More Lipstick Chronicles

by Emily Carmichael

  “What time do you leave?”

  He reached down to slip a few precious beads of caviar onto Whisker’s tongue. Carole tsked enough to show both of them she disapproved.

  “I’m going to catch the seven-thirty. So don’t let me drink too much of this, okay?”

  He loosened his tie and slid farther down on the soft sofa cushions.

  “When do you get back?”

  “Maybe Friday. But then it may be easier for me to go directly to Dallas. The mechanics union is threatening another slowdown, so I want to be in Dallas before their contract deadline.”

  Mitch reached over to the chair on which his suit jacket was draped and began searching his pockets.

  “Hmmm. You sound like you’re not going to be around much. I guess I’ll just have to ask you . . .”

  She cut him off. “Mitch, I’ve been thinking about our relationship.”

  “Oh, good, then this is relationship talk.”

  “I’m being serious.”

  Mitch continued patting down the pockets of his jacket, where no doubt rested a velvet-lined box. She pulled his hand to her before he could retrieve the box.

  “I’m just as serious,” he said. “Honey, I think we both know we love each other and we’re mature enough to make decisions to—”

  “Absolutely,” she interrupted. “And so, we both know that there are times when our careers take priority. That time is now.”

  His eyebrows came together.

  “I don’t think that’s incompatible with what I want,” he said in his very best Meet the Press voice.

  “It might be, if you want what I think you want.”

  “And what do I want?”

  “Mitch, look, just trust me. We need to take things slow. Focus on where we’re going. Find out if this relationship can work before jumping into things. You know, you have a lot on your plate these days and—”

  “Oh, damn, Carole. What you really should be saying is that you’re nervous. You’re nervous about the M word.”

  “I don’t think it would be a good idea for us to get married,” Carole said.

  He tugged his hand out from her fingers, but didn’t reach again for the pocket inside his jacket. Instead he put his plate on the coffee table and straightened up. She felt his bristling displeasure.

  “We could live together,” she offered. “Maybe a few months from now. If things are going well. I could look into renting out this place. Or we could keep both. Then, if things don’t work out it’s not all messy.”

  “It’s always messy when it doesn’t work out.”

  “But if we’re living together at least lawyers don’t get involved.”

  “Living together is not an option for me. I don’t want to be in a position where I have to defend a lifestyle many of my constituents don’t care for.”

  “You’re allowed to have a private life.”

  “I am. But I also have a duty to live in a morally responsible fashion. That may not be for everyone in Washington, but it’s just the way it is for me.”

  “I don’t see what’s wrong with living together. It’s a perfectly moral choice. And for the small-minded people who think it’s not—”

  “Those small-minded people put their trust in me. In fact,” he added, “I am one of those small-minded people.”

  Silence. And then . . .

  “When did you start talking like Elmer Gantry?”

  “Oh, get out, Carole.”

  “No, really, I don’t think two adults should take one giant leap when they could avoid a whole lot of heartache by taking one very small step at a time.”

  “And I believe in marriage. Which happens to be a giant step.”

  “Exactly my point. And it’s not necessarily a giant step I want to repeat.”

  Sometimes when he looked at her, she had the sneaking suspicion that he was much older than her, in all the ways that mattered. He was wiser than he let on, he gave everyone (including her) a lot of room to have contrary opinions and to make mistakes. And he was as sure-footed and as purposeful as a man twice his age.

  “Do you remember when I asked you out the first time?” Mitch asked.

  “Of course I do.”

  “Remember you told me there were only two things that could happen and both of them were bad?”

  “I did say that. Either a one-night stand that made me feel uncomfortable or a long affair that ended with one of us hurt.”

  “Yeah, well. I think we’re there now.”

  The shuttle was nasty and brutish, but mercifully short. When she stepped out into the drizzly walkway to take the last cab from the taxi stand, a squat suit elbowed her aside for it.

