Authors: Roberta Latow
For her twelfth birthday, her own coat of arms. By the time she entered an exclusive finishing school in Switzerland, she had expanded a childhood fantasy into a life (brilliantly contrived and executed, with an extraordinary amount of false documentation, and a collection of crested, cartouched or emblazoned heirlooms). It was now too late not to believe in that life. Nearly everyone had been dragged into it. When the Rafaels finally realized how lost she was in her dream, there was nothing they could do about it. Have her committed indefinitely to some exclusive mental clinic? They could not bear to consign their harmless, straightforward, happily deranged child to one.
Of course, Lala flowered in Europe: it suited the life she designed for herself. For her eighteenth birthday and graduation from finishing school the Rafaels, now octagenarians and already banned for several years from appearing in public with her — there was no role for them in her fantasy — gave her a trip around the world. With it, a trust fund to support her in the style to which she had become accustomed, to last until her twenty-first birthday. After that their princess was on her
own. The elderly couple retreated to their estate in upstate New York. When she visited them, which was once every few years, she had somehow contrived to weave them into her story as the old friends of a grandmother of hers.
Most everyone gossiped that Lala de Ganza was not who she said she was. But no one was ever able to prove it. It severely taxed those who tried.
“Lala, it’s impossible. I can’t leave the gallery tonight.”
“Nothing’s impossible. Don’t be a party pooper. And, besides, you have to come if only because it will get you out of yourself and back to reality,” insisted Lala.
“Why can’t you leave?” asked Christopher, “If he hasn’t come back by now, he won’t be back.”
“But he might. And then what?”
“Does he have a key?” asked Christopher.
“No, though he was always after me to get one cut for him.”
“Well, that’s settled then,” said Roberto, enacting relief.
“But he knows where the spare keys hang. How do I know that he hasn’t removed them for a few hours and had copies made? If he’s an extortionist, stealing and duplicating a set of keys wouldn’t even phase him.”
“Farfetched.”
“She has a point.”
Roberto looked worried again, Christopher just annoyed.
“A locksmith. I must have the locks changed before I dare go anywhere.”
“No problem,” beamed Lala. “I’ve got the best emergency service in the city. Plaza 87101. I know the guys, sweeties. I lose my keys so often, I’ve even got an open account with them.”
Then she was dialing the number to call them out. “We can celebrate the changing of the locks with another bottle.
Encore du bubbly!
And you can take a hot bath and squeeze into a gorgeous dress. I’ll keep you company and try to spruce myself up. Maybe borrow something amusing from your wardrobe, just for tonight. After dinner, we’ll all go to Ariadne’s party.”
“Oh! I forgot all about the party in the wake of my drama,” sighed Cheyney.
“We’ll have to go, Cheyney. All the top art dealers and
collectors will be there among the new wave of rising artists. They wouldn’t dare refuse that Greek drama-queen genius. It will look odd if we don’t put in an appearance. It’s no state secret that you and I have been helping her all week to arrange her work and clean the coach house. And what about Dora? She’s been there all day cooking.”
“I don’t really feel up to all this,” said an obviously distressed Cheyney.
“Well, up to all this is what you’re going to have to be. It’s happened, and we have to just get on with tonight,” said Christopher, putting his arm around Cheyney and caressing her cheek. Kissing her gently on the lips, he walked her to their bedroom.
She wanted to shout, “The hell I do!” But she didn’t have a chance, because Lala burst into their room, “Of course she feels up to it, and she wants to go out. Don’t you, Cheyney? Now shoo. Go talk to Roberto and let her get dressed.”
“Yes, of course I am,” she said, knowing very well that, with so much in her life these days, she had little choice.
Cheyney, putting the finishing touches to her makeup, saw reflected in the mirror Lala, sitting on the edge of her bed. She was looking unusually thoughtful.
“You’re suddenly very quiet.”
“I was thinking of Christopher. Wondering about that magic formula he has for making women fall in love with him. Even I go under, temporarily, every time I see your guy. You’re the envy and the heartbreak of a lot of silly women, Cheyney.”
