“If I were too little, I wouldn’t be here.”
“You have a point there.” I looked ahead of us as Alex’s car cut into the traffic on Fifth. “I worry about him,” I said.
“Your husband is going to be fine. I can tell you with certainty that no one ever gets used to this kind of circus. His father may have laid the full weight of Wenn on him when he killed himself and Alex’s mother, but that young man has done nothing if not risen to the occasion. I’m proud of him.” She turned to me. “And I’m also proud of you.”
I kept my eye on Alex’s car as Cutter stepped inside to drive us to Bergdorf’s. “I’m just trying to get through this, Barbara.”
“And you will. You are. So is Alex. I had my worries before, but I was overreacting. Wenn will rise from this, Jennifer. The trick is going to be in how fast it can right the ship, and whether Alex can keep the majority of the board on his side. That’s what’s going to be critical. But I think that he can—especially with you at his side tonight.”
I told her what I had in mind for later.
“Well, well,” she said. “Waltzing with the enemy—or potential enemies, in this case. Very smart. They know Alex, but not you. And with your charm—and your beauty and your figure—most of them won’t know what to do with you.”
“It’s just a dance.”
“And on that I call bullshit. We both know that it’s more than that. You want to seduce them. You want to mold them like putty in your hands. You already know that if they come to know and like you, that it will be harder for them to turn on Alex.”
“All right,” I said. “You’re right. I’m going to do all of that. But I’m also going to talk with them on their level.”
“Why waste your time talking? Here’s the thing, my love—with the right dress on, it won’t even matter what you say. You could talk about chimps shitting bananas at the zoo, and all they’d be thinking is how beautiful you look.”
“I do have a mind, Barbara.”
“Your mind is fine, Jennifer. You’re one of the brightest young women I know. But I’m sorry—it’s not as important as your ass or the twins. You know that as well as I do. At their cores, these men are troglodytes. But I’m behind you on this. You’re actually being quite strategic and cunning. Who cares what takes place on that dance floor? Business is business, and at this level, business is ruthless. When you go to war, there’s no shame in using what you have in your arsenal to potentially get what you want. I think what you have in mind is a marvelous idea because you won’t take it too far. You’ll give them just enough body and personality to tip the balance in Wenn’s favor.”
“Now I feel as if I’m selling out.”
“What you’re doing is everything you can to help your husband, whom you love. It’s not as if you’re giving free lap dances for God’s sake, although that isn’t a bad idea either. Would you consider it?”
“Seriously?”
“Oh, settle down. The board will like you. A few will lust after you. And if you can reach even a few of them, that’ll be just more people on Alex’s side, which is what he needs, and what you want. I think your plan is genius.”
She waved a hand in the air. “Look, let’s leave all of this behind us for the time being. I understand what you want, and I support it. Right now, our focus needs to be on finding you the right dress, the right jewels, and the right undergarments to assist you in making your titillating little plan a success. And by the way, while we’re at it? Let’s try to have some fun. OK? Remember fun? I hope so, Jennifer, because even in the most trying of times, we must make an effort to make our own fun. Don’t ever underestimate that. The world can turn against you in a day, and it’s up to you whether you let it defeat you or whether you stand up to it. So, which is it?”
“You already know how I feel about that.”
“Good.” She ran her fingers through her bob. “I’m going to offer you a piece of advice that I want you to carry with you straight through to the end of the night. Reclaim that spark that people have come to love about you. Regardless of what you’re feeling inside, you must retain a lightness of heart—especially tonight. You need to be alluring. Sexy. Smart. In the end, you need to be the Jennifer that people have come to love and adore.”
“And how do you propose I get back to that place?”
Our car started to slow as Cutter pulled the vehicle to the right, where he stopped just outside Bergdorf’s, which was only a few blocks away from our apartment.
Blackwell reached inside her handbag and removed her phone. I watched her type out a text and send it. “My dear,” she said. “You obviously do it by shopping with me.” She lowered her voice. “You know how I can be when we shop together—a horror show of dissatisfaction. So, let’s go inside and cause some trouble. We’ll see how that lifts your mood.”
