Standing in front of the bathroom mirror, she began applying red lipstick; then she leaned forward and studied her lips in the mirror, pushing up her top lip with her finger. If she had a few collagen injections, she would look every bit as beautiful as Janey Wilcox, she thought, and then wondered what she was worrying about.
Janey Wilcox was sure to be a complete bimbo, and the truth was, in
their
circle, it didn’t matter how beautiful a woman was—if she wasn’t accomplished, if she couldn’t talk about business and politics, if she didn’t really
do
anything, then the men usually lost interest and ignored her.
But even if you
could
do all those things, it wasn’t a guarantee that a man would pay constant attention to you, Dodo thought bitterly. In the last six months, she’d sensed a dropping off in her husband’s level of interest in her: He used to watch her broadcast every day at five, but lately, when she’d questioned him about it, he admitted that he’d missed her, using the excuse that he’d “forgotten.” She’d had to point out to him, in no uncertain terms, that your wife was not something you “forgot,” 18947_ch01.qxd 4/14/03 11:23 PM Page 140
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like your keys. In the past, her fits of high dudgeon had always supplied the needed results, but lately, when she went “off,” he merely rolled his eyes and went into the other room to watch TV. So it was really his own fault that she had recently ended up in the arms of his best friend, Paul Lovelady.
Paul Lovelady and his wife, Carolina, who was a concert pianist and who claimed to be some kind of Russian princess (which Dodo didn’t believe), were coming to dinner; all afternoon, in between worrying about Janey Wilcox, Dodo had wondered if Paul would make some kind of move on her. In the past month, she and Paul had slept together twice—both times on the weekend, when Mark was at the gym and Carolina had had a rehearsal at Lincoln Center; she and Paul now spent about an hour a day on the phone. Paul told her that she was “brilliant” and “beautiful,” and even though Carolina was technically one of her best friends, Dodo didn’t feel guilty. She had long ago decided that guilt was a useless emotion, and her feeling about married men was simple: If a wife couldn’t prevent her husband from cheating, it wasn’t
her
problem.
She dotted her lips with gloss and smacked them together, and, exiting the bathroom, heard the siren song of the little plastic package of cocaine calling to her. She did two more quick hits, just to pick her up a little and get her through what was sure to be a long evening, vowing that it was all she would do . . . until tomorrow.
And downstairs, Mark Macadu entered the kitchen with a touch of trepidation, sniffing the air for signs of disaster. In three years of marriage to Dodo, he had learned to expect anything—on several occasions he’d walked into the kitchen and found something aflame—and while he was scared to death of the house burning down, Dodo was never the least bit concerned; she said kitchen fires were a way of life if you were a certified chef, like herself. He didn’t think that two weeks of cooking classes made a person a certified chef, but Dodo insisted that it was true, and he’d found that it was often easier to agree with her than not, even if it meant agreeing to a lie.
But on this particular evening, all was calm. The kitchen was a mess, of course, but it always was, and there was sweet little (
big?
) Sally from next door, stirring something in a bowl, and the fragrant scent of roasting lamb coming from the oven.
“Hi, Mr. Macadu,” Sally said.
“Now Sally,” Mark said, crossing to the refrigerator for a bottle of white wine,
“you can call me Mark. I’m not your father . . .”
“I know, Mr. Macadu,” she said.
They had this exchange every time they saw each other, and picking up a special black Rabbit corkscrew, he smiled to himself, thinking about how nice and civilized the suburbs were compared to the city.
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. . .
Carolina and Paul Lovelady arrived exactly at seven-thirty. Carolina leaned over to Dodo for a kiss and asked, “Is she here yet?” and when Dodo shook her head, she leaned over to her other ear and whispered, “Do you have anything?”
“In my lingerie drawer,” Dodo whispered back. In the past two years, Dodo and Carolina had become great friends, mostly due to their shared love of cocaine, a secret that they guarded assiduously from their husbands.
Seeing the two women whispering, and suddenly fearful that Dodo had told Carolina about their little affair, Paul said, “What are you two girls whispering about now?” and rolled his eyes at Mark.
