Lovers

by Judith Krantz

  “Lord have mercy, lady. You do have expensive taste.”

  “I can afford it,” Billy snapped. “That chair is comfortable beyond belief, built to last until doomsday, the fabric is hand-screened pure linen, the upholsterer was the most expensive in California—the Scruples Home armchairs won’t look all that different—an armchair is an armchair—but I have no illusions that they’ll be the same. They won’t be stuffed in hundred-percent down, or built by hand, or detailed in the same way. Spider, you can buy an excellent reproduction of an antique chest of drawers for five hundred dollars, or you can buy the Philadelphia original at auction for a million bucks—”

  “Don’t tell me they give the same pleasure.”

  “They both give pleasure! Spider, here’s where you’re just not getting this idea, where you’re just not listening. If I hire the right designers, the best designers possible at any price, and give them a firm mandate to make handsome but uncomplicated furniture, and if I strictly limit the choices and sell a lot of pieces, this thing will fly!”

  Spider got up and walked over to the desk and started scribbling on a pad. As he worked, Billy watched him silently, feeling her fury building at each unasked-for scratch of his pencil.

  “The way I figure it,” he said finally, “your basic fully furnished living dining room would run into at least four thousand dollars and change, and that’s without even a lamp to see what you’ve bought.”

  “Carpets, lamps, accessories—of course I thought of them for another department in the catalog, surely that’s obvious,” Billy said defensively. “There are all sorts of terrific items available at low prices that you haven’t a clue about—”

  “And how would you know, oh, princess of the eight-thousand-dollar armchair?”

  “Because I subscribe to shelter magazines, from the most expensive to the cheapest, I always thought I should have studied to be a decorator—”

  “Aha! Now I know where all this is coming from! So you wanted to be a decorator—you never told me that—I wonder why. The Scruples Home is just as impractical as Scruples was the first day I walked in there and found an exact reproduction of the Paris Dior showroom, smack in the center of Beverly Hills.”

  “Spider, will you never let me forget that? This is totally different, this is based on everything I’ve learned from Scruples and Scruples Two. I’ve had a liberal education in marketing, and there’s a real need for this—”

  “Hold on a minute,” Spider said, putting his hand up in a peremptory gesture, as if to stop traffic. “Scruples Two has a money-back guarantee, no questions asked, or we wouldn’t do any business. Right? So your customer orders everything for her living room-dining room, and when the pieces come, she finds out that she just doesn’t like the way they look—maybe they’re the wrong color or size because she measured wrong, or her husband doesn’t like them or whatever—what does she do now—send them back?”

  “Yes.” Billy glared at him. “I’ll find a way.”

  “Oh, Billy, have you even thought about the added cost of shipping all this stuff to her in the first place? And have you realized how big a warehouse you’d need? Something the size of Kentucky, if you want my opinion. And how does your customer unpack the crates when they’re delivered and get the stuff in the house—if she works, how can she even make sure she’s at home when they’re delivered, come to think of it, and, worst of all, if she decides to return something, how the hell does she pack it up? These are all bulky items—a three-pillow sofa isn’t something you can return to sender at the post office. Trouble, Billy, you’re buying nothing but trouble. And what happens when you make a mistake—we’ve made plenty at Scruples Two, so you’d be bound to make mistakes—and no one wants a French country headboard and you’re stuck with two thousand of them, or everyone wants them and you need twenty thousand of them in a hurry?”

  “How many more pails of cold water do you have ready to dump on my idea?” Billy was physically assaulted by his words. She looked at him and hated him.

  “I hate to be negative, but somebody has to tell you that it simply isn’t a practical plan. It’s a lovely fantasy, a well-meaning fantasy, but it isn’t businesslike. Scruples Two was businesslike from the very beginning. You didn’t think it was, until I convinced you, but this … no, it won’t work.”

  “It will!” Billy said passionately. “I’ll do it with my own money and you’ll see!”

  “Yeah, well, of course there’s always that choice, isn’t there?” Spider drawled, in a voice that had suddenly gone absolutely flat.

