“Why are we meeting this woman?” Spider asked.
“We can use her,” Billy answered. “It’s as simple as that. Anyway, I think you’ll like her. I’ve met her here and there every time I come to New York and she’s remarkably pleasant. She knows everybody … on my last trip she gave a small dinner for me, and I had the most fun I’ve had in a long time.”
“Aside from worming her way into your affections, just what is it she can do for us that we need?”
“Oh, Spider, don’t be so suspicious.”
“Mrs. Ikehorn, there’s a look on your face that tells me that you’re up to no good.”
“Mr. Elliott, have I ever been up to good?”
“Jesus, Billy, ask me a question I can answer.”
Spider gave Billy that happy, sensuous grin to which she had tried to become immune. When Valentine had agreed to leave New York and come to work at Scruples in 1976, she had conned Billy over the phone into giving Spider a job as well. Billy had found out about Valentine’s trick before she met Spider, yet he had managed to persuade her to give him a chance. The first thought she’d had about Spider was that he was one man she could never allow herself, and she repeated that thought every time she was alone with him, erecting a barrier of playfulness that kept his attractiveness, for he had only grown more attractive as the years passed, at a distance that was comfortable … or almost comfortable.
Billy sipped her white wine, meditating on those particular qualities that made Spider, along with her lawyer, Josh Hillman, one of the two men in the world she trusted. There was not the slightest taint of affectation to him, she thought; his raw manliness, like his outrageous masculinity, his rogue energy, was bred in the bone. He had a manly energy, a manly gentleness, a manly openness, a loyalty and a kindness that were steady and unconscious, part of him no matter with whom he was dealing. He had juice, that damned sexual juice that was so difficult for any woman to ignore, but it was his pith, nothing he turned on or off for reasons of his own. She couldn’t imagine him telling her a lie, but above all else, in spite of his glamour, Spider had a manly simplicity that no amount of worldly experience had tarnished or diminished, quite probably because he had never really grown up.
While Billy sat composedly, looking over the new and interestingly decorated restaurant, Spider gazed at her reflectively. She had seemed like such a difficult customer when he’d met her that nothing could have persuaded him that four years later he’d consider her a close friend. She had never lost certain qualities that must to this day make her seem impossible to other people; she was still royally impatient, still a demanding perfectionist, still impulsive and determined to have her own way, still capable of springing into sudden autocratic rages when her detailed orders weren’t carried out properly.
Unquestionably many people feared her, Spider realized, but they were not the people who knew her best. No question that there were a multitude of poorly organized architects and decorators, contractors and heads of construction crews in Hong Kong, Munich, Honolulu, Rio, Zurich and Monte Carlo who developed migraines at the sound of her name.
When Billy announced that she was coming to visit here in New York or in Chicago, Spider knew that no one who worked at either store relaxed until she had flown back to Los Angeles. Billy was one holy hell of a tough boss, no question about it, but she never remained unreasonable or unfair when conditions were explained to her, even during the difficulties of creating the first Scruples. She gave people a second chance, on occasion even a third, before she fired them, and those who performed satisfactorily were promptly rewarded with loyalty and generosity.
He was curious about this new friend of hers who had invited them both to lunch. He and Valentine often wondered why Billy had so few women friends. She created an ever-so-slight, but distinct, wall of distance between herself and almost every woman they knew; only a few, like Susan Arvey, were treated without that tiny touch of reserve, and Billy didn’t even like Susan Arvey, although she respected her mind.
Valentine and Billy had grown very close in the last few years. “Today Billy told me that she feels that Dolly, Jessica Strauss and I are her three dearest friends in the world,” Valentine had told him, just the other day. “I felt so touched, so pleased, and yet a little sad for her, I don’t know quite why. Perhaps because she doesn’t have a husband to be her best friend, the way I do.” It was sad, Spider thought, that you couldn’t be as rich as Billy was and still expect to be a normal woman, with normal friendships. Certainly not with a normal dating life, God knows. She tried to deal with the men who went after her, but she was gun-shy now, and who could blame her?
