Rhapsody (3 page)

"Aha!" Manny exclaimed. "I do believe I spy
the waiter approaching to take our dessert orders!" He rubbed his
plump pink hands together in gleeful anticipation.

"Manny," Vera said, "your enthusiasm is
sometimes de trop."

"I've heard great things about their
desserts," Manny said.

The waiter graciously asked how their meals
were, and they voiced their appreciation. Then he noticed Misha's
plate, and his expression became one of utter consternation, as if
he had somehow offended.

"Monsieur Levin," he asked anxiously, "was
the guinea fowl not to your satisfaction?"

"I'm sure it was sublime," Misha replied.
"Please assure the chef that everything was to our satisfaction.
It's just that I don't usually eat anything at all before
performing."

The waiter looked relieved. "Perhaps you can
honor us by returning, then," he said. "We hope you can try our
cuisine another time."

"Yes," Misha said, "I certainly plan to." He
turned to Vera. "Are you having dessert, darling?"

"Hmm. Maybe just a taste," Vera said. She
looked up at the waiter. "The cheese crepe, I think. With the
chocolate sauce."

"Manny?" Misha asked. "Need I ask?"

Manny laughed. "No," he said. "I'll have the
same as Mrs. Levin," he said to the waiter.

"And coffee all around," Misha said.

"No dessert, then, Monsieur?" the waiter
asked.

"No, thank you," Misha said. And he thought:
I just want to get out of here
.

After their coffee and desserts came, the
discussion moved to the Austrian minister of culture's recent
efforts to begin returning the vast quantities of art seized from
Jews by the Nazis during World War II. Austrian museums—including
the Kunsthistorische and the Belvedere, both venerable
institutions—were filled with treasures that had belonged to Jewish
families prior to the war.

"It's outrageous," Vera said, finishing the
last bite of her cheese crepe, "one of the French Rothschilds who I
met at a couture show in Paris told me that the Austrian branch of
the family had many priceless paintings seized." She lifted a brow
significantly. "And loads of valuable furniture and other things.
If Baroness de Rothschild wants to see her things, she has to go
visit them at Viennese museums because they're on display."

"It's disgusting," Manny said. "It's high
time something's done. The government has waited half a century to
begin to make any kind of restitution. I know that the Rothschilds
and a lot of other families have repeatedly tried to get
satisfaction of some sort, but the Austrian government has always
turned a deaf ear."

Misha put a hand over his mouth and stifled a
yawn.

"Excuse me," he said. "It's not the company
or the conversation."

Vera looked at him with an indulgent smile.
"Would you like to get back to the hotel to have your nap before
tonight's concert?"

"Yes," Misha said, returning her smile. "I
think that's a very good idea." And he thought:
I want to be
alone. Alone to think about Serena
.

"Just what you need, old sport," Manny said,
neatly folding his big linen napkin and placing it beside his
plate. "A good snooze before you dazzle them tonight."

Within minutes, the trio had left Zu den Drei
Husaren and was ensconced in the luxurious black leather rear seat
of the black Mercedes limousine that awaited them, serenely rolling
toward their suites at the Palais Schwarzenberg, the grand country
house-hotel owned by Prince Schwarzenberg. Vera was wrapped in an
Oscar de la Renta suit and honey-colored sable, Manny in his fine
English tailoring and handmade Lobb shoes, and Misha in his
obsessive thoughts of the hauntingly beautiful Serena Gibbons.

Coral Randolph—normally the essence of urbane
sophistication and the epitome of control—dropped her fork, unaware
of its clatter on the beautiful porcelain plate in front of her.
She was too self-assured to notice or care that several sets of
eyes had snapped in her direction from nearby tables at Steirereck,
reputed to be Austria's finest restaurant. Coral's eyes, the color
of Colombian emeralds, narrowed to slits, and her pencil-thin,
drawn-on eyebrows arched.

"I
trust
" she enunciated sweetly and
clearly in her best boarding school lockjaw, "that you kicked the
son of a bitch in his precious family jewels, leaving him rolling
in the gutter in agony?"

