“Spider!” Billy exclaimed. “What about Scruples Two? You can’t just leave it like that!”
“Of course I can. The damn thing practically runs itself. What’s the point of hiring expensive executives if they can’t function without you? And there’s always the telex or the phone if they need to reach me quickly. We both have a tendency to get too involved in work at the expense of enjoyment. After you had the children, it was as if you were working two jobs plus a night shift.”
“I couldn’t stop myself.” Billy shook her head in self-knowledge. “That’s the way I do things.”
“If I can learn not to be a caveman, you can learn to be a little less …”
“Compulsive? Isn’t that the word you’re looking for?”
“Compulsive and … obsessive … two halves of the same thing. Oh, Billy, we need to take some time for ourselves. There are so many things we might discover that aren’t all work, but we’ll never know if we don’t spend a few months looking around … and, if you stop to think about it, this house owes you a roof over your head after you’ve kept it up in perfect condition for all these years. If you truly wanted to sell it, you’d have done it long ago. You’ve always hoped to come back here, even if you didn’t realize it.”
“You remind me of someone I used to know,” Billy said, gravely considering him.
“Who?”
“Spider Elliott … the one who could always talk me into anything.”
“Only because you wanted it too,” he said as he kissed her until she was reeling. “Come on, let’s go explore those crates in the stables. I wonder if Marie-Jeanne’s husband has a hammer or a crowbar.”
Holding hands, they emerged into the courtyard and saw Pierre and Marie-Jeanne returning from their visit.
“Monsieur Pierre, do you happen to have a hammer?” Spider asked.
“Of course, Monsieur. Can I help you?”
“As a matter of fact, yes, four hands would be better than two. Let’s open some of the boxes in the stables and find out what’s in them.”
“Eh bien, Monsieur,” Pierre answered, startled, “that’s a job for twenty men.”
“We’ll get twenty men tomorrow, but I want to start right now.”
“Madame is going to unpack, at last?” Marie-Jeanne asked timidly.
“Oh, yes!” Billy exclaimed, dazed with pure happiness. “We’re going to move in, with the children and the nanny—and a dog.”
“A dog! Dieu merci! I have wanted a dog forever! I am the only guardian’s wife who lacks a dog. Ah, Madame, this calls for a little coup of champagne, does it not?”
“Oh, yes, if anything ever did! I hope you’re keeping track of all the wine I owe you.”
“Restez-tranquille, I am, Madame. But the champagne, it is our pleasure, Pierre’s and mine. A large dog or small dog, may I inquire?”
“We shall see, but a true French dog, set your mind at ease, Madame Marie-Jeanne.”
18
Ben Winthrop’s going to be in town the night of the party I’m giving for you and Dad—would you mind if he invited himself? You still haven’t met him,” Gigi asked Sasha as they played with little Nellie in the garden of the furnished Brentwood house that Vito had rented until they could find a permanent place.
“Of course not. I want to finally lay my eyes on Mr. Wonderful, and who knows, maybe I’ll be able to hit him up for a ride in his flying machine. How could he refuse a bride’s request at her delayed wedding reception?”
“He won’t,” Gigi responded with confidence. “Where do you want to go?”
“Joyriding! Now that you’re out of work, we could hop on to San Francisco for a gracious lunch, do a little shopping wearing white gloves and hats, like genuine San Francisco ladies, and pop back in time for dinner.”
“I assume you’ll lend me the hat and gloves? But San Francisco’s a great idea—I can deliver my present for Eleonora Colonna in person. Sasha, I wish you wouldn’t refer to me as ‘out of work.’ I quit Frost Rourke Bernheim.”
“What’s the difference?” Sasha asked, her sense of practicality offended. “You’re not getting a paycheck at the end of the week.”
“It’s by choice, and you can’t imagine how free I feel. And anyway I have so much to do, what with planning your party and then the Venice party, that I couldn’t work at a real job anyway.”
