Shades of Fortune (49 page)

She studied her lacquered fingertips. “Yes, that … and perhaps something else,” she said, choosing her words carefully. “Advice, perhaps. You've made a lot of money, haven't you?”

He smiled. “Yes, I've got to admit that's true,” he said.

“People all over New York are saying you're a brilliant businessman.”

He shrugged and spread open the palms of his hands in a Jewish-peddler-parody gesture. “Just schlepping along,” he said.

“Please. I'm serious. I want you to tell me the truth. Is my father a brilliant businessman, or isn't he?”

“Golly, I—”

“I used to think he was. But now I'm not so sure. Since my grandfather died, I've tried to learn a little bit about this business. After all, I'm the only grandchild. Someday—who knows?—I
might
be in a position to take it over. But from what I've learned, I now think my father has made some very serious mistakes. And now there are all these lawsuits, charging mismanagement. Recklessness. Fiscal ineptitude. What do you think, Michael?”

He scowled. “I don't know anything about your dad's business,” he said. “All I know is what I've picked up on the street. And, since I've become at least peripherally involved with your family, I've kept my ears open.”

“And what have you heard?”

“Well, to be frank with you, most of what I've heard has not been good. People in the business are saying that this new merchandising strategy of his is suicidal.”

“Yes,” she said quietly. “That's what I've heard, too. I've read it in the newspapers. What's going to happen, do you think?”

He spread his hands again. “I don't know. How much longer can your grandmother keep pouring money into the company? She's going to run out of properties to sell at some point, you know.”

“And that's another thing. I see all this money of Granny's going into the company. But I see nothing coming out. What's happening to those funds, Michael?”

“I have no idea. Why don't you ask him?”

“I've tried. I've tried to meet with him, tried to talk about it. But he's too … preoccupied. And the thing is, too, that I'm a woman. Women in this family—the whole female sex—have never exactly occupied a position of respect. But I'm thinking that if a man, a businessman like yourself, could talk to him, man to man, maybe he'd listen to you. Maybe you could help him, guide him. And also find out what's happening to Granny's money.”

“Someone like me,” he said flatly.

“Yes.”

“It seems to me that if someone were to do that, it should be your husband.”

“Brad is too … too preoccupied with his own career,” she said. “He's been made a partner in his firm. There's been talk of him running for public office. Brad has ambitions of his own that have nothing to do with my family's business. Besides, Brad thinks that the beauty business is a little bit—”

“Too Seventh Avenue for his Christian taste.”

“Yes, perhaps,” she said lowering her eyes.

“You and he have had words on this subject, I gather.”

“Yes. But what if you were to try to talk to Daddy?”

Suddenly he sprang to his feet and began pacing the white room, his hands thrust deep into the back pockets of his jeans, pacing and bouncing springily on the balls of his sneakered feet. “Why would he talk to me? Why would he listen to anything I had to say? I only met the guy once before.”

“He has great respect for what you've been doing for Granny.”

“What could I tell him, Mimi? What could I tell him without looking at the company's books? And why would he let me look at the company's books? It's a private company, you know, and he could simply tell me to go to hell. Why would he let me look at his company's books? Why would he let me look at a single balance sheet?” He continued pacing up and down the length of the white-carpeted floor, his shoulders hunched forward, pantherlike, or like a boxer sizing up his opponent in the ring. “No way,” he said, pounding his right fist into the palm of his left hand. “No way he'd let me do that, Mimi. Now your grandmother, she's another story. She could ask to look at the books. She's entitled, after all.”

“What would
she
be able to tell from looking at the books?”

“But
me?
No way.”

She sat forward in her chair. “But would you at least
try
it, Michael?” she said. “For me?”

All at once he stopped pacing and stood in the center of the room gazing at her, his dark eyes seeming to grow wider and deeper. He tossed the sandy forelock of hair back from where it had fallen across his forehead and began to smile that slightly crooked smile, revealing the perfect teeth and the three dimples, one at each corner of his mouth and one in his chin. Pink spots of excitement lighted his cheekbones, and with her fingertips Mimi touched her own cheeks because she could feel them reddening as well.

