Sparkles

by Louise Bagshawe

  This was business, he reminded himself. And he lived for business.

  There was certainly nothing else to live for.

  Chapter 3

  “Voilà, Mademoiselle,” said the waiter. He placed Judy’s breakfast down in front of her with a flourish, together with the check.

  She smiled. “Merci.”

  Judy sighed with pleasure. This was absolutely her favourite moment of the day, and her favourite time of the year. Breakfast in a little café along the banks of the Seine, 8 a.m. on one of those warm mornings as spring faded into summer, with the light golden and warm, and the breezes not cool enough to be chilly. She was surrounded by tourists, but she didn’t care. Her café au lait smelled heavenly, as did her croissant, and they were guilt free because she had finished her morning run. Three miles a day, without fail, all weather. It kept her figure slim, her eyes bright, her energy up. And it worked. Sometimes, like today, waiters still called her mademoiselle and not madame.

  She was trying to learn not to hate that word so much. There was no point in hating aging. I need to keep my energies for things I can change, Judy thought. She was proud of that attitude. Fifteen years in France had not knocked all the American out of her yet. She took a sip of milky, sweet coffee—only the French really did coffee quite this well—and stared out at the river, glittering in the morning sunlight. Soon it would be warm enough to switch to an outside table.

  Her reflection gazed back at her from the window. Judy approved of it. She was thirty-six, five foot seven, and a hundred and twenty-five carefully monitored pounds. Today she had chosen a particularly chic little outfit: a red dress with an A-line skirt, a cream cardigan and purse, and cream shoes with a red-piping trim. She wore simple earrings, pearl studs, and a small but very fine solitaire ruby set in rose gold on her right hand. Both Massot pieces. Even with an employee discount, Judy had saved three months to afford each of them. But she had never regretted it. That was something else she had learned in France. It is so much better to have a very few costly and classic pieces, in both clothes and jewels, than a crowded wardrobe full of junk. One was both better dressed, and better off, shopping that way.This cardigan had cost her almost three thousand francs, three hundred euros in the new and less romantic money. But she had been wearing it every spring for five years and thought she would be able to use it for another five, at least.

  Yes, it was an elegant outfit. Judy had no doubt M. Lazard would approve. She buttered her croissant and ate it with relish. She was going to ask for—no, demand—a promotion today, and she had no doubt at all that she would be successful. It had been four years, and she was due.

  She still thought of him often, and never without a wince of pain. It wasn’t just that she missed him so much it hurt. Ever since Pierre had left, disappeared, Judy’s career had been on hold. Naturally. He had helped his young lover rise rapidly through the ranks, making her a director of publicity just before he disappeared—walked out of her life, and everybody’s. Even now, when she thought of him, there was a wince of pain. Pierre. A playboy, a dazzler of a man. He had blinded her when she first knew him—the smooth good looks, the endless money, the status. Everything hungry young Judy had aspired to have and to be. And he had offered to take her along for the ride. How eagerly she had jumped on board.

  But then, once he left, and didn’t come back, and all the police investigations and missing persons reports came to nothing, nobody had known what to do with her. In the end they didn’t do anything. And Judy, for want of better choices, had put her head down and worked.

  Of course M. Lazard, the new CEO, knew. Everybody in the office knew. But he did not seem to object on principle. And at first, of course, everybody thought that Pierre might someday just turn up. Nobody would dare to sack his girl.

  Or one of his girls, as she now knew she had been.

  I ought to hate him, she thought, but then shook it away. Dwelling on the past was unproductive. No, years of patient, cautious work, running parties, entertaining journalists, and they had finally made her a vice president. Judy had grown to love her work. The day she got that title, she felt some of the pain seep out of her. Loss of Pierre, first, and then loss of who she thought Pierre was. But anyway . . . she had received that title entirely on her own merit. Nobody could say she had earned it on her back.

  Judy threw down a few euros and left the restaurant. She would walk to the Massot offices, the quiet eighteenth-century building on the rue Tricot, almost a mile from the nearest glittering Massot showroom. She had asked M. Lazard to see her at nine precisely, and she didn’t want to be late.

