Fashionably Late

by Olivia Goldsmith

  ‘I think I’ve come up with a way for both of us to compromise and get what we really want,’ he said. ‘How about this? When we get the official offer, if we get the offer, you agree to sell to NormCo and I agree to help you adopt a baby.’

  ‘A baby?’ she asked. ‘We could adopt a baby?’ He nodded. ‘But do you really want one?’ she asked.

  He tightened his grip around her ankle. ‘Look, Karen, I’m doing the best that I can. I know I’ve been making you miserable, but I didn’t want to adopt, and I can’t pretend to feel differently than I do. This sale is something that I really want and a baby is something you really want for the same reason. I can understand your feeling, even if I don’t share it with the same enthusiasm. And you, I hope, can understand how I feel. I want you to be happy and I hope you want the same for me. So, what do you think? A Real Deal?’

  She stared at him. Was he serious? And was it all right if he was? She felt her heart lurch in her chest. Was Defina wrong? Could she, Karen, have it all? ‘I don’t know, Jeffrey. I don’t know if I should have to bargain for this. I mean, you shouldn’t be a grudging parent.’

  ‘Yeah, and you shouldn’t begrudge selling KInc, but if you do sell you’ll have more time for a baby and so will I. Painting and a baby. Not bad for a nineties kind of guy, which we know I am. Somehow, it’s the only way I can see it happening.’

  ‘You really mean it?’ she asked. She looked at the wrinkled white bedclothes. For the first time in weeks, her heart lifted, as if some burden she’d carried on her chest was gone. ‘I mean, we could have him crawling around right on this duvet.’

  ‘Yeah, and probably peeing on it. How do you get baby piss out of Porthault sheets?’

  Karen laughed. ‘I don’t know. I’ll have to ask Ernesta.’ Then she stopped smiling. ‘What if we can’t get a baby?’

  ‘What if we don’t get the deal? We do the best we can. We operate in good faith.’

  Karen blinked. If she made this deal, she’d have to call Bill Wolper right away and tell him to give them the offer. And when Jeffrey realized the actual offer price he’d be wild to do the deal. There’d be no way to stop him. Karen bit her lip. She sighed. Maybe she should level with Jeffrey now, tell him about her lunch with Bill. But it seemed that if she did that she’d not only look like a liar, she’d make Jeffrey look like a fool.

  No, she’d wait. She’d contact a lawyer tomorrow and get the adoption moving. Then she’d give the word to Wolper. They could both have what they wanted.

  Jeffrey got up and took her hand, then stooped to kiss her. ‘If it’s what you really want, Karen,’ he said, ‘then I want it for you. I know I’ve been a prick lately, but I do want you to be happy.’ He bent to kiss her. Thrilled, she kissed him back. His hands moved to her shoulders and then lower. She pulled her lips away from his.

  ‘Wait a minute,’ she said, and moved the breakfast tray onto the floor.

  ‘Good idea,’ he agreed, and joined her in bed.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Dollars and Scents

  They arrived at the Norris Cleveland party fashionably late. Since they’d made the Real Deal, Karen’s spirits had lifted. She was working with new energy, she felt good again, and waking up was no longer a burden. Jeffrey seemed happier, too. ‘Hail, hail, the gang’s all here,’ Jeffrey sang as he and Karen sailed up the gang plank of the four-masted schooner that had been chartered for the ‘Norris!’ perfume introduction. Leave it to Norris to drag everyone down to the seaport. Back in 1978, when Karen had just started working for Liz, Yves Saint Laurent had catered the Opium party on a boat as well. But his was a real Chinese junk. This one was only harbor junk. Perhaps Norris was just counting on the subliminal suggestion.

  The Opium party had been the first fashion event Karen had ever been to and it had launched a perfume juggernaut. Opium was still selling – rare in the fickle world of fragrance – and it seemed to Karen that since 1978 the same people were showing up at all the perfume parties. Already Karen could see Robert Isabell, the New York capo di tutti capi of party planning, giving directions to staff. Last year Isabell had done Armani’s fabulous Gio launch in the basement of a high rise.

  Tonight there were no Chinese acrobats, as there had been at the Opium party. And there were no Moroccan tents and floor cushions as there had been for Armani. Instead, there were only wall-to-wall celebrities and photographers. Parties had gotten more and more like that – it seemed to Karen that the party was less important than the press it got. It was as if the middleman had been cut out: you could come, be seen, and be photographed, all without the bother of actually having a good time. Karen grinned to herself. It was so Norris Cleveland.

