Fortune Is a Woman (30 page)

She traded the blanket for the robe and plucked out her snarls with the brush. Oatmeal, sliced melon, toast, and thank god, coffee. “I want to go home,” she slurped.

“Yes, I’m sure you do. That is why you have hired Uncle Carlos. He doesn’t permit his clients to fail in their endeavors and you will be no exception. We’ll try her at the penthouse after breakfast. Everything will be fine.”

_____

“Del? What–where’s Lydia?”

“Helaine…um…just a minute, okay?”

Helaine perched on the edge of the bed. “Has something happened?”

“Well, not really…Liddy, come on…it’s Helaine…yes, for real.”

They were drunk. Helaine put her head in her hand then signaled for Carlos to leave.

“Lana?”

“Lydia, what has happened?”

“Noth–what do you mean?”

“I’ve been trying to get you for hours. Why are you drinking on a Su–”

“Because I can’t do this. I just can’t.”

“Can’t talk to me on the phone?”

“Hardly.”

“Can’t have me and not have me, you’re saying?”

“Come home, Lana. I need you. I paid good money to ha–”

“What a very intriguing concept, Ms. Beaumont. Put Del on for me.”

“You don’t want to talk to…what’s with that?”

“Darling, please. Just let me speak to Delilah.”

“No.”

Edgy. Another facet to this difficult persona. “Lydia, are you working tomorrow?”

“Sure am. Everyone’s gone but me and the miscreants.”

“Then you need to go to bed and I need to talk to Del.”

“Dr. Kristenson?”

“JP Beaumont.”

“You lied to me.”

“I–about what?”

“You said it was going well. I’ve read otherwise.”

“A white lie so you wouldn’t worry yourself like this.”

“I worry, therefore I am. Talk nice to me.”

“I love you–you’re flirting with disaster, I’m sure you know.”

“You’re my disaster…you and that…that hair. I order you to come home and make me feel like a woman again.”

Helaine had forty-eight plus hours till her next gig, a much-needed mini vacation. Carlos had planned to entertain her with a speed tour of Rome, starting this morning with the Ruins. She pressed the telephone to her forehead. He had psyched her for this outing, into being nothing but a tourist for the day, blending with the other sightseers at the Pantheon and the Coliseum. It would take two whole days, he had calculated, to do it right, to view as much of the devastation as possible, including the Etruscan’s. Oh, but in six or seven hours she could be home again, dumping JP Beaumont’s liquor down the drain, throwing open the windows to air out the place, making dinner, hanging Christmas ornaments, sleeping with her wife, obeying orders.

She fell backward onto the unmade bed. “Okay.”

Better To Be Loved

“I can’t get a hold of her.”

“You tried her cell?”

“No answer.”

“And she’s not at home, you’re sure?”

“No one saw her leave, but she’s definitely not there.”

That’s not discreet, Paula thought, that’s outright deceit. And then it suddenly occurred to her where VP Angelo could be found. “I think I know where she is, John. Go back to sleep.”

“Leave her be,” Dickie grumbled from beneath his pillow. “Come to bed.”

“This’ll only take a second…Ms. Grisholm? Good morning. I need to chat with Venus. You can tell her it’s Paula Treadwell.”

“Turn out the light,” Dickie whined. “Have mercy.”

“Hush.”

“Paula? What the–”

“Spare me the shock and awe, Angelo. I’m calling to tell you you’re covering for Ms. Beaumont today. Eight o’clock sharp, please.”

“I’m…someone followed me?”

“No, so it must have been a truly brilliant disguise. Your biographer, I’m sure, will be delighted.”

“And you…you just deduced that I was–”

“I deduced it, the end.”

(Pause.) “Tell me what’s going on.”

“Dr. Kristenson called me earlier. She’s sneaking into town this morning. Beaumont’s slowly unraveling, by the sounds of it.”

“Oh?”

“I want you to cover for her until Wednesday.”

“Paula, I’ll bet you know I have other plans.”

“Break ’em.”

_____

Her fellow passengers are staring not because they recognize her but because she is striking in that sable and those sunglasses, in the brown silk scarf tied under her chin hiding her hallmark hair. They stare, as well, because her young travel companion with his swollen eye looks as if he’s just been rolled and they’re wondering ponderously if she did it and why.

