Rouge

by Richard Kirshenbaum

  “Yes, I read it.” She had not.

  “Then I don’t have to say that Gardiner is sinking. She came out with a line of European-inspired cosmetics to compete with you, with us. Word around town is it’s a failure. You know what, I think you should buy it. We should make a low offer and buy Gardiner.” She looked quite smug.

  Josephine had several thoughts competing for her attention at that moment. First, what gumption and pride this young woman must have to speak to her with such a tone. Second, despite wanting to eliminate Gardiner from the playing field, she knew that Constance would never sell her business, no matter what the circumstances. Especially not to Josephine! It was an immature idea and she disliked the overt bluster. And third, it occurred to her that this CMO’s name might be Polly, not Sarah. That was the last one. Some lasted only weeks. Months. Lately, she fired incompetent people within days.

  “Now, my dear Polly. We don’t engage in that sort of play here at Herz Beauty. Let that dragon sell to the housewives of America with her door-to-door stuff. I sell to the carriage trade and she knows it. That’s torture enough for Miss Palm Beach,” Josephine snorted, having read about Constance’s new island mansion, a social coup. The photo spread of her estate and pictures of her and Van and their polo ponies in the social press made Josephine insecure and anxious, as she knew she would never be part of that set.

  Sarah, aka Polly, appeared frustrated, as if she were explaining something important to a child who simply could not understand.

  “If you buy Gardiner for a discount with cash or stock, you will remove all of our immediate competition. We get her products and the packaging. Change the name to Herz or keep it as a secondary under Gardiner. She’ll sell the name rights if she has any good sense.” Polly beamed at her boss and winked from under the frame of her smart glasses. Josephine thought something was amiss that her new CMO was so fixated on Gardiner, as if she were trying to make a point … like the Shakespeare quote “The lady doth protest too much.”

  “Let me tell you something, dear. As easy as it would be, the truth of the matter is that I need her, as much as she needs me.” She sighed and dismissed the idea for good with a wave of her hand.

  “Meaning?”

  The door to the boardroom swung open and the board members began to file in. The young woman assistant stared at Josephine and scribbled something on her pad. And again, when Josephine spoke, Polly’s assistant took notes.

  Once everyone was seated, Josephine’s creative team began to elaborate on the upcoming products for the launch. The calendar had images of various new blushes, lipsticks, and powders with a “Greek isles” summer theme. Fittingly, the marketing idea was “Grecian Goddesses.” The advertising agency executive showed large boards with renderings of various glamour girls in tunics, their faces all sporting the new Herz colors of the season. At the end of the calendar, before the winter holidays, there was a large question mark.

  Josephine, however, struggled to hold her focus during the meeting. The thought of Constance Gardiner swirled in her mind. Constance, a woman who had spurned her, insulted her, was her greatest rival, was ironically the woman most likely to understand her. That said, she was also Mrs. Van Wyke, the toast of the very restricted Palm Beach, where Josephine knew it would be difficult to obtain a weekend invitation or even a hotel reservation.

  “Madame?”

  Josephine assumed a regal look and fixed her eyes on Polly and the eight men at the table. Eighteen eager eyes stared back at her with vacant expressions.

  “Yes?”

  “What is the last product you plan to launch? What is the question mark?” Carl Epstein called out from the end of the table.

  “Yes,” said another. “Where is your golden goose, Josephine? We know you’re hiding one somewhere.” Her chief financial officer laughed.

  Josephine feigned her most polite, flirtatious laugh, then pulled her mouth into a tight purse. “I vas going to tell you”—she looked directly at Polly and her scribe—“but now I have decided I am not ready. We have some further testing and development on this. But, I promise it vill be soon. We vill announce, and when I do, I promise we vill crush the competition.”

  Josephine stood up, smoothing her Mainbocher. The table followed suit. She walked out of the room without turning back. The assistant was still scribbling.

  * * *

  Before heading to the 21 Club for a late business lunch, Josephine swung by Polly Collins’s office. She was not so much worried as perplexed by the appearance of the new young lady and the sudden disappearance of her other assistant and all the scribbling on the pad. Nothing escaped Josephine’s gaze. When she reached the office, she was quite surprised to see Polly Collins with her feet up on her desk, which she immediately withdrew.