CHAPTER SIX
Before leaving the limousine, Blackwell turned into the Blackwell whom I knew and loved, but whom many feared. She pulled a compact from her handbag, checked her face, and snapped it shut without changing a thing.
“Bernie,” she said. “How well he instructs. Shall we?”
Cutter stepped out of the car and came around and opened Blackwell’s door. She pinched his cheek as she stepped out onto the sidewalk, and I followed behind her as she practically glided toward Bergdorf’s entrance, the glass doors of which opened to us as we approached.
Inside, a woman somewhere in her mid-forties was ready to greet us. With her blonde hair wrapped behind her head in a crisp ponytail, and her impeccable white suit accentuating a slim figure, I thought that she was beautiful.
“Chloe,” Blackwell said as the two women kissed each other on both cheeks. “It’s been so long—in fact, I think it was yesterday. Thank you for accommodating us.”
“It’s our pleasure, Barbara.”
“I can always count on you. To have this place to our own is critical, particularly given the situation at hand. You can’t imagine the importance. Or the pressure. It’s all too much, but I know that being here will be the balm that we need. So, thank you again.”
Chloe didn’t respond. Instead, she turned to me.
“You must be Mrs. Wenn?” she said.
“Please call me Jennifer.”
The woman extended her hand, which I shook. “It’s so nice to finally meet you, Jennifer. And I’m pleased that we can assist you today. Barbara and I spoke earlier this morning, and we had a meeting of the minds. If you’ll follow me, I’ll take you to a private dressing area to show you the dress we both think will be perfect for you to wear tonight. It’s something that will set you apart from the rest, if only because it’s not available to anyone else—it just came in. If it doesn’t suit you, I have selected several others for you to consider.”
“I’m sorry if I’ve disrupted your schedule,” I said.
“You haven’t at all. None of this is uncommon. It’s just a service we provide to our best clients. Naturally, you are one of them.”
We took an elevator to the third floor, which was labeled Women: Designer Evening Wear. When we stepped out of the elevator, Blackwell immediately stopped.
“What’s that that I hear?” she asked Chloe.
The woman kept her expression neutral. “Unfortunately, you and Jennifer aren’t the only ones here this morning.”
“But how can that be?”
“Other clients with white-gloved service also expressed an interest in coming early.”
“But I thought it would only be us.”
“Only five clients are in the building,” Chloe assured us. “Including you and Jennifer.”
Blackwell took off her dark glasses and met Chloe’s eyes with her own. “May I ask who else is here?”
But Chloe motioned ahead of us. “I promise you that whatever they want is nothing that could possibly fit Jennifer. Please come this way. You might even know each other.”
“Which would only be worse for us, Chloe. Things could get awkward. Have you even
considered that?” She looked toward the ceiling and rolled her eyes. “I’m not pleased,” she called out. “I’m thinking evacuation. I’m thinking Barneys. I’m having second thoughts about all of this.”
“I’m sorry if I’ve offended you. You could always come back in an hour. I’m sure they’ll be gone by then.”
And Blackwell stopped dead in her tracks.
“Excuse me?” she said. “You’re asking us to leave? Oh, my dear. If you are, that better be the goddamned Queen of England I’m hearing over there. Nobody asks me to leave—and they sure as hell don’t ask Jennifer Wenn, of all people, to leave.”
The woman started to look flustered, and I felt sorry for her. Why was this such a big deal to Blackwell? It was as if she was marking her territory—and then I realized that at her level, her territory meant everything to her. She was indeed protecting it.
“I can keep you all apart,” Chloe said. “We’ll just go to the dressing room I have ready for you. There’s no need for your paths to cross. Please accept my apology and follow me. The dress I have in mind for you is just over here. It’s the Oscar de la Renta that we discussed. And with him having just passed recently, it’s a find for many reasons. It truly is fantastic—I’d hate for you to leave without at least having a look at it, and perhaps even trying it on.”
