Butterfly (51 page)

They discussed the day’s agenda over
brioches
and
cafe américain.
Beverly only nibbled

at one of the buns while Maggie helped herself to two, generously buttering them. She

had put on weight since coming to work for Beverly Highland five years ago.

This was their morning ritual, going over business before starting the day. They made

quite a team. Maggie had come into Beverly’s employ with seven years of experience

working in a stock brokerage house, and with a keen mind for investment strategies.

Beverly now had money, thanks to the astonishing success of Royal Burgers.

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Upon Maggie’s advice, Beverly had gone public with her company, offering shares and

bringing in revenue from venture capitalists. With that money she had expanded the

chain into a hundred more locations in fourteen new states. The Crown Burger (a double

burger with Bermuda onion and jack cheese) and the grated parmesan added to the

jalapeño fries, plus the lower prices and beautifully upgraded decor of the restaurants,

caused Royal Burgers to be an overnight success. The four friends were rapidly realizing

their dreams: Carmen Sanchez, who had once dreamed of working in a respectable office,

was now a CPA and the corporate accountant for Royal Burgers; Ann Hastings, who had

gained self-confidence and boyfriends and a Porsche, was in charge of quality control for

the nearly five hundred outlets; and Beverly Highland was chairman of the board of the

largest hamburger franchise in the United States, a fast-food chain that brought in mil-

lions of dollars annually.

Now Beverly was starting to diversify. With the help of Maggie’s investment back-

ground and the benefit of Carmen’s excellent business education, Beverly’s money was

being carefully turned around and invested in other enterprises. This was all being gath-

ered under the recently formed Highland Enterprises, a fast-growing corporation whose

motto was
Dare….

“Dare to accept the challenge to make Hollywood great again!” Beverly had cried at

the Chamber of Commerce meeting three years ago. And from that auditorium Beverly

had carried her newly born “spirit” out into the world, into everything she did. That day

had also given birth to something else: Beverly’s identity within the business community.

She had accepted the offer to serve as chairman on the new committee, and soon she was

recognized by her colleagues as a woman of strength, ideas, and ambition. Beverly now

went around to business schools, to clubs and various other groups, and gave speeches.

And the auditorium was always full. “Dare to make it happen,” she would tell her audi-

ence. “Dare to set high goals. Dare to take a chance. Dare to live your dreams!” Few went

away unmoved by her spirit and energy.

And now Beverly had brought that spirit to Europe. She had come for two purposes:

to locate sites for Royal Burger restaurants and to gain some suggestions as to what might

be done with the men’s store in Beverly Hills that she had inherited from Eddie.

The Royal Burger deal was now sealed: Beverly was going to open take-out stands on

Piccadilly Circus in London, on the Via Veneto in Rome, and on the Champs-Elysées

here in Paris. All that remained was solving the mystery of how on earth to save the store

on Rodeo Drive.

By the time Bob Manning joined them in Beverly’s suite their business meeting was

finished and the two women were perusing the English-language newspapers that had

been delivered with breakfast.

As usual, the first thing Beverly looked for was any international news about Danny

Mackay.

As yet, he was not globally known. But his fame in the United States was expanding in

dynamic proportions. Ever since he had signed up with Hallstead back in Houston to

appear on evangelical TV, Danny’s reputation had skyrocketed. He was a natural show-

man. If he was good on a stage in a tent, he was dynamite in front of a camera. In his first

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Kathryn Harvey

year of electronic preaching, he had doubled the audience of WBET. By the end of the

second year he had bought Hallstead out and was the sole owner of a string of religious

stations. By the third year he was calling himself the head of Good News Ministries. And

by the end of last year his weekly religious hour was finally being broadcast coast to coast.

He was getting there. And someday, when the moment was right, Beverly was going to

have her revenge.

Eddie Fanelli’s Men’s Store in Beverly Hills came under the Highland Enterprises

umbrella, but because Beverly had been so busy the past few years with building up her

corporation, she had paid little attention to the store. It had not been a money-maker

when she inherited it, but now Carmen was reporting regular losses—the store was

becoming a financial drain. That was due to the fashion line it carried: old-fashioned

clothes, no doubt picked out by Eddie and Laverne themselves, that were once in style

but were now hopelessly outdated. When Maggie and Beverly had first set foot in the

store and saw the bright lights, the Peter Max posters, the racks of bell-bottoms and

Nehru jackets and fake-hippie, fake-counterculture rags, they had been speechless. The

young, long-haired, gum-chewing sales clerks, slouched and bejeaned, had stunned the

two women even further. What had Eddie been thinking?

But now Beverly wanted to do something with the store, and so they were in Paris

with Bob Manning, winding down their buying trip.

Bob came into the hotel room as they were going through the newspapers—a distin-

guished-looking man of short, squarish build, conservatively dressed, and walking with

the aid of a jacaranda wood cane. He was sixty-one years old and had spent sixteen years

of his life in a hospital. The toll of his long-term illness showed in his limp.

Bob Manning had been working for Beverly for two years now, and he was desperately

in love with her.

Pouring himself a cup of coffee from the silver samovar, he said, “It’s starting to snow

again.”

Beverly raised her eyes and, for the first time since awaking from the nightmare,

looked at the window. The Paris sky was ominously dark; white flakes drifted down. It

reminded Beverly of the last time she had seen snow—twenty-two years ago, in New

Mexico. And recalling the nightmare, hearing again her sister’s voice calling to her,

Beverly prayed that Jonas Buchanan would be successful.

