Four Blondes

by Candace Bushnell

  He has to be very, very careful here. He has to cover his tracks. (She’s crazy, this girl. She’s trying to steal his idea. And he’s going to have to let her.)

  “Dear Amber,” he writes. (No, he can’t write “Dear Amber.” It sounds too intimate.) Amber:

  It was nice to meet you today. However, I believe I led you astray. There is no such thing as an alpha male. At least not in human beings.

  Good luck with your story on monkeys.

  He hits the send button.

  The phone rings. Again. “Jess!” Winnie says. “What a privilege.” (She’s such a suck-up, James thinks.) “It was an emergency situation, but I can promise you, it won’t happen again. . . . Oh yes. I love the project. . . . With the right management, it can be a huge success. . . . Thank you. Thank you so much, Jess. . . . My goodness. I promise you, I’ll be worth every penny.” She hangs up.

  “James,” Winnie says.

  He jumps. (Is this how he’s going to be from now on? Jumping in terror every time Winnie comes into his office? In terror of what she might find out?)

  “That was Jess Fukees. The CEO. He’s just offered me the job as head of their new Internet site. It pays five hundred thousand a year. With stock options.”

  James says nothing. He’s shocked.

  “Can’t you sound a little more excited? I’m a really big deal now.”

  “I am excited,” James says. “Can’t you tell?”

  And then Winnie does something she’s never done before. She walks over. Puts her hand on his hair. Ruffles it.

  “I’m proud of you, too,” she says. “You’ve been working really hard. I’m sure this piece on monkeys is going to be great. Maybe you’re right. Maybe it could be a book.”

  Winnie yawns. “I’m kind of tired. I’m ordering sushi and then I’m going to bed. Should I order you the usual? California roll?”

  “Sure,” James says.

  PLATINUM

  I

  MY DIARY

  Smile.

  You have everything.

  Oh God.

  No names.

  There are spies everywhere.

  Hate everyone and everything, including my husband.

  Why?

  I’m so vicious.

  This morning, I totally got even with him for coming in at one-twenty-three A.M. When he PROMISED, PROMISED, PROMISED he’d be home by midnight. At the LATEST. It was a test, and he failed. Again. But instead of screaming at him when he got home, I ignored the whole thing but lay awake all night again, feeling like my head was going to explode, which I’m sure it is, one of these days very soon. But if I tell him that, he’ll just say, Why don’t you take some more pills? Well, why doesn’t he stop being such an asshole, and then I wouldn’t have to take any more pills. As it is, some days I feel like my legs are made of rubber. It’s no wonder I can barely walk across the room to answer the phone.

  So this morning, when he got up, I pretended to be asleep. As soon as I heard the water running in the bathroom, I went to my secret stash and snorted a large line of that shitty cocaine that N. got from the bartender at M. Sure enough, in about one minute I felt a huge puke coming on and I ran into the bathroom and vomited several times while he stood there in horror with shaving cream on his face. And when I stood up, I was trembling, and I sort of stumbled back against the wall, wiping my eyes.

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  I smiled mysteriously and said, “Oh, I’m okay now, I guess. I don’t know what came over me.”

  “Maybe you should see a doctor,” he said.

  All he wants is for me to be pregnant. That’s what they all want. They think, once I’m pregnant, that all the trouble will end and I’ll settle down.

  I’m like Mia Farrow in Rosemary’s Baby.

  “I’m so sorry I was asleep when you came home. Did you have fun?” I asked. Then I got back into bed, and he came in before he left for that STUPID office, and sure enough he said, “Do you think you’re pregnant?”

  “Oh, probably not.”

  “But you’re sick. Do you think you should see Dr. K. again?”

  “ALL I DO ALL DAY IS GO TO DOCTORS,” I started to shout, but then I saw that closed-up expression on his face again, so I switched into my sexy voice and said, “It’s nothing. Don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine.”

  “But I am worried about you,” he said.

  “Then why don’t you stay home and keep me company?” I asked.

  Well, fuck him. That was obviously the wrong thing to say as well because he just shook his head, patted me on the leg, and went away.