  Ah, Home Sweet Home, Carole thought, watching the purloined cab slither out from the pile of black snow at the curb.

  Thankful when another cab pulled up just minutes later, she directed it to East 64th Street and Park Avenue. The driver flipped the meter and turned up the radio.

  Carole flipped open her cell phone and called her mother at the studio. Her mother’s character had been revived—recovering her memory after the amnesia brought on when her lover threw her out of his private plane over the Atlantic Ocean. Soap Opera Digest had done two showcase interviews about her. And a Soap Opera Daily columnist had been slipping little tidbits about Honoria Titus in her latest columns.

  “I’m getting my arms waxed,” her mother said. “I have a nude scene coming up.”

  Carole cringed.

  “You’ll have a sheet, right?”

  “Of course, although Jaime is a little better about showing off my pets now that I’ve had them redone.”

  A mother who called her breasts “pets”? Carole shuddered.

  “I’ll be staying at the Lotos Club,” Carole said.

  “What’s that?”

  “A private club just off Central Park. It’s a block away from the Athletic Club. I’ve got a meeting with Cartier. They have a membership and got me a room. There isn’t an available hotel room in all of Manhattan.”

  “Ouch! Son of a bitch! Do you have to pull so—Ouch! Crimmeee, the things I do for my career. Why don’t you stay with me?”

  “Because I don’t do dishes on business trips. I’ll call you later, Mother. Maybe we can have dinner.”

  “Okay, honey. Call me then? Ouch!”

  When Carole put her phone back in her bag, she noticed a stack of business cards held together with a rubber band. She undid the rubber band and flipped through the cards, discarding most and paper-clipping a select few in her Filofax for later. Near the bottom of the stack was one for Jacques Chancet, Personal Jeweler, an elegant card in raised gold leaf lettering.

  She fingered the card. What if? Why not? No way. She should most definitely not be seeing another man if she and Mitch . . . what?

  What exactly were they doing now?

  He had spent the night, but it had had all the joy of a funeral. When Sam brought the car around, Mitch kissed her goodbye as if it were forever—and maybe it was.

  She had left for the airport from home, checking in with Elyssa before going.

  “It’s not really an official breakup,” Elyssa concluded.

  “We’re not in high school. I don’t have to return a varsity jacket. But he did take his toothbrush and his shaver.”

  “Carole, I thought you loved him.”

  “I do.”

  “Why does marriage spook you so much?”

  “Why shouldn’t it? And why does he have to move so fast?”

  “You’ve been going together for six months. Carole, his timing’s a little swifter than yours. He has his work to consider. And children. I always thought you wanted children, too.”

  “Yeah, but not yet.”

  “There’s not much yet left, if you don’t mind my saying so.”

  She ripped up Jacques’s card and pushed its pieces deep into the bag.

  The Lotos Club was a six-story Federalist brick with white trim, squeezed in between the Wharton Museum and
a minor Vanderbilt cousin’s mansion that had been broken up into twelve minor millionaire flats. As the cab pulled to the curb, two young men in exquisitely plain black suits stepped forward to greet her. One man opened her door and welcomed her to the Lotos. The other negotiated her carry-on out of the trunk.

  “Miss Titus, right this way.”

  The club had a cozy foyer scented slightly with orange, bergamot and a freshly drawn fire. On the wall opposite the door was a six-foot-high portrait of the author Tom Wolfe in his trademark white suit.

  “The author himself donated this portrait to the club,” the man with her luggage explained. “Our members are mostly associated with the arts and patrons of the arts.”

  “Ah.” Carole now understood Cartier’s Lotos connection.

  “Right this way.”

  He led her into a small study with floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the street. She took a seat on a burgundy leather sofa near the crackling fire. A capable young man rose from his perch behind a mahogany desk, welcomed her to the club and offered her tea or coffee from a silver service on a Chinese red hutch.

  “Coffee, please. Black.”

