“It’s fine, I’ll do it myself,” Selden said.
The waiter left, and he popped the cork on one of the bottles, pouring out two glasses. The action seemed to soothe him, and he said in a reasonable tone of voice,
“Look, if you’re worried about being pregnant . . . of course, you’ll have help. And a nanny when the baby is born.”
She emitted a short, cruel laugh. “This isn’t about children,” she said.
“What
is
it about, then?” he demanded.
She smiled. “As a matter of fact, I’m going to be producing the movie of Craig’s book,
The Embarrassments.
He’s already agreed to let me do it . . .” Selden had just taken a mouthful of champagne and he nearly spit it out in surprise. Then he threw back his head and laughed.
Janey stared at him, her face full of fury. “I can’t imagine why you find that so funny.”
Smiling, he took a step toward her and tried to put his arm around her, but she drew away. “Come on, babe,” he said. “Producing a movie’s a
huge
job. It takes
years
of experience. You’ll never get it done . . .”
“How do you know that?”
“I
know,
” he said. He turned away from her and prodded the fire with an iron poker. “Don’t take it personally,” he added casually, “but this is my business. I can’t tell you how many people have come to me wanting to produce a movie, and the few who try almost always fail . . .”
“Fine,” Janey said. “I’ll try it, and if I fail, I fail. But I don’t think I will.” He looked at her in surprise, and then took a step back, shocked by the blazing hatred in her eyes. “Janey!” he said.
“Fuck you,” she said softly. She stormed out of the living room and into the bedroom, where she began to unpack. He followed her.
“Look, Janey,” he said. “I don’t think I’m making myself clear. I do not want you producing Craig’s movie . . .”
“Why not?” she demanded, not looking at him. “Because you’re afraid I might actually succeed?”
“No,” he said, carefully balancing his glass on the bedside table. He folded his arms. “Because you’re guaranteed to fail. Craig’s book doesn’t have the kind of story that translates into a film. In fact, it doesn’t have any story at all . . .”
“You’re just jealous!” she spat. “You’re jealous because Craig is talented and you’re
not
. . .”
She suddenly gasped and bit her lip, afraid that she’d gone too far. But it was
true
, she told herself, and maybe it was time Selden knew it . . .
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hardly daring to look at him. She bent back over the bag, and when she looked down, she saw his feet in front of her. She straightened up with a defiant look on her face, daring him to challenge her.
His face was impassive. Swirling the champagne in his glass, he said quietly, “If you want to be with a man like Craig Edgers, don’t let
me
stand in your way.”
“Don’t worry,” she snapped. “I won’t.”
She pushed past him and went into the bathroom, locking the door behind her.
“Janey,” he said. “You come out of there and talk about this.”
“There’s nothing to talk about,” Janey said coldly, from behind the door.
“Janey!” he said. Silence. He banged on the door. “Janey, come out of there!” There was no response. And then he heard the sound of the taps turned on full blast.
“Goddammit, Janey!” he shouted. “This is a
hell
of a way to start the new year!” 18947_ch01.qxd 4/14/03 11:24 PM Page 250
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the g5 l anded on the runway at Charles de Gaulle Airport, and then taxied to a private jet strip where it was met by a Mercedes limousine and two French customs agents. It was eleven-fifteen in the morning, sometime in the middle of February 2001, and Janey looked out the window at the drizzly gray French day and sighed. Sent to Paris with Mimi! It was so annoying, she thought, to have been packed off like a misbehaving child who’d been sent to her room . . .
She slipped on a pair of soft, dove-gray gloves, frowning as she did so. The trip couldn’t have come at a worse time. She’d been so close to getting George to sign a letter of intent regarding their movie project, and then, just as it seemed he must commit to the project and write a check, along came this sudden invitation to accompany Mimi to Paris. Mimi had to go to Paris for a fitting of some haute couture dresses she’d ordered from Dior in October and she didn’t want to go alone, and if Janey accompanied her, she would introduce her to Raumond, her French decorator. Apparently Raumond
never
took on new clients, but might consider working with Janey if she came to Paris in February when he had a tiny break in his schedule.
