“Lovely,” Zach replied, trying to keep his voice under control. “And just what is it that you’re going to announce to the world, may I ask?”
“Certainly,” Melina replied magnanimously. “It’s quite simple, really. The agency business is still quite a little men’s club at the top. You two couldn’t stand the thought of Janie and I succeeding in your roles. Well, I’ve news for you, boys: I’m going to make it. On my own this time. And if Janie has any sense, she’ll do the same.”
“Leave Janie out of this,” Zach cut in.
“Why?” Melina asked, turning as she got to the door. She smiled across at Janie. “We wouldn’t have landed City Slickers without her. Or doubled Ramona’s market share in the perfume category. Or brought in Magic Moments. You see, I’m not afraid of admitting the truth. You two might own this place, but for the last six months, Janie and I have really been running it. Good-bye, gentlemen.” She closed the door gently behind her.
Chapter 12
“But Madame is not expecting anyone this afternoon.” The impeccably dressed young man who answered the front door looked Melina over with interest. She looked back, realizing, on second glance, that he was not so young after all. He was deeply tanned, with thick black hair that was slicked back against his skull, accentuating a high, well-formed forehead and rather overgrown brows. But there was something petulant lurking at the corners of his mouth, and his eyes were without luster or depth.
“I know,” Melina answered sweetly, smiling. “But, well, I just have to see her if she’s in. I’m sure she’ll want to know I’m here.”
“She’s resting,” the man replied, just barely stifling a yawn himself. “And she detests being disturbed.”
“I can imagine,” Melina answered. “On the other hand, I know her rather well myself, and I’d hate to think how angry she might become if she knew I’d called … and had been turned away.” The man flinched, as if already hearing Madame Ramona’s shrill voice, and shrugged as he opened the door to let Melina into the reception hall.
“What’s your name?” he asked grumpily as he closed the door behind them. Melina realized that though he was elegantly decked out in dove gray linen slacks and a black silk shirt, the man was barefoot. His pale feet looked incongruous against the rich, dark patterns of the Persian rug on which the two of them were standing. The reception area was octagonal, painted a creamy green and designer-stenciled to complement the room’s one piece of furniture—a small eighteenth century decoupage table that faced the front door and on which was placed an ornately wrought Lalique glass vase filled to overflowing with dewy sprays of lilacs. Their scent—or was it one of Madame Ramona’s new home fragrances?—gave the huge apartment on the seventeenth floor of one of Park Avenue’s most prestigious residences the fresh and airy feeling of an open meadow in midsummer.
“Melina Bliss,” she told him, glancing down one of the three long corridors that radiated out from the entrance hall. She could see richly colored carpets, gilded frames in which no doubt hung minor masterpieces, and at the end of the hallway a French door, covered with a finely meshed lace curtain beneath which lay a glossy sea of parquet floor dappled with sun. She sighed, thinking of her studio apartment three blocks east, ten blocks north, and a fortune away from where she now stood.
“Wait here,” the man instructed her abruptly as he started to pad down the hall to the right. He added sanctimoniously over his shoulder, “I’ll see if Madame is interested in having her nap interrupted just now.”
Melina had been so nervous when she started out that afternoon that she almost turned back twice, and she still felt the twinges of nausea that had kept her from holding down any breakfast or lunch. It was Saturday, the day after she had quit D&D, and she knew that she had to act fast in order to make her plan work. She was also aware from checking with various administrative assistants she knew at Ramona Cosmetics that Madame usually spent her Saturday afternoons “in,” preparing for whatever gala event, ballet, or opera she would be gracing with her presence that evening.
“It takes her around five hours to get ready for just a regular weekday,” one snippy employee had confided, “so you can well imagine what’s involved in preparing her for something formal.”