Their speculations are all that Dr. Kristenson finds amusing about her present escapade. Behind her wraparound shades, she is trying to catch some winks because she hasn’t slept in almost twenty-four hours. She is also processing the stewardess’s announcement that connecting flights may be indefinitely delayed due to a winter storm system which is presently creeping up the Eastern Seaboard of the United States. The stale air of the pressurized cabin has given her a real doozie of a headache and she has just concluded that there is nothing in her purse with which to treat it but a sharp number two pencil. She is hungry, but the sight and smell of the meal that has just arrived is making her nauseous.

Carlos had endeavored to dissuade her from going. The weather over the Atlantic was awfully unpredictable this time of year, had been his best argument, but even that hadn’t been strong enough to change her mind. Now it seemed likely that she would be caught in a nor’-eastern, perhaps not get to see her wife at all.

_____

“Send a chopper for godsakes, John. Screw the shuttle if it’s grounded. Has Angelo gone home?”

“Not yet. You found her?”

“Yeah.”

“Where is she?”

“Never mind.”

_____

Six in the morning. It had begun to snow she noticed as she exited the cab. She showed the doorwoman her ID and a Ben Franklin and rode the elevator straight up to the penthouse, relieved once inside to find it the same as she had left it.

Her answering machine was blinking. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven messages. It was her mother, Paula, Claudine, Paula, Sebastion, Paula, Paula.

Who, what, where, why, and when, she asked herself in the shower. She washed Anna from her hair and skin, toweled off under the heat lamp and then gargled in the sink. The phones in her office must be bugged, Venus realized, biting down hard on her toothbrush. That would be a relatively easy thing for nosy JP Treadwell to accomplish. Shit, she said with a mouth full of paste, everyone’s phone was probably bugged.

She threw the toothbrush into the sink basin, spit and rinsed.

Nosy JP Treadwell. How much could she know? Venus worried, going into the kitchen. The clock on the wall said skip the pancakes and eggs, babe, no time, get dressed. The sinking sensation in her gut told her that the woman knew everything, everything that was said or done at Soloman-Schmitt, maybe even before it was said or done. She scrounged a breakfast bar from her gym bag and gnawed on it while she organized the items on her dresser and slapped on some makeup.

Paula was following her princes. She was tapping their lines.

That’s something always to keep in mind, Venus told herself, admiring a glittering pair of sapphire earrings before putting them back into their case again.

Come on, she scolded, stepping over last night’s clothes on the way to the closet. We got to rescue Lydia Beaumont today. She chose a tight-fitting number in navy with a low back and long sleeves, platform boots. Get a move on, girl, she laughed uneasily, adjusting her bra under the dress and straightening the seams of her stockings. ’Cause the lady’s coming undone and she went and called her doctor.

Outside she was struck by the eerie silence, the empty streets. She trudged toward Soloman-Schmitt in unbroken snow and paused before entering the revolving doors. The building across the way from her was almost invisible in the storm. It looked like a big, gray ghost. She trembled in the cold. Is this what they call a blizzard?

_____

The man intercepting them on the snowy tarmac was Paula’s personal pilot. All flights have been grounded, he explained to the weary Dr. Kristenson, including her shuttle. He had clearance to chopper her to a landing pad fifteen blocks from her home or to the next airport where her driver sat waiting, probably snowbound. Whichever she preferred.

Fifteen blocks from her home was Soloman-Schmitt, her companion pointed out. If she couldn’t get a cab from there he’d be happy to escort her. It was no inconvenience to him because his parents lived in the vicinity of that neighborhood and he was pretty sure they wouldn’t be out in weather like this.

“There won’t be any cabs,” the pilot predicted. A gust of icy wind came to punctuate his remark. “We’d better go.”

_____

10:30 AM. She found Lydia and Delilah out cold on opposite ends of the couch, a picked over platter of pretzels and cheese between them, a blank television screen casting a blue light on their upturned faces. She pulled the curtains aside and turned the TV off.

Delilah was the light sleeper. “Hey, nice coat…Helaine?”

“Good morning,” Helaine whispered, giving her a peck on the cheek. She knelt beside Lydia and took her hand. “Darling, I’m home,” she said, stroking her face until she finally stirred.

