Fortune Is a Woman (38 page)

She unlocked the gate and tossed her keys across the tiled floor. They clattered to a stop against the brick wall.

Was there anything she did that wasn’t because of something else? Something or someone else?

She had gone to work for Solmanshit because Lydia Beaumont had asked her to. It had not been the best offer, but she had been captivated by the blue-eyed recruiter. She continued to work there for the very same reason. Only now she was more than captivated by Lydia Beaumont. She was captured by her. And that was not good.

Not good for Venus Angelo. She had been the prisoner of nothing and no one before this. Poverty hadn’t kept her. Fear hadn’t kept her. Racism, chauvinism, bigotry, prejudice. All had failed to take her prisoner. What was love compared to those things?

Love. What was love? Oh, really. (Only one message blinking on the answering machine.) Love is something to escape from then. (It’s probably that witch Paula.) Or something to rise above.

“Venus, it’s–I–I wanted to–just to wish you a Merry Christmas and uh–a safe trip. I’m…you don’t need to call me back.”

(Rewind.)

“–
you don’t–”

(Rewind.)

“–
nd uh–a safe tri–”

(Rewind.)

“–
erry Christmas and uh–a sa–”

(Rewind.)

“–
wanted to–just to wish you a Merry Christma–”

(Rewind.)

“–
enus, it’s–I–I wanted to–just to wish you a Merry Christmas and uh–”

(Rewind.)

“Venus, it’s–I–I wanted to–just to wish you a Merry Christmas and uh–a safe trip. I’m…you don’t need to call me back.”

(Rewind.)

“Venus, it’s–”

_____

Lydia had a daydreaming glaze on for this afternoon’s briefing with Joint President Treadwell. She was still half in Madrid. The other half was off in the future, in Montreal, her next scheduled rendezvous. In between all this time-traveling, she was wondering if there wasn’t some other occupation she might find worthwhile pursuing, something she could take genuine pride in and that would make more constructive use of her time. Like dog walker or fruit picker. Circus clown.

There was a spider’s web in the corner of Paula’s otherwise pristine office. It stretched from the ceiling to the wall. Lydia watched with unearthly interest as the spider wrapped its noisy lunch, presumably a fly. She had heard somewhere that the spider’s venom paralyzed its victims, but this fly wasn’t paralyzed. Paula droned on and on. The spectacle was both grisly and compelling.

“And that would bring you up to date, Ms. Beaumont.”

“Zzzzzz…zzzzzz…zzzzzzzzzzz…zzz…”

“Ms. Beaumont?”

“Zzzzzzzzz…zzzzzzzzzzzzz…”

“Lydia!

“Yes! Good idea. Great idea.”

“What–you have jet lag? Then go home.”

The fly was uttering its last gasps. “I might,” Lydia replied.

Paula fell silent, too, assessing JP Beaumont’s condition, those big dark circles under her eyes, that faraway look she always found so disturbing.

“What, Paula?”

“You look shockingly bad, I must say. Go home and sleep it off.”

Jet lag was only one contributing factor. Lydia had barely slept in Madrid, a city she would be able to claim she had visited, but never seen. She was, in her sleepless delirium, thinking to inquire about Venus, whether she was in her office today, but the thought dissipated like clouds at Paula’s suggestion. To sleep perchance. Didn’t that seem like a good idea?

“Great idea,” she said, sounding more lucid than she actually was. How do you become a dog walker? Do you go to school to pick fruit? Now clown schools Lydia had heard about. So how many years does it take to become a clown? Or was it a master clown? She should’ve stayed home today. Clearly Paula would have understood if she had.

“Zzzzzzzz,” she heard as she left her chair. She still heard it riding the elevator down to the lobby. “Home,” she told her driver, and they buzzed back to the penthouse where she finally collapsed on the couch.

Morning found Lydia in confrontation with the maid over the subject of food.

“Popcorn and cake,” the woman scolded, “are not on the food pyramid.”

She was bean counting, Lydia asserted. Bean counting untouched dinners.

“I make a beautiful dinner and it dries out on the plate. What is this? Just add water and you eat? You have to eat, Dr. Kristenson says.”

It is difficult when you’re used to eating with someone to get inspired to dine alone.

The dinner had not appealed to her, Lydia asserted. You’re not the boss of me and popcorn and cake
is
food. Anyway, she didn’t look much worse for the wear of it, she argued.

