Younger (13 page)

But she wasn’t here to party, she reminded herself. She was here ostensibly to launch Madame X and, in reality, to come up with a marketing scheme for
YOU
NGER. Pierre was demanding diary entries, and she thought she’d better give him what he wanted.

Life was good. So far, younger was better, God was in His Heaven, and all was right with the world.

Then, returning to the office after dashing out at lunchtime on Friday to buy tights because hers had sprung a run, she ran smack into—was almost bowled over by—David Wainwright.

She would look back on that day as a turning point in her life. From then on, it got complicated. Then it got frightening.

Friday, July 15

I want to restate what will be one of the main motivations for buying
YOU
NGER: it makes the user feel so much younger as well as look more youthful. This is not just a secondary benefit. It’s as important as the main one. Keep in mind that is the rationale behind most of my criticisms and how I will eventually shape the marketing campaign. We need to make it clear that while other products make the “look better, feel better” promise, they just can’t deliver what
YOU
NGER can. And we will want to focus on BarPharm’s clinical history to stand out from the rest of the “take years off your age” campaigns.

My
YOU
NGER test products have an excellent feel but a strong artificial scent. I know that masks the odor of the chemicals, but
flowery
? Not only does it put off possible crossover to male users, but if you look at the research data I’m attaching, you’ll see that even elderly women prefer fresher scents to cloying florals these days. I’d suggest sniffing around grapefruit and other light fruit scents, such as watermelon or mango. Not almond, which is too sweet, and not coconut, which reeks of cheap suntan lotion. I like lemongrass, too.

Future men’s formulations would need to be lighter than women’s, not just because men have more oil in their skin but also because of texture preferences. And I think the development of a less oily, lighter consistency spin-off would also be logical for women with oilier skin. In the meantime, let’s make the fragrance androgynous. Sorry if I’m straying from my personal
YOU
NGER experience here and telling you something you already know, but this diary will be the basis of our marketing plan, so . . .

To get back to how much younger I feel, part of it comes from being in better shape physically—I’m joining a fitness club to keep that up. But a lot of it’s psychological, and this is a big selling point—perhaps even
the
selling point.
YOU
NGER isn’t just about having nubile skin or fewer lines; it’s about the bigger picture.

If I’d had my hair cut this way when I was Anna, all short and chunky and obviously dyed, it would have been laughed at as garish unless I were an artist. My short skirts would have been a no-no—looked down on with disapproval and even disgust. I feel so much freer now. If the new me dressed like the old me, I might be dismissed as boring, but it wouldn’t hurt my career.

Most younger women can’t afford expensive clothes, but many who could still prefer to spend less, even if they’re badly made, because they know they won’t be wearing them in a year or two. Unlike me, younger women were never schooled in “investment dressing,” buying simple, costly things that never go out of style. I see now how rarely I bought clothes for fun. I was always motivated by how much my image would help me succeed. So looking younger has caused an internal as well as external change.

The
YOU
NGER woman isn’t just gaining a new look and new outlook. She’s opening the door to experiencing things anew as well. My job—when the time comes for developing the
YOU
NGER marketing campaign—will be to sell that and to make it clear that no other anti-aging products can live up to that claim.

I’m going out on the town tomorrow night. That should give me more insight into how good my act is, not to mention how much I’ll enjoy being a party girl at my age.

Chapter 10

As she moved the entry into the Dropbox and deleted the traces, Anna told herself she was right not to have mentioned an incident in her personal life that had temporarily pushed everything else out of her mind. It wasn’t the right time, she rationalized. She didn’t even know how she felt about it, other than brain-explodingly freaked out, and there was no reason for Pierre to know she’d encountered someone from her past. Then, too, she did always feel more in control when she held back details about herself, whether it was her family background, her marriage to Monty, or her wild, party-all-night past.
I’m a secrets hoarder,
she told herself.
It’s only natural I’d keep this all to myself
.

She pushed away the thought that nibbled around the edges: that she hadn’t written about it because she feared for some unknown reason it might not be wise to do so.

