Trading Up (53 page)

was wearing only her bra and panties, and she flopped down onto Janey’s bed, giggling. “God, what a night!” she exclaimed. “That was fun, wasn’t it?” Janey laughed weakly. “What happened?” she asked.

“God, you were the life of the party,” Estella said, with a note of jealousy in her voice. Janey stared at her wide-eyed—she’d never been called “the life of the party” before—and Estella said, “Oh yes. You were dancing on the table at Le Jardinese.”

“Le Jardinese?” Janey said, and coughed. Slowly, it was all coming back to her: First there had been the party at Rasheed’s, which had gradually grown and grown, filling up with lots of swarthy young men—all of whom had European accents and seemed to be very rich—and lots of beautiful young women, including two or three famous models whom she recognized. Then there had been an outing to a club—

Le Jardinese, she supposed—where she seemed to spend hours and hours in the bathroom talking to some American girl who kept saying, “Don’t let them steal your soul.” But after that, the evening was a complete blank, and she said, “After Le Jardinese?”

“Oh, we came back here at about six in the morning,” Estella said, and yawned. “But you have nothing to worry about. You were so high Sayed gave you a Halcion and you fell asleep on the floor. Then someone dragged you in here I suppose.”

“Oh God. I’m never doing coke again . . .”

“Are you crazy? What we need right now is a little wake-up line,” Estella said, and she uncurled her fist, revealing a small paper packet. She scooped up some powder with her fingernail and held it under Janey’s nose.

“So,” she said slyly. “How much did he give you?”

“What?” Janey asked. She sniffed.

“Rasheed. How much money did he give you?”

Janey looked at her. “I guess that’s my business.”

“Just curious, that’s all,” Estella said.

“Three thousand dollars.”

Estella considered this for a moment, staring down at the packet and then carefully folding it up. “That’s more than he usually gives a girl. He must have meant some of it for me.”

“For
you
?” Janey exclaimed incredulously. “I was the one who . . .”

“Oh sure, but that’s not the deal. The deal is, if you bring him a girl and he has sex with her,
you
get five hundred dollars.” For a moment, Janey just stared at her, unwilling to comprehend the enormity of the situation. How was it possible . . .
was
it possible that someone, a supposed friend, could be so coldly calculating, could set her up and sell her like . . . an
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mal
? Turning away from Estella, she wiped her nose and said slowly, “I don’t ever intend to bring him any girls, Estella.”

Estella rolled over and regarded her with hard, glittering eyes. “Maybe
you
don’t, but I do,” she said. “I have to, you see? Obviously I can’t be having sex with Rasheed when I’m with Sayed. Especially as I’m trying to get him to marry me.

Besides, I don’t see what the big deal is. I helped you out and you help me out. You should be thanking me.”

“He gave me the money in thousand-dollar bills,” Janey hissed. “So I can’t exactly rip one in half, can I?”

Estella raised herself and sat cross-legged on the bed. “So give me a thousand, then.”

“No!”

“Come on, Janey. Don’t be crazy. You and I are girlfriends. We have to stick together in these things. Besides, you wouldn’t want anyone to find out, would you?” Janey felt herself whiten. How could she have allowed herself to get into this situation? She felt as if she’d fallen into a dark hole from which there was no escape, and pulling the covers over her shoulders, she gasped, “You wouldn’t.”

“Oh, I would do
anything,
” Estella said casually. “That’s the thing about me.

Nobody gets the better of me.” For a moment, the two women’s eyes locked, and Janey saw that she was stuck with Estella, stuck with her and what she had done.

She should never have trusted Estella; she wasn’t the kind of girl she should have been friends with at all. But Estella was practically the only person she knew in Paris, and now that she’d had sex with Rasheed, it felt like the incident would bind them together for life. There would be no getting away from her ever; her only choice was to continue on as if they
were
friends. And with a steady arm that belied the trembling she felt inside, she reached out and grabbed her purse from the side of the bed.

She unzipped the pocket tucked into the side of the purse, and drew out one of the bills. She held it out to Estella, who plucked it from her fingers and folded it neatly, tucking it into her bra. “You can consider the other five hundred next month’s rent if you want to,” she said evenly.