“You get much worse looking and–”

“And what?”

“Nothing. Bacon and eggs?”

Bacon and eggs. Lydia’s stomached gurgled.

Bacon and eggs, toast with marmalade, French fries, grapefruit juice, and lots and lots of coffee. She was late for work but arrived replenished.

“VP Angelo is in the building,” Paula announced sarcastically.

“And?”

“Two hours on the job and she’s beside herself already.”

“About?”

“Her new assistant. He says splendid this, splendid that. She finds the expression unbearable.”

Unbearable colloquialisms. No grounds for dismissal there. “Splendid, huh?”

“Splendid.”

“Oh, that would be unbearable.”

“Yeah, but she’s not kidding me,” Paula said. “Something else is in her craw.”

Another unbearable colloquial. Lydia tried to evade the subject with a disinterested nod.

“Something to do with you, I’m sure,” Paula said. “I wasn’t born yesterday, girls.”

“Paula, let’s not. Don’t I have a mission here today? What am I without a mission? C’mon, let’s have at it.”

“You’re Head Handshaking Honcho today.”

“Whose palms need rubbing?”

“Oh, Representative So-and-So and some behind-the-scenes colleagues of his. I forget.”

“Republican or Democrat?”

“What’s the difference?”

None that she could think of.

“They’re just thrilled to be able to meet with you, Ms. Beaumont. Up close and personal like and–don’t let me down, please.”

She didn’t. But schmoozing was hard work. Lydia went home blistered and bleary.

Beef stroganoff, scalloped potatoes and broccoli awaited her on the top shelf in the fridge, all ready for the microwave and labeled with a note that said, “eat me–doctor’s orders.” She ate the dinner cold and had a bowl of sugary cereal for dessert.

Stomach full and lids heavy, the couch (oh, the couch, the couch) was calling to her once more. She took the cordless phone and a feather pillow with her and popped in an old movie: Van Johnson liberating Paris and, not incidentally, Elizabeth Taylor. Lydia didn’t find him particularly attractive and she bet that Liz hadn’t either.

“Hello?”

“Darling.”

“Robert–very funny.”

“Just a reminder about Friday.”

“Friday? Oh, that’s right, Friday. Seven you said?”

“Dinner’s at seven. You can come earlier, though. Show us your slides of Madrid.”

“Slides of…you’re very sly, Mr. Keagan. I’ll see you Friday.”

Dinner party at the Keagan’s Friday night. She wrote an illegible note to herself and hung it on the fridge. Back on the couch and in Paris, things weren’t going too well between Van and Liz. Lydia yawned a few times, turned up the volume, stretched, and turned it down again.

“Hello?”

“Darling.”

“Lana.”

“You catch up on your z’s yet?”

“Almost–you?”

“No rest for the weary. We’re out of here tomorrow and then it’s Lisbon or bust–is someone there?”

“Elizabeth Taylor.”

“Wow. I have to admit that intimidates me. Send her my regards, will you?”

“I’m not even going to mention your name.”

“Oh, Lord! I’ve created a monster.”

_____

Harry was at Frank’s Place early today, helping the cook to get things rolling for a private party at noon. That gave him the opportunity to see Lydia Beaumont jog past the windows and then, moments later, Venus Angelo in her sweatsuit on the opposite side of the street. Both ladies were taking their morning run downtown, running, coincidentally it would seem, in the direction of the waterfront. He poured a cup of coffee and stationed himself at the table in the window seat, the morning’s newspaper a foil for his spying.

“Love Doc” this and that again, and one never-ending hubbub. He had read garbage like this before. What a pity, he mused, flipping through the paper for the horoscopes as he kept an eye out for Lydia and Venus. What a terrible pity.

Lydia and Venus. They ran, he knew, but never together. Were they running together this morning? He studied the stars for everyone, including those notably absent.

Down on the empty waterfront, the ladies eventually reached the end of the line before they finally recognized each other. They waved shyly before making their usual circles and loping back uptown again. Neither knew what to say this morning and both were glad to be in motion and preoccupied. It was a somber winter day and the clock was ticking and there was nothing left for them to say, nothing to do about the widening gulf but to go to work. They ran on toward their respective penthouses, barely glancing up from their opposing sidewalks to look across the street and hardly noticing anything else but the women in their peripheries.

