Shades of Fortune (64 page)

“Good.”

“Good?”

“That will make it easier when you tell him you're leaving him to marry me.”

“Is that what I'm going to do?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, Michael—”

“Of course. All the obstacles that stood in our way are gone now.”

“Obstacles …”

“First your grandfather. Then your parents' problems. Then the man you married. They're all gone.”

“Brad is … gone?”

“He's got another ladyfriend, hasn't he? He has no more claim on you. Now we're free to do what we've always wanted to do. Which is just this.” He is gently stroking her nipples, and, against her thigh, she feels his erection swelling again. “Oh, my, so much catching up to do,” he says, and enters her smoothly and easily again. “Tell me,” he whispers, pushing himself more deeply and with greater urgency into her, “did he ever make you feel this way? Was it ever like this with him? Did he ever make you feel as good as this? Tell me … tell me, Mimi. Tell me what I've always wanted to hear you say. Say the words I've waited half my life to hear. Tell me you never loved him, Mimi. You
never
loved him! Let me hear you say it! Say it!
Tell me!
”

But all at once tears come, and she sobs against the body pressed so insistently against her own. “I can't,” she sobs. “Please don't make me say that, Michael! I can't say that. I can't, I can't, I can't.”

Or at least that is what I imagine must have happened that night when he let himself into her office. How else to explain the four jeweled rings that were still on her coffee table the next morning, and her flustered look when she saw them there and hastily scooped them up and replaced them on the third finger of her left hand?

And the guilty look when she glanced at the photographs in the silver frames on her desk: Brad in his Bachrach portrait and Badger in tennis whites, looking as though he had just aced a serve.

That same night, I learned later, Granny Flo Myerson was busy on the telephone. “Alice?” she said to her startled daughter-in-law, who, in the twenty-five years since Henry's death, had not had a telephone call from Granny Flo more than once a year, on Henry's birthday, to remind her to decorate Henry's grave at Salem Fields. “Alice?”

“Yes, Flo. What can I do for you?”

“Alice, I think it's high time you and I buried the hatchet, and I'll tell you why. There's two reasons, and they've both got to do with Mimi. We've got to stand behind her, Alice, the both of us, and here's why. That nice Mr. Greenway, you know, he tells me things, and so I know more than meets the eye, even if I happen to be blind. We talk about the stock market. I don't like the boom that's going on in the stock market. It doesn't smell right, and I don't think it's going to last. I think there's going to be a big crash, like 'twenty-nine, and I think it could happen within four or five weeks. That soon. By the middle of October, and Mr. Greenway thinks I might be right. Now the reason why that's important is that Mimi has this plan. She calls it taking the company private, and I think we should stand behind her. If we stay a public company, we could all be hurt when this crash comes. But if we go private, the way Mimi wants, we'd hardly feel it. We'd be out of the stock market. We'd be off the Big Board, or whatever they call it. But we've got to be fast. We've got to all vote the way Mimi wants us to, for going private. Mimi doesn't know it, but I know the names of all the Leo cousins, and I'm going to call them all and tell them the same thing. Mr. Greenway thinks I'm right, and Mr. Greenway ought to know. He works for
Fortune
, which is all about money and the stock market.

“That's the first thing I called to tell you. The second is more personal. There's another man in Mimi's life. How do I know? Let's just say I smell another man. Since I've lost my eyesight, I can smell things better, and I can also smell
situations
, not just things. I smell another man in her life right now. In fact, there's always been another man, but now he's come back, and he's sniffing around her again. I can smell this happening right now as I talk to you, it's as plain as the nose on my face. She's going to have to make a choice, and you and I are going to have to stand behind her and make sure she makes the right one. After all, she's your flesh and blood, and she's mine, too. So we've got to put up a united front, and see that she makes the right choice. United we stand, divided we fall—right? So let's you and I bury the hatchet, Alice, and make sure Mimi chooses right. A family should stick together. What holds a family together is its blood, not flour-and-water paste.…”

Now it is Tuesday morning, and the office is hectic with last-minute details and preparations for Thursday night's launch party, and everyone, right down to the boys in the mailroom, is feverish with excitement. People dash in and out of Mimi's office, each person presenting some tiny new crisis.