  “Why are you using that particular tone with me?”

  “You don’t understand the first thing about finance, you’ve never had to worry about meeting a payroll or borrowing, but I don’t know a bank that would lend you a dime on this proposal. If you want to spend your own hard-earned money on it, be my guest, but when you get into deep shit and come complaining to me, just don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

  “I promise you that.” Billy turned away with loathing from the sight of Spider’s blond head, and walked out on the balcony.

  Why the fuck had she ever told him? Why hadn’t she just gone ahead and commissioned the designs herself? Had the catalog designed, set the whole thing in motion? When she’d bought the best corner in Beverly Hills and built Scruples, she had done it without asking, telling, or consulting anyone, and a great store and a great mail-order business had both been based on that impulse she’d had years before she’d laid eyes on Spider Elliott, Billy thought, shaking with rage.

  Every bit of the marketing help he’d given her, help that he’d been highly paid for and could never stop reminding her of, could easily have come from someone else, hired for that purpose just as she had hired him.

  Billy felt her nails digging into her palms in the excess of her fury. This whole thing was unforgivable. Because she had married Spider, he had the illusion that he’d become her boss. He thought he’d created Scruples Two all on his own, this ignoramus who’d never bought more than a potted plant since he’d left home, who’d been perfectly content living in rented, furnished places until he’d moved into her beautiful house with only a few clean shirts and now had the bloody nerve to set himself up as an expert on what would and wouldn’t work in home furnishing.

  Billy hardly moved as she gave herself over to the thoughts that drummed in her head. She could buy a hundred of the best people in the decorating world to give her advice on the Scruples Home catalog, she could hire the editor-in-chief away from any decorating magazine to set up a phone service to help the customer pick colors, measure walls, do all the things Spider thought were so impossible to achieve … Why didn’t he want to be helpful instead of immediately pissing all over her idea?

  As Billy stood rigidly on the balcony, looking at nothing, Spider came out behind her and put his arms around her tightly.

  “I know you’re angry,” he said. “I shouldn’t have been so positive about everything. Maybe it could work, who knows? Why don’t you get your feet wet first, start on something smaller, like a Scruples bed-linen catalog or a Scruples bath-accessories catalog, and if those work out, then get bigger by stages?”

  “Those catalogs exist, I get them by the dozen. And I don’t start small,” Billy said, so angry she could hardly utter the words. How magnanimous of him to offer her the sop of scalloped sheets and soap dishes. How thoughtless. How disrespectful. He had no respect for her. He never had, not now, not since she’d known him, superficially perhaps, but not deep respect.

  “I’m tired,” Billy said, jerking out of his arms. “I’m going to get ready for bed.”

  As she took off her clothes and sat down at her dressing table to remove her makeup, her anger and frustration continued to grow. Billy put on a bathrobe, picked up a book and went to read on a chaise longue in the bedroom, unwilling to get into the same bed with Spider until he was fast asleep. Double beds were an invention of the devil.

  She was rereading the same line over and
over, her malignant, assaulting, wrathful thoughts mounting and expanding, when Spider appeared from his bathroom in his pajamas.

  “Good book?” he asked, trying to create a normal atmosphere before he went to sleep.

  “Not particularly.”

  “Then why don’t you come on over here and lie down next to me and let me apologize more effectively?”

  “You have a remarkable sense of humor. I’d rather read. Even a bad book.”

  “Have it your own way.” Spider turned to write something down on the small notepad that normally lay on his bedside table. “Have you seen my pad?” he asked Billy.

  “No. Why? Are you thinking of more itty-bitty catalog ideas for me?” she asked. He reduced her, damn him, he reduced her!

  “I’ve given up on that, thanks. I just want to remind myself to call Russo and Russo tomorrow. I can’t delegate that particular job to anyone else.”

  “What job?”

  “Didn’t I tell you? I’ve decided to hire Frost Rourke Bernheim to handle the Scruples Two account, so I have to give the Russo boys the bad news.”

