“No, darling idiot, only that not every man may be queer for morning mouth, the way I am.” He kissed her again. “You can’t claim that Scope works all night long, and if you have two people in bed, one of them must be suffering from acid indigestion or stuffed sinuses and the other should be Florence Nightingale, not a couple of happy lovers who obviously just woke up—America’s not ready for that.”
“But it’s real,” Kiki protested.
“ ‘Real’ isn’t why we make commercials. If we wanted ‘real’ we’d do documentaries,” he mumbled, kissing her under her arm. “I think I like morning armpit more than even morning mouth.”
“Give me another for-instance,” Kiki purred.
“There’s this one woman and she says, straight to camera, ‘I hate Howard Cosell!’ And then there’s another and another until you have the screen split sixteen ways, all types of women all saying, with increasing hysteria, ‘I hate Howard Cosell!’ And then you hear a voice over—a calm woman’s voice saying, ‘Monday-Night Football getting to you? Try Bufferin. It won’t make him shut up, but you’ll feel better.’ ”
“Now, what’s wrong with that? You’re not saying anything that isn’t true.”
“No, but Howard Cosell just might have grounds for legal action, and the network wouldn’t run it during the game which is the only time it could play to maximum effectiveness, and all the Howard Cosell fans would never buy Bufferin again.”
“Are there Howard Cosell fans?”
“I’ve never met one, but it figures,” Luke said morosely.
“But what if you hired Howard Cosell to say, Try Bufferin—it won’t make me shut up but you’ll feel better’?” Kiki wondered. “I bet he’d do it—he’s probably dying to be a spokesperson like Don Meredith and Frank what’s-his-name.”
“Kiki,” Luke said, almost sitting up in excitement, “I think we’ve just stolen the Bufferin account!”
“Come back here,” Kiki ordered. “It’s Sunday—you can’t snatch accounts on Sunday.” Luke settled back under the covers and continued his list of dream commercials.
“I’ve also got a great one for Tampax. You get someone like Katharine Hepburn or Bette Davis, an authority figure with total moxie, and you just shoot her straight, and she’s saying something like, ‘If women didn’t menstruate there wouldn’t be any human race at all so why don’t we stop being so coy about it and realize what a marvelous thing it is that women have ovaries that release an egg each month and that since they do, it’s only sensible to use Tampax when the egg isn’t fertilized, because Tampax is comfortable and does the job.’ ”
“Hmmm,” said Kiki.
“Yeah, you see, even you’re shocked. Women don’t have menstrual periods or ovaries or vaginas or any of their equipment on television—except in the soap operas when they’re always taking out everything in the hospital—hysterectomy city—it’s the biggest fucking taboo—even if you can discuss it in detail on a soap, you have to use little hints like ‘difficult days’ in a commercial. We’re the last bastion of the Puritan fathers.”
“Poor sweetheart—you must be so frustrated.”
“Sometimes I am, but generally I just forget what I’d like to do and do what I can as well as possible. It’s a living,” he grumbled.
Kiki flung her arms around Luke and held him as tightly as she could. “Listen, it’s more than just a living, you dope. Don’t you ever realize that without advertising there wouldn’t be any newspapers or magazines or televisions except whatever the government paid for? Advertising is what supports all that information and entertainment, so don’t get all snooty about it. You do a job that has to be done and you do it better than anyone else!”
“I’d forgotten that I was talking to a native-born capitalist,” Luke laughed. “I’m so used to girls who put down advertising that it’s a pleasure to hear from the delegate from Grosse Pointe.”
Kiki, who already had him firmly in her grasp, tried to shake him, but he was too big for her to move satisfactorily, so she contented herself with hissing, “No gratitude. No class. No taste. To even mention other girls at a time like this—I’m getting out of bed, Luke Hammerstein, you goat.”
“Ah, don’t—I’m sorry, I was just kidding, honest.”
“I have to pee,” she said haughtily.
