Career Girls (26 page)

As director of the East Coast, he was responsible for editorial policy. As Topaz Rossi’s line manager, he was responsible for her actions. And as a board member living with one of the staff, he’d better be damn sure he didn’t get any wires crossed.

‘I value you and I value Topaz,’ Gowers had said dryly. ‘And what you do in your spare time is nobody’s business but yours. Except when it interferes in our affairs. You should have seen this and stopped it, Rosen. Don’t let it happen again.’

‘No, sir,’ Nathan said, nodding.

It was his textbook nightmare, come to life.

‘No we cannot talk about it later!’ he roared, suddenly Westside’s editor again, faced with an impertinent junior. ‘Later is personal! This is business!’

He wrenched open the door. ‘I hope to hell you can separate the two of them, Topaz,’ he said, ‘Because we don’t have a future if you can’t.’

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Rowena threaded her way through the crowd to Joe, precariously balancing two large vodkas on the rocks. CBGBs was only half full, the narrow corridor of the club still giving her space to breathe. Not like a week ago, when Atomic had played a warm-up gig to start the tour. Tonight she could actually see Velocity, the new band, onstage, as well as hear the dark, brittle frenzy of their movement. It pounded through the club, hard as diamonds, heavy as lead.

Joe was slouching against one of the far walls, which was papered with flyers. She could see the intent expression on his face as he watched the band, carefully, the way one musician watches another. Rowena felt happiness wash through her. This was what made it all worthwhile. A dark club, a great band, optimism, music. To the kids in the crowd she was just another girl, a pretty student type from NYU. They accepted her as one of them, without comment, and she loved that.

‘What do you reckon?’ she asked .Joe, handing him his drink.

‘I think you should go for it,’ he replied, not taking his eyes off the stage.

, ‘That’s what I think, too,’ Rowena said happily.

They were both too engrossed with Velocity to notice the short, unassuming brunette a few paces behind them, watching them both and making notes.

On his way home - he and Topaz never left the office together - Nate Rosen was struck by a pang of remorse. Topaz’s stricken face when he threatened to break up with her had been on his mind all day: He saw something that had been absent from her personality almost as long as he’d

known her.

Fear.

The Topa.z Rossi he knew was not about fear. She was about stupid risks, naked aggression and brilliant journalism. She was about imagination and a refusal to give up. The Topaz who’d shot down David Levine. Who’d surprised the whole board by creaming Joe Goldstein for

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Economic Monthly.

That vote, he remembered guiltily, had been unanimous, not just cast by him. And the sales figures on the title showed what a great job she was doing. True, maybe Joe could have done better, but it would be close.

Topaz had changed from the pushy kid he’d first hired. No doubt about it. Ever since ‘NY Scene’ had been syndicated, she’d grabbed her success and hung on to it with both hands. It was like the eighties had never finished: Chanel, St-Laurent, Dior. Bright colours, high heels and lots of jewellery. Interior-designed apartment. Joy perfume. A black Porsche 91 Turbo. Rolex. Patek Philippe, and dinners for two at 2 and the Four Seasons.

She was different in the office, too. At first she’d settled in slowly to her role as editor of Girlfriend, testing the waters, being cautious and polite to the staff. But as it became clear that Topaz’s ideas in the dummy she’d produced were good ones, ones-that worked in practice, she started to change. Overriding the old features editor. Personally designing new layouts. Sometimes even yelling at the staff writers.

The approach had caused outrage. Who was this Italian kid in her early twenties who thought she could show them how to run their magazine? With her colourful clothes and her board director boyfriend, the girl had had one scoop and thought she was Si Newhouse. Resentment was high, but so was the new circulation. Topaz, finding herself in charge for the first time in her life, had apparently turned into Attila the Hun in couture. She stuck rigidly to her guns and if her authority was challenged she fired the challenger. After the third month, she started firing people anyway and replacing them with younger, hipper, mort tale.nted journalists and photographers. Topaz Rossi was intent on making Girlfriend the best and when staff called her a loudmouthed Italian bitch she just shrugged.

‘Whatever it takes,’ was her attitude.

Nobody interfered. Topaz was selling magazines and she was selling ads and she was keeping down costs. It had been her idea to use teenage models for the cover, and from the’

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second she’d sat down in the editor’s office, Girlfriend had never employed another supermodel.

