Trading Up (41 page)

“Oh, I’m sure you didn’t,” Mimi said coldly. And then she walked off.

Janey thought about going after her—she didn’t want to have a problem with Mimi, especially when she was about to involve George in her secret project—but her attention was diverted by the sight of Wendy Piccolo sitting wedged between Selden and George.

George sat with an untouched martini in front of him, staring into the room with an attitude that indicated he was merely tolerating the situation until he could 18947_ch01.qxd 4/14/03 11:24 PM Page 217

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escape for home. But Selden was bent toward Wendy, and they were giggling as if sharing a private joke. Their heads were so close together they were nearly touching; Wendy’s large brown eyes were luminous and her short, dark hair gleamed like a helmet in the pinkish light of the club.

For a moment, Janey was struck with anger, her only thought being how could Selden do this to her on her big night, when she was the star, and in front of such a crowd of people. But she recovered herself; after all, on the face of it there was nothing unusual going on. Selden looked up at her and smiled, while at the same time Wendy’s eyes slid up and registered her presence. Again, there was nothing particularly unusual in these gestures. But to Janey, they were like warning signposts at the start of a long, dark tunnel—a tunnel that sloped downward with an unpleasant surprise at its end. For immediately after acknowledging her, Selden and Wendy went back to their conversation as if she were nothing more than a nuisance.

Janey’s immediate instinct was to find the most attractive man in the room and flirt outrageously with him, but at that moment George saw her and waved awkwardly, and with a sigh she slid into the banquette next to him. Mimi sat down next to Selden and immediately inserted herself into the conversation between Selden and Wendy, and with Selden’s attention momentarily diverted, Janey studiously ignored him by sagging against George in an attitude of exhaustion, and went so far as to allow George the intimate gesture of kissing her on the forehead.

“Have some of my drink, Janey,” he said, pushing his martini toward her. “You look beat.”

“And you’re not drinking at all.”

“Can’t on a weekday,” he said. “I’ll never understand why people in New York go out every night. Why are the biggest parties always on Monday nights, for instance? It ruins the rest of the week.”

“You’d think they had better things to do with their time . . .”

“But they don’t,” he said, smiling at his joke. “Now take you, Janey,” he said.

“You’re a supermodel, but I always think of you as being a serious person. I still think you can—and ought—to do more with your life.” For a moment, she brightened, and said quickly, “Actually George, there
is
a project that I’ve been thinking we might work on together . . .”

“That so?” he said.

“But I don’t want to discuss it here.” She looked at him meaningfully and said,

“Maybe we could have dinner?”

“Anytime. Just so long as I check with Mimi to make sure she doesn’t have anything else going on that night.”

“Did you see Comstock?” she asked casually.

“I saw you talking to him. I thought he was our sworn enemy,” George said.

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His intimate tone filled her with pleasure, and she was instantly reminded of how attractive she’d found him that night, two months ago, when she’d gone to see him in the new apartment.

“Oh, he is,” she said eagerly. “But in these circles he’s unavoidable.” Turning her head sideways, so that she was nearly whispering in his ear, she said, “He said things that frightened me, George. I’m scared. I was wondering if maybe I should give him that money back.”

“Don’t you do any such thing!” he said, in a vehement whisper. He pushed back from her a little and turned to face her squarely. “Don’t you understand what that will say about
me
?”

“
You,
George?” she said with an incredulous laugh. “I’m sorry, but I hardly think it affects
you
.”

“Oh, but it does, you see. Because you’ve gotten me involved now. I went to an awful lot of trouble with my lawyers to get them to make that call, and they did.

And from what I hear they took care of it pretty well. So if you go and give Comstock the money now—well, it makes me and my lawyers look like fools. It’s nothing short of an insult!”

Janey was instantly horrified; she usually never made these kinds of mistakes in judgment. She suddenly realized that she had absolutely no intention of paying Comstock back, and had only mentioned it to George in an attempt to remind him of their special bond. And George, of course, had taken her seriously. “My God, George,” she said, putting her hand to her heart, thereby drawing his eyes to her breasts. “You’re right, of course. I don’t know anything about business and how these things are done. But I
did
come to you for advice first, before I did anything.