Cheyney, surprised, turned to face Lala as she toyed with a pile of scarves she had pulled from Cheyney’s chest of drawers. One at a time she draped them around her shoulders and discarded them on the bed. Her voice, too, seemed to fondle the ideas it chanced upon.
“Who, exactly, are you thinking of, Lala?”
“That poor old girl with the palazzo in Florence, who is still so besotted by him. He just can’t let his victims go. For years I’ve seen him take up with women, and, well, not so much dump them — he never really does that — more just file them away for another day. And, one day soon, you too could be popped back in the file.”
“Lala, stop. Are you trying to tell me something?”
“Yes, I guess I am. Something I heard when I was having lunch at the Plaza today with a girlfriend. She had just flown in from Italy. When she was in Florence, she had lunch with the old woman who lives in the Palazzo Faviani with Christopher and Kostas.”
“The elderly contessa with the purple ink? Christopher has told me all about her, Lala. For her, he’s just the son she never had.”
“More than that I suspect,” said a more serious Lala. “My friend Gina says the contessa is so passionately in love with Christopher that it’s gone beyond obsession. She is quite desperate, Cheyney. Enough to make her indiscreet about their intimate life together. To anyone who’ll listen.”
“They don’t have any life together for her to be indiscreet about.”
“That’s not what she’s claiming. And the details are pretty torrid. He will have to go to her, Cheyney, and soon. Or he might lose the palazzo. And I know Christopher will never give up the Palazzo Faviani. Crumbling it may be, but it’s still one of the most romantically beautiful palazzos in the city. I can assure you, Christopher will do whatever he has to to keep it. Even make love to a seventy-seven-year-old woman.
“Anyway, we’re not talking of just any old hag. She was once Italy’s greatest, most talked-about beauty, the best-loved mistress of a king and of the country’s favorite poet. She may be old and faded and on the edge of destitution, but she still has friends in high places. Gina says, even in the state she’s in, she still remains a seductive romantic creature. She can still glide through Italian bureaucracy and red tape. Now that’s influence, my girl!”
This was the most Cheyney had ever been able to find out about the contessa and the palazzo Christopher had spoken of. She was fascinated to know more. For weeks now, since the crested envelopes had begun arriving regularly from Florence, she had been skeptical of Christopher’s version of his relationship with “the woman who lives in our house.” Cheyney’s curiosity got the better of her.
“Tell me.”
“First they were just renting two rooms. Now it’s twenty-two rooms, plus the gardens. The dotty old dear is holed up
in one wing of the place with what’s left of her treasures, which is hardly anything. That’s where Gina spent the afternoon with her. When Gina asked to see the rest of the palazzo, the contessa told her that she, the contessa, was not allowed in that part of the house until Christopher got back. Then she might get invited.
“When Kostas arrived, the old dear went for her siesta and he took her around, showing the place off. Gina says it is unimaginably beautiful — and Gina has great taste. Kostas claims that eighty percent of what is there is original stuff. He and Christopher are supposed to have been buying pieces from the contessa. For a pittance, obviously. It seems that the two men live in princely splendor on pennies, while the contessa is incarcerated in a few tumbledown rooms in a property worth possibly a million dollars. Gina feels responsible for the situation — after all, she introduced them. So she asked the contessa if she could help. Yes, she was told, find a way to tell him that every day that we are not lying naked in each other’s arms, my heart is filled with sorrow and pain. I have only to think of my beautiful love, his lips upon mine, to remember a kiss, and I am restored.”
Cheyney’ face was ashen. The two women saw tears in each other’s eyes, tears for a stranger in a Florentine palazzo who had lived the whole of her life for great and passionate love, who was now dying of love.
The door opened and Christopher entered the room. Cheyney stood up, Lala shook out another scarf. Neither woman spoke.
“Now what have you two been up to?” he asked, a mischievous glint in his eye, one of his sensual smiles on his lips. “Don’t tell me I’ve missed some good gossip?”
“No,” said Cheyney, “just a horror story.”
