Fortune Is a Woman (15 page)

“Lana–”

She took one of the cups gingerly. 8:20AM. She was seconds away from calling Jenny. “Drink your coffee, Lydia…
please
.”

“But think of what you’re doing to my ego.”

Think. Impossible. “It will heal, darling, I assure you.”

“But when?”

Helaine grinned and avoided the plaintive eyes. “Tonight, darling.”

“Helaine, it’s my birthday…right now…this minute.”

Quick sip. Quick sip. Quick sip. That birthday suit could ruin everything. All those pretty plans. Helaine shifted her weight from one heel to the other, wanting to fling them both off and lie down.

“La
–”

“I have to go. And you have to get ready for your birthday brunch. Remember?”

What a time to think about brunch. Lydia set her coffee cup down at the same moment the phone in the living room began to ring.

“Saved by the bell, Lydia Beaumont. Don’t you dare,” Helaine warned with a throaty laugh. “I’m out of here.” She grabbed her briefcase and hurried from the apartment. “Happy birthday!” she called from the hallway.

“Fine, be that way. Where’s the paper then?” Lydia called after her. “The business section?”

“The pa–it didn’t come today!”

“Didn’t come? How odd–hello?”

“Happy birthday, Liddy! Told you I didn’t forget.”

_____

What luck, Sebastion Jones remarked to himself, watching as Lydia Beaumont attempted to shield herself from a chorus of happy birthdays. Very good fortune for the assistant of PM Entertainments to run into the flavor-of-the-month like this.

“Happy birthday, dear, Lydia…”

And it’s her birthday. What a perfect excuse to approach the woman.

“Happy birthday to you!”

He waited to do so until after the group had finished eating and were enjoying their cocktails.

“Happy birthday, Ms. Beaumont. You remember me? Sebastion? Sebastion Jones? Venus–?”

“Of course I do. Thank you.” She squirmed in her seat, eager to be rid of him already.

He showered greetings on the rest of the group. A blinding smile.

Robert and Kay said their hellos like goodbyes.

Delilah ogled. “Won’t you join us?” she asked, misreading everyone else’s intentions.

He joined them.

“Mr. Jones, I should tell you before you get too far, I don’t pose nude,” Lydia said.

Sebastion chuckled in such a good-natured manner that she laughed with him.

“We weren’t expecting you to,” he replied, handing her his card.

She placed it beside her glass. “What then?” Because clearly he was after something.

“Have you heard of ‘In Stone Magazine’?” he asked.

(Of course not.) “Does it cover the financial markets?” she teased.

Delilah rolled her eyes.

Sebastion laughed his same laugh. “Well, it does if you’ll grant us an interview. You see we–”

“I don’t give interviews. Press conferences are bad enough. No interviews, Mr. Jones. I’m sorry.”

He nodded. They had expected that. “We pay for our interviews, Ms. Beaumont. We know how busy you–”

“Mr. Jones, I’m sorry to interrupt, but it’s my birthday.”

Harry came to the table. “Message for you, Lydia.” The message was on a silver platter.

She gave the waiter a curious look and took the note suspiciously from him, fearing Paula.

“It was nice to see you again, Sebastion,” Robert said, in a leading tone.

“Yes,” Kay and Delilah chimed pleasantly.

Sebastion took the hint and rose to leave. “Keep my card, Ms. Beaumont, in case you reconsider. It’s a standing offer,” he added with his winsome grin. “So you can call me anytime.”

She blushed to hear that. She didn’t know why. “Thank you, Mr. Jones…I…thank you.”

(And the note says:
Happy birthday, darling. Meet me at the Lavender Lane Hotel, suite 27, 5:00 sharp. Dinner is at 6:00. Love you–Lana. PS. Don’t you dare be late!)

“That’s from Helaine,” Robert said. “I can tell by your face.”

_____

The Lavender Lane Hotel is located downtown on the waterfront where the hedonists like to congregate, say for dinner or drinks, even a romp if they can afford one.

In its earliest conception, the hotel had been a convent, which explains the Gates of Hell motif of the large iron entrance doors. Later, when the place ran out of nuns, it was converted into a boarding school for wayward girls, a far more lucrative venture than Catholicism, as there seemed to be a never-ending supply of young ladies in trouble and well-to-do parents wishing to be done with them.