Marriage to that miserable peckerhead, Vito, had humanized her, but the divorce had made her suspicious of all men. He dreaded to think what else the divorce might have done to Billy if Gigi hadn’t been there. Gigi had brought out a tenderness and a deeply feminine sweetness in Billy that Spider hadn’t realized she possessed, but she could still be swept into a moody unhappiness that he sensed came from someplace in her he didn’t understand.
Billy looked younger now than when he’d met her, but he knew she was thirty-seven, not quite a year older than he. It might be the haircut, Spider thought, for not long after the divorce she’d had her long, dark brown hair cut very short, so that it had shaped itself into a careless point at her nape and sprang back from her forehead in thick, blunt-cut, large, loose curls that looked as if no hairdresser had ever come near them, a deceptively casual-looking style that had to be trimmed every two weeks. Her head, held high by her powerful throat, seemed more imperious now than when it had been softened by the hair she used to wear to her shoulders. Her luscious mouth was as full as ever, her naturally rosy lips still covered only by a layer of transparent gloss, and her eyes had lost none of their smoky mystery; in fact, they had gained in their dark, unflinching challenge. If you had no idea who Billy was, you’d have to turn your head to look at her, he thought, for she carried an empire in her eyes. Billy’s beauty—for she was a raging, flaming, tearing, wild-ass beauty, Spider admitted—retained its strong, verging-on-virile quality that made her seem to be one of a long line of huntresses. Today, in the fitted, belted red linen jacket and crisply tailored trousers Valentine had designed for her, Billy, oblivious of the fact that everyone in the crowded restaurant was aware of her, looked as if she could leap on a charger and lead a troop of redcoats to the sound of martial trumpets. She only needed a sword.
“Madame is late,” he remarked.
“We got here early,” Billy answered, looking at her watch. “In exactly one minute she’ll be one minute late and there she is now, so stop your whining, you’re just hungry.”
Billy introduced them and as he sat down, after rising to greet the newcomer, Spider looked her over curiously. A strange and strikingly distinctive bird, he thought, reserving judgment, for he was a man who liked almost every woman he’d ever met, and he meant to give this lady a fair chance, although something told him, way down where he kept his deepest instincts, that she might turn out to be an exception to his feelings. Yet she was charming, perfectly charming, bubbling with amusing things to say, listening intently to what was said to her, and as far as he could tell, she was unimpressed by Billy’s position, an attitude Spider knew was rare.
“Cora has the most marvelous apartment I’ve ever seen, filled with the most exquisite things in New York,” Billy informed Spider.
“Do you like things, Spider?” Cora de Lioncourt inquired.
“Could you be a little more specific, Cora?” he replied.
“Antiques, objects, bibelots, great junk, ‘smalls,’ ” she said in her lovely voice in which the Southern echoes had never died.
“What’s a ‘small’?”
“A British dealer’s term for an addiction, a little object you hadn’t intended to buy and certainly don’t need, but end up paying too much for and take away with you, filled with the thrill of possession.”
“I get a kick out of great jun
k, but ‘smalls’ sound like a new kind of candy, too rich for my blood, and antiques are something I’ve never lived with and don’t know about … bibelots I tend to break.”
“Then you simply must come and visit me, let me show you my things, and be converted,” Cora said, seeming to be captivated by his indifference. “I have ten friends who say you’ve changed their lives by your incredibly perceptive advice about clothes—taste, in my experience, is never confined to only one area. I’m sure you’d have an instinctive knowledge about things, I’d bet money that you could tell a great antique chair from a merely good antique chair, this very minute, without knowing why, just because of your eye. Do say you’ll visit me!”
“I appreciate the invitation,” Spider said, “but I’m not much of a shopper. I like to advise women on how to make the most of themselves, but I consider that activity called ‘going shopping’ a kind of terrible torture.”