  I HATE HIM. What does he want me to do? Who does he want me to be? Who am I supposed to be, here, please? Will somebody PLEASE tell me?

  Went to see Dr. Q. at one-thirty. He kept me waiting for three minutes and forty-two seconds, which is almost four minutes and completely unacceptable. Two and a half minutes is the cutoff for ANYONE. I always tell everyone I won’t be kept waiting for more than two and a half minutes unless I’m the one who’s keeping them waiting. That’s one of the reasons why I refused to be on the cover of that stupid Vogue magazine, because that idiotic woman said, I’ll have someone call you right back and I said, What do you mean by right back and she said, In five minutes and she called back in eighteen and I said, Sorry, I’m not interested. Plus, I have my other reasons, which are that I hate that woman (I hate her so much I won’t even say her name), but more about that later.

  So, this is typical, the person who was before me eating into my appointment time with Dr. Q. is some forty-year-old woman wearing sweatpants. They’re not even Calvin Klein. And she’s holding a tissue.

  Why do women always cry in shrinks’ offices?

  “Well,” Dr. Q. says. I think he notices I’m being extremely cold and standoffish. “How are you today? Do you still think that someone in the family is secretly poisoning you?”

  “What on earth makes you say that?”

  “That,” he says, flipping through his notebook, “is what you said yesterday.”

  “I did throw up this morning.”

  “I see.”

  Then I don’t say anything. I just sit in the chair, drumming my fingernails on the metal arm.

  “I see,” Dr. Q. says again.

  “And what exactly is it that you see, Dr. Q.?”

  “I see that you’re wearing a head scarf again.”

  “Your point?”

  “You’ve been wearing a head scarf and black sunglasses for the last two weeks.”

  I give him a withering smile.

  “So . . . How does it make you feel when you wear a head scarf and dark sunglasses?”

  “How do you think it makes me feel, Dr. Q.?”

  “Why don’t you tell me?”

  “NO,” I say. “Why don’t you tell me?”

  “That would, ah, defeat the purpose of our . . . visits.”

  Ugh. Dr. Q. is so THICK.

  “It makes me feel safe,” I say.

  “From the family poisoner?”

  Sometimes I want to kill Dr. Q. I really do.

  D.W. called. I haven’t talked to him for three months. I’ve been avoiding him.

  HELP.

  I used to write that on all my books when I was a kid. I used to wrap my books in brown paper bags and then write my name on the front in different colored Magic Markers. I used to dot my Is with circles.

  D.W. knows too much.

  Of course, he calls at the most inconvenient time. Right in the middle of The Karen Carpenter Story, which I’m watching for something like the fifty-seventh time. The phone rings just at the part when Karen finally moves into her own apartment and her mother finds the box of laxatives. D.W. has on that sugary voice I hate sooooo much. “Hello, my darling,” he says. “What are you doing?”

  “Shhhhh,” I say. “Karen is just about to lie to her mother and tell her that she won’t take laxatives anymore, and her mother is actually going to believe her. Can you believe how dumb that
woman is?”

  “And then . . .?”

  “And then Karen is going to get down to seventy-eight pounds and have a heart attack after she eats Thanksgiving dinner. In other words, she is basically killed by turkey meat.”

  “How fabulously . . . charming,” D.W. says.

  “I’m really in the middle of something, so what do you want, D.W,” I say, which I know is horribly rude, but if I am rude, maybe he’ll get the message and go away for another three months.

  “What are you doing later?”

  “Oh, later?” I say carelessly. “I think I’ll snort a few lines of cocaine and take a few Xanaxes and make crank phone calls to my husband’s office. And then I’ll walk the dog for the tenth time and scream at a couple of photographers. What do you think I’m doing?”

  “You know, you’re really a funny, charming girl. That’s what no one realizes about you, and it’s a shame. If only people could see the real you . . .”

  There is no real me anymore, but who cares?

  “Do you think my husband is having an affair?” I ask.

  “Oh, come on, my dear. Why would he have an affair when he’s married to one of the most beautiful women in the world?” Pause. “Do you think he’s having an affair?”