“I’ll bet you would,” Blackwell said. “But fine. We’ll look at it. But if this ever happens again, Chloe—”
Her voice trailed off when, off to our left, came the familiar, melodic sounds of a woman’s voice. I tried to place it, but I couldn’t. And so I just listened to it along with Blackwell, whose head had just turned sharply in its direction.
“Looka how thees feet my teets, Mama Guadalupe,” I heard a woman with a heavy Mexican accent say. “Sure, it need to be taken out at the boobies and hauled in at the back, but what else is new? Ever since Chuckie had me go under the knife to turn the girls into a couple of over-stuffed piñatas, everything I wear need to be fitted. Still, look at how the dress move. Look at how it flow. It beautiful. You like? No? Why you no like? It cost thirty grand, for Christ’s sake. Why you always look so peesed off? You living the high life now.”
“In a maid’s uniform,” another, more guttural voice said. “And in a tween bed.”
“That’s right. And you should be grateful for it—I give you work. I feed you. I pay you salary. I bring you to places like thees. Oh, Heyzeus Cristo, stop picking at your mole! I swear to God I’m gonna have that mother lanced. Look at me. Eyes right here. On the dress. Snap out of it. Tell me how I look?”
“Te ves como una perra.”
“You think I look like slut?”
“Sí. Tu padre estaría avergonzado.”
“My Papi, God rest his soul, would never be ashamed of me. Epifania worth five-hundred million. Don’ forget that, cookie. She no slut.”
“If he saw what you become, he faint. That dress fit you tighter than the skin on a blood sausage.”
“Aye yai yai! Why you so crazy like that? What wrong with you?”
“Mi hija look like whore.”
“Whore? Epifania got style. Epifania know what she got. Epifania a star. And by the way, Epifania not the one who wash up on shore in an inner tube wearing nothing but a banana leaf and a couple of coconuts. That be you, lady.”
Bewildered, Blackwell looked at me and then turned to Chloe, who had dropped the façade and now was looking horrified.
“What the hell is that?” Blackwell said.
“Epifania Zapopa and her mother, Guadalupe,” Chloe said.
“Guadalupe? Where the hell am I? San Miguel? Or better yet, San Quentin?”
“I’m so sorry. I had no idea they’d be this vulgar.”
“Tell me, Chloe, why did you let Epifania in here when you knew that I was coming here with Jennifer Wenn to shop? How did that even make sense to you?”
“She’s one of our best customers, Ms. Blackwell.”
“Not like me, she isn’t. Never like me. People call her the loose cannon of Park Avenue—did you even know that?”
“I didn’t.”
“Having heard her just now, does that even sound like a stretch to you?”
“Not after hearing that it doesn’t.”
“Then where is your judgment? I’ve given this dump hundreds of thousands of dollars over the years—both personally and through Wenn. Likely more through Wenn. This is outrageous. Get rid of all of them.”
“Epifania hear the people talking!” her sing-song voice rang out.
“Oh, Jesus,” Blackwell said. “She’s heard us.”
“Of course Epifania hear—this joint is as dead as my husband, Chuckie. But who she hear? That the question. Who want to see Epifania in her maybe new dress?”
And that’s all it took—Blackwell lifted her chin, and her eyes narrowed like a wolf closing in for the kill. “I’d love to see you in your maybe new dress, Epifania. Why don’t you come out, and I’ll give you my honest opinion of it?”
“Who that? Why I know that voice?”
“It’s Barbara Blackwell.”
“Oh, sheet,” Epifania said in a hushed voice. “It’s that crazy lady beetch Blackwell, Mama Guadalupe. The one I told you about once. You know, when you were still living in el barrio? When booze and beans were your best friends, and everything was going bottom’s up for you?”
“Shall we come to you?” Blackwell called.
And then came another voice—a familiar voice. A refined voice.
“Epifania, who are you speaking with?” a woman asked.
“It’s the darkness known as the Blackwell,” Epifania said. “The wicked witch is here.”