“Spider, Cora isn’t talking about shopping, she’s talking about collecting,” Billy laughed, familiar with his deliberately obtuse manner. Sometimes, though not often, Spider could be rubbed the wrong way.
“Billy, speaking of shopping, I had an idea last night just as I was going to sleep,” Cora de Lioncourt said, “and I wrote it down so I wouldn’t forget. I thought that your Scruples ads, fabulous as they are, might possibly be made even better. I know absolutely nothing about advertising, so shut me up if it sounds ridiculous, but why don’t you appear in the ads yourself, instead of using models? It would be so much more interesting for women to see you, the actual owner, wearing the things you’re selling, and you’re probably roughly the age of your best customers, no matter how unfairly young you look. I’ve seen enough photographs of you to know you could carry it off—is that a totally stupid idea, or does it make any sense?”
There was a silence as both Spider and Billy sat still, not eating. It was a bold and original idea that had never occurred to either of them before.
“Well …” Billy murmured, unwilling to admit how much the idea immediately tempted her. She was almost ashamed of how proud she had become of her stores; she identified herself with them in a visceral way; they were her triumphs. She knew how well she photographed, how well she wore clothes … Why not?
“I don’t know,” she said slowly. “I would never have thought of it—Spider, what do you think?”
“Right off the bat? Okay, I think it’s … risky.”
“Why risky?” Billy demanded.
“I don’t know that you’d want to be the symbol of the Scruples customer,” he said, groping for words. “Look, Billy, I have to deal with them directly, and ninety-nine and nine-tenths of one percent of them can’t wear clothes the way you can. They’re used to seeing photographs of models looking better than they ever will, but you’re a real person, and that could be annoying to them, a kind of turn-off. And there’s more—”
“What?” she asked impatiently.
“You’ve often told me that you hated being on those lists of the ten richest women in America, and constantly being identified that way in the media, every time your name is used, right?”
“Right.”
“So appearing in the ads, wearing the latest styles, would make you just that much more of a target. You’d be more envied than you are already. That’s not a good idea. Ultimately it could work against you … women would see the pictures and think, ‘Oh no, not Billy Ikehorn again wearing a dress that probably costs a fortune … it’s so easy for her, she owns the damn store and she’s so damn thin, but it’s too expensive for me and I couldn’t carry it off anyway’ … that sort of thing.”
“You’re right, Spider,” Billy said, hiding her regret imperfectly.
“I know you’re right,” Cora de Lioncourt said, hiding her disappointment perfectly. “It’s that kind of sensitivity, that kind of understanding of women’s psyches that makes you so unusual, Spider. I see the pitfalls now.… the idea goes into my wastepaper basket.”
“But it’s a marvelous idea for someone else, Cora,” Billy protested, “probably a designer, a woman designer who happens to design for her own body type … someday I’m sure someone will do it. I do think you’re clever!”
“Well, thank you,” she said, showing her perfect teeth. “Then maybe I’ll put it in my ‘file and don’t forget’ file.”
“Whatever you decide Cora, I’m thrilled that you’re going to be helping us with the big party in the fall, after Labor Day,” Billy said.
Spider continued to eat his turbot. This was the first he’d heard of any party, but he wasn’t about to ask questions, not right after spiking Cora de what’s-her-name’s guns.
“It’s going to be really hard,” Cora said, “to plan something that will top the party you gave when the first Scruples opened. I know that Spider was singlehandedly responsible for that huge success—it was a party that showed genius, Spider, and I doubt that I can arrange anything half as good, but I mean to try. For New Yorkers to be trumped by a big party in Los Angeles … well! They’re going to expect the fall celebration to be incredible and they’ll be picky, Billy, picky as the devil. They hate competition from the provinces. If they don’t believe New York is the center of the universe, how can they justify living here?”
“Spider, I didn’t have a chance to tell you about this before lunch,” Billy said, “but the last time I was here, Cora suggested it.”
