Trading Up (58 page)

Janey took a step back from the mirror and covered her mouth with glee. Her beauty—her precious, glorious beauty—had saved her.

The light drizzle had turned into a cool, persistent mist, and, sitting in the Place Vendôme, Janey wiped the moisture from her face. Had her beauty
really
saved her—or had it led her down a false path? Even from the very beginning, with Rasheed . . . if she had really tried to do something with her life, instead of always relying on fate and her beauty to intervene, she might really have something in her life. For what was the point of beauty if there was something missing inside? Everyone else seemed to have some essential piece except her, and that piece was the part that connected actions to an emotional core. Despite all the men she’d slept with in the past fifteen years, she’d had only six orgasms in her entire life. And as for love—

well, that was something she couldn’t begin to fathom. Of course, she thought she loved Selden, but really, her feelings for him weren’t any different from the feelings she had for every other man—meaning that she felt something that could be defined as affection as long as she was getting something tangible out of the relationship. Even Ian had seen it fifteen years before. And as for Rasheed . . . it must have been as obvious to him as a red light glowing on the façade of a house of prostitution.

But was she born that way, or had she become that way by the wrong choices?

No one could be born with such an emptiness inside; at least there was still some part of her that believed
that
. For now she could see that she would never know true love or find it until she didn’t require anything from a man, and money was the least of it . . .

She raised her head, and a voice inside her cried out that it wasn’t too late. All she had to do was to live every day of the rest of her life in a different manner. There was still time to fix things up with George, and instead of coming on to him, she 18947_ch01.qxd 4/14/03 11:24 PM Page 311

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would lay her cards on the table in a businesslike manner. She would tell Selden about her plans. After all, it was possible that Selden really
did
love her . . .

Her internal clock told her that too much time had passed and, looking at her watch, she saw that it was nearly one o’clock. She must go to meet Mimi. And it suddenly occurred to her that if she told Mimi the entire story (leaving out the part where she’d given George the blow job, of course), she might be able to get Mimi to influence George. The important thing now was to
do
something with her life, to take action so that she would never be in this situation again . . .

And then, as if by magic, a tall blond man appeared in the mist, walking rapidly toward her. At first, she could barely believe her eyes, thinking for a second that the ghost of Ian had somehow come back to haunt her. But as the man drew closer, she saw that it was Zizi, and suddenly everything made sense: Mimi had insisted on this trip because she’d
known
Zizi would be in Paris, and she’d used Janey as a beard . . .

But maybe that wasn’t true, Janey thought in bewilderment, as he came to a halt in front of her. For in the next second, he began speaking the words she’d been longing to hear . . .

“You must come with me,” he said firmly.

She stood up and followed him as if in a dream, through the lobby of the Hôtel Ritz and into the elevator. It was like she’d stepped back in time to that fateful moment when she’d passed through this lobby for the first time, and now, she thought wildly, destiny was giving her a chance to go back in time, to right what she had done wrong. The elevator stopped on the third floor, and Zizi pulled her along the hallway like a child. But she was a child, she thought; she was new, and now, with Zizi by her side, she would start everything in her life afresh . . .

And then the dream turned into a nightmare.

They entered a one-bedroom suite. The minute they walked through the door her crazy idea that she and Zizi were going to be together was quickly dispelled by the realization that Harold Vane was in the room. What was
he
doing there? she thought with irritation. And then he turned around. And she saw by the expression on his face that something was terribly, terribly wrong.

“I saw you from the window,” Harold said. “I sent Zizi down to get you . . .”

“But why? What’s happened?” Janey asked cautiously.

“Everyone is looking for you,” Zizi said.

