A Kept Woman (25 page)

‘Fifty per cent,’ he said. ‘In the meantime, you’ll need to live on whatever budget you can. Please keep records of everything.’

‘H1 be sure to,’ Diana said, faintly.

She hung up.

Diana looked around her with disbelief.

The rental apartment was small and cramped. Instead of antique furniture and delicate oriental rugs, the dcor seemed to b,e right out of Ikea. Red-brick walls decorated with black-and-white posters of babies and tall houseplants in’terracotta pots. There was a small television, and a kitchenette - she wouldn’t call it a kitchen .- with a microwave, a fridge and precious little else. When she said, ‘Where’s the dishwasher?’ Rita, her potential roommate, just laughed.

Her bedroom - the one the letting agent had boasted about - looked out over a gas station on Tenth Avenue. It was cramped and contained a single bed, in functional pine with a white cotton coverlet.

‘I like the bedspread,’ .Diana lied. ‘Where did you get it?’

Her prospective landlady examined her Lee Press-on nails and said, ‘K-Mart. Half price, in the sale.’

‘That’s great,’ Diana said weakly.’A bargain.’

‘Si, bargain. Like thees apartment.’ Another quick once-over of her nails. ‘Only thousand a month, one month deposit payable in advance.’

Diana almost crumpled with embarrassment, but she knew she had to do this. ‘A thousand is too much. Nine hundred is all I can manage.’

zo9

Rita looked up from her nails and fixed her heavy

lidded eyes on Diana. ‘I got three other people who want

the place. For thousand.’

‘Yes, but they’re flaky. I’m quiet, and responsible.’ Rita considered. ‘Eef you will clean up whole flat, each week, I say nine hundred. I like English people. Very clean. I like also clean.’

Diana swallowed. She glanced round the train wreck

of the living room: empty Domino’s pizza cartons, beer cans, make-up towelettes and two overflowing ashtrays. There were probably cockroaches. Then she thought of the bad news her lawyer had delivered: she had little or no case. Her best hope was to refuse to grant a divorce, and hope that Felicity was so desperate for a ring that she would get Ernie to up his settlement.

At any rate, she had no money, and this was at least a Manhattan apartment with her own bedroom and a working washing machine.

Diana was just too proud to go crawling back to England, or take charity from Claire. ‘That’s a deal,’ she

said.

Diana moved three cases of clothes into her bedroom. She had no room for the rest of them. She had to pay to put most of her stuff into storage, another expense she could barely afford. After she’d unpacked, taking everything meticulously out of its tissue-paper wrapping, she had four suits, five dresses, six shirts, four pairs of pants, and only four pairs of shoes. It was heartbreaking.

‘So many clothes!’ gasped Rita, eyeing her suspi ciously. Nobody with such clothes should live in a place like this. They must be knockoffs, or else the English girl had stolen them. ‘I never seen such nice things.’

‘Thank you.’ Diana forced down the retorts that came to mind. Her snobbery would have to take a back seat. She needed this place.

ZIO

‘Yes, well. I show you clean stuff. Come.’

Diana followed Rita’s ample bottom into the kitchen where a filthy bucket containing a mop, a brush and a dirty washcloth was shoved under the exposed sink.

‘I don’ have Roach motel,’ Rita commiserated. ‘We need get new one. Anyway, I leave now. You clean.’

She picked up some ugly-looking candles with pictures of angels on them and squeezed out of the door in a waft of cheap perfume and cigarette smoke.

You can do this, Diana told herself, swallowing down the lump of tears that threatened to rise in her throat. Sure, it’s shaming to be cleaning up filth on my own, but I live here. It’s either that or live in a dump like this.

For five hours she scrubbed and” swept and washed filthy dishes. She collected three bags full of garbage, and struggled dawn six flights of stairs to the groaning dumpster .at the back of the building. The tiny Hoover sucked up so much dirt that the burgundy carpet turned out to be bright magenta. Diana tied a towel over her nose and mouth, and beat the rugs out of the window while clouds of dust billowed up, choking the pigeons.

It took her for ever, but when she was done, the tiny apartment was clean. Under the piles of rubbish she’d discovered a tatty leather couch and one armchair. The floors were hardwood, maybe she could persuade Rita to throw out the revolting rug. Even the air seemed cleaner and fresher now that she. had sucked out so much filth. She threw out some of the ugliest plants, certain her new roommate would never notice. Exhausted, Diana peeled off her dirty jeans and T-shirt and crept to the shower room to rinse herself off. There was no bath, of course. That was a luxury she was going to have to live without.

