Trading Up (71 page)

Business class passengers were expressly forbidden to use the first class toilets, and for a second, Janey thought about tattling to the stewardess about Dodo. But the fact that
she
was going to the
Vanity Fair
dinner and Dodo wasn’t, combined with the reality that Dodo now knew about it, was, she felt, penalty enough.

In the first class bathroom, Dodo squatted over the toilet while she dissected this information. How was it, she wondered, that that little tart Janey Wilcox was invited to the
Vanity Fair
Oscar dinner and not she? For years, she’d been trying to get into that dinner, only to be told each time that it was “not a possibility this year,” but that perhaps she should “try again next year,” the implication being “when she was more famous.”

Life was so unfair! Dodo thought, extracting a long length of toilet paper with which to blow her continually runny nose. It just went to show you that hard work really didn’t pay off . . .

And then Dodo suddenly figured out the answer and nearly laughed out loud with glee. She had a friend who had worked at
Vanity Fair
—a reporter named Toby Young—who had once told her that every year the editors invited the woman they’d dubbed “Bimbo of the Year” to the party. And obviously, this year Janey was “it.” She couldn’t wait to get off the plane and call Mark, she thought, dropping the hunk of toilet paper into the tank. Mark would think it was hilarious, and what a good laugh they’d have about it with all of their friends. Janey Wilcox, the Model Prostitute . . . and now Bimbo of the Year . . .

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But then she had another thought: Even if Janey
was
the Bimbo of the Year, the very fact that she was at the
Vanity Fair
dinner would give her a kind of reverse cachet. It might, indeed, become very chic to “know her.” And it was possible that it would be cooler and more interesting to remark, “Janey Wilcox is a good friend of mine, and actually, she’s a nice girl,” when people mentioned her name instead of rolling your eyes in disgust.

And with this in mind, Dodo left the bathroom, determined to “make friends.”

“Janey . . . ,” she rasped.

Janey looked up in annoyance, as if she couldn’t believe that Dodo was back.

“Do you mind if I sit down?” Dodo asked, giving the Louis Vuitton carry-on, which Janey had placed on the seat next to her in order to avoid this possibility, a meaningful look.

“I’m a bit tired, but . . . ,” Janey said, removing the suitcase and placing it under the seat in front of her. Dodo, she could see, was determined.

“Thanks,” Dodo said, sitting down. “Anyway,” Dodo continued, as if they’d been in the middle of a long conversation, “I have to tell you that I
really
admire you. I thought I was strong, but you must have the constitution of a horse. If people were saying those things about me . . . ,” she laughed. “Well, they probably do say those things about me, just not in public. I mean,” she said, leaning so close that Janey could smell her boozy breath, “if they’re going to make a big deal out of it every time a girl gives a guy a blow job . . . they’re won’t be any room for real news, will there?”

Dodo laughed uproariously at her own joke, as two other first class passengers turned around and stared.

“Oh, mind your own business!” Dodo snapped, sotto voce.

Janey winced. It was a mistake to have allowed Dodo to sit down. Dodo wasn’t at all the sort of person she should be seen talking to, especially not now . . .

And then Dodo said something that caught her attention.

“I say it’s a travesty, what Selden Rose did to you.”

“Excuse me?” Janey said.

“You know,” Dodo said, frowning in outrage. “It’s despicable, really.” Janey gasped—did the whole world know everything about her?

“You’re certainly being brave,” Dodo said, shaking her head in wonder. “I told Mark that if he ever considered doing something like that to me, I would literally kill him. Or I would hire someone else to kill him . . .” Janey felt an unpleasant tingling sensation course through her body. “Mark?” she asked.

“Well, Mark did tell me,” Dodo said with chagrin. “Although there was no rea-18947_ch01.qxd 4/14/03 11:25 PM Page 381

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son why he shouldn’t—I mean, practically everyone at Splatch Verner knows about it . . .”

Janey heard alarm bells going off in her head.

