‘And if I say no?’
‘I still won’t stock your other products. I’d rather sell fifty brilliant cosmetics than four hundred mediocre ones.’
Hannah Zagar considered it. ‘I don’t know, Ms Kane. It’s taking a great risk – even though I have found you very impressive.’
Dina said, impulsively, ‘I can prove it to you, Mrs Zagar. I’ll make you over, using nothing but Dina Kane, Inc. stock.’
She started. ‘What? I’m not interested personally, Ms Kane. My younger days ended some time ago.’
‘Allow me to try. Just as an experiment. You can wipe it off immediately afterwards.’
‘You are joking.’
‘Not at all. Women have to see it to believe it – cosmetics houses, too.’
Hannah Zagar resisted the impulse to steal a look at her reflection in the glass walls of the meeting room. She always dressed neatly, but she was in her early fifties. That was all there was to it – age was age. Right?
She laughed. ‘I tell you what, Ms Kane. Come back here after lunch with a bag of your products. If you can turn me into a glamour girl, we’ll take a chance on your store and your site. But don’t hold your breath.’
Kane was cocky, confident, but a little too presumptuous. Hannah Zagar didn’t mind that – she had been ambitious too, when she was younger. She would teach the girl not to overreach, and give her a valuable business lesson.
Her good deed for the day.
‘How long is this going to take?’
Hannah’s chair was away from the mirror. They had set up in a little-used bathroom on the top floor – she hardly wanted to make a spectacle of herself – which had a large window, as Dina had asked for natural light. She had returned with a disappointingly small make-up bag, the primer was the only product of theirs. Any fantasies Hannah was secretly harbouring about being transformed evaporated, but, then again, she had agreed to go through with this farce.
‘I’ll only need a few minutes. May I shape your eyebrows? It stings slightly, but it will look very good on you. I’ll be using Perfection Tweezers, which we’ll be stocking.’
Hannah sighed. ‘OK. But get on with it. Really, I must get back to work. This was a mistake.’
Dina said nothing; she leaned in over the older woman with the tweezers, plucking and shaping. She moved very quickly, and Hannah waited, although she winced once or twice. There was no chatter. In a few moments, Dina was wiping something soft across her brows. She added a touch of primer, and then dusted some eye shadow lightly over the lids – one, two strokes of the brush, different shades. Dina worked across her whole face: eyes, cheeks, lips. Then, after just a few minutes, she stood back.
‘That’s it,’ she said.
‘That’s it?’ Kane had barely spent eight minutes on her face. ‘You think this will make a difference?’
‘Dina Kane stocks only the world’s best products. Take a look for yourself, Mrs Zagar.’
The younger woman watched her expectantly, and Hannah reluctantly turned her chair around to face the bathroom mirror.
She gasped.
The face staring back at her was unrecognisable. Not younger – just better, so much better. Her skin was smoother, and the foundation on top of the primer gave her an elegant, even glow. Her pale cheeks had a light shimmer of bronzer on them, which brought out her high cheekbones; her eyebrows, thick and beetling, were lifted into elegant arches that widened her whole look. Her eyes, pale blue, suddenly popped in her face, with light brown shadow on the lids and a little chestnut on the creases. The shadows under her eyes had vanished, making her look lively and alert. She was wearing lip gloss – an attractive, natural peach – and it wasn’t bleeding into the lines around her mouth, which was why she had given up wearing it. As she stared, Hannah now remembered Dina dabbing powder there, and primer, and then two coats of gloss.
She breathed in, stunned. Taking in this version of herself.
‘Primer – your primer – is very helpful on the mature face, but you still don’t need much, just the right foundation, bronzer, powder and gloss. I would add mascara at night.’
‘My husband won’t believe it.’ She wished the day was over already, so she could rush home and surprise him. ‘I . . . It’s incredible.’
‘You could look even better if you dyed your hair to cover the grey and got a chic cut. I can recommend you a great salon for your type.’
‘Really? Could you?’ Hannah stopped herself – she was sounding like a teenager. But Dina Kane had transformed her, literally transformed her, in minutes.
‘Of course. Can I have the primer? And my selection?’
‘Ms Kane,’ Hannah Zagar said, unable to look away from her reflection, ‘you can have anything you want.’
