Shades of Fortune (53 page)

“You see? I think he's bluffing.”

“Perhaps. We'll see.”

They sit in silence for a while as the room grows darker. Mimi reaches out and switches on a lamp. “Well, thank you, darling, for trying to help out with this,” she says at last. “Thank you for putting up with this … this family of thieves and varlets that I seem to have. The Magnificent Myersons! We're quite a bunch, aren't we?”

“Oh, it's been worth it,” he says with a small smile.

“Has it? Has it really, darling?” In the distance, the telephone rings, and presently Felix appears at the door.

“Mr. Michael Horowitz for you, ma'am.”

“Oh, yes. I need to talk to him.” She rises and steps into the library to take the call.

“Michael,” she says. “Thank you for calling back.”

“Hi, kiddo. Sorry to call you at home, but your message said it was important.”

“It is,” she says. “I'm calling to ask you a favor, Michael.”

“You sound in a little better mood than you were in the last time I saw you.”

“Actually, I'm not.”

“Then shoot. What's the favor?”

“I see you've bought tickets to my launch benefit.”

“That's right.”

“May I ask why?”

“It sounded like a good party,” he says. “And it's for a good cause.”

“Is that all? Michael, please be honest with me. Let's be honest with each other. We used to be honest with each other. I know you've been buying up our stock. I know you've approached certain cousins of mine and offered to buy up their stock. You're trying a takeover, aren't you? There's already been talk in the industry about something happening at Miray. People have noticed the way our stock's been reacting. They're asking questions. They know something's behind it. It won't be long before the financial press gets wind of this, and when that happens there won't be anything that you or I can say or do about what they print. But do me a favor, Michael. At least give me a chance to make a counterproposal to my stockholders before you make your announcement. I mean, there used to be a certain amount of ethics and etiquette in business, didn't there? If we're going to fight, let's fight like ladies and gentlemen.”

“Or like the lovers we used to be,” he says.

“Please, Michael. I'm quite serious.”

“You keep talking takeover, Mimi. I told you before: I'm buying Miray for my portfolio because I think it's a good company. I'm also buying International Harvester for the same reason. If that's made your stock go up, well, that's good for me, and it's good for you, too, isn't it?”

“Michael, I just don't believe you. Please be honest. I mean, you have every right to want to take over my company. I respect that right, it's a fact of life in today's marketplace. And I have every right to do what I can to stop you. But, please, don't use my party as some kind of forum to announce your intentions. I would consider that a very unkind and very unfair thing to do.”

“I was planning to come to that party as a private individual,” he says, sounding hurt. “Purely as a private individual. I wasn't planning to make any announcement there.”

“Are you sure? Is that a promise? Because the focus of this party has got to be my new perfume—and my new ad campaign. And the library. That's why I'm giving it. The focus can't be turned to Michael Horowitz and his plans, whatever they are.”

“Look,” he says, “you're giving this party. You're the hostess. If my hostess doesn't want me at a party, I won't be there. That's all there is to it. I'll give my tickets to somebody else.”

“Even your
presence
at the party could add fuel to the rumors, Michael. The press will be there. They could ask you questions.”

“Don't you think I know how to handle the press? Anyway, I just told you. If you don't want me, I won't be there. I don't go to parties where I'm not wanted. I've just been disinvited, kiddo.”

“I can't
prevent
you from going, Michael. It's just that I want everything to be perfect on the seventeenth.”

“And I want everything to be perfect
for
you. But, frankly, Mimi, you disappoint me.”

“Why?”

“Did you really think I'd use your party to make some kind of grandstand play, and steal your thunder? Did you really think I'd jump up on the stage, grab the microphone, and say, ‘Ladies and gentlemen, you're looking at the next president of Miray'? Because if you thought I'd do a thing like that to you, you don't understand me very well, or know me very well at all, and that makes me kind of sad.”

“But Michael, it's just that—”

“I'd never rain on your parade, Mimi. I thought you knew that. Frankly, the real reason I wanted to come was because I thought it would be fun to see you at
work
. That was the only reason, Mimi. Remember, years ago, I said I thought that you were the one who should run that company? I always sort of thought that my suggestion might have had something to do with what you're doing now, and the kind of woman you've become. Anyway, that's what I liked to think. And I just thought it would be kind of fun to watch you in action. That's all it was. Honest.”

“But you see—”

“Haven't I always tried to help you and your family out? Have you forgotten all of that? I've always thought I had your best interests at heart. Even when it was only a broken skate lace.”

What he is doing, she thinks, is what is known in the business as “credentialing himself”—reminding her of past services rendered and future favors owed.

“Then what about Grandpa's diaries?” she says. “Why are you holding on to them? Isn't it to put some kind of pressure on me?”

There is an audible sigh on the other end of the line. “Those damn diaries,” he says. “Why would I want them? To hurt you? No. To prevent you from being hurt by some not very pretty things you'll find in them. I told you that. If you want them so badly, you'll have them. I'll have them wrapped and shipped over to your office in the morning.”

“Well, in that case, Michael—”

“If there's one thing I am, it's a man of my word. I just didn't know you had such a low opinion of me, Mimi. That's what hurts.”

“In that case, please come to the party, Michael. I apologize for what I thought.”

“No, you've pretty much taken all the fun out of it for me, kiddo.”

“Please. Please, I want you to come.”

“No, no.…”

“Oh, please. I'm sorry.” She realizes she is completely reversing herself. “Please come to the party.”

“That you'd think that I'd get up on the stage, and—”

“I
don't
think that now.”

“Well, I'll think about it.”

“Please.”

“You think I'm a really rotten person, don't you?”

“No, I don't! Please be there.”

“I'll think about it,” he says again. “You kind of hurt me just now.”

She replaces the receiver in its cradle, wondering: Have I been manipulated? Has he bamboozled me again?

