Captain of Industry

by Karin Kallmaker

  This entire situation was completely and utterly unacceptable. “Bette Davis—”

  “Flannel nightgowns,” Lena and Suzanne said simultaneously.

  Lena cocked her head, then tipped it the other way to give Jennifer a long, speculative look. Her smile faded.

  Not again, she quailed. We can’t do any of this again. No one should ever have to be in the same room with more than one ex at a time even if she deserved it, which Jennifer knew she did—but still! So unfair.

  Lena had turned a forced smile on Suzanne. “I had no idea you two knew each other.”

  “We met in New York. Initially,” Suzanne said.

  Lena had transformed from relaxed party guest to the buttoned-up CEO of an independent, award-winning film production company, a woman who didn’t tolerate liars and opportunists, who forgave but never forgot. “So. Jen. This is the captain of industry? The venture capitalist millionaire? A woman?”

  With all of her lies and fear echoing around the room, Jennifer really had nothing to say. She’d dumped Suzanne because she couldn’t come out. She’d dumped Lena to chase what had turned out to be her first box office blockbuster and lied, lied hard that it had been over between them anyway. That was only the beginning of her sins.

  “You never said he was a she. You said I was the first woman in your life.”

  Jennifer was dead certain that telling the truth now wasn’t going to work out either but she gave it a try. “I lied.”

  “Did you ever tell me anything that was true?”

  Before the more than seven happy years Lena had had with Gail the question might have been as sharp as a razor blade, but there was only a trace of the old anger in it. Gail still heard it and averted her eyes.

  Suzanne heard it too and the faces of both women held the same expression of long-banked bitterness. Clearly, Suzanne was wandering through their shared past and adding up Jennifer’s long list of failures.

  “Google bitch and there’s my picture, right? Are we revisiting my failures as a person or fixing my dress?” She’d told Lena a lot of lies. The only true things she’d told her were not going to be discussed now—even if Jennifer itched sometimes to set the record straight on a few accounts, Lena no longer cared. She had loved Lena, at least what love she was capable of. Which wasn’t much, given her dismal track record.

  Gail broke the heavy silence by gesturing at the poor Jimmy Choo. “You could get it fixed, maybe?”

  The sad, dangling broken heel was only the start of the damage. She brushed a fingertip over a gouge in the crimson toe before dropping it into the wastebasket. “It’s a goner.”

  “Jennifer prefers to discard what she can’t use.” Suzanne snatched open the door. “Be right back.”

  Into the heavy stillness Lena said, “She knows you well, doesn’t she?”

  Jennifer nearly agreed. Yeah, that’s what this situation needed, more truth. That would make everyone feel just dandy. Instead she said, “My date stood me up.”

  “You’re here for the sculpture auction.” Lena was as dry as the desert.

  “Maybe,” she evaded. “They’re not starting the auction soon, are they?”

  “They won’t start it without their host. And there are other items on the agenda.”

  “Good thought. Fine, I’m here for the Beck piece.”

  Gail, always helpful and kind and simply too darned nice, offered, “Leah Beck is actually here. I met her.”

  Wailing inwardly at the difference between the party experience she might have had mingling with the sculptor and other interesting women, and the stuck-in-the-bathroom Bad Jennifer time-out she was instead enduring, she decided there was nothing useful to say.

  Suzanne reappeared holding a crinkly cellophane-wrapped package.

  “No way,” Jennifer said. All of a sudden she was in that Manhattan loft again. The tingles were there, as was her awareness of desire that had never abated. But there was also a sense of dread, as if the anguish of the past was just waiting to happen all over again.