  But everyone was there. Cher, who had been at both the Opium and the Gio party and had had a perfume of her own in between, had shown up. So had her old pal David Geffen, whose interest in fashion had become financial since he had bailed out his buddy Calvin Klein when Cal had run into financial trouble and almost gone under. But then, what was fifty million to David Geffen?

  Amy Fine Collins, who wrote for Vanity Fair and Harper’s Bazaar, glided by. She was not just intellectual, but the only fashion journalist who dressed with great style, eschewing the safe little black dress. Carrie Donovan, lately of the Times, and Suzy Mehle, the grand dame of the Herald Tribune, were also here. These guys were important. How does Norris get this kind of turnout, Karen wondered.

  Jeffrey went off to get her a drink, and she stood alone for a moment before she felt the tap on her back. She turned and looked down into the beady but friendly brown eyes of Bobby Pillar. ‘I’d ask what a classy girl like you was doing in a place like this, but it might reflect badly on my own presence,’ Bobby said and laughed. Then he hugged her as if they had seen each other nightly since their chance meeting at Elle’s studio. ‘You were wonderful on Elle’s show,’ he said. ‘Didn’t I tell you? You have an enormous warmth and naturalness. You know, that’s a gift. People believe what you tell them.’ Bobby seemed full of enthusiasm. It shone off him. Even his bald head gleamed.

  ‘Thanks, Bobby. I guess the show came off okay.’

  ‘So did you wet your pants? I looked, but I couldn’t notice.’

  Karen had to laugh. He was outrageous, but down to earth. She actually liked him. ‘So, will you be selling Norris’s perfume on TV?’ she asked.

  ‘That rat piss? She tried to hook me, but I didn’t take the bait. Have you smelled it? Give me a break? The FCC would clap me in irons faster than the Cossacks joined pogroms. As if the authorities need an excuse to put a short Jew in jail.’ He laughed, and there was something so honest about him, so outrageously impolite but real that Karen had to join in. Maybe money did buy freedom, but Bobby had been this outspoken before he made his pile.

  ‘So, mammela, are you going to talk to Uncle Bobby about doing a line for us on television?’

  ‘I don’t think so, Bobby. I’m just starting to think of mass market.’ Karen paused.

  ‘Well, I hear you are talking to a little NormCo birdie. A vulture. Not such a great idea.’

  Karen stopped smiling. Before she could answer, before she could ask him how he had heard that rumor, Jeffrey returned. He and Bobby said hello and their conversation seemed to stop. It was clear they didn’t like each other. She knew Jeffrey thought Bobby was vulgar. But that, of course, was part of Bobby’s charm.

  Bobby just smiled and lifted his hand in an exaggerated wave. ‘Call me some time, mammela,’ he said, and disappeared into the crowd, his short, broad body obscured by a group of tall, willowy models.

  There was, of course, a full complement of models and ex-models. Lauren Hutton, as usual, was wearing Armani. The younger crowd included Linda Evangelista, Carla Bruni, Maria Lopez, Kristen McMenamy, and even Kate Moss. All of them were smoking. Karen wondered if Norris had to pay them to get them to attend. Karen also wondered which, if any of them, she could get to do her Paris show. Maria Lopez still looked good to her, despite what Defina said. Maria was
less expensive than the others, and with Tangela and some decent blondes and brunettes they would have a real nice mix. Karen was really straining her budget with the two shows. Jeffrey was squealing, but she’d insisted and he had acquiesced – after all, they’d soon be rolling in the bucks. Still and all, they couldn’t afford the supermodels. She had heard that Versace had spent a hundred thousand dollars to get four of them to do his show last year. A hundred thousand dollars just for models! That was half of Karen’s whole Paris budget! So getting these girls to show up for a party was a major coup.

  The habit that the supermodels had of hanging out together somehow added to their glamour although, having worked with them, Karen knew that there wasn’t much glamour on the inside. That was really the problem with fashion. It was commerce. Fashion wasn’t glamorous on the inside: it was all about production and a lot of hard work, kind of like a sausage factory. But it had to look glamorous, even if the designers didn’t. If Gianfranco Ferrè was overweight, if Mary MacFadden was bizarrely pale, if Donna Karan was chunky, and Karl Lagerfeld was balding, they juiced up their image by using models who weren’t.

