Fashionably Late (62 page)

Ha! She almost laughed aloud. Disappointment was di Jjaicult to deal with. Now there was a heavy, philosophical thought, she told herself, and one she was learning to cope with all on her own. Karen actually couldn’t tell if she was angry or sad or both. She thought about Jeffrey and felt murderous, until tears welled up in her eyes, at which point she was overwhelmed with selfpity. Thinking of Lisa made her crazy. She could not fathom what the fuck Lisa had been thinking.

There were at least three million men on Long Island, and if Lisa didn’t want to sleep with Leonard, why didn’t she try some of those other ones first, before she picked her sister’s husband?

As she mulled it over, Karen came to believe that Defina had to be right. Both Jeffrey and Lisa were doing more than having it off in that loft bed. Both of them were sending her messages, big time, and even if she wasn’t supposed to receive them like this, so soon, even if they hadn’t planned for her to find out, she knew that they had still been busy telling her things. They hadn’t been fucking each otherţthey’d been fucking her.

She wasn’t sure if Jeffrey loved her, but he surely was angry at her.

Perhaps he did feel unappreciated, he’d had to deal with the business and financial shit for years while she got the glory. And lately there’d been a lot more of the former for him and a lot more of the latter for her. If it wasn’t that, if he was simply bored with her, if he found her unattractive, or felt their marriage was dying, why hadn’t he just told her and left, or found another woman, a stranger?

Karen spun her chair around and stared out over Seventh Avenueţthe garment district. Rush hour was just ending, but the street was still crammed with men pushing clothing racks. Trucks were blocking the street, and people were rushing around the obstructions. So much energy, so much effort, so many billions of dollars were being spent down there so that people didn’t wear a simple uniform. She looked at the crowd below. Were any of them as miserable as she was? She would have to face some big disappointments and some real home truths. If Jeffrey did love her, then he was also in a rage so black that nothing short of this wounding would even the score. And if he didn’t love her, if he was indifferent to her, then his act was malicious, a truly nasty, cruel gesture. Which was it? Which was worse?

Because, after considering it most of last night and this morning, Karen simply couldn’t believe that Jeffrey loved Lisa. It wasn’t just her ego or denial that made her so certain: she knew Jeffrey after all these years andţalthough a woman might never know the exact taste her husband had in mistressesţKaren knew that Lisa was not Jeffrey’s style.

So, he did this because he still loves me but he’s angry. Or, he did it because he doesn’t love me at all. But if he doesn’t love me, if he hasn’t loved me for a long time, then why hadn’t he left? The only answer was one that kept feeling like a kick to Karen’s stomach: the money. He was staying with her for the money. And there was something about that for Karen, something in that, that was more shaming than anything else. It robbed her of everythingţher sex appeal, her brains, her talent. It made her into something worse, for a woman, than a dupe or a wronged female. It made her into a cash cow.

A little moan escaped her. She covered her mouth and rocked herself back and forth in her executive chair. How many talented women had been fleeced by their husbands? Coco had been ripped off by her lover Iribe, Collette by her husband. No successful woman was immune. Maybe she’d just become a paycheck to Jeffrey. A payoff. She tried the thought on like an ugly garment. She played with it the way she’d tongue a painful tooth. She had loved him so much. His body had been so good to her. So what had it cost her, for each of those times that Jeffrey had sex with her? How much cash had he expected for each of those loveless fucks? Of course, she told herself bitterly, there hadn’t been many of them in the last six months. There were a few times in New York, and an attempt in Westport. And there was Paris.

She blushed to think of it. Had Jeffrey thought of Lisa to help him get it up? Somehow Karen didn’t think so, though the idea of it made her sick. And if looking at Jeffrey’s betrayal made her sick, what about her sister’s?

Karen always had tried to see the best intentions in Lisa’s actions.

If Lisa was lazy, if she was self-indulgent, if she was dishonest to her husband and neglectful to her daughters, Karen had always tried to overlook it or give the best possible face to it. Lisa was flighty, she hadn’t found herself, she had a poor self-image. But Defina was right: she, Karen, was the Queen of Denial. She hadn’t wanted to see any of her sister’s faults. Especially her envy and jealousy.

Why, she wondered, have I been blocked this way? She had to figure it out, because it was the reason that she was being punished now. Her life had completely fallen apart and she had to come to understand why she had been blinded to the betrayal at the center. She knew that if she couldn’t make sense out of this, she could never trust her own perceptions again.

