Shades of Fortune (10 page)

“Just finishing up,” he says. “I've an
Art & Antiques
deadline. You know deadlines! You know the creative process!”

“I've got the poppers out and
every
thing.”

“Five more minutes, Pussy.”

He now adds a hasty postscript.

P.S. Incidentally, that

Now he rummages in his mind for the proper adjective. Charming? Delightful? Pleasant? Attractive? Interesting? Sexy hunk? He settles on something bland and noncommittal.

nice young chap who's to be your model for your advertising mentioned that he had some recipes that I might like to try. When she has a moment
—
no hurry
—
ask your secretary if she'd drop his name and address and home phone number in the mail for me. Thanks much!

E
.

He folds the letter (it ran to three pages), places it in an envelope, addresses it, licks the tip of the envelope, and seals it.

Outside, the private security guard that the residents of Sutton Square employ is making his hourly rounds, quietly testing doorknobs, and Edwee makes his way upstairs and to Gloria, turning out lights as he goes.

Alone in her bedroom, Mimi sits at her dressing table removing her makeup, using many tissues, and then creams her face. Appraising her reflection in the glass, she says: Not bad. No, not bad at all for forty-nine. I'll give this face at least five more years before I begin to worry about it. In this business, your face is part of your overhead. Look at her face, people say. It must be her cleansing creams and toners and moisturizers that do it, and they remember this as they browse the cosmetics counters at Bergdorf's and Saks and Bloomingdale's, picking up the little jars and bottles, trying the samples, and see the name Mireille, and remind themselves that there is a woman, and a face, behind that name. A name behind the face. A face. The face that launched a thousand little jars of night cream by Mireille, for a thousand women who dream of looking only a little better, a little younger, when their husbands or their lovers turn to them at night and say, you look so young, you feel so young.

“I love your face,” someone had once said to her. “Your fahnee, fah-nee face.” He had also said he loved the color of her eyes. She had always thought of her eyes as her worst feature. Too grey, too pale. She studies her eyes in the mirror now. Nowadays, with cosmetics, with tinted contact lenses, one can even change the color of one's eyes, but she had never changed hers. “Her wide, snapping black eyes,” she had read of the heroine in some novel long ago, and she had used to wish that her eyes were snapping black. Eyes that snapped. Noisy eyes. Eyes that yipped and snarled like one of Granny's little dogs. Try as she might, her eyes would never snap. But he had said he liked her eyes. “Silver,” he said. “Like George the First antique silver that's been polished every day. They go just right with your fah-nee, fah-nee face.” Who had said that in the movie? Oh, yes, Fred Astaire, in
Funny Face
.

Facts to face. Fact one. He is, I know he is, of course he is, there's nothing to be gained by denying it, by gainsaying it, so say it: he is. Who is she? I don't want to know. There's nothing to be gained by knowing her name, she doesn't need to have a name, she doesn't even need to have a face. Does he turn to her in sleep and call her by my name? That would be nice. Oh, yes, old Brad, old boy, old pal, old friend, you can't keep that from me, no sir, no siree. We used to say we were like one soul, we knew each other's thoughts. The words of a song would be going through my brain, and you'd start whistling it. About time for him to call, I'd think, and the telephone would ring. Must clean out the garage in that summer place we rented at the Cape in '74, I'd think, and I'd go out and find you doing it. I need to wash my tennis shorts, you'd say, and I'd say, they're already in the dryer, and feel holy. On the beach at St.-Jean-de-Luz, you buried my feet in the sand because you knew that was what I wanted you to do. That's how close we were, that's how young we were.

You won't find Bradford to be a very
demonstrative
young man, your mother said. None of us Moores or Bradfords are. It's the New England in us. Why should I want him to be demonstrative? I asked her. She looked so uncomfortable, poor dear. She said, I mean … I mean … I guess what I'm trying to say is that the Jewish people I've known, my Jewish friends, seem to be such
demonstrative
people. Hugging. Kissing. Things like that. We're just not quite that way. Poor thing. That's how little she knew you, that's how little she knew the Jews, the so-called passionate people. Oh, she'd have much preferred it if you'd married someone else named Moore or Bradford, she made that quite clear, but she didn't disapprove of me, she didn't try to stop us. An ancestor of ours compiled the first Hebrew-to-English dictionary, she told me proudly, as though that proved the family's long history of religious tolerance. She touched my elbow when she said that, to show she liked me. Demonstrative.

