Shades of Fortune (58 page)

August 10, 1914

I have just learned the identity of the little blue-eyed girl at temple. She is Fleurette Guggenheim, of the smelting family, and the man who sits beside her is her father, the great Morris Guggenheim, and the other men in the pew are his brothers. They are Swiss Jews, which explains the blue eyes, fair hair, and they are very rich
—
richer even than Rockefeller! This means that I will have no chance with her. Still, it is pleasant when she turns and sees me there, and smiles at me with those eyes. In French her name means “a little flower.” That is the perfect description for her.…

August 17, 1914

Today we spoke for the first time, just a pleasant “Hello, how are you?” “I am fine, and you?” after the temple services. I really think she begins to like me. Is it possible? Should I ask her if I can walk her home? Should I ask her if I could pay a call? This will be very difficult, because she is always surrounded by her father, and all those powerful-looking uncles, who are very protective of her, which of course is as it should be.…

September 12, 1914

Fleurette, Fleurette
—
oh, my fragrant little summer flower! Summer is fading now, and so are all my hopes, for you are forever unattainable. Yet you are forever with me, in my thoughts and in my dreams, in my heart and in my soul
—
your sweet and gentle voice, your gentle eyes, my gentle Fleurette. Do you ever think of me? Do you sometimes dream of me as I dream of you? There is a song they're playing everywhere
—“
You're the Only Girl for Me
”—
and that is the song I hum in my head when I think of you, which is always, and yet it is never to be. Oh, Fleurette, my love, my love. This diary today sends only sweet thoughts to you.…

October 9, 1914

I cannot believe my good fortune! I think I must be dreaming! The Guggenheims have offered Fleurette to me! It is their proposal! They asked me today if I would consider taking Fleurette's hand in marriage! It is beyond my wildest hopes and dreams, that they should think that I am good enough for their Fleurette. Surely God has made me the most blessed of men.…

November 12, 1914

The wedding date has been chosen, January 5 of next year, and the rabbi has been retained. It seems an eternity from now, but they say that there are many things that must be done in preparation, and of course they are right. She asks that I call her Flo, which is what her family calls her. Flo. Flow. Yes, you make my blood flow stronger, my little Flo
.

January 5, 1915

My wedding day! And today, if that were not enough, Flo's father and her uncles presented me with their wedding gift
—
her dowry of one million dollars! I am sitting here, staring at the cheque, and cannot believe my eyes. I am already rich, but now I am three times rich
—
rich in happiness, in health, and in wealth as well. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all of the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the House of the Lord forever
.

Mimi had then flipped further backward, to the year 1912, the year that the momentous event that had changed all their lives had happened.

March 16, 1912

Stupid Leo! Poured too much coagulant into the red paint for Mrs. Spitzberg's kitchen. So viscid that it dries practically on the brush. Ruined, Leo said, wanted to throw it all out
—
two dollars' worth! Wait, I said. Idea! Sell it as paint for ladies' fingernails!

March 20, 1912

Bought case of nail polish bottles at Manufacturer's closeout. Investment: $10. Will fill all bottles from our 5-gallon drum, label each bottle “Three Alarm Quick-Drying Nail Polish,” sell up and down the street at 10¢ each
—
should be a nice profit!

April 3, 1912

Mrs. Feldman, 3065 Grand Concourse, loves “Three Alarm.” Wants more for her daughter in Canarsie
—
our first reorder!

May 7, 1912

Levy's drugstore wants to stock “Three Alarm.” Thinks we should raise the price to 15¢ per bottle. Ordered more bottles today. Mixing new batch.…

July 6, 1912

That Leo! He's telling everybody he “invented” Quick-Drying Polish! Him we're calling an inventor now! What a gonef!