‘They cost too much. They’re too thin, too famous and a bad role model for the American teenager,’ she told the editors’ meeting. ‘Girlfriend readers like Janet Reno, Nancy Kerrigan and Winona Ryder.’

Nathan remembered it now, the sensation of pride and lust he’d had Watching her give it to them, standing there in a dark green tunic by Gianfranco Ferre, the simplicity of the dress countered by an armful of glittering glass bracelets from Butler & Wilson. Amongst the army of sombre dark suits and the occasional neutral dress, Topaz had stood out like a sore thumb encrusted with rubies. Joe Goldstein had remarked to Nathan later - apparently forgetting their relationship - that Topaz used her beauty like an offensive , weapon.

‘And we will never run another advert featuring Kate Moss,’ Topaz went on, daring anybody to contradict. ‘Anorexia isn’t glamorous.’

At which point every man in the room had involuntarily looked up and down her own incredible curves until Nathan hal hastily thanked her for her presentation, and called on Richard Gibson at White Light to give his report.

Rosen shifted in his seat, feeling his anger dissolve and the first stirrings of desire take its place. Every guy at American would give a month’s wages to trade places with him for five minutes, and he knew it. But Topaz was his. She wanted him. Not only that, but she’d pursued him relentlessly. It was flattering.

And he’d been in therapy long enough to see some of what was causing this heady materialism, this need for display and aggression. Topaz was nervous and scared. It was a classic reaction; the girl was hiding her insecurity behind fitted Versace, and her terror behind naked aggression. She was worst of all with Joe Goldstein; Jesus, those two were such competitors now it was almost a joke. The unstoppable force and the immovable object.

The gaudy clothes? That was simpler still. Not that she

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didn’t look great in them - a girl like Topaz Rossi could carry that look with ease. But she used to dress in a far simpler, less attention-grabbing style and he could date the change exactly from the night of Elizabeth Martin’s party: when Topaz had worn a Chanel sheath and that Rowena Gordon girl, the record executive, had turned up in a huge sweeping ballgown, with spectacular ruby earrings.

Which also explained her fury over the way Atomic Mass had shot to stardom. And her pain this morning when he’d threatened to break it offwith her.

Topaz Rossi had been rejected by her father and betrayed by her best friend. No wonder the poor kid was bruised. It was insensitive of him not to remember that.

Rosen picked up the car phone and dialled Meilenick’s, the exclusive Fifth Avenue florist. Fuck business. Fuck Matt Gowers. Topaz was his girl, and he was happy about that. Still.

‘If you want them, go get them.’

‘I can’t, Josh. I don’t have a budget authorized yet,’ Rowena said, shivering. The heating in Luther’s offices had given up the ghost, and she was beginning to feel like her American career was, too. How could I have been this disorganized? Rowena thought. First I can’t find a band. Then I get sick with worry over finding a band and now, because I neglected to hire a good accountant, I can’t sign the fucking band.

She felt totally incompetent. Jesus, maybe she was just a talent scout. Obviously there was more to running even a small company than that and she wasn’t sure she had what it took.

‘The money I’ve been allocated so far was for leasing space, hiring an assistant, basic overheads… I don’t get any more until there’s a solid financial plan with sales projections.’

‘You should have completed that by now, Rowena.’ She was silent.

‘I might have known it wouldn’t be a social call. OK,’

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Gordon, I’ll see what I can do.’

Her boss sighed; she could hear the faint scratching of his pen, making notes.

‘Hans Bauer hated giving you this job in the first place, you know. He’ll really love me for insisting on an emergency A&R budget for you.’

‘If we want Velocity, we’ve got to move,’ she said. ‘They won’t stay secret for ever.’

‘Goddamnit, I’ll go as fast as I can!’ Oberman growled. ‘Just make sure you don’t lose the act. I don’t want you making a fool of me.’

‘I’ll get them,’ Rowena promised him. ‘You just get me a budget.’

He grunted. ‘By the way, I saw a tape of the Oprah show. Pretty funny. Did you put him up to that?’