Joel Gaines sat in his office, staring into space.
Below him was the great expanse of Manhattan. This view had always inspired him: the city, pulsing with life and money. Power ran through its crosswalks. This was where the great deals were done, where American fortunes were made. This was where he’d changed his life.
He had crushed the opposition. And when things at home were stressful, or boring, or frustrating, it didn’t matter; he could come to the office.
Glass walls, installed custom by his architect, had been designed to mercilessly intimidate the guy on the other side of the desk. And for his own pleasure. He wanted to be looking down on it all, like a bird of prey in his eyrie – literally, at the pinnacle.
But today, he didn’t see the view. He was just staring into nothingness.
Dina Kane. He could not forget her. Get over her. Get past her. She was the most remarkable, the bravest chick he’d ever met.
That scene in the cab, where she’d made her peace, said her goodbyes – it was too much emotion, too heavy for him. But still, he’d been expecting a call. A text. Something.
Dina Kane had vanished off the face of the earth. Nothing. It was like she’d never come into his life at all.
He worked and went home. The boys were at college. The younger one had come home that weekend, played some tennis. His wife swam and went to the beauty salon, attended a house party, threw a lunch for their friends. Gaines had sat around, unable even to socialise. When he looked at Susan, all dressed up, wearing her jewels and heavy make-up, talking to him about couples therapy and working on himself, he felt a suffocating depression.
But that was commitment, that was marriage. Why couldn’t he deal with it?
His phone rang.
‘Yes?’
‘Sir, I wanted to remind you: you have therapy with Dr Fallon in fifteen minutes.’
Therapy. He was usually never late. It decompressed him, helped him relax, but he could not speak of Dina, and it seemed pointless right now, so pointless – talking about his life, instead of doing something about it.
‘Cancel it.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Cancel all my meetings. I’m going home.’
There was a pause at the end of the line. ‘But, sir, you have a partnership meeting on L’Audace. You have Goldman coming in on the Durant deal – their senior VP. And you’re expected in the Mayor’s box at the opera tonight, for the opening of
Der Rosenkavalier
. You accepted that invitation months ago . . .’
‘Doesn’t matter. I’m going home.’
‘Are you sick, Mr Gaines?’
‘I’m not sick. I hope you’re not deaf.’
‘No, sir. Very good, sir. I’ll cancel your meetings.’
He walked to the executive elevator, the one that went directly down to the lobby, and below, to the garage. The shaft was designed for exactly that reason: so Gaines could get in and out, if he chose, without seeing another living soul. It was pure Master-of-the-Universe stuff, and today he was glad of it. He just had no desire at all to see his secretary’s curious face right now, like he was a crossword puzzle she had to crack.
It was funny, he thought, as the elevator car whisked him down, down into the floodlit open space of their senior executive garage, that the one person he wanted to talk to about this was Dina Kane. But he couldn’t talk to her.
Not yet.
Not till it was done.
‘I think you should know about this, Mr Johnson.’
Edward sighed. He had just finished smoking a joint, a deep, mellow feeling was stealing over him, and he really didn’t want any hassle from Lena just now. Bills, unfinished accounts: it was all from the past.
His mother was due back up from Florida tomorrow. He had persuaded her that staying in the townhouse –
his
townhouse – would be wrong. It was, after all, the site of her addictions. She would occupy his old apartment. In the end, he was going to persuade her to move out of state permanently.
There was no way he would allow her back to take what was his. His parents screwed things up; it was Edward’s time now.
The stock portfolio was doing well, under the manager he had hired. He had a plan: to marry, and then sell either her house or his and buy a beachfront place in the Hamptons. That would rent out for a million a year, and there was his income for life. Edward had decided that work was – well – too much like work.
Women were the cause of all his problems; women could solve them. A rich spouse. It was one of the oldest transactions: his name for her cash.
He was already having some success. Back in the social circle, invited to all the parties, Edward Johnson was no longer a pariah. Crazy father? Drunken mother? So what? He had the house, and did you ever
see
such a perfect gem? There was private money. He was a trust fund, baby. He was a catch for some lucky girl.