Shattered, exhausted, miserable, Diana slunk back into her tiny, hot little bedroom, stretched out on the coverlet, and shut her eyes. She was asleep when her head hit the pillow.

She rang nobody. What would she say? ‘I’m living in Hell’s Kitchen, I’ve been fired from my job and my marriage, and I clean to make part of my rent?’ No, it was too humiliating. She’d get herself a new job, Diana decided. She had youth, class and a certain notoriety. Maybe she couldn’t afford the best restaurants and the charity lunches any more, but she wasn’t going to let that beat her. She was Diana Foxton - still - and she had a brain.

Saying little, to Rita, Diana swallowed her pride and went back to every magazine that would see her. Every

place she went she heard the same story. ‘We need current experience.’ ‘We’re looking for younger girls.’

‘We have no vacancies at this time,’ the sickly sweet Vogue personnel officer assured her, ‘but we’ll be sure to check back with you when something turns up.’

She tried other places. Even publishing houses. She got little for her trouble but blisters and stares. Wasn’t that the ex-wife of Ernie Foxton? Diana sat there and sweated olat the horrors of the interviews, the snide comments, the pointed questions. Working for a swiftly shut subsidiary of Ernie’s didn’t seem to count for anything.

‘Yes, well. It wasn’t real work, Ms Foxton.’ The people at HarperCollins were polite enough, but the woman here was telling her the same story. ‘The company receives hundreds of applications each month from college students and other qualified personnel who’ve formerly worked here.’

‘I see.’ Diana gazed despairingly into her lap. She had eaten humble pie for weeks now, and what good had it done her? Maybe she should give in and take Ernie’s paltry cheque. Maybe she should crawl back to London with her tail between her legs. The curse of Hello! strikes again.

‘Can I make a suggestion?’

The polished young woman across the desk was giving her the first kind smile she’d seen in days.

‘Sure.’ Diana shrugged. ‘I’ll listen to anything at this point.’

‘You need contacts,’ she said. ‘Some friend that’ll give you a job. Because nobody else is going to hire you.’

Diana managed to make it three blocks away before the tears started. The lump rose up in her throat, like a betrayal. Every morning she got up, washed her hair and

made up with costly cosmetics that she wouldn’t

be

able

to replace when they ran out.

It got harder and harder to keep.her head high. None of her former friends would talk to her. Natasha seemed always to be out when she called. She’d left four unreturned messages for Jodie and five for Laura before the nasty’truth sank in. She was a pariah, and none of them wanted anything to do with her. Except Claire, of course. Claire had always told her she could get a job on her own. Somehow going to Claire and begging for help would be worst of all.

She refused to call Ernie. Partly out of pride, partly because she wasn’t sure he’d take her call. Diana imagined being put off by his secretary. ‘I’m sorry, Mrs Foxton, he’s not available. Can I take a message?’

She shook her head. It.would never come to that. Nor

was she going to run back to Daddy. What

laugh

Felicity Metson would have over that.

There was a Starbuck’s on the corner of Fortieth and Park. Diana ducked into it and ordered herself a large cup of black coffee with a sweet shot of Amaretto. She took it to a corner table in the shadows, and decided to consider her options. If there were any.

Papers for the customers hung on wooden racks. Absently, Diana lifted the News, and stared in horror at Rush and Molloy. Her own face, beautiful, sorrowful,

was staring out at her from the grimy newsprint. She was looking exhausted and was entering a subway station.

Next to it was a snap of Felicity, wearing a long Calvin Klein evening gown - how conventional, Diana thought dressed up with a diamond necklace and long drop earrings. Enough ice to sink the Titanic. Ernie, in a ridiculous tuxedo and cummerbund, was at her side. They were attending the super-prestigious New York Literary Lions bash - one of the charities, Diana remembered, feeling sick, that she’d been asked to chair. OUT WITH THE OLD, IN WITH THE NEW, read the headline.