In the living room, she finds Brad standing at a window, looking out, one hand deep in his trousers pocket, the other holding his cocktail glass, and for a moment she is tempted to go to him, hook her hand into the space between his sleeve and jacket, and stand there with him for a moment, watching the gathering darkness and the lights coming up on the West Side. But something about his solitary stance deters her, and instead she sits in one of the twin sofas under the lamplight.

“What did Horowitz want?”

There is an unpleasant inflection, she thinks, in the way he pronounces the word “Horowitz,” almost making it “Horrorwitz,” as she has heard Michael's detractors pronounce his name before.

“The thing is, he can actually be very sweet,” she says. “There's a kind of little-boy quality about him that's kind of endearing—a guilelessness. He's very persuasive.”

“That's why he's a good salesman. What did your Granny Flo say about him? That he could sell umbrellas in the Gobi Desert? The guy could sell condoms on the front steps of the Vatican.”

Condoms, she thinks. “
Like one of your used condoms
.” She says, “Do you realize how much I've got at stake in this launch party, Brad?”

“A lot, I'm sure. A lot.”

“Fifty million dollars.”

“That's a lot.”

“The party's on the seventeenth, Brad. That's next Thursday. Will you be coming?”

“I'm going to try.”

“A funny thing happened in my office the other day. We were going over the plans for the party, and Mark Segal, our ad director, was showing us some of the press releases he's prepared. In one of them, it says that you and I will be co-hosts for the evening. I mentioned that you might not be able to make it, and Mark said, ‘Well, it doesn't matter.' I realize that sounds a little insensitive, but remember that all Mark thinks about is publicity. I just wanted to tell you that it
does
matter, Brad. It matters a great deal, to me. I want terribly to have you there.”

“Well, I'm certainly going to try.”

Then she says, “It's a woman who's been calling.”

“A woman?”

“The person I told you about, who calls and then hangs up. I answered a call the other day, when you were in Minneapolis. I identified myself. There was a little gasp at the other end of the line. It was a woman's gasp. Then she hung up.”

“I see.”

“Do you have any idea who would be doing this to us, Brad?”

Still facing the window, he says, “Yes, I do.”

He turns, but his face is in shadow, and she cannot read his expression. “Have you ever made a mistake, Mimi?” he asks her.

“Of course I have.”

“Well, I made one about three months ago. I got involved with a woman. She's a secretary in the office of one of our clients. Her name is—”

“Please,” she says quickly, “I don't want to know her name. Have you been having an affair with her, Brad?”

“I did. It was very brief, and I've tried telling her that it's over, but she's become very demanding. She wants me to marry her. She's been telephoning me at the office. She's telephoned me here. She's even come to the office. She's threatened to come here. The other day, she was waiting for me outside my building and tried to force her way into a taxi with me. Sometimes she sits on a bench across the street and watches this building. Actually, I was just looking out the window now to see if she was there again tonight.”

“Is she?”

“No, thank God.”

“Do you love her, Brad?”

“No. If I ever thought I did, I certainly don't now.”

“Is she … pregnant?”

“She says she is. I'm sure she's lying. We always took … precautions. I'm positive she's lying.”

“Still,” Mimi says, trying to keep her composure, trying to keep her poise, even though she feels herself about to be blown away, “how very unpleasant for you, darling!”

“Yes.” Then he says, “Look, Mimi. It was a mistake; I admit that. I've told her that. I've told her that I'm not going to marry her. I've told her I never want to see her again. I've told her I love my wife. I've told her I don't want a divorce—unless you want one, Mimi, now that you know about this. I've told her that if she can produce a letter from her doctor, certifying that she's pregnant, I'll pay for an abortion. She hasn't produced any such letter, which is why I'm sure she's lying. But I've told her that this is absolutely as far as I intend to go. Beyond that, she is out of my life as far as I'm concerned. But she still refuses to give up.”

“I see,” she says. She stands up quickly and runs her fingers through her hair. “I see that you've thought this whole thing through very carefully,” she says. “You've covered every point in your usual thorough, lawyer's way. You've thought of everything—including a letter from her
doctor!
You've thought of everything, except how I might feel. That somehow didn't enter your head—how I might feel about this! And do you know how I feel? I feel like used goods, that's how I feel! I feel dirty and abused and used and damaged, but perhaps to convince you of how I feel I should get a letter from
my
doctor certifying that! I hate you.”

“Have you ever thought about how I might feel?” he says quietly.

“How
you
might feel!
I
haven't been running off and cheating on you, and telling lies about where I had lunch—telling me you had your partners' lunch downtown, when I saw the two of you together at a table at Le Cirque! Do you think I'm
stupid?
I even found a letter from her, you know.”

“A letter?”

“Electric blue stationery. Monogrammed
R
. With a lot of silly yellow daisies on the border. Sound familiar? It was in the pocket of a suit you were sending to the cleaner's. Do you think I haven't known what's been going on? ‘You said you had an unhappy marriage,' she wrote. ‘You told me you loved me.' But I suppose you thought you were handling things very cleverly—until she decided to put the screws on you, if you'll pardon the expression, when she decided that you might be getting a little tired of screwing her!”

“I admit I've tried to let her down as gently as possible.”

“Oh, of
course!
We wouldn't want her to make a
scene
, would we? That wouldn't
do
. We wouldn't want her to make any sort of
fuss
, would we? Like a lawsuit, or a scandal, or publicity—because how would that look to the commission up in Albany that's considering you to fill out Senator Miller's term? Anything like that would put the kibosh on
that
, wouldn't it? Tut, tut. ‘Senate Appointee Accused of Marital Infidelity.' That just would not do! That's all you thought about, that's all you cared about: covering your ass! You never thought about how I might feel at all!”