T
he nineteenth-century coach house on West Fourth Street was aglow with light and sparkling people. Everyone who was anyone in the art world and high society mingled with
the
painters and writers, sculptors and musicians that contributed to the great New York buzz. Dazzlingly delectable New York women in Trigere, Dior, Balmain dresses vied with Italian contessas, French actresses, English beauties dressed in Valentino, Chanel, and Hardy Amis for attention. The strobe lighting flashed a rainbow of colors, and the zaniest girls in New York, poor art students, and groupies full of enthusiasm and crazy fun, dressed in skin-tight fitted jeans and feather boas, floppy hats, purple and pink and yellow hair outshone the other women by the sheer power of their youth, and imagination, their overt sexual promiscuity. It hung around them like a strong perfume.
The men: a cross section of handsome, passable, or ugly, were erudite, straight, or homosexual, and turned out like fairy-tale princes, nine-to-five slaves, or looking like beggars and bums or artists, who were all on the make. The scent of musk, incense, and Gauloise cigarettes mingled with the aroma of oil paints and turpentine, wet plaster, and candle wax. A thousand fat white candles burning and the flashing lights broke the darkness of the two-story studio, with its iron spiral staircase and narrow gallery chock-a-block with guests. The room churned with fun and sex and booze and the promise of more of all of that.
Ariadne’s party vibrated to the raunchy sounds of rock ’n’
roll as Cheyney realized how far she had traveled from the mainstream of a conventional life. She hardened her heart against self-pity, knowing that by morning, when her gallery opened, she would have to take hold and do the best she could, efficiently and speedily, with a minimum of scandal, to wind down the gallery and close the doors. She resolved to accomplish that end with dignity. No matter how many times Lala suggested the bookkeeper would not carry out his threats, Cheyney instinctively knew Tony Caletti was certain to deliver every last one of his promises.
Cheyney absorbed each nuance of all she saw, heard, and experienced at the party, wanting to remember the fun part, the being in the stream of things, on the way up in the New York art world. With every embrace, every smile or handshake exchanged, she was warmed, enriched for the last time by this world she loved too much. She had no illusions about her immediate future. It did not include fun or success. Survival would be the name of her game now. Failure would surely strike her off the art-circuit guest lists. She made the most of the evening.
Andy Warhol pushed his way through the crush of people. “You look wonderful. A real art star. How does it feel?”
She laughed, “Terrific, Andy. I have to admit, terrific.”
“But what’s it
like
?”
Thinking of what was to come in the morning, she laughed, a little too hilariously. “Like being queen for a day.”
He beamed with pleasure. “That wonderful? Oh, you’re such a star.”
Christopher was suddenly there and with an arm around her shoulder. He greeted Andy with the kind of flirtatious look that Christopher knew rattled the young man. Andy squirmed and begged: “And what’s it like, Cheyney, to be in love and have a handsome, sexy lover. Do you two do it a lot?”
Unsubtle. But Cheyney and Christopher had quite gotten used to Andy’s curiosity about their intimate life. Andy’s voyeuristic probing had been much worse when they had agreed to let his pencil immortalize their feet for a book he was planning entitled ‘Famous People’s Feet.’
Cheyney heard herself repeating: “Like being queen for a day.”
Her long, intense look at Christopher as she said it quite took him by surprise. It promoted the remark beyond flippancy.
A tear glinted unbidden in her eye. She slipped away from the two men and into the crowd, before either of them said anything. She felt a wrench of pain, but bit the inside of her lip: she would not cry out. She had let him go emotionally, and they had both realized that the moment she had said it.
They never spoke about it. Not once in the weeks that followed. Nor of Tony Caletti or what was happening as a result of her last encounter with the bookkeeper. He never again asked about her plans for the gallery. They never even spoke of his departure, although it was implicit in everything Christopher was doing. They distanced themselves from each other in public. In private their sexual life became more intense. A new kind of wildness surfaced in their lovemaking. Every fuck was as if it had to last them for a lifetime. They became as strangers, cautious of each other all the time, until they slipped together beneath the sheets. Then they were everything and everyone to each other, and Christopher branded her with every fuck, marked her for his own, told her, “No man, ever, will be able to fuck you as I do, give you what I give you.” And sadly she believed him.