‘No, it was a surprise,’ Rowena answered, smiling a little. She’d enjoyed Joe doing that for her. Topaz could see where her pathetic attempts at revenge would get her. From what little she knew about journalism, that would have caused her some embarrassment. Good. Pushy bitch, the English girl thought, glad to have someone she could openly dislike.

0’Has that girl been causing you problems?’ Oberman asked.

Rowena drew herself up a little in the shabby room. Embattled, ignored and struggling in Manhattan, her sense of class superiority came right back to her.

‘She’s nothing. Topaz Rossi is the least of my problems,’ she said with contempt.

Nathan Rosen thrust again, savotring Topaz’s low moans. His hands moved gently over her swollen nipples, and he lapped at them softly with his tongue, tugging them and pulling them into full erection. Her hands were all over him, stroking, clutching, sometimes reaching under him to trail her fingers gently over his balls, in that way that drove him crazy. He refused to be hurried, and for once she wasn’t rushing him. They both enjoyed slow, bridge-building sex like this that lasted for hours and ended in long-dra.wn-out

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orgasms as relaxing as a scented bath. This was Nathan’s pace, not Topaz’s. But she was happy to give in to him tonight.

Topaz moved under her partner, her supple body keeping pace with his rhythm. She smiled into his eyes, feeling tenderness, mild arousal and the relaxation of tension. She hadn’t wanted to lose Nate. He was her family, and family was important. He was the first person truly to care for her and not just lust after her. That was worth a little sexual incompatibility. She kissed his shoulder, remembering yesterday, when flowers from Mellenick’s, chocolates from Godiva and vintage champagne had all been delivered to the house and they’d made love on the kitchen floor to celebrate.

‘I love you, Topaz,’ Nathan gasped, feeling his whole body bathed in a pre-orgasm sweat. He glanced down at her superb breasts, pressed hard against him. ‘Oh, God, I love you. I low, you,’ and she murmured, ‘I love you too,’ knowing that he was coming, nowhere near climax herself, but wanting him to come, wanting him to be pleased, wanting him to love her.

‘Ohhhh,’ Rosen groaned, erupting inside her with a surge of white-hot bliss. Topaz put her arms round him, holding him to her, kissing the handsome line of his jaw, until he eventually, reluctantly, pulled out of her. He rolled offher and lay in the bed next to her, feeling like a young lion.

She was so giving, so generous in bed. Compared with Marissa’s tight-assed sufferance of his pleasure, Topaz was Mother Earth and Venus rolled into one.

Her only fault is to want too much of me, Rosen told himself; with a flash of vanity. The idea pleased him. Put like that, her overdemanding attitude to” sex - as he saw it - wasn’t so bad after all.

‘Will you marry me?’ Rosen asked suddenly.

‘Do you want to?’ Topaz asked, surprised, propping herself up on one elbow to look at him. Her red hair tumbled down her back and her breasts thrust themselves towards his face. Incredibly, Nathan sensed the renewed’

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stirrings of desire.

He suppressed his misgivings. ‘Yes I do,’ he said. ‘Absolutely.’

Topaz felt her eyes fill with tears. She’d never expected him to ask her so soon; to have a successful career, be a wife with a loving husband, maybe even a mother - it was exactly what she’d dreamt of.

Now all she had to do was to find some way of dealing with the two things that still bothered her. Joe Goldstein, her newest rival, still with one more magazine than she had and still determined to block her career at American Magazines. And Rowena Gordon.

Maybe her recent humiliation had been her own fault, but then she’d been Careless. And unsubtle. Flinging insults at a

band that were already on their way was futile, as well as ‘ obvious. No, she wanted to really do Rowena some harm.

Topaz had done a fair amount of research on her situation at Musica and she knew that it wasn’t as secure as it looked. She also knew that Rowena was having trouble signing a band. And that Atomic Mass were getting pretty wild on tour. There had to be some possibilities there. Topaz didn’t want Rowena to just fail to make it and go home-she had to help her to fail. Yeah, sure, she knew nice girls didn’t pursue

revenge. They forgave and forgot.

Fuck that. She betrayed me.

Topaz smiled at Nathan, putting Rowena from her mind. ‘The answer is yes,’ she whispered, and kissed him.

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‘Married?’ demanded Joe Goldstein. He pushed back his chair and stood up, black eyes luminous with anger. ‘Married? To Topaz Rossi?’