  “You what?” Billy let the book drop and jumped up.

  “I just told you what. I’m changing agencies. Victoria Frost came by today and convinced me that we’re with the wrong agency. A most impressive dame.”

  “I hired Bill and Ed Russo. I discovered them,” Billy yelled at him. “They’re my friends and you know it. Advertising was my department. How dare you fire them without talking to me about it?”

  “Shit, Billy, you haven’t been participating in daily decisions since before the kids were born. The Russos aren’t doing a good enough job, and that’s that. I don’t ask you how to zip up my pants in the morning.”

  “What a crappy, infantile cliché. You sound eight years old. Did you remember that Gigi made it clear that under no circumstances was she going to solicit our account when she changed jobs?”

  “I did. Victoria said Gigi was comfortable with it now.”

  “Oh, Victoria told you that, did she, and you believed her?”

  “How could she lie about it?”

  “I don’t know, but I’m certain that Victoria Frost is no expert on Gigi, they can barely be civil to each other.”

  “That’s not the impression I got,” Spider said grimly, watching Billy in disgust. Did she have any idea how she looked, laying down the law as if her first husband’s money had earned her the right to decide anything she chose?

  “You fell for Victoria Frost’s pitch, and now you’re ready to trample on Gigi’s feelings the way you trample on mine. Listen to me, Spider. I own as much of Scruples Two as you do. You can’t ignore me. You can’t put me in your pocket and go your merry way. You will call Victoria Frost in the morning. You will tell her that you’ve changed your mind. Period. You will consult me about choosing a new agency. Period. You will not fire the Russos until I’ve looked into the problem and decided if they should have another chance. Do you hear me? Just because you don’t respect Gigi doesn’t mean that you can get away with not respecting me.”

  Spider walked over to her and took her by one arm, holding her in a painfully rough grip, making it impossible for her to move away.

  “No one can respect a woman whose way of making her point is withholding sex, screeching like a fishwife, and displaying her amazing aptitude for pussy-whipping.”

  “Take that back!”

  “I will not!” he shouted, “It’s the truth. And you know it.”

  “Get out of my bedroom. Go sleep somewhere else. You make me sick. And don’t forget a single one of my instructions.” Her voice was pulverizingly arrogant.

  “Billy, you don’t want to do this, believe me.”

  “Don’t tell me what I want. You don’t know what I want. You don’t know me. Unfortunately I know you only too well. You’re contemptible.”

  “I’m out of here,” Spider said, in a tone so calm and condescending that it made Billy want to kill him with every muscle she had. “I’m leaving so that I don’t put you over my knee and give you the good spanking you deserve.”

  In the morning, when he went to his bathroom, Spider found a sheet of paper next to his shaving mirror.

  I’m going away, and I don’t know when I’ll be back You’re getting along perfectly well without me, and there is no reason to stay and keep house for you. I don’t know why you have no respect for me, but it’s clear that you don’t from what you say and the way you act. I will not tolerate that. I’ll send for the children soon.

  There was nothing else, not even a signature. Spider rushed into Billy’s bathroom and saw evidence that she’d packed some of her makeup. In her closet, the mess of clothes on the floor showed that she’d been in there picking out enough to fill a suitcase.

  He called down to Burgo O’Sullivan on the house phone.

  “When did Mrs. Elliott leave?”

  “A limo came for her about an hour ago, Mr. Elliott.”

  “Thanks, Burgo. Please tell the chef I won’t be having breakfast at home.”

  She’d be on the first plane to New York by now, Spider figured. Going to ground at Jessica’s, no doubt, her usual refuge in times of trouble. It was just as well, all things considered, although her note was ridiculously dramatic. God knows, he didn’t want to see her today.

  As Spider shaved, he told himself that Jessica had a way of making Billy listen to things she wouldn’t take from anybody else. It was Jessica who’d made her understand Vito, of all people, at least long enough to stay married to him for more than a few weeks. It was wise, much-put-upon, much-loved and loving Jessica who understood the art of compromise that Billy was too bloody rich and too incredibly stubborn to accept without a fight to the finish.