  She smiled in anticipation as her pace quickened. Senior vice president, with the money to follow. Two hundred and fifty thousand a year. Yes! Judy wanted all that. She wanted to upgrade her smart little flat to a townhouse, wanted a few more outfits like the one she was wearing. Some classic Vuitton luggage, maybe a shopping spree in New York. She had learned the hard way that she could only rely on herself in this world. And her career, not a man, was going to give her everything she wanted.

  There had not been a man for a long time.

  Judy pulled her cardigan around her. What had it been, three years now. There was that unfortunate one-night stand with the London sales director. Ill-advised; neither of them could wait to bolt for the hotel door the next morning. And six months before that there was the folk guitarist she’d met in that jazz club on vacation, in New Orleans. But that didn’t count—vacation sex.

  Both encounters had been empty for her. She felt the urge, sometimes, almost a clinical curiosity, just to check that she was still a fully functioning female. But pleasure, what pleasure was there in clumsy fumbling and a few thrusts?

  None. She had none.

  And so there were no boyfriends. Just the one man she thought of too often, although she tried to break the habit. Pierre, brilliant, sparkling Pierre, as golden as champagne. Her mentor in business, sex, and life.

  There was the corner, and her offices. MAISON MASSOT engraved discreetly on a small brass plaque. She felt relief at the familiarity of it all. Her life would go on, quite comfortably, with more money and the settled achievement of her job, of having carved out a little niche in this business all for herself.

  “I am glad you came to see me, Mademoiselle,” said M. Lazard.

  “Thank you for making the time to see me, sir,” Judy replied, in her perfect French.

  “I think we had better switch to English,” Lazard said. He propped up his half-moon spectacles on the brink of his nose and smiled briskly at her.

  Judy bristled; she thought her accent was impeccable.

  “And why is that?” she asked.

  “You haven’t heard?”

  Judy sat back in the walnut-backed chair, mystified. Gregoire Lazard smiled at her. He was tall, and beautifully, very carefully dressed, and he had friendly, twinkling eyes. But they still made her nervous.

  “I would have thought you would have heard the rumours,” he said.

  Judy shook her head. “I have spent the last two weeks in London, Monsieur.”

  “Ah yes, the fashion shows.”

  “We persuaded Vogue to run a piece on the new collection,” Judy added, pointedly.

  “Yes. Congratulations.”

  “I wanted to talk to you about my position.” You had to be firm with people, steer the conversation in the direction you thought it should go.

  “Oh, Judy. I do not think your position is in any danger.”

  Judy stared.

  “Excusez-moi?”

  “English,” he reminded her.

  In danger? She had come here to be promoted.

  “I don’t understand what you are talking about, Monsieur.”

  “Your new boss,” he said. Despite his excellent English, there was a trace of French in the calm tones, even a touch of something underneath it—Slav, maybe, an eastern European touch. M. Lazard had the slight, rather sexy, hooding of the eyes that sometimes reminded Judy of Gengh
is Khan. Although he was, thankfully, altogether a more serene man. “And mine,” he added.

  Judy exhaled. “A new boss?”

  She could have kicked herself. How could she have missed this? Two weeks in dreary, raining London and she hadn’t bothered to read the business press. Her entire attention had been focussed on the women’s magazines, where Massot had to jostle for space with all the other small designers and the major jewellery houses.

  “Somebody bought the company?” she asked, apprehensively. That was a problem. A big one. New brooms loved to consolidate, to fire, to replace. She could easily be swept aside. Even though Lazard said her position wasn’t in any danger, how could he possibly know for sure?

  “No, nothing like that. It is just that Mme Massot has decided, enfin, to have M. Massot legally declared dead.”

  Judy froze in her chair, with shock.

  “It’s been seven years,” Gregoire Lazard continued. He looked at her, then judiciously looked away, perhaps to give her time to compose herself, Judy thought.