“I see. So Cora’s going to help?”
“After all, Spider, it makes sense. We never officially celebrated when we opened, and we really should have had a big party for the publicity if no other reason. New York isn’t your town, the way L.A. is, and it certainly isn’t my town, but it is Cora’s town. We need someone here on the spot who knows all the right people to use for food and flowers and music and decor, someone who can add the newest interesting names to our guest list … I haven’t any doubt that it’s a good idea.”
“All I want besides the fun of doing it,” Cora said, “is for Spider to pick out a dress for me to buy to wear to the party. I crave that famous Spider Elliott experience.”
“I think you have your own look down to perfection, Cora, you know as well as I do that you don’t need me,” Spider said, pleasantly but unsmiling.
As he spoke, he thought that there was absolutely no need to give such a party. It would cost a fucking fortune and the New York Scruples was already doing three times as much business per square foot than any other store in town. If they needed publicity, which they didn’t, it was to be had for peanuts, but since Billy obviously wanted to throw a monster bash, why not? It couldn’t hurt, not the way those ads would hurt, so why should he throw cold water on her plan?
The only thing was, there had been plenty of time for Billy to tell him about it before lunch—weeks, in fact, since Cora had come up with the idea—so why had she waited to spring it on him until Cora was there to back her up? No, he didn’t like the Lioncourt even a little bit. And flattery would get her nowhere.
After lunch, for which no check was presented, as it never was to Cora de Lioncourt, she dropped in on several antiques dealers before returning home. As she had expected, she saw nothing worth a second of her time, but she wanted to reject and reject, and reject again, with pointed, spiteful, accurately disdainful words, to vent some of the rage Spider Elliott had aroused in her. Christ, she hated men like that! Handsome, uselessly handsome, dismissive, with minds of their own.
Men with influence over rich women were her natural enemies, and a man like Spider, an impervious man, a man who resisted her and didn’t hesitate to speak his mind, was the worst of all. Rich women were her prey, and Billy Ikehorn was the biggest of all the big game that had ever come her way; she’d been stalking her slowly and carefully and successfully since she first met her, and she’d invited Spider to lunch with them in order to take his measure. He was distinctly bad news, Cora thought, as she returned to her apartment and made herself a cup of tea before she went to her desk to look over her accoun
ts.
Absently she studied the list of the five expensive new restaurants in town where she had arrangements. Her fees were all paid in cash—Cora insisted on liquide—for bringing parties of friends for lunch or dinner, with the checks taken care of by the restaurants themselves. Le Train Bleu had waited two months for her to bring Billy Ikehorn, and tomorrow there would be a mention in a well-read gossip column; they owed her a handsome bonus. Although she charged a yearly rate, payable in advance, she made no promises to the restaurant owners. She guaranteed to bring the right people when they opened and for a while afterwards, but the success of the place depended entirely on factors she couldn’t control. If a restaurant didn’t catch on, she dropped it instantly, for she couldn’t afford to take her friends anywhere that was half-empty.
Restaurants were the least of her business, she thought, but dependable. They closed and opened at an amazing rate in the city, and she only agreed to work with the best, recommended to her by members of the network she had built up in the past seven years of residence.
The first year had been grindingly tough, and Cora de Lioncourt had often stiffened her resolve by repeating to herself that she was in a period of investment; not a dime could be expected to come in until she had established herself. The move had been made twice as hard by the discovery that her dollars bought less in New York than her francs did in Paris, so that decorating her apartment and maintaining her standard of living forced her to take a bite into her capital. Nobody in New York gave discounts for cash, not even the shoe repairman, the apartment painter or the lady who cleaned her teeth—what was wrong with these Americans, who had taxes to pay just like everybody else? But she stuck to her plan. Her New York friends had indeed entertained for her, and once her apartment was ready, Cora promptly invited them back, in well-thought-out combinations, adding the best of the new people she had met, particularly anyone connected in any way with the media.
Scruples Two Page 21