“Nothing,” Dodo said. “We were just talking about the Victoria’s Secret model.”
“Paul’s been thinking about her all day,” Carolina said. “He won’t admit it, but I can always tell
exactly
what he’s thinking. Can’t I,
dear
?” she asked, patting him on the cheek.
Paul experienced another jolt of panic, suddenly wishing that he had never slept with Dodo to begin with. He had thought it was nothing more than a friendly neighborhood fuck, but after the second time, she’d begun calling him every day at work. He was going to have to put an end to it, starting tonight, but then he caught a glimpse of her tits, and he changed his mind. She was wearing a suit jacket with only a bra underneath; her breasts strained out from between the lapels and he could see the lacy blue of her bra—the same bra she’d been wearing the first time they’d had sex. He immediately remembered the feel of those full, comforting breasts, and he decided that one more time with her wouldn’t hurt anyone—especially as his wife was not nearly so well endowed. Carolina was elegant, to be sure, but he’d stopped finding her sexy after about a year of marriage.
Aloud, he said, “Hey, I’m a red-blooded American male. I can’t help myself . . .” And Dodo responded, “As long as you keep your pecker in your pants,” and gave him a meaningful look.
“I’m going to the bathroom,” Carolina said, disappearing up the stairs.
Ross and Constance Jared arrived a few minutes later. Constance was, as usual Dodo thought, strangely dressed, in a blue ruffled shirt and velveteen skirt that went below her knees, as if she was still trying to give the impression that she was a vir-ginal teenager, which she had been when she’d first joined the American Ballet Theatre. Carolina thought Constance was weird, but Dodo always defended her—she was a perfectly nice, sweet girl, she always said, who was a little mixed up because her feet had been squished into toe shoes all her life. But mostly, Dodo liked Constance because she never talked, and therefore never robbed Dodo of attention.
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The three couples went into the living room, where bowls of nuts and olives, and a platter containing soft French cheeses, had been laid out. For fifteen minutes, the men talked about office politics while Dodo and Carolina analyzed the personality of one of Dodo’s colleagues, a new young female recruit who, Dodo swore, had been giving her dirty looks. Then the doorbell rang, and after a momentary lapse in conversation, everyone studiously went back to their discussions.
Sally opened the door. Once the first guests had arrived, Dodo always “let” her answer the door as a “favor,” telling her that it would improve her hostessing skills, but it usually only made Sally feel like a servant. Tonight, however, was different, and she didn’t mind playing butler at all—she would be the very first person to clap eyes on this Janey Wilcox character, and she was excited about it.
Dodo had mentioned that Janey was probably a killer bitch, and while Sally had come across several killer bitches in her private school, she had yet to meet an adult version. Nor had she ever seen a model in real life. Dodo told her that she wouldn’t look anything near as good as her photographs, but Sally wasn’t sure. In any case, she certainly wasn’t prepared for the vision that met her eyes when she opened the door, and taking a step back in awe, she nearly tripped on the Oriental rug.
Sally knew
she
was tall—she was sixteen and nearly 5'10"—but Janey appeared to be a creature of Amazon-like proportions. Sally had never seen anyone with such a perfect figure—she didn’t know a human being could actually look like that. And then Janey spoke, her voice pouring over Sally like cream. And what she said was:
“Are your parents home?”
“Oh!” Sally said, fumbling with the door handle. “They’re not
my
parents . . . I mean, I live next door . . . ,” she said helplessly.
“That’s nice,” Janey said, looking around her with what Sally was convinced was amused disdain. There was a large painting of Dodo in the entrance hall, wearing pearls and a peignoir—the painting had been done from a photograph and wasn’t very good—and as Janey’s eyes alighted on the painting, a brief smile touched her lips, and Sally was suddenly embarrassed for Dodo.
“Everyone’s in the living room,” she said breathlessly, watching Janey and Selden as they strolled into the next room. Then she scurried gleefully back to the kitchen. Janey Wilcox was every bit as beautiful as her photographs, and Dodo was going to be furious. The only disappointing thing about Janey was her husband, she thought, sneaking a small glass of white wine, which she knew the Macadus, who were big drinkers, would never notice. Someone who looked like Janey should be with a movie star, she thought. Not with some ordinary guy who seemed just like her father and Mr. Macadu, and every other man in the neighborhood.
