Shades of Fortune (45 page)

There was a collective groan around the conference table, but there was also a general nodding of heads.

“Second, I ask your permission to begin immediate negotiations with all banks and financial institutions with whom we have loans, seeking to extend these loans at, naturally, the most favorable rates they can give us.”

There was more nodding of heads.

“And, finally,” he said, “the most drastic measure of all. Believe me, I've given this idea a great deal of long, hard thought over the past two days, and I've come to the conclusion that this may be the quickest, most effective—maybe the only—way we can salvage this company from its present predicament. What I am proposing is an entirely new marketing strategy for Miray products. As you know, under Adolph Myerson's leadership, Miray positioned itself gradually in an upscale, specialty-store market, working with such upscale outlets as Saks and Magnin's and Neiman's. On the other hand, when Miray began its corporate existence back in nineteen twelve, our products were distributed solely through lower-priced and discount outlets—the dime-store chains and neighborhood drugstore and foodstore chains. It was this marketing strategy that got Miray off the ground in the first place, years ago. Ladies and gentlemen, I am saying to you that Miray, unfortunately, finds itself in that same position today—back at the ground floor, reentry level, back at square one. I am saying that, if we are to survive and prosper as we once did, we must reposition all our products in a downscale market. We have a prestige name. In a downscale market, I believe we can compete successfully with such brands as Cutex. As most of of you know, one of the biggest problems facing us right now is a huge warehouse inventory of a shade called Candied Apple. As most of you know, Candied Apple has failed, dismally, to attract the upscale market that the shade was conceived for. I believe that, in a downscale market, the shade will be successful. This will mean slashing our suggested retail prices, of course, but it will also rid us of an enormous, and expensive, overstock, and at a profit. I suggest that this new retail tactic be applied to all Miray products. With Candied Apple, the upscale market appears to have abandoned us. By repositioning ourselves in a downscale market, I believe we can rebuild the kind of success that my father built. We are going back to our roots, as it were—our humble roots. But they are also proud roots. They are honorable roots. They are roots from which we grew to be one of the leaders in the industry. They are roots from which we will grow again, and continue to grow. Like the proverbial South, we will rise again. Ladies and gentlemen, I ask you to approve this proposal. As I said at the outset, it is a drastic one. At the same time, as I see it here today, it may be our only hope.”

There was silence around the table. Finally, Granny Flo said, “It's as bad as that, then.”

“It's as bad as that, Mother.”

“I say bravo, Daddy,” Mimi said softly.

“Well, then,” Henry said. “There you have it, my three-part proposal. Shall we vote on each of the three parts separately, or on all three together?”

“Together!” Granny Flo snapped.

“Then how do we vote—for or against?”

“For,” said Granny Flo without dropping a stitch.

“For,” said Edwee.

“For,” said Mimi.

“Against!” said Nonie loudly.

“Then,” Henry said, slumping further in his chair, “my proposals have been accepted by a ninety-five percent majority.”

The next day, in Philip Dougherty's Advertising column in the
New York Times
, there was the following headline:

MIRAY MARKETING SWITCH STUNS INDUSTRY

In a surprise press conference at the Fifth Avenue headquarters of the Miray Corporation, Mr. Henry Myerson, Miray's 43-year-old new President and Chief Executive Officer, announced a startling new marketing strategy for his company, makers of a long line of luxury cosmetics, beauty, skin, and hair-care products.

Miray, long available only at the counters of select specialty and department stores in major cities, will from now on reposition its products in the cheaper retail and discount outlets across the country. “We've become too much of a snob name,” Mr. Myerson said. “There's another, bigger market out there eager for quality products, and we intend to go after that.” Industry analysts announced themselves “stunned” by the latest Miray move. It is the first time in industry history, as far as is known, that a prestige name has chosen deliberately to downgrade itself.

