She slipped her arms through the sequined straps of the blue bra and turned toward a small mirror; her dresser, Marie, held up a pair of silicone breast enhancers. “Oh no,” Janey said. “I’m big enough as it is.”
“Everyone is wearing them.”
“I’m already a C cup,” Janey said. “I don’t need to be bigger.”
“But all the other girls will be bigger. You don’t want to be the smallest girl out there.”
“Marie,” Janey said playfully, “do you think there’s a direct correlation between the rise in the stock market and the size of women’s breasts?” It was a question Craig had posed to her at lunch the other day, leading to a fifteen-minute discussion about men and women and money. While Janey expressed her opinions, Craig had sat listening, rapt with attention, which was something that Selden never seemed to do these days. But what did she expect? Craig was a true intellectual, and true intellectuals understood that everybody was smart and that everyone had a valid 18947_ch01.qxd 4/14/03 11:24 PM Page 212
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opinion, if only
someone
would listen. But Selden . . . well, as Craig pointed out, Selden was a bit of a sellout, although Janey still wasn’t sure she completely agreed.
Marie threw her hands up in frustration. “What do I know about the stock market?” she asked. “You think I have money to throw around like that?” She approached with an enhancer in each hand, and Janey allowed her to slide the cool silicone underneath her breasts, pushing them up and out of the blue sequined bra at an alarming angle.
“Now I look like a cartoon character,” Janey complained. She turned to Marie, and with a wicked smile, said, “I’m thinking about having my breast implants taken out. What do you think about that, Marie?”
Marie looked like she might expire. “You can’t do that!” she scolded. “You will ruin your career. And what kind of inspiration will that be for other women?”
“Janey? Now?” Walter Speck asked, appearing from behind her rack of outfits.
Janey looked toward Marie, who rolled her eyes and nodded.
“You know the drill,” Walter said, handing her a silky pink robe. “You love Victoria’s Secret, blah blah blah, Victoria’s Secret makes women feel good about themselves . . .”
“They do?” Janey asked.
“You’re not going to start making trouble now, too, are you?” Walter asked, hurrying her toward a corner of the room where a camera crew was stationed. “Evie is bad enough . . . It’s always you older girls . . . You turn thirty and suddenly you think you’ve grown a brain.”
“Maybe we have,” Janey laughed. She sat down on the chair indicated and tilted her head back to allow a makeup artist to powder her face. “But you don’t have to worry, Walter. I’m thinking about quitting anyway. To pursue other interests.”
“Lord no,” Walter muttered.
“Is that an official announcement?” someone asked.
“Certainly not,” Walter snapped.
“Now Janey,” the interviewer said. She was a blond-haired peppy girl of about twenty-five, whose ordinariness was relieved only by the fact that she worked for a television show. “In about fifteen minutes, you’re going to walk out there in front of thousands of people . . . practically naked!”
“Yes. That’s right,” Janey said, as if she found the prospect slightly dull.
“Doesn’t it . . . make you nervous?” the girl twittered. “I could never do it, no matter how much you paid me!”
Janey gave her a small, pitying smile, thinking that was the point: No one
would
ever pay her . . . Aloud, she said, “I think of my body as art. If you’re a model, your art is your body, the way a painting is art for an artist.” 18947_ch01.qxd 4/14/03 11:24 PM Page 213
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“My goodness!” the girl exclaimed. “I’ve never thought of models as artists.
From now on, I’ll look at models with a new respect!” Janey gave her a big, fake smile.
“Now here’s a question we’re asking all the girls,” the girl continued. “Did you do anything special today to get ready for the show?”
“Not really,” Janey shrugged. Certainly this twit didn’t need to hear about the collagen injections she’d had two days ago in her lips and in the lines leading from her nose to the corners of her mouth, or about the high colonic and the bikini wax she’d had yesterday. “Frankly, I did what I usually do. I had some business meetings in the morning with my agent, and then I had lunch with my good friend Craig Edgers.”
The name had its intended effect: “Craig Edgers?” the girl squealed. “The best-selling novelist? And what did you talk about?”
“Oh, the correlation between the stock market and how it affects our perception of the perfect woman’s body,” Janey said casually.
