by Nan Lyons
“The war is over.”
“Not for those who lost.”
“But buying a fleet of planes will change all the numbers.”
“It is so difficult to do business with Americans. You make deals as though making a marriage.” She rubbed her hand along his thigh. “Armani?”
He stopped her before she reached his crotch. “And how do you make a deal?”
“Like a divorce, Ogden-san. Does it matter how much you give up or how much you keep?”
Millie thought of his divorce, that he would have given up everything to stay with Natasha and that she wouldn’t take anything from him.
The waitress returned with two wire frames each holding a conical shell. She put the frames atop the hot stone and reached for a pot of boiling broth. As the shells heated, the small creatures who lived inside extended their antennae. Millie groaned as the waitress ladled boiling broth into each shell and then, with her chopsticks, pulled the squirming mollusks from their homes. She dropped them into Imari cups filled with broth, a sliver of sour grass, and half a ginkgo nut. After presenting the dishes, she bowed and left.
Millie shuddered as Mrs. Nakamura picked up her chopsticks and lifted a creature from the broth. “You must swallow it whole, like an oyster.”
“The problem is, I’m not an oyster.” He put his bowl down. “I’m sorry. I can’t let you control shipping costs. That puts AGF at your mercy.”
“Open your mouth.”
Millie hesitated and then gulped it down. “Delicious!”
“Now you drink the broth.”
“Are you sure that thing was dead?” he asked, reaching for the cup.
“I will guarantee distribution costs for two years.”
Millie looked around for something else to drink. He slugged down the sake. “Mrs. Nakamura, may I be candid? You have a refrigerated warehouse filled with frozen sushi dinners that you couldn’t give away in Japan. You screw up this deal, and that’s the one false move your honorable board of directors has been waiting for. Every one of those guys has been wined, dined, and fucked for eight months straight to get this deal into position. You come in now and play Dragon Lady, you’re out on your ass.”
“Back to being a geisha.”
Millie put his hand to her breast. “Christian La Croix?”
She gasped. “Yes.”
“Geishas don’t buy, Mrs. Nakamura. They sell.”
Without a word, she opened her purse and took out a pen. “Cartier.”
Millie opened his jacket and took out the papers. “Your ass.”
As soon as she had signed the contract, he stood up and shouted for the waitress. “Uetoresu! Uetoresu!”
“Ogden-san, what is wrong?”
“Let’s get the hell out of here,” he said, grabbing the contract from her. “I can still get us a table at Trader Vic’s.”
Hiram, ole kid, shalom!
Turn off your Panasonic, set the timer on your Hitachi, park your Mitsubishi, put a new disk in your Toshiba, change your Seiko to Tokyo time, and get on board the next JAL flight to the land of the rising Sony.
I don’t care what they’re teaching at the Nouveau School, just stand on any strasse in Munich or Tokyo and tell me that Hitler and Hirohito didn’t know exactly what they were doing. The way I figure it, with failing economies, terminal unemployment, and too many crankies, a little unfriendly fire was just what they needed. Then all they had to do was stop shooting long enough to stuff their wallets with foreign aid and put everyone back to work. How come the Yalta boys weren’t smart enough to lose the war?
Well, at least we’re losing the peace. You should see the Fuji Foodies at work. No one but the Mikado rates a private office. (You don’t want to go into the doorknob business in Japan.) All the worker bees swarm around in a big open communal space that doesn’t do much for reading the paper, private phone conversations, or tushie pinching. Then, after a fast ten-or twelve-hour day, middle management schlepps off to entertain clients at McSushi’s and then on to the nearest karaoke bar, where everyone gets drunk, throws up in the street, and crawls home for a few zzzzzz’s before the morning crush hour. Now don’t get me wrong: this is probably more fun than being boiled in oil.
But the Japanese concept of TSPE loses something in the translation. It’s like a kid shaving with a razor that has no blades. It makes him feel all grown up, but he doesn’t have the faintest idea what it’s all about. Another example: everyone here claims to know English. But what they really know is how to read English and say “Good morning.” You could walk up to one of the secretaries and say, “Miss Yamamoto, your hair is on fire,” and she’d smile and say, “Good morning.”