Oh, it wasn't really passion, was it? No, because
passion
comes from the Latin word for suffering. I looked it up once. No, because passion comes to an end and so, in the end, does suffering. It was more like affection, friendship, caring, pleasing one another, delighting in each other's pleasure and the pleasure of each other's company, collecting things together, the things that endure, that don't come to an end. These are the things that last, that can make a marriage last for twenty-nine years. Or so I thought.

I suppose he finds her sexually exciting, whoever she is, this nameless, faceless woman. That's all right. Or is it? It is a new thought for me, something I never thought about before, something I never had to think about, because this is the first time it has happened to me, though I am hardly the first woman in the world who has had this happen to her. It has happened to googooflex women—googooflex: in school we used to say this was the highest number in the world. I am not alone, so join the club, old girl, and here's your membership card.

But I'll tell you one thing, old Brad, old chum, old pal, she isn't making you happy, this whoever she is. I can see it in your eyes. I see new worry lines around your eyes, I saw them tonight. I suppose she's the type who'll say no, not until you divorce your wife. The ultimatum type. But men don't like those types, the ultimatum types, those old-tomato types. Particularly you don't like those types. And particularly you aren't the type who would divorce his wife, not you, not now, not after all these—or are you? Why am I suddenly not so sure? Why am I suddenly not so sure I know you as well as I thought I did? Do I know you at all? I just don't know.

Is it because you've finally grown tired of the jokes? We used to joke about it, you and I. The introductions at the business parties: And this is Mimi Myerson's husband, Bradford Moore. We made a joke of it, of you being Mr. Mimi Myerson with my business people. We were just another two-career couple, you used to say, with two different names for business purposes, with separate listings in
Who's Who
. But has the joke worn thin after all these years? Has it become stale and overworked, and when you hear that sort of thing now, does it stick in the craw, sourly, like a poorly digested meal? Is that what she offers you, this person whom I do not know—a male identity at last, an opportunity to be something more than someone else's husband? “Now I know what Prince Philip must feel like,” you said once at some Miray function. “Always having to walk that required one pace behind the queen.” A joke? Haven't I let you enjoy your sovereign malehood, your princely individuality? Haven't I offered that to you, too? Haven't I tried? Come back, Brad, come back to Mama, and I'll try harder. Come back, and you'll see how hard I'll try.

I will not say the word
forgive
. I am in no position to offer you such a flashy gift as forgiveness. Let she who is without sin cast the first stone, they say, and I am not without sin. I did it, too, to you, and what's more I did it first. It was long ago, but that makes no difference because time does not create an alibi for disloyalty, for cheating. If I could sit here and look into my mirror and say I never cheated on our marriage, without lowering my eyes, remembering everything, that would be one thing, but I can't. Even though you never knew about it, never suspected, that doesn't mean it didn't happen, because it happened. I knew what I was doing, as they say, and I did it. Only with one person, perhaps, but one was enough to draw the line between a woman who cheated and a woman who can say she never cheated. Or perhaps you did know, perhaps you did suspect. Is that it? What's good for the goose is good for the gander. Tit for tat. Serves you right, old girl. Try a taste of your own medicine. See how you like it.

That time there was passion—
passionare
, to suffer.

And there've been other times I could have done it. Your law partner, Harry Walters—he wanted to. Your very own law partner, the man whom you play tennis with on Thursday nights, your dear friend, he asked me to. Are you getting it good enough from Brad in the sack? he asked me. I've seen him in the shower, and he looks kind of small in that department. I laughed in his face, and never told you. And there was the buyer at Bendel's who suggested that he'd buy our products if I'd check into the St. Regis with him, and for two years no one could understand why Bendel's wouldn't buy us. I could go on. I could compile quite a little list of men who wanted to—even a woman who wanted to—but the list of people I've said no to doesn't turn me into a woman who's never cheated on her husband, does it? No way, old girl. No way, José.

