Power & Beauty (19 page)

“So you’re all set,” said Solomon. “All I need is your cell number and I’m on my way.”

“And what are you going to do with my cell number?”

“Invite you to dinner at our place. Then once you’re in Miss Ward’s good graces—which will be soon—I’ll get you to invite me to dinner over here.”

“And if I refuse?”

“You’ll lose your only friend in New York City.”

“I can’t afford to do that,” Beauty said with a smile.

“You certainly can’t.”

Beauty read off her number while Solomon entered it in his phone. Before he left he kissed her on both cheeks. “Stay focused,” he said.

“On what?” Beauty asked.

“Fashion. It’s all about fashion.”

Beauty spent the rest of the afternoon unpacking, neatly folding her things and placing them in the chest of drawers that stood across from the single bed. She carefully hung her clothes in the closet and then decided to sit in the living room and look through the magazines and books on the coffee table. Everything was about fashion—a history of Coco Chanel, the legendary French designer; a biography of Valentino, the famous Italian couturier; and an elaborate photography collection devoted to the work of Japanese-American artist Isamu Noguchi. Beauty got lost in the Noguchi book, her imagination enflamed by the boldness of his graceful lamp shades and landscapes. She was on the last page when she heard the door open.

Beauty’s first thought was that Anita Ward looked like a little bird—an injured bird. She was severely bent over and walked with the aid of a cane. The extravagant handle of the cane was polished gold and gave her a queenly demeanor. She peered over at Beauty—it was impossible for her to stand up straight and look her directly in the eye—and gave a nod and a small smile.

“Wanda was right,” said Anita. “You are stunning.”

Beauty rose. “Oh, thank you. Thank you for inviting me, thank you for having me, thank you for putting up with—”

“You mustn’t go on, my dear. You are most welcome here. I am lonely in the evenings and have longed for company. Moreover, Wanda tells me you are a girl of wonderful manners and great kindness.”

“I love your place, Miss Ward.”

“You must call me Anita.”

As the lady slowly walked to the armchair that faced the couch and carefully sat down, Beauty could see her face more clearly. Her skin color was medium brown, the same shade as her smallish eyes. Everything about Anita Ward was small. Her hands were delicate, her legs thin. She wore a knitted suit of black-and-white checks that Beauty considered extremely chic. She also wore a beautiful black hat that tilted to one side.

“So have you eaten, my dear?” Anita asked.

“Solomon and Amir gave me this Jordanian dessert.”

“Solomon and Amir?”

“The man you sent to pick me up.”

“Oh, yes, Solomon Getz. A lovely man, even if somewhat pushy. In the world of fashion, though, who isn’t pushy? Wasn’t I? And won’t you be?”

Beauty didn’t answer. She didn’t know what to say.

“Of course you will be pushy,” said Anita. “I’m afraid it’s either push or get pushed. Well, for today I’ve pushed enough. I’m going to clean up and then take you downstairs for a nice Italian meal. You do like Italian food, don’t you, my dear?”

“I love it.”

“That settles it. I’ll change into something more comfortable and we’ll leave in just a few minutes.”

Anita Ward had her own booth at Da Tato, a restaurant on the ground floor of the building adjacent to the brownstone. The booth was in front and gave an obstructed view of the park.

“I have been eating here for over twenty years,” said Anita. “It is among the many indulgences that I have awarded myself since coming to New York. Life here is hard, my dear, and indulgences are in order. Without them, this concrete city is a ceaseless grind. Good food is essential. And good wine, I might add, even more essential. Of course you are underage and too young for wine, but a small taste will do you no harm. I consider the relationship between wine and food something like the relationship between the sexes. If well coordinated, it is a pleasure. If off-balance, a catastrophe.”

Anita had changed into a wheat-colored pantsuit. She wore a brilliant scarf of golden silk across her shoulders. Seated in the booth, she appeared normal. At the table, it was possible to forget about her painfully stooped-over posture.

“Did Wanda tell you about my kyphosis?” asked Anita.

“I’m afraid not.”

