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For Dana, my Zelda
Rouge was different, an entity unto itself. A substance far more fraught than the pastes and powders and creams of the time. Rouge was imbued with a deeper meaning, a natural state of a woman inviting approach. Rouge was the color of invitation, arousal just before, during, and after sex. And for this reason, the amplification of rouge—the high-flushed, pink, or even red sheen of a woman’s cheeks—was considered, at first, the realm of a disreputable woman.
PROLOGUE
New York City, 1983
The morning was overcast, a dead shade of grey. And this was horribly fitting. It was as though god knew that the bright spot of my world was gone and, without her critical eye, the sky could let its guard down and bore us with its dullest shade.
Madame always detested the color grey; as she often said, “It’s neither here nor there and I cannot abide indecision.” She would utter the word “indecision” with her usual verve and a raised penciled eyebrow. She most definitely would not have approved. I assumed the weather would comport itself in time for the burial.
I decided to take a Xanax with my mimosa before the funeral, not because of an outpouring of grief, but rather due to the sheer fact that Madame had actually died. It was inconceivable that the life force had left her or, as she would exclaim, “Kaput!” when she read the obituary of a friend or an acquaintance in the newspaper, the sound of her large cabochon emerald slamming into her marble-topped gueridon.
From the moment I met her, a mere lad of twenty-seven, she was invincible to me. Indestructible, immortal, and outsize. She appeared as a giant in my eyes, even though she stood only five feet tall, her tight black chignon setting off stormy eyes and a strong, aquiline nose. Her beauty was striking even when she was in her eighties. Strangely, I always see her in profile, dramatic even in silhouette. I could not picture life without her—the rants, the demands, the to-do lists, the details large and small, and, occasionally, the endearing gifts that she dispensed just when I thought I couldn’t bear her another second. Her caresses were almost always gruff, yet her endearments, when offered, were surprisingly generous. They were often embarrassing—from lavish David Webb animal-print enameled cuff links to Calvin Klein briefs when she knew a new man was on the horizon.
“Babisiu,” she would say in her native Polish. “Baby, bring me a cup of tea, The Times, and the magazines.” When she was melancholy, she would stroke my face. “You remind me of my first husband,” she would say, “may he roast in hell.” And she would read the papers to see if she had been profiled in the party pictures and to cluck at her own glossy advertisements.
* * *
My name is Bobby De Vries. It wasn’t always. I was born Joe Bob Devereaux. I’m a southern boy, backwater trash from Louisiana. However, thanks to my abundant charm, boyish good looks, hidden assets, and a few, shall we say, “favors” along the way, I was propelled from the bayou to New York, where I answered an ad for a domestic service agency and was dispensed to Josephine’s maison. I was told she hired only “good-looking young people who had no family and no life.” I certainly fit the bill.
Once ensconced in chez Josephine, I had the great fortune to attend the University of Madame Josephine Herz. It was a master’s degree in business and in life, and she prepared me for all of the tasks at hand. She was, at once, a tough general and rancorous professor, and she tore me up and made me over a million times. One night, when I was collecting her legendary Van Cleef “zipper necklace” and depositing it in the wall safe, she lay on the bed on her aqua satin pillows in her Mainbocher, her dark eyes pitched skyward, and she rechristened me Bobby De Vries.
“Tell them you’re from the Charleston De Vrieses,” she said. “You’ll get more respect.”
“Who are the Charleston De Vrieses?” I asked.
“How the hell should I know,” she quipped.
She loved saying my new name, the “De” being the punctuation point. “Bobby De Vries, get me a glass of tea—with a sugar cube,” or, “Bobby De Vries, my babisiu, get me my jewel box. I want the emeralds.” I was totally entranced from the moment I started as her junior butler and finally, after many years, once I had proven my unflagging loyalty, as her personal assistant.
The day before, I had provided the funeral home with her black Chanel bouclé suit and her favorite diamond star pin. I sat with the family in the drawing room. Jonny Blake-Herz, her grandson, always seemed to detest me, but his newest wife, Charlene, was smart enough to know I held many of Josephine’s deepest secrets, the most valuable possessions in the vault. Charlene made sure I had proper seating in the limousines and a front-row seat at Temple Emanu-El. There was the will to consider, of course, and my twenty years of servitude had accrued to my being named as a trustee. Many