The school authorities thought the hellish entrance quite apropos to their educational and spiritual mission and they devoted a lot of attention (and girl power) to restoring the ominous doors to their original “beauty” and, once restoration was complete, to keeping them rust-free and shiny.

Child labor, of course, is not only good for a girl’s redemption, but it helps to free up financial resources for bigger and better things, which the lavish private lifestyles of the institution’s administrators had readily attested to. When “Hell’s Gate” (as it came to be called) finally went bankrupt and filed for protection from its creditors, the school was a million dollars in debt, its facilities and residents in appalling neglect, and its once high profile administrators nowhere to be found. Ultimately the city was forced to seize the property for a decade of unpaid taxes and thereafter it sat boarded up for nearly two decades before anyone else could think of a use for it.

That’s when investors and their political pets began eyeing the waterfront district for development, armed with plans for demolishing its historic architecture and promenades and replacing them with high-rise office buildings, tourist attractions and mall-inspired concept museums. That’s also when they were met with some powerful resistance, backed up, naturally, by some very deep pockets.

Introducing The Waterfront Preservationists, who could boast a membership that included the likes of Dr. Helaine Kristenson and her “bleeding heart” associates and a handful of civic minded, people-friendly corporations.

When Hell’s Gate went on the auction block without the public notice legally required for such sales, the WP mysteriously found out about it anyway and showed up with a few private bidders of their own. Them and a sky’s-the-limit acquisition budget. One of those “private bidders” was Anna Grisholm, a personal friend of Helaine Kristenson, a personal friend to many of the waterfront preservationists, and a personal friend to many of the wives of the politicians and their bedfellows attempting to boondoggle the public out of extremely valuable real estate.

Anna won the bid.

That’s the method that proved so successful in reclaiming and preserving the waterfront district, the one that eventually defeated the carpetbaggers at their own game and drove them back uptown where they came from.

Today, it is Anna Grisholm and her silent partners who own and manage the historic building which once cloistered nuns and later housed the misfortunate. Except for the fact that the gates of hell are now painted a rebellious pink (lavender in some light), you could say that the Lavender Lane Hotel continues to carry on the tradition of providing for the physical and spiritual needs of its women, though the standard of care has improved dramatically. If you visit, you would see that it still exclusively serves women; in this case women who love women. Or, as Anna frequently jokes in that sexy bedroom voice, “women who love women too much.”

“Like you, Lydia Beaumont,” she had once teased at a party, when she saw that Helaine had drifted out of earshot. “I watch you,” she had added, giving a quick caress to a warm cheek. “I know.”

She was pretty with a voice that could take a body half the way there, which she seemed always willing to do. Lydia avoided her whenever possible.

That would be hard to do tonight, she laughed, preparing to dress for dinner. She was bound to run into the woman in the hotel lobby where she was known to keep a watchful eye on her clientele.

Maybe she should go in drag, Lydia thought with amusement, eyeing the possibilities hanging in her closet. Then she could squeeze right by her. She flipped through her wardrobe. Absolutely nothing she owned could ever pass for drag.

But a black pantsuit, a low-cut, tight fitting top and heels wasn’t too sloppy. Or what about the blue gown? It was four o’clock already. Butterflies. Better decide soon.

She put Anna out of her mind and committed herself to the pantsuit, tucking a pair of Helaine’s lace thongs into the breast pocket of her evening coat and arranging it as a handkerchief, a fetish she sometimes indulged. Lipstick, liner, no rouge–she never needed it–mascara. Ta-dah.
This is me, forty-two
.

She examined the woman in the mirror. Not too bad she had to admit, as she hooked her sapphire necklace. She gave one last tug of her thigh-highs and slipped on her shoes.

Quarter to five now. She called for her driver.

_____

It was her birthday. She was forty-two. The woman who emerged from the midtown building did not look forty-two to him. She had aged very well.

He stood in the shadows across the street from her address and watched gloomily as she got into her limousine.

He should have married her when he had the chance, when she was in love with him and wanted to get married. If he had, then everything would have turned out differently. She wouldn’t have married someone else. She wouldn’t have sent him up the river.