  “Polly, that is a Napoleonic antique, I prefer you don’t put your street shoes on it,” she lectured.

  “Sorry, Josephine … Madame Herz,” she said in a guilty fashion.

  “Your new young assistant, the dark-haired girl in the meeting taking notes. I would like to speak with her. Do you know her name?” she asked.

  “Well, Suzannah, my assistant, is out sick today … perhaps they sent a temp.” Polly shrugged.

  “Brown hair. Glasses. Strong-villed. Looked European.”

  Polly shook her head nervously. “I can’t think of anyone that fits that description. Was there something you wanted specifically?”

  “I remember coming up with a name for the new lipstick shade in the meeting and cannot remember. If you see her I would like to see her notes.” She looked at her face to see if there was any unusual expression at the request. There was. A subtle look of fear masked by polite confusion.

  “Yes, of course.” She nodded.

  Josephine also nodded, realizing her hunch might be right.

  “Would you like me to try and find the girl? I could call the temp agency.”

  Josephine paused, but barely long enough to answer.

  “Good evening.” With this, Josephine left the office and got into her chauffeur-driven Packard. An uneasy feeling grew in her stomach as she swung her mink over her left shoulder. Polly’s talk about buying up the Gardiner line had clearly been meant to mislead Josephine about Polly’s true allegiance. Combine that with the suspicious presence of the dark, unnamed girl, and it was clear that Constance had planted a spy or spies in her office and they had infiltrated her board meeting. Polly and the note-taking girl were plants who needed to be summarily ejected. War had officially been declared.

  22

  THE PLAY

  New York City, 1935

  Lenny Ryan always enjoyed the feeling of a wad of cash in the pocket of his navy slacks, and this one was thicker than usual. He had paid his rent on time and enjoyed himself with a girl he had met at a local whorehouse, since he hadn’t had one in a while after his wife, Sheila, had died. And now he was finally going to buy himself the new hat he’d been coveting and thought was well deserved. He had one stop to make first before he could enjoy the perks of his haul.

  He entered Gardiner’s building at 9:15 a.m. This was strange for him. He had never been inside this building during the day. He was a nocturnal creature, condemned to roam this travertine lobby only when it was lit by moonlight, to drag his cart through the halls, accompanied by the buzz of fluorescent lights. So, while feeling out of place, he was shocked to see the army of people inside the lobby. As he waited for the elevator, he watched a man turn out his pockets, scattering lint and papers onto the floor. I’ll get those tonight, he thought. The elevator dinged and he stepped inside.

  It was clear he did not fit in with the crowd. His one suit, which he wore to his own wedding almost thirty years ago, now hung off him like hand-me-downs on the youngest sib in a big family. He was a larger man when he was younger, and he had worked himself to the bone. He admired the men’s pressed tailored suits, and their heft, the muscles afforded by luxury and leisure time. The elevator opened on the fifteenth floor. Lenny stepp
ed out and looked back. He went unnoticed. The doors closed and he walked into the home office of Gardiner Cosmetics. He found a hive of productivity. Women buzzed around the office as if they were pollinating a flower. He slipped through the crowd of desks, weaving in between women and ringing phones. He found himself in front of Constance’s office. He knocked three times.

  “Yes, come in,” Constance called from inside. Lenny straightened his shoulders and opened the door.

  The office looked almost empty compared with the state in which he had found it the other night. Constance sat at her desk, wearing one of her usual suits of heavy tweed trousers and matching jacket with well-proportioned shoulder pads. She gazed over stacks of paperwork, like a bookie studying scores. Her demeanor changed when she saw the face of her visitor.

  “Close the door!”

  Lenny obeyed and shut it quietly. He needed to regain his stance, the power he had embodied the other night. He was the man in the room, after all.

  “Hello, I’m here—” he began.

  Constance stood. “No. Absolutely no reason. I gave you money. Onetime deal.”

  “I came here to ask—”

  “You came back for more?” she said, outraged. “What? Did you drink it all away in two days?”

  “I’m not a drinker.” Now on the defensive, Lenny grew mean. “But I did come here to thank you.”

  He might not have been a smart man, but he was a quick one: a street fighter who had learned the hard way to protect himself growing up in the mean streets of Hell’s Kitchen. A photograph of Constance and her husband, gleaming from a silver frame on her desk, inspired one last idea.

