Mortal Friends by Jane Stanton Hitchcock

herself to fit his needs as well as the needs of his family. I marveled at how quickly she understood that Grant wanted a wife who would not outshine him as his heritage had always done, but who would also complement that heritage by fitting neatly into the Bolton clan and advancing its interests. Knowing how much Grant valued his parents’ opinion, Violet also courted them almost as skillfully as she courted Grant—particularly his mother, Lorraine “Rainy” Bolton. Grant always wanted to please his parents, daunting as that task often was.
    The fact that Rainy Bolton liked Violet right off the bat was a huge plus. Rainy considered herself an infallible judge of character. She was renowned for her snap judgments about people. Her word was law to Grant, who once said to me, in all seriousness, “Mother can’t admit she’s wrong, therefore she never is.”
    Violet knew how to be deferential without appearing sycophantic. Rainy loved it that Violet was so community spirited, yet she didn’t put herself forward in any way. In Rainy’s eyes, it was important for her son to marry a substantial person, but definitely not “a show horse,” as Rainy termed people who flaunted their accomplishments. Rainy was the star of the Bolton family, and she was determined to remain so. Rainy didn’t like me on sight, and she immediately took to Violet. Grant, eager to please his mother, took to Violet too. His mother’s approval may have been the decisive factor in his decision to marry her.
    Back in the day, I never could have imagined that my handmaiden in boarding school would become my queen in real life. Our roles had totally reversed. I sometimes think that had fate been kinder, or had I been less picky, I, not Violet, would be Mrs. Grant Bolton now. But fate had other plans for me, and as my divorce lawyer used to say, “You must start from where you are, not from where you wish you could be.” And right now, I was in debt and hoping for a phone call from a man I knew to be Lothario incarnate. Not the greatest place in the world—but not the worst.

Chapter 7
    L ater that week, Violet came into the shop with Cynthia Rinehart in tow. It kind of irked me to see them so palsy-walsy together, but I understood that Violet had a weakness for celebrities, and Cynthia was definitely the celebrity du jour. Celebrity or not, however, Cynthia seemed to understand that Violet was socially influential, a good person to cultivate if you wanted to break into the older, more permanent social circles of Washington, which included most of the city’s big philanthropists.
    I figured the two of them had come in to browse around, but in fact they’d come with a definite purpose in mind. Violet proudly announced to me that Cynthia had just bought Gay Harding’s old house. I was stunned.
    The late Gay Harding, heiress, philanthropist, and kingmaker, was the last of Washington’s great grande dames. Her locally televised funeral at the National Cathedral some years back was tantamount to a state occasion. Set back on six acres of prime real estate on R Street, her house had been sold to a dot-com billionaire from Virginia who never moved in. It had been discreetly on the market for the unheard-of sum of fifteen million dollars for a couple of years now. This purchase was clearly part of the tsunami Cynthia was riding into Washington.
    I congratulated Cynthia and told her how much I loved that house. At which point, Cynthia asked me if I wanted to decorate it for her.
    “Violet says you’re the best,” Cynthia said. “And that’s good enough for me. You interested?”
    This was like asking a starving person if they’d be interested in a banquet. Violet knew all about my financial woes, of course. She’d offered to help me on several occasions, but I wouldn’t hear of it. The “neither a borrower nor a lender be” credo had been drummed into me since childhood by my parents. However, Violet knew full well that a big decorating job