Lace II (6 page)

The production editor looked as if she’d swallowed a toad instead of a caviar canapé. “It’s already too late. Unless we put it in the Hither and Yon section, it’ll cost us a fortune. The printers will probably need to replate.”

“It’ll be the cover story, so whatever it costs we’re going to do it,” said Kate. “I want it run over two spreads and we’re getting a special cover picture from Avedon. Tomorrow.” Kate raised her eyebrows at Judy, who nodded behind her tortoise-shell spectacles. The rest of the staff, who respected Kate’s sure judgment and professionalism, were irritated, but not surprised. Kate’s background in newspapers had given her what the staff called a “hold-the-front-page, I’m-changing-the-comic-strip” mentality. Correctly, they felt that she rather enjoyed wrecking editorial plans at the last moment, for the sake of squeezing in the most up-to-the-minute material.

“We’re going to tell Lili’s story right from the beginning,” Kate went on. “She’s agreed to tell us everything about her early days, even that blue-movie stuff when she was thirteen. Things she’s never talked about before.”

“Small wonder,” somebody muttered (but very quietly). “Can we dig up one of those classic tire-calendar shots of
her?” the art director wondered, from the far end of the table. “Maybe that one with a sunflower in the navel?”

Judy shook her head. “No early shots. Only the Avedon portrait.” Kate threw a warning glance at Judy, catching the protective, emotional tone of her voice.

“What about the men in Lili’s life?” Tom reached for another prawn, wondering what his wife was up to. This morning over breakfast, Kate had been oddly reticent about her meeting with Lili.

“All of them,” Kate explained, “the photographer who put her in dirty movies and ripped her off until…”

“Until she had a nervous breakdown on the promotional tour I managed for her first straight film. I’ll never forget that.” Judy found that the memory of that television tour—previously nominated as the worst fuckup of Judy’s career—now seemed less painful; but she tried to sound correctly resentful in front of the staff.

“We all know about her relationships. What we’re dying to know is
more
about some of them. That Greek shipping millionaire, Jo Stiarkoz and then after he died, King Abdullah. And what’s it like with Simon Pont. And are they going to marry?”

Kate gave her tight smile. “If they are, she’ll tell us. Lili’s promised to tell us the whole truth and I think you’ll find it’s quite a story.”

*   *   *

After lunch, as they all left Judy’s pretty cream-and-green office, Kate felt a hand on her shoulder. “Wait a minute, Kate,” said Judy, “I want a word with you.…”

Kate threw herself onto the cream art deco sofa. “It’s no use. You can’t stop me. I’m off,” she said, her British accent still distinct in the clipped short “o” sound. “It’s been terrific, Judy, but I feel smothered under equal opportunities programs and contraceptive sponges. I want to get back to hard news”

“Kate, for heaven’s sake—the goddamn magazine was your idea in the first place.”

“You can run it with Pat Rogers for a year—she should have been promoted long ago. I’m going to Chittagong.”

“But Kate, who
needs
a book about settlement wars in the Hill Tracts of Chittagong. It won’t sell two thousand copies.”

“That’s not the point. And anyway, I’ve a feeling that the situation’s going to escalate.”

“Where the hell is Chittagong anyway?” Judy’s new maternal euphoria started to disperse. Sure, Judy and Kate’s deputy could run the magazine while she took a sabbatical, but Judy’s plans for 1979 had included launching a new magazine, aimed at the generation of readers who had grown up with
VERVE!
and now had mature lifestyles, families and spending power to match. Unless she made a last-ditch attempt to stop Kate leaving, she’d have to postpone the new magazine.

“Bangladesh, east of the Ganges delta. It hasn’t changed location since I told you about it last month, Judy. The Bengalis have been fighting the hill tribes there ever since the state of Bangladesh was created seven years ago, and it virtually amounts to jungle genocide. Thousands of people have died, but because the war area is so remote, nobody knows what’s going on.” Kate was becoming irritated. “It’s a terrific assignment, Judy. You bullied me into becoming a writer. I wouldn’t have written my first book if you hadn’t pushed me into it. Now be a pal and let me bug out.”

After leaving Judy’s office, Kate poked her head back around the door. “There’s an enormous Tarzan figure out here waiting to see you. Who’s he?”