“Lana?” Lydia asked insensibly. “Is that you?”

“It is. Here, come with me,” she said, helping her to her feet.

“Geesh,” Delilah mumbled, glancing out the window. “It’s a winter wonderland out there. What time is it?”

Helaine chuckled. “No school today, girls. Can you rustle up some coffee, Del? We’ll only be a few minutes.”

“A few–what are you going to do?” Lydia inquired groggily.

“Well, since you ask…first I’m going to spank you.”

_____

She couldn’t resist poking her head in to say hi to Kate. “Ms. Fitz-Simone, holding down the fort all right?”

“Yes, ma’am–oh, I like that, Ms. Angelo.”

“The fort?”

“The hair.”

“Flatterer. Anybody else coming in?”

“Your new guy for overseas.”

“He better be good.”

“Ms. Treadwell sent him.”

Another of Paula’s princes? “Then he must be, huh? I’m still not here, okay?”

“Okay…?”

“Queen for the day, Kate. Someday this’ll all make sense to you. As for right now, I’ll call if I need anything.”

Up in the ivory tower Venus discovered JP Beaumont’s lair locked. She wandered the presidents’ compound delivering officious sounding hellos to those staff members who had braved the weather to come in this morning and making a mental note of which cubicles she had found empty. She’d be stuck in the role of a greeter today, she realized, if she couldn’t gain access to the joint president’s office. She raised her brow when red-eyed John strolled in with the winning numbers.

“She doesn’t know we have the combination,” he said as Lydia’s door slid open.

“Gotcha,” was her only response.

“You won’t say anything?”

“I’m here for appearance’s sake only, John.”

“Meaning?”

“That I don’t give a shit.”

He liked Venus Angelo. She was bitching. “That’s the ticket,” he said wryly. “Fabulous do, by the way.”

“Thanks.”

“Hit that button there if you need me.”

“I will.”

She would be perfect behind that desk, he suddenly thought. “How do you like your coffee?” he asked.

“Light and sweet.”

He refrained from saying: I heard that about you.

_____

First she spanked her. Twenty minutes later she left her to collect herself and met Delilah in the kitchen for a jolt of caffeine. She was operating on a second wind and she knew it couldn’t last. In the meantime, though, she was deliriously happy, searching the pantry for dinner ideas, on the assumption, of course, that Carlos had been able to notify the maid not to bother to come in today.

She should call Carlos. Let him know she arrived saf–

“Whoa,” Delilah blurted, as Lydia entered the kitchen wearing nothing but Helaine’s fur and one of her grins. “Nice coat.”

_____

She hung up her coat on a peg beside the door and looked around. Aside from the view, which today constituted nothing but a whirlwind of snowflakes, there was nothing too exciting about JP Beaumont’s office. Bare walls, Venus noted. Not even a photograph of Helaine. Scribbles on scraps of paper were strewn across the desktop. She held them to the light. That perfect penmanship. A prep school script, she guessed, a holdover from those olden days, from a bygone era that Venus had only read about, when Lydia was just a girl, when she was most certainly called
Miss
Beaumont.

There were so many things she would like to ask the woman formerly known as Miss Beaumont. When did you get your period, Lydia? Who gave you your first French kiss? How old were you when you lost your virginity?

“Good morning?”

“Sebastion, it’s Venus.”

“Venus! Where were you last night?”

“Busy–listen, I think my phones have been tapped. You know anybody who can check them out for me?”

“Home or office?”

“Both. Probably more than just the phones, understand?”

“Wow…yeah I know a guy. You home tonight? We’ll stop in.”

“Come around seven.”

“Seven, weather permitting. Who’s bugging you, Venus? Any clue?”

(To tell you the truth, everyone is.) “I know who’s doing it. That’s not important.”

“Okay. See you later.” (Click)

So take that, Venus said aloud, knowing perfectly well that if her office was bugged, Lydia’s would be, too. “Come in?”

“Here you go. Light and sweet. Just how you like it.”

“John,” she said, mustering a pleasant smile, “you’re indispensable.”

_____

Noon: she sent a text message to Carlos. Everything’s hunky-dory.

Twelve-thirty: she served a makeshift brunch for everyone. Pasta and frozen vegetables.

Two: she bid farewell to Delilah and filled the Jacuzzi.