“Here's a sample of the roses. Are they the right color?”

“The caterer can't find wild strawberries. Will you settle for California jumbos?”

“I
told
the banquet manager you wanted gold bunting on the ceiling! They're tacking up
silver!
”

“It's Liz Taylor's agent! She has a temperature of a hundred and two!”

“Your grandmother's on the phone! Line three!”

“My grandmother?” Mimi picks up the phone. “Yes, Granny Flo?” she says.

“Look,” her grandmother says, “you're probably pretty busy, what with getting ready for your party and all, but this is pretty important, and I thought I ought to talk to you.”

“Yes, Granny.”

“I understand that you and Bradley are having your little difficulties,” she says.

“Why, Granny, whatever gave you that idea?”

“Let's just say a little bird told me,” Granny Flo says. “And the same little bird told me that Bradger has been cheating on you. That won't do, Mimi.”

“Granny, right now I have a—”

“Now wait a minute. Hear me out. A woman can't put up with a husband who cheats on her. I never would have done, and you can't, either. It's just too
embarrassing
to a woman, Mimi, to have a husband who cheats on her. So if you'll take my advice, Mimi, dump him. Take an old woman's advice and dump him. Don't tell me you always trusted him. He couldn't cheat on you if you didn't trust him! Dump him is the only thing you can do to save your face. Dump that Bradger, Mimi; he's just plain no good. He's certainly not good enough for you, a man who cheats. My Adolph would never have
dared
to cheat on me, because he knew I'd have dumped him faster than you can shake a stick at if he tried. And he couldn't afford to have me dump him, because he needed my money. But you don't need this Bradley's money, Mimi. So dump him, and go out and look for Mr. Right. And I also have a suggestion for a Mr. Right who'd be just right for you. Remember that Horowitz fellow you were so in love with him? Marry him! He's never married … and he's rich! I guess you knew he's bought my old Palm Beach place, and if he can keep up a place like that, he's got to be rich! Why not marry him? He'd snap you up in a second, I bet. Besides, I think he's awfully cute-looking—those dimples and that smile. At least, I used to think he was cute-looking when I still had my eyesight, and he can't have changed that much. So dump that cheating Bradley and snap up Horowitz. He's the best around, Mimi, and you deserve the best. That Horowitz—why, he's like champagne! Why should you settle for
vin ordinaire
, like that cheat Bradger? Well, at least I've given you something to think about, haven't I?”

“Why, Flo, I'm actually shocked at you,” Rose Perlman says when Granny Flo reports this conversation to her friend. “Telling Mimi to dump that nice husband of hers they say is being considered to run for Senator Miller's unexpired term! Yes, I'm shocked at you!”

“And I'm shocked at
you
, Rose,” Granny Flo says. “You—with a high school education, and all that! Didn't they ever teach you anything about human nature? What I'm talking about is human nature. Don't you know what happens when a woman tells another woman what to do? Especially a woman like me telling a woman like Mimi what to do? Nine times out of ten, she'll do just the opposite of what she's told to do. That's just human nature,”

“Well, I hope you're right,” Rose Perlman says, sounding unconvinced.

“Of course I'm right. Mimi thinks I'm gaga. But there are times when it pays to let people think you're gaga.”

31

“I don't much care for the headline,” Mimi says to Mark Segal. It is Wednesday, the day before the launch party for her Mireille fragrance, they are in her office, and the headline—from the Advertising column of this morning's
Times
—which Mimi doesn't much care for, reads, “I
S
B
EAUTY
Q
UEEN IN THE
‘U
GLIFICATION
' B
USINESS
?”

“Listen, all publicity is good publicity,” Mark says. “It's a grabby headline, and his story's cute. Read it.”