“It’s disgusting that a company should be allowed to force a man to make a decision like that,” Dodo said. “It certainly says something about the state of American business these days . . . I say you’re well rid of him, and that’s exactly what I told Mark,” Dodo concluded with a sympathetic smile.

Janey sat back in her seat, stunned. “Really, Dodo,” she said. “It didn’t happen that way at all. He begged me to stay . . .”

“Well, however it happened, I hope you take the bastard for everything he’s worth!” Dodo said fiercely.

“Oh, yes,” Janey said, nodding. If only Dodo would go away . . . She had to get her thoughts together . . .

The stewardess passed by and Janey gave her an imploring look. She nodded in understanding and leaned over to Dodo. “Excuse me, ma’am,” she said, “but unless you’re in first class, I’ll have to ask you to go back to your seat. We’ll be landing soon . . .”

Dodo got up, and, giving the stewardess a dirty look, disappeared behind the blue curtain that separated business from first class.

Goddammit! Janey thought angrily. Why had she let Dodo sit down? As soon as they landed, Dodo would start spreading the story all over New York
and
Los Angeles, with the added fillip that she had actually talked to Janey on the plane.

And once again, the story wouldn’t be accurate—as far as she was concerned, she had rejected Selden, not vice versa. But now that she had left New York, naturally, everyone would think Selden had dumped her for his job, and how would that make her look? There were people who treated their dogs with more respect . . .

It was only, she thought bitterly, yet
another
misperception she was going to have to correct . . .

At least she was in a position to do something about it, she thought—she would start right away, tomorrow night, at the
Vanity Fair
party. And pulling her suitcase out, she placed it on the seat next to her and snapped open the lock.

There, on the very top, was the blue velvet box, and as if to reassure herself that it was all going to be fine, she opened the case and took out the invitation.

The edges were as sharp as ever; it was still in perfect condition. When the party was over, she would hang on to it, she thought, she would keep it forever and ever. For wasn’t it her lucky charm?

The invitation had arrived, as if by divine intervention, at the end of that day when she’d been in the depths of despair. That morning, the headline in the
New
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York Post
had screamed: “MODEL PROSTITUTE GETS DUMPED,” and had gone on to outline the fact that her Victoria’s Secret contract was not going to be renewed; she’d been traded in for a younger (and presumably less controversial) pro-totype: a wholesome, twenty-two-year-old girl from the midwest. But what had been particularly irritating was the line from her spokesperson, Jerry Grabaw.

“Janey loved working with Victoria’s Secret, but feels like it’s time to move on to other projects,” he’d said. Adding, “Janey Wilcox is a survivor.” She’d guessed all along that her contract wouldn’t be renewed, and she was almost fine with it until she had come up against that one word: “Survivor.” How she hated that word! “Survivor” implied someone who had to claw and dig her way to the top, someone who could barely make it. And that was completely different from the way she had always percieved herself, ever since she’d made it off Rasheed’s yacht. She was a winner, not a survivor, and they were two entirely different things.

A winner implied a person to whom things came naturally. There was a reason, she thought, why everybody wanted to know a winner, while on the other hand, nobody necessarily wanted to know a survivor . . .

And the word had put her in such a snit that she’d actually gone down to George’s office to have it out with him.

The meeting hadn’t gone exactly as she’d planned, but what else had she been expecting? George liked to pretend that he was all-powerful, but when it came right down to it, he was useless—as completely useless as Selden. She should have figured that out on the day she’d given him the blow job. Why, he was practically impotent; it had taken her a good ten minutes to bring his flaccid penis to something even resembling an erection . . .

And then, in total dejection, she’d returned home. And as she’d sat, drinking vodka, she’d been so low that she’d actually thought maybe she should consider suicide . . . And then the buzzer had rung from downstairs . . .