I tell you, Hiram, even with high-definition TV, a branch of Maxim’s, and more neon than Vegas, this place is a goddamn Kurasawa movie. They’re all still samurais, and beneath their very pacific exteriors, there’s an emotional time bomb ticking. Mark my words, Japan is on a more dangerous fault line than southern California. One day these people are going to explode, and I don’t want to be around when the yakitori hits the fan.
All of which is my way of saying that having s-layed the Dragon Lady, let’s have someone else take over this account. Preferably someone who wears Calvin Klein underwear. You know the type. I think we have some left over from the ’80s in genetic splicing or aroma packaging. Sniff around. I have decided to take the plunge. If she’ll have me.
Max
Chapter 2
THE LUNCH CRUSH was on at Neal Short’s trendy new Los Angeles bistro, Le La. Iced tea, bottled water, and diet colas dotted the tables as though it were the cocktail lounge at Betty Ford. The “surf’s up!” waitstaff whizzed by on roller skates, delivering thin-crusted frisbees dotted with duck sausage, goat cheese, and leeks; prosciutto, radicchio, and fig; shredded lettuce, truffle, and foie gras confetti.
Natasha was having lunch with food critic Roy Drake, whose most distinguishing features were his permanent sneer and a grease stained Filofax. Slender, with thinning blond hair, Roy wore his half-glasses midway down his nose. He looked up as he stopped writing.
“I hear Mimi Sheraton gained another pound,” he said with a smile.
“Give it a rest, Roy.”
He pushed aside his swordfish with sorrel gnocchi and reached for a forkful of Natasha’s grilled porcini salsa. “You sound like my agent,” he said, sticking out his tongue at both the salsa and Bobby Silverstein.
“Roy, I didn’t invite you for lunch to hear about your screenplay.”
“You and everybody else. My screenplay is almost old enough to have a bar mitzvah.” He picked up the bread and sniffed it before ripping off a piece. Then he stuck his knife into the butter and licked it clean. “You want to know how much the Frugal weighs?”
“I want to know if you’re going to do a piece on the Culinary Olympics for me.”
“I hate Paris.”
“You don’t hate Paris. You hate the Parisians, which is perfectly natural.” She smiled. “Not that I’m accusing you of being perfectly natural. Come on, be a pal. We’ll eat from dawn till dusk.”
“Is that your way of telling me I don’t need a five-star hotel?”
“Bitch, bitch, bitch.”
The waiter skated over to the table holding two plates. “Neal is dying to have you taste these. Smoked duck spring roll salad with snap peas, apples, and fennel in a honey and raspberry-vinegar dressing,” he said, putting a dish in front of Natasha. “And this is his latest, Mr. Drake, grilled Santa Barbara shrimp with chili-peach polenta and fresh mint pesto.”
“His latest,” Roy muttered. “Number twenty-seven.”
Natasha smiled at the waiter and said, “Thank you.” As soon as his ponytail was out of sight, she turned to Roy. “What do you mean, number twenty-seven?”
“What I mean is that there is one master menu for the entire city of Los Angeles. It’s on file in the municipal building. You get a license to open a restaurant, you get a copy of an equal-opportunity menu on w
hich you’re permitted to change one ingredient per dish. You also get the official register of hearing-impaired and color-phobic restaurant designers, a list of movie stars who do not yet have permanent tables and are open for investment, plus a catalog from Frieda’s with a coupon for an introductory kiwi.”
Natasha had taken a taste of everything on her plate. She switched dishes with Roy. “The duck is so aromatic. I wonder what he smoked it over.”
“From what I hear, a couple of joints.”
“Wait until you taste the spring roll. He must have used cardamom.”
“The hell he did. Cardamom is far too ethnic for the dark ages of culinary perestroika. Italian restaurants serve pasta with broccoli, the Chinese are back in Cantonese hell, and the French have surrendered to the Japanese. Australians bottle their own Riesling, and Moët makes something called California champagne. Just who do you have to fuck to get a pizza with tomato sauce and mozzarella on it?”
“Don’t look at me,” she said.
“You least of all.”
“Why me least of all?”
“Thanks to you, anyone who can undercook broccoli thinks he’s a superstar.”
