Career Girls (27 page)

‘Who else?’ Nathan replied coolly. He hadn’t expected this reaction from Joe. American Scientist, Week in Review and Executive Officer were all flourishing now that Goldstein had moved to New York, and he had taken good care to see that Topaz was never unduly favoured over Joe. Goldstein was still fa-eourite to succeed Nathan to the board. He thought he’d made that clear.

‘Is that what she wants?’Joe asked. He was struggling to contain himself, so great was the rage sweeping through him. Topaz Rossi marrying Nathan Rosen? It was all wrong, totally wrong. His old mentor was thinking with his dick and Rossi wasjust a stupid child. Either that or climbing the ladder horizontally.

‘I guess so,’ Rosen answered.

‘Well, I hope you’ll be happy,’ Goldstein said shortly.

‘Thank you,’ Nathan Ro’sen said, looking at his protdgd with a new wariness.

‘Married! Now you tell me!’ Gino Rbssi sa.id, his disapproval echoing down the phone. ‘Is he Catholic?’

Amazing, thought Topaz, how much this still hurt. She called her father for the first time in years, to tell him she was getting married, and all he could say was ‘Is he Catholic?’ No ‘How are you, where have you been?’ Even fury would have been preferable to this total lack of interest in her life anger would have meant he gave a damn.

207

‘No, Poppa, he’sJewish,’ she replied.

‘A Jew! My daughter is marrying a fucking Jew? How did

we bring you up, for you to be - ‘

Topaz slammed the phone down, feeling the shame and rejection all over again.

Thank God I got away from them, she told herself fiercely, determined to ignore the dull ache in her heart. Nate Rosen was marrying her and he hadn’t seen anything to despise. She glanced at her reflection in the door of her office: a pretty blue dress, elegant shoes, ethnic bangles.

Good enough for Nathan, good enough for anybody.

Her assistant buzzed her. ‘It’s John Aitken.’

‘Show him in,’ Topaz ordered, her mind switching gears.

If John had come through the way she hoped, the scores would be settled and there’d be one less thing on her mind.

‘ ‘Well?’ she asked, as the journalist walked into her office. His Rage Against the Machine T-shirt was crumpled and his eyes were bloodshot, as though he’d been up all night.

‘I’ve got something,’ Aitken said, handing her a sheaf of dirty notes.

Topaz tore through them, her mind racing. When she’d finished, she looked up at him with an expression of pure triumph. ‘Can we run with this now?’ she asked.

‘There’s a launch party for the album in a fortnight, at Madison Square Gardens, ‘ John told her. ‘If I were you I’d wait. This is a real killer.’

Topaz thought about it. Maybe she could wait. This would be the second punch in a one-two jab at Rowena that would put an end to her unfinished busiiess with that woman.

She’d had the first real break yesterday night.

‘Can you see what I’m getting at?’ Tiz Correy had yelled in

her ear.

Tiz was setting up the October issue, and Wanted her boss

to come with her and check out a scene-the new industrial music in New York, epitomized by bands like Cop Shoot Cop, which was attracting a new wave of young, p!ssed-off

208

female punks, art students and assorted misfits. Topaz had vetoed the idea at once. She didn’t think that was what Girlfriend readers were looking for - more like lipstick, fashion and Beverly Hills 9oeIo.

‘It will made a great feature,’ her staffer repeated angrily. ‘You should trust me, Topaz. I haven’t been wrong before. All you think about these days is impressing the guys over at Economic.’

Topaz flinched. ‘That’s not fair.’

‘It is. OK, look: you come check out one of the bands, they’re playing CBGB’s tonight, have a look at what I’m talking about for yourself. If you want to kill the story after that, fair enough. Is it a deal?’

Topaz, trapped, nodded. ‘What’s the band?’

‘Hot new group, no record deal. They’re called Velocity.’ ‘Never heard of them.’ ‘You will.’

‘Can you see what I’m getting at?’ Tiz yelled in her ear. ‘These girls are wild! We run something like, “She’s a Rebel” and a few shots of this mayhem crowd stuff, a list of the bands, a picture of Axl Rose…’

‘I like pictures of Axl Rose,’ Topaz yelled back, knowing what was indisputably good for circulation. ‘OK, Tiz, it’s your call. Run whatever you want.’

