Spring Collection (11 page)

“I could make you a steak right here,” she offered, unfolding the strategy that had come to her seconds before. “The broiler works and I happen to have a steak in the fridge. And there’s a bottle of gin in the pantry. And vermouth … and even …” she searched for inspiration.

“Even?”

“… cocktail onions! I could make a Gibson. It’s one of my talents.”

“I’d walk a mile for a Gibson.”

“Well, that settles it, doesn’t it?” Justine said with a look of serene hospitality. Aiden Henderson was about to share the only thing she knew how to cook. They could hammer out the business details later.

I
got the sleaze-ball message the instant we walked into the lobby and smelled a combination of expensive cigars mixed with rich man’s cologne. The Plaza-Athénée is one of the top five-star luxury hotels in the world but it attracts far more than its fair share of creeps, many of whom I saw planted in their Valhalla, the deep armchairs that were scattered all over the large lobby in cozy groups.

I’m sure that those very same Fat Cats had been there the last time I’d been in Paris over a year ago when I’d stayed at the much less expensive La Trémoille around the corner. They were international-style iffy guys, definitely not family men, at their ease, sipping drinks, sending faxes, getting phone calls and waiting for exactly the sight our little band presented. Three Magnificent Girls Three. Since the Plaza is right on the Avenue Montaigne, across from Dior and surrounded by other dress houses, it’s the red hot center of town for checking out new arrivals.

“Come on, kids, follow me,” I said firmly to my charges, herding them across the lobby to the reception desk and slapping down all our passports. I’d been to Paris twice before, to check out the busy French agency scene. I’d never been a chaperone before, and my new role brought out my leadership qualities. Without turning around I could tell that we had become the attraction du jour. Who could be blamed for staring at three gloriously towering girls all wearing skin-tight
cross-country skiing pants, down-filled parkas and those Army boots that models were into this winter?

Finally we got to the third floor where we were billeted, accompanied by a small mob of tip-hungry hotel flunkies who didn’t allow us to carry anything but our requisite backpacks. Before I found my own room I made sure that each girl had a suite, as promised. Except for Jordan, who kept her cool, they were like puppies, rusing around and opening doors, switching closet lights off and on, exclaiming over the flower arrangements and baskets of fruit and iced champagne waiting in tall coolers, even bouncing on the brocade- and satin-covered beds, while Mike Aaron, curse his voyeuristic photographer’s heart, recorded it all for
Zing
.

He was good, I had to admit it. He’d been working steadily and inconspicuously since we all met at JFK and by now my models took his presence for granted. They’d forgotten that they were starring in an epic of photojournalism and behaved as freely as if he wasn’t always training a camera on them, with two more loaded cameras around his neck. I was nervous enough without the added strain of finding a lens looking up my nostrils at unexpected moments.

“I’m
not
your story.” I’d gone over to set him straight as we were waiting to board in the departure lounge. “The girls are. So bug out, Aaron. I can’t stand having my picture taken, especially since you’re forever creeping up on me.”

He’d looked down at me and favored me with what he probably imagined was a sincerely wounded look. Manipulative must be his middle name, I thought, taking inventory of the changes in him since he’d graduated from Lincoln. Basically he’d turned from a tall, agile, diabolically attractive boy into an even more attractive man. Dark hair, dark eyes, great everything … the same face of my countless dreams, but resistible now that I’d been immunized by the passage of years. Yeah, I know he had something new; his major reputation, the vitality of real achievement, the inward
substance won when a person has grown into his power. So what? I wasn’t going to let him dominate our trip, the way every successful photographer figures it’s his God-given right to do.

“Maxi told me,” Mike protested, “that Justine was an integral part of the story. Since I haven’t got Justine, you’re it, pal, I’ve got no choice. Everyone they have contact with is part of the story. So how come you’re camera shy? No, don’t bother to tell me, it’s your nose, isn’t it?”