“Thanks to me, young men who once dreamed of being auto mechanics enroll in cooking school. Kids all across the country graduate from culinary colleges as proudly as if they were Harvard MBAs. What’s wrong with that?”
“Listen, you six-burner Cinderella, the more you glorify the chef, the more you kill off the restaurant business. Thanks to you, when a chef leaves a restaurant after you’ve skyrocketed him to fame, it closes! You can’t get anyone to invest today unless the chef is part owner. Used to be, you needed a new cook, you hung around the track or the drunk tank. You went to a restaurant because the restaurant was famous, not the chef. What you’ve done is put the á la carte before the horse.” Roy speared a piece of spring roll and held it up. “It’s not cardamom!” he said triumphantly. “It’s turmeric!”
“Cardamom!”
He waved his hand to get the waiter’s attention. “Oh, skater!”
“Roy, don’t make a scene! I’ll put you up at the Plaza.”
The waiter glided over. “Mr. Drake?”
Roy held up his half-eaten piece of spring roll. “Turmeric or cardamom?”
The waiter looked uneasy. “I’ll ask Neal,” he said, skating toward the kitchen.
Natasha started to laugh. “Why don’t we make a little bet?”
“You’re on,” Roy said. “Cardamom, I go to Paris — ”
“Turmeric, I also get someone else to go to Dallas and interview Parker.”
Roy picked up a shrimp and sniffed it. “Don’t eat them. At least not until I get an autopsy. God knows what they died of.”
“The shrimp are perfect. Supernal. The chili-peach polenta is nothing short of brilliant. It’s hot and sweet with a very sexy rush of cool mint pesto.”
“Spare me. You sound like Gael Greene after too much radicchio.”
“Go to hell. I love Gael.”
The waiter returned with two more plates while the busboy cleared. “I didn’t want these to get cold. Okay,” he said, placing a dish in front of Natasha. “This is a napoleon of roast pork layered with Pernod potatoes and Napa Valley cabbage mousse in a surround of clementine-infused oil. And this,” he said, putting the other plate in front of Roy and lowering his voice respectfully, “is one of Dustin’s favorites. Pot roast braised with sweet vermouth and Michigan yellow cherries, Georgia sweet-potato wonton, and grilled Colorado baby beets.”
Roy stared up at him. “Turmeric or cardamom?”
The waiter glanced from Roy to Natasha, obviously trying to figure out who had guessed which. Grimacing, as though bringing the message to Garcia, he said, with a sharp intake of breath, “Cardamom?”
Natasha and Roy both sat steely-faced until he left. “For the record,” Roy said flatly, “I won’t stay anywhere but the Crillon.”
“For the record, you overpaid appetite depressant, you’ll rough it with the rest of us at the Plaza-Athenée.”
“Power-mad food bitch.”
Natasha took his hand. “Roy, it’s going to be fun.”
“It’s going to be cardamom. Pure cardamom.” He shook his head. “I can’t believe it’s time for another marzipan marathon.”
The waiter brought a phone to the table and plugged it in. “Long-distance, Miss O’Brien.”
She raised her eyebrows in surprise and picked up the receiver. “Natasha O’Brien.”
“Nat.”
Natasha’s heart stopped. She recognized Millie’s voice immediately. “I didn’t read anything about hell freezing over.”
“It’s been a long time.”
“Not long enough, chum. Listen, I’m busy right now . . .” Roy shrugged. He put his fingers into his ears and focused on his notes.
“Roy can wait.”
“How do you know I’m with Roy?” As she looked up, Natasha caught sight of Millie seated across the room, a telephone in his hand. “They told me it was long-distance,” she said softly, unable to stop staring at him.
“It is.”
“You bet your ass it is,” she said.
“I saw you this morning on the tube.”
“Lots of people saw me. All kinds of people.”
“Not the way I did. I know you. Everything’s going great. Everyone’s talking about you. The magazine. The Olympics. The White House. It must be driving you nuts.”
Natasha’s instincts short-circuited. She wanted desperately to hang up. He was the last person in the world she wanted to know how she really felt. “Millie,” she whispered, staring at him, “I keep waiting for the ax to fall, the other shoe to drop.”
