Trading Up (67 page)

“I love you,” he whispered. “Oh, I love you . . .” He’d wanted to smooth back her fine blond hair from her forehead, but he didn’t want to wake her. Did she have any idea of what might happen to her . . . ?

No,
he thought, sitting in his office. He would not do it. He would not sacrifice his wife for his job.

He had to draw the line. The man who could do what Victor Matrick wanted was a man without a soul. He had seen such men and women all his working life, 18947_ch01.qxd 4/14/03 11:25 PM Page 357

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first in Los Angeles and now in New York, and he had always thought of them as

“Pod People”—people who on the outside looked like human beings, but on the inside were devoid of real human emotions. So often, these were the people who rose to the top of their fields, but Selden had always laughed at them, with the scorn and relief of someone who believes that
he
will never have to become like that to get ahead, and is therefore by definition superior.

And he had believed, just ten months ago when he’d arrived in New York, that he would be able to rise to the very top of Splatch Verner, that he might, through hard work and an innate desire to do good, someday take over Victor Matrick’s job.

But now his eyes had been opened. He knew it was never going to happen that way.

On the other hand, if he did what Victor asked, if he “got rid” of Janey, it would be perceived as a statement that he was a man who would take no prisoners. He would be someone to reckon with; he would be feared. He would be promoted, of that he had no doubt. And then he would choose a third wife, someone more

“appropriate” to the company’s image, someone, he imagined, like Dodo Blanchette.

And if he didn’t take Victor’s “advice,” what then? They wouldn’t fire him out-right—it would be far too risky, and it might even open them up to a lawsuit for some kind of discrimination (discrimination against one’s spouse—that would be a new one, he thought). Instead, he would be placed in one of those untenable posi-tions in which more and more responsibilities were taken away from him, until at last all he would have left would be his desk and his secretary. And then his secretary would be transferred to another department, and he would be moved to a smaller office, where he would have to share a secretary with someone else. And then, finally, he would have to quit. In other circumstances, he might have been able to find another job. He could go back to Los Angeles and take a job as an executive at one of the big movie companies—a job that would easily pay a million dollars a year. But at the moment, he knew he was considered a joke—the guy who had married the prostitute instead of just paying her like everybody else.

And he had worked so hard all his life! he thought, resting his head in his hands. His work had been his joy and his salvation. Every time he put together a movie and stepped onto the set on that first day of production, each time a movie opened and he saw the great box-office numbers, every time one of his movies had won an award, and then, each time he’d been promoted, he’d felt an indescribable high, like the universe was opening up to him, like it was
his
. . . His first wife claimed that his addiction to work and achievement had ruined their marriage; she had bitterly pointed out that if he had paid more attention to her, then maybe she wouldn’t have started an affair with that associate who worked in her office. That 18947_ch01.qxd 4/14/03 11:25 PM Page 358

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news had stung; it had momentarily crippled him, especially when he found out that the affair had been going on for the last two years of his marriage, and that she was so brazen that she had even arranged for her paramour to spend Christmas in Aspen, when they were there. Selden had even had lunch with the guy, and still, he’d had no clue. But he’d never loved Sheila the way he loved Janey, and he had only married Sheila out of guilt—after they’d been dating for five years she’d given him an ultimatum. At the time, it had simply seemed easier to give in than to have to go through the hassle of finding someone else.

If the choice had been Sheila or his job, it would have been easy, he thought harshly. But Sheila never would have put him in this position—she didn’t have the imagination to do so. Janey, he thought, had an odd way of managing to pull everyone else into her disasters, and in the process, they all got hurt. She was like a siren, he thought, luring sailors onto the rocks . . .

He looked at the clock again. It was 10:43.

The only person who hadn’t been smashed to bits was George. And George had bought Comstock’s company. It would seem that George should have suffered at least a broken leg . . .

The clock now read 10:45. He picked up the phone and called George.

While George Paxton enjoyed beauty in his home, his office, he felt, should reflect the idea that it was a place of business, and one of the tenets of business was that money should not be wasted. And so his office, while large, was strictly utilitarian; the only two concessions were a massive oriental Indian silk rug, which Mimi had had specially made, and a five-by-ten-foot slightly jumbled-looking portrait of George, which Mimi had commissioned to be painted by the contemporary artist Damien Hirst for half a million dollars as a wedding gift.

There was a long row of glass windows, covered by plastic louvered shades, which provided a view into the towers of several other midtown office buildings, and in the center of the room was a grouping of hard, black Le Corbusier couches and armchairs. It was on these chairs that George and Selden now sat.

They were drinking coffee from blue paper cups, decorated with the logo of the local Greek deli.

The meeting, Selden felt, was not going well.

“You’ve got no choice, Selden,” George was saying. “You’ve got to look at it logically. You’ve only known her for maybe eight or nine months. Meanwhile, you’ve been working for over twenty years . . .”

George took a sip of his coffee. Selden was being so obstinate, he thought.

Couldn’t the man see what he had to do? It was all ego, he thought, and ego had 18947_ch01.qxd 4/14/03 11:25 PM Page 359

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brought him down. And if he continued to let his ego get in the way, it would really be the end.

Selden looked out the window. He could see straight into the offices across the street, where a man sat in front of a computer while he talked on the phone. Should he tell George that he was still in love with Janey? he wondered. But that would probably make him sound weak. He picked up his coffee cup from the glass table. “What if the whole thing is a mistake?” he asked. “It’s like executing the wrong man . . .” George sighed. “Nobody is going to die here,” he said, slightly irritated. “It’s not a good situation, but maybe you’ve got to face the facts. Grow up. Do you want to be a player, or do you want to keep playing the fool?”

“If there was some way . . . ,” Selden said.