  Chapter Twenty

  Any other night, a picture of La Lamont in deep blue Brooks Brothers pajamas at a party would have set the Internet ablaze. The almost twenty-year-old photo of her in a New York loft, that accidental picture that had put her on the fashion map, would have surfaced for a side-by-side look. Jennifer knew that Internet commenters would gleefully announce she hadn’t aged well, that her practically forty-year-old boobs weren’t as perky, perhaps even that she was now fat, though her weight hadn’t moved an ounce. Which was damned hard work that no one ever wanted to hear about unless you were agreeing to sign your name to their unproven fad workout or diet plan. Thank goodness she’d never sold her soul down that poisoned river—she did have some scruples.

  There was little hope anyone would care about anything except the various shots of her boobs unleashed. No doubt by midnight someone would claim they could spot scars from never-happened plastic surgery. The more serious viral news media would pixelate Laverne and Shirley into modesty, while pointing links at a web destination where they could be seen in all their naked wonder. By morning #jenniferlamontboobs or something equally click-bait would be trending.

  She’d managed to restick the breast shields back over the girls. At least she didn’t appear bra-less underneath the silk pajama top. Score a point for the staying power of roll-on butt glue. Being barefoot wasn’t a hardship on the pristine tile, still warm from the summer afternoon. She was presentable, and everyone at this type of gathering would be sympathetic. But this was not the real world.

  The real world, or what passed for it in her profession, was the text from her agent: This is GOLD! And there’d be plenty of Blogasses and anonymous Tweetfeebs who’d claim it was all a stunt designed to prop up her sagging career with her sagging boobs.

  All the while the part of her brain she no longer allowed to decide anything was babbling about Suzanne’s eyes and arms, how wonderful she smelled and hadn’t all the times they’d been together been the best ever? Except when they weren’t.

  Except when Jennifer walked out.

  Lena, with a roll of her eyes that summed up her relegation of Jennifer to the list “Huge Mistakes I Have Made,” had returned to the party with Gail. Jennifer hovered at the edge of the open patio, gathering her poise. Most of the women were wearing suits not unlike Lena’s, but enough were clad in haute couture caftans and flowing silks that her pajamas might be taken as an avant-garde choice. Though, if the pajamas had been a choice, she’d have had a pair of FM pumps to sell the outfit, instead of being barefoot. Without shoes there was no getting over the fact that she felt tiny and vulnerable. It was not a feeling she liked.

  Head up, she told herself. Aplomb was a skill she had long refined. The earliest lesson of modeling? No matter what happens, just keep walking. Her stint in a soap opera had taught her to shake off a flub because the camera didn’t stop rolling.

  Suzanne left her conversation to join Jennifer at the patio’s edge. “Any lasting damage?”

  “I think I’ll have a sore shoulder tomorrow, but it’ll pass. I’m as ready as I’ll ever be.”

  “You look…repaired.”

  Unable to clearly see Suzanne’s face, Jennifer was left to decipher the meaning of the hesitation and word choice. Something a little more effusive would have been good for her bruised ego, but that was, she supposed, a lot to ask given the circumstances. Alternatively, it was possible that repaired was a compliment of the highest order from Suzanne’s techy side.

  Maybe. But right about then she would have given something for a date who could at least come up with, “You look hawt.”

  They did not make any kind of entrance, and for that Jennifer was grateful. Instead, they simply joined a cluster of women already chatting. She didn’t immediately recognize any of them, though everybody at the event was—like her—a Somebody in their own field. Ostensibly for breast cancer research, the evening also featured political speakers and an auction of a few collect
ibles and one art piece to benefit Planned Parenthood and a political action committee that backed women’s health advocacy.

  The ticket had been very expensive, and Lena had been quite right. It was the sculpture auction that Jennifer really had her eye on. Politics didn’t up her heart rate—Leah Beck’s art did. She had long been hoping to acquire a piece. She had also hoped for a somewhat relaxing private evening away from Hollywood. That hope had died along with her Jimmy Choos.

  A server paused with a tray of hors d’oeuvres that Jennifer waved away. Moments later another offered glasses of wine just like the one Jennifer had lost and she gratefully lifted one from the tray.

  “That was a nasty fall,” observed a slender brunette in a fabulously fitted Donna Karan suit.