There was a tiny knock at the door. It was Janet, but this time she ignored Karen’s call to go away. She put her head into the office.

Her face was white. “Karen, ya sistah is heah an’ ya gotta see huh.”

“Forget about it,” Karen said.

“Karen, ya gotta or ya gotta make huh go. It’s makin’ us sick.” Karen shuddered. What was making them sick? Why should Karen’s own grief affect Janet and the staff so deeply? They didn’t know. Or did they?

Oh God, she hadn’t considered that. Karen’s face burned with humiliation.

Still, Karen wouldn’t see Lisa. Not now, maybe not ever.

But then the door swung open behind Janet. The secretary fell back, as if she had been struck, while Lisa strode past her. For a moment, Karen didn’t understand. Had Lisa actually hit the girl? But then she herself was hit by the odor.

Odor would hardly be the word for it, though. It traveled across the room like a wall. It was a horrible smell, worse than a stink. It was a stench so bad that Karen was ready to gag if it didn’t go away. Was it Lisa who smelled like that? Karen moved to the window beside her and threw it open. There was no question of being polite. This was survival.

“What the hell is it?” Lisa asked. Her hair was wild, uncombed, and she was wearing a pair of Levi’s, red high heels, and an old shirt that looked as if it might be Leonard’s. Karen had never seen her sister look so awful, but the look was nothing compared to the smell.

“What the hell is it?” Lisa repeated. “How did you do this to me?”

“What are you talking about?”

“What am I talking about? WHAT AM TALKING ABOUT? Like you can’t smell this. Like the whole city of New York can’t smell this! I know you and that black witch did this to me. She never liked me. Doctor Schneider can’t figure it out. He actually gagged when I got into the stirrups.

How did you do this?”

“Lisa, I didn’t do anything.”

“Right. My vagina smells like I’ve got a dead wolverine in it, and nobody did anything. I know it’s Defina.”

“Maybe you caught something from Jeffrey,” Karen suggested. “Maybe it’s a yeast infection or something.”

“A yeast infection!” Lisa shrieked. “An ocean of Monostat wouldn’t do dick about this! If this is something Jeffrey’s got, his prick would’ve fallen off before now.” Lisa began to sob, striding back and forth across the office. Karen kept the table between them and kept breathing through her mouth, staying close to the window. It was the most unbelievable stench.

“I came in by train,” Lisa said, sobbing. “I stepped into the car and before we got to Jamaica it had emptied out. I was alone in an entire Long Island Railroad car, and during rush hour! When I got into Penn Station, I walked by the line of winos, the ones who live in the underpass. You know how bad they smell. Well, they all turned and stared at me. My house stinks. All my clothes are ruined. You can’t go near my Mercedes without gagging. Jesus Christ, Karen, enough is enough! I never wanted Jeffrey. I just slept with him because I liked the attention.

Because I wanted what you have. But you can have him. He’s just a no-talent brat. Just get rid of this stink.”

Karen thought for a moment. Then she turned to the intercom and buzzed it. “Janet,” she asked, “has Defina come in yet?” It was only twenty to ten, and Defina was rarely in before ten-thirty. But before Janet buzzed back, Defina walked in to Karen’s office.

“Hoo-eeuw! I smell a rat.” Defina looked across the room at Lisa.

“Is that you, girl?”

Lisa wiped her eyes and glared at Defina. “It isn’t funny.”

Defina looked over at Karen. “Boss, you should talk to your sister about her personal hygiene.”

“Stop it!” Lisa cried. “I know you did this. You and that voodoo. I already told Karen that I’ll do anything you want. Just make this smell stop.”

Defina raised her eyebrows, tilted her head, and looked at Lisa.

“You put

dirt in your thang, don’t be surprised when it smells,” Defina told her.

“Don’t be blaming me.”

Karen looked over at her friend. “Dee, did you do this?”

Dee opened her eyes wide. “Girlfriend, I ain’t got the power. People ought to take responsibility for what they do. I didn’t do anything.”

Lisa began to wail, and sank down onto the carpet, covering her face with her hands. “Help me!” she cried. “It’s not fair. You have to help me.”

Dee turned on her like a big cat protecting its cubs. “Fair?” she asked. “I don’t think you have any right to talk about fair. You got a big sister who’s nice to you, a husband who takes care of you, and two healthy children. That’s a lot more than most women get. So, when you ignore your children, cheat on your husband, and do dirt to your sister, be sure that then you don’t talk about fair. Karen never done nothing but good by you. But her friendship wasn’t enough, her gifts weren’t enough, the money wasn’t enough. You still had to go on being jealous and resentful. That’s what you stink from.”