“Barbara Blackwell? Well isn’t that interesting. Who is she here with?”
“I don’ know.”
“I bet I do.”
I looked at Blackwell, then at Chloe. “Who is that?” I asked.
“Immaculata Almendarez.”
My eyes widened. Immaculata Almendarez had once gone aggressively after my husband before we married. And there was no love between us now.
“Immaculata is here?” I asked.
“She came with Epifania and her mother, Guadalupe. She and Epifania are friends.”
“I need to go,” I said to Blackwell. “While I’d love nothing more than to smack that bitch down again, there’s no way I’m up for Immaculata right now. Not after the stress I’ve been under lately.”
But before Blackwell could respond, Immaculata swung around the corner so she faced us. She smiled, tossed back her long, dark hair away from her face and over her shoulders, and started to come toward us in a gorgeous, sapphire-blue evening dress that I had to admit was to die for.
She was as beautiful as the last time I’d seen her months ago, when she threw a glass of champagne in my face at one of Henri Dufort’s parties. I’d slapped her twice for that. The press captured all of it and it made Page Six by morning. Not that I minded much. In front of me, she’d called Alex’s deceased wife a cunt. She’d had it coming to her.
I watched as she looked at me, absorbed me, dispensed with me, and then turned to Blackwell. “Last minute shopping?” she asked.
“I don’t do last minute anything,” Blackwell said. “But I have to say, Immaculata—I am surprised to see you here.”
“Why is that?”
“Perception. I’ve always sensed that you were more of a Macy’s kind of girl.”
“A what?”
“A girl who gravitates toward the sort of bargains that particular shopping hellhole tosses like flies at their customers’ feet. I could close my eyes right now and easily imagine you looking delighted while sifting through a pauper’s bin of polyester separates.”
“I doubt that, darling. Right now, I’m wearing Dior.”
“Wearing isn’t buying.”
“Oh, I’ll be buying.”
“You should rethink that, because the French obviously hate you. At the very least, that dress should be concealing the e
xtra ten pounds you’re carrying. But then, I guess that’s what Spanx is for, isn’t it, darling?”
Immaculata swallowed that poison pill like a glass of purified water, and I had to give it to her—she was nothing if not cool. Then she looked at me. “Oh,” she said. “Jennifer Kent—and here at Bergdorf’s before it opens. Who would have thought?”
“That would be Jennifer Wenn, Immaculata.”
“Ahh, right—who could forget your clever, covert wedding to Alex?”
“There was nothing clever or covert about it.”
“From what I heard, it took place in Alex’s office behind closed doors.” She motioned toward Blackwell. “And that this one married you. All of it certainly sounds covert to me, Jennifer. And the fact that you won him is nothing if not clever given your basic roots. But congratulations. You must be thrilled to have landed yourself Alexander Wenn. It really is staggering, isn’t it?”
“What’s staggering?”
“How much you’ve come up in the world in such a short period of time. Think about it—from the pig farms of Maine to the penthouses of Manhattan.” She laughed. “Ironically, that also could be the title of your memoir.”
“At least I’ve lived a life that could fill the pages of one, Immaculata. Do you remember the first night we met—or were you too drunk to remember it?”
“I never get drunk.”
“Then at your age, dementia obviously has settled in, because otherwise you would have remembered it—and you also would have remembered what you said to me when I asked you what you did for a living. All you had to offer was that you went to parties, attended events, and sat on boards, and that you didn’t work because you considered work a different sort of four-letter word. What a life of riches you’ve led, Immaculata. What a bounty of embarrassments.”
“Oh, darling, I haven’t even peaked yet. That said, please give Alex my best. You know how close we were. A kiss on the cheek would be lovely of you. Just whisper my name in his ear when you do it.”
“And make him sick?”
“If he got sick, it would only be because Wenn is about to go into the toilet.”
“Like a sheep off to slaughter, your optimism knows know bounds.”
Annihilate Me 2: Omnibus (Complete Vols. 1-3, Annihilate Me 2) Page 5
