Killer Heels (9 page)

When Cinnamon had befriended Zarina, Jennifer’s assistant, Mireille had been very pleased. Cinnamon would learn all
the gossip ahead of the rest of the
Style
staffers, be able to use
that advance news to her advantage. Instead, it seemed that all
Cinnamon had been concerned about was the freebies that
were in Zarina’s gift to hand out, presents and sweeteners sent
to Jennifer by designers and publicists and model agencies.

A pair of D&G boots is all very well, but information is
power, Mireille reflected. Cinnamon should have known that
the writing was on the wall for Jennifer as soon as Victoria
posted those spectacular figures for
UK Style
. Victoria had
been using the UK magazine as a showcase for what she could
do with the US version, and she had succeeded superbly. It was
obvious that she was using
UK Style
as a springboard.

Mireille had trained up many girls in her time, girls who
were clever and discreet enough to qualify as one of her elite
protégées. As their mentor, she had ensured their loyalty and
distributed them strategically through the New York media to
Italy and Paris and London, in positions from which they could
feed her snippets of crucial gossip and information that would
allow her to maintain her position at the very apex of the
publishing world. Dupleix, Condé Nast, Hearst: Mireille had
tentacles stretching into them all, favours owed to her, allies to
call upon. Not every one of her assistants, of course, met the
criteria necessary for Mireille to bestow on them the benefits
of her guidance and experience.

I’m not wasting any more time on that one, Mireille
shrugged. She’ll put in phone calls and make my tea, that’s all.
As they say in America, you win some, you lose some.

