Fashionably Late (18 page)

Perry was a good-looking man, with long narrow eyes and a longer nose.

His mouth was generous. If he wasn’t quite so short and balding he’d be a real dish, Karen thought, surprising herself. She didn’t remember the last time she’d noticed what Perry looked like. Had she only noticed now because this was the first time she’d seen him at a party without June?

“So, Jeffrey told me about the Elle Halle Show.” How did it go?”

“Like a swim with a barracuda.”

“When is it on?”

“They’re saying the week after next. But you never know for sure.”

“So is she a babe, or what?”

“A babe?” Karen laughed, remembering Elle Halle’s cold eye. “You’re asking if Elle Halle is a babe? I can think of another b’ word, but if this is remotely connected to some pathetic fantasy of yours, you’re way out of your league. This woman eats network vice-presidents for brunch.

If you’re thinking of dating, why not just go for a black widow spider and be safer?”

“I asked a few out, but they all said they had to wash their webs that night. Too bad. It would have been an easy death.” He grinned in a kind of cute, lopsided way.

He was serious, under the smile. “Is it rough?” she asked him.

“That’s not quite the word I would choose,” he told her. “Agonizing is a start in the direction of accuracy.”

“Do you blame June? For the split-up, I mean.”

“God, no. You must know the difficulties in living with a creative person: the mood swings, the hypersensitivity, and the introspection.”

“Yeah. Jeffrey can be difficult.”

For a moment Perry’s face remained blank, until his eyebrows raised in an expressive are-you-stupid look. Then he barked a laugh. “You’re a riot, Alice,” he said, in a not-bad Ralph Kramden imitation. She was about to ask what the joke was when the swinging door opened.

“I think gomething’s not right in the kitchen,” Defina interrupted.

Karen sniffed, and the bitter smell of burnt bread wafted to her.

“Oh, shit!” She hustled across the living room, into the kitchen. It was empty except for the smoke. Goddamnit, where was Mrs. Frampton?

She pulled out the blackened croissants.

“Bread Branch Davidian style?” Defina asked her.

“Jesus! See if I have a couple more packages in the freezer, will ya?

And turn on the vent fan. Maybe I can air the place out before they get back from the studio.”

“No such luck.”

As if to prove that, Belle joined them. “You didn’t put the timer on?” she asked. “It’s easy enough to put the timer on.”

“I don’t know how the goddamn thing works,” Karen told her mother.

“In her own kitchen, she knows how things work,” Belle said, confusing Defina, but Karen knew it was Belle’s third person way of saying she knew better. Karen sighed.

The kitchen door opened again and now Sylvia stuck her head in. “Is everything all right?” she asked, her face all innocent concern. Why did Karen just know Sylvia was glad there was a problem?

Defina spoke up. “Yeah. The blackened catfish will be ready in a minute. You want your collards well-done or rare?”

“Uh, well-done please,” Sylvia murmured and backed out of the room.

So, for that matter, did Belle.

“Well-done collard greens?” Karen asked, and burst out laughing.

“Come on. You don’t even like collard greens.”

“Oh shit. She don’t know that. She didn’t have a clue, and it got them both out of here, didn’t it?” Defina opened the freezer door.

“Hey, the bad news is there aren’t any more croissants, but you do have three boxes of frozen sticky buns. Throw out that pan and just put some foil across the oven rack.” The two friends got busy and soon the buns were in the oven. The thought made Karen wince. She still hadn’t told Defina about Doctor Goldman’s results. Well, there was a lifetime for that.

“What do you think of Perry?” Karen asked instead.

“Seems nice.” Defina had taken the emptied bun boxes and thrown them into the garbage.

“Nice enough to date? He was married to Jeffrey’s ex-fiancee, June.

They’re divorced and he’s available.”

Defina stopped what she was doing and put her hands on her hips. “For one thing, the man is in shock. For another, he’s white and I done that thing. It don’t work for me anymore. In the end, I feel too lonesome.

And it certainly is no favor to my daughter, who’s still trying to figure out if she’s black or white. Lastly, he’s only up to my waist, which, I admit, could come in handy sexually, but I’d just as soon get a tall one and teach him to kneel. Plus, even if I did have an interest, which I don’t, your sister-in-law is all over that little white boy. Now hand me the oven rack.”

Unobtrusively, during Defina’s rant, Arnold had entered the room.

Karen looked up and her father was there, leaning against a wall.