  She swallowed hard.

  “What . . . what does that mean for us, Monsieur?”

  He shrugged in that particularly Gallic fashion, involving his whole upper body.

  “I have no idea. Probably not much. It simply means that Mme Sophie will now control the company and her husband’s share of the stock. We expect her to visit headquarters soon, which is why I have asked the staff to switch to English. I gather madame’s French is still a little rusty.”

  Rusty! After eighteen years in France. Judy was shocked at the violent wave of dislike that shuddered through her. But of course Sophie could afford to have her French be poor; what did that woman need to do other than order servants about all day?

  She could not think of anything to say, so she said, “I see.”

  “I doubt that madame will enact many changes,” Lazard told her. “She doesn’t seem the type to be much interested in business.”

  “You expect her to come here and take an inventory.”

  “Precisely.” Lazard inclined his head.

  “And then you’ll run things much as before?”

  “I imagine that is what Mme Massot will prefer, yes.”

  “I believe that it’s my time to be promoted to senior vice president for publicity,” Judy said, suddenly and fiercely. She thrust the image of mousy Sophie Massot from her. She had met her once, long ago, at a party to celebrate the launch of a new summer collection. Sophie, slim and dark-haired and only slightly pretty, had stood in the corner clutching her champagne flute, her eyes never leaving Pierre as he mingled and shook hands.

  And that, that was what he had preferred to her. To Judy with her fire and passion.

  It would make no difference to her that Pierre’s widow controlled the stock. She would carry on exactly as though nothing had happened. She had come here to ask for a promotion, and so she asked for it.

  “Yes, I anticipated that.” Lazard smiled at her. “But I think we must wait at present for Mme Sophie to define her plans for us. If any.”

  Judy’s head tilted up, arrogantly.

  “Very well,” she said. “If you’ll excuse me, then, M. Lazard, I think I should get back to work. The collections have met some resistance. It’s going to be tough, trying to sell them to the press.”

  “Of course,” he said. He stood and offered Judy his hand. “And please call me Gregoire. We have been colleagues for several years now.”

  Judy flushed with pleasure. “Gregoire,” she repeated.

  “I may have to bring Mme Massot round to introduce her,” he said, apologetically.

  Judy’s eyes flashed. She did not want Lazard to say anything open. Her affair was known, but never referred to. And now of all moments she wanted it to stay that way.

  “Of course, I’ll be delighted to meet Mme Massot,” she said, lightly.

  “Good day, Judy.”

  “À tout à l’heure,” she said, grinning at him, deliberately choosing the informality. Lazard smiled as she left the office. He did everything short of wink at me, she thought. She took the marble stairs down to her own, third-floor office, avoiding the coffinlike Victorian elevator. Her heart was in turmoil. She didn’t know what to think.

  Sophie Massot. Judy imagined her now, thickened with the passage of time, a plump, boring dowager. She would come round the offices, poke at everything, shake a few hands. Leave M. Lazard—Gregoire—to get on with things. Judy would be forced to endure the meeting, and the sniggering of all the secretaries.

  But on the other hand Lazard had asked her to use his first name. A good sign—no, an excellent one. Once Sophie had left, she would get that promotion. But I can’t stay around for her visits, as she swans in here like the queen bee, Judy thought. I’ll go home—to New York. Head up the division there. Make my name, maybe put in for a transfer.

  And then she thought, but no. No. Let her hound me out of Paris?

  Never. Judy resolved, on the spot, she would fight. She would never give in to Sophie.That woman had stood between Judy and her only love. Judy hated her, and she would never let that spoiled, pampered woman defeat her again.

  She turned onto her own floor. Judy’s secretary was already in her office, laying out last night’s faxes and this morning’s call sheet.

  “Bonjour, Mademoiselle,” she said cheerfully.

  Judy thought of Pierre, her darling, with his chocolate eyes and his smooth chest lifting above her. The thought caused her physical pain, a stabbing in her side.

  “Speak English, Marie,” she said. “You can speak English?”

  “Oh. Yes.”