So there’s no harm done.”

George regarded her through narrowed eyes, while Janey, panicked that she’d completely blown her chance of doing future business with him, looked at him pleadingly, biting her lip. “Don’t be angry at me, George, please,” she whispered. “I didn’t mean it. I was just kidding . . . to see how you’d respond . . .” George looked at her as if he didn’t believe her, and then, as if he’d just heard a particularly amusing joke, laughed out loud.

“You’re a wild card, Janey,” he said, shaking his head.

Janey breathed a sigh of relief. The moment of danger had passed, and feeling her confidence return, she slipped her hand under the table and squeezed George’s leg. “So are you,” she said seductively.

But suddenly, Wendy broke into their conversation. Mimi had engaged Selden, leaving Wendy out in the cold, and now Wendy had turned to George as if she were determined to annex him next. She was, Janey thought angrily, one of those women who must always be the center of attention with men, although if you judged her 18947_ch01.qxd 4/14/03 11:24 PM Page 219

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solely on her looks, you wouldn’t have thought she would have the audacity. “Did I hear you say business?” she asked, with an inappropriate sort of eagerness. “I love business. I read the
Wall Street Journal
every day.” The remark made Janey want to laugh out loud and at the same time filled her with a bilious jealousy.
She
read the
Wall Street Journal,
too—if not every day, then at least a couple of times a week—and somehow, the fact that this little creature read it as well seemed to demean her own efforts, revealing them to be a pathetic and obvious stab at appearing intelligent. Aloud Janey said smugly, “Of course, we’re talking about business. George is a businessman,” to which Wendy replied to George, “Oh, I
know
. I read about you in the papers all the time!” But George, unlike Selden, wasn’t the least bit interested, and could only be bothered to reply with a grunt and a dismissive, “Well, I hope not too often.” Janey took the opportunity to lean over to Selden. “Darling,” she said, “I’m so very tired.

Do you mind if we go home?”

“I’ve been waiting to go home all night,” he said. And then added, “I’ve told Wendy we’d give her a lift home. She’s on the way.” It turned out that Wendy wasn’t at all “on the way,” as she lived in a shabby brownstone on the Lower East Side, and for much of the ride Janey had to endure Selden and Wendy’s discussing the pros and cons of various obscure plays they’d seen in the last ten years. At last, sensing Janey’s boredom, Wendy asked brightly,

“Janey, have
you
ever thought about acting?” and Janey stared at her in shock for a moment, before replying coldly, “But I
am
an actress.” Wendy looked from Janey to Selden in a moment of confused embarrassment, which was so perfectly executed that Janey couldn’t help but wonder if she’d made the remark deliberately. But Selden, completely unaware of Wendy’s treacherous behavior, took Janey’s hand and said proudly, “Janey was in that action-adventure movie. You remember . . .”

“Oh yes, I do,” Wendy said. “I’m sorry, though. I never saw it. It’s not the kind of movie I normally go to.”

“Janey’s got a huge following of pimply adolescent boys,” Selden said.

“Oh, I’m sure,” Wendy said, with an obvious stab at kindness. “And of balding adolescent men as well!”

They laughed as Janey fumed in silence, and when the limousine finally slid in front of Wendy’s building and she had exited with gay promises of a future dinner, Janey turned to Selden and said coldly, “Well. She certainly is a funny little thing.” But Selden, whether through ignorance or a willful decision to ignore her true meaning, simply said, “Oh yes. She’s got a great sense of humor. She really is a remarkable girl . . .”

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“Oh, but she is. She’s bright as a whip and completely self-educated. She comes from the Appalachian Mountains in Kentucky . . . I think most of her family is illiterate. You’d never guess that she comes from a family of coal miners . . .”

“Coal miners!” Janey snorted. “Come on, Selden. Surely you don’t believe that.

It’s just a little too good to be true . . .”

“Why shouldn’t I believe it?” he asked.

