Fashionably Late (35 page)

“Anyway, I may not have been such a good partner. I’m really down about NormCo. We still haven’t gotten the offer, and maybe we’ll never get it.

I think they may have been turned off by the inventory valuation. It’s my fault.”

Karen looked away, guiltily. Here Jeffrey was afraid they wouldn’t get an offer at all, while she knew they’d get an enormous one and hadn’t told him. God, who should be apologizing to who? She walked toward him, but he backed away from her. She reached for his hand. “Jeffrey, please.

Listen to me. I never meant to be a big business. I just wanted to do what I do. We’re comfortable right now. We aren’t poor. Business is better than ever. Don’t worry so much. We’ll service our debts. And I’ve just come up with a great collection for Paris. We’ve got nice places to live and money in the bank.

Since we don’t have any children what do we need all this money for, anyway?”

“Is that what this is about?” he asked, pulling his hand away.

“Children? Goddamnit, Karen, how can you keep harping on that, even at a time like this? Don’t you have any sense of proportion? This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity we’re losing. This is important.”

She thought of Perry, standing in the rain. “Proportion? It’s not me who lacks a sense of proportion, Jeffrey! Having a child is a once-in-a-lifetime.”

“So is selling a business.”

“Well, nobody I ever heard of lay on their deathbed and said their biggest regret was not spending more time on business. Don’t tell me I’ve got things out of proportion!” She wondered if she should bring up how wrong his own sense of the value of the business had been. Out of anger, she’d like to shock him, but she decided not to push that button.

All at once, her anger left her, and she merely felt sorry for both of them. Jeffrey had never seemed so wrong, or so vulnerable. “Anyway, don’t dare tell me this is an inappropriate time. We’re talking about my future.”

“Your future, your name. What about my future? It’s my name, too.

Just for once I’d like you to think about that.” He spun around and by accident or on purpose let go of the wine glass, which flew across the room until it hit the dining table, where it smashed. The shards kept on moving all across the table’s shiny surface until they flew off the end and onto the back of a white chair and across part of the white wall.

The noise either didn’t surprise or didn’t stop Jeffrey, who strode over to one of the windows and threw it open. He stood there with his back to Karen while, in the silence, she could hear the spilled wine drip off the table. She didn’t move. At that moment she pitied Jeffrey, and she despised him.

She could see Jeffrey taking a deep breath. It wasn’t like him to try and control his temper, but he was definitely making the effort. He turned to her. “I wanted this deal, Karen.”

“And I wanted a baby,” she said. “But we can’t always get what we want.” Then she turned and left him standing there.

When she awoke the next morning, Jeffrey was placing a bed tray onto the tumbled coverlet. He had arranged a slice of melon, a croissant, a curl of butter, and some jelly along with the IEmes, “W”, and Women’s Wear Daily. There was also a single white rose in a bud vase. Karen struggled up against the pillows.

“Who do I have to blow to get this kind of service?” she asked.

“Only me,” he replied, and set the tray across her lap. He sat down at the foot of the bed and put his hand on her ankle. “I’m sorry about last night,” he said. “I’m sorry about everything.” Karen reached out for the coffee, picked up the cup, and nodded noncommittally. It wasn’t going to be that easy.

Jeffrey was so good-looking, she always found it hard to resist him.

There was no doubt he was spoiledţthat he’d always been catered to by women from Sylvia onţbut more than most men, he did make an effort to be adult. This breakfast was his apology. But did he think that he could buy what he wanted with a slice of cantaloupe? He sat now, his thick salt-and-pepper hair neatly brushed, the crisp white linen of his shirt almost luminous in the diffused morning light. His cheeks were freshly shaved. There was still a tiny bit of shaving cream left in one of his ears. On him it looked good.

She smiled at him. She couldn’t help it. After all, he tried. In all the time they’d been married, whenever they’d had a big fight, he’d cool off and think it out. And then, later, he’d been willing to compromise.

Which was more than most men were willing to do. Jeffrey always came back, and that, more than anything else, made her believe he loved her.

She never considered that he might need her.

“Listen, I have an idea. A Real Deal,” Jeffrey said now.

Karen put down the coffee cup she was sipping from. “A Real Deal?”

she repeated. “Real Deals” were important. She looked over at him.