  “Mme Massot is arriving to take over the company,” Judy said calmly. “And we must all make her just as welcome as possible.”

  Whatever happened, she would face this like she faced everything: head high and damn them all to hell.

  Chapter 4

  The bells in Tom Tower tolled nine times. That meant it was five past nine at night. The old clock was exactly one degree west of the Greenwich meridian, and so the clockmaker had decided to set it five minutes slow.

  Tom smiled. He loved it. Right now he was in love with the English and all their mad eccentricities. He thought about Polly, the redhead who had just slipped from his room five minutes ago. She swore like a sailor and left the place reeking of smoke, but on the other hand, in bed . . .

  He reclined in the covers over the spot where she had been, breathing in the musky scent of her. He wondered what streams of invective Polly would spew forth if she knew she was the third girl he’d had this week. . . .

  Ah, college; it was great, wasn’t it?

  An endless procession of opportunities. His studies weren’t going too well, he’d barely scraped through in mods, and then only because Maman had offered to make a large donation to the Old Library restoration fund. But studying was way down on the list of things he’d come to Oxford to do.

  Number one was get laid a lot. So far, that was going swimmingly.

  Number two was party a lot. Another check.

  Number three was to get a rowing Blue, but he had given up on that one early on. Tom hadn’t realized quite what a demanding, incessant drag it was on one’s time. They expected you to rise before the sun almost every day, even when it was freezing cold, and practice until your arms dropped off. That was fine—for the stiff-upper-lipped Englishmen and their brawny American cousins. Thomas Massot was a civilized Frenchman, however, and he preferred the sun to find him in altogether softer surroundings—silk sheets brought with him from Paris and the willing arms of some chick. Nationality not important. He was an equal-opportunity employer, like Bill Clinton.

  Massot admired Clinton, another foreigner at Oxford. What a taste in women! People laughed at him for it. But of course, the true connoisseur knew that looks, although pleasant, were the least important factor in a woman’s sex appeal. An ugly woman who knows what she’s doing beats a pretty-but-cold debutante any day, he thought.

  Polly, o
f course, was hot and pretty. And gutsy—and clever. Tom liked her, a lot. She was easily the favourite of his women. For a moment Tom experienced a fleeting pang of guilt. Sex was fun, sure, and he liked his women in a variety pack. But what if Polly found out?

  Don’t be bourgeois, he told himself; she never will find out. How could it harm her if she never knew about it?

  Oh well. It was almost noon. He was going to be late for another tutorial, and Mr. Hillard was getting to be tiresome about it, threatening to complain to the Junior Censor. Tom supposed he had better take a shower and go to it.

  On his way to Hillard’s rooms in Peckwater, Tom stopped at the Porters’ Lodge. The rows of wooden pigeonholes stood crammed with post and flyers from all sorts of clubs and societies he had no interest in. The Union, the college beagles—who could be bothered? It was that much less time for partying.

  There was a letter in his pigeonhole from his mother. Tom sighed; not another one. He wished Maman would leave him alone. She was forever pestering him to study more, to make some real friends, to stop going down to London in cabs and spending his money in nightclubs. But Thomas was hardly going to travel on public transport, and he had crashed his Porsche too many times on the English roads with their stupid driving on the left.

  “You are half English, Tom,” his mother would remind him. Lately they had drifted apart. But the difference between us, Tom thought, is that I welcome it; I know it is natural. And Maman wants to cling to a time when I was five years old and needed her.

  Of course, he still loved her.

  He tapped the letter affectionately against his palm. It was written on his mother’s signature pale blue Smythson paper, and had that faint scent of violets from the perfume she always wore, the one she had custom blended on rue Faubourg. For a second, to his surprise, he felt violently homesick for Paris. For some decent food and real coffee. The so-called French cafés round here served greasy, heavy croissants and a vile thick brew you could cut with a knife and fork, and then wrapped it all in a napkin with a tricolor, and that was supposed to satisfy him? He wouldn’t touch it. Pigswill.