“Jesus Christ, Selden,” George said in disgust. “You know as well as anyone that this is part of the business of being a CEO in the first place. You’ve got to be able to make the hard decisions. No one gives a fuck about the easy ones—we’ve got assistants to do that.”

“She thinks that somehow you’re to blame, George,” Selden said, allowing a slight edge to come into his voice.

George rolled his eyes and smiled. “What else do you expect her to say? Did you think that she was going to take personal responsibility for her actions?”

“If she hasn’t, she won’t be the first one,” Selden said.

George stared at Selden over the rim of his cup. The man, he thought, was not handling the situation well. He looked exhausted and slightly hungover, and he guessed that Selden was still in love with her. Janey, he guessed, would take Selden right down with her, which was what Victor Matrick must have seen as well. The only solution was to separate Selden from Janey—and to that end (and for other reasons as well), he certainly would never tell Selden about seeing the letter from Comstock. He sighed. Of course, there were other things he could have revealed about Janey, things that would have made the situation very clear. But he couldn’t do that to Selden either. There was no point in kicking a man when he was already down, and Selden, he felt, couldn’t sink any lower.

“Selden,” George said. “You’re looking for something that doesn’t exist.”

“I’m not sure about that, George.”

“Girls like Janey Wilcox don’t make good wives,” George said.

Selden placed his cup on the glass table. “What do you mean by ‘girls like Janey Wilcox’?” he asked tersely.

“Come on, Selden,” George said gently. “You and I both know that there are women you marry . . . and women you don’t. Janey Wilcox is one of the women you don’t.”

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“Give me a good reason why,” Selden said, pressing him. His voice, George noticed, was beginning to sound desperate. “I’m not trying to be an asshole,” he said. “I’m just trying to understand.”

“She wants something,” George said. “That’s apparent to everyone. She wants something, but nobody can figure out what it is. And I doubt she knows herself.

And people who don’t know what they want, don’t make good partners. In business or anything else.”

“Thanks, George,” Selden said despondently.

Selden rose and George stood up as well. He felt sorry for the man, he thought, but he would get over it; people always did. Putting his arm around Selden’s shoulder, he said encouragingly, “It’s like cutting off your little finger. You want to do it quickly—don’t keep sawing away at it with a steak knife. And once the finger’s gone, you notice that you hardly needed it after all . . .”

“Right,” Selden said. The two men shook hands.

“Come by the apartment next week for dinner,” George said. “I’ll have Mimi arrange it. Her assistant will give you a call . . .” And then Selden was gone.

George breathed a sigh of relief.

He walked to the window and looked out—at the same man Selden had seen.

That guy had no life, George thought. He was in front of that computer all day every day, and George wondered idly what it was that he did.

He turned away and went back to his desk. He thought about Selden and felt slightly guilty.

But what was he to do? Tell the man that his wife had come to him for money for her crazy little “project,” which was undoubtedly a scheme along the same lines as what she’d tried to pull off with Comstock Dibble? And then tell him what she’d done to try to get the money? He thought back to the pathetic show she’d put on that day in his office, when she had knelt down and given him a blow job. Naturally, he had accepted it—what man wouldn’t?—after all, everyone knew a blow job wasn’t
really
sex. But she was like so many of those women who tried to use sex to get what they thought they wanted. They actually believed that men were so stupid and so horny that they’d agree to just about anything—for the sole reason that a woman had the man’s dick in her mouth.

He had done his bit, he thought: He had very properly thanked her afterward.

And that was all she was going to get from him.

Of course, he’d known that that afternoon wouldn’t be the end of it; that eventually, she would come back for more. Women like her always did; they always thought that you owed them and that they could somehow threaten to make you pay.

And so he hadn’t been surprised when she had suddenly appeared in his office about a week ago.

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“George,” she said, sitting down in the black Le Corbusier chair. She slid her fur coat off her shoulders, as if she intended to stay for a while. “I think you understand why I’m here.”

“I think I do,” he said, raising his eyebrows in a smirk. “Let me guess. You couldn’t get enough of me.”

“Don’t even think about being an asshole, George,” she snapped. “You may be able to get away with that with Mimi, but you can’t with me.”

“So Mimi has something to do with this.”

“She has something to do with something,” she said, mysteriously.

“I suppose you two aren’t talking?” George asked.

“I’m not talking to
her,
” Janey said, swinging her leg. Her leg, George noticed, was bare, although it couldn’t have been more than thirty degrees out, and looked particularly attractive in its open-toed sandal.

“If you want me to put in a word . . .”

“I want money,” she said bluntly, standing up.

“Everyone wants money,” George said genially. “Can you tell me what you intend to do to earn it?”

“I’ve already earned it, George, you know that,” she said, walking toward him.

She reached his desk and put her palms on the surface, leaning toward him so that her entire breasts were nearly visible under the scoop neck of her sweater. “You got the idea to buy Comstock’s company from me. Which means, in standard business practices, that you at least owe me a finder’s fee.” He sat back in his chair and looked at her. Once again he was struck by the fact that she wasn’t as stupid as she appeared—not by half. It was a shame, really: If she spent as much time applying herself to doing something worthwhile as she did to her scheming machinations, she might actually be able to get somewhere in life.

“You would be right about that, of course,” he said, folding his hands under his chin. “If it had been a standard business deal. Meaning,” he continued, raising his eyebrows, “that instead of coming to me for help with Comstock, you had shown me the letter and told me that you thought it might be a good opportunity for me to buy Comstock’s company . . .”

“That doesn’t make a bit of difference!”

“Oh, but it does,” George said, nodding thoughtfully. “Our deal was of a very different nature. You asked me to do you a little favor—which I did. And in return, you did me a little favor. And that, my dear, is where our relationship begins . . . and ends.”

“So you don’t intend to do anything at all,” Janey demanded.