  “Not right now,” I say. “But I’m just checking to make sure I’m not crazy.”

  “You see?” D.W. says gleefully. “This is what happens when you lose touch with your old friends.”

  “We haven’t lost touch—”

  “And that’s why I absolutely insist on seeing you for dinner tonight.”

  “Don’t you have some fabulous gala to attend?”

  “Only a small soiree in a store. For a very worthy cause. But I’m free after eight.”

  “I have to see,” I say. I put the phone down and walk slowly through the living room, up the stairs to the master bath. I take off all my clothes and step on the scale: Weight, 117.5 pounds. Percentage fat, 13. GOOD. I’ve lost a quarter of a pound from the morning. I put my clothes back on and go downstairs. I pick up the phone.

  “D.W.?”

  “Thank God. I thought you’d died.”

  “I’m saving that for next week. I’ll meet you at eight-thirty. At the R. But only you. And DON’T TELL ANYBODY.”

  I wear Dolce & Gabbana workout pants and a Ralph Lauren Polo sweatshirt, no bra, and when I walk into the restaurant, I remember that I haven’t brushed my hair for three days.

  D.W. is sitting at the wrong table.

  “Oooooh. You look so . . . American. So . . . gorgeous. I always said you were the quintessential American girl. The American girl begins and ends with you,” he says.

  “You’re at the wrong table, D.W. I never sit here.”

  “Of course not. But those pants, darling. Dolce & Gabbana.”

  I walk to the back of the restaurant and sit down. D.W. follows. “You should only wear American, dear. It’s soooo important. I was thinking about putting you in some Bentley.”

  “Bentley hasn’t had a client under sixty in fifty years.”

  “But I’m making him hot. He’s going to be hot, hot, hot again. Those young S. sisters are wearing him.”

  I roll my eyes. “I want a martini,” I say. “You don’t have any pills, do you?”

  “What kind of pills? Allergy pills? I don’t know . . .”

  “Can I get off on them?”

  “Oh my dear, what has happened to you? You’re turning into a little Courtney Love. I sooooo wish you’d become friends with those lovely, lovely S. sisters. They adore you. And think of the parties you could throw together. Toute New York would be abuzz. It would be just like the old days.”

  Why can’t I be like those darling S. sisters?

  They are perfect. They never give anyone trouble. Not even their husbands. They’re twins, and one of them (I always get them mixed up, and so does everyone else) got married when she was something like eighteen. She invited me over for tea once, and I went because my husband said I had to go. “My husband married me because of my hips,” she said, even though I hadn’t asked her. “I have childbearing hips,” she said. “What can I do?” I wanted to ask her where she’d gone for brainwashing, but I couldn’t. She seemed so sad. And so lost. And so tiny in a large checkered dress from Valentino.

  “How is it that you’ve never lost your hair, D.W.?” I ask, lighting a cigarette.

  “Oh. You’re such a card. My grandfather had a full head of hair when he died.”

  “But don’t you think . . . that you had less hair three months ago?”

  D.W. looks around the restaurant and slaps my hand. “You naughty. I did have a tiny bit of work done. But everybody does these days. You know, times have really changed. Everybody is photographed. I mean, the awful people whose photographs appear in magazines . . . but I don’t have to tell you about that. Now P., she does it the right way. Do you know that nobody’s, I mean nobody’s, picture appears in the society pages without her approval? And, of course, they have to be the right sort of person. She has the highest standards. She can spot quality a mile away.”

  P. is that editor at Vogue.

  I yawn loudly.

  “Did you see that featurette they did on you last month? The one where they analyzed your hemline lengths? That’s why the long skirt is so big this season.”

  “That was only because,” I say, tapping my ash on the floor, “the hem on that skirt came unraveled and I was too lazy to have it sewn back up.”

  “Oh, but my dear,” D.W. says. “Don’t you see? That attitude, that insouciance, it’s genius. It’s like when Sharon Stone wore the Gap turtle-neck to the Oscars.”