“For me?” Janey cried. She frowned in annoyance. “I don’t understand.” Harold came toward her with outstretched hands. “Janey,” he said. “You and I have been friends for a long time. So I think I should be the one to tell you this . . .” And then she gasped. “Has someone died? Is it
Selden
. . . ?” And as soon as the words were out of her mouth, a nasty little voice in her head pointed out that if it 18947_ch01.qxd 4/14/03 11:24 PM Page 312

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was
Selden, if he
was
dead, then it would solve all her problems: She’d be rich and free; she could do whatever she liked . . .

“It’s
not
Selden,” Harold said.

“Well then,” she said, slightly disappointed. “What am I doing here?” Harold opened his mouth to speak, but no words came out, and she looked from Harold to Zizi with a rising sense of panic. For the first time, she noticed that there was a strange mark on Zizi’s forehead, like a large spot of black soot, and suddenly she realized that she’d been seeing that same spot on other people’s foreheads all morning. An illogical terror gripped her: The end of the world had come, and she had been singled out for elimination . . . She gasped, pointing at the spot on his face . . .

“It’s Ash Wednesday,” Zizi said gently, taking her hand.

It was just past 7 a.m. in New York, and Selden Rose was in the shower.

He ran a bar of soap over his body, thinking, as usual, about his wife. She had been gone for three days now, and it was exactly as people always said: Absence
did
make the heart grow fonder. In the last day or two, he’d come to the conclusion that maybe he
had
been too hard on her. He still didn’t want her pursuing this ridiculous idea of producing Craig’s movie, but he certainly could have been a little gentler about letting her down . . . And with a pang of guilt, he realized that what she’d said about his being jealous of Craig’s talent wasn’t entirely wrong. He turned off the water and stepped out of the shower, thinking that if she really did want to become a producer, he should give her a little help . . . He knew plenty of people in the business—maybe he could find someone who would give her a job as an assistant.

He rubbed a towel over his hair, and as he did so, the phone began ringing.

It must be her, he thought, pleased that she was thinking of him as well. He would tell her that he missed her and ask her to come back early, and wrapping the towel around his waist he went into the bedroom and picked up the phone.

“Hello darling,” he said in anticipation.

“Rose?” a startled male voice said.

“George!” Selden said, slightly disappointed. He knew that George was an early riser, but he couldn’t imagine what would compel George to call this early in the morning.

“Selden,” George said. His voice sounded grim, and Selden immediately wondered if something had happened to Mimi. “There’s been some trouble, Selden,” he said. “And I’m afraid it involves your wife.” After a few more moments of this disturbing conversation, Selden hastily threw on some clothes and raced down to the lobby. “The
Post,
” he demanded of the concierge. “Give me the
Post
.”

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With an embarrassed look on his face, as if he had hoped never to be in this position, the concierge reached under the desk and reluctantly handed him the newspaper.

The headline nearly caused his knees to buckle beneath him, and he quickly folded the paper in half, hoping that he had not seen what he thought he had.

With his heart pounding in fear, he walked back to the elevator (he wanted to run, but the concierge was watching him) and punched the button. At last the elevator arrived; when he got in and saw that it was empty, he unfolded the paper. The three terrible words hit him like three sharp blows to the head, and he stumbled back, reeling, banging his shoulder on the wall. But still the words were there, mocking him in huge black type over a color photograph of Janey from the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show. She was wearing the blue sequined bra and panty set, and she was leaning toward the camera with her hands on her hips, her lips pursed together in a kiss.

“MODEL?/WRITER?/WHORE?” the headline demanded, like a jeering crowd calling for an execution.

He lowered the paper in shock. He couldn’t comprehend . . . He didn’t understand . . . But the words marched by in his head like a child’s taunting schoolyard rhyme: Model-slash-writer-slash-whore—
ha ha
—model-slash-writer-slash-whore—

ha ha
. . . As he lifted the paper again, he felt torn in two: His brain screamed that it simply wasn’t possible, while the tremors in his body told him that it was . . .

And there, at the bottom of the page, were the smaller words: “Comstock Dibble Caught in Screenplay for Sex Scandal.”

What?
he thought. And then,
How . . . ?