  “Thank you for letting me be the one to tell your husband. Or the police. You do know that it is a crime to be a queer. I checked and came here to give you a choice.”

  “You rotten bastard. I have lawyers, I have money, I have—” Constance heard her voice growing more manic. She knew—and he knew—that she had lost control. “You may not…,” she trailed off. “You cannot…” She stopped. “I have nothing left to say to you.”

  “Then I suppose everyone will know. That you’re a whore and a dyke.…” He turned and strode near the door. He hung in the door frame for a moment. He turned back and hissed, “If you fly with the crows, you get shot with the crows.” And with that, he left.

  Constance stood, speechless for a moment. Her eyes darted back and forth, then she paced as she began to devise what must happen next. She picked up a paperweight and imagined the glass shattering out over Fifth Avenue, but in her other hand, she picked up the phone and dialed.

  Within moments, CeeCee was in Constance’s office. CeeCee would not survive the charges or the slander, whereas Constance, though terrified, knew in her heart that she would emerge alive. She’d be ripped apart in the papers or whispered about socially, but it would be easy for her to deny. CeeCee didn’t have that luxury.

  “We need to retaliate,” Constance said.

  “How?” CeeCee asked.

  “We need to get rid of him. To end him. You can do this. You know how. I’m Constance Gardiner. He’s … what? A janitor?” She paced.

  Constance turned away from CeeCee, fixing intently on a paper on her desk. “Between the two of us, my dear, I’m afraid it’s you who can do this best.”

  “I’m sorry. I don’t understand,” said CeeCee.

  “You must know someone who can … well, in your circles someone who could … make him go away.”

  “I don’t.” She turned from Constance, bruised, hurt. Not only had Constance failed her, put her in harm’s way, but now she had revealed her true colors, expecting CeeCee to mastermind some evil deed—and worse, assuming she could because of her race, her lowly station.

  Constance saw the hurt immediately and hated herself for the slight. She wanted to fly over her desk and hold CeeCee close to her. CeeCee’s doe-like eyes, her perfectly formed heart-shaped lips—she still sent a jolt of electricity into Constance’s heart.

  “He was bluffing,” CeeCee said finally. “It’ll go away.” She took a step away from Constance.

  “Ma jolie fille,” Constance whispered.

  “No,” CeeCee said. “After this, I can’t anymore.” She turned and left the room without meeting Constance’s eyes. Constance watched her leave, listened to the sound of her heels on the wooden hallway floor. Her heart sank as she knew this would be the last time they would be alone together.

  23

  THE ASK

  New York City, 1935

  He told the tailor time and time again that the collars on his shirts were too tight. But the old man would not listen. He had blithely insisted on English-made shirts; yet Mickey was now certain that the old Schneider had been buying English schlocks from Chinatown, not from Savile Row as he claimed. Ordinarily Mickey would have let it ride because the old man had been coming to his father’s fruit stand for decades. Now, however, as he stood in this bar and pulled at the tight collar, he wished he had insisted that the tailor had made it larger or that he’d simply spent the money to buy real imported shirts. He would not skimp again.

  Mickey ran his fingers through his mane and tried to tame his ringlets as he continued to stand at the bar. He didn’t want to sit down, since he always flew to his feet when CeeCee entered a room. There were some risks to them meeting out in the open. He only wished that he could be with her. To think of it, he couldn’t remember the last time they had been alone together in the last few weeks. CeeCee had dived into her work and the girl was hungry, persistent, to say the least.

  The door swung open and CeeCee stepped inside. Her hair was a little wild from the weather—frizzy and emanating at all angles from her face—but to Mickey, she might as well have been an angel.

  “Wasn’t sure you’d find the place,” he said with a charming grin.

  “Mick. It’s good to…” She paused, out of breath. She sat beside him on the bar stool. Across the bar, the bartender looked displeased.

  “None of that here. We are a good Irish bar. The Spanish ones for your crowd are on the Upper West Side.” Mickey and CeeCee looked at him, unfazed, with disdain. Mickey calmly spat on the floor and the two of them took off running.

  They raced into the lamplit Tompkins Square Park, laughing and checking their backs to see if the bartender was after them, but he hadn’t bothered. The two settled onto a bench as Mickey put his arm around her.