Amid rumors that Miray may have found itself in fiscal turmoil following the recent death of the company's 89-year-old founder, Adolph Myerson, the younger Mr. Myerson, who is Adolph Myerson's son, assured reporters that such rumors are without foundation. “The company's in great shape,” Mr. Myerson said. “It's just time for the next generation to take us over and head us in some promising new directions.” Miray, a privately owned corporation whose shares are held by immediate members of the Myerson family, is not required to reveal information pertaining to its financial status. However, some dismissals of company personnel are known to have taken place in recent days, and a recently introduced lipstick and eye-shadow [
sic
] shade is known to have had disappointing sales. The shade, called Candied Apple, was launched with great fanfare in the fall of 1957, to a poor box office.

“It's just a case of the new broom sweeping clean,” said Henry Myerson, referring to the employee dismissals. “I'm the new broom.”

Meanwhile, spokesmen within the industry remained skeptical about the wisdom of Miray's about-face reversal in sales strategy. “It's like taking Tiffany and turning it into J. C. Penney,” said one.…

“It was a disastrous move,” Mimi says. “Bold, but disastrous. I know that now. I didn't then. What it did was to almost completely destroy the prestige and respectability and credibility of an old-line name. Years had been spent building loyalty and goodwill among a certain class of well-heeled customers. All that went out the window overnight. How does a woman feel, who's been used to paying twelve dollars for a lipstick at Saks, when she sees the same lipstick for sale for a dollar nineteen at Walgreen's or Kmart? She feels angry. She feels cheated. She feels as though someone she'd trusted as an old friend for years—or a lover, or even a husband, I suppose—had been betraying her all along. She feels disgusted. When Daddy decided to give up the carriage trade and go mass-market, he lost whatever we'd had in terms of customer loyalty. You just can't turn back the clock in this business. Perhaps you can't do it in any business.

“Meanwhile, there were several things that could have been done with the Candied Apple overstock. It could have been sold in Europe, or in Japan, or any number of Third World countries. It could have been turned over to a wholesaler and sold under a new label. Or, after a suitable period of mourning, and using the same packaging, it could have been reintroduced under a new, sexy name—Apple of Eve, or Apple of Temptation, neither of which is all that bad, come to think of it.

“And we had other products that were all doing very well in the specialty-store market. There was no need to tie everything in with the one failure of Candied Apple. But it was as though my father was obsessed with the failure of that one line—perhaps because Grandpa kept saying it was all his fault. So my father decided to have a fire sale on everything, even the products that were popular and profitable. Disastrous. Given hindsight, I see now that Daddy's problem was more than inexperience. He was naive, an innocent, a babe in the woods.

“Other problems developed—the Leo cousins, for instance. When their Miray dividends stopped coming in, they understandably wanted to know why. They brought in their lawyers. When the lawyers learned about that little December stockholders' meeting, they claimed that the vote taken there in favor of Daddy's plan was illegal. The cousins, after all, held fifty percent of the outstanding shares, and a failure to vote at such a meeting is counted as a vote
against
the proposal, whatever it is. Daddy had never heard of such a rule and neither had any of the rest of us. So, since they hadn't voted, the cousins claimed that they had actually voted against Daddy's proposal. Technically, they were right. And they claimed that Nonie's negative vote was actually the swing vote—that Daddy's proposal had actually been defeated by a majority of the shareholders. That's when the lawsuits started coming in, charging mismanagement.

“Poor Daddy. During those two short years he had as head of the company, most of his time was spent defending those lawsuits. He grew more and more discouraged and depressed, and the red ink kept pouring in—redder than any red that had been bottled as that goddamned Candied Apple! Thank God for Granny and, I suppose, thank God for Michael.…

“Those two years were terrible years for Daddy. He aged terribly. I watched as my handsome father's thick, dark head of curly hair grew completely white. I watched his fine, athletic figure develop a stoop. In those two years, he seemed to age twenty. Brad and I watched this physical disintegration of his feeling helpless. And my mother was … well, drinking more heavily than ever. No help to him at all. Several times I went to him and said, ‘Is there anything I can do to help, Daddy? Can I help?' But he'd just look away from me, and say, ‘No … no.…'

“And then he … well, if it's true that he was a … you know, a suicide … then those two years were enough to do it, I suppose. I don't know. Perhaps. He tried to turn back the clock, and he failed. In the end, he knew he'd failed.”