“Well, if you put it that way, of course I will,” he said. “For you, I'll do anything. For you, I want everything. For you, I want towers—yes, towers. Towers and minarets and spires, and palace gates, forests, shores and islands, gems and pearls and scepters and all the emperor's diamonds, and every brilliant in King Oberon's crown. You shall have temples and mosques and fountains, rings on your fingers and bells on your toes, fountains and waterfalls and tapestries and flowers and thornless roses from the spice islands, and …”

And as he spoke he moved around the room again, opening and closing doors of the mirrored built-in closets and cabinets.

“What are you doing?” she whispered.

“Turning off the stereo, turning off the computer terminals, turning off the telephone, so we can make love in the afternoon.”

“Michael, I didn't come here for this,” she said. But even as she spoke, she knew this wasn't true, because once again the air between them was charged, electric, the way she remembered it from nearly three years ago. The current in the air that separated them was so strong that it was almost tangible, a thick and ropy presence that seemed to draw her toward him, and her voice choked when she tried to speak. And she knew that this, yes, was of course what she had come here for, for this reason above all others, to see if this would happen again, and that all the rest had been just an excuse—an honest excuse, forgive me for that, she thought—for this, and now that it was happening again she was overwhelmed with desire for him, that overpowering Michael feeling.

His eyes were blazing now, and from her place on the sofa, she tried to stare him down with her own eyes, but his wide, smiling eyes defeated hers, and she looked down at the changeless pattern of the thick white carpet, feeling weak and not quite ill.

“I want to make you … happy,” he said at last.

“Michael, I …”

He pressed a button, and the electric drapes across the wall of glass drew silently closed. One narrow shaft of sunlight remained between the closed drapes and fell directly into Mimi's eyes, and she raised her left hand to shield her eyes.

“Don't,” he said. “Your eyes have little white stars in them when the sun shines in them. I want to remember this when you have to go. The sun in your polished-silver eyes.”

“The world's gotten to be such a small place,” she said.

“Yes. Here we are again.”

“Is it …?”

“Yes.”

“Should we …?”

“Yes.”

“It isn't ended, then?”

“No.”

“Can we?”

“We can. We must. I must. You must. You must,” he said. “We can.” And on noiseless, sneakered feet he moved toward her, took her outstretched hand, and lifted her gently to her feet.

When it was over, his laugh was almost boyishly exultant. “I saw them again!” he said. “Litde white stars—in my brain, when it happened! Did you see them too, darling?”

“Yes, I think I did.”

“Little white stars!”

Soon he was asleep, and Mimi rose and moved about the mirrored half-darkness of his bedroom. In his bathroom, she found an oversized white bath towel and wrapped herself in it. Then she began exploring his closets, opening the mirrored doors and drawers and touching his things: the suits, the shirts, the racks of neckties, the tiers of shoes, the drawers of handkerchiefs, sweaters, socks, and underwear. Suddenly she was aware that he was awake again and watching her.

“Your sock drawer is a mess,” she giggled.

He held out his bare arm for her, and she went to him again.

“You're the only girl I ever loved,” he said. “You know that, don't you? You're the only girl I'll ever love. At least I can finally have you for a little while. At least, for a little while, we can have each other. The way it was supposed to be.”

“I love you, Michael.”

Did I say that? she asks herself now. It all seems so long ago, and in another world entirely, and their affair only lasted two weeks—two weeks, at the most, was all it had been, give or take a few days. Two weeks, she thinks. That was the title (wasn't it?) of a novel,
Two Weeks
, yes, by Elinor Glyn, a steamy romantic novel of the 1920s, set in some mythical Graustarkian kingdom, in which the heroine and her lover rolled about on leopard-skin rugs in the lover's palace.