  The girls now stood preening, used to being the center of attention, and just before Karen turned away from them another tall, thin figure joined them. It was Tangela Pompey, and even from here, halfway across the long teak deck, Karen could see the glitter in the girl’s eye and the outrageous way she was dressed. She had a blindingly purple mini-skirt on and a black bolero jacket as a blouse. The jacket barely covered her breasts and was held together with a single big safety pin. Tangela was all beautiful brown skin and desperation. Was it Karen’s imagination that the other women seemed to disperse when she arrived? There was no doubt she was a beautiful girl, but she wasn’t as beautiful as her mother had been, and she probably wasn’t beautiful enough to make it much beyond where she was now. Karen knew Tangela could have a lucrative, long career as a fitting model – her proportions were perfect – but from what Defina said the girl wanted a whole lot more. Even now, when they worked together, Karen felt Tangela’s lack of enthusiasm. Without an audience, the girl was dead.

  Karen was about to turn away when she noticed the rest of Tangela’s entourage. Aside from the Hispanic-looking guy – probably the boyfriend that Defina objected to – there was a minor rock musician, and another girl. Karen did a double take. The girl was Stephanie.

  The latest bonding fashion was models and rock stars. Patti Hanson married Keith Richards, Rachel Hunter married Rod Stewart (both couples were in attendance tonight). Stephanie seemed to be following the crowd. Why else would she be hanging all over a scruffy-looking blond who Karen recognized as the member of a rock band? Karen was just surprised – no, shocked – to see her niece. How had she gotten in? She was too young. Had Norris invited her? Had she crashed the party? Had Tangela brought her? Karen watched as Stephanie mimed a pout, walked a few steps away from her blond Adonis, then, turning, ran back across the deck and threw herself at him. Karen saw the guy’s hand squeeze Stephanie’s ass. Stephanie just threw back her head and laughed.

  What to do? Play the aunt and use the classic line, ‘Does your mother know you’re here?’ Act outraged and send the kid home? Ignore it and hope it’s just what teenagers do? She turned to Jeffrey. ‘Look who’s here,’ she said. He followed her gaze with his eyes, and they widened when they saw his niece. ‘Time for some divine intervention,’ Karen decided, and made her way through the crowd to Stephanie, who was being nuzzled by the unsavory rocker.

  ‘Hi, Stephie,’ Karen smiled. She tried to act natural. Stephanie spun around. There already was a hickey on her long, swan neck. Very attractive. Karen didn’t know people still did hickies. ‘Having fun?’ she asked.

  ‘Oh, hi. Yeah. Hi, Uncle Jeffrey.’ Before her niece could say anything more, a photographer began to shoot pictures while his aide asked for Stephanie’s name. The rocker, Karen noticed, did his best to stay within the frame. Karen had to admit the guy was cute, if he’d wash his hair and lose the tattoos. ‘Isn’t this the greatest party?’ Stephanie asked as the camera flashed, her voice shrill.

  ‘Just great,’ Jeffrey agreed. ‘Hasn’t been one like this in close to three days.’ The sarcasm was lost on the girl.

  ‘How are you getting home, Stephie?’ Karen asked.

  Her niece blinked. ‘I was going to stay over with Tangela,’ she said. Karen thought of Defina’s stories about Tangela on the marble kitchen table. Forget about it!

  ‘Gee, I don’t think it’s a good idea, honey. I really don’t. Why don’t you spend the night with us?’

  Stephanie knew she’d been outmaneuvered. She threw a look of longing at the blond guitar prince. Karen remembered when Stephie used to look at Malibu Barbies with that longing. She sighed. ‘Why don’t you take a little time and say goodbye to your friend?’ Karen smiled. ‘We’ll be leaving in about fifteen minutes.’ The girl couldn’t shoot heroin in a quarter of an hour, could she?

  ‘What the hell is Lisa thinking of?’ Jeffrey asked out loud as they walked away. It didn’t help that Karen was thinking the same thought herself.

  ‘Oh, you know how kids are. Stephie probably lied to Lisa. I lied to Belle. I’ll talk to Lisa tomorrow. We’ve been here almost half an hour. Let’s make our goodbyes.’

  Karen knew she eventually would have to make her way over to Norris and congratulate her. With any luck, she and Jeffrey would have their picture taken for ‘W’ and then they could go home. Karen moved among the beautiful crowd, Jeffrey at her side. It would have been unbearable to attend one of these functions without him. The press of the crowd was unbelievable. Was it safe, she wondered. Could the boat sink? She turned to Jeffrey. The two of them had been pushed against the rail of the boat, and the breeze from off the East River riffled his hair.

