Sisters

On Sabrina's thirty-fifth birthday, she and Chris had gone away for the weekend, and he had given her a beautiful gold Cartier bracelet that she never took off her arm. Things were, as always, comfortable between them, although he was sleeping over less often than he had when she lived alone. She reminded him regularly that it was only for a year, until Annie got adjusted, and he rarely commented or complained. The only thing that got to him occasionally was Candy wandering around the house half naked, oblivious to the fact that there was a man in their midst. So many people saw her naked or at least topless during couture shows or on shoots that she didn't really care. But he did. And although he loved them, their flock of dogs occasionally got on his nerves. That and the lack of privacy, with Tammy now living on the same floor. That was challenging for him at times.

The only thing that unsettled all of them was the man Candy came home with in early November, when she got back from a three-day shoot in Hawaii. Sabrina said she had read about him. Tammy had never heard of him, and Annie said he gave her a creepy feeling, but since she couldn't see him, she couldn't pinpoint why. She said he sounded phony, like Leslie Thompson when she had visited their father with the pie. Kind of drippy and oozing sweetness, as Annie put it, when he had something else on his mind.

He said he was an Italian prince and he had an accent, Principe Marcello di Stromboli. It didn't sound real to Sabrina, and they were all shocked to realize that he was forty-four years old. Candy said she had met him the first time in Paris, at a party Valentino gave, and she knew another model who had dated him, and said he was very nice. He took Candy to all the trendy hot spots in New York, and some fabulous parties. They were in the tabloids almost immediately, and when Sabrina questioned her about it with a worried look, Candy said she was having a great time.

“Be careful,” Sabrina warned her. “He's a very grownup guy. Sometimes men his age prey on young girls. Don't just go off somewhere with him or put yourself in an awkward situation.” Sabrina felt like the anxious mother hen of all time, and her baby sister laughed.

“I'm not stupid. I'm twenty-one years old. I've lived alone since I was nineteen. I meet men like him all the time. Some of them are a lot older. So what?”

“What do you suppose he's after?” Sabrina asked Tammy with a worried look a few days later. They had been in W, several tabloids, and on page six of the Post in the past two weeks. But there was no denying that Candy was a famous model, and he was a familiar socialite in New York. He had a famous mother who had been a well-known Italian actress. And he had a title. Princes were in high demand in lofty social circles, and made people overlook a multitude of sins. He had come to the house several times to pick Candy up, and treated her sisters like the maids who opened the door. He didn't even bother to speak to Annie, since she couldn't see how devastatingly handsome he was. And he was indeed remarkably attractive and aristocratic looking and exquisitely dressed in a European style. He wore beautiful Italian suits, perfectly starched shirts, sapphire cuff links, a gold ring with his family's crest on it, and his shoes were custom made by John Lobb. And with Candy on his arm, he looked like a movie star, and so did she. They made a dazzling couple.

“You don't suppose it's serious,” Sabrina asked Tammy in a panic one night after he'd picked her up in a black Bentley limousine he had rented for the evening. Candy had been wearing a silvery-gray satin evening gown and silver high heels. She looked like a young queen.

“Not for a minute,” Tammy said, without concern. “I see men like him in the movie business all the time. They go after famous actresses, supermodels like Candy. They just want an accessory for their narcissism. He's no more interested in Candy than he is in his shoes.”

“She said he wants to meet her in Paris next week when she's there on a shoot.”

“He might, but it won't last long. Someone bigger and more important will come along. Those types come and go.”

“I hope he goes soon. There's something about him that makes me nervous. Candy's such a babe in the woods. She may be one of the hottest models in the world, but underneath all that gorgeousness and glamour, she's just a child.”

“Yes, she is,” Tammy agreed. “But she has us. At least he knows we're around, like parents, keeping an eye on her.”

“I don't think he gives a damn about us,” Sabrina said, still worried. “He's a lot slicker than we are. And we're no one in his world.”

“I think Candy can handle it,” Tammy said confidently. “She meets a lot of men like him.”