But Melina understood such painstaking concern. After all, it had taken her four or five changes of wardrobe to finally arrive at Madame Ramona’s dressed to the casual yet classic effect she wanted—rich chocolate-colored wool jersey dress, single strand of good imitation pearls, eelskin pumps, and matching clutch in which she had carefully folded the all-important document. She’d put her hair up in a French twist, fastening the back with a simple pearl-studded comb. The outfit, pieced together from various department store and sample sales, had cost her nearly half a month’s salary. She’d made up her face with colors from Ramona’s Romantic Autumnal Collection. To hell with Madame’s snotty houseboy, Melina thought, walking over to check her reflection in the gilded cedar-framed mirror across from her; she looked terrific. She looked rich. Which was just what she intended to be, come hell or high water.
She leaned over to smell the lilacs and run her fingers over the molded surface of the Lalique vase. Ropes of glass vines twirled up from its base, and here and there a tiny bud or butterfly nestled, details highlighted by the craftsman’s brush and glaze. Oh, how charming it was! Melina thought, caressing a perfect little dragonfly, its wings forever frozen in flight. How much she loved and needed beautiful things! It was unfair, she thought, a familiar anger pumping through her, that such treasures were denied someone who would love them so dearly. Ridiculous that someone as old and unfeeling as Madame Ramona could surround herself with such extravagances while Melina could only look on in envy. But then, Melina remembered with a secretive smile, once Madame had been forced to look on too.
“She has absolutely no intention of actually getting up.” The man had suddenly materialized from nowhere and, catching Melina at the mirror unawares, gave her a superior smirk when she turned quickly around to face him. “However, Lord knows why, she will receive you in her boudoir, if you’ll follow me, please.”
Melina’s first impression upon being left alone in Madame’s private sitting room was that she had walked into an elaborate fun house. There were floor-to-ceiling mirrors on all four walls, and she saw herself everywhere she turned. Once she had adjusted to this disconcerting phenomenon, however, she was able to take in the room’s other attributes—the blue-and-white-striped silk-covered chaise lounges, the huge ferns potted in enormous japanned tole urns, and the colorful, and undoubtedly rare, collection of paperweights and letter openers scattered across the top of the open drop leaf of an exquisite bird’s-eye maple writing table.
“I do hope that this is either something tremendously important, or”—the sound of Madame Ramona’s French-accented voice preceded her into the room—“something positively scandalous.” Two miniature poodles, one a dirty white, the other dark gray, bustled along beside their mistress. They were intricately groomed, with pom-pom tails, manicured and brightly painted nails, and perfectly tied satin ribbons around their necks. One curled up at Madame’s feet as she sat down on the chaise opposite Melina. The other hopped onto her lap.
“I think it may be a bit of both,” Melina answered, feeling suddenly serene as she took in Madame Ramona’s appearance. Despite the room’s soft flattering light, the older woman looked haggard. Her hair was caught up in a turban, causing her already cosmetically tightened face to looked stretched and unnatural. Her mouth, bright with Ramona Real Red Lipstick, seemed almost clownish. And though she wore a stunning negligee and dressing gown of the most delicate peach silk edged with Belgian lace, Melina could see the unmistakable grooves that age had etched into her usually well-covered chest and cleavage. Melina, catching her own trim figure in the mirror opposite, felt a momentary twinge of pity.
“Well, Pepe and Mimi and I intend to have some tea,” Madame said, stepping on a floor button beside t
he chaise, while daintily scratching behind her poodle’s ears. “You can join us if you like.”
In what seemed only seconds to Melina, a trolly ladened down with a tea service and a variety of sweets and sandwiches was wheeled into the room by a tiny Filipino woman. The maid carefully poured the tea for Madame, leaned across to offer Melina a cup, and then bent down to place a saucer of tea cut heavily with cream in front of the poodle on the floor.
“Pepe can sip from my saucer,” Madame instructed the maid. “Leave us alone now.”
“Thank you for seeing me,” Melina began when the maid had gently closed the door behind her, and Madame cleared her throat, obviously waiting for her visitor to explain herself.
“Your sudden and quite unexpected appearance interested me,” Madame replied. “You don’t strike me as an impulsive or silly young woman. And it takes some—how do you say?—balls, to drop in at the apartment of your biggest client unannounced.”