Nobody can say Ernie Foxton doesn’t practice what he preaches. The slash-and-burn downsizing in his company obviously extends to his marriage. “Former society queen ‘Lady’ Diana is now taking out her subway tokens, while new Fox flame Felicity M. sparkles brighter than the fourth of July. Diana’s reportedly scrabbling for a job, too. We say good luck to her. If you can make it here, you can make it anywhere!

Oh my God, Diana thought.

‘Are you OK, hon?’

The waitress was hovering with her refill. ‘You look kinda pale.’

‘I’m fine.’ To prov it, Diana sipped at her sweet coffee. ‘Thank you.’

‘If you’re sure,’ the woman said, melting away. Tears of shame and humiliation prickled in Diana’s blue eyes, but she forced them back. No way was she about to break apart in public, and no way was she going home. There was a bubbling knot of anger in her stomach. Goddamn Felicity! She visualised Felicity laughing at her with the other girls. Her small fist curled into a defiant ball on the table.

will get a job, Diana vowed, even if I have to wait tables.

What had all those women said?

No experience. No references.

Diana looked out across Park Avenue, at the rich society matrons and the dog walkers, the doormen standing outside co-op buildings, several of which she had reviewed and rejected. That was her world; not this! She flipped through the paper, barely seeing any of the headlines. It was something to keep her from breaking down in public. The English were all about the stiff upper lip.

Suddenly she stopped. In the busi.ness section, which she never read, there was a tiny headline, tucked away in the bottom le, ft-hand corner of the page. AFTER THE EGGS

… THE BACON.

Which young entrepreneur - for all of five minutes - is starting again? In the same East Wllage digs he busted out of barely a month ago? Ah well … easy come, easy go, Michael. We hope East Eleventh isn’t too much of a drop from the multinational midtown tower…

Her heart jumped. It was him. It had to be him. Diana’s fingers curled round her coffee cup. Michael Cicero had done nothing but be rude, crude and obnoxious to her. Was she desperate enough to go asking for his help?

A breeze ruffled the edges of the paper, flicking it back to the picture of her. Once again, Felicity’s diamonds glittered mockingly up at her from the black-and-white ink.

She picked up her bag and stepped out onto the street to hail a cab. No more goddamn subways.

I

‘There’s nothing we can do, Mr Cicero.’ John Motta, the Italian lawyer who was assigned to him, at least gave him the courtesy of an explanation. ‘Grenouille and Bifte aren’t employed directly by Blakely’s, so there’s no obvious conflict of interest. You said you signed a

disclosure and explanation policy form.’

‘She lied to me. Straight up.’

‘Right, and she’s probably getting a backhander from their main lawyers. Difficult to prove. It would cost you plenty, and we wouldn’t take a case like this on contingency. Too tough to win.’ He smiled, showing one gold-capped tooth. ‘Suing lawyers is always a mess.’

Michael sat there. ‘You’re telling me they can take my work, my company, my fonts, my illustrators and my contacts, and I can’t do a thing about it?’

‘Zip. They had you believing you were in partnership, correct?’

‘Damn right.’

‘You never were. You were an employee until the bonus phase kicked in. They terminated you just before that happened, without prejudice.’

Michael got to his feet and paced around the plush offices, looking out at the financial district spread before him to the south. In the soothing, air-conditioned atmosphere of Greenbaum and Fischer, he was hearing these calm words telling him his dream was dead.

‘It seems prejudiced enough to me. I have to start over. With nothing.’

‘A legal term.’ Motta bit back a smile. He admired the man’s anger and passion. A pity none of it was tempered with realism. Foxton had done a major number on this boy.

Motta, usually very detached, was sorry he had to drop a few more bombshells.

‘You had a no-compete clause, good for one year.’ ‘And?’ Michael asked, his voice dangerously soft. ‘That means you can’t start again. Not children’s publishing. Not children’s books in any form. Plus, Seth Green, and your other creatives - they can either work for Foxton, or not work at all. At least not in the book business. If they want to be illustratgrs, they have to wait a year to do it for you.’

Michael’ heart did a slow flip in his chest. That was it then. He could not take a year off work. Game, set and match tooFoxton.

‘I’ll call Seth,’ he said after a few moments. ‘He has to draw. Stopping him drawing would be like stopping Pedro Martinez from pitching.’

The lawyer nodded. ‘I’m sorry we couldn’t help.’ ‘Not your fault.’ Michael turned to leave, then stopped. ‘Just one last question. Am I barred from working in