“Well, in any case, she’s madly in love with you. She just about admitted it at the bar.”

In the brief silence that followed, Janey fumed that if there was nothing to this idea, Selden would have immediately laughed it off. Instead, he turned to her, and, with a confused look that indicated a struggle for comprehension, he said, “Janey, are you
jealous
?”

Janey was still prepared to be angry, but she suddenly saw how ridiculous she was being. Selden was the last person who would be unfaithful. But it might be useful for him to understand that he wasn’t ever to toy with her affections, and so, with a toss of her head, she emitted an incredulous, “Me? Jealous of Wendy Piccolo? I think not.”

“Well, how do you think
I
felt,” he asked, squeezing her hand, “watching you up there on the runway, knowing that all those men were ogling you . . .”

“I would think it would make you feel very, very special,” she said, warming up to him. Now that the topic had returned to her, where it belonged, she suddenly felt secure again.

He leaned forward and kissed her on the cheek, snuggling in next to her. “Are you excited about Christmas?” he asked eagerly.

“I guess so,” she said, in the childish teasing tone they’d used with each other when they were first married. “But I do wish you would tell me where we’re going, Selden Rose. Otherwise, how am I supposed to know what to pack?”

“I told you, summer clothes,” Selden said proudly. Janey flinched slightly at the words, the proper term for vacation clothes being “resort wear.” But she couldn’t expect Selden to know
that
. “I just hope it’s St. Barts . . . ,” she said.

“It might be,” he said with a playful shrug of his shoulders. “And then again, it might not. Remember, it’s a surprise.”

She giggled and slid down into the seat next to him, suddenly reminded of her own scheme—and thinking about how, if everything went according to plan, she’d soon have a nice little surprise for
him
as well.

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t w e lv e

the fr iday morning after the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show found Mimi in her apartment, sitting at one end of the fourteen-foot mahogany dining room table.

Bowing her head, she stared down at the lump of scrambled eggs on her plate in disgust. There was something quite wrong with her, she thought: She was raven-ously hungry, but for the past several days, ever since Zizi had ended their affair, the sight, and in particular the
smell,
of food had been making her nauseous. She picked up her fork, scooping up a small bit of egg in the hope of getting it down, but the eggs were a sickening yellowish gray, and she gave up, wiping her mouth with the corner of a linen napkin instead. The eggs, no doubt, were a sign of the cook’s displeasure in having to prepare this meal—it meant extra work and she had to come in early. But Mimi had been firm . . .

In the misguided notion that they were, indeed, a family, George insisted that he and Mimi have breakfast with his boys. And so, scrambled eggs, sausage, bacon, and toast sat on the sideboard on warming platters, accompanied by freshly squeezed orange and grapefruit juice, a variety of jams, and a dish of marmalade.

Georgie Jr. stood in front of the sideboard, surreptitiously stuffing sausages nearly whole into his mouth. George looked up and caught him, and with a warning

“Georgie” told him to sit down at the table.

“But I want another . . .” Georgie protested.

“You’ve had enough,” George said, frowning as he unfolded his napkin. Lately, it seemed that George had finally come around to the realization that Georgie Jr.

did, indeed, need to lose weight, and it was beginning to annoy him. Nevertheless, he persisted in believing in some kind of fantasy that once in Aspen, Georgie would 18947_ch01.qxd 4/14/03 11:24 PM Page 222

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miraculously shed pounds, thanks to all the exercise he’d be getting. But Mimi knew better: During the past two Christmases, they’d hired an all-day ski instructor for the boys each day, but somehow, Georgie had always managed to escape, and on more than one occasion had been run to ground in the local supermarket . . .

“If I can’t eat, what am I supposed to do then?” Georgie demanded of his father.

“You can sit and watch us eat,” George said.

That was cruel, Mimi thought, but she said nothing.

She glanced over at the sideboard, where Jack was meticulously cutting a slice of toast into six tiny pieces. Usually, the marmalade sat untouched, but on this particular morning, Jack apparently found it tempting, because he spread one of the pieces with the gooey orange jam.