“I didn’t think so. That girl is too kind. She likes to think of me the way I was before I left Atlanta—not the way I am now. In any event, I am who I am—there’s no way around it. I can still walk a block or two. I can still get in and out of cabs by myself. I can still manage to step down the hallway at work to the ladies’ room. Yes, I have much to be thankful for. Kyphosis, however, does not exactly elicit gratitude. It is, you see, a form of advanced osteoporosis. My spinal vertebrae are shot through with holes. Those poor vertebrae are weak beyond repair. But I can assure you that while my body shows signs of dramatic deterioration, my spirit is not in decay. Not at all, my dear. My spirit is enlivened and excited by your arrival. You are a fresh breeze.”

“Any way I can be of help . . .” Beauty began to say.

“Just looking at you helps. Just seeing youth in its blossom. Seeing eyes that are clear, a heart that is hungry, a mind that yearns for nourishment.”

When the red wine arrived, the waiter, who knew Anita by name, poured a glass for both her and Beauty.

“You see, my dear,” Anita said, “you have everyone in this city believing that you are of age. Now sip slowly. That half of a glass must last you the evening. Far as I’m concerned, though, I intend to celebrate your arrival. These days I readily welcome any cause for celebration, and you are good cause indeed. Tell me about Wanda, Beauty. How is she doing? I don’t know how she manages to work for Snake Simmons.”

“You mean Slim?”

“I call him Snake because he is a snake. For years I’ve tried to get Wanda to come up here. She’d find work. She’s a gifted woman with a keen instinct for retail. She’d do well selling at Bloom’s. I’ve told her that countless times.”

“Then why doesn’t she come?”

“You tell me, my dear. My thought is that she’s a Georgia girl through and through. New York is alien territory. Not everyone can adjust. And then again, as I’m sure you’ve seen, Wanda is a caretaker. Some see that as a beautiful quality in a woman. I, for one, do not. Our first job as women is to care for ourselves, not some hapless man. Most men are looking for their mothers. Snake Simmons is no different. Wanda has become his mother. You know that, I know that, the world knows that. I am not a believer in the traditional sense, not since the preacher back home put the make on my sweet mother when I was a child, but I do pray for Wanda. She is a good soul.”

“I love her.”

“And she loved your adoptive mom. I didn’t know the lady, but from all reports she was a doll.”

“She cared for me when she didn’t have to.”

“And she has a son as well, your half brother, is that right?”

“Really not my half brother. His mom is the woman who adopted me. My father is Japanese.”

“A beautiful pairing, the Asian and African-American genes. You are a remarkable example of cross-cultural breeding.”

“You make it sound like I’m a plant!” said Beauty.

Anita laughed. “Oh, child, forgive me, I get carried away with silly metaphors. When I began at Bloom’s many years ago, they put me in the advertising department and had me writing copy because my boss—a white man, of course—said I had the gift of gab. He told me to apply my power of description to Bloom’s merchandise. When I did so, and did so well, he took the credit for all my brilliant headlines and ad ideas. I watched him elevate himself to the executive floor and a vice presidency, all on the strength of my work. I didn’t know what to do. I lacked the courage to go over his head and tell his bosses the truth. So I toiled away in anonymity. I finally got fed up and played the only hand available to me. I quit. He panicked. He raised my salary to a livable wage and gave me a title, copy chief, but continued stealing my thunder.

“After a year as copy chief, I marched into the office of the great Harold Lawrence Bloom, the grandson of the founder and chairman of the board. He didn’t know me from Adam. I think the only reason he did not kick me out immediately was because of his lifelong position as an NAACP board member.

“I shocked him by saying, ‘Mr. Bloom, I have toiled in the fields of your advertising plantation now for too long. It is time to bring me into the big house.’ He laughed nervously and asked me what I had in mind. ‘I know everything there is to know about this store’s advertising,’ I said, ‘and can be of no further help in that area. The sales lag we are experiencing this year has nothing to do with the advertising. The problem is the merchandise. Your buyers lack vision. They are too cautious and two bars behind the beat of every major trend.’ ‘Then what do you propose?’ he asked. ‘Make me a buyer. Give me a department. Within a quarter you will see results. If, sir, those results are not forthcoming, fire me on the spot. No severance, no pity, simply give me the boot.’ He laughed again but did as I asked. He gave me the least-glamorous department, bed and bath products—towels, linens, pillows, shower curtains. But there was no stopping me. I contacted Silvio Nunzio, the Italian designer famous for dressing our first ladies, and asked him how he felt about sheets. Well, my dear, he didn’t simply like sheets, he
adored
them. The man couldn’t wait to design patterns for sheets, pillowcases, and bedspreads. In fact, at my initiation, he became the first of the major designers to go into bed and bath products. The move turned the industry on its ear, and Bloom’s had Nunzio’s line on an exclusive basis. Profits soared and Wanda Washington’s best friend from the projects of Atlanta, Georgia, was on her way.”