The invitation was hand-delivered by special courier straight from the offices of the editor in chief of
Vanity Fair
himself, and while it had arrived somewhat out of the blue, she hadn’t really been surprised. She’d known all along that something big would happen, that something would come along to jettison her out of this mess—

after all, hadn’t her life always worked that way? Although for one brief moment, after she ripped open the envelope and saw the contents, she
had
wondered why she’d been singled out for this particular honor when half of New York, it seemed, was ashamed to be seen with her. And then, of course, she’d immediately understood: The editors at
Vanity Fair
knew she was a star; they were probably even planning a big story about her, and there was a very good chance that they’d put her on the cover. And why not? she’d thought. By now it should be obvious to
everyone
that people were dying to read about her . . .

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And suddenly that afternoon, the world had righted itself again. And everything would have been fine, she thought, leaning back against the seat, if it weren’t for the debacle with Selden.

She knew that the pain of the breakup would at some point hit her full force, but in the meantime, she couldn’t be weak and give in to her feelings. There would be plenty of time to cry later (wasn’t there always), but now, somehow, she had to spin the story about Selden to her advantage.

She sighed and stared out the window. A host of possibilities raced through her head, but suddenly, she realized that
maybe she didn’t have to lie at all
. Hadn’t she just seen the effect of the story on Dodo Blanchette? Dodo had been outraged at Selden’s treachery, and if
she
was, chances were others would be as well. She would tell people that Selden Rose was the only man she had ever loved, and she couldn’t believe what he had done to her. She would claim to be completely distraught, and why not? she thought smugly. After all, there was nothing men fell harder for than that old story of a beautiful woman who’d been wrongly accused . . .

And on top of it, she thought, glancing at her suitcase, she now had the screenplay to prove it. Well, sort of, anyway. The contents made it too explosive to show anyone—every time she thought about it she cringed with shame. Which was too bad, especially since Selden had genuinely seemed to think it had merit. But wasn’t it just her luck, she thought bitterly, that the one thing she had that could save her she couldn’t use . . .

In front of her she heard Comstock Dibble complaining to the stewardess that his champagne was flat, and suddenly she had a frightening thought. Did she dare?

she thought wildly, her heart thumping in her chest. But why not? Wasn’t it exactly what she’d thought in Paris that day, before she’d found out about the story in the
Post
? That if you spent your whole life trying to get over your past, you couldn’t have a future?

She bit her finger. Was she really going to spend the rest of her life trying to cover up a youthful mistake? It wasn’t like pretending it hadn’t happened had helped: After all, she didn’t have everything she wanted, and if she was really honest with herself, she didn’t have anything at all. Once again, she was back in the same place she always seemed to end up—with no job, no money (except for what she’d saved in the bank), and no man—and having to defend her reputation with only her beauty to save her . . .

She shuddered. In three months, she’d be thirty-four, in a few years, forty.

What if her life continued on and on in the same pattern? What if she ended up being one of those women who never really get anywhere, who end up at forty with no relationship and no career? She had seen those women at parties, laughing too hard and wearing clothing only twenty-five-year-olds should wear, and mean-18947_ch01.qxd 4/14/03 11:25 PM Page 384

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while, even a pustule like Comstock Dibble wouldn’t give them a second glance . . .

No! she nearly cried aloud. She wouldn’t end up like that—she must take a chance. For wasn’t that what she’d really denied herself—a chance? Hadn’t she always taken the easy route because she was frightened—scared that she wouldn’t be good enough or wasn’t what she believed she really was? Fear had led her to Selden; fear had led her to George and the mess she was in. Did it really matter if people knew about her past? She’d already been publicly labeled a prostitute—what else could life do to her? And hadn’t she survived . . . ?

Ugh, she thought. There it was again, that word “survivor.” But maybe it wasn’t so bad. Maybe, in order to become a winner, you had to be a survivor first . . .

And standing up, she walked to the front of the plane.

“Hello, Comstock,” she said smoothly, as if nothing at all had happened between them.

He looked up and frowned, disturbed by the interruption, and then, when he saw who it was, his eyes hardened like two cold stones.

“What do you want?” he asked.