The elevator door opened as he turned the page and read, “Comstock Dibble is a . . .”
Bastard!
he thought, filling in the rest of the sentence as the door to the elevator began to close. Fumbling with the paper, he stabbed at the door open button, causing the newspaper to slip out of his hands, the pages scattering across the floor of the elevator and into the hallway. The door started to close again and he jabbed it open with his elbows. Wrestling with the pages, he managed to gather up the whole mess in his arms, and trembling with hurt and rage, he carried the hateful pages to his door.

He could not get his key in the lock. He turned and leaned against the door in frustration, rolling his eyes at the ceiling in a cry for help. Then he looked at the number and saw that he was at the wrong suite—he had gone left when he should have walked right.

He had to take control of himself, he thought, hurrying down the hall and entering his suite. He reminded himself that his specialty was solving problems.

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However terrible this appeared to be, it probably wasn’t as bad as it looked. Whatever it was, he could handle it . . .

But could he?
he thought, with a sickening lurch. He dropped the pages onto the couch and began pawing through them to find the story. There was page after page of sports—who knew New Yorkers cared about sports so much—and then business and then three pages about food and restaurants . . . and finally, toward the bottom of the pile, he found the pages he was dreading. There was yet another photograph of Janey from the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show and—horribly—one of Comstock Dibble, seated in the front row. He had a sly look on his face, and the caption referred to him as “The Diminutive Dibble Dog.” And indeed, Comstock did look like some kind of short-legged beast: He seemed to consist largely of a barrel-shaped body, to which four small appendages had been attached as if by pins.

His arms stuck out from his sides, and his feet barely touched the floor.

Selden had to turn away.

But then he turned back to it. Life demanded such things; he had to read it sooner or later, and not reading it wouldn’t make it go away. “Comstock Dibble is a movie genius who likes to have his fun, and likes to use his company’s money to pay for it,” the story began.

In a bizarre twist yesterday, the Diminutive Dibble Dog was caught writing company checks to various women, including the supermodel Janey Wilcox, in exchange for sex, claiming that the money had been paid to the women for their “screenplay-writing services.” Problem is, not one of the women is a writer.

While the company has paid big-name writers, like Jay McInerney, hundreds of thousands of dollars to pen hit movies, apparently, not all of Dibble’s commissions were legit. In the past three years, Dibble paid fifteen women $30,000 to write screenplays that were never delivered. A company spokesperson claimed to be shocked that Dibble, a well-known fixture on the Manhattan party circuit, who was honored by the mayor this September for his humanitarian efforts in fashion, would have paid women for sex. “He’s always done well with the ladies,” he said. “Maybe he was just being nice?”

Dibble’s taste ran from call girls to party girls, from aspiring actresses to supermodels. Two summers ago, Janey Wilcox, 33, the stunning supermodel who walked the runway in the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show this December, boasted to pals that she was writing a screenplay for the Diminutive Dibble Dog while secretly entertaining him in a Hamptons love nest that he paid for. Last summer, Wilcox, who friends call “ambi-18947_ch01.qxd 4/14/03 11:24 PM Page 315

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tious,” snagged millionaire movie mogul Selden Rose, 45, the CEO of the cable channel MovieTime and married him in a rush ceremony in September. Dibble, meanwhile, is engaged to . . .

Selden Rose took a step back. He could not go on, he thought,
he could not go
on
. . . So she
had
slept with him, he thought, frantically pounding the top of his head as if to hammer in the facts. She had
sex
with him. What did she do with him?

he thought wildly. Did she suck his cock? Had he put his cock . . . inside her, where
he
had been? The thought was sickening—that and the fact that she’d lied to him.

She’d specifically told him she hadn’t, and she’d been
lying
. . . That was the part that was perhaps the most
unbearable
. . . she lied and she did it deliberately with a perfectly innocent expression on her face, as if he were some stupid kind of patsy!