He grabbed me by my arms and turned me around to the light and before I could force myself out of his grip, he’d subjected me to a rapid appraisal from every angle except the back of my head. I felt as if I were something for sale that was unquestionably a fake, the only question being, a fake
what?
Every blink of his eye announced, “Get the hell out of my way, I’m in charge here and you’re not.”

“Nothing wrong with the schnoz,” he finally said as if to reassure me.
Me!
I was so furious on behalf of the insult to my fine nose that I sputtered and couldn’t get the words out before he continued. “Half the duchesses in Italy have one just like it,” he said, as if he were giving me news I was too dumb to know. “American women don’t understand the appeal of a real nose. Someday I’ll explain it to you. If I have time, that is. You could probably stand to lose a couple of pounds, pal, but personally I’m not offended by a woman who’s a bit zaftig. And you’re a terrific contrast to the girls. You’ll make the readers understand the huge difference between models and ordinary people, they’ll be able to relate to you.”

Then Mike Aaron, that insulting pond scum, had the incredible balls to actually smile at me, right into my eyes, a patented smile if ever I’d seen one, as if I, poor mere mortal, was going to be so impressed by eye contact—be still my heart!—and his cocky show of perfect teeth that I wouldn’t mind his using me as an example of Everywoman. If he’d given me that smile years ago, when I was a freshman in high school, I bet
I’d have fainted. I
know
I’d have fainted. Forward, into his arms … I was never one to lose an opportunity.

But today I was another person, tested and tempered by time, all passion spent, as someone once said.

“Justine modeled professionally for years, Big Game,” I managed to say coldly, but without sounding irritated. “I’m a civilian and that changes the rules.”

“ ‘Big Game’? Nobody’s called me that since I was a kid.”

“ ‘Big Game Aaron,’ the boy wonder of Abraham Lincoln,” I sneered, with a pretty terrific smile of my own. “Always came ready to play, yeah, that’s what they said. I was there when you lost to Erasmus.
Personally
lost, blew it all by yourself. That last crucial free throw, remember? What an air ball! It must have been ten feet short. Bad luck, Big Game, or was it, could it have been … 
nerves
?”

“You are one mean bitch!”

“Got it in one, kid. Congratulations. So keep out of my face!”

And he had, more or less. He certainly hadn’t tried that smile on me again and if I happened to be in the shot he was getting, at least I knew it wouldn’t be a close-up. I don’t think Mike wanted to hear more about his sports career. Even the best players have off-days and he couldn’t know that I’d only watched him play his senior year, which had been, the Erasmus Hall game aside, fucking brilliant.

I left Mike and Maude with the girls, who were clustered together, leaning, no doubt photogenically, over a balcony and getting their first breath of Paris air. The clerk from Reception, who’d never left my side, led me to the door of my room and flung it open, motioning for me to walk in.

“What on earth is this?” I asked him.

“This is what Madame d’Angelle herself arranged for you.”

I looked around the gigantic corner suite. There was a vast, almost circular sitting room with three sets of
floor-to-ceiling French doors that opened onto balconies of their own. There were two magnificent bedrooms, one even bigger than the other, with large dressing rooms and gorgeous bathrooms, plus a guest john in the entrance hall. The whole thing was ridiculous.

“Madame d’Angelle didn’t know if you’d prefer to sleep on the Avenue Montaigne side or the courtyard, so she took both bedrooms,” he explained. “The courtyard side is perhaps more quiet.”

“But these flowers?” I flopped my hands at the lushly filled vases that stood everywhere I looked.

“I don’t know, Madame. I haven’t read the cards.” He gave me that nervous shoulder twitch known as the Gallic shrug, as if the French had invented it.

“May I summon the maid to unpack for Madame?”

“Yeah, sure, why not? And please get me a Valium on ice. The big blue one, not the little yellow one.”

“Madame?”

“Never mind.” I’d finally realized that all this had been intended for Justine. When had she sent the fax saying that she wasn’t coming? When had Necker gotten the news? Not before this morning, obviously, or I wouldn’t be surrounded by so many flowers that there was every chance I’d get hay fever in the middle of winter. Frankie, I said to myself, enjoy it while you have the chance, tomorrow you’ll be moved to a broom closet.