Typically it’s a twenty-minute jog back for Lydia, Harry calculated. Twenty minutes if there’s nothing keeping her.

Hmmm. Today’s a ten if you’re born in the year of the tiger. Eight for the rabbit. Five for the monkey.

Running’s bad for the knees. Bad for the ankles. Good for the heart.

Harry was amazed how many tigers and rabbits he knew. But clever monkeys? He didn’t know so many monkeys.

Good for the heart. Running is.

Venus Angelo was probably a rabbit. How old did he read she was? Young. Yeah, probably a rabbit. A lucky rabbit.

Seventeen minutes, ten seconds and Harry caught sight of Venus in the homestretch. There was young, beautiful, lucky Venus. How effortlessly she runs. How that woman glides.

It’s nine for the horse and nine for the dragon, six for the ox and boar. Horses and dragons. Oxen and boars.

Hmm.

And the stopwatch says nineteen minutes and thirty-eight seconds.

According to this you don’t want to be a snake or a rat today. Only two for a snake and three for a rat.

Twenty minutes.

Now that leaves dog, sheep, and rooster unaccounted for. Let’s see. Dog…? Sheep…? Rooster…?

Twenty minutes and thirteen seconds and here’s our Lydia, limping slightly and looking extremely frustrated with herself. Competitive, glamorous Lydia Beaumont, demanding so much of herself. Harry shook his head and rattled the paper.
Tch, tch, tch
. How hard she works.

Well now! The dog, sheep, and rooster might as well go for it today. All sevens.

Harry was impressed with Lydia’s time this morning, even if she wasn’t. He buried his head in the newspaper as she passed by the restaurant.

_____

“You’re limping,” Paula said. “Now what?”

“Jogging. I think maybe arthritis.”

“Arthritis! Where’s VP Angelo? I’ve been looking for her all day.”

“I don’t know. I sa–she didn’t come in today?”

“Can’t find her anywhere. Missed the one o’clock meeting, too.”

That was out of character. Where was she?

VP Angelo was home crafting her letter of resignation. No, not one of those corporate mea culpas or a moving-on-to-bigger-and-better-things resignations. No, no. A genuine take-this-job-and-shove-it resignation. Take your hypocrisy, take your bendable ethics, your world domination, your spies, your fucking bottom-line mentalities, your greed-driven philosophies, your hierarchical bullshit, your kings and queens and princes.

And shove it.

Addressed to both joint presidents, the letter formally began, “I regret to advise you of my decision to resign.” But she lost momentum after that and the cursor blinked tauntingly beside the “n” while she mulled over telling the women the truth or maybe in the end simply sanitizing it.

Regret wasn’t true. She did not regret her decision. Soloman-Schmitt was a snake pit and she wanted out.

She deleted “regret.”

_____

Wednesday and Thursday…still no Venus and the word on the street from Paula’s spies was that the woman had become a shut-in. Incommunicado. It did not bode well that she wouldn’t answer her phone calls or e-mails.

“She could be in contract negotiations as we speak,” Paula fretted. “Imagine Angelo working for the competition!”

Lydia couldn’t but.

Both joint presidents were concerned about her dereliction and both were at a loss as to what to do about it. Technically she could be relieved of her duties if it came to the attention of the board. If she didn’t show by Friday there could be ample grounds.

“Go see her,” Paula pleaded. “Talk some sense int–”

“You mean
persuade
her, Paula? Maybe persuasion’s the prob–”

“Well then, it went too far! Didn’t it? Way too far!”

Lydia shrugged in despair. It was a heartbreaking matter. “This is unproductive,” she muttered. “I’ve got papers to push.”

“Push
her
, Lydia. She’s up there alone. Go and tell–”

“How do you know that?”

“That–what?”

“She’s alone…how do you know that?”

“I know–I–it’s–nevermind how I know. I know, that’s all.”

“Oh, Christ, Paula Treadwell. Christ!”

They didn’t have much to discuss after that.

Friday came and went the same way, shrouded in silence and uncertainty, Treadwell bordering on hysteria, the joint presidents walking on eggshells and glass in their efforts to cover for an AWOL prince who had never missed a day of work in her life.

The matter of the disappearing Venus was becoming noticeable nonetheless. She had missed two more important meetings and the wasps’ nest was abuzz over it. VP Angelo was gone, began the water cooler rumors in earnest. And how exciting, without a single word as to why!