The first thing to go was her jewelry. Then the furs. The last thing of value was the car. What stock of paintings was owned by the gallery went up for sale at whatever price she could get. Cheyney didn’t have to be a genius to realize she had to liquidate her assets as quickly as possible, to raise cash and stave off bankruptcy, keep the gallery doors open.
Tony Caletti had not given her a single day’s reprieve. The letters he had threatened Cheyney with had been delivered for the most part by hand. The telephone started ringing in the bad news by nine-thirty. Cheyney was still telling Dora and Sally what had happened and asking them to stay with her.
“Everything must carry on as normal in the gallery. We keep the panic behind the scenes. Out front there is no problem. My aim is to carry on as long as we can. Certainly until the last scheduled exhibition closes. It’s not going to be easy. You will both have to fend off people and writs, and with a great deal of discretion if it comes to what Tony has promised.
“You and I, Sally, will have to go over the ledgers right
now, to find out what difficulties we are in. I can’t be sure that wretched man has not manipulated them to put me in an incriminating position. I feel we can cope with it all — but not
that
.”
She handed out the new sets of keys to Dora and Sally, who agreed to stay on. Then a somewhat embarrassed Cheyney asked them not to allow her problems to become public knowledge. They were not to be discussed with anyone — including Christopher.
“There is no fooling you two. You know what he means to me. But I don’t want my problems laid upon him. I got myself into this mess. Oh, and there is another thing. He’ll be leaving me soon. I have no idea when, but I want no sad atmosphere around here because of it. Just remember, if you want to help me: everything as normal for as long as we can.”
Cheyney took the rush of telephone calls and made appointments to see the callers. She managed to put them all off until the following day. Of course, by then there were that many new creditors again on the line to deal with.
It was all so simple, the way Tony Caletti had helped Cheyney Fox to her ruin. He formed three limited companies, one for the gallery, one for her design work, and the third a trading company for the sole purpose of purchasing works of art. He then proceeded systematically to strip the three companies of their assets. Money was freely moved from one to the other, to provide balance sheets healthy enough to merit bank loans. All this, although masterminded by Caletti, was apparently endorsed by Cheyney: by the very fact that only her signature was to be found on the records, not his.
The statements submitted to the bank and the IRS were unquestionably false. It was impossible for Sally and Cheyney, despite poring over the company ledgers for hours, to tell which assets and which debts truly belonged to which company. All three companies had bank loans due or overdue for payment.
Scariest for Cheyney was that the books now indicated she had drawn checks from all three companies and deposited them in her own personal account. That she was the one stripping the assets. There was nothing in the ledgers to show what she had done with the funds received. Every injection of capital into the companies was recorded not as company profits reinvested,
but as personal loans from Cheyney Fox. It was impossible for Sally and Cheyney to untangle the Tony Caletti legacy.
Sebastian. It all harked back to Sebastian, and his five-thousand-dollar investment. When he pulled out, the gallery’s working capital vanished with him. Cheyney had always known that was the beginning of the end. She had fought from that day until now for the right to close the gallery at least with some honor. Now she was in deeper trouble than she could ever have imagined. Her resolve was still the same. But, with what she had learned in the last twenty-four hours, what hope had she? Only one: selling paintings.
Cheyney kept at bay one writ after another, working night and day to keep up the payments she was committed to. She extended herself unremittingly to make any deal and did indeed bring off some art dealing, several design contracts. The result was a modicum of profit for each of her companies. But this all added up to dimes when hundred-dollar bills were what she needed. To the casual eye she was presiding over a struggling art gallery, doing a little business, and still weathering a minor art storm — but not for long.
As soon as the first of the gallery’s owned paintings had been sold at a knockdown price the rumors began. After a second and a third, the artists with paintings on loan to the Cheyney Fox Gallery started calling them in.