“Madame d’Angelle left me this note to deliver to you by hand,” he said as he was leaving.

I read this note over twice. This was a clear-cut command performance with no chance to refuse. How could Necker be so cold-blooded that he’d use Gabrielle to invite Justine to dinner in a group instead of arranging his meeting with her himself?

Then I started thinking about alternatives. The girls would be thrilled to be invited to a dinner party their first night in Paris and if we didn’t celebrate somehow they’d be disappointed. And did I really expect Necker to make an ordinary phone call to Justine? Wasn’t a party, with other people around to cushion things, the best way to handle this tense meeting?

On reflection, I thought the plan was as good a one as could be worked out. Talk about your awkward situations! There was only one problem, Justine wasn’t in Paris. No, make that two problems. She wasn’t and
I was
.

I left the maid to unpack the suitcase full of new clothes I hadn’t seen yet and, since I still didn’t know their room numbers, I went down the wide corridor to find the girls and tell them about dinner. Standing by the elevator I spied Mike bending with what looked like tender interest over the hand of an unknown blond who had her back to me. As fast a worker as ever, I thought scornfully, and walked past him without stopping.

“Frankie, wait up! Meet poor, unfortunate Peaches Wilcox,” he commanded.

I turned to say hello to the world’s merriest widow, who looked as if she were tap dancing happily somewhere in the neighborhood of thirty-six. Whoever had done her face had done real good.

“Hi, neighbor,” she drawled. “Isn’t it wonderful!
We’re all on the same floor! I’ve been reading all about this Cinderella story in
Women’s Wear
—I’m so thrilled to be in on the action. Can I give a party for everybody just as soon as possible? Introduce the girls to some cute guys?”

“We’d love it,” Mike Aaron answered for me. “Peaches bruised a couple of fingers skiing,” he explained, still holding her injured hand solicitously, “so she left Saint-Moritz … can’t grasp her ski pole tightly enough.”

“Do you know anything more frustrating than having to sit around a hotel when everyone else is charging down the mountain?” She flashed a smile even I, critic though I am, had to admit looked as if not only the friendliness but the teeth themselves were genuine.

“Golly, no,” I agreed through my very own original teeth. “I just hate it when that happens.”

“Mike photographed me for a story on the most glamorous women in Texas,” she said demurely. “That’s how we got to know each other. Isn’t it a coincidence that we’d bump into each other here?”

“I just love it when that happens.”

“So do I,” Mike said, giving me a dirty look. “You trying to find the girls?” he asked.

“That seems to be my lot in life.”

“They’re all in Maude’s room, telling her, on the record, how they lost their virginity. I had to leave. It was much too graphic for me and I just hate it when that happens.”

“Thanks, Aaron,” I said and charged off down the hall.

“Room 311” he yelled after me.

I knocked on the door of 311, breathing fire. Not one of my girls had ever been interviewed before. They had no idea of how even a few words could be twisted and quoted out of context by any magazine writer, particularly Maude Callender. She opened the door, frowning when she saw me. Her ascot was off and her buttoned boots were lying on the floor. So were all my
charges, sprawled out, eating enormous club sandwiches from a pile on a platter and drinking Cokes.

“Have you girls been read your Miranda Rights?” I asked angrily.

“Astonishing,” Maude said acidly, “all three of them turn out to be virgins. Who would have bet money on that?”

“Isn’t that why
Zing
is calling this story ‘Innocents Abroad’?” Jordan asked, darting me a private look that might as well have been a wink.

“We thought that was the reason we were picked,” April added, lifting that head of hers that lacked only a tiara to finish it properly. “At least I know I did.”

“I’ve been kissed,” Tinker offered, plaintively, her million-dollar pout working overtime. “ ‘Soul kissed,’ I think he called it. Does that count? It was only the one time and I didn’t like it much.”