“Jesus, Estella,” Janey cried. “We’re . . .”

Estella patted Janey’s leg. “If you want to think about yourself that way, Janey, it’s your problem,” she said calmly. “
I
don’t and never will. Christ, be reasonable,” she added kindly. “These fucking Arabs have so much money, why
shouldn’t
we get some of it? We’re going to have sex with men anyway, so why not get something out it? Just because men are pigs . . . well, that’s not our problem, is it? Besides, it’s not like he hurt you or anything. It’s not like he took something away from you, is it?

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love with, and they’d treat you exactly the same way.” She stood up and stretched.

“Now, the good news is that Sayed really liked you. He said you can definitely come on the boat next week. Have you ever been to Saint-Tropez?” Janey shook her head.

“You’re going to love it!” Estella exclaimed. “It’s the most fun place in the world. If you thought last night was fun, wait until we hit La Voile Rouge . . . ,” and she went out of the room.

Janey sat staring after her. There was no way she was going to Saint-Tropez with Estella and Sayed. Tomorrow she would start looking for another apartment; she would lie to Estella and say that her brother was coming to Paris for the summer and she had to live with him; and when she ran into Estella she would be friendly but noncommittal, and eventually the whole thing would go away.

But the next day brought a fresh round of depressing go-sees, and it was the same the day after that, and on Wednesday she nearly cried when Jacques told her that even though she’d managed to get one ad campaign, if she didn’t get more work soon, he’d have to send her back to New York. So by the time Thursday came around and Estella handed her a plane ticket to Nice with her name on it, she was too confused and exhausted to refuse.

It was the path of least resistance. The one she always took.

At first, Saint-Tropez was every bit as glamorous as Estella had promised: Each day “officially” began at 2 p.m. with a group lunch at the beach restaurant 55 (pronounced Cinquant-Cinq); this was followed by the consumption of endless bottles of champagne at La Voile Rouge, where women took their tops off and danced on the tables; then there was a nap back on the boat followed by an exhausting round of parties that concluded in some club or another. No one went to bed before six, and it was a given that the women never paid: The French Riviera was only about one pleasure after another, and Janey quickly discovered that there was nothing that gave more happiness than pretty young things. Intelligence was not a requirement—in fact, it was frowned upon—and all that was demanded was a shallow sophistication, easily obtained with designer fashions and a willingness to find everything and everyone amusing, to overlook indiscretions (or to make witty comments about them), and to never reveal one’s true feelings.

But after a few days on Sayed’s yacht with Estella and various other reprobates, Janey began to see that there were higher levels to aspire to: Although Sayed was considered rich, he and his hard-partying friends certainly weren’t the richest, and everywhere she looked, she saw people who were more elegant and more sophisticated, and she began to wonder if there was some way she could ratchet herself up a social notch or two.

On the Saturday of the second weekend, an enormous yacht pulled into the 18947_ch01.qxd 4/14/03 11:24 PM Page 286

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Saint-Tropez harbor around noon. Janey and Estella were sitting topless at the front of Sayed’s yacht sunning themselves; at first, they were both too engrossed in their conversation to notice. Estella was applying nail polish to her toenails, and there was annoyance in every stroke of the brush—Janey, she said with irritation, was

“fucking up.”

Janey knew what the problem was: Ever since that night in Paris, she’d kept at least one of her vows—she had refused to do cocaine. By not doing the drug, however, she had turned herself into an outsider, and the atmosphere on the boat was becoming hostile.

“Why can’t you try to be a little . . .
nicer
?” Estella asked.

By “nicer” Janey knew that she meant having sex with Sayed’s friends.

“If I have to be high to have sex with someone, I’m not going to do it,” Janey said stubbornly.

“That’s completely pathetic,” Estella said. “There’s no reason to have sex unless you
are
high. Otherwise, it’s totally boring. Besides,” she added, “you had sex with Rasheed . . .”

“That was different,” Janey said. She wasn’t exactly sure
how
it was different, but she liked the sound of it.