  She’d send for the children, would she? Over his dead body, she’d send for the children.

  Filled with righteous indignation, Spider rushed off to his office where his first act was to call the Russo brothers and tell them that they no longer had the Scruples Two account.

  “There’s just one problem,” Sasha said to Vito as they walked on the sand in Santa Barbara, hand in hand. “Gigi’s going to have to invite Zach to our wedding reception—at the place they lived in together.”

  “He’s only one guest out of a whole crowd. Gigi doesn’t have to do anything but say hello to him—not even goodbye, if he leaves without making a point of it, as I’m sure he will,” Vito said reassuringly. “But she can’t expect him not to be there, he’s practically a relative now or something. Even if Billy were giving the reception, they’d both have to come—it’s for us, after all.”

  “Honestly, wouldn’t you think people could just get along with each other after they’ve broken up? It’d be so much easier for everybody, and so much more civilized.”

  “No, actually, I wouldn’t. How do you feel about Josh coming?”

  “Oh, my God! Gigi’s not going to invite him too?”

  “She’s known him forever, and politeness demands that she invite him,” Vito said, and gave a judicious sigh. “But—I warned her that he was off our list.”

  “You are rotten, Vito, you said that just to torment me.”

  “I adore tormenting you. You torment so enchantingly.”

  “Don’t push your luck, big boy.”

  “You have a certain low streak of Jean Harlow in you, Sasha, or is it Mae West?”

  “You remind me of—of—George Raft.”

  “Now you’ve gone too far. You’ve provoked me.”

  “And just what are you going to do about it?”

  “Wait and see.”

  “Wait till when, Georgie?”

  “Now is as good a time as any.”

  “Vito, no, not on the beach! Stop it!”

  The FRB offices were empty at six the next evening, except for Victoria, Archie, and Byron, who had sent everyone home early and were sitting around a table in Victoria’s office, reaching the end of their second bottle of celebratory champagne. The men were in their s
hirtsleeves, and had long since discarded their ties. Even Victoria had unbuttoned her all-but-ecclesiastical white blouse, rolled up her sleeves, and put her stocking feet up on the table, in the joyous spirit of the moment.

  “What’s so funny about you is that you’re both so inconsistent,” Victoria Frost said, breaking the kind of dreamy, relaxed silence that sets in toward the end of a state of high euphoria. “You’re concerned about Gigi’s reaction to my getting the Scruples Two account, but you don’t worry that she got The Enchanted Attic and the Winthrop Line by sleeping with Ben Winthrop—although how much sleep they got is debatable.”

  “Her business,” Archie said, and broke into song. “There’s no business like her business, there’s no business I know, everybody’s da that certain da da …”

  “Accounts that depend on sexual … heat,” Victoria said, trying to choose her words carefully, since Archie and Byron had had much more to drink than she, “sexual … tension … between the client and a creative, are risky at best—what happens when Winthrop gets tired of her? That’s going to be a problem, it’s just a question of time. He’s big game. At least we know that Spider Elliott is only interested in her work.”

  “Big game?” Byron asked. “You mean Arch and I aren’t big game? I have news for you, there are a lot of women who’d disagree, right, Arch?”

  “Big game in the sense of big rich. No offense, Byron Bernheim the Third, you have comfortable expectations, but you’re light-years away from big, big, big rich. One day Gigi’s little affair will end.” Victoria was certain of her assessment.

  “Not necessarily,” Archie insisted. “I’ve seen them together, and the guy is crazy hooked on her … has a serious jones for our little Gigi. It could end in marriage.”

  “So then Gigi will become the client’s wife, she’ll stop working, and move into a totally different life,” Victoria continued. “The first thing she’ll begin to think about, when the honeymoon is over, is moving the accounts to another agency where they didn’t know her when she was a working girl. There’s nothing clients’ wives enjoy more than that kind of meddling, no matter how little they know about advertising. And Gigi’d be a thousand times as bad … she knows too much.”