“How about this? This great-looking girl, beautifully dressed in the height of fashion, says, ‘Excuse me, but I really have to pee,’ and the other beautiful girl—they’re having lunch at La Grenouille—says, ‘What toilet paper do you prefer?’ and the first one says, ‘Lady Scott of course, because even the best people have to pee—so you might as well do it in style.’ ”
“Brilliant,” Kiki sneered, “I think you should be teaching English at Harvard. Your mind is sick, Luke Hammerstein, sick.”
“Just because I mentioned Grosse Pointe?” he said wickedly.
“Go fuck yourself!” Kiki said angrily.
“Not while you’re around.”
“I suppose I’m to take that as a compliment?” she huffed.
“Damn right. Now will you go pee and make it snappy. And don’t brash your teeth while you’re in there!” He stretched lazily and happily in bed. There was only one problem on his mind. Bagels, cream cheese and smoked salmon first and fucking later, or fucking first and bagels after? Even Maimonides wouldn’t be able to decide that one.
“What’s it all about, Theseus?” Daisy asked her dog, scratching his ears in a way which he particularly enjoyed. “Just tell me what’s it’s all about.”
“If I weren’t here,” said Kiki, “I’d understand your asking him, but since this great wisewoman is available, I’m rather offended.”
“I thought you were too busy changing your nail polish to talk.”
“One thing has nothing to do with another.” Kiki bent over her hands rapidly, using polish remover on the deep red, almost brown polish she had been affecting recently. “How many manicurists are tongue-tied?”
“I’ve never been to one—how would I know? I thought maybe they operated in holy silence.”
“Wash your own hair, do your own nails—no wonder you have to ask a dog for advice,” Kiki snorted.
“How can I talk to you?” Daisy said reasonably. “You’re so happy and excited that you can’t possibly be intelligent. You see everything through the eyes of true love, than which there is nothing so distorted … your perceptual apparatus is anesthetized, your judgmental functioning is paralyzed, your free will has been taken away from you and you’re operating on a set of premises which no one in this world understands but you—at least Theseus isn’t in love.”
“Ever since you came back from Venice,” Kiki said, thinking out loud, “—it’s November now, so that means two months ago—you haven’t been yourself. My perceptual apparatus, as you see, is as sharp as ever, as long as you don’t ask me about Luke. You’re semi-miserable, semi-demi-tormented, mini-pleased with yourself, major-mini-yearning of a somewhat sentimental nature toward North. Why didn’t you ask me before you got involved with the man you work for?”
“There was a phone strike,” Daisy reminded her.
“Excuses, excuses. What is the exact status of the relationship, if I may use such a word about something so sacred?”
“Shifty,” said Daisy.
“A shifty relationship? You mean there’s something not kosher about it, something sinister?”
“Oh, God, Kiki, you’ve missed the point again. Shifty like the wind blowing from the east and then blowing from the west, shifty like the mist forming and then dissipating and then coming back, shifty like I don’t know which way is up, quicksand-type shifty.”
Kiki glanced sharply at Daisy. She had lost weight, Kiki thought, which she certainly didn’t need to lose, and her temper had suffered, not that she was ever bitchy, but she was strung very tightly these days, and she spent too much time grooming Theseus and taking him for runs around the neighborhood and too little time with North, in Kiki’s opini
on.
“Could you be more specific?” Kiki asked, unwrapping a new bottle of pale pink polish and beginning to apply it
“It’s hard to point to any one particular thing. When we got back, I knew that everything had to change. After all, the circumstances in Venice were totally abnormal—I don’t think North’s had that much time off in his life before. And, of course, I was right—everything piled up afterward and we had to work twice as hard as usual to make up for the week we’d lost, but I understand that—I’m part of it, hell, without me they couldn’t have done it And the working together felt good. He treated me the same as he always had in front of the others—I certainly don’t want Nick and Wingo and the rest to be leering at us—and when we were alone he’s … fun … and he wants me physically … and he’s loving … I guess …”
“But …” Kiki prodded.
“But … that’s as far as it’s gone.”
“I don’t see how that makes it shifty.”
“It’s something in the way he’s loving, something that doesn’t firm up, something that isn’t going anywhere, something hanging, incomplete, something unconsolidated, something tentative …”
“Is it in you or is it in him?” Kiki asked shrewdly. Daisy stopped fluffing up an unfluffable Theseus and considered the question as if it hadn’t occurred to her before.