“I don’t know why I decided to help you,” Estella said angrily, pushing the brush into the bottle of nail polish and screwing on the cap. “But if you don’t shape up, I won’t be able to help you at all. Men get tired of paying for women who won’t put out, and frankly, I can’t blame them.”

Janey looked down at her fingernails and frowned. It wasn’t that she
wasn’t
willing to put out, but that Sayed’s friends just didn’t seem good enough.

“Well?” Estella demanded, wriggling her toes.

“I—” Janey began, but at that moment she was cut off by the long, low rumble of a stately horn.

Estella immediately jumped up and ran to the railing. The huge white yacht was slowly pulling into a space three slips away from their own—it had speedboats and Jet Skis in back, and a helicopter on the top, and was so large it made Sayed’s ninety-foot “yacht” look like a rowboat.

“That’s Rasheed’s yacht,” Estella said, her eyes narrowing in concentration.

“I’m going to tell Sayed to go over there and let him know that we’re here.” Estella disappeared down a narrow flight of steps as Janey leaned back against the cushions on the deck. She closed her eyes, but her whole body was tingling with excitement. She had a feeling that something was about to happen—that Rasheed would single her out. And sure enough, in about half an hour, Estella reappeared on the deck with an envelope in her hand. She didn’t look happy as she held the envelope out to Janey with a terse
“Here.”

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“What is it?” Janey asked innocently.

“You know what it is,” Estella said, glaring. She sat down cross-legged next to Janey.

The envelope was nearly as heavy as cardboard, and Janey carefully undid the flap and removed a note card. The card was embossed with a gold replica of the yacht, with the name
Mamouda
underneath, and as Janey read the note, she felt an enormous sense of relief. She was practically out of money; in exchange for a brief sexual encounter she would at least be able to buy her own ticket back to Paris and to survive for another month.

“What does it say?” Estella demanded, attempting to read the note over her shoulder.

Janey slipped the note back into the envelope. “It’s from Rasheed—he wants me to go to lunch on his yacht this afternoon at two.”

“So you’ll miss our lunch at Cinquant-Cinq.”

“I guess so,” Janey said.

“Well, just remember. Whatever he pays you, you owe me five hundred dollars,” Estella said warningly.

“Right,” Janey said sarcastically. She had absolutely no intention of giving Estella a penny of her money, and this time, she thought, she would find a way to make sure she didn’t.

Janey assumed that Rasheed’s use of the word “lunch” was a euphemism for sex, but as she stepped onto his yacht, she immediately saw that “lunch” meant exactly what it implied. On the aft deck, a large teak table was set with linens, crystal, and silver; a pretty young blond woman wearing white gloves was passing a silver tray with caviar while a handsome blond youth dressed in a white shirt and khaki pants was pouring pink champagne and mixing cocktails. There were several people standing or sitting stiffly on the banquettes that lined the deck, and the atmosphere was one of desperately studied elegance, as if these adults were really children playing at putting on an adults’ tea party. The only one who seemed immune was Rasheed, who came forward as soon as he spotted Janey, and formally shook her hand. “Miss Wilcox,” he said, nodding. “I’m so pleased you could come.”

“Thank you so much for having me,” she replied, glancing over Rasheed’s shoulder at a middle-aged fat man who had followed Rasheed across the deck. The man had a great roll of sunburned lard around his neck that jutted out of the collar of a plaid, short-sleeved shirt, and as he stepped forward, he regarded Janey hun-grily. With the briefest smirk on his lips, Rasheed turned and introduced them.

“This is Mr. Dougrey. He’s from your native country, I believe.”

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eyes and graying blond hair that was combed over the top of his head from a low part that started just above his ear, and despite his obvious physical deficiencies, Janey could tell that he thought he was very attractive. “So you’re American then,” he asked, and without waiting for a response, continued, “Always damn nice to see another American. There are too many damned French people in France.” As he laughed heartily at his own joke, a tall, stunningly handsome man with blond hair bleached white from the sun approached Rasheed and whispered something in his ear. Rasheed nodded and turned. “You’ll excuse me for a moment,” he said. “I’ll leave you two Americans to discuss the midwest, which I understand holds a great fascination,” and then he disappeared inside the yacht.