She couldn't help wondering what he would have written in his diary about that visit of hers to his office in the spring of 1957, when she told him that she wanted to marry Michael. But of course the diaries did not go that far ahead in time. She did, however, as she flipped randomly through the volumes, find an entry for April of 1941 that reflected how he must have felt. The page bore the heading:

Inappropriate Members of This Family

1. Leo

2. Nate

3. Alice!!!!

4. Naomi (sometimes)

5. Other son (alas)

Though cannot truly say that Yrs. Truly has no faults, think it safe to say that Yrs. Truly has never done anything that was inappropriate, unsuitable, undignified. Proud of that. Must make sure that new little granddaughter marries well, someone appropriate, suitable. Never too soon to plan appropriate husband for her. Reminder: Keep eyes open for Right Man for her as years go by. Husbands, etc., must be suitable, no matter how many hearts are broken in the process. Are there worse things in life than broken hearts? Yes. Broken promises
.

“Love is a test,” he had written to her that summer in Europe.

Finally, she had turned to some of the diaries' most recent entries for 1941. She had read:

August 1, 1941

Leo knows where I keep these diaries. I must find a better hiding place, for he could use them against us! Where?
Leo has got to go!
Must put final plans into execution to drive him
OUT! NOW!

Then she had turned to the last entry of them all, which was also in some ways the most mystifying.

October 10, 1941

Henry has been “borrowing” money from Flo! Found out about it going through her canceled checks. $50 thou. she gave him! Why? What for? Henry earns PLENTY! What is the reason? Not Leo. Leo has been PAID OFF! Nate? Is Henry that STUPID? All evidence has been
destroyed!
Have had a word about this with Flo this evening. Flo is too soft-hearted with him
—
and too soft-hearted where $$$ is concerned. Will have a word with Henry about this in the morning. This has got to STOP! That damned Alice!

On that note, her grandfather's diaries ended. There are, of course, many thousands of more words that she has yet to read, but now it is time for her appointment with her aunt Nonie, which is much more important. She will get back to the diaries later.

“Miss Naomi Myerson is here,” her secretary says.

“Good. Please show her in,” Mimi says.

“Mimi,
darling,
” Nonie says, sweeping into the room in a red Trigère suit. “How wonderful to see you!” Mimi rises, and the two women greet each other with little pecks on the cheek.

“You're looking well, Aunt Nonie,” Mimi says, trying to keep her tone casual and family-friendly. This will not be an easy feat for her—nor will this be an easy interview—because, try as she may, she has never really been able to
like
her father's younger sister. For this reason, because of the possibility of tension between the two women, Mimi has asked that I not be present at this meeting, promising to tell me all about it later on.

“
Thank
you,” Nonie says, touching the collar of her jacket. “I picked this color just for you: lipstick red. Where shall I sit? Oh, not there—I'll clash. How about here on the sofa?” She seats herself and begins removing her matching red gloves, finger by finger. Then she crosses her knees, letting the heel of one red patent pump dangle fashionably from her toe so that the Delman label on the instep shows. “It seems ages since I've seen you, Mimi, dear,” she says. “Not since that night at your house, when your mother made that … rather unfortunate scene. Oh, well. By the way, how is darling Alice?”

“Very well,” Mimi says easily, and perches herself on the corner of her desk, deciding that this informal pose will seem less lady-executive than if she had seated herself behind the desk.

“Oh, that's
wonderful,
” Nonie says, a trifle too effusively. “It's a pity that Alice and I have never been really …
dose
. The great difference in our ages, I suppose.”

Mimi smiles, thinking that her mother and her aunt are almost exactly the same age. And you've never been close, she thinks, because you've been taught for years to despise my mother because neither she nor anyone else would have ever been good enough for your parents' treasured Henry. “I suppose that's it,” she says. “I wanted to see you, Aunt Nonie, because—”

“So this is the way you've redone Daddy's office,” Nonie says, looking around. “I
like
it, I really do. It's very ‘in,' isn't it? I'd heard that chintz is coming back. What are those?” she says, pointing to the stack of diaries.