If she’d been watching where she was going, it never would have happened. She might have peripherally noted the slim, salt-and-pepper-haired man coming down the front steps of the building, but they’d have blindly passed one another—and that would have been that. But her thoughts were on whether she should have bought the sheer rhinestone-trimmed black tights she’d just seen, since they’d look good with her little black dress on Saturday night.

She’d plowed right into him, almost knocking herself down, and he’d taken her elbow to steady her. “Sorry, I—
Anna
! My God, is it really you?”

She’d looked up, and there he was. David Wainwright. Yes, he had lines around his eyes, deeper grooves from the sides of his nose to the edges of his lips, gray in his black hair, and brushed-aluminum-framed glasses, but he was still the same David.

He was staring at her as if he’d seen a ghost. Then he shook his head as if to clear it. “Of course you’re not Anna. Sorry.”

“No, it’s my fault. I should have been looking where I was going.”

“You were going here? To Barton?”

Unthinkingly, she nodded.

“And you’re American? Sorry, how rude of me. My name’s David Wainwright. I’ve done work for the company on occasion. And you?”

“Tanya. Tanya Avery,” she whispered.

“Well, nice to have bumped into you, Tanya,” he said, the same teasing gleam in his blue eyes she’d loved all those years ago. “Sure you’re all right?”

“Yes, I’m fine. Um . . . bye.”

And she’d run up the stairs and away from him yet again.

She ducked out of the elevator and into the loo, praying no one would spot her. Trembling, she collapsed into a stall, bolted the door, and leaned against it, trying to regulate her breathing. In. Out. In. Out.
David Fucking Wainwright
.

Even though he was British, she hadn’t foreseen the possibility of bumping into him in a city of nearly eight million people. She and David had never even been in London at the same time, so it held no memories of him as Paris did. Barton’s offer had made her wonder what David was doing—how could it not have?—but she had been sure he was still a television director hanging out in Soho and Battersea, where the TV and media people clustered. For more than twenty years, she’d managed to avoid those areas of London whenever she visited, just as she avoided Googling his name. And she had always been sure he never thought of her at all. Still, while breaking things off with David had made her avoid the remote chance of running into him, it had also motivated her to become the kind of person she thought would impress him more than the struggling actress he’d met soon after he arrived in Manhattan to shoot a BBC crime miniseries based there, the actress who failed not only at her career but at winning his love.

Within two years, she’d changed from a hedonistic and self-doubting thespian into a fit and healthy junior ad exec. The partying she’d once done held no allure. She found it easy to stop after two glasses of wine or turn down a line of blow, and she finally got on track to the success her parents had longed for her to achieve.

She had tried not to think about David over the years, an effort that grew easier after she’d moved to California, away from the New York memories. Her friends Allie and Jan knew about him but had never met him, since neither was in New York at the time, so it was natural never to mention him. She’d had other boyfriends, even been engaged once, but in retrospect, those relationships had seemed like examples of skillful marketing, Anna convincing Anna that “this time” it was the real thing. Her last intense involvement was six months with a guy thirty-four to her fifty, whom she rarely thought of as anything but the Sex God. After that, work kept her too busy for affairs, or so she told herself, so she was thankful he had been an amazing and acrobatic lover, even if all his other good points had turned out to be arrogance in disguise.

And now? Now she was going to have to forget she’d seen David again, no matter how hard that might be.

“Of all the gin joints in all the towns, in all the world . . .” she finally whispered in a shaky voice. Then she splashed cold water on her face and went to her office.

“I need to change my tights,” she told Chas, not looking at him but waving the M&S bag as she walked by. “I’ll have my door locked for a sec.”

Minutes later, totally collected, she strolled out and said casually, “Be right back. Craving a real cappuccino instead of a machine one.”

Downstairs, the reception desk was manned by a slightly older, less intelligent version of Chas. “Hey, Brian, I wondered if you know who the guy is who left about fifteen minutes ago, graying hair, glasses?”

“Gray hair? A little old for you, isn’t he, Tanya?”

She knew he was teasing, but she still blushed. “Oh, c’mon! I thought I recognized him, and now I’m wondering if it was a friend of my aunt’s looking for me. Someone named Bruce or Bryce?”

“Nah, I think you mean David Wainwright, and he didn’t ask for you. Was he wearing a light green shirt?”

