Jean-Jacques was utterly confused. “It is?”
Again Sergei nodded positively. “It was your word ‘freeness’ that gave me the answer. The dress must swing wide at the bottom so that milady can feel the breeze on her cunt as she moves, thereby always reminding herself of her femininity.”
Jean-Jacques was silent as he studied the model. Sergei did not give him a chance to answer. “I must hurry to my office, I have an appointment. Thank you for giving me this opportunity to bask in your genius.”
Sergei paused in the doorway. He looked at the assistants, then at the designer. “I am sure now that they will be able to give you exactly what you want.”
When he was gone from the doorway, Jean-Jacques muttered something almost inaudibly under his breath about having something further to take up with his highness, and ran from the room. The two assistants looked at each other. “Did you understand what his highness said?”
The other shook her head. “No.” She turned to the model. “Did you understand?”
“Who the hell understands anyone in this business?” the model said with a bored expression as she stepped down from the stand. “They are all crazy. If I got any more breeze on my cunt than I do now, I would probably come down with pneumonia.”
11
Irma Andersen was a thickset woman in her middle fifties, with a pudgy, rather square face under her heavy, black-rimmed glasses. She held out her hand toward Sergei. “Your highness, so good of you to come!”
Sergei kissed her hand. “Who could resist a summons from so renowned a hostess?”
Irma laughed. Her voice was surprisingly deep but still quite feminine. “Sergei, you phony bastard.” She chuckled. “At least you were honest enough not to call me beautiful.” She placed a cigarette in a long thin holder and waited until he held a light for her. “It’s been a long time,” she said, letting the smoke come out through her nose like a man.
“Since my wedding.”
“You remembered?”
He nodded. “You were doing a column for Cosmo-World.”
“I didn’t think you’d remember.” Irma placed the cigarette holder on the edge of her desk and picked up a sheet of paper. “I suppose you’re wondering why I called?”
“I was a little curious.”
“I got a cablegram from my New York newspaper. They heard that Caroline Xenos was coming over with a group of friends especially to attend the opening of your new salon. They asked me to look into it.”
“Oh?”
“Are you trying especially hard to keep it a secret?” she asked. “Why didn’t you get in touch with me right away?”
It had to be like this, he thought, the push had to come from the States. If he had called as she suggested, she would have killed the showing. “I didn’t dare,” he replied with just the proper amount of modesty. “You’re much too important for me to approach without a major reason.”
“Anything that has to do with fashion and society is important to me, Sergei.”
“But this is just another couturier.”
“Sergei, you must be an idiot! It isn’t every day that a prince opens a maison de couture.”
He dared a grin. “You know I’m no prince.”
“You are honest!” Irma laughed aloud. “I know it, and you know it. But so far as the folks back home go, you’re a prince. Anyone who was once married to Sue Ann Daley would have to be.”
“That’s because they don’t know Sue Ann!”
“Sue Ann has a new one, a good-looking young Mexican boy. She found him in Acapulco diving from the mountain into the ocean. He must be all of seventeen.”
Sergei smiled. “Good for her; at least he’s young enough.”
Irma Andersen stuck the cigarette holder back in her mouth. “You’ll invite me to the collection, of course?”
Sergei allowed himself a moment’s hesitation. “We weren’t planning to ask the press.”
“I don’t care what you’re doing about the others, I’m coming.”
He was silent.
“I can be a great help to you,” she said, “you know that.”
He nodded.
“I was on the telephone only this morning to Lady Corrigan in London. I just happened to mention to her that I knew you. She expressed a great interest in joining me at the showing.”
Sergei could almost feel a glow of triumph inside himself. Lady Corrigan was one of the richest heiresses in Great Britain. She had also been on every ten-best-dressed list for the past two years.
“There are several others I could interest in visiting your salon,” Irma added quickly, “names that will help you gain a quick acceptance. That is if you have anything worthwhile to show.” She looked at him shrewdly. “You’re not afraid of such a critical audience, are you?”
“No,” he replied hesitantly.
“Well, then?”
He looked at her and suddenly he held open his hands in a gesture of defeat. “All right, you’re invited. But you realize this means I shall have to invite the rest of the press?”
“I don’t care whom you invite. Just make certain I sit in the front row with the customers and not back with the help!”
“Of course,” Sergei replied. “You didn’t have to ask.”
“I have another idea.”
“Yes?”
“Why don’t you let me give a dinner for you after the collection? Well keep it small. No more than fifty or sixty of the right people.”
“It’s a lovely idea, and I am deeply touched. But there is just one difficulty, if I may be frank.”
“You can be very frank with me always.”
“Money,” he said. “I put all I have into this collection.”
“What are you trying to tell me? I ran a check on you. Bernstein’s bank in Switzerland is behind the showing.”
“I’m three years into Sue Ann’s settlement already. They won’t go beyond that.”
“They’re fools!” Irma said vehemently, suddenly on Sergei’s side. “I think we should have the party anyway.”
“But where will I get the money?”
“Leave that to me. It will be my investment in you. I suddenly have the feeling that you’re going to make a lot of money.”