  “I broke my heel and bruised my dignity.” Jennifer sipped the wine and truthfully said, “This is delightful. Does anyone know what we’re drinking?”

  The brunette immediately said, “A two-year pinot grigio reserve, courtesy of Ardani Vineyards. You’ll notice the full citrus undertone with notes of apricot.”

  A lush, dark-eyed woman turned toward them with a laugh, putting her elegant hand on the brunette’s arm. “Toni, you sound as if you bottled it yourself.”

  “It’s a family affair, isn’t it?” Toni made a gesture of introduction. “This is my wife, Syrah Ardani, and I’m Toni Blanchard.”

  “Jennifer Lamont.” She lifted her glass to both of them. “A pleasure twice over—to meet you and to drink your wine.” The invitation to the event had promised a Who’s Who of Women movers and shakers and Jennifer had certainly heard of Toni Blanchard’s high-profile corporate rescues. It made perfect sense that Suzanne the venture capitalist would know someone like Blanchard.

  There was an awkward pause that ought to have been filled with Jennifer introducing her nonexistent date. She heaped mental curses on the producer whose name would be expunged forever from her contact list.

  Suzanne was suddenly there offering a puff of pastry from her small plate. It was golden brown with a twist of filling and curls of red and purple somethings atop it—gleaming and seductive from top to bottom. It looked to be all the calories Jennifer would have had for a normal lunch. “I don’t know what this is but you should have one. I asked the caterer for a whole tray for just myself and she laughed at me. Quite disrespectfully, I might add.”

  Blanchard and her wife had turned slightly away to talk to the couple on their other side.

  “Sounds like she knows you.” Jennifer quickly added, “I’m making a feeble joke.”

  Suzanne let it go. “You should eat something or you’ll get the shakes. Adrenaline drain after a scare.” She turned the plate to offer a more prosaic carrot stick.

  “I don’t really experience that. Practice.”

  “You fall down a lot?”

  She narrowed her gaze. “Only around you. I should perhaps take notice of that fact?”

  “Coincidence is not causation.”

  “Flirting with math again?”

  There was no amusement in Suzanne’s face. “That was your thing.”

  Jennifer studied her wine. “I’m in a profession where things go wrong all the time and you’re expected to reset your emotions and move on.” She took some of the edge off her tone. “Thank you for the thought. The food looks delicious.”

  She didn’t know why Suzanne was being thoughtful. Nothing good came of it. It required that she be nice back. She was bad at that—and Suzanne knew that just as well as anyone did.

  Her thoughts must have shown in her face, damn it all, because Suzanne said, “I’m being a good host. I don’t remember seeing your name on the guest list, however.”

  “The ticket was bought by someone else. But I have my eyes on something in the auction and didn’t realize… Didn’t know this was your address of course. You’ve moved since Santa Cruz.”

  Suzanne gave her a tight-lipped smile. “My date likewise failed to appreciate that this evening is going to be talked about for months. Which was going to be true before your kit and caboodle…” She vaguely gestured toward Jennifer’s silk-covered girls.

  After a long silence, Jennifer said, “Go on.”

  Suzanne cleared her throat. “So I took the liberty of moving your name card in place of my date’s. It spares us both comment.”

  A cold flush swept across her chest, followed by a sensation of vulnerability that was frightening and appealing and very unwelcome all at once. “Maybe here, but not in the blogosphere! People will think there’s something between us. You’re in a photo with Laverne and Shirley and now we’re going to be described as dating. Are you nuts?”

  “I have never cared what that kind of media says.”

  “That’s not quite true.” Jennifer kept a bright smile on her face though her tone was low and quiet. “You just care less than I do.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  “That’s not quite true. You just care less than I do.”

  Suzanne left the remark alone. Now was not the time to argue. What would they argue about that would make a damn bit of difference, anyway? Jennifer was unaware of just how angry Suzanne had been to spot her oh-so-casually sauntering her sexy way into Suzanne’s life all over again.