Dear Brad, she writes to him in her mind, dictating to herself the way she dictates those long and chatty office memos she likes to write. Dear Brad. Brad darling. Darling Brad, dearest one, dear heart, dearest husband, dear Brad. Has the trouble always been that you don't really approve of the business I'm in, is that it? I mean, I know at the time you supported me when I wanted to do it, you were the only one who thought I had a chance, but perhaps, way back then, you had no idea that I would be so successful, that this little business of mine would become so big, that it would consume so much of my time and my life. Perhaps you thought it would be like the painter Ingres and his violin, a pastime, a hobby, an avocation, like our Saturday strolls around antique shops, looking for unusual plates. But now I've become a Cosmetics Queen—they call me that—and I've made all this money, richer, probably, than Grandpa ever was, and perhaps, years ago, you never really expected that. Do I earn more money than you? Yes, probably, but we've never discussed that, thank God; we've never had to, thank God.

And then there are the kinds of people I have to deal with, the retailers and merchandise managers and buyers, the tough-talking Charlie Revson types, the spike-heeled fashion editors in their turbans, the New York types, the media salesmen and the ad agency reps; they're really not your types, are they? They probably bore you, and you probably even find them a little vulgar. They don't have names like Wickersham and Hollister and Cadwallader and Stettinius and Lord, the names you lunch with at the Downtown Club. They have names like Bernstein and Lifschitz and Goldbogen and Livingston that used to be Lowenstein and Robbins that used to be Rubin. I'm not saying you're a snob, but these aren't the people you're used to, that you really feel comfortable with, at ease with. I picture you in your office sometimes, all tweedy carpet and chocolate-colored leather chairs, good
cracked
leather, old leather, lamps with parchment shades, and a view of Trinity Church and the Stock Exchange and Alexander Hamilton's statue guarding the U.S. Treasury Building, Old New York, so different from mine. In Old New York, the lawyers come and go, talking of
Paine
vs.
Bigelow
. I know what your secret ambition is, or used to be. It was to be appointed a United States Supreme Court Justice. But has there ever been a United States Supreme Court Justice whose wife was a Cosmetics Queen? Will there ever be? Is that the trouble? Has my success collided with your ambition? I wanted you to be proud of me, I guess, but instead of pride I've brought you disappointment.

Perhaps if we'd had another child. But then …

Your goal was prestige. Mine is … perfume.

I can't sit here all night thinking thoughts like these. We have an advertising meeting in the morning. He'll come home, eventually. At least he always has before.

In her bedroom, Mimi's maid has turned down the covers, drawn the curtains closed, and placed a small plate of fruit on her bedside table: an apple, a banana, and a plum, red, white, and blue. With the fruit knife, she slices a wedge from the apple and places it in her mouth. Then she slides between the sheets and arranges many small lace-edged Porthault pillows around her head and neck and shoulders. Then she turns off the bedside lamp. Close your eyes and think happy thoughts, her mother used to say, and you'll be sure to have a good night's sleep.

But, instead of happy thoughts, omens and portents swirl around her in the darkness. Tonight was supposed to have been the special family preview of her new Mireille fragrance, and that little preview did not go well. Does that bode ill for the future of the fragrance? Mimi tries to remind herself that she does not believe in omens and portents. Hers is a business, after all, that is based on superstitions, hunches, guesswork, instinct, gut reactions. Elizabeth Arden would not make a business decision without first consulting her horoscope. Charlie Revson consulted regularly with a palmist and would not do business with a man whose license plate had the number thirteen in it. Even Mimi's building believes in witchcraft. There is no thirteenth floor. If you go looking for evil omens, you can find them everywhere. From beneath a pillow, Mimi reaches for her sleep mask. The sleep mask has the effect of pressing her wakeful eyelids closed.