“Want more coffee?” Karen asked.

Arnold shook his head. “But maybe, if you have it, a Pepto?”

“Are you okay?” Karen asked. He didn’t look well. Had she poisoned everyone with the fish?

“It’s nothing,” he assured her. “Just my usual.” She got him a couple of pink tablets and he wandered off.

Karen and Defina had gotten things reorganized just as Mrs. Frampton returned to the room. Where had she been? “Get these baked. They take ten minutes. Then bring them out on a tray,” Karen said curtly.

She didn’t mention the burned croissants. Mrs. Frampton looked at her impassively. Defina opened the door, took Karen’s arm, and led her back to the guests, who were still talking about Jeffrey’s work.

“They were wonderful. Weren’t the paintings fabulous, Leonard?” Lisa asked her husband. He nodded glumly. “Well, weren’t they?”

“Yes,” he said. Lisa sighed.

Sylvia was, as usual, standing beside Jeffrey, her arm entwined in his.

“Have you seen his paintings?” she asked Karen. “Aren’t they wonderful?

So … so … evocative.”

The nudes Jeffrey was painting were anything but evocative. He was calling them studies, and he told Karen he was doing them merely to get back into the flow. But they weren’t tentative or rough as studies usually were. They were direct and in-your-face. Evocative! Karen smiled at her mother-inlaw. A man’s most positive art critic was his mother.

How come a woman’s wasn’t? Jeffrey was beaming. But Karen couldn’t help but notice that Perry was scowling. Well, since he had stopped painting it couldn’t be easy to listen to or see anyone else’s work being fawned over.

“They are tremulous,” said Buff. “Don’t you think so, Perry?” Defina was right, Karen thought with surprise. Buff was coming on to Perry.

“Tremulous?” Perry asked Buff. “In the sense of shaky?” Buff turned to him and was about to answer when Tangela interrupted.

“Who do you use for a model?” Tangela asked provocatively.

Karen nearly laughed. It looked like all the women were busy running at the men. But Defina’s brow lowered. “Who you thinkin’ your boss’s husband should be usin’ as a model?” Defina hissed at her daughter.

She took Tangela by the arm and led her over to a corner. Jeffrey just shrugged.

Karen smiled at him, just as Belle and Robertthe-lawyer joined their group. “Tell us about Elise Elliot,” Belle asked. “Is she nice?”

Sylvla finally managed a smile at Karen. “Now there is a woman who is aging gracefully,” Sylvia said approvingly. “What a lady.”

Karen thought of the hell that Elise had been putting the workroom through, shot a look at Jeffrey, and smiled. “Yes, she’s just a lovely person,” Karen agreed.

“Has she had surgery?” Buff asked. “I mean, have you seen the scars?”

Karen shook her head. If she had, she wouldn’t tell.

“So when’s the date?” Robertthe-lawyer asked.

“Are you invited?” Belle wanted to know.

“Of course we’re invited,” Jeffrey said, offended. He wasn’t merely a purveyor to the wealthy and famous.

“So, Belle,” said Robertthe-lawyer, “it sounds like your daughter is going to be in the big time.”

“She’s already in the big time,” Belle corrected.

“Nonsense, I’m talking Big Time here. This NormCo acquisition looks like the real thing.”

There had been several other firms that had nosed around JIKInc before, but it had taken this long for a company with the kind of money that NormCo had to get deeply interested. Karen had asked Robert to keep the offer quiet. Belle and Lisa owned stock in her company and she didn’t want them to get their hopes up. Robertthe-lawyer was such an asshole.

“Who needs big business?” Arnold asked as he shuMed over. “My girl is doing just fine on her own.”

“Hey, come on. Launching the bridge line cost a lot of money.

Servicing the debt isn’t easy. They need this deal.”

Arnold turned to Karen. “Do you think so?” he asked. “Wolper stinks.

He broke two unions, Karen. Never get into bed with a partner who stinks.”

Oh, God, Karen thought. There’s going to be a brawl. She loved Arnold but he had to get over his prejudice against every corporation in America. After all, she was a corporation now. “It’s just a preliminary meeting,” she told her dad, and felt guilty at the fib.

“So, tomorrow is the big day,” Robertthe-lawyer said, helping himself to more at the buffet. “You think you’re ready for it, Karen?”