And as we say in France, tant pis.
She smiled, any thoughts of Cinnamon dismissed as she
moved to the full-length mirror. Mireille checked her appearance multiple times a day, ensuring that her hair was as
smooth, her make-up as perfect, her clothes as lint-free as
they had been first thing that morning. In a brief glance she
confirmed that her charcoal cotton Agnès B wrap dress was
unwrinkled, the knot of her emerald and orange silk Hermès
scarf was still in the correct position at the side of her neck,
the wide patent-leather belt around her impossibly narrow
waist was as shiny as ever and didn’t require a quick buff-up
with a tissue. Walking over to her desk, which was piled high
with magazines, photography books and novels, many of
them opened and layered on top of each other in a creative
disorder that Mireille found inspiring, she removed her goldcased YSL lipstick from the pen caddy and repainted her lips
deep scarlet with two practised strokes. Her make-up style
was extremely French; unlike American women, who spent
a great deal of time applying make-up that was designed to
look invisible, Frenchwomen generally disdained that kind of
artifice. Mireille spent five minutes in the morning on her
make-up: two expert black lines of liquid kohl on her eyelids,
mattifying powder – she loathed shine – and her dramatic
red lipstick.
She had just finished touching it up when there was a flurry
in the outer office. Cinnamon was babbling something, jumping up, trying her best to give Mireille some sort of warning.
She was brushed aside by Jacob, who strolled into Mireille’s
office, Cinnamon fluttering behind his wide shoulders like a
particularly ineffective moth. She looked dazed, as women
usually did around Jacob, dazzled by his aura of power and
money, his sheer sexual charisma.
Lucky for her she’s not Jacob’s type, Mireille thought. Or
she would certainly burn her wings.
‘Well!’ Jacob said, smiling at Mireille, who returned his
smile with equal amusement. He held out his hands as he
approached her; Mirelle came to meet him, the big emerald
solitaire she always wore on the fourth finger of her right hand
glinting as she set her fingers lightly in his palms. Jacob raised
her hands to his mouth and kissed them in turn as Cinnamon,
ignored by both of them, faded away.
‘
Ma chère
,’ Jacob said with deep fondness. ‘You’re always a
sight for sore eyes. May I assume that, as always, you already
know what I’m about to tell you?’
Mireille’s smile broke into a laugh.‘
Mon cher
,’ she responded,
‘
everyone
knows what you’re about to tell me. The men who
drive the carriages in Central Park must have heard Jennifer
screaming. Jennifer is out, and you’re bringing Victoria over
from London, I can only assume.’
Jacob opened his arms wide. He was wearing a dark navy
silk suit, and the gesture made the sleeves of the jacket slide a
little up his arms, showing off the heavy, yellow-gold ovals of
his Asprey cufflinks, gleaming dully against the crisp white
shirt cuffs.
‘What could I do?’ he asked rhetorically. ‘Victoria wouldn’t
take no for an answer.’
Mireille quirked her head sideways a little. ‘And of course,
you knew when you scheduled dinner with her in London that
she wouldn’t take no for an answer,’ she observed.
‘Of course,’ Jacob echoed. ‘It’s her time. Jennifer has done a
good, but not an exceptional job.’
Mireille nodded in agreement.
‘She’s getting a huge pay-off,’ he added. ‘Her contract’s
watertight.’
‘Nothing is watertight,’ Mireille said, walking over to the
window and gazing down at Third Avenue below. ‘You could
contest it.’ Reflected in the big glass pane, she saw Jacob’s
heavy shoulders rise and fall.
‘No point,’ he said succinctly. ‘We’d spend as much on the
lawyers as we’d save. Besides, I can afford it.’
He regarded Mireille’s narrow back, her perfectly erect
spine, with great affection. If only all women were as poised as
her, as self-controlled, he thought. But Mireille is truly unique.
‘You’re fine, naturally,’ he said. ‘I don’t need to tell you that.
You and Victoria will make a killer team. I’m really psyched to
see what you two cook up here together.’
Mireille’s newly-scarlet lips pressed together in a brief,
involuntary gesture that could have been satisfaction or something much less pleasurable. But although she could observe
Jacob in the glass, read his face and body language, she was
much too canny to let him see her own expression.
‘I remember when Victoria worked here before,’ she said,
permitting herself a moment to regain full composure before
she turned around to face Jacob again. ‘It was not the most –
shall we say, serene of experiences.’
Jacob grinned, his perfect white teeth flashing against his
perfect tan.‘She didn’t have what she wanted then,’ he said by
way of explanation. ‘Now she’s editor, she’ll be a lot easier to
handle. I know Victoria – she’s just like me. When we don’t
have what we want, we’re evil bastards. When we have it –
well, we’re pussycats.’
Mireille’s eyebrows were raised so high that she didn’t need
to say a word: Jacob burst out laughing.
‘Okay, she’s not going to roll over and ask you to tickle her
tummy,’ he said, ‘but you’re the best in the business, and she’s
smart enough to know that. Plus, she can’t touch your job, and
you don’t want hers. You two will rub along just fine.’
He glanced at his watch. ‘Well, my work here is done,’ he
said, grimacing. ‘I have a four o’clock with Bloomberg, so I’d
better shoot.’ He looked at Mireille with a hint of uncertainty,
which was unusual for Jacob: he naturally exuded confidence
and self-assurance. ‘You’ll pick up the pieces here, won’t you?’
he asked. ‘Jennifer has to work out two months to get her
settlement. I need as easy a transition as possible. Victoria’ll
have to get herself moved over, organise all of that as well as
starting a new job – it has to be as smooth a handover as we
can manage in the circumstances. I’ll get her assistant to synch
things with you so we only have a couple of days between
Jennifer leaving and Victoria coming in.’
Mireille tapped her foot, long and narrow, clad in glove-soft
leather whose dark forest green matched her patent belt
exactly. She was obsessive about taking care of her feet, and
had all her shoes made for her in Italy on her own personal
wooden last. She had fittings twice a year, when she went to
Milan for the collections.
‘Don’t worry,’ she replied crisply. ‘I’ll make sure your mess
is nicely tidied up.’
Jacob’s face relaxed, his lips softening. ‘What would I do
without you, Mireille?’ he said contentedly.
‘What indeed?’ Mireille smiled enigmatically. ‘You should
go,
mon cher
. Bloomberg will not be happy if you keep him
waiting.’
Jacob nodded. ‘We’ll speak soon, okay?
Au ’voir
.’
‘
Au ’voir
.’ Mirelle raised a hand in farewell as Jacob left
her office.
She stood there, perfectly poised, one foot in front of the
other, watching his wide back shoulder through the doorway.
He waved at Cinnamon as he passed, acknowledging the existence of a lowly assistant where many tycoons would not; Jacob