“Our new exercise instructor,” said Judy. “I’ve decided we can all work out for an hour.”

Kate laughed. “It’s the mean Irish in you. You don’t want the staff to even leave for lunch.”

*   *   *

Under their continental quilt, Tom’s elbow gently prodded Kate. “Sure you want to go?”

“Sure. Judy won’t really miss me, once I’m gone; she’s more identified than I am with the magazine. That’s one of the reasons I want to get out and do something on my own.” Kate turned on her back and watched a little wink of light from a passing 747 travel from one corner of the window to the other. “I’ll be on that shooting star next week.”

“How do you know I’ll be here when you come back?”

Kate gently prodded Tom. “You’d better be.” The reason she hadn’t gone off earlier was that she couldn’t bear to leave this wonderful man, who loved her without wanting to own
her, encouraged her without patronizing her, and admired her talent without exploiting it. “I’ll miss you, too. Be careful.”

“Come over here, woman.”

“What’s on your side of the bed that isn’t on my side?”

“Me.”

*   *   *

Judy handed Griffin his vodka martini with olive on-the-rocks and sat down in her living room, which had just been restyled by David Laurance in soft turquoise, an excellent background color for blondes. Judy drove her decorator crazy by decorating one room at a time instead of having the whole apartment done over.

Griffin said, “So when are we doing it?”

“I’m not sure, Griffin.”

“Not sure about what?” He ate his olive. “Tell me about it while you get dressed. We’re due at the Sherry Netherland in twenty-five minutes.”

Judy hurried to her dressing room, not because she was late but because she wanted to put off the discussion. But, as she started to select her clothes, Griffin followed her, and leaning against the door he repeated, “Have you decided when you want to get married?”

“Not yet.” She turned away from him and selected a black sequinned jacket, then thought, better get it over with and gently said, “Maybe not ever, Griffin. I don’t really want to share the whole of my life with you or anyone.” She carefully avoided looking at him. “I think we should face the fact that we’re both independent people—and that’s why I suited you as a lover. I didn’t pester you to get divorced and marry me.…”

“But we’ve waited so long! I always thought…”

“I’ve
waited so long, is what you mean, Griffin. I’ve waited too long. It’s become a way of life with me. I’ve had to make too many excuses for you; I’ve had to spend too many Thanksgivings without you, too many Christmases, too many holidays and too many Sundays—
they’re
the loneliest days of the week, Griffin.”

She looked at Griffin and a hundred tall, dark, astounded Griffins looked back. The entire dressing room, including the
ceiling, was covered in mirror glass. Judy could stand in the middle of the room and see herself from every angle without craning her neck. She could also, in a playful mood, give a high kick and see herself reflected to infinity, like a onewoman Busby Berkeley chorus.

“Do you really mean you
don’t
want to marry me?” Didn’t all women want to get married? Was she really turning down one of the most successful publishers in the country, whose empire included some of the best magazines in America? Was she turning down the maroon Rolls Royce, the money, the servants, the old-English manor house in Scarsdale, the social position, the sensational times in bed? Griffin’s forehead wrinkled in perplexity. “What’s got into you tonight? Is it the wrong time of the month?”

“Griffin, it isn’t premenstrual tension, it’s common sense.” Judy thought she’d better be firm or she’d duck out. “After all, what do I really know about you except that you’re in the habit of cheating on your wife? How do I know that when I’m your wife you won’t want the same surreptitious excitement?”

Carefully, Griffin put his drink on one of the glass shelves that lined a complete mirror wall but did not interrupt the reflected perspective into infinity. “That’s a cheap shot after all these years. You didn’t complain when you were getting your share.”

Judy looked at him. He thinks he’s a great lover and he’s right, she thought. But, for him, the satisfaction is being seen to be a great lover, not simply enjoying himself with me. His constant craving for admiration will always make him flirt with other women, because his ego is insatiable.

Griffin rubbed the scar on his left hand, a sure sign of irritation. “So where do we go from here?”

“How about the Sherry Netherland? What’s wrong with business as usual, Griffin? Can’t we continue as we are? You keep that mansion in Scarsdale, I’ll stay here, and we’ll be together three or four times a week. And maybe Sunday.”