He saw the car speed away. She was late for something. A hot time probably. Celebrating forty-two.

He turned up his collar and trudged across town. He always remembered her birthday.

_____

5:05 PM. The birthday girl was on sensory overload. The purple doors, the red carpet, the fleshy faux Fragonards and Watteaus in the plush mirrored lobby at Lavender Lane. Anna.

“Dear Lydia. You have at last decided to call on me.”

Side doors, she suddenly remembered Helaine instructing. There were side doors. One of the special features the four star hotel was so famous for, discretion. Too late now. “No, I’m meeting Hel–”

“Suite twenty-seven, dear. You’re late,” Anna chided, taking her by the arm and escorting her to the elevators.

“I know.”

“One of these days,” Anna promised, as the doors began to close on Lydia.

Lydia smiled politely.

“Suite four when that day arrives.”

The doors closed.

“Or night,” Lydia heard through them.

The elevator began ascending.

“Jesus,” Lydia muttered. Not to mention the fact that she was late.

_____

A kiss at the door. Then another. “Mmmm, not yet you don’t–Anna kept you?”

“Not really.” Candlelight, soft music, drawn curtains. Nice. “Lana, let’s–”

“Unh, unh, unh,” Helaine said, freeing herself. “Champagne first, then–what is that?” (The thongs.) “Darling, those are mine.”

Lydia grabbed her hand, smiled rakishly. “To tide me over. I’ll trade you.”

“Hah. For what?”

“The ones you’re wearing.”

“Lydia…after dinner.”

“Come on, Lana,” she urged, coaxing her toward the bedroom, “it’s my birthday.”

“Lydi–ahhhh–aren’t you clever?” she murmured, as the back of her dress came open.

“Lana
…”

“Patience, darling. I said not yet.”

“No means yes?”

“Lydia.”

“Just five minutes.”

Five minutes on a king-size bed did not seem credible to Helaine. She steered them away from it and adjusted her zipper.

Lydia pulled it down again.

“Ms. Beaumont, humor me and have some champagne first…then your dinner.”

Didn’t seem even remotely reasonable. “We’ll just do a dry run?”

“No dry run.”

Lydia sat on the bed. “And that would be because?”

“Because I’m not dry. Get up, please.”

“Lie down, please.”

She shook her head no. “After dinner,” Helaine lipped.

“Before dinner,” Lydia lipped back.

“We eat first, okay?”

“And then?”

“And then, darling.”

This was turning into the longest day of her life. She didn’t feel the slightest bit hungry. “This is a game, Dr. Kristenson?”

“Of course it is, Ms. Beaumont. Now follow me.”

She found an attendant patiently waiting for them in the shadows, beside her on the service table, a bottle of brut on ice and a vase of long stem roses. She hadn’t noticed the girl when she first came in.

“Oh, my g–good evening.”

The girl lifted the bottle and began to pry at the cork.

“Helaine, I didn’t realize–”

POP!

“I’m sure it’s not an issue, Lydia.”

The attendant presented them with two flutes of champagne. Lydia took one.

Helaine took the other. “To a nice quiet birthday, darling.”

They touched glasses.

“Just the two of us,” she continued.

The room was warm. The attendant was removing her jacket.

“You and me.” Helaine emphasized.

You and me–yes?
Lydia took a sip, one eye on the attendant. Beneath the white coat the girl had been wearing was a dark gown, sleeveless, a string of pearls.

“You…and me…and...”

And?

“Venus.”

Bubbles went straight into her nose.

“Happy birthday, Mr. President,” Venus said.

Venus?

“Venus,” they affirmed in unison.

She felt her glass slip from her hand.

_____

“Yes, could you please send a martini to suite twenty-seven, please? My wife nee–would like a martini.”

“Of course Dr. Kristenson. Anything else?”

“Um…forgive me a moment...yes…I’m sorry, can you make that a shaker?”

“A shaker of martinis?”

“Yes.”

“Okay. How many glasses?”

“Just one, please.”

“One. Certainly. Will that be all, doctor?”

“Will that be all…no…okay…could you send up some cognac too?”

“Some cognac. Of course. A bottle?”