The limousine inched slowly along the icy narrow streets, carefully avoiding the heav-

ier traffic that swung maniacally around the Arc de Triomphe. The three Americans sat in

the back in spacious comfort, with thick alpaca blankets over their knees and sipping hot

chocolate from small china cups. Beverly had papers spread out in her lap and was study-

ing them. Maggie was looking out at the beauty of Paris and wishing her Joe were still

alive to share this with her. And Bob Manning was reviewing the advance press kit he had

received from the three couturier houses they were going to visit today.

He didn’t hold out much hope for success.

When Beverly brought Bob Manning into the Highland Enterprises family two years

ago, he hadn’t had a lot to offer. He was slightly lame, he had no connections, and his

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education had not gone too far. But, to his surprise, Beverly had a place for him—as man-

ager of a men’s clothing store.

His duties hadn’t amounted to much, it was really just his presence that was required.

But he had liked it, having a place to go to every day, knowing that he even
had
a place, and

people he had to watch over and a cash register to guard. Then, over the two years, Miss

Highland had started visiting the store more and more often, coming in unexpectedly off

the street and walking around deep in thought. Once in a while she went upstairs, where

they rented offices to small companies—a travel agency, an interior decorator, three insur-

ance salesmen who shared a desk and a phone—people who wanted a Beverly Hills address.

Miss Highland would chat politely with the sales clerks and with Bob, nod vaguely, and

then leave. It was as though she came there to search for something—possibly, he thought,

for a reason for holding on to the store at all. After all, Eddie Fanelli’s was now losing money.

And then, just this last summer, she had arrived in her Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud,

marched into the store with a purposeful step, and had told Bob to close it down and dis-

miss all the employees with six months’ salary. She was going to go to Europe, she had

said, and come back with new stock. The store was going to be done over completely and

reopened in six months.

He had been excited at first, landing in London and rubbing his hands in anticipation

of the buying the three of them were going to do. He and Maggie had gone out to dinner,

in places like Soho and King’s Road, leaving Beverly in the hotel, where she preferred to

stay when not out actually attending fashion shows. And the two of them had talked ani-

matedly about their ideas. But then the excitement had begun to wear off when they real-

ized that Beverly didn’t share their enthusiasm and optimism. In fact, the more they

looked into the fashion world, the more somber she became.

There was nothing new, she said in London and Rome, there was absolutely nothing

new or exciting that would make their store different from all the rest.

And the unfortunate thing was, Bob had to agree with her.

As the limousine pulled up in front of the couturier house of famed designer Henri

Gapin, Bob looked at his employer. God, but she was beautiful. Her face was flawless.

How could anyone be born with such perfection? And she dressed to enhance her

grace and beauty—the white Dr. Zhivago fur hat set off her chiseled jaw and long

neck; the maxi-coat of soft white fur and white boots gave her the illusion of being

tall; underneath the coat, Bob knew, Beverly wore a tailored suit with a gold cameo

brooch at her throat. She was always impeccably attired, never flashy or trendy but

conservative, dressing in styles that were classic and timeless, and her platinum hair

was meticulously swept back in a French twist. Beverly Highland gave the impression

of being a woman very much in control, of others, and of herself.

Heads turned when Beverly walked through the doors. And this was an impressive

gathering. The wife of France’s prime minister was present for the showing, as was the

Countess de Bossuite, Lady Margaret Hathaway, the senior vice president and fashion

director of Bloomingdale’s, Manhattan disco owner Sally Will, and an Oscar-winning

Italian movie star known for being a fashion trendsetter. All were here to look at Gapin’s

latest line of men’s wear.

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Kathryn Harvey

The show turned out exactly as Bob Manning had feared it would: just more of the

same.

So far, in their eleven weeks in Europe, they had seen the London look, the Italian

look, and now the French look, all with little variation. The Continental influence was

widely in evidence: checked jackets with bow ties and narrow trousers; flannel suits in

outrageous colors; folding hats of Afghanistan lamb fur. Sport shirts came out in bold

prints and were allowed to be left outside the belt. Open collars were in, jewelry was

expected to be worn, and men’s heels had finally gotten as high as women’s. Worse, unisex

was still around.

As she sat in the brocaded chair and sipped her champagne, Beverly watched the

handsome male models on the runway and felt her frustration deepen. Three years of suc-

cess, with Royal Burgers and her more recent secondary enterprises, had conditioned her

to expect success in everything she touched. Was Eddie Fanelli’s Men’s Store going to be

the one exception?

How was she going to make it different from all the other men’s shops in Beverly Hills?

She gazed down at the champagne sparkling in her glass and remembered the first

time she had tasted
good
champagne—it had been back in 1961, when Roy Madison had

landed his first regular part in a TV series. He had come running into the diner with a

bottle of Dom Perignon and had begun pouring for everyone. It was all Beverly’s doing,

he had declared magnanimously as the bubbly wine had frothed all over the counter.

Because she had spoken so honestly about his image, and because he had taken her advice

and changed it, and because he had escorted Ann to her cousin’s Christmas dance, and

because he had met that director there who had liked his looks, Roy had started getting

small parts on a regular basis. His agent had told him to keep the new look and had grad-

ually gotten him bigger and bigger roles until now he had his own series. All because of

Beverly “Bless her” Highland.

That was the day, Beverly recalled now, when Roy had sworn never to forget what she

had done for him.

Of course, she had tasted a lot of champagne since those long-ago days of Spartan liv-