“It’s all so silly,” Janey had complained loudly to Selden. “Especially since we don’t have anything to decorate!”
This was a touchy topic for both of them, and Selden gave her a measured look.
“We will eventually,” he said carefully. Janey stared back at him defiantly. He had not sold the land or dropped the idea of building a house. He’d simply stopped mentioning it—just as she didn’t mention her meetings with George. “Really, Janey,” he said, “this is a high-class problem”—and that had shut her up. Neverthe-18947_ch01.qxd 4/14/03 11:24 PM Page 254
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less, ever since Mimi had suggested the trip to Paris a week ago—“New York is so awful in February; there’s nothing going on,” she pointed out—Janey couldn’t help feeling that there was some kind of conspiracy afoot to get her out of town. Selden had come home one evening full of excitement about the trip, having heard about it from George, he said. Janey was immediately nervous, especially as she’d just seen George herself that afternoon, and their meeting hadn’t been exactly all business.
Her first thought was that George had told Selden about it—but if he had, she would deny it all, she thought quickly; she would say that George had come on to her and she’d refused him, and in retaliation he had made the whole thing up . . .
But Selden had seemed relieved, not angry, and after a few moments she reassured herself that George wasn’t a blabbermouth. Indeed, she realized, it was Selden she had to worry about, not George. In the last month, ever since that terrible New Year’s Eve, Selden had developed a patronizing attitude toward her, as if she wasn’t intelligent or knowledgeable enough to understand his business. To the unsuspecting eye, they appeared to be a power couple on equal footing. But Janey was beginning to know better, to understand that Selden really only wanted her as a showpiece—as the beautiful Victoria’s Secret model who confirmed his status as an alpha male—and she was beginning to resent it. When she gave her opinions on show business or politics or fashion, she would catch him watching the faces of others, to make sure she wasn’t boring or embarrassing them, and if he felt she was, he would interrupt her, leaving her to finish her thoughts to an audience who had turned away.
It came to a head one evening in mid-January during a dinner at Harold Vane’s house. There were two tables of ten and Janey was seated next to the Republican senator from New York, Mike Matthews. He was a handsome man in his sixties, powerful and charming, with a clawlike grip that he exercised when making a point by grabbing her hand and not letting go, even when he was addressing the table. It was just the sort of evening Janey loved, filled with important people and flowing with what she considered significant conversation. Toward the end of dinner the topic turned inevitably to the pros and cons (mostly cons—after all, this was New York) of the Republican Party. Janey launched into a diatribe about the Republican Party’s biggest flaw—that they didn’t support women and abortion. There were four other women at the table, one a revered television journalist in her fifties, who cried out, “Hear, hear,” and suddenly there was one of those lulls in the room when conversation inexplicably stops, and Janey’s voice carried clear across the room: “Really, Senator! If you personally don’t support abortion, then I say you’re a hypocrite.
You’ve been a single man for thirty years, and in those thirty years you can’t tell me that you’ve never had a girlfriend who got pregnant.” 18947_ch01.qxd 4/14/03 11:24 PM Page 255
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For a moment, there was shocked silence, and Janey felt herself redden with embarrassment. Turning toward Selden, who was seated at the other table, she caught the rigid tension in the back of his neck, but a second later, the silence was broken by the warm laughter of approval that comes after a well-told joke, and Janey felt her esteem rising in the eyes of the room. Before, she had been a pretty girl of not much account; now she was one of them—attractive, yes, but with a brightly wicked sense of humor. The senator attached his claw to her arm and addressed the room. “Folks, this young lady is exactly what the Republican Party has been missing!” and the jovial crowd broke up for coffee in the living room.
The senator escorted her through the short foyer leading to the ornate living room, which Harold had decorated in the style of the American Empire period, during which the house was built. There were silk-covered settees with clawed feet and intricately inlaid marble tables, so that the whole effect was of stepping back in time; Janey wouldn’t have been surprised to see horse-drawn carriages making their way up Park Avenue.
