Trading Up (68 page)

“No,” he said definitively. “I do not.”

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She had huffed and she’d puffed, muttering something about how he owed her, but he was finished with her. No, he’d thought, he wasn’t inclined to do anything for her. She’d served her purpose, she’d been momentarily amusing, but now he must sever all connections with her. If he didn’t, she would be back—again and again and again.

He had picked up his phone and asked his secretary to put his next call through, and he had spun his chair around and begun talking. And when he had spun it back again, she was gone.

And now, sitting at his desk and thinking about poor Selden, he hoped she was gone for good.

The elevator door opened on the floor of George’s office, and Mimi Kilroy Paxton gasped in shock, completely taken aback by the sight of Selden Rose.

Her first thought was that she’d never seen a more desolate man. His face was shaven in uneven patches, as if he hadn’t the concentration or the desire left to perform the most basic ablutions, and his physical attitude was that of a man who has slowly been beaten down in defeat, and aware that the death blow is about to be dealt, knows he no longer has the strength to ward it off. But it was his eyes that shocked her. His once lively brown eyes, which had always twinkled in boyish delight as if life held all kinds of pleasures, were now as dull as an old piece of cardboard that had been left outside and exposed to the elements.

He was staring straight at her, but his eyes were unseeing, and as the door opened, he made no move to get in, as if he were paralyzed.

“Selden!” she exclaimed.

At the sound of his name, her presence suddenly registered, and he took a step forward in greeting. “Hello, Mimi,” he said.

She came out of the elevator and took his arm, drawing him down the hallway.

“Selden,” she said, in a voice full of concern. “Are you all right?”

“I’m as fine as a man can be in my circumstances, I suppose,” he said resignedly.

“You must tell me about it,” she said firmly. “After all, I feel like I’m at least partly responsible for your situation . . .”

“You, Mimi?” he asked, shaking his head. “You haven’t done anything . . .”

“Oh, but I did,” she insisted. “I introduced Janey to you in the first place . . . I told her to marry you . . .”

“You were only doing me a favor,” Selden said. “I asked you to introduce me.

Remember?”

“But what will you do?” Mimi said gently. She knew something of Selden’s predicament from George, who had heard about it from some of the other executives at Splatch Verner; at this point, nearly every executive in the upper echelons of 18947_ch01.qxd 4/14/03 11:25 PM Page 363

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business had heard the rumor about Selden being asked to give up Janey, which was now being circulated as a morality tale as to the pitfalls of dangerous women . . .

“I’m at a loss,” Selden said, shaking his head. “Everyone thinks she’s guilty and she claims she’s innocent.”

“What does she say—exactly?” Mimi asked.

“She says she wrote a screenplay . . . and that somehow George is responsible.

She says he ruined her . . .”

“Does she say why?” Mimi asked.

“Of course not. Nor can she explain the whereabouts of the missing screenplay.

Probably because it’s all a lie . . .” He looked pleadingly into Mimi’s eyes. “And now everyone agrees that I should divorce her.”

“Oh no, Selden, you can’t do that,” Mimi cried.

“Then I will lose my job,” Selden said. “At this point, I’m beginning to think it’s the only solution. I’m still in love with her, you know.” Mimi bit her lip. “Have you talked to George?” she asked.

“I’ve just been to see him. He was no help at all—but why should he be?” Selden said. “It’s not his problem.”

“Oh Selden,” she cried. And in that moment, she made a decision. Despite her resolve not to, she had been thinking about Janey Wilcox almost constantly, and she had read about her terrible humiliation at Dingo’s with a fearful heart. Janey, she felt, had been punished enough; if the punishment continued, it would be like putting someone in jail for a petty crime, from which they came out a hardened criminal, determined to have revenge on the system. She knew from experience how vengeful Janey could be, and she understood that the more people tried to squelch her, the more her resentments would grow. She might be forced to disappear for a while, but eventually she would reemerge—like some alien life form that has been frozen in the snow—only bigger and more powerful than before. And then, who knew what kind of havoc she might wreak?