  There, it seemed, they found a moment to be alone in the crowd. ‘You’re a good aunt,’ Jeffrey said. ‘You’ll be a good mother, too.’ He smiled approvingly at her and then looked uptown, toward the white necklace of lights that was the Brooklyn Bridge. For some reason, at that moment, for the first time in a long time, Karen filled with love. She loved Jeffrey again! It was such a relief! The water below them reflected splashes of light against Jeffrey’s jaw, and the darkness shrouded the two of them as softly as a crepe de chine shawl. Karen felt, suddenly, happier than she ever had. Despite being at this silly party, despite the little scene with Tangela and Stephanie, she felt incredibly lucky, as if her own ship, despite a difficult and dangerous crossing, had safely come in to port at last. For a moment, she felt completely satisfied. Across the water, Brooklyn glittered in the night, looking more romantic than it had ever been when Karen lived there. She could hardly blame Stephanie for wanting to escape Long Island. Karen had not just crossed a river to arrive. She had crossed worlds to get here. She looked back at her husband. ‘I’ve already looked into some of the adoption stuff,’ she said to him. ‘I think I found the right guy. Soon we’ll be a daddy and a mommy,’ Karen added, a little self-conscious.

  He smiled down at her. ‘Yeah, and then we’ll be busting our own kid at parties.’ Darkness had fallen and, though the fairy lights that had been wound around the masts and stanchions were twinkling, it was dim on board. Just then, Anna Wintour drifted by, wearing the darkest of sunglasses. Karen didn’t think she had ever seen Anna without them. Even in her Vogue office, Anna kept them on. How was she making it across the dark deck? Perhaps she was blind, Karen thought. Somehow, it would be a fitting irony if the queen of fashion coverage was sightless.

  They had to say goodbye to Norris and collect Stephanie, but the crowd had its own ebb and flow. Susan Reliance walked by, her husband at her side. They were big money, oil money. And Susan’s family was New York social since the days of the four hundred. Karen couldn’t understand why people like her attended these soirées. Karen came because it was business, but what was a socialite’s reason for coming? When she’d broken her leg Pat Buckley had schlepped around on crutches at parties for a
lmost a year. Why? And why had Lauren Bacall come? Surely Norris didn’t have dirt on them that forced them to show up. Maybe they just liked to stand in crowds and spill champagne on their shoes.

  The boat shifted and a high-pitched murmur rose. Lucie de la Falaise lurched by, along with a woman in a Claude Montana that she should have been told wasn’t for her. And then Norris appeared, wearing another of her creations, something in silk organza that would have made a good table drape. Because it was her party, and because Karen had good manners, she took a step forward and was about to greet Norris when she saw the man behind her. It was Bill Wolper.

  As always at one of her events, photographers clustered around Norris, and Bill himself was being photographed from every possible direction. Karen hoped he didn’t have a bad side, and that his mother wouldn’t call him the next morning and ask why he looked so wrinkled. Karen stood frozen until Jeffrey noticed the direction she was staring in. ‘Well, well,’ he said, ‘no wonder we haven’t gotten that offer yet. Maybe Bill is still shopping around. After all, if you can’t get the original Karen Kahn, you could settle for a Norris Cleveland knock-off.’

  Karen felt a stab of guilt. She, not Norris, was the reason they had not received NormCo’s offer. Somehow, after years of total honesty with her husband, Karen’s new relationship with Bill had already filled her marriage with lies and omissions. Somehow, with her help, Bill had made Jeffrey look like a bit of a schmuck. Karen didn’t like it. What if Jeffrey asked about all this? What if he looked dumb in front of Bill? Somehow, she wanted to protect him. ‘Shall we go say hello?’ she asked. ‘But let’s not mix business with pleasure.’

  ‘No fear. This is all business,’ Jeffrey complained.

  The two of them moved toward Norris. Karen wondered if Norris wasn’t having a flirtation of her own with Bill Wolper. He had even deeper pockets than Norris’s Wall Street hubby.

  Why should you care, Karen asked herself fiercely. But she found she did care. Could she lose this deal to Norris? Bill’s hand on Norris’s elbow didn’t bother her as much as the thought of Bill praising Norris’s talent. Could Bill tell the difference between a Norris Cleveland and a Karen Kahn? Was Norris his fallback position if she, Karen, turned him down? Before she could think about it, she and Jeffrey were greeting Norris. ‘It’s all so wonderful,’ Karen said and smiled as sincerely as she could manage.