“Maybe that’s why you left me. You can’t stand being happy.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. We were never happy. Besides, this is different. This is business.” She paused. “Oh, Millie. It all started out so well.”
“Are you talking about our marriage or your career?”
“Nothing ever goes this smoothly. Something has to go wrong.” Natasha leaned forward, confiding in Millie as she allowed the Great Wave of Apprehension to engulf her. “Everyone is expecting me to pull it off.”
“So what if they are?”
“So what if I don’t?” Her tone changed suddenly. “Dear God, I’m talking to you as though you were a real person.” And then another change in her voice. “You never used to go to restaurants alone.”
“I’m not alone. She went to the ladies’.”
“Bingo!” Natasha clenched her fist. “Forget everything I just said. My magazine and my life are headed straight for the top.” She hissed, “No sequels!” and hung up.
Roy slumped back in his chair. “Bite your tongue. I have a meeting with Bobby this afternoon.”
“You know, I really hate it when people start feeling sorry for themselves.” Tears began to form in her eyes. “Why the hell don’t you get on with your life like I did? You know what your problem is, Roy? You can’t divorce yourself from projects that don’t work out. Well, I can. I learned. No one can make a fool out of me unless I let them. I’m the only person who controls my life. No gremlins or ghosts lurking around the corner for me. Don’t you get it, Roy? The joke is that God only has one shoe. Now shut up and eat your grilled Colorado baby beets!”
Suddenly Natasha was aware of how loud her voice had become. She glanced self-consciously at the next table. A man was reading a book. He didn’t seem to be disturbed. He didn’t even seem to be listening.
But he was.
He was Alec Gordon.
ROY STEPPED OFF the elevator and walked down the corridor toward Bobby Silverstein’s office. The side with windows was for agents. Across the aisle, separated by shoulder-high partitions, were the secretaries and their fluorescent lamps. Bobby had the corner office. He also had Mae Sung. And Mae Sung had a big dish of fortune cookies, to which she was hopelessly addicted.
“ ‘Rising to the top sometimes means st
anding on someone’s shoulders,’ ” she said, offering him a cookie. “That was some razz you gave Chasen’s!”
Roy nodded, reaching over to pick a cookie. He opened it and read the message aloud: “ ‘Have patience. You will soon learn the truth.’ ”
Mae shook her head in amazement. “Son of a gun! Works every time. Go ahead in. He’s on the phone with Killer Diller.” She rolled her eyes. “ ‘The silent tongue lives in the wise head.’ ”
Roy felt himself tense. Bobby had promised to send the screenplay to Diller. “Who called who?” Roy asked.
“Barry called. Twice. Very excited. They’ve been on the phone for half an hour.”
Bobby Silverstein wore cashmere sweaters the way Oliver Stone wore sincere. No matter where he was going or what the weather, Bobby draped a sweater over his shoulders and tied the sleeves across his chest. His hair cut short, his handsome face tan and clean-shaven, Bobby was California trim — except for the pot belly he had sprouted, which made him look pregnant.
His bookshelves were filled with sweaters, cans of tennis balls, videotapes, boxes of athletic supporters, bottles of cologne, and an alphabetized collection of mail-order catalogs. As he saw Roy, Bobby waved him in, then put his hand over the receiver as he asked, “What happened? Chasen’s made you pay?”
Roy pushed aside the boxes of tennis sneakers on the leather sofa and sat down. Half a dozen mini–television sets in the bookcase were tuned to six different channels. No sound. There were no scripts in Bobby’s bookcase, none piled on the desk or on the floor. There were no letters or memos to be seen. Not even a pen in sight. The rumor had been circulating for years that Bobby could neither read nor write.
“Barry, are you crazy? She’s got cancer. How can she play doubles? So who? No, she just had her tits done. The only thing she plays is Sidney’s cock, and if I know Sidney, she plays it through a straw. Wait a minute, I got the expert right here.” Bobby turned to Roy. “Where should we go for lunch?”
“Le La.”
“Le La? Barry, you heard of it? Yeah? Another kingdom of the fagalas?” Bobby shrugged, then turned back to Roy. “Where should we sit?”