No, Mimi decided, the very best thing for everyone concerned would be if life continued on as normally as possible. It would be a disaster if Selden divorced Janey, for what would she do then? She’d be desperate and angry . . . and Mimi suddenly saw that Selden and Janey had to stay together, and that they should buy a house in the suburbs of Connecticut. Away from the temptations of glamour, money, and fame, it was probable that Janey would become no threat to anyone; she would safely shrivel like an apple one leaves out in the sun for months and months and then paints a little face on.

“Selden,” Mimi said, drawing him closer. “I don’t know if Janey wrote a screenplay, but I do know that she was right about George. She went to him months ago, when she first started getting the letters, and asked for his help . . .” 18947_ch01.qxd 4/14/03 11:25 PM Page 364

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Selden’s face suddenly came to life; he looked like a dog that might bite. “So I’ve been deceived then,” he said. “All this time, by my best friend . . .”

“Now, Selden,” Mimi scolded. “You know it isn’t like that. I’m sure George didn’t tell you because he didn’t want to upset you . . .”

“Thank you, Mimi,” Selden said angrily. “I’m glad you finally had the decency to speak the truth.”

Selden strode to the elevators with Mimi hurrying after him. “Selden, you needn’t abandon us, you know,” she said. And then, as the doors opened and he got in, she called after him encouragingly, “You’re a good man, Selden. No matter what happens, always remember that you tried to do the noble and honorable thing . . .”

And then she went into George’s office. She didn’t mention her encounter with Selden, nor did she ever plan to. There were some things women knew that were best kept quiet, and so she patted George on the cheek and laughed at all his jokes and told him, once again, how wonderful he was. For she had already decided that if she had to deceive him, the very least she could do was to love him, and to be the best wife and mother she possibly could be.

So, she had told the truth, Selden Rose said to himself, as he looked up at the small black brick building before him. About one thing, anyway. And as that had turned out to be true, it was even possible that this screenplay she kept talking about existed as well.

He frowned, checking the number again on the painted black door. Could this possibly be the right address? he wondered. He might have gotten it wrong, but he had a good memory for numbers, and he was quite sure that this was the address he’d seen on the mail forwarded from her apartment.

124 East Sixty-seventh Street, Apartment 3A.

He looked back up at the building.

It was barely even a town house, with the entrance right at street level and next to a Chinese take-out place. It might have once been a town house, he supposed, but someone had long ago replaced the original façade with a flat front, from which two small windows peeped sadly from the narrow width of each of its four stories.

124 East Sixty-seventh Street was one of those New York addresses that sounds perfectly acceptable, but isn’t. The building was located in a normally good block—between Park and Lexington Avenues—but Sixty-seventh Street fed into a thoroughfare that led through Central Park; it was notoriously noisy and filled with trucks. Looking up and down the block, Selden saw that the other buildings weren’t much better—as if the landlords knew there was no point in improvement.

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On the wall next to the door was a small metal box with eight buzzers. Next to 3A was a tiny piece of paper that read wilcox in faded black Magic Marker. That wouldn’t help him, he thought, as there was no one there. He searched for a buzzer marked super, but not finding one began pressing all the buzzers, in the hope that someone would let him in. In a just a few seconds he heard the lock click in the door, and he pulled it open and went inside.

Directly ahead of him was a dark, narrow staircase, and to his left, a depressingly lit hall with squares of old black-and-white Formica on the floor. A middle-aged woman with a face dotted with mysterious-looking growths stuck her head out a door. “Yeah?” she demanded suspiciously.

“I’m looking for the super,” Selden said, shifting his expensive black gloves from one hand to the other.

“Down the hall,” the woman said, with a nod of her head. “If he’s not there, he’s probably in the Irish bar across the street.” The super, however, was home, and Selden explained that he was Janey Wilcox’s husband, and needed to get into her apartment.