  One thing she knew after all these years—she couldn’t care less about Jennifer’s image anymore. Front page and trending topics always featured pictures of La Lamont on the arms of men. She’d had one notorious affair with a woman in her public past, and whatever identity label Jennifer was using was Jennifer’s problem to manage with the press. The media didn’t know about the two of them and it would stay that way. Not to protect Jennifer but to spare herself being on a public short list of people Jennifer Lamont had eviscerated. Only Annemarie and her parents knew she’d ever been that stupid.

  Her villa-sized patio and surrounding Spanish-inspired gardens had been transformed into an elegant, very California event. It had taken a crew a day and a half to hang all the fairy lights and set up the white-linen draped tables. Translucent lumières drifted across the darkened swimming pool, spilling flickering candlelight across its still surface.

  A decorator had temporarily stripped the great room of evidence that Suzanne actually lived there, and the faint aroma of her father’s pipe smoke that lingered after his visits had been driven out by vases of hydrangeas and lilies. The couches had been rearranged so the room served as the greeting area and, at the end of the evening, would be where people could wait for their car or for the coach that would ferry them to the helipad at the nearby University of California. An advance team from their surprise guest of honor had approved the layout in terms of security.

  A thousand details had gone into this night. She had a caterer hovering, a party planner tapping at an agenda on her tablet and a patio filled with some of the most fascinating women she was ever going to meet. She was not going to be distracted. Not this time.

  “Excuse me. Hosting duties call.” She said it to Jennifer but with a glance that included anyone else nearby who might care.

  She turned to the caterer first. When Suzanne had been approached to host the party she’d immediately suggested the Los Angeles office of The Food’s the Thing to do the catering. Her friend, Laura Izmani, had come out from New York to supervise the night personally, and even roped in her more famous wife.

  “Quantities are all fine and we’re on time for dinner. I did run out of morels for the risotto, and there are probably a few palates out there tonight that will notice. I didn’t want you to think I was trying to pass off portobellos in their place. Half will be morel, half portobello.”

  “I wouldn’t know the difference myself,” Suzanne assured her. “I hope at least after dinner you’ll be able to join the party.”

  “The pastry chef is excellent, so that’s my plan.” She smoothed the front of her black chef’s jacket. “What kind of wife would I be if I missed Helen’s speech? And did I hear correctly that the Speaker of the House will be here?”

&n
bsp; Suzanne knew her smile was too gleeful to be mysterious. “Surprise guest of honor.”

  Laura tipped her head ever so slightly in a nod of respect. “How did you pull that off? Seriously, you already had Reyna Putnam and then Sydney Van Allen said she’d show up?”

  “It’s my charming personality.”

  Laura gave her the look of someone who had heard plenty of B.S. in her time. “We did not just meet, you know.”

  “Then you know I was actually hoping to meet Putnam’s partner.”

  “The mathematician? Okay, geek crush makes way more sense than your charming personality.”

  She ignored Laura’s one-finger salute disguised as a nose itch. “Other people think I’m charming, you know.”

  “They don’t know your shrunken capitalist Grinchy heart like I do.”

  The remark stung, even though Laura didn’t mean it. Laura didn’t know she was still getting hate mail over the Earth Tides project gone sour, tainting the entire solar industry. To some people, she was still the poster child for all that was wrong with high tech and billion-dollar global business put together. “It could grow three times larger today. Especially with your good cooking. My ass will grow, that’s a guarantee.”

  “I’m going to smear extra butter all over your salmon just for that.”

  The party planner cleared her throat and Laura gave her a guilty look. “Enough comedy. Anyway, I’ll prepare some extras for take-away style. Politicos never get to eat, and their security details live on nutrition bars. But I can’t have anyone start on that because I’ve been down this road. At least one security person will want to see that the food is coming directly from what’s being served to everyone else.”

  “I hadn’t even thought of that. Please don’t poison the elected official.”