“The Venice party?” Sasha asked. “You mean the maiden voyage?”
“That’s the second party, a year away. This one is in two weeks. It’s basically a PR junket for the business and travel press. Ben sees it as an opportunity to show off Winthrop Development, using the cruise line as the excuse. He’s invited all his key people from his company, including all of the guys I worked with recently in New York.”
“What’s the point, when the ship’s still in drydock? You told me it’s a sight only a ship owner could love.”
“Whenever a ship is built,” Gigi explained, “the first plate laid in the keel contains a good-luck coin from the owner. Ben’s going to have that plate on the freighter replaced with another one, holding an American silver dollar, to commemorate the purchase of the three ships and the refitting of the Emerald. I’m organizing the whole thing with a big travel agency. We have to bring the press to Venice, then out to Porta Margera for the ceremony of the plate-changing, and back to Venice for the celebration at the Cipriani. Travel, food, and lodging for almost two hundred media people and several dozen of Ben’s employees.”
“Are you getting paid for this Venice caper?” Sasha asked suspiciously.
“Ben wanted to pay me, but I wouldn’t let him.”
“Gigi!” Sasha was scandalized. “As your former agent, I can’t permit this.”
“Sasha, I simply cannot—will not—be on his payroll.”
“Oddly enough, I understand how you feel, what with things so delicately poised, so … undecided between the two of you. Okay, work for free, I don’t care. And I’m glad Ben is coming to the reception, because the sight of the two of you together, poised right on the brink of marriage, might be just what Zach needs, just the jolt of reality that’s been missing in his life. He’s been holding on to an emotional fantasy for too long, and he’s driving poor Vito crazy with his mooning around. I’d do anything to get him over you. Oh, Nellie, that’s an earthworm, baby, not a toy. Give it to Mama. Oh, Gigi, she’s putting it in her mouth! Stop her, for heaven’s sake!”
“Nellie, no,” Gigi said gently, removing the worm from the child’s grasp. “Here’s a nice shovel, go dig.”
“Yesterday she found an earthworm and gave it a bath in her cup of orange juice,” Sasha said. “She didn’t hurt it at all, she put it right back in the garden. Do you think Nellie’s going to be a zoologist?”
“With a mother who’s out of her mind, she’ll be lucky if she survives her childhood.”
“I don’t think I’m crazy to wonder what Nellie’s future holds. Nothing’s impossible for a woman now, and by the time she’s grown up—”
“Don’t play games with me, Sasha Nevsky. I know you too well.”
“Sasha Orsini, please. Do you have a block about sharing that name with me? And I stopped playing games years ago.”
“Then what’s this nonsense about Zach?”
“Would that it were nonsense. Vito’s sick about him. He hasn’t done his usual brilliant job on Long Weekend, and my poor husband has had to prop him up on an hourly basis to keep him on course. A black comedy is turning into a sentimental romance because the director is still emotionally involved with the producer’s daughter—do you think that could make a film in itself? Maybe I should suggest it to Vito, it might not be too late to rewrite the script.”
“Sasha, there is no reason I can think of, except malicious troublemaking, for you to say that Zach is still ‘emotionally involved’—what a revolting expression—with me. I know you dearly love to make trouble, but I thought marriage to two men in rapid succession would have cured you of that.”
&
nbsp; “You have a really mean streak, Gigi, reminding me of Josh, just when I’m so happy. How could you?”
“I don’t guilt-trip, Sasha, so stop trying. Why are you making trouble?”
“If Zach were dating, even actresses, it would never occur to me that he’s still carrying a torch for you—do you like that expression better?—is it 1940s enough for you?—but he isn’t. Zach Nevsky has retired from frequentation of the female sex since you and he broke up. I ask you, Gigi, is that healthy for a young male in the prime of life?”
“Where do you get all this garbage?”
“My husband spends the first hour after he comes home every night dumping it in my lap, that’s where. Ask him. Do you think your father would make things up just to make trouble?”