“I hope you’re right. Tomorrow morning I shall have delivered to you, say, five percent of my stock.”
“Ten.”
“Ten percent,” he agreed.
This time Irma held her hand out across the desk like a man. Solemnly he shook it.
“Now,” she said, ejecting the cigarette from her holder into the ash tray. “As soon as I can reload this damn thing, I want to hear about your collection. I want to get a story into my next Sunday feature.”
Sergei lit the cigarette for her and waited until she fed a sheet of paper into her typewriter. “What is it you would like to know?”
“First, how did you get interested in women’s clothes?”
He laughed. “That’s easy. As you know, I’ve always been interested in women.”
Irma laughed. “I know that, but isn’t it a switch for you to get them clothes rather than out of them?” Abruptly she stopped laughing and grew serious. “That’s fun but not what I need for a family newspaper. I need something else. Something fairly controversial but not too far out to start with.”
Sergei thought for a moment. “How about the new look? Everyone seems afraid to criticize it.”
“That’s a point.” She nodded thoughtfully. “What have you got to say about it?”
“The new look was designed to cover up ugly people, with the result that it turns all women into the same image. The covered-up, ugly image. My collection is not like that at all. It is designed primarily for the beautiful people. The—”
“Wait a minute,” Irma interrupted, “that’s it!” Abruptly her fingers began to fly over the typewriter keyboard.
Sergei lit a cigarette and waited until she stopped and turned back to him. “That’s what?”
“‘The beautiful people.�
�� I’ve been looking for a phrase like that for the last year, ever since I started my daily column. Listen to this. ‘The heading you see at the top of the column this Sunday, “The Beautiful People,” was suggested to me by the most exciting new personality in the world of fashion today, Prince Sergei Nikovitch, a member of the former ruling family of Russia. Prince Sergei’s name for the people for whom he has designed his collection is the most exact description of the people we are all most interested in. The people in the forefront of everything—society, politics, the theater, art, diplomacy, you name it. “The Beautiful People” are the leaders. And by the secret intelligence that passes invisibly amongst them the word is out. From all over the world they are flocking to Paris on the first of September to view Prince Nikovitch’s collection. From the United States, Caroline Xenos, the former Caroline de Coyne, with a group of her friends; from London, the Lady Margaret (Peggy) Corrigan, one of the world’s best-dressed women: from South America, from Europe, from all over the world, “The Beautiful People” are coming.’”
Irma looked up. “How’s that for a starter?”
Sergei smiled. “I only hope my collection is as good!”
***
The tension was like an immense knot in the pit of his stomach. Sergei peered through the curtain into the grand salon. The chairs were placed in a horseshoe, to allow the models a full parade around the room. They went back row after row until they almost reached the wall, and every one of them was occupied. And behind them people were standing. The overflow crowd spilled out into the open corridor.
Irma Andersen had been as good as her word. The front row, in which she sat, looked like a royalty list gleaned from the pages of L’Officiel or Vogue. Caroline sat at Irma’s left, and James Hadley, former American ambassador to Italy, was next to her. At Irma’s right was Lady Corrigan and her husband. The front row looked like the tout va table at Monte Carlo during the season.
The sound of the string quartet came to Sergei’s ears as he stepped away from the curtain and walked back into the workroom. The noise and pandemonium was greater here than any he had ever experienced before. If what had previously existed had been confusion, this was chaos. It seemed as if suddenly everyone had gone out of his or her mind.
Jean-Jacques came running in from the salon behind him. “Get ready, girls!”
The silence that suddenly fell across the room bothered Sergei’s ears even more than the noise. He heard the orchestra lead into the first presentation. A thin model whose face was pale under her makeup came forward. She paused before the two of them and pirouetted slowly.
“Beautiful, beautiful!” Jean-Jacques enthused. He kissed the model on both cheeks. She looked up at Sergei questioningly. He, too, bent and kissed her. “Be brave, ma petite.”
She smiled suddenly, shyly, and walked out of the workroom. Behind him Sergei could hear the swell of applause that greeted her entrance.
“Where is Charles?” Jean-Jacques asked hysterically, “Where is he? He promised to be here. He knows I can’t go through an opening without him.”
Suddenly Sergei was furious. He had had six weeks of this. It was too much. “He’s upstairs in your office fucking a girl!”
Jean-Jacques glared at him. Suddenly his face went white, and he flung the back of his hand to his forehead. “I feel faint, I am fainting!”
He staggered back into the arms of his two assistants. A moment later a young man hurried up with a glass of water. “Drink this, darling.”
Jean-Jacques sipped the water. The color came back into his face. He stood up and faced Sergei. “Don’t ever say such a thing, you naughty boy,” he said reproachfully. “It gave me such a turn! You know that Charles and I are faithful to each other.”
Behind them the music began to lead into the second introduction, and the next model started forward. “You can handle this,” Sergei said suddenly to Jean-Jacques. “I’m going up to my office for a drink.”