Serena shrugged nonchalantly. She took
another bite of her delicious, calorie-rich Wildschwein—succulent
wild boar—before answering her formidable agent, whose cheeks
burned with adrenaline-induced war paint that no cosmetics
manufacturer had yet invented.

Serena had suspected that Coral might react
like a lioness trying to protect her cub, but the news of seeing
Misha had been altogether too exciting to hold back.

"As a matter of fact," Serena said at long
last, "I was the essence of cordiality. I mean, Jesus! It's been
ages, Coral, and I decided to let bygones be bygones. You should
know from all those years of your own therapy how stoking
resentments can eat you alive. All that negative energy bouncing
around inside you like lethal atoms is self-defeating, and I just
thought—"

"You didn't think anything," Coral
interrupted with biting precision. "If you had, you would have
either socked him or walked off. And don't try to feed me any of
your New Age psychobabble, either! I refuse to listen to it!"

She sat fuming for a moment, ignoring the
salad she invariably ordered for lunch, no matter what the
restaurant. In this case, she was particularly disdainful of the
salad's beet root and potatoes, typical of Austrian cuisine. Those
all-knowing emerald eyes of hers glared malevolently across the
table at her star photographer.

Serena took a sip of her wine, admitting to
herself that she was deriving a little sadistic pleasure from
Coral's outrage about Misha. As much as she loved her, Serena
relished torturing Coral from time to time. After all, she thought,
turn about's fair play.

Her eyes swept over Coral briefly.
What an
unlikely mother-figure-warrior-agent the woman was
, Serena
thought, as she had a thousand times in the past.

This ruthless warrior was chicly thin and
forty-fiveish. It was difficult to discern Coral's age beneath her
elaborate maquillage and her meticulous grooming—and some would vow
numerous nips and tucks here and there by famous but discreet
plastic surgeons—and it was a secret she guarded as if it were the
Crown Jewels of England. She was all angles with hardly an ounce of
fat on her. Her obviously dyed hair was always severely cut into a
shoe polish-black page boy helmet. It was one of Coral's
trademarks, this hairstyle, and had not varied an iota since her
days as a debutante. Serena knew that maintaining its perfection
required two visits every single week to the hairdresser, one for a
trim and the other for dyeing. It contrasted
dramatically—"spookily" was the description proffered by many of
international society's wags—with the palest ivory rice powder she
brushed on her face and neck. Her nose was a prominent beak, and
her rather thin mouth was a vivid slash of a mulberry-shaded
lipstick, which resembled nothing so much as dried blood. Her
clothes were always exquisite and severely cut, as was today's
black wool Jil Sander suit. Though not extensive, her collection of
jewelry was not only real but of the very finest quality. She
favored vintage pieces designed by the late, great Count Fulco di
Verdura, and was a fixture at the jewelry sales at Sotheby's and
Christie's auction rooms.

Thus, Coral was one of Manhattan's much
ballyhooed social X rays, a clothes hanger par excellence, only in
her case with a major difference: behind that urbane, refined
facade, was a woman with a street-fighter's guts and instincts,
coupled with an acute mind for business. She may have attended the
most exclusive boarding and finishing schools in both the United
States and Europe, but there was nothing in the least bit demure,
spoiled, or flighty about her. No, for Coral Randolph relished a
battle and without exception went straight for the jugular.

When she was deciding on a career, she came
to the conclusion that because of her great love for photography,
coupled with her unerring nose for spotting talent, she could
become a successful—even great—photographer's representative. Over
the years she had put together an extraordinary stable of
photographers. If they remained with her, Coral got them top dollar
and the best assignments. Nobody liked to negotiate with Coral
Randolph—be it a testosterone-driven male or a female much like
herself.

She was also a lesbian, known in the chicest
realms of that demimonde as Randi—from her surname, of course—and
had lived for years with a well-known casting director, Brandace
Sargeant, known as Brandi. They were not militant or political
lesbians, and their sexual orientation would never be questioned by
the casual observer, so elegant were they both. And at the highest
levels of international society they were not only accepted but
also held with great respect.

Randi and Brandi. Hell on wheels, Serena
thought. And God, am I lucky to have them on my side.