always had such lovely manners, Mireille observed with
approval. She had been fashion director of
Style
for fifteen
years, but she had known him much longer, ever since she had
been a ballerina, in fact. Their sexual relationship had long
since faded: Jacob preferred his women to be no older than
their early twenties, precisely the age Mireille had been when
they first met. But Jacob had encouraged her ambition to work
in fashion, helped her get her first job on
French Style
, and
watched with satisfaction her meteoric rise, her move to New
York and her dramatic success at his flagship publication.
Because the truth was that, as far as Mireille was concerned,
she truly was at the top of her own pinnacle. She had absolutely no desire to occupy the editor’s chair, to balance the
competing demands of advertisers and designers, to play politics, do interviews, be in the public eye. Mireille shuddered at
the mere thought. Discretion and privacy were crucial to her.
She had no wish to be the figurehead of
Style
, to have the press
assume that they could poke around in her personal life.
Her style was typically French, classic and elegant; she
never wore the type of clothes that were in fashion that
season and would date just as quickly, considering that kind
of bandwagon-jumping utterly inappropriate for a woman in
her early fifties. As a result, she was rarely photographed at
the shows for fashion magazines, which limited themselves
to a picture of her if they needed to represent French chic,
with her Hermès scarves, fitted dresses and soft leather shoes.
Her name was known by everyone inside the fashion industry, but very few outside.
Mireille’s creativity was not expressed through her own
clothes, but in the pages of the magazine that was as much her
own as the editor’s. Her imagination was seemingly limitless,
her flights of fancy extraordinary, her relationship with the
most talented and avant-garde photographers unparalleled.
She had an eye for up-and-coming models, artists, designers,
and her name was spoken in revered tones from Tokyo to Paris,
Milan to London. Victoria Glossop could edit a magazine
better than anyone currently in publishing, but Mireille
Grenier’s reputation as a stylist was just as high in the industry
as Victoria’s.
There will be clashes, Mireille thought, pursing her lips at
the inevitable prospect. What a bore. I had just trained Jennifer
up so nicely. But what can you do? Jacob decides, and we must
all follow along.
There was a very good reason Jacob decided to focus on a
publishing empire all those years ago, she reflected. Magazines
are full of women. Publishing is full of women. And Jacob does
so love to tell women what to do.
Time for her to deal with the Jennifer situation. She reached
up a hand to touch her scarf, ensuring that it was correctly
positioned, and left her office, not deigning to tell Cinnamon
where she was headed. Halfway down the long, white-painted
corridor, Zarina, Jennifer’s assistant, came running to meet her.
‘Mireille,’ she said quickly. ‘Could you please come?
Jennifer’s started to break things and I don’t know what to do.’
Despite the gravity of the situation, Mireille was pleased to
see that Zarina, unlike Cinnamon, was keeping her cool; her
voice was still even, her demeanour urgent but not panicked.
Nodding her head in approval, Mireille led the way to Jennifer’s
corner office, the mirror-twin of Mireille’s own on the north
side of the building. The sounds emanating from it had altered;
Jennifer had stopped howling and was now, as Zarina had
reported, smashing things. Mireille paused in the doorway,
assessing the situation. Mugs, glasses, heavy silver photograph
frames were strewn at Jennifer’s feet, and she stood, panting
heavily, in front of her desk, trying to wrestle the keyboard of
her computer free from its attaching cable, presumably so she
could smash that too.
‘Jennifer!’ Mireille said sharply, her voice low as always, but
laden with such authority that Jennifer jumped, the keyboard
dropping from her hands. It dangled from its cable, hanging off
the desk at an extreme angle. Jennifer’s expression was both
guilty and furious as she turned to look at Mireille, Zarina
hovering at her shoulders.
‘He’s
fired
me!’ Jennifer said, gasping in shock as she said
the words. ‘Can you believe it? He’s
fired
me!’
Mireille contemplated Jennifer. Tall and imposing, Jennifer
cut an impressive figure, with a head of cascading dark curls
and large blue eyes whose whites were now streaked with red
that matched her flushed face. Jennifer had what Mireille
considered an unfortunate predilection for wearing the latest
trends, even if they didn’t suit her, and today she was dressed
in a pale green knee-length knit dress, belted at the waist with
a silk obi, which flattered neither her size nor her shape. The
dress was dolman-sleeved, and its arms flapped like bat wings
as Jennifer, getting her second wind, grabbed the keyboard
again and dragged it towards her, pulling it free from the monitor by brute force.
‘I’ve given my
life
to this job!’ she wailed, lifting one knee
and trying to smash the keyboard over it. ‘My entire
existence
!
I’ve barely seen my kids in two years – I’ve put on weight
because I don’t have time to work out any more – I’ve done a
fantastic job and I had two more years –
two more years
– on
my contract. I told Jacob when he offered me the editorship
that I wanted four years to make all the changes I had planned,
and I made him put it in the damn contract because I
know
what he’s like, I
know
he has his favourites, and I’ve never been
one of them . . .’
Mireille’s eyes narrowed. ‘You are getting an excellent settlement,’ she interrupted coldly. ‘These things happen. Jacob is
being extremely generous. He is not going to challenge the payoff terms in any way.’
‘What do I care!’ Jennifer screamed. ‘I want my job. I
love
this job. Jacob’s completely humiliated me – everyone will be
laughing at me. Everyone!’
She whacked the keyboard so hard into her knee that she
yelped in pain.
‘Ow! Fuck!’ she yelled, turning and throwing the keyboard
like a discus across the room. It crashed into the glass of the
window which, fortunately, was much too hardened to break.
‘I’m a damn laughing-stock! I did a fantastic job here – and I’m
being kicked out
despite
that, just for some stuck-up, snooty
English bitch who used to suck Jacob’s cock!’
Mireille stiffened. She had been prepared to allow Jennifer
to let off some steam, but this was completely unacceptable.
She shot a sharp glance at Zarina; following her unspoken
instruction, Zarina turned to lift a large vase of flowers from a
shelf beside her, handing it to Mireille. In one swift movement,
Mireille removed the lily arrangement from the vase and
dumped it into the dustbin that Zarina had grabbed from
behind the door and was holding out to her. Mireille took two
paces towards Jennifer, angled the vase and threw the water it
contained directly into the contorted red face of the now
ex-editor of