She gestured at the stage, where Velocity’s female bassist was hammering out a blitzkrieg run. ‘Is this stuffpopular?’

‘What, are you kidding me? This band is the edge of the cutting-edge.’

‘You were always the rock fan,’ Topaz shrugged.

To her, it sounded like meaningless white noise designed to make the ears bleed. But that was why he’d given Tiz her head on the article. Tiz Correy was only twenty; she could remember what it was like to be fifteen. Topaz, on the other hand, was twenty-four and starting to forget; and anyway, even at fifteen, she would never have gone for this.

‘The rumours about them are hot,’ Tiz enthused.

‘Really?’ Topaz enquired politely, not giving a damn. “

2O9

She’d paid her dues, now she wanted to go home. Yes, the girls in the audience would take some interesting pictures. Yes, it might make a good feature. Enough! Do I have to endure the whole show? she wondered.

‘Oh yeah. The guy behind the bar told me your Rowena Gordon was here last week. She’s been to see them a few times now, and he noticed her talking to the manager last time she was here.’

Topaz turned to face her, slowly.

‘Are you telling me Rowena Gordon wants to offer this band a record deal?’

‘Does it matter?’ Tiz asked, surprised at her boss’s sudden intensity. ‘Sure, I think she does. Like I told you, they’re cutting-edge, real new and hot. I expect she wants to get

them for Musica before that situation changes.’

‘Can she do that?’

‘I don’t know, I’m not a record company executive. I guess so. Wasn’t that how she got Atomic Mass, signing them up before word got out?’

‘Tiz, you’re a genius!’ Topaz exclaimed.

‘What? Are we doing a profile on Rowena Gordon?’ Tiz asked, thoroughly confused. ‘I thought you didn’t like her. The female anarchy thing will make a better piece.’

Her boss ignored her. ‘Will the manager be here tonight?’ ‘Probably. Do you want an introduction?’

‘Yeah,’ Topaz said, grinning. ‘We can’t have a cutting edge band like Velocity snapped up for next to nothing, can

we?’

She smiled at Tiz. ‘You like the band, right? If I arrange for you to write a large guest feature in White Light, do you want to introduce them to Manhattan?’

‘Of course!’ said her features editor, excited. ‘If I do it tonight, we could make their Thursday edition.’

She looked back at the stage. ‘I could start a bidding war for these guys!’

‘Exactly,’ said Topaz.

‘So did you get the tape?’ Rowena asked Michael.

210

‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘I got it this morning. I didn’t get a chance to listen to it yet.’

‘Well, hurry up,’ she said. ‘I want to know what you think.’

‘What if I hate them?’ Tm signing them anyway,’ Rowena said firmly, ‘because I think they kill. A bloke called Andrew Snelling manages them; he’s a sharp guy, very good with money. We’re exchanging contracts on Friday.’

‘How did you come up with a budget?’

‘I got Josh to wring some emergency funds out of the board.’

Krebs laughed. ‘You must be everyone’s favourite little girl.’

‘Hey,’ she said defiantly, TII sign the act, they’ll be a flagship band for this subsidiary, and Holland will stop concerning themselves with my ability.’

‘Babe, yoga have nothing to prove to me… I’m sure you’ll sign them, if you want them.’

‘Of course I’ll sign them,’ she said. ‘No one else has even heard of them.’

Joe Goldstein sat in his office at American Scientist, seemingly staring into space.

From time to time his secretary looked through the blinds, but knew better than to disturb him; when Mr Goldstein closed his door and stared at the air like that, it would take Wall Street crashing Or a new cure for cancer to rouse him.

Joe was deep in thought. His office was situated high up in the building, and the gleaming skyscrapers of Seventh Avenue towered everywhere outside the hree glass walls of the room, but he was impervious to urban beauty today. Today he was wondering about his future. He had made a grave error ofjudgment-underestimating a rival-and had, he felt, been humiliated in front of the entire company by failing to add Economic Monthly to his portfolio of business titles. Possibly for the first time in his life he was discovering

2II

what it felt like to fail. It was not an experience he wanted to

repeat.