“Oh, just some old books I'm thinking of buying.”

“Are you and Brad into collecting old books now? I thought it was Chelsea plates. Well, I suppose you can afford to collect whatever you want, you have the money. Me, I've always been the poor relation, as you know.”

“As a matter of fact, that's one reason why I wanted to talk with you, Aunt Nonie,” Mimi says, trying to begin the meeting again.

Nonie tilts her chin in the air as though balancing a feather on the tip of her nose. “And you know,” she says, “I've always thought that I could be sitting at that desk where you sit now. And I could be—if I'd been quick enough to grab the opportunity, before you pounced on it.”

Mimi decides to let this comment pass with an easy laugh.

“I'm not joking. I could have run this company.”

“I'm sure you could have, Aunt Nonie. But would you have wanted to? There are such a lot of headaches. For instance, right now—”

“But meanwhile, darling, I'm quite desperately looking forward to your launch party on the seventeenth. I'll quite definitely be there, and so, believe it or not, will Mother. She's even bringing her friend Rose Perlman. I said to her, ‘Mother, all they're going to be doing is airing a couple of Mimi's new little television commercials; you won't be able to
see
them.' She said, ‘Well, I can
hear
them, can't I? I watch television all the time, just by listening to it.' Isn't she a sketch?”

“She certainly is. Now what I—”

“And do you know what else she does? She turns off the television whenever she gets undressed to put on her nightie. She thinks the people on television can see her.”

“My, my. Well—”

“But, darling, you must have had a more important reason for wanting to see me than just to talk about Mother. Really, it's such an honor for me, the perennial poor relation, to be invited to the executive offices of the Miray Corporation! Little me, invited down here by the great Mimi Myerson! Surely you don't want
my
advice on anything, darling.”

“Not so much your advice,” Mimi says, leaning forward eagerly. “Your support, Aunt Nonie. I'm going to ask you for your help.”

“Oh, my goodness. Well, surprise, surprise. Well, tell me what I can do for you, darling. I'm putty in your hands.”

“I've been meeting with all the members of the family,” Mimi says. “All the family members who own Miray shares, including the Leo cousins, whom I'd never met before.”

“Most unattractive people, so I've been told.”

“Well, some are more attractive than others,” Mimi says with a little shrug. “But the thing is, what I'm trying to get is a consensus—a unanimous consensus of family approval of a plan Badger and I are working on, which will affect all of us.”

“I see,” Nonie says guardedly.

“What we suspect is that we've become the object of an unfriendly takeover. We're quite sure we know who's after us. It's Michael Horowitz. He owns more than four percent of us already, and he's already approached the Leo cousins and made attractive offers for their shares.”

“I see,” Nonie says, again guardedly.

“The plan—and this is Badger's plan, actually—is that we would take the company private again. If we were to go private, that would leave Mr. Horowitz out in the cold. We'd become a family-owned company again.”

“And how, pray, would you manage to accomplish this?”

“Going private is the exact opposite of what I did after Daddy died when I took the company public—but with a difference. Instead of a buyback of publicly held shares, which would cost us millions, we would telescope the stock. It's called a reverse split. For every thousand shares of old stock, for instance, we'd issue one share of new stock. Holders of less than a thousand shares would be paid for their stock in cash. There's another advantage to this. If we can do this, we figure we can reduce the number of Miray shareholders to less than three hundred, which means we would no longer be subject to SEC regulation. That in itself would save us a lot of money annually. Those savings could go into new-product development, as well as increased dividends to the remaining shareholders. Do you follow me, Aunt Nonie?”

“Well, what good are increased dividends to me?” Nonie says. “Everything that I own is in that damned trust. I can never get my hands on any of the principal. Even if you doubled the dividends, which I'm sure you wouldn't, I'd still be the poor relation, wouldn't I? How many shares does my trust own, anyway? I've never bothered to look at the statements, since they're quite meaningless to me.”