“Mark!” Selden said loudly, entering the living room.
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Mark looked up—in fact, they all did—and then they all quickly looked away, with the exception of Mark, who came striding forward, his hands outstretched. He clasped Selden’s hand in both of his, and then they clapped each other on the back.
“This is my wife, Janey,” Selden said.
Mark smiled, being careful not to appear too friendly, and shook Janey’s hand.
All of the men were trying to look anywhere except at Janey, Dodo thought with annoyance, which only made it all the more obvious that they wanted to gape at her.
Janey was, Dodo thought, exactly what all men wanted—a trashy, sexy, dumb-looking girl—and taking her time, she rose from the couch and crossed the room.
“Hello. You must be Janey,” she said.
“Yes. And you are . . . ?”
“Dodo Blanchette. Mark’s wife,” Dodo said coldly, fuming that Selden hadn’t apprised Janey of at least her name. But then again, she thought, maybe he
had,
and Janey was simply too stupid to remember it. “Did you have any trouble finding our humble little abode?” she asked.
“Actually, the driver got lost,” Janey said.
“Sorry about that,” Mark Macadu said. “Dodo’s never been very good with directions . . . she couldn’t find her way out of a paper bag.” Dodo shot Mark a dirty look. She couldn’t decide who she wished more dead: her husband . . . or Janey Wilcox.
“I’d like to make a toast,” Dodo said, tapping her water glass with her knife. She stood up unsteadily, holding her red-wine glass aloft at a dangerous angle—she’d already had quite a lot to drink and more cocaine than she’d planned—and she was feeling quite high. “To the newest member of our little family. Janey Wilcox, welcome.”
“Hear, hear.”
Janey took a sip of her wine and sat back in her chair, forcing herself to smile.
She would never be a member of this little family, she thought, no matter how hard she tried. She was like a foreigner who didn’t speak their language, and, looking around the table, she felt completely and utterly alone.
That Dodo was insane, she thought. Before dinner, Dodo had insisted on taking Janey on a tour of the house, during which she kept emphasizing how they could have lived in the city, but $5 million bought more space in Greenwich . . . and then she had taken Janey into the bedroom and offered her cocaine, which Janey had refused. Nevertheless, Dodo had trapped her in the bathroom for a good fifteen minutes, blathering about her technique for avoiding pregnancy, which was to take an ovulation test and to avoid sex on the days she was fertile. “Can you imagine
me
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with a child?” she kept asking. “But that’s all they want, these men. They want us for sex and breeding—as if I don’t work hard enough as it is! I have to take care of this house, and Mark, and God knows
he
doesn’t do anything . . .” And then there was Carolina. Carolina had the kind of long, aristocratic face that would have been considered the height of beauty two hundred years ago. But under the surface, she had the angry, watchful air of a woman who knows her husband is cheating, but has yet to find the hard evidence. Which shouldn’t have been difficult, Janey thought, since Dodo was all over Carolina’s husband, Paul, whispering jokes in his ear and pressing her leg up against his . . .
And finally there was poor little Constance. She was so skinny Janey thought she might faint from lack of food, and everybody was ignoring her, as if she were a large doll that someone had brought to the table and seated on a chair.
And they were all so smug and sure of themselves.
“I still say the Republicans will ruin the economy,” Ross said heatedly to Selden.
“Come on, Ross, that’s crap and you know it,” Selden said. “The economy charts its own course—whether the president is Republican or Democratic is irrel-evant . . .”
“As the only person in this group who actually works on TV, I say the stock market is going to recover,” Dodo said.
“Ross, dear, you’ve completely forgotten about Reagan,” Carolina said.
Janey picked at her lamb and said nothing. The lamb was far too rare for her tastes, and she wondered if uncooked lamb could give you food poisoning.
“Do you have money in the stock market?” Ross suddenly asked her.
“A little,” Janey responded.