The worst thing, though, was that Nathan Rosen had

voted for Topaz. That was something he just could not

understand. It was Nate, after all, who’d brought him into

.’!

the company in the first place, become his close friend, and

eventually acted as his mentor. It was also Nathan who had

engineered his transfer to New York, and considering that

Rosen had become the director for the East Coast, he’d kind

of counted on his vote.

In fact, forget ‘kind of’.

And yet, and yet, and yet, Goldstein mused. Topaz had

performed quite brilliantly. He remembered as if it had been

yesterday the way his heart had sunk as he’d listened to her

pitch, and if he was honest, he might have voted for her too.

But now Topaz was going to marry Nathan.

He couldn’t work out why this annoyed him so much,

but he’d found it hard even to be civil to Nathan this

morning. In fact, since he’d found out when he first got here

that the two of them were dating, Joe had seen his long

standing friendship with Nathan go down the tubes. And

when they’d moved in together, a week before the Economic

Monthly pitch, it had disappeared completely. He started

turning down all Nathan’s invitations to drinks or baseball

games. He went with buddies from his own titles or he

picked up women for company.

And he worked. He worked his balls off. For all Topaz

Rossi’s flamboyance, Joe Goldstein still edited one more

magazine than she did and he still submitted business

memos to the board. She wasn’t the only one who could

push up circulation. American Scientist and Week in Review

had both posted record figures this month.

Joe knew he’d made a fundamental error with his pitch. It

was readers and revenue that counted, not content-content

of a magazine was the means, not the end. It was the bait.

Topaz had demonstrated that and it was a lesson Joe was

determined not to need twice.

The next time they set a title up, Goldstein thought

212

darkly, there won’t even be an open pitch.

His mind strayed back to Topaz Rossi. No male rival had ever got him going like this, but then no male rival had ever looked like that girl. Maybe that was it. It just didn’t sit well with him to see an attractive woman so goddamn obsessed with the nine-to-five. Or the eight-to-ten, in her case. He’d heard that outside the office Nathan and she didn’t have much of a life.

Not for one second did it occur to Joe that the same thing was said about him.

He flicked through yesterday’s Westside, noting the article on some odious-looking band called Velocity - distinctly not Goldstein’s speed. ‘ When he wanted to hear music he generally headed for the Lincoln Center. There was a pullout quote by the writer, Tiz Correy, pointing out that Rowena Gordon, the girl behind Atomic Mass, was looking to sign them up.

Joe recognized a clarion call to every other player when he saw one. He wondered if Gordon had them inked on the dotted line yet, because if not, she didn’t stand a prayer now. Assuming it was true, and she was interested in the first place. But he was inclined to believe it.

He scanned the article again. There was no mention of Topaz Rossi anywhere in it.

Joe smiled grimly. As if that mattered.

Nathan Rosen walked up the steps to his house at half-six, carrying a small package from Cartier. It was a cool evening, a light breeze rustling the tops of the trees in his street. You could almost Call it quiet.

Topaz was waiting for him in tlie kitchen. There was a silver candlestick on the table, and the soft light from its flame was the only illumination in the room. Dinner for two was set with their best porcelain, a bottle of his favourite Perrier-Jouet champagne chilling in an ice bucket and small heaps of caviar glinting on their plates as starter. She’d served it just the way he liked it: neat, no messing around with. chopped egg or blinis. Perlman was playing Beet- “

213

hoven’s Violin Concerto gently on the stereo.

Rosen stopped at the door, struck with the perfection of the moment.

His fiancee was wearing a muted, floating full-length gown in dusty blue chiffon, which flowed round her curves like cream. Her hair was pinned up in a formal style, swept back and secured with a tortoiseshell comb. She had no

jewellery, nothing to spoil the line.

She took his breath away.

‘I brought you something,’ Rosen said, walking up to her and handing her the box.

She opened it, smiling at him. Inside was an engagement ring, a cluster of sapphires exquisitely set on a band of white gold.

‘I love you,’ Topaz told him, kissing his cheek, then his mouth. There were tears in her eyes as he slid the ring on to her finger.

‘Are you sure you want to do this?’ Rosen asked her. ‘Be with me, I mean? Even though I’m so sedate, so laid-back? Are you sure I’m not too slow for you?’

She shook her head and kissed him again. ‘Things are ,going to be different now,’ she told him. ‘I’m going to relax. Be less uptight.’