“I think—in both of us, now that you ask,” she said slowly, sounding surprised.
“Then you really can’t complain. No, I take that back, you can complain! If you can’t complain to me, what kind of friend am I? So go on, complain!”
Daisy cocked a loving eye at Kiki who, now that she noticed, was looking very strange. Her ruffle of hair was brushed neatly down around her face and even her bangs had been arranged to fall quite calmly across her forehead. Her eyes looked two sizes smaller without the exaggerated make-up she always used on them. She had on just a touch of mascara, and her lipstick matched her nails. Her gypsy quality was minimal, replaced by a subdued, quiet, well-kept, and somehow diminished manner, as she sat there in her underwear waiting for her nails to dry. Which was also strange. Since when had Kiki taken to wearing half-slips and bras?
“Go on. I won’t be satisfied, if you don’t complain now,” Kiki urged again.
“I have this feeling inside …”
“Yes? Oh, come on Daisy. I’m good with feelings.”
“It’s—I keep wondering if there hadn’t been that strike, would anything have ever happened? Wasn’t it maybe just the circumstances? We’d never even flirted before and I’ve worked for North for more than four years—If there was anything there before Venice I would have known it, wouldn’t I? Maybe it’s just one of those things?”
“That’s not a complaint and that’s not a feeling—that’s just a quibble. It did happen and it’s still going on. If he’d been stuck in Venice with someone he didn’t care for, nothing would have happened at all—right?”
“I suppose. On the other hand, in that magical atmosphere almost anyone might have looked good to him.”
“Daisy! Stop that at once!” Kiki was outraged at her friend. Even after years of experience, she still couldn’t believe that anyone so beautiful could poor-mouth herself like Daisy Valensky.
“You’re right—I’m doing it again, shit! But there was something just the other day that I can’t get out of my mind. We were lying around North’s place, we’d just made love and I was lying there, just wanting to be petted and hugged, you know—held—and he moved away, restlessly, and he said in this sort of remote, lazy voice—not bored exactly—well maybe just a little—and he said, ‘Daisy, amuse me.’ ”
“That asshole!”
“That’s exactly what I thought! I don’t plan to see him again, except at work.”
The two girls’ eyes met, each understanding the other perfectly.
“But what did you say next?” Kiki asked hotly.
“Nothing … I felt sick. I just got up and put on my clothes and came right home.”
“Why didn’t you tell me right away?”
“First I thought I was making too much out of it, being oversensitive or humorless about it—it was just a little thing,” Daisy said broodingly.
“Yeah, and it’s the little things like that you have to pay close attention to—those little things get you where you live and they show you where he lives,” Kiki said, smearing her polish in agitation. “Making ‘too much’ out of his talking to you as if you were some sort of amusing convenience? A harem girl, a popsie, a toy doll you can wind up and have it play a funny little tune? No wonder North’s been divorced twice—that son-of-a-bitch doesn’t know shit about women.” Kiki’s heart sank for Daisy.
“Listen, not to change the subject, but isn’t Luke coming for you in five minutes? You don’t even have all your make-up on yet, or even your dress. You’ll be late.”
Startled, Kiki reached into her closet and came out with a plastic garment bag from Saks. She opened it and deftly slipped into a simple, conservative and expensive dress in creamy off-white flannel with a belt of braided navy and cream-colored leather. She put her stockinged feet into demure navy pumps, closed at the heel and toe, and clasped a modest strand of pearls around her neck. She turned and looked defiantly at Daisy.
“What’s that?” Daisy said, in disbelief.
“Mollie Parnis,” Kiki rapped out.
“You’re not ready to go out?” Daisy asked. She’d seen Kiki in every possible variety of costumes, but this one was the most impossible to credit
“Yes.”
“Somebody died? It’s a funeral?”
“No.”
“It’s a girl who’s entering a convent and you’re invited to watch?”
“No.”
“You’ve been asked to the White House?”
“Not that either.”
“A costume party and you’re going as a nice girl.”
“Close. Luke’s taking me out to Pound Ridge … to meet his mother,” Kiki said with a little grin.
