens,” Dianna says.
I just stare at her.
She leans toward me. “You do believe Norman was Jesus, don’t you, Cecelia? Please say yes. Please. Because I really want us to be best friends. I could use a best friend in this town, you know?”
Luckily, at this moment the limo pulls up in front of Cipriani’s.
After a more-than-usual amount of fuss, we’re shown to a table in the front of the restaurant by the window. There are whispers all around us: “That princess . . . Cecelia . . . who’s that woman?. . . Oh, Dianna Moon . . . Norman Childs . . . Dianna Moon and . . . Luxenstein . . . Prince Hubert Luxenstein . . . dead, you know. . . .” And I know this will be an item in Page Six tomorrow, especially when I look up and see D.W. staring at me from five tables away, waiting for me to catch his eye so he can come over. He’s sitting with Juliette Morganz, the “little girl from Vermont” who’s marrying Richard Ally of the giant Ally cosmetics family at the end of the summer, at the A
lly estate in the Hamptons.
The waiter comes over, and Dianna nearly slugs him when he attempts to place her napkin on her lap, but the brawl is averted by the appearance of D.W. He leans over and, in what is commonly called “syrupy tones,” says, “My dear. What an absolute delight to see you. I can’t imagine anyone I’d rather see more. You’ve made my day.”
“Dianna Moon, D.W.”
Dianna lifts her face to be kissed, and D.W. complies, kissing her on both cheeks. “Yeah,” she says. “What do the initials stand for?”
“Dwight Wainous,” I say.
“I was Cecelia’s first boss,” D.W. says. “Years ago. Since then Cecelia and I have been great, great friends.”