Most of the best set wouldn’t date him – the pretty blondes with the long limbs and white teeth, swinging their tennis rackets and setting their cap at the hedge-fund guys, the investment bankers. But that still left a lot of rich pickings. The ugly chicks, the girls who were overweight with the dull skin and disappointed eyes, they were there for the plucking. They were the nervous ones, the aggressively political girls – camouflaging the pain of not being wanted with activism and ideology.
Edward was careful. It wouldn’t do to leave a trail of broken hearts. So he threw parties and dinners, and invited a good selection of the richest wallflowers from Wall Street – ugly chicks with great financial résumés. He was sociable, he didn’t hit on them, taking his time to scope them out.
His plan now was to date just one, maybe two, if that didn’t work out. He would be remiss if he didn’t get some chick to the altar in three dating partners.
First, he had to ensure they really were solvent. Not just pretend rich, like him. Was there a solid trust fund in the girl’s own name? Were her parents the kind of crazy liberals that left their money to foundations? Did she have her own house, income, stock portfolio? Were the parents achingly rich? Were there brothers and sisters? Who had she dated before?
It took time, and it was work Edward didn’t want to contract out. If the slightest whisper got back to any of them, he was ruined. He investigated public records and gossip columns, chatted to friends about his own investments, drew them out . . . Some wine, cigars for the men, moving on to a private smoking club where the scent of cigars, money and fine cognac all mingled together. By the end of a month of socialising, he had three women picked out, and had already dined with two of them alone.
The room came back into focus and he remembered Lena was in front of him, one of the only staff he had retained in the house: the cook. You couldn’t get rid of a brilliant cook that worked cheaply. Edward liked his food, and there was something so
colonial
about having servants.
‘Yes? What?’
He was filled with foreboding. What had she seen? What would she say to his mother? Perhaps he’d been stupid, keeping her around.
‘It’s on the computer.’
He stared at the older woman. ‘I’m not going to the computer. What is it?’
‘Well, sir, it’s on one of the blogs. As Mrs Johnson is coming back . . . You wouldn’t want her upset . . . I think there may be some publicity tomorrow about a
certain person
. Perhaps if you can get her to delay her return just one more week, it might be better.’
‘A certain person? Is my father returning?’
‘Oh. No, sir. Nothing like that.’ Lena twisted her hands. ‘It’s just, you know, that awful young woman. Dina Kane.’
The shock hit Edward like a physical punch to the chest. ‘What? What did you say?’
‘Dina Kane, sir, if you remember.’
He remembered. ‘But she was fired. Ruined. She can’t work again. What are they saying on the fucking computer?’
Lena winced. ‘Sir, please . . .’
Edward bit his lip. Rage was simmering, he could feel it, that old rage he thought had gone, it was just lying in his blood, waiting for a spark to ignite it. He felt dizzy, sick, like his careful world was shattering – shattering
again
– just as he was putting it back together.
‘Tell me,’ he hissed.
‘That she’s opening a store.’
‘For Torch?’ Had that jerk off, Ludo Morgan, taken her back?
‘No, sir. Her own store, they say. And a website. It’s happening tomorrow. All quite secret, but the blogs are leaking now.’
Edward Johnson stared. ‘Lena, you read the beauty blogs?’
His cook was a mature woman, but she was slender and dark haired, somewhat elegant. He supposed he had never looked at her as a person before.
‘I . . . Sometimes. Yes, sir. Sometimes.’
He took in her dress. It was dark and well cut, and her hair had a short, fashionable shape to it.
‘And I read up on the news when that girl was fired, sir, and you were very pleased.’
‘I hardly noticed,’ snapped Edward.
‘Oh. I’m sorry, sir. I suppose I thought you might. Never mind – my mistake.’
She made to move away. Edward forced down the bile, the impulse to grab her and shake her by the shoulders.
‘Lena, wait! If you think it might upset Momma, I should like to know the details. I’ll go and sit in the study. Can you email the piece to me?’
‘Yes, sir. Of course. Can I go?’
He waved his hand and dismissed her. ‘Yes. And I’ll eat out tonight.’
‘Very good, Mr Edward.’
The last thing he wanted right now was chatter with this woman: discussing Dina Kane . . . giving something away . . .