“Praise the Lord!” Daisy shouted, jumping up so excitedly that Theseus, half-asleep, was spilled to the floor.
“And sing hallelujah!” Kiki shrieked, breaking into a triumphant little dance.
“But you can’t, you simply can’t go like that!”
“Why not? It’s perfect—his mother is ultraconservative.”
“Because you’ll tip your hand. Who do you want to impress the most, Luke or his mother? If you dress like that, he’ll know you’re trying to get his mother’s approval and that’s fatal with a guy as cool and hip as Luke. You’ve got to look as if this isn’t any big deal. Don’t disguise yourself as a fiancée before he’s even asked you to marry him, for heaven’s sake. Oh, dumb, dumb … the Grosse Pointe has surfaced. He’ll laugh himself sick.”
“Oh fuck—you’re absolutely right,” Kiki wailed. “But what am I going to wear? I haven’t got anything even vaguely appropriate.” She was a study in dismay, plunging clumsily into her closet and throwing one outrageous get-up after another onto the floor in a panic.
“Pants? What about your good black crepe Holly Harp pants?” Daisy asked.
“They’re covered with paint. I forgot I had them on and painted scenery in them yesterday.”
“The other ones? The wools?”
“They’re all at the dry cleaners. Oh, Daisy, why am I such a mess? Why does this always happen to me? He’ll be here in a minute,” Kiki lamented.
“Just stand still for a second.” Daisy surveyed Kiki closely. “All right. Take off those pearls and your bra and your pantyhose and put the dress back on. Good, now put on your wedgies, the ones with the glitz all over and the twelve-inch cork soles. Lucky thing your legs are still tan. Now unbutton the dress to the waist. No, that’s too far … go up two buttons. Fine—I still see tits, but only a little. Here’s a belt …”
“Daisy, that’s Theseus’s collar,” Kiki protested.
“Shut up and see if it goes around your waist,”
Daisy snapped. “Damn, too short, and it would have been perfect. Belt, belt …” she muttered, scrabbling through her drawers and finally pulling out a length of bright red chiffon onto which she had stitched a large 1920s diamanté buckle she’d unearthed in a thrift shop. She looked further and came up with a small red silk flower.
The doorbell rang. “Go do your eyes,” Daisy ordered. “I’ll entertain Luke. Don’t hurry it, stay calm, keep a steady hand for God’s sake,” Daisy fretted, pushing Kiki into the bathroom and closing the door behind her.
Luke darted into the living room spouting greetings to Daisy and Theseus. To Daisy, who was accustomed to his usual absent-minded, dreamily remote manner, he seemed unquestionably nervous. Even his eyelids were too jumpy to be melancholy and he kept tugging at his beard and picking invisible lint off his sleeves.
“Where’s Kiki?”
“Just getting ready,” Daisy said with dignity.
“I suppose she’s got on one of her acid-green body stockings and some sort of Mayan serape?” Luke asked.
“Something like that I imagine.”
He turned away and looked out of the window, tapping his foot on the floor and drumming his fingers on the wall. “My mother hates it when I’m late,” he remarked.
“She won’t be long. What’s happening tonight?”
“Sort of a family dinner actually. In fact, my grandmother is going to be there,” he said moodily.
“A three-generation dinner, hmm?” Daisy probed.
“Also a couple of aunts and uncles who invited themselves when they heard I was coming with a girl.”
“Haven’t you ever brought a girl home for dinner before?” she asked, astonished.
“Not since high school.” Luke gave Daisy a swift, terrified, feverishly determined glance which told her everything she needed to know.
“Excuse me for a minute, Luke, I’ll just go in and see if I can persuade Kiki to hurry up,” she said. On the way to the bathroom she stopped in Kiki’s closet and retrieved the navy Ferragamo pumps and the navy and cream belt that Kiki had had on before. She looked consideringly at the bra and pantyhose which lay in a heap on the floor. She took the pantyhose and left the bra. No point in going overboard. She opened the bathroom door quietly. Kiki had put her eyes back on. “Take off those atrocious wedgies,” said Daisy, busy unclasping the red chiffon belt and retrieving the flower.
Princess Daisy Page 40