Sergei closed the door behind him. Silently he took a bottle of vodka from the closet and poured a large slug into a glass. He sat down, the vodka still in his hand, and stared at the picture of the little girl on the desk.
Anastasia had been about seven when the picture was taken, and the blue dress with the white piping made a lovely frame for her light-blond hair and blue eyes. Her slightly uncertain but sweet smile heartened him. He held the drink up. “I pray to God this works, baby,” he said. “Daddy’s getting awfully tired of running.”
Sergei swallowed the last of the drink just as the door opened. He looked up in surprise.
“I thought I would find you here,” Giselle said. “No one should ever have to spend an opening night alone.”
12
Irma Andersen was having a ball. The real reason she gave parties was because she loved them. Irma loved everything about them. The sights, the sounds, the smells, the excitement. Beautifully dressed people living exotically in a way that even her childhood dreams had never anticipated. It had never been like this in the back room of the tiny delicatessen in Akron, Ohio, where she had been brought up. There it was never anything but a nickel’s worth of liverwurst and potato salad and rye bread.
Irma had hated liverwurst and potato salad ever since, and these were the only two items she had never allowed on her menu. So instead of liverwurst there was pate de foie gras, and instead of potato salad there were avocados, sliced and cut and prepared with a deliciously different mayonnaise.
She looked around with a feeling of satisfaction. This was a good party. All you needed was the right mixture of people. Talkers and listeners. About sixty-five percent of the former. It was always better to have more talkers than listeners. There was something livelier about noise. A quiet party was a dead party. A failure.
Irma used to have nightmares about giving a party at which no one spoke. Just the thought had been enough to keep her awake nights. But that had been a long time ago. It could never happen now. Now there was another reason she enjoyed giving parties. They were the greatest source of information in the world. In the first few minutes of that evening she had picked up some very choice tidbits of gossip.
The thing between Caroline Xenos and James Hadley. It was odd, but delicious. The difference in their ages, for one thing. Hadley was old enough to be her father. Besides that, Caroline’s husband had the reputation of being one of the world’s great lovers and playboys. What was it that Sue Ann Daley had once been quoted as saying?
“With Dax it’s like having a machine gun inside you. It never stops shooting and neither does he.”
But that was the marvelous thing about people. You could never know what they really wanted. Apparently Caroline desired something else. And she didn’t seem to care who knew it, not from the way she kept looking at Hadley.
Irma made a note to ask Sergei what he knew about it. After all, he had been a close friend of Dax’s. He would know. And it wasn’t to use in her column. Chances were she would never include an item like that in her newspaper. These people were her friends. She would never do anything to hurt them.
In a strange way Irma loved them all. With all their pettiness and amoral attitudes of selfishness, she looked up to them. They had never known what it was to eat liverwurst and potato salad. They really were the beautiful people. And just being with them made her feel beautiful, too.
***
It was almost midnight when they left the party, and as they stood waiting while the doorman went in search of their chauffeur, Caroline said, “I’m glad for Sergei.”
“Do you think he’s made it?” James Hadley asked shrewdly, “or is it the illusion of the opening?”
“He’s made it. Some of his things are very good, a few extraordinary. Tomorrow he will need police to control the crowds.”
“He’s that good, eh?”
Caroline nodded. “If I did not know him personally, I still would never complete my wardrobe without considering Sergei.”
The car pulled up and the doorman stood holdi
ng the door. Hadley pressed a five-franc note into his hand and they got in. The car rolled away from the curb.
“Ask the chauffeur to drop me at my father’s house.”
Hadley was surprised. He took down the speaker and gave the chauffeur the instruction before he answered her. “Wouldn’t it be better to wait until morning?”
Caroline shook her head. “I told Papa I would be over after the dinner.”
“You spoke to him?”
“This afternoon.”
“How is he? I have a great respect for your father.”
Caroline gave him a penetrating look. “I never know about Papa. He’s as much a mystery to me as you must be to your children.”
“Did he say why he wanted to see you?”
Again that curious look. “He’s my father. I’ve been here almost a week without calling him. So Papa called me.”
“But he must have said something.”
“He didn’t have to, I know what he wants.”
Hadley regretted the question almost as soon as he asked it. “You do?”
Her eyes were steady on his. “The same thing you would want to know if your daughter were having an affair with him. What does she intend doing about it?”
Hadley was silent. He looked out the window for a few moments but he couldn’t keep his thoughts to himself. “Do you know what you’re going to say to him?”
Caroline nodded. “I know exactly what I’m going to say.”
Hadley felt that if he asked her she would tell him. But he didn’t. Something inside kept him from it. Perhaps it was because he already sensed that he knew what she had decided and didn’t want to hear it.
Instead he got out of the car when it stopped in front of the baron’s town house. “Shall I send the car back for you?”
“No,” she said, “I’ll see you at lunch tomorrow.” She turned up her cheek for a good-night kiss. “Bon soir, mon cher.”
Hadley realized it was over when she kissed his cheek. He felt he should say something gallant, something understanding, but the words did not come readily to his lips. There was just a large empty feeling as he watched her run up the steps to the front door.
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