“If it helped him make a film, sure. But this … it’s pure mischief. The two of you are up to something.”
“Good Lord, don’t you think we have better things to do with our lives than flatter you about your fatal charms? How can you be so self-centered? Nellie! Stop that! Gigi, she cut that worm in half with the shovel! Oh, God, how could she do it?”
“She’s going to grow up to be a serial killer, rare for females, but not unheard of. Or an exterminator. Put her in her playpen, for Pete’s sake. She’s like a giant fat hummingbird. Watching her is making me a nervous wreck. Now I have a faint idea of what Billy went through with the twins.”
“Would you like to give Nellie her bottle? It’s about that time of the afternoon.”
“No. I would not,” Gigi said through gritted teeth.
“Oh, come on, be brave, you’ll have to do it someday. Almost every woman does, even Ma had to give us bottles, or maybe she nursed us until she could wean us directly to a cup. When Zach calls her next time, I’ll ask him to find out.”
“WHEN ZACH DOES WHAT?” Gigi’s eyes popped in astonishment. She had a healthy fear of Tatiana Orloff Nevsky, the cantankerous, awe-inspiring, dominating dictator of the large Nevsky clan, whose evil temper was legendary.
Sasha sighed. “He calls Ma for a little maternal telephonic cuddle. Vito says he’s been doing it twice a week lately.”
“Are you lying to me, Sasha?”
“I’m telling you the absolute truth, on the head of little Nellie.”
“But—no offense, but your mother’s a terrorist. I respect and admire her, but I’m glad I’m not her kid.”
“I know, but when you’re really feeling desperate, almost as bad as Ma thinks you should be feeling, considering what a disappointment you are to her, she manages to dredge up a little sympathy. You have to be suicidal before you reach that layer, but it does exist. When I was going through my worst times with Josh, I called her too, and it made me feel better. At least I knew I had a Ma, terrible as she is.”
Gigi digested Sasha’s words in silence. This was a side to Ma she’d never known about.
“Zach’s never,” she asked hesitantly, “actually said anything … about me, that is … to Dad, has he?”
“Not a word. Not to me and not to Vito.”
“You see, you’re delusional.”
“Just the opposite. It’s as if he’s erased you by an effort of will. Considering how much time he spends with Vito, that’s remarkably suspicious. If Zach even once asked how you were getting along, just casually acknowledged your existence—but not to mention your name, over a period of a year, when he works with Vito on a daily basis—don’t you think you’re a little old to still be calling him ‘Dad’?—when you’re my best friend, in spite of all the awful things you say to me, to say nothing of being the love of Zach’s life, I call that a sure sign that it’s still too painful. After all, you can discuss Zach without any trouble, because you’re in love with Ben, but my poor wreck of a lovelorn brother can’t even pronounce your name out loud because he’s never been able to deal with the fact that his life has to go on without you.”
“The more fool he.”
“That’s exactly what I said to Vito.”
“And what did my dear old daddyums answer?”
“Something adorable about how he would never be able to get over me, not in a lifetime, but then Vito’s different from Zach, he’s an adult, and Zach’s a lovesick boy.”
“Boy? Really, Sasha, being married to an older man has made you intolerably condescending. Zach’s at least thirty-one.”
“But still a boy at heart, a passionate, romantic boy, like Heathcliff. Did Heathcliff have a last name, or was that his first name? Joe Heathcliff? Heathcliff Jones? Never mind. It’s sad, but I try not to think about it. Here’s Nellie, you can burp her, even if you won’t feed her. There’s nothing quite as satisfying as burping a baby, not just hearing the burp, but feeling it come up and out.”
“If Nellie’s old enough to run around and dissect worms, isn’t she old enough to burp herself?”
“Sure, but why should I deprive you of such a choice moment when you’re going to fly me to San Francisco?”
