Side Dish
SIDE DISH
MERCEDES
If he strayed from his wife with you, what makes you think he won’t stray from you with someone else?
—A GINGER
1978
By 1978, Mercedes was living the Sex and the Single Girl life. She had plenty of money, plenty of time, and while she didn’t have plenty of friends, the regular Gingers—as opposed to those who were rotated out every few weeks—sufficed.
And it was one of the regulars whom she turned to for advice as her twenty-fifth birthday loomed. Worried that Stapleton would be looking to be reimbursed for the apartment once her trust kicked in, Mercedes—who had distanced herself from all family ties, including Aunt Fifi, lest her patron discover the truth about her inheritance, or lack thereof—needed help.
While she never offered the Ginger any specifics, she did share that she was supposed to reimburse Stapleton some monies he had laid out and was worried that she would be unable to do so, since her funds were tied up overseas. They were at a café in the West End splitting an apricot tart. The Ginger, packing a fresh box of Viceroy cigarettes against the table, was confused.
“You’re supposed to pay him back?” she asked.
Mercedes nodded.
“Has he asked for the money?”
Mercedes shook her head no, but worried it was just a matter of time.
“The Earl of Sussex,” the Ginger said, taking one of the cigarettes out of her pack, while signaling to the waiter that they were ready for the check, “is worth something north of forty million pounds. I wouldn’t worry about whatever funds he’s laid out.” She studied Mercedes, lit the cigarette, and took a long drag. “But you need to be more forward thinking,” she advised, explaining that Mercedes needed to worry less about debts owed, and more about a future secured. The check came and Mercedes reached for her wallet, but the Ginger paid. “I got this, luv,” she told her, putting money down and standing to leave. The Ginger knew what she was talking about. While no beauty, the tall, curvy twenty-nine-year-old brunette did the best with what she had. She had been with her partner for less than eighteen months and already had a flat in Kensington that dwarfed Mercedes’s tiny apartment in Mayfair, and a proposal of marriage, which she had yet to accept. As they walked home she confessed that she honestly wasn’t sure she was going to. Unlike Stapleton, her patron was not nearly as well set, and she liked keeping her options open.
“Here’s the thing,” she told Mercedes as they walked, “if he strayed from his wife with you, what makes you think he won’t stray from you with someone else?” They stopped at a corner, and the Ginger looked at her younger protégé. “Don’t worry, darling,” she said. “He’s not going anywhere. Yet. But you need to be a little smarter.” Reminding Mercedes that the good Lord of Sussex was twenty-six years her senior, she warned that the advantage belonged to Mercedes, and she shouldn’t let him get too comfortable. “He needs to fear that you might start looking elsewhere, luv. Understand?”
Of course Mercedes understood, but the thought hadn’t occurred to her. Not really. She had spent the last six years accommodating his every request. Even when he had suggested occasional threesomes with a rotating Ginger while an associate, some friend from Parliament who was barely a Thurston Howell, watched from the corner until he joined in. She recalled being both repelled and drawn to this strange grouping and groping with body parts intertwined like a game of Twister. It was comical and quizzical, but she liked the way Stapleton liked it, the way he looked at others look at her.
“It’s time to make him work for it,” she told Mercedes, adding that if she played her cards right, he’d never let her go.
They parted ways and Mercedes, contemplative, walked alone, unsure of the terms she wanted, but certain she had left too much on the table.
The next day when Stapleton, who had been in Sussex visiting the boys, arrived at her flat, Mercedes wasn’t there. This was strange behavior. Usually she’d be home waiting, and they’d go out to eat or to a film or both. She always carefully planned for their first night back together. It had been this way for years. So, her absence was unusual. Perhaps, he thought, she had gone to her aunt’s house, or possibly met a friend for dinner. But he realized he didn’t know her friends or her aunt. He didn’t even know the aunt’s name or where she lived. The only relative he could contact was her sister, Lucille Goldstone, and they hadn’t spoken since Mercedes refused to move back to Australia. The Goldstones, who now had a daughter of their own, had become estranged from Mercedes, and Stapleton, fearing their judgments, had encouraged the separation.
He felt suddenly helpless, and rather stupid. How could he not know where she was, and how could she be so careless and thoughtless not to check in?
He waited. Anxiously. All night long.
The next morning Mercedes came home without explanation. She greeted Stapleton with a kiss on the head and then went to shower and change.
“Where have you been?” he demanded, following her into the bathroom.
She told him she’d been to the theater the night before and had seen Hair.
“They’re all naked,” she said, smiling. She began soaping up in the shower, casually explaining that she’d had too much to drink and spent the night with a friend.
“I don’t understand,” he said, unable to process her cavalier statements.
Then she grabbed a towel and walked to the bedroom. “I’m sorry, darling, but I’m terribly late.”
“For what?”
“A job interview,” she said.
Stapleton’s head was spinning.
“I’ve always wanted to get into interior design,” she told him, slipping a colorful Pucci mini dress over her naked body.
“You’re not wearing anything underneath,” he said.
“I never do, silly,” she said, winking. She grabbed her sunglasses and a bag before he stopped her, demanding to know exactly what the hell was going on. She calmly explained that a friend had recommended her for an interior design job, and she very much wanted to take it. It would involve some travel, she told him; the firm had projects in France, Italy, and the States.
He grabbed her by the wrist. “I forbid it,” he said, “I absolutely forbid it.”
She freed herself and looked at him, shocked, as he realized he had gone too far. He tried a different tactic.
“Darling, you don’t need to work. I provide for you. If there’s anything else you want, just let me know.”
She stopped, kissed him gently, and said, “My independence.”
She had changed on a dime.
He hadn’t expected it and was both terrified and paralyzed by the thought of losing her. Vacillating between depression and anger, he tried to find his way in this new version of his life but already missed the old one profoundly.
“Have you fallen out of love with me?” he asked. It had been two weeks since she’d made her declaration of independence, and now he sat on the white leather swivel chair in her small flat, looking somewhat pitiful and broken.
“It’s less about you and more about me,” she told him, explaining that Sir Rodney had invested much of her trust, and she was tired of being dependent on Stapleton or on anyone.
And that’s when he told her that he wanted to take care of her. Forever.
The following week he went to Lady Elaine and demanded that the charade of their marriage end, confessing his love for someone else, someone he wanted to marry.
Mercedes Baxter, the bastard daughter hidden away in the bowels of life, a side dish no longer, was soon to become Lady Mercedes Stapleton.