“Don’t you dare judge me,” Lisa snapped. “My sister likes you more than she likes me. Know how that makes me feel?” Then Lisa turned to Karen.

“And you don’t have to judge me either. You’ve always gotten what you needed in bed at home. You don’t know what it’s felt like for me.”

Defina walked over to Lisa and took her arm. “Get up off that carpet or we’ll never get the smell out. I suggest you go home and make up a douche out of warm water, vinegar, and a few tears. Don’t forget the tears. Real important. I bet that will take care of the stink,” she said.

Lisa stood up, looked from one to the other with a wild expression, and then, without another word, dashed out of the office.

Karen looked across her table at Dee. “What did you do?” she asked.

“I didn’t do anything. She’s the one who done something.”

“Come on, Dee. Was that something you cooked up with Madame Renault?”

Defina shrugged. “You yourself told me that mumbo jumbo doesn’t work,” Dee said. “You can’t have it both ways, Karen.”

“Dee, I know you did something. I know you did it out of friendship, but I can take care of myself. I’m going to have to take care of myself.”

Defina walked around the desk and put her arm around Karen. “You got a lot on your plate right now,” Defina said. “Carl and I both thought you could use a helping hand.” Then she put her innocent face on again. “But I didn’t do anything to Lisa.”

“Yeah. Sure.” Karen looked at her friend. “Will it go away now?”

she asked.

“Uh-huh,” Defina told her. “As long as she remembers the tears.”

Karen sat in one of the folding chairs in the showroom, waiting while the VIKInc staff assembled. The chairs were arranged in messy rows of ragged semicircles. Today’s pitch had no glossy portfolios, no colored slides. It was a very different presentation than the one she had made only a few weeks ago. She tried to keep calm, but she knew that announcing loss didn’t make you a popular kid. Was it ancient Greece where the tradition of killing the messenger had begun?

Karen knew that it was going to be rough. Lots of these people didn’t have much between them and disaster and, since the last meeting, some of the more impractical ones may have already begun spending the NormCo money, money they now would never receive. Casey had told her that one of the workroom girls had started driving to the office in a new Cadillac, parking it out on the street, despite the insanity of the hand trucks and delivery vans, all just so the other women could see it.

Karen’s announcement was going to be a blow, and she didn’t know how many members of the staff would stick with her.

And why should they, she asked herself. Hadn’t she, as their chief, as their mother, been negligent? She could see now that despite her promises to them, once NormCo came in, heads would have rolled. Jobs would have been lost so that some other slave girl in the Marianasţone who wasn’t dead yetţ would be trapped in a filthy factory and in an even worse dormitory. She remembered again the poem that Arnold had on his office wall: I have shut my little sister in from life and light/ (For a rose, for a ribbon, for a wreath across my hair). Had she shut these women in, too? For a sheath, for a scarf, for a blazer cut just right? For a moment she felt drowned in shame.

Karen had always prided herself on the fact that, even if she wasn’t saving the world, even if she was only indulging herself and her clientele, she had at least made jobs for several hundred people, that she helped them to pay their rent and buy their babies shoes. This was the first time she was ever going to take something she had promised away from them. But maybe she had taken something from them long ago.

Something more important even than this money. Take, for example, Mrs. Cruz, who had given years to the little stitches that made up all those hundreds of dozens, thousands of dozens, of outfits that had gone into Karen’s line. I have shut my little sister in from life and light/ (For a rose, for a ribbon, for a wreath across my hair). Just now, Karen couldn’t see the point of it. Not at all.

People were talking quietly amongst themselves. Karen sat at the front and felt separated, as lonely as she ever had in her life. Jeffrey showed the good grace of not attending. Staff must have noticed but no one had said anything to her. Who, now, was she connected to in a way more visceral than habit or duty or tradition? Certainly, she wasn’t connected now to Jeffrey. And her sister! Well, that was over. Her mother was useless to her, and Arnold, though a kind man, had always been distant. Now he was sick. Who was there that she was a part of, or that was a part of her? Tears of selfpity rose like a tide, but Karen bent her head for a moment and blinked them away. This was no time to feel sorry for herself. Right now she had to feel sorry for the people she was about to drop her little bomb on.