Mimi reads:

Remember the Man with the Eyepatch who plugged so long for Hathaway Shirts? Remember “Does she—or doesn't she?” for Clairol? Remember “Which twin has the Toni?” Well, in a new wrinkle on that theme, Madison Avenue is asking today, Who is the mysterious Man with a Scar who will make his debut in print and television advertising later this week for “Mireille,” the new and pricey fragrance from Miray?

And, just as the advertising community—and the public—spent months wondering whether Baron George Wrangel, Hathaway's model, really
needed
his eyepatch (he didn't), now publishers and TV producers who will be running the ads and airing the commercials are wondering about the authenticity of the Mireille Man's scar. The rugged good looks of the blond male model are marred by a nasty-looking scar across his left cheek, leaving the question: Was his scar legitimately acquired in a duel or some other romantic feat of derring-do? Or has his face been deliberately “uglified” through the artful application of cosmetics, something Miray knows more than a little about?

For the moment, Mireille (“Mimi”) Myerson, Miray's beauteous President and CEO, is being very close-mouthed on the subject. Nor will she reveal her male model's name. All she will say is that guests at her Thursday night launch party for “Mireille” will be “introduced” to the Mireille Man. (But don't count on getting all the answers even there, insiders say.)

The sold-out party at the Pierre will be another of those push-me-pull-you affairs of which New Yorkers never seem to tire. On the one hand, it is clearly a commercial event designed to promote a new perfume, and is being completely underwritten by Miray. On the other hand, it is also a “social” affair by virtue of being a benefit for a Worthy Cause, the cause in this case being the New Books Fund for the Public Library. Proceeds from the sale of tickets (which start at $500 each) will benefit the library. Thus, once again, members of the beauty and fashion press, department store buyers, and other working stiffs will have an opportunity to rub shoulders with the likes of Brooke Astor and Jacqueline Onassis.

“Are we really sold out, Mark?”

“Yup.”

“What about Elizabeth Taylor?”

“If she shows up, I kinda think we'll be able to make room for her—don't you?”

“I still haven't decided what I'm going to wear,” she says.

“A suggestion,” he says. “Wear red—lipstick red. Lipstick red has always been our signature color, the color of our logo. And something by an American designer, I think, don't you? I think an American designer just makes for good P.R.”

“When I first met you,” she told him years ago, “I had just almost—almost, but not quite—got over being in love with another man, just as you were getting over being in love with another girl. It wasn't a physical affair, as yours was, but still it was very strong, very powerful. That first love made me feel weak, almost ill. It made me feel powerless to act, as though I had no will of my own. I felt helpless and weak, unable to think clearly, as though some force outside my life were in control of my body and my mind. The love I feel for you is very strong, too, and yet it's different—a different kind of love that makes me feel strong, and powerful, and forceful, and in control of what I do. You've given me something to hang on to, something tangible and real. It's just a different kind of love. Better, I think.”

They lay in the sun, on the sand at the beach at St.-Jean-de-Luz. It was their wedding trip.

“Are there different kinds of love? Of course there are. You can love people in so many different ways. Even though I was in love with this boy, there was always something about him that I couldn't quite be sure of, and it made my feelings for him so confused and uncertain. I don't think it would have made a good marriage. It wasn't just that my family disapproved of him. There was something a little wild about the boy, something brash and headstrong. He was always headed into the fast lane, almost frighteningly ambitious. Maybe it was his drive that made me feel powerless and ineffectual. I mean, he was the kind of boy who, when he walked out of a room, I could never be certain that he'd return, that he wouldn't turn up someone better while he was gone. With you, when you leave the room, I just think to myself: He'll be back before you know it. Or maybe it's just that I was younger then, and couldn't believe that someone as damned self-confident and cocky as he was could really and truly be in love with someone like me. With you, there's never been any question in my mind that you could love me. You make me believe in
me
, somehow. Do you see what I mean?