Cheyney appeared at few parties and gallery openings now. Every minute she was not fighting to stay afloat, she remained at home replenishing her nervous energy. Christopher: she watched him day by day buying things, masses of things, for the houses in Greece and Florence, the flat in Paris, with the money he had made on his successful sales. A new Brooks Brothers coat, a button-down shirt. Every night, before he climbed into bed with her to make love, he rearranged the open suitcases in the bottom of her cupboard. She waited for weeks for him to say, “There’s always a place for you in my house. You will never be homeless. Come to me when your mess is over.” In vain.
The time came. He was finally ready to leave. “Cheyney, I’m leaving on Wednesday, three days from now. You have too many problems. I can’t help you. When they’re resolved,
let me know and I’ll come back. I’m sure you will make it all come out right. Don’t despair, we’ll write.”
It hurt more than she thought it could, but she refused to let it show. At some point he volunteered, “This is as difficult for me as it is for you.” She didn’t believe him.
“No sad farewells, promise me that.”
“I couldn’t agree more,” she said. “All emotions in check at the airport, is that to be the form? I think I can manage that.”
“You’re not coming to the airport, Cheyney. It will be easier on both of us.”
“But I was going to borrow Della’s car and take you.”
A sheepish look. “I’ll be traveling with Marie Waldren. She happens to be on the same flight. Her chauffeur will take us to the airport.”
That was a blow. Only she was to be left alone in this love story.
He
, not for a minute. Why hadn’t she figured that out?
It was her first warning signal that, no matter how she controlled the hurt of his departure, it wasn’t enough. The hurt might still be fatal. She covered up the pain with the shifting business of the day, the continuing fight for survival, and distanced herself from Christopher even further than she had done since the night of Ariadne’s party. As a practiced seducer, he was quick to recognize what Cheyney was doing. He was having none of it.
That was most especially so on the eve of his departure. Christopher’s ego demanded that he leave Cheyney still loving and longing for him and no other. Whatever ploy Cheyney used as an emotional escape, Christopher was able to block. At first, upon arrival from one of his dowager duchess’s cocktail parties, with tentative kisses. During their somewhat tense
dinner à deux
with steamy looks and sensual innuendo. At last in front of the open log fire burning in the bedroom, Christopher at his most ruthless. Demanding from Cheyney every morsel of love she was so desperately trying to quell. He yanked her back to him with his sexual prowess. He confirmed again his power to deliver her into streams of sexual ecstasy. He transported her from the nightmare of her problems into moments of pure pleasure. Oblivion, that quiescence beyond pain.
Cheyney had dressed very carefully. She wore a short, burgundy,
satin-quilted jacket with long puffed sleeves over a slinky black silk jersey dress. The halter top clung seductively to her body and finished to just below her ankle to reveal high-heeled satin thonged sandals. Naked under the sensual fabric, the breasts round and firm, the hint of nipple, the luscious roundness of thigh and bottom tempted and teased with every move she made.
She wanted to be more beautiful, more seductive, and in control of herself than she had ever been with Christopher. She wanted their last night of sex to be something he would remember and miss for the rest of his life. Cheyney’s pride dictated that if he saw fit to leave her at this time when she needed him most, then he go away remembering how sexually good they were together and what he was throwing away by his callous departure.
Her resolve to maintain a cool, calm, unemotional facade began to crack with his first tentative kiss. She struggled on valiantly not to let him see her love for him, the pain she felt over his departure. As his tentative kisses changed to parted lips, and soft, moist sensual kisses, deeper, richer, emotional needs surfaced and swept them both away into that special erotic passion they felt for each other.
He removed her earrings and whispered in her ear, “I’ve wanted you all evening, from the moment I walked in the door. You are so beautiful, too beautiful, too sexy to be had by anyone else but me. You’re mine and don’t ever forget it. Don’t for one minute think I don’t know what you’re trying to do. A waste of time. You can’t throw me out of your heart because I’ll never let you go. I’ll yank you back to me with my cock.” She trembled with fear that he might be right.