For a moment, the girl looked at her blankly, and then covered quickly by saying, “Well, we’re certainly going to see some perfect bodies here! Thank you so much, Janey. And thank you for being a smart model and an inspiration to the women of today.”
“Nice. Very nice,” Walter said, taking Janey’s arm and leading her away. “I loved that bit about lunch with Craig Edgers.” Then he stopped and looked at her, frowning slightly. “You’re not making it up, are you? It’s just the kind of thing some gossip columnist will get a hold of and . . .”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Janey said reassuringly. The inaccuracy as to the date didn’t bother her a bit: After all, she
had
had lunch with Craig, and everyone knew that the press always got everything wrong.
“A friendship between you and Craig Edgers,” Walter said eagerly. “That’s good for at least a ‘seen around town.’ Where did you have lunch, anyway?”
“Dingo’s,” Janey said. “Where else?”
The after-party was held at the nightclub Lotus. With Selden holding her hand, and Mimi and George following in her wake, Janey entered the party in a blaze of flashbulbs, feeling as if all the threads of her life had finally come together to produce this moment of triumph. She was quite sure that none of the other girls had received as much applause as she had, and she basked in the idea that she’d been singled out for special approval. Once inside the party, she was quickly surrounded by an expanding circle of well-wishers; out of the corner of her eye she saw her sister and Digger, around whom the media frenzy appeared to have died down, prob-18947_ch01.qxd 4/14/03 11:24 PM Page 214
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ably because they hadn’t split up; standing a few feet away was Comstock Dibble.
She hadn’t heard a peep from him or his lawyers since she’d spoken to George, and flush with the victories of the day, and knowing he wouldn’t dare make a scene at a social event, especially one at which she was the star, she decided to confront him.
She found him at the bar, talking to an actress named Wendy Piccolo. Wendy was a tiny thing, no more than five feet tall, which made her, in Janey’s mind, nearly invisible. Brushing past Wendy and raising her eyebrows with the innocent earnest-ness of a child, Janey cried out, “Comstock! I haven’t seen you for ages! You never call me anymore!”
Comstock turned, his eyes flashing in fury, but, as she’d expected, he knew enough to keep his personal feelings in check. Recovering quickly from her unexpected sally, he growled lazily, “It’s only because I can’t reach you. You’ve become so famous you don’t have time for any of your old friends.”
“I always have time for you, Comstock. You know that.” He turned away to take a sip of his drink, perhaps in the hope that Janey would disappear, for when he turned back, it was with a look of disbelief that she was still standing there. She gave him a superior smile, as if to imply that she wasn’t scared of him, and he acquiesced by asking her what she’d been up to recently.
“I have to say, I’m loving being married,” Janey said, glancing at Wendy to include her in the conversation.
“Oh, I know exactly who you are now,” Wendy drawled, as if before that moment Janey had been of no interest. “You’re Selden Rose’s wife.”
“That’s right,” Janey said with false brightness. “But how do
you
know Selden?”
“Oh, from parties,” she said, with a shrug of her skinny shoulder. “And we’ve had lunch a few times. He was always talking about his beautiful wife, Janey. But it wasn’t until I saw you that I put it together.” Janey laughed, but instead of mollifying her as to the relationship between Wendy and Selden, Wendy’s comment made her feel vaguely uncomfortable. On the surface, Wendy was perfectly charming, but underneath her words, Janey sensed the viciousness of a cat that will suddenly reach out and claw you for no reason, and she said coldly, “I’ll be sure to tell Selden I saw you.”
“Selden’s trying to steal Wendy from me,” Comstock said, narrowing his eyes over the rim of his glass.
“Is that so?” Janey said.
“He wants me to star in this new television series. But I keep telling him that I’m strictly a movie actress. On the other hand, Selden is soooo brilliant. And all of his work is so
intellectual,
” Wendy said, pronouncing the word as if it were a delicious piece of candy. “But of course you know that. You’re married to him.” She smiled and cocked her head to the side, which had the unwonted effect of making 18947_ch01.qxd 4/14/03 11:24 PM Page 215
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Janey want to squish her under her heel. “Is he here? I must go and say hi to him. I don’t want him to think I’m ignoring him.”