There was a grand piano in one corner of the room, and Harold had arranged for two young opera singers to perform. Janey took a seat on a long, blue uphol-stered bench and accepted a demitasse cup of coffee from a uniformed maid, smiling up at the senator as she did so. For a moment, Janey wondered what it would be like to be married to him—especially as everyone said he might run for president. It might be fun to be the First Lady, and she said, “Please sit down, Senator. I’m dying to know if the rumors are true.”
He accepted her invitation and joked, “Most rumors do have some truth to them, but if you’re wondering about whether or not I’m going to run . . .”
“Oh, I was talking about all those rumors about you and the ladies . . . ,” Janey began. And at that moment, Selden appeared beside them.
Janey looked up at him, an invitation to join them in her eyes, but his mouth was frozen in a tight smile. “I’m sorry about my wife, Senator,” he said. “She often says things without thinking about them.” He sat on the edge of the couch and took Janey’s hand, and in a voice meant to be joking, said, “She has a habit of talking about things she doesn’t know anything about.”
“Is that so?” the senator asked slowly. He gave Selden a cold smile and continued, “It seems to me she’s at least as intelligent, if not more intelligent, than most of the people in this room. All she did was point out what most of them were thinking but didn’t have the guts to say.”
“As long as there’s no offense . . . ,” Selden faltered.
“There isn’t, on my part,” the senator said, giving Janey a sympathetic look. “But if you ever decide to lose this guy,” he said, addressing her directly, “I’m available.” 18947_ch01.qxd 4/14/03 11:24 PM Page 256
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They all laughed, and at that moment the music began, putting an end to the conversation. Janey tilted her head in an attitude of appreciation, but inside she was fuming. It was as if all of her suspicions about Selden’s behavior toward her were suddenly revealed in a bright light from which there was no turning away, and in the car on the way home, she exploded.
“Don’t you ever do that again,” she hissed. They both sat staring straight ahead, and for a few seconds he said nothing. Then he rubbed his chin with his gloved hand, and in an unemotional voice said, “It was an embarrassing remark.”
“The only thing that was embarrassing was your behavior,” Janey snapped.
“Can we discuss this at home, please?” he asked, indicating the driver.
Back at the hotel, the argument went around and around in circles, with Janey accusing him of being patronizing and disrespectful toward her, and Selden denying any knowledge of what she was talking about. The fact that he wouldn’t acknowledge her feelings drove her to heights of fury she had rarely experienced, and she finally went at him with clenched fists. He threw her back onto the couch, and she sat shaking with tears and anger, but the dam had broken and he spun around in a rage. She had never seen him really angry before, and she was terrified.
“If you want to know the truth, you do embarrass me,” he said with cold fury.
“Night after night I have to listen to you spouting your mouth off about things you know nothing about, arguing with people who are worlds away from you in terms of experience. You’ve always gotten away with it because you’re beautiful. But if you were half as attractive, believe me, no one would be listening to you!” She gasped. No one had ever spoken to her that way, and at first she wasn’t sure how to react. Was it possible that what he was saying was
true
? But to admit to such a flaw would be death, and she screamed back: “Didn’t you hear what the senator said? That I was more intelligent than most of the people in that room?”
“Of course he tells you you’re intelligent,” he said, bending toward her with a sneer on his face. “He’s a politician. An expert at telling people exactly what they want to hear—truth be damned. Didn’t you see the way he was staring at your breasts and grabbing your hand? Because I did, and so did everyone else in the room. He wanted to fuck you and was willing to say anything to make it a possibility. And you wonder why I’m embarrassed? And you wonder why I don’t respect you? When it comes right down to it, you’re the one with no respect—for anybody but yourself.” He began pacing the room, patting the top of his head in the comical gesture he adopted when he was nervous, his distress growing as if every motion of his hand wound him up further.