  “Mick, I need something.” She looked up at him.

  “Cee, I’d do anything for you. You know that. God, you make feel—” He let out a loud roar.

  CeeCee laughed and quieted him down. “I know. But we wouldn’t work.”

  “Oh, we could. Maybe not with the world. But just you and me. We work. We work like a perfect machine.”

  “Mick,” she said. Her laugh sizzled into a flat line. It was time to make her point known. “There is someone that is bothering Constance.”

  “The lady is richer than half the broads on Fifth! She can’t toss him some dough-re-mi from her beautiful terrace up there?”

  “He’s bothering me, too,” CeeCee said.

  “Who is it? Where is he? I’ll kill ’im myself!”

  “Kill?” CeeCee’s eyes widened. It was the first time she had heard the word out loud.

  “Then what? You just want me to smack someone ’round? Maybe turn ’im into next week’s dinner?” He shrugged.

  “Don’t be vile! But who should I turn to?”

  There was silence for a moment. Mickey did not completely understand where she was heading. “I don’t know, Cee.”

  CeeCee’s face fell and Mickey frowned. CeeCee’s pain was Mickey’s pain. When she felt down, Mickey would do anything in his power to lift her up again.

  “I do know a guy…,” Mickey began.

  “Don’t tell me any more.” CeeCee winced.

  Mickey wrapped his muscled arms around CeeCee. She felt the strength of his bulky arms, so different from Constance’s soft, smooth limbs. The musk of his
aftershave. A distinct contrast from the treacly sweet rose of her former lover. She leaned into his embrace, burying her face in the crook of his arm and breathing in the comfort and strength of this man she loved.

  “Don’t you worry. I’ll take care of it,” Mickey whispered into her ear.

  CeeCee pictured a different life. One where she was never insulted for walking into a bar, one where she never had to pretend to be someone she was not, one where she did not have to stifle her dreams or siphon them off for another woman’s ambition. She pictured a world in which she had never slept with Constance and the only thing she knew was the feeling of this man and his two strong hands.

  24

  THE BIG IDEA

  New York City, 1935

  Constance threw the latest edition of Photoplay magazine across the room. The George Hurrell photo of Joan Fontaine incensed her. How did he do it? Hollywood’s master court photographer was able to highlight her eyelashes like palm fronds casting a shadow against her alabaster skin. How could she get lashes like that into a bottle? It had been years and they still couldn’t achieve a nonclumpy, no-mess formula.

  Staring at herself in her boudoir, Constance studied her own face. It was still peaches-and-cream beautiful, but she saw suddenly the creeping of fine lines. To hell with that. A stronger lip color would divert attention as she applied her own Cherry Blossom lipstick. She thought back to the anxiety of the other night. She hadn’t heard a peep from Lenny since his eerie visit. CeeCee had been right. He was a big fat bluff. The whole ugly mess had blown over. Her full attention was back to the product at hand.

  She pulled out a tiny brush from a clean and sterile white sample box her office had sent her. The prototype was finally finished. This was the beginning of her own reinvention, the next chapter of her success. American women wanted and demanded new. They all wanted innovation. Of course, they bought the creams, the powders, and the rouges. They had to have that. But the information she received from her earnest army of Gardiner Girls was what every loyal customer asked when they arrived monthly. “Do you have anything new? I want to look like [fill-in-the-blank Hollywood star].” They all wanted a bit of glamour in their everyday lives. Hopefully, this one will work, she prayed as she took out the sample tube. It simply had to work. Slowly and with relish, she dipped the brush into the thick black paste, wiping the excess off of the edges and spreading the mascara onto her eyelashes. Her blue eyes popped in contrast with the deep black. The result was easily smudged and very clumpy, but it was much cleaner than the effect of kohl paste around Cleopatra. It was striking and undeniably unique. Yet it still clumped. That said, she knew she was close. It needed an agent to make it smooth, consistent, even. And then it would be marketable. Women would buy it. Constance held the container of black paste in her hands as though she were holding a serum that could cure a disease. She thrust the brush back into the bottle, again wiping the excess off of the edge. The overflow stained her hands with unsightly black. If only the container and brush didn’t allow for so much excess … so much mess.