  Coffee was presented in an eggshell-thin china cup and a heavy damask napkin. He gave her a leather-bound register to sign and took the letter of introduction that Cartier had mailed to her.

  “Their car will be here at two o’clock,” he said. “Now, may I show you your room?”

  “My bag?”

  “It’s already upstairs, ma’am.”

  He escorted her along a carpeted princess staircase to the second floor and presented her with her key outside her door.

  “Enjoy your stay.”

  The room was enormous. Bigger than the apartment in which she and her sisters were raised. And the ceiling? She estimated it was twenty feet high, with an ornate scagliormo medallion anchoring a crystal chandelier. A uniformed maid was hanging her suits in an oak armoire.

  “Shall I press this one for you, miss?” She seemed to be suppressing her disapproval of Carole’s packing system. Which is to say, no packing at all, just shoving in as many things as possible until the zipper doesn’t work.

  “No, that’s all right. Well, actually, sure.”

  “I’ll have it back within the hour.”

  Carole freshened up and went over her notes for her meeting. When the maid returned with her suit, she slipped it on, reapplied her lipstick and made it downstairs just as a black Lincoln Town Car pulled up to the curb.

  The five-story Cartier building was done up with red bunting that tied into a pretty bow overlooking the corner of Fifth Avenue and East 52nd Street. Gay swags of fir draped across the second-floor balconies and a battalion of seven-foot nutcrackers guarded the entrance. The driver pulled up to the curb and jumped out to open her door.

  I’ve made it, Carole thought, and she wasn’t talking geography. Carole used to oooh and aaahh at the city’s window displays on her way home from school every day. Once, she had seen Stevie Nicks alight from a limousine on the very same curb from which she had just got out of her borrowed car.

  Oh, life was easy then. Those days, Carole would have been happy with long blond hair and black lace-up boots with a perfect heel.

  Funny, thirty-seven was just old enough that what was perfect then seemed perfect once again.

  Chapter 7

  The meeting went long but did not seem particularly successful. She felt like she was slogging through mud and sand. Every concern was met and then another problem would pop up in its place. But Carole gamely made arrangements to come back the following day. She told the driver she didn’t need a ride, and he couldn’t hide his relief—rush-hour traffic wasn’t pretty. She knew she’d have to pick up a cab eventually, but she enjoyed walking with the anonymous throng. The street smelled cold and greasy. The cabs honked more frequently than they did in Washington and the drivers were more creative in their denunciations of those who blocked their path. It was something of a home-coming, even a relief, to get annoyed at the music blasting from a passing car.

  She walked for nearly a half hour, stopping to look in the occasional shop window, until she found herself in front of a slender Georgian building with white Doric columns. It was squeezed in between a sporting goods megastore and a brightly lit Restoration Hardware. The two-story brick looked like it was being squeezed from its granite base to its white portico. The eagle weather vane at its peak looked desperately brave. And only the very smallest of gold-plated signs screwed on top of the door knocker let on that this was a serious jewelry establishment for serious lovers of gems.

  You can’t, she thought.

  Why bother? she asked herself. You’d only be doing this because you’re feeling blue about Mitch. I mean, yes, you had a wonderful time with this man, but it was just one night and it was in circumstances that would make any man look good because he showed up and Mitch didn’t. One would think you can’t spend two minutes without a man, which is absolutely not true because right after you divorced Hal you had a wonderful period of quiet solitude, to say nothing of celibacy, which could serve as a model for women everywhere.

  Persuaded by the unbearable logic of it all, she turned from the door and stepped down the first marble step into . . .

  “Madam,” he said.

  ... his arms. The firm sweep of cashmere coat and gloved hands ensured that she didn’t stumble.

  “Mademoiselle Titus!”

  Carole looked up into Jacques’s face.

  “What a pleasure to see you, Carole.”

  “I was out for a walk,” she said and then lied, “How surprised I am to find myself here.”