But there had been no leopard-skin rugs in her affair with Michael, and the palace had been only Riverside Drive. In her mind, now, the affair seems not only long-ago and passionate, but at the same time somehow banal. He seemed to bring out a domestic, housewifely side of her that she had not known existed. She had discovered, for instance, that he was a terrible housekeeper. His, or his decorator's, passion for built-ins was based on the fact that he used the built-ins to conceal his clutter. He hid his laundry under his bed. He stored his firewood behind the skirts of one of the big living room sofas. She bought him a laundry bag and made space in a closet in which to hang it. She found a sheltered corner of his terrace on which to stack the firewood. She took his suits to the cleaner's and, when they came back, saw that they were hung neatly in even rows, on matching wooden hangers, and in plastic garment bags. She dusted and lined up his shoes in their trees. She organized his tie racks, for he had a habit of hanging up his neckties without undoing their knots. She arranged his shelves of shirts and sweaters according to color and long-sleeve, short-sleeve. She paired and folded his socks. Though Michael employed what he called “my dusty lady” as a maid-housekeeper, dusting seemed to be the dusty lady's sole field of expertise.

Mimi cleaned out his medicine chest, discarding many empty tubes of toothpaste, cans of shaving foam and deodorant, spent razor blades, bottles of cologne and after-shave, and … bobby pins. She felt a slight twinge of guilt throwing out the bobby pins but decided he had no further use for them. Ancient prescriptions, long past their shelf life, along with an imposing collection of used Q-tips, also made their way into the garbage. He was, she discovered, a penny saver. A gallon jug was filled with copper coins. She counted and stacked these in paper rollers, took them to the bank, and exchanged them for bills.

She attacked his refrigerator, throwing out many objects of dubious age, identity, and odor, including a drawerful of what may have once been recognizable as species of vegetables but were now pulpy and discolored blobs. She bathed the refrigerator's interior with detergent and baking soda. In the process, she discovered that his eating habits were erratic, at best, and that he lived primarily on carry-outs—pizzas and Chinese food. She restocked his larder with health foods, his freezer with wholesome frozen vegetables, his refrigerator with fresh milk, eggs, fruits, and juices. He made jokes about her efforts to organize and systematize his household and life and told her she was “turning into a typical Jewish mother.”

But the process of discovery and change was not at all a oneway street during those few weeks. In their lovemaking, he took her on a journey of discovery to a destination she had never known about before. He called it “little white stars”—an implosion of them from an inner, unexplored galaxy.

“Did you see them?” he would ask her.

“Yes … oh, yes.”

They had never once spoken of Brad.

“I'm going to see your father tomorrow,” he said.

“Thank you, darling.”

“After that, how'd you like to drive over to East Orange and have a look at the house I'm building there?”

“I'd love that.”

“Good. I'll pick you up at your house at four. You'll be my pick-up,” he said.

In Henry Myerson's office, he took a seat opposite the company president's big desk.

“It's funny,” Henry Myerson said, “that you should have asked to see me, because for the last few days I've had it on my mind to call and ask to see you.”

“Is that so?” Michael said.

“Yes. It's occurred to me that you might be able to be of unique service to me, Mr. Horowitz.”

“Well, that's what I'm here to offer you,” Michael said. “To be of any service that I can.”

“I know you by reputation,” Henry said. “As a builder and developer—as well as what you've been doing for my mother.”

“Excuse me, sir,” Michael said, “but I don't think you realize that we've met before.”

“Have we?” Henry said, looking flustered. “I'm sorry, but I don't recall—”

“About two and a half years ago, your daughter and I came to your house to tell you that we wanted to get married.”

“Oh,” Henry said, shaking his head as though to rid it of dusty memories. “Was that you? I'm sorry, but I didn't … forgive me, but that was a very emotional time for all of us, I'm afraid. Very emotional. I'm sorry I didn't connect the name—not an uncommon name, after all. And I'm afraid that meeting wasn't a very pleasant occasion for you, was it? Sorry about that.”