“I think so. I didn’t really notice. He just seemed familiar.”

Brian shrugged. “He’s a TV director who’s done a commercial or two for us. Maybe you saw a red carpet shot that stuck in your mind. Happens to me all the time: I think I know somebody, and it turns out I saw them on TV going into some awards show.”

“He’s won awards?”

“Not that I know of. He’s married to some telly actress or another, I think. Don’t remember which. No one really famous, just someone who gets to go to awards shows.”

She smiled stiffly. “Not Aunt Marjorie’s friend then. Want a cappuccino? I’m going to Starbucks.”

“Nah, thanks for asking, though.”

As she turned to leave, Anna gave him a blinding smile, hoping that—like the gizmo in
Men in Black
—it would wipe the last two minutes from his memory.

Her smile fell off even as the door closed behind her.
Married.
He was married. Of course he was married. She should have known he’d be married. And to an actress, no less. Obviously someone more talented than she had been. “Forget him, forget him, forget him,” she muttered. It didn’t matter that he was married since she was never going to see him again.

On the way back from Starbucks, another strange thing occurred. About two blocks from the office, she saw a Bentley, the same deep blue as Pierre Barton’s, on the other side of the street. As she got closer, the man himself practically leapt from the back seat of the car. She ducked into the shadow of a doorway without thinking, transfixed by the sight of possibly the most urbane man in London losing his cool. There was no doubt about it. He slammed the door behind him, and Aleksei slid out to gaze at him across the roof of the car.

Barton wasn’t yelling, but she could tell he was angry. Aleksei must be in trouble, she thought, shamelessly pleased; then, to her shock, the Russian laughed heartily, almost scornfully. She looked away for an instant—fearing they might feel her eyes on them—and as she looked back, Aleksei said something slowly and calmly to Barton . . . so slowly and calmly that Anna could read his lips. “You should get back in the car.” Though he shook his head in apparent frustration, Barton did exactly that. Aleksei, expressionless once again, got back in, too, and drove off.

Curiouser and curiouser. What could that be about? Who was bossing whom here? And exactly which lunatic was in charge of the asylum?

“Curiouser and curiouser” indeed,
Anna mused as she sat on the couch that night, picking at her warmed-up kung pao chicken. What did she know about Pierre Barton other than a few press releases and what she’d heard from Pierre’s own lips? She brought her laptop over and pushed her food aside.

An hour later, she didn’t know much more. Pierre’s profile was practically below the horizon. She found a few facts—mostly on the Barton Pharmaceuticals site and in news items regarding the Coscom acquisition—but nothing that told her much. His father, Jasper Barton—later Jasper Barton OBE—had been a chemist who started Barton Pharmaceuticals after developing an arthritis drug while still at university. He built the company into a thriving business, and when he died, his son (who’d already assumed the company presidency when his father moved up to CEO) took over, moving factory and research operations to Switzerland and buying the three adjoining buildings in London for headquarters. The old Midlands factory was sold off and space leased at a nearby industrial estate for some warehousing and support staff.

Barton had studied chemistry and business at both Cambridge and the Sorbonne. He’d met his wife, the former Marina Sybyska, at the Sorbonne, where she was studying French. Her father ran a state-owned chemical factory in the then-USSR, where she worked for years until shortly after running into Pierre Barton at a pharmaceuticals conference years later. By that time the USSR was defunct and the company had been privatized as Sybyska Chemicals. The Bartons had twin boys, but didn’t get around to marrying until two years after their birth. That had probably been Pierre’s sole brush with nonconformity, Anna thought.

End of story.

Not unusually sparse information on a CEO, really. His father-in-law being a Russian big shot interested her. Could Barton be aiming to take over his supplier? And why the Russian driver . . . if Aleksei was just a driver. Might he be a bodyguard, as well? What had given him the effrontery to laugh at the boss? None of it made sense.

She turned off the computer and went to the kitchen to switch the iced tea she’d been drinking for wine. She would try to unwind by watching a comedy on TV, something to occupy her mind. She didn’t want to think. Not about the mysterious Mr. Barton. Not about this bizarre project. And certainly not about the momentary flash of sheer joy on David Wainwright’s face when he’d said, “Anna! My God, is it really you?”