“I think I can handle it, Bob.” She liked calling him Bob. It was a kind of stupid name and he had so much pomposity that it felt good to deflate him. Why did he talk to her as if she were a nitwit? Did she act like one? Or had Jeffrey influenced him and made him believe that Karen was incompetent? Karen still resented that Jeffrey had made them give up Sid, a lawyer friend of her father’s, and move to Robert’s fancy firm.

But Jeffrey had insisted andţafter allţhe handled the business.

Early on, the two of them had begun to play at roles: She was the creative designer and he was the guy in charge of the “guy things.”

Karen acquiesced because he seemed to gain some dignity from the division of labor. And she had benefited because she hadn’t been hassled with the tedious taxes, cash flow, union negotiations, accounts receivables, and all the rest of it. But at times like this, she felt her role chafe.

After all, they weren’t just talking about hiring a new PR firm or selling remaindered bolts of fabric. They were talking about selling her. And sometimes the idea of losing control tormented her.

Rather than discuss it anymore, she turned and joined Tiff, who was sitting alone on the sofa. On the coffee table before the girl there was a plate piled high with three sticky buns that Mrs. Frampton had succeeded in heating. As Karen sat down beside her niece, the girl picked up the top bun and greedily bit into it. Karen could see the steam rising from the soft dough, but despite the obvious heat, Tiff kept chewing, sucking air in through her teeth to cool the hot mouthful.

“So, are you excited about the bat mitzvah?”

“No,” Tiff grunted.

“Have you memorized your Haftorah?” The Haftorah was the section of the Torah that Tiff would have to read, in Hebrew, to the congregation.

“I couldn’t do it. I never even went to Hebrew school, you know,” Karen told the girl.

“You were lucky.”

“What are you going to wear?” Karen asked.

“What difference does it make, when she looks like a pig?” Belle asked the room loudly. Tiff shot a murderous look at her grandmother and picked up the next sticky bun.

“Put that down,” Belle told her.

“Make me,” Tiff said, her mouth full.

“Look how she gets talked to by her own grandchild! Don’t talk when you eat,” Belle exclaimed.

“Suits me fine,” Tiff said, and took another bite. The room was silent.

All conversation had stopped. Lisa joined them. Karen looked up at her.

Lisa, as a compliment to Karen, was wearing one of the sweater-and-matching-leggings outfits Karen had done last year. But Lisa had glitzed it up with a Chanel belt that had about a hundred Karl Lagerfeld studs. Karen knew that finding a style that worked wasn’t easy: look at Ivana Trump. Karen knew Ivana had once paid thirty-seven thousand dollars for a beaded jacket from Christian Lacroix. Of course, that was before the divorce. Lisa didn’t spend that much, but she spent enough and still hadn’t come up with a style, or if this was it, it didn’t suit her. And she should lose the snakeskin boots.

Karen loved her sister, but she knew that Lisa lacked two things: an eye and a spine. Karen gave Lisa a look, the look that meant “intervene with Belle.” Not that Lisa ever did.

“Mother, please,” Lisa pleaded ineffectually.

“Don’t mother please’ me. The girl has no self-control. Look at her!

She’s going to make a spectacle of herself. She eats like a horse and her sister eats like a bird! Fat and skinny had a race, all around the pillowcase.” Belle ran her hands nervously down the flat front of her jacket and across her skirt as if she was brushing away nonexistent crumbs. Arnold joined them and in a quiet voice murmured something to his wife. “Don’t start with me, Arnold,” Belle said resentfully. But when he took her arm, she followed him out to the terrace.

Stephanie came over and sat beside her aunt. Like her mother, she was a peace-maker. “When are you going to be on TV?” she asked. “I just love Elle Halle,” she added.

“Yeah. She’s a real babe,” Karen agreed, and flashed a grin at Perry.

“I think the show is airing in two weeks.”

“It’s so exciting,” Lisa said. “We’re all going to watch it together.

Do you want to come over?” she asked Karen.

For some reason, the idea gave Karen the willies, so she only smiled noncommittally. “Maybe,” she said. She loved Lisa, but somehow spending time with her had become more and more difficult. Lisa was jobless, Karen was childless, and perhaps they envied one another a little. Karen didn’t know why but it seemed as if Lisa was on a whole different track, living in some other universe that wasn’t even parallel. It made Karen feel both guilty and alone.

It was funny: she didn’t give a rat’s ass about either Elle Halle or Elise Elliot but everyone else was impressed with that. She did care about the Oakley Award, but no one here had even mentioned it. Karen sighed.