Victoria Frost curled up in bed and counted and recounted the treasure of her circumstances with a tightly cautious hand. The agency was now in a position to count on billing almost one hundred and ninety million dollars a year, and she’d rid herself of that brazen, smart-alecky little pest, that presumptuous, impertinent tart, that infuriating self-promoter, Gigi Orsini, without losing the accounts Gigi had brought in, except for Indigo Seas, which they couldn’t have retained in any case.
In spite of Gigi’s assertion that she was getting out of advertising, there had been a sense of tense waiting during all of last week while they expected to hear that Gigi had persuaded Spider Elliott to take away Scruples Two, and Ben Winthrop to strip them of The Enchanted Attic and the Winthrop Line. Eventually, through the grapevine and the trades, Victoria, Archie, and Byron realized that Gigi hadn’t joined another agency and taken her accounts with her, as she so easily could have. Preliminary work on Beach Casuals and Scruples Two was proceeding quickly.
In addition, FRB had been invited to pitches by three important New York-based companies. Mounting any pitch cost money and time, and required total focus, but they were up for them as they’d never been before. Their reputation as a hot shop was now nationwide, not narrowly local, and all of this had been accomplished in less than two years.
There was no longer the slightest valid reason why Angus should hesitate to leave New York, Victoria decided. She had long ago realized that he was a man of habit, a man not boldly eager to take the next inevitable step in his life—didn’t almost all men share that basic weakness?—but his passion had deepened with the infrequency of their meetings. She knew in every cell, in her bones, in each hair on her head, that no woman held such physical dominion over a man as she did over Angus.
Victoria turned on her back and thought of the men she’d dallied with in California. Each one of them had added another layer to her erotic authority and her sexual creativity. They had served her well. Whenever she and Angus were together, he drowned himself in her body in a way that was so unbridled in his lust that on occasion he frightened her. She owned this man. He belonged to her. The time had come to have him on her terms. His life with her mother was a painful farce, he’d told her that on a thousand occasions. She’d waited as long as she intended to. It was the moment to claim her own.
With her new success, it didn’t matter, Victoria calculated, that many of Angus’s accounts still wouldn’t leave Caldwell and Caldwell with him, in spite of the endless time he’d spent laying the groundwork for the change. There was more than enough profitable billing for both of them here in Los Angeles. Equally important, there was a real need for Angus in top management at FRB.
Victoria’s job was far too big for one person, although she’d worked hard and long to hide that fact from Archie and Byron. The two of them were busy hiring people for all the new creative work they’d won, but on her side of the business she still, as always, kept the number and influence of her own assistant account supervisors to a minimum, so that Angus wou
ld find his place in top management ready for him.
It was early on a Saturday morning. Victoria had been awake before dawn. Angus and her mother would be out in Southampton for the weekend, Victoria thought, looking at the clock on her bedside table, but it was still so early that her mother wouldn’t have appeared downstairs for breakfast yet. Now! The hated bonds of years flew into bits in her flush of success and impatience. She sat up in bed, picked up her phone, and dialed the Southampton number.
“Mr. Caldwell, please, Joe Devane would like to speak with him,” she said to the maid who answered the phone.
Within a minute, Angus was on the line.
“It’s me. What room are you in?” she asked.
“The library, what the hell—”
“Don’t interrupt. You’ve read about my getting Beach Casuals, haven’t you?”
“Yes, but—”
“Angus, it’s been almost two years. I won’t wait any longer. I’m through with being kept on hold, this is not a life I can endure. There’s no reason for you to stay where you are anymore, I need you here.”
“The timing is wrong, you’re in too much of a rush—”
“The timing will never be better. I’m coming to New York next week. We’re having an informal meet-and-greet Tuesday morning with Harris Reeves, and then I have a short meeting with Joe Devane that afternoon. We’ll be spending the next three days with Beach Casuals. That gives you plenty of time to tell her.”
“I … listen, I—”
“If you don’t tell her, I will.”
“You don’t mean that, Victoria—”
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