“I’ll take curtain Number Two, Monty,” she joked. Then she got serious. “What do you have in mind?” she asked.

“I think I’ve come up with a way for both of us to compromise and get what we really want,” he said. “How about this? When we get the official offer, if we get the offer, you agree to sell to NormCo and I agree to help you adopt a baby.”

“A baby?” she asked. “We could adopt a baby?” He nodded. “But do you really want one?” she asked.

He tightened his grip around her ankle. “Look, Karen, I’m doing the best that I can. I know I’ve been making you miserable, but I didn’t want to adopt, and I can’t pretend to feel differently than I do. This sale is something that I really want and a baby is something you really want for the same reason. I can understand your feeling, even if I don’t share it with the same enthusiasm. And you, I hope, can understand how I feel. I want you to be happy and I hope you want the same for me. So, what do you think? A Real Deal?”

She stared at him. Was he serious? And was it all right if he was?

She felt her heart lurch in her chest. Was Defina wrong? Could she, Karen, have it all? “I don’t know, Jeffrey. I don’t know if I should have to bargain for this. I mean, you shouldn’t be a grudging parent.”

“Yeah, and you shouldn’t begrudge selling VIKInc, but if you do sell you’ll have more time for a baby and so will I. Painting and a baby.

Not bad for a nineties kind of guy, which we know I am. Somehow, it’s the only way I can see it happening.”

“You really mean it?” she asked. She looked at the wrinkled white bedclothes. For the first time in weeks, her heart lifted, as if some burden she’d carried on her chest was gone. “I mean, we could have him crawling around right on this duvet.”

“Yeah, and probably peeing on it. How do you get baby piss out of Porthault sheets?”

Karen laughed. “I don’t know. I’ll have to ask Ernest.” Then she stopped smiling. “What if we can’t get a baby?”

“What if we don’t get the deal? We do the best we can. We operate in good faith.”

ECaren blinked. If she made this deal, she’d have to call Bill Wolper right away and tell him to give them the offer. And when Jeffrey realized the actual offer price he’d be wild to do the deal. There’d be no way to stop him. Karen bit her lip. She sighed. Maybe she should level with Jeffrey now, tell him about her lunch with Bill. But it seemed that if she did that she’d not only look like a liar, she’d make Jeffrey look like a fool.

No, she’d wait. She’d contact a lawyer tomorrow and get the adoption moving. Then she’d give the word to Wolper. They could both have what they wanted.

Jeffrey got up and took her hand, then stooped to kiss her. “If it’s what you really want, Karen,” he said, “then I want it for you. I know I’ve been a prick lately, but I do want you to be happy.” He bent to kiss her. Thrilled, she kissed him back. His hands moved to her shoulders and then lower. She pulled her lips away from his.

“Wait a minute,” she said, and moved the breakfast tray onto the floor.

“Good idea,” he agreed, and joined her in bed.

They arrived at the Norris Cleveland party fashionably late. Since they’d made the Real Deal, Karen’s spirits had lifted. She was working with new energy she felt good again, and waking up was no longer a burden. Jeffrey seemed happier, too. “Hail, hail, the gang’s all here,” Jeffrey sang as he and Karen sailed up the gang plank of the four-masted schooner that had been chartered for the “Norris!” perfume introduction.

Leave it to Norris to drag everyone down to the seaport. Back in 1978, when Karen had just started working for Liz, Yves Saint Laurent had catered the Opium party on a boat as well. But his was a real Chinese junk. This one was only harbor junk. Perhaps Norris was just counting on the subliminal suggestion.

The Opium party had been the first fashion event Karen had ever been to and it had launched a perfume juggernaut. Opium was still sellingţrare in the fickle world of fragranceţand it seemed to Karen that since 1978 the same people were showing up at all the perfume parties. Already Karen could see Robert Isabell, the New York capo di capi with Ruth of party planning, giving directions to staff. Last year Isabell had done Armani’s fabulous Gio launch in the basement of a high rise.

Tonight there were no Chinese acrobats, as there had been at the Opium party. And there were no Moroccan tents and floor cushions as there had been for Armani. Instead, there were only wall-to-wall celebrities and photographers. Parties had gotten more and more like thatţit seemed to Karen that the party was less important than the press it got. It was as if the middleman had been cut out: you could come, be seen, and be photographed, all without the bother of actually having a good time. Karen grinned to herself. It was so Norris Cleveland.