  I fix D.W. with an evil eye. I’ve been trying to get rid of him for two years, but every now and again I have this AWFUL feeling that D.W. is never going to go away, that people like D.W. don’t go away, especially not when you know them the way D.W. and I know each other.

  “I threw up today. And I still think someone is trying to poison me.”

  D.W. lowers his martini glass. “We know you’re not pregnant,” he says, with this cozy intimacy that gives me the creeps.

  “And how do we know that?”

  “Come on, my dear. You’re not pregnant. You never have been and you never will be. Not with your body fat hovering at thirteen percent. Your husband may be stupid enough to buy that crap, but I’m not.”

  “Fuck you.”

  D.W. looks around the restaurant. “Keep your voice down. Unless you want to see yet another item in Star magazine—Princess Cecelia engaged in a lover’s spat with the older man with whom she’s secretly having an affair.”

  I start laughing. “Everyone knows you’re gay.”

  “I was married. Twice.”

  “So?”

  “So as far as the press is concerned, my dear, I might be anything.”

  “You’re a psychopath, D.W. And people are starting to figure it out.”

  “And you don’t think they haven’t figured out the same thing about you?” D.W. motions for another round of martinis. “Princess Cecelia. Maybe the most hated woman in America.”

  “Hillary Clinton liked me.”

  “Take a deep breath, my dear.” D.W. pats my hand. He has horrible fingers that narrow to little points. “Maybe not the most hated. I believe that at one time, people hated Hillary Clinton more than they hate you. But certainly, it must have occurred to you by now that all those horrendous photographs are not a mistake.”

  I light another cigarette. “So?”

  “So there’s a little game played in the offices of photo editors across the country: Let’s publish the worst possible photograph of Cecelia. I believe they have a pool going and the photographers are in on it too. The pot may be up to ten thousand dollars now.”

  “Shut up. Just shut up.” I close my eyes. And then I do what I’d trained myself to do years ago, when I was a kid. I start to cry.

  My life sucks.

  It’s always sucked, if you want to know the truth
.

  D.W. laughs harshly. “I’ve seen that act before. And you don’t deserve an ounce of sympathy. I’ve never seen anyone who’s been given so much fuck up so spectacularly. Get yourself together. Go do a line of cocaine or something.”

  “I’m going home now. And I’m going to forget we ever had this conversation.”

  “I wouldn’t do that, my dear,” D.W. says, gripping my hand. Ah yes. I’d forgotten how strong D.W. can be, even though he’s a faggot.

  “You’re hurting me,” I say.

  “That’s absolutely nothing, my dear, compared to the amount of pain I can inflict upon you and am perfectly prepared to do so.”

  I sit back down. Light ANOTHER cigarette. GOD. I have to quit smoking one of these days. When I get pregnant. “What do you want, D.W.?” I ask, although I have a pretty good idea. “You know I don’t have any money.”

  “Money?” D.W. sits back in his chair and starts laughing. He’s laughing so hard tears came out of the corners of his eyes.

  “Don’t insult me,” he says.

  “You’re like that character in All About Eve. Addison DeWitt, The Evil Queen,” I say.

  “Why don’t you order something to eat?”

  “I’m not hungry. You know that.”

  “I’ll order something for you.”

  Why is he torturing me? “I’ll throw up. I swear to God, D.W. I’ll vomit.”

  “Waitress,” he says.

  He moves his chair closer to the table. I move mine back. “All I want,” he says, “is to be very, very close to my very, very good friend Cecelia. Who is now about to relaunch herself as the queen of society. Backed, aided, and abetted, of course, by her very, very good friend D.W.”

  I sit back in my chair. Cross my legs. Swing my foot. “I’ll do nothing of the sort,” I say, mashing my cigarette on the floor.

  “Oh . . . yes . . . you . . . will,” D.W. says calmly.

  “Oh . . . no . . . I . . . won’t.”

  “Are you aware,” D.W. says, “that there’s a Princess Cecelia tell-all book in the works? The writer is a very, very good friend of mine, but I have to say he’s quite an excellent investigative journalist. The book would be—well, let’s just say that ‘embarrassing’ would be the least of it.”