"Serena," Coral continued, after she had
calmed herself down considerably, "you know I'm thinking of your
own welfare, when I say do not, I repeat, do not see Misha Levin
again."

Serena looked at Coral but didn't respond.
Her gaze traveled to the restaurant's lovely wall murals and rustic
beams and archways.

"You're not paying attention to me, as
usual," Coral said. "And this is a very serious matter, Serena."
She took a sip of her mineral water, her ring clicking against the
crystal, then set the glass down and cleared her throat.

"Sometimes I think what we need is a good,
old- fashioned war," she said. "For you to photograph. It's too bad
you weren't around for Vietnam. The way you go looking for trouble,
young lady, it would've been right up your alley."

Serena put down her wineglass and dabbed her
lips with a corner of the napkin. "Coral, I don't want to have a
battle over this. How many times do I have to tell you that Misha
Levin is a thing of the past? My God, it's been five years! It's
over. Finito. Kaput! she exclaimed. "There's nothing—
nada!
zilch!
—for you to worry about"

Coral scrutinized the beautiful, obstinate
young woman. Serena is so ravishing, so talented, and in many ways,
so strong, she thought. But her character is also, in some ways,
extremely weak, extremely needy, extremely vulnerable, and far too
trusting—especially where men are concerned

Coral cleared her throat again. "Serena, I
won't say anything else about this, I promise." She reached across
the table and patted one of Serena's hands with her own. "But
please, please
, please
," she begged. "Don't allow this man
to toy with you like he did the last time. I honestly believe that
he is capable of doing you great harm. I think he is evil,
Serena."

She raised her eyebrows significantly,
looking into Serena's eyes. "You know that I don't use the word
lightly. I've heard all sorts of stories about the things he's done
to other women, and some of them were very ...unsavory. I think
he's very dangerous. Just remember, Misha Levin is looking out for
one thing and one thing only: that weapon he's got between his
legs."

Serena had listened intently, but now she
burst out into laughter. "Coral!" she protested with a sputter.
"Not all men are like that, you know?"

"This is no laughing matter, Serena," Coral
said with irritation. "Misha Levin is like that," she said
emphatically. "And besides, you have to remember that he's a
married man now. There's Vera Levin to consider, and from what I
hear, she is a formidable woman. Oh, she may look cool as a
cucumber and be oh so very social and on a lot of benefit
committees and all that sort of thing, but she's also a wife and
mother—and an aggressive social climber. I don't think you'd want
to cross swords with her."

Serena slammed her wineglass down on the
table. "Coral," she said with exasperation, her hazel eyes
flashing, "I am not planning on having an affair with Misha Levin.
I simply saw the man in the street, okay? So drop it, will you?
Jesus!"

Coral held up one long, slender hand, a
finger of which was adorned with a large, perfect pearl set in
gold. One of her treasured Verdura pieces. "I'm finished," she
said. "I won't say another word."

"Promise?" Serena said.

"Scout's honor," Coral replied. "Now then,
have you got everything lined up for the shoots?"

"Yes," Serena said. "It's all taken care of.
Jason and Bennett are taking care of a lot of the details."

"Oh, and how are the boys?" Coral asked.

"They're great," Serena replied. "Like
sponges, the two of them. Soaking up everything I know."

"Good," Coral said. "That's hard to find in
assistants these days."

"Anyway," Serena continued, "everybody's been
a lot more cooperative than I expected, so barring unforeseen
difficulties, it ought to be a piece of cake."

"You've worked your usual charm on these
great Middle European politicians, I assume," Coral said
knowingly.

"You might say that." Serena smiled. "It
doesn't hurt to stroke their egos a little to get them to
cooperate."

"Good," Coral said. "Sometimes, I don't know
how you do it. This group seems so ...gray. So dull. All bad suits
and bad haircuts."

"Well . . ." Serena said mirthfully, "they
are easy to resist."

"Well, thank God for that," Coral said,
sitting back in her chair.

Serena looked at Coral, then at her plate.
"You're not eating. Don't you like the salad?" she asked.