“Oh yeah,” the super said. He was an old-looking man in a sagging undershirt who probably wasn’t as aged as he appeared. “I remember your name from the papers. How is she doing anyway?”

“As well as can be expected,” Selden said evenly.

“Well, tell her that she’s got to make a decision about her apartment,” the super said, handing him the keys. “She had that blond fellow living here, and he used to have some woman who came to visit him . . .”

“Janey?” Selden asked, startled.

“Noooo,” the super said slowly. “She was an older gal. Maybe around forty.

Anyway, he moved out and now the apartment’s been sitting empty for months.

The owner doesn’t like empty apartments, even if they are still paying the rent . . .”

“I’ll tell her,” Selden said, taking the keys.

He started up the narrow staircase. Had she, Janey Wilcox, the beautiful Victoria’s Secret model, really hiked up and down these dirty stairs several times a day? he wondered. Why on earth had she lived here? On the second-floor landing, he smelled the inevitable odor of bad cooking, and he wrinkled his nose in distaste, and then, on the final hike up to the third story, he saw that he was being accompanied by a large cockroach. He considered squishing it, but decided against it given its size: It would only leave a large gooey mess on the bottom of his shoe.

Her door had three locks on it, and as he fitted each key into the slot, he wondered again how she could have lived here.

And then, with a little laugh, he remembered why: She was cheap.

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The door pushed open with an eerie squeak, and for a moment he hesitated, uncertain as to whether or not he really wanted to go in. The apartment smelled of garbage or of something left rotting in the refrigerator, and peering into the half-lit interior, “squalor” was the first word that came to mind.

But he had to enter, he reminded himself. He had to at least try to save her.

He stepped inside. Immediately to his left was a tiny kitchen with rusted appli-ances and a cabinet door hanging off its hinges. From the look of it, it appeared to have been in that condition for a while, as if she couldn’t be bothered to fix it. To his right was a room about ten by fifteen feet, with a shallow fireplace, and at the opposite end was one window. To the right of the window was another door that opened into what could, roughly, be called a bedroom. It too contained one window, as well as a dresser, a bed on a small platform raised on stilts, and underneath, two rods for hanging clothes.

He had made it inside her apartment, but now, where to possibly begin?

Looking up, he spied a Burberry bag on top of the bed. It appeared new; curious, he reached up and took it down. Inside was a box, and inside the box was a pair of boots in the Burberry plaid. He looked back inside the bag and saw the receipt, and studying it, he found that the boots had been charged to his credit card and that Janey had signed his name, and that she had received a thirty percent discount. The date on the slip was December 8—the same day, he remembered, that she had bought the black pearls. He wondered at the significance of this—the date, the boots, and the fact that she had left them here—but he couldn’t work it out, and so he moved on.

He went back into the living room. A small wooden desk of the type that students usually purchased at a place like the Door Store stood in front of the window.

The top of the desk was mysteriously bare, but peering underneath, he found an almost brand-new Apple laptop computer sitting on top of a small pile of pink paper.

And he suddenly knew that he had found it.

He knelt down and lifted up the computer, extracting the papers from beneath.

She was secretive, but not really one for hiding things well, he thought, remembering how easily he’d found Comstock’s letter.

And then he thought, pink? Pink paper? For a screenplay? It was so innocently girlish.

And indeed, there, on the top page, were the words “TRADING UP?”; and underneath, “A Screenplay by Janey Wilcox.”

He had found it! he thought, shaking with excitement. And then he remembered the time. Hastily pushing up his sleeve, he consulted his watch and saw that it was already 12:30. He had less than five hours . . .

But
no,
he thought joyfully, that wasn’t true. Not anymore. Why, with this in his hands, he now had all the time in the world . . .

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And plunking himself down on the faded red velvet couch, he turned over the title page and began reading . . .

Twenty minutes later he stopped, and leaning against the back of the couch, he put his hands over his face.