But everyone was there. Cher, who had been at both the Opium and the Gio party and had had a perfume of her own in between, had shown up.

So had her old pal David Geffen, whose interest in fashion had become financial since he had bailed out his buddy Calvin Klein when Cal had run into financial trouble and almost gone under. But then, what was fifty million to David Geffen?

Amy Fine Collins, who wrote for Vanity Fair and Harper’s Bazaar, glided by. She was not just intellectual, but the only fashion journalist who dressed with great style, eschewing the safe little black dress.

Carrie Donovan, lately of the Times, and Suzy Mehle, the grande dame of the Herald Tribune, were also here. These guys were important. How does Norris get this kind of turnout, Karen wondered.

Jeffrey went off to get her a drink, and she stood alone for a moment before she felt the tap on her back. She turned and looked down into the beady but friendly brown eyes of Bobby Pillar. “I’d ask what a classy girl like you was doing in a place like this, but it might reflect badly on my own presence,” Bobby said and laughed. Then he hugged her as if they had seen each other nightly since their chance meeting at Elle’s studio. “You were wonderful on Elle’s show,” he said. “Didn’t I tell you? You have an enormous warmth and naturalness. You know, that’s a gift. People believe what you tell them.” Bobby seemed full of enthusiasm. It shone off him. Even his bald head gleamed.

“Thanks, Bobby. I guess the show came off okay.”

“So did you wet your pants? I looked, but I couldn’t notice.”

Karen had to laugh. He was outrageous, but down to earth. She actually liked him. “So, will you be selling Norris’s perfume on TV?”

she asked.

“That rat piss? She tried to hook me, but I didn’t take the bait.

Have you smelled it? Give me a break! The FCC would clap me in irons faster than the Cossacks joined pogroms. As if the authorities need an excuse to put a short Jew in jail.” He laughed, and there was something so honest about him, so outrageously impolite but real that Karen had to join in. Maybe money did buy freedom, but Bobby had been this outspoken before he made his pile.

“So, mammela, are you going to talk to Uncle Bobby about doing a line for us on television?”

“I don’t think so, Bobby. I’m just starting to think of mass market.”

Karen paused.

“Well, I hear you are talking to a little NormCo birdie. A vulture.

Not such a great idea.”

Karen stopped smiling. Before she could answer, before she could ask him how he had heard that rumor, Jeffrey returned. He and Bobby said hello and their conversation seemed to stop. It was clear they didn’t like each other. She knew Jeffrey thought Bobby was vulgar. But that, of course, was part of Bobby’s charm.

Bobby just smiled and lifted his hand in an exaggerated wave. “Call me some time, mammela,” he said, and disappeared into the crowd, his short, broad body obscured by a group of tall, willowy models.

There was, of course, a full complement of models and ex-models.

Lauren Hutton, as usual, was wearing Armani. The younger crowd included Linda Evangelista, Carla Bruni, Maria Loper, Kristen McMenamy, and even Kate Moss. All of them were smoking. Karen wondered if Norris had to pay them to get them to attend. Karen also wondered which, if any of them, she could get to do her Pans show. Maria Loper still looked good to her, despite what Defina said. Maria was less expensive than the others, and with Tangela and some decent blondes and brunettes they would have a real nice mix. Karen was really straining her budget with the two shows.

Jeffrey was squealing, but she’d insisted and he had acquiescedţafter all, they’d soon be rolling in the bucks. Still and all, they couldn’t afford the supermodels. She had heard that Versace had spent a hundred thousand dollars to get four of them to do his show last year. A hundred thousand dollars just for models! That was half of Karen’s whole Paris budget! So getting these girls to show up for a party was a major coup.

The habit that the supermodels had of hanging out together somehow added to their glamour although, having worked with them, Karen knew that there wasn’t much glamour on the inside. That was really the problem with fashion. It was commerce. Fashion wasn’t glamorous on the inside: it was all about production and a lot of hard work, kind of like a sausage factory. But it had to look glamorous, even if the designers didn’t. If Gianfranco Ferre was overweight, if Mary MacFadden was bizarrely pale, if Donna Karan was chunky, and Karl Lagerfeld was balding, they juiced up their image by using models who weren’t.