“Itty-Bitty has to go to the doctor,” her Granny Flo said on the telephone. “He has something called a plantigrade wart, the vet calls it, on his poor little left front foot, and it's hurting him so. At first, I thought it was just a little blister, from the hot sidewalks, perhaps, but the vet says no, it's a plantigrade wart. He needs to see a specialist. And the only dog pediatrician we can find is way up in Mount Kisco.”

“A pediatrician?”

“Yes. Who works on doggies' feet.”

“Oh. I think you mean a podiatrist, Granny.”

“That's what I said. And, meanwhile, Mr. Horowitz has some leases he wants me to sign on the Bar Harbor lots. I was going to go up to Mr. Horowitz's house to sign them—they need to be in the lawyers' hands first thing in the morning—but now Itty-Bitty and I have to take the one-ten train up to Mount Kisco. Would you run up to Mr. Horowitz's place and fetch those papers for me, Mimi? I asked your mother, but she says she's not feeling herself today. You know what that means. She's pickled again. I'd ask your father to do it, but he's so busy.”

“Tell you what,” Mimi said. “Why don't you run over to Michael's place, and I'll take Itty-Bitty to Mount Kisco?” She was rather pleased with the fact that, during all these family negotiations with him, she had not had to come into direct contact with him.

“Oh, no, that won't work,” her grandmother said. “Itty-Bitty will want me with him. If the doctor has to operate or something, Itty-Bitty will want me there.”

“Why can't he send a messenger?” she said, trying to think of some way to avoid this encounter.

“Won't you do me this little favor, Mimi? I wouldn't ask you if it weren't so important. He lives on Riverside and Eighty-first. It shouldn't take but a few minutes. Are you that busy?”

“No, of course not, Granny. I'll be glad to do it.”

“He doesn't trust a messenger. They come on bicycles. This is too important for a bicycle.”

“Give me his exact address,” Mimi said.

“Hi, kiddo,” he said, greeting her breezily at the door of his apartment as though more than two years had not passed since they had last seen one another. He was dressed in jeans and an open shirt, a loosened necktie slung rakishly over his shoulder. He immediately handed her a fat manila accordion envelope, and for a moment, she thought he was not even going to ask her in. Then he said, “Care to step in for a minute? See my place?”

His apartment was clearly designed to draw an appreciative gasp from a visitor, which was exactly what Mimi did when she entered it. The floor of his huge, cathedral-ceilinged living room was covered, wall to wall, with deep-pile white carpet, and the room was furnished with oversize white sofas and chairs, plumped up with dozens of big white toss pillows. Every surface that was not white was mirrored: mirrored walls, doors, table tops, and lamp bases. An elaborate track- and recessed-lighting system had been installed in the ceiling, and tall, floor-to-ceiling sliding glass doors across the entire west-facing wall opened out onto a wide terrace planted with hedges and fruit trees. Mimi could not help noticing that the trees and hedges were artificial—good artificial, but still artificial. Beyond, there was a sweeping view of the Hudson, the New Jersey Palisades, the towers of Fort Lee, and the twin towers of the George Washington Bridge.

“It's beautiful, Michael,” she said. “Not just beautiful, spectacular!”

He laughed. “Michael Taylor, San Francisco. He's the climax decorator out there. He asked me, ‘Do you want an old-money look or a new-money look?' I said, ‘What's wrong with a new-money look? After all, that's what it is. Why pretend it's anything else?' We knocked out walls all over the place. This room used to be four smaller ones. Taylor likes built-ins. Everything's built in. Here's the entertainment center.” He opened a pair of mirrored doors. “TV, stereo, tape deck, concealed speakers.” He opened another pair of doors. “Here's the communications center. It's all computerized. Ever see one of these? Brand-new from Sony—a cordless phone.” He swung open a third pair of doors. “Here's the wet bar—refrigerator, ice-maker. The ice-maker makes ninety pounds of ice a day. Why would I need ninety pounds of ice a day? Hell, I don't know, but Taylor wanted me to get it.” He moved around the room, opening and closing doors of built-ins. “Anyway, I'm building a house in East Orange that's gonna make this place look like a dump. I may not be the richest guy in New York yet, but I'm on my way. Can I fix you a drink?”