“Nice,” said Beauty, feeling a little tipsy after her first few sips of wine. As Anita spoke, Beauty was with her all the way, marveling at this small woman’s courage.

“Of course in those days my back was straight as a board,” Anita added, finishing her second glass of wine and starting in on her third. “I didn’t have the distraction of poor health. That was a beautiful blessing. And another thing I didn’t have in my private life was the burden of bad men. My long-suffering mother had a special skill for attracting bad men. She had supported a virtual army of bad men. Firsthand I had come to know their disloyalty, hypocrisy, and violence. No, sir, whatever physical pleasure I might have denied myself—and I am speaking candidly, my dear . . . this superb Bordeaux has me speaking with perfect candor—yes, no deprivation could overwhelm the joy of being an independent woman free of romantic ties that would have surely bound and restricted me in ways that I can only imagine. To be free is a magnificent thing, dear child. To be free is the only thing. That is not to say that I was—or am now—free of interacting with men.

“When I entered the business I was a pioneer. No one had told me that here, in this most urbane and sophisticated of cities, I would be dealing with gunslingers and cattle thieves. No one said that the New York retail business was the Wild West where men ruled through fear and psychological warfare. Do you know what helped me, Beauty? My smallness and lack of beauty. Men are not threatened by petite women. Men hardly notice women who are not overtly sexual. Of course I know how to dress and I like to think—hell, I
know
—I have style, but it is a style not geared to attract men. It is a style geared to please myself. Homosexual men appreciate me. The gentleman who picked you up at the airport, Solomon Getz, is one such admirer. He seeks to learn from me. That is flattering, but the men I had to win over to get where I am were not homosexual. Mr. Bloom and his brother and his sons and nephews have wives and mistresses. I could not win them over with flattery or sexual favors. I had no desire to do so. I had to win them over with the one element they could not ignore: the bottom line. But I am boring you, dear child, with all this talk about my distant past.”

“No, not at all,” said Beauty. “I love hearing about this.”

“If I finish off this bottle of wine and find myself unable to walk, you might have to carry me to the elevator. I can assure you, though, that I am quite light. Not to mention light-headed. This wine is divine. But let me pause this monologue long enough to ask you a pertinent question. Are you a virgin?”

Beauty was taken aback. She paused before answering.

“You don’t have to reply if you’d rather not,” said Anita.

“It’s okay. Well, yes, no . . . I mean, I am not a virgin.”

“Good.”

“Why is that good?”

“Because I don’t have to hold your hand as you go through the deflowering ordeal. You’ve already been through it. And I presume it was not love. He was not the man of your dreams.”

“Not at all.”

“I could have predicted. And am I correct in presuming that it did not lead you into a period of promiscuity?”

“I’m not sure what you mean, Anita.”

“I mean you don’t go around sleeping with every man who looks good to you.”

“Oh, no.”

“A young woman as stunning and shapely as you must have a vast choice of men. You must be assaulted constantly.”

“Not exactly.”

“New York will assault you. You will see that soon enough.”

“Should I be afraid?”

“You should be cautious. You should be suspicious. You should be scrutinizing. But, no, you need not be afraid. You should be fearless. The plain fact is that in the battle of the sexes, women clearly have the upper hand. We have what they want—and they want it so badly that they will risk their money, power, and position to get it.”

“It sounds like you just don’t like men.”

“You are blunt, my dear, and I appreciate that quality in a young girl. Bluntness will serve you well. Especially with a blunt woman like me. Why beat around the bush? Why not say what’s on your mind? Well, what’s on my mind now is another little glass of wine before our fettuccine arrives.”