  “It is my surprise. Would you care to come in and warm yourself? A new client’s insurance company absolutely insists that when I carry this bag I cannot stay in one place.” He gestured to a tall, broad-shouldered black man wearing a pale camel overcoat. The man nodded at Carole but retained his cautious, vaguely hostile expression.

  “That’s an insurance company?”

  “Mr. Smith has been sent to guard some gems that I’ve been asked to reset. And if we stand out here on the sidewalk for a moment longer he will become quite agitated.”

  “If I come inside, will he kill me?”

  Jacques laughed easily and took her arm.

  “Let’s not find out. Mr. Smith, meet a friend of mine, Carole Titus.”

  Mr. Smith shook hands and made an appropriately courteous comment about the weather in an accent that suggested the finest British education.

  “I cannot ask Mademoiselle Titus in for a drink?”

  “Regretfully—under the terms of your contract—no.”

  Carole squirmed. “It’s quite all right, really. I just happen to be here on a business trip and I . . .” Liar, liar, pants on fire—why don’t you tell the truth? I scheduled a business trip because I’m a relationship coward and . . .

  “Then take my keys, Mr. Smith, and make yourself at home. I’ll step out with Mademoiselle Titus for just a bit.”

  “Jacques, I just . . .”

  “Non, non, I need a break. These Saudi clients are very demanding.”

  He transferred a titanium briefcase to Mr. Smith and gave him the keys to his building.

  “I am allowed to leave, am I not?” Jacques inquired.

  “Of course,” Mr. Smith said. “As long as I keep the bag. A pleasure to meet you, miss.”

  Jacques put her arm through his own. He smelled good and given that New York was a constant assault on the senses, that was saying a lot.

  “Take pity on a man who has worked too hard today. Have dinner with me without an argument. How are we to disagree with the fate that has brought you here?”

  He guided her along the crowded sidewalk. He talked about the job he was doing for a Saudi princess. Her Royal Highness wanted a collection of very large emeralds and diamonds to be set in a single necklace.

  “I had to talk sternly with her. No woman should be out-dazzled by her jewelry. So I refused the
work.”

  “But you still have Mr. Smith.”

  “Yes, I refused. She pleaded. I refused again. She pleaded. I refused once more and then she acceded. The jewels will be set the way I want. But the gems are insured for over eight million dollars and so I have Mr. Smith.”

  “But why were the gems out of your office?”

  “This is New York! Emeralds and diamonds like to take in the sights like any other tourist,” he said. They both laughed. “Actually, I needed to confirm for myself that they have not been heat-treated—a very common problem for emeralds. I do not have the laboratory equipment for that.”

  He took her to Petrossian, where caviar, salmon and other delicacies of Russia were sold. A small dining room was laid out on the second floor and Jacques was welcomed in the way old friends are. The maitre d’, chatting with Jacques in French and Russian, showed them a table overlooking the street. It was laid out in glowing red damask, which glowed as brightly as the tapered candles in crystal holders. Only one other couple was seated and several staff members dined quietly at a table near the kitchen.

  “Luc, we put ourselves in your hands,” Jacques said. “Would that be all right?”

  Carole nodded.

  They were very quickly given two flutes of crisp, clear Taittinger champagne.

  “So you are in New York for business?”

  “Cartier. They are thinking of advertising on our website.”

  “That would be a very wise move for them,” he said. “Who are you dealing with?”

  She told him. He related an anecdote that perfectly captured the head of their negotiating team’s personality. She was acutely aware of Jacques’s vibrant intelligence, a kind of laser-sharp interest in people.

  They chatted about the other people at her afternoon meeting; Jacques knew most of them. They were presented with eggshells filled with pale, fluffy spoonfuls of scrambled egg and topped with the lightest garnish of Beluga pearls. Toast triangles were laid on the rim of the plates. It was clear Jacques knew how to live well and the waiters who served them took pride in gaining his approval.

  It was while they ate a second course of salmon that Jacques graciously asked after Mitch.