What Judy really meant to say was, “This relationship will stand or fall on how we feel for each other, moment by moment. I do not want you to take me for granted, Griffin. I do not want cozy warmth and domestic security. Or even domestic insecurity, which would be more likely.” Griffin
wasn’t used to earning a woman’s affection. He wanted his mate dependent, tied, safe and always there—waiting. Workaholic Griffin needed a steady partner because his kind of insecurity meant that he needed to know that there was always someone waiting at home for him, no matter what he did or where he went.

Suddenly, Judy realized that she didn’t like having a man watch her while she got dressed. She opened the walk-in shoe closet, newly covered in jet black moiré, to match the carpet. “Griffin, I’ve got something really important to tell you.” She picked a pair of silver sandals. “Yesterday, my past caught up with me.”

“What happened?” Was that why she was acting so strangely tonight?

“You know I was a scholarship student in Switzerland. I got pregrant while I was there. The baby was adopted.”

“Well, that was a long time ago.” Now that Griffin understood, he knew when to be magnanimous. “That shouldn’t come between us. Don’t let it upset you.”

Suddenly the love affair, which had seemed overwhelmingly important to Judy for ten years, looked very insignificant beside the new fact that she had a daughter. “Griffin, will you listen? My child is alive and she’s tracked me down.”

“Huh?” He was suddenly all attention. “I’ll get the lawyers onto it first thing tomorrow. Boy, has she picked the wrong lady to touch for a few bucks!”

“Griffin, she isn’t short of a few bucks. She’s Lili—the actress,
the Lili.”

“Tiger-Lili?” That was what she was called by the press

“Yes.”

Griffin thought for a moment. “There must be a reason for it. She’s after the publicity.”

“Griffin, she can get all the publicity she needs by simply appearing in public.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll fix it. She’s bound to be after something.”

Judy gave up.

*   *   *

Maxine leaned forward and sighed with pleasure, as the navy-blue Peugeot crested the gentle hill and she saw her
vineyards spread below her. She always enjoyed flying Concorde on a Sunday, when it was never crowded. The car cruised quietly out of the snow-speckled forest and began the gentle descent toward the Chateau de Chazalle. Maxine’s mind was already running down the list of arrangements she needed to make for the forthcoming week, when she and Charles were to meet a rider from the French Olympic equestrian team, and Maxine’s first boyfriend, Pierre Boursal, now the trainer of an exciting young skier who had already won the European women’s slalom. Since Maxine had decided that Chazalle was going into sponsorship, they had entertained more suitors than a fairy-tale princess, she reflected with satsifaction.

The car scattered a flock of white doves on the crescentshaped gravel drive and the cooing birds bustled out of Maxine’s way as she walked happily up the wide stone steps to the imposing doorway, where the butler waited, with a footman behind him.

Eagerly, Maxine ran upstairs to her bedroom. “Honorine, have all my bags put in the dressing room,” she called over her shoulder to her maid, as she pulled off gray kid gloves. “Send the jewel box to the strong room and please run me a bath.…”

She was fully inside the bedroom before she realized that the room was not as it should have been. Instead of being smooth and perfectly in place, on the enormous boat-shaped Empire bed, the pale-blue silk bedcover was crumpled on the floor. On tousled sheets, her husband Charles lay naked on his back, and astride him sat a big, dark woman wearing the shreds of a green silk camisole. Charles clutched her breasts so tightly that flesh bulged between his fingers as, with one arm, the woman held up her mass of dark hair; her other hand was busy between her legs, helping herself to climax.

Like a stunned animal in an abattoir, Maxine buckled at the knees. Her first instinct was to step back and swing the doors shut, to blot out the sight of her bed, her husband and his mistress. She leaned against the wall of the wide corridor, shaking with shock, but then her tactician’s mind told her what to do.

Maxine pulled on her gloves, then she flung open the
double doors of her bedroom and strode furiously up to the disordered bed. She grabbed the writhing woman by the hair and pulled her away from her husband’s body. “Charles, how dare you?” Maxine demanded in fury. “In
our
bed! Why couldn’t you keep this whore in Paris, with all your other divertissements?”