She scampered off, and Janey leaned toward Comstock with an indulgent smile of disdain. “My goodness,” she said softly. “She certainly is tiny.”
“She is tiny,” Comstock agreed. “But she’s one of the most talented actresses in America today.”
“How funny,” Janey said. “You’d never know.”
“Oh, she’s very modest. And her career hasn’t been handled well in the past five years. That’s one of the reasons I’ve been trying to help her.”
“And after you help her . . . will you have your lawyers send her a letter demanding that she pay you back?”
The words were delivered with Janey’s typical, soft-spoken innocence, and at first, Comstock had no reaction, other than hardening his face into a terrifying mask that nearly caused Janey to draw back in fear. His expression seemed to say,
“I’ll break your kneecaps,” and she knew that if she backed down, he would do everything he could to destroy her. She had to make him know that he was in the wrong, and with haughty indignance, she demanded, “Well?” He snorted in disgust. “I was wondering when you were going to have the guts to deal with this. You probably thought that if you did nothing, it would go away.
And that trick of putting George Paxton’s lawyers on me. Bad move. You should have come to me yourself.”
Janey nearly laughed. A crazy sort of anger overtook her, blotting out the fear she’d felt moments before. “Excuse me, Comstock, but
you
are insane,” she said daringly, not quite believing she had the guts to challenge him in this way. “You put your lawyers on
me
. How dare you? Besides, I earned that money, fair and square.”
“Oh, I’m sure you think you did,” Comstock said with an evil smile. “Your type always does. And I suppose it never crossed your mind that I
didn’t
put my lawyers on you.”
“So you’re not even going to take responsibility?” she asked, knowing that this was one of the tricks employed by most of the rich, successful men she knew when they were up against the wall: They would simply claim not to know anything about it.
“As a matter of fact, I am.”
“And I suppose you’re going to say that you have no idea what I’m talking about.”
“Oh, I know what you’re talking about,” he said heatedly. “And if you’d done the right thing . . . if you’d at least come to me first . . . Even George Paxton’s lawyers aren’t going to be able to help you with this one, and believe me, they don’t want to be involved.” He leaned toward her with a frightening smile and his tone changed 18947_ch01.qxd 4/14/03 11:24 PM Page 216
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completely. Speaking as if, to the casual observer, they were having a perfectly pleasant conversation, he said, “You’ve caused me a lot of trouble, Janey, and that’s something I won’t forget. I’ll get out of it eventually, but I wonder if you will.” She gasped and felt her heart thumping with fear and rage. “How dare you threaten me?” she said.
“Don’t take it as a threat,” he said. “Consider it a warning.” She opened her mouth to reply, but at that moment Mimi materialized in front of them. “Hello, Comstock,” she said pleasantly, lifting her face to receive a kiss on each cheek. “I’m sure you must have loved the show. Wasn’t Janey wonderful?”
“Spectacular. Who would think that walking would pay so much?” he asked with a cruel laugh.
Janey responded with a cold smile; her only pleasure was in thinking how fan-tastically shocked and angry he would be when he found out that she was producing
The Embarrassments
and not he.
“And where’s Mauve?” Mimi asked.
He looked at her with surprise. “I thought you girls kept closer tabs on each other than that,” he said. “She’s in Palm Beach.”
“Oh, that’s right,” Mimi said. “Give her my love, will you?”
“I’m sure you’ll talk to her before I will,” he said. He picked up his drink and walked off.
“Well,” Mimi said, giving Janey a cold smile. “What was that about?”
“Who knows?” Janey shrugged, wondering frantically how much of the conversation Mimi had overheard. “Comstock is just crazy . . .”
“So is half of New York,” Mimi said. Janey looked at her. She hadn’t seen Mimi for a few days—every time she called her Mimi said she was in the middle of something and had to get off the phone—and now she realized she was behaving strangely. With a jolt of panic, she wondered if Mimi suspected that something had happened between her and Zizi, but she quickly reassured herself that the problem was most likely the fact that she’d told Mimi Zizi had to move out—and Mimi had seen that her sister and Digger were still very much together.
“Listen, Mimi,” she said. “I’m sorry about the thing with Zizi. I had no idea that Patty and Digger were going to reconcile . . .”