“Let’s start there,” Melina responded, stirring a teaspoon of sugar into her tea. “I’m no longer with Dorn & Delaney. I resigned yesterday.”
“Oh?” Madame Ramona replied, sitting up with some interest. “You had some kind of argument? There was a disagreement? You surely weren’t there long enough, my dear, to think another career move propitious. Sudden departures don’t look nice on one’s résumé.”
“Very perceptive, Madame,” Melina replied, nodding her head. “There was a fight. With Zach, of course.”
“Ah, yes … our hotheaded Zachary. He would be hard to work for, I imagine. I assume you will tell me the details now? Please continue, I find this quite interesting.”
“Some of it is … well, rather personal.” Melina hesitated, then continued. “But, you’re right, I did intend to tell you everything, I suppose.”
“I insist,” Madame told her. “Otherwise, how can I truly help you? And that is what you want, I’m sure. But”—Madame waved her heavily ringed fingers at Melina—“continue now. Everything, please. From the top.”
“I fell in love with Zach,” Melina told her, “oh, within a week of the time I was hired.”
“Aha!” Madame cried. “I knew it! I guessed. But go on, don’t let me interrupt.” Melina, though she was beginning to sense that Madame’s interruptions were unstoppable, did as she was told.
“I’ve never been very lucky with men,” she confessed, keeping her gaze modestly lowered. “I don’t know, I seem to fall for the wrong type. I like men like Zach, you know? Tough, independent. But the problem is that always seems to mean they have hearts made of steel.”
“Oh, my dear,” Madame Ramona cut in, “don’t I just know it? I sympathize, I do. I understand, really. But please, don’t let me stop you. Go on.”
“And Zach?” Melina said, laughing sadly. “He didn’t know that I existed. He’d see right through me. It was horrible. Devastating. I did all the usual things, you know, to attract his attention, short of sending up flares.”
“Was he seeing someone else, perhaps?” Madame asked. “I’ve heard he’s quite the man about town. Wasn’t he dating that heiress, Cordelia something?”
“Oh, he’s plowed his way through half of eligible New York,” Melina agreed. “But seeing one woman, as far as I’d heard, had never kept him from seeing another. Besides which, Madame, you know how love is. I just assumed that as soon as he realized what he had in me—none of the others would matter.”
“Yes,” Madame murmured, petting her sleeping miniature poodle. “I know how love can be.”
“So, I did the only thing I could,” Melina told her in a soft, broken voice. “I went to his office one night, when I knew he was working late, and I told him how I felt. He laughed.”
“You poor thing,” Madame crooned, rocking the poodle in her arms. “Men are such stupid beasts.”
“And then, after he got through laughing,” Melina continued, “he asked me if that meant I wanted to quote fuck unquote.”
“Dirty beast,” Madame whispered. “Did you?”
“Yes,” Melina replied regretfully. “It was beyond my control somehow. Being so close to him … being able to touch him. I knew even then that I was just humiliating myself. That he didn’t care. But I’ll tell you the truth, it didn’t matter. It was madness.”
“I understand,” Madame nodded. “I remember once … but, go on, my dear. Go on.”
“That wasn’t the last time by any means,” Melina confessed. “We’d meet at his office. Or back at my cramped little apartment. It had nothing to do with love, I know that now. But … I couldn’t stop. It was like an addiction. And then one night we were in his office. And, my God, I’ll tell you one thing, Zachary is quite a lover. We were so … involved … we didn’t hear.”
“Oh, who was it?” Madame asked eagerly.
“Janie Penrod,” Melina said, “the art director.”
“The fat redheaded one?” Madame Ramona said. She simply had no time for unattractive women.
“Yes,” Melina agreed. “Anyway, somehow that incident opened up my eyes. I saw what I was doing to myself, or what Zach was doing to me. I told him that it was over.”
“Good girl.”
“It was absolute hell for a week or two,” Melina went on. “But I got through it. I forced myself to go out with other men. I don’t know, it slowly got easier to see him at the office. And I threw myself into the job, believe me. Janie and I won three accounts, just about single-handedly.”
“That’s nice, dear,” Madame murmured, but Melina could tell she wanted more of the juicy stuff.
“We were doing so well,” Melina said, “that when Zach was away last week on business and Michael got tied up at the office, Michael sent Janie and me to do a new business presentation alone. That’s unprecedented at the agency, Madame. And, well … we won it. The City Slickers account … perhaps you’ve heard of them?”
“But, of course,” Madame assured her. “I read the trades.”
“Anyway, when Zach found out, he was furious. I mean, I’ve never seen him like that. He accused me of all sorts of horrible things.”
“Such as?” Madame asked, her interest sparking again.
“Trying to take over the business,” Melina responded. “Going behind his back. Just a lot of paranoid, jealous nonsense. Michael tried to stop him … tried to intervene … but Zach said some things I’ll never forget. I certainly couldn’t stay after that. Though poor Michael begged me.”
“Ah, you see, you threatened Zach,” Madame told her sagely. “You won the race on his turf. Some men can’t take that sort of competition. I know, my dear, I know.”
“Most men can’t,” Melina responded. “At least in my experience. I’ve been in advertising nearly eight years now, and it’s only recently that I realized all the big agencies are totally dominated at the top by men. And you know who are heading up the smaller ones? Women.”
“I see,” Madame replied slowly, a sly smile playing across her lips. “Perhaps you will get to the point now, my dear?”
“I’m going to start my own shop,” Melina declared, meeting Madame Ramona’s amused gaze head-on. “And I’d like to know if, at some point, I might be able to pitch for a small portion of the Ramona Cosmetics account.”
“Well, well, did you hear that, Pepe?” Madame cooed to the poodle who struggled awake in her arms. She bounced him on her knee, saying: “Did you hear that, my little dearest? We’re being—how you say, Pepe?—propositioned. Is that nice, Pepe? Is that now, darling?”
“It may not sound all that nice to you,” Melina told her abruptly as she quietly snapped open her clutch and felt around for the document she’d brought with her. “But I never thought any successful business, whether it be advertising or cosmetics, had a great deal to do with sweetness and light.”
“These young people,” Madame continued, still addressing her remarks, much to Melina’s annoyance, to the sleepy little poodle in her lap, “are soooo cynical, darling
. Don’t you think?”
“I prefer to think of myself as practical,” Melina told her. “I’m smart. I’m a hard worker. My feet are on the ground.” She pinched the edge of the paper between two carefully manicured nails, still holding it hidden in the handbag. “Perhaps I’m too direct. Perhaps I lack some of the social niceties, Madame, but I would never let you down if you gave me a chance.”
“I suppose you expect me to simply take your word for that?” Madame replied, regarding Melina coolly.
“I’ve come up the hard way,” Melina retorted. “I had to make my own breaks in this business. I’ve done okay, but I intend to do better. Perhaps you don’t remember how it feels when you’re first starting out, I mean really on your own. But I can tell you, nothing is going to stop me. I’m going to make it, and I’m offering you a chance to get in on the ground floor. I’m not asking you to risk anything, either, just allow me the opportunity in a month or so to show you what I might do with your, say, new home fragrances line. That’s all.” Melina started to stand and at the same time take the paper from her handbag.
“Oh, very well, my dear.” Madame Ramona sighed. “If it means that much to you. Call on me at the office when you’re set up. I just realized how much you remind me of myself … at your age.”
“Thank you, Madame,” Melina replied gratefully, slipping the copy of Olivia Piedmont’s commencement photograph back in her clutch and snapping it shut. She’d been so lucky to come across it in Michael’s file. For the time being, Madame wouldn’t have to know that she was a second or two away from being hurled back fifty years … into the yellowing truth of her girlhood. The same poor, dusty upbringing Melina had escaped from. Yes, it was true, she and Madame actually were quite alike. For the moment, however, there was no need for Madame to know how much. But one could never be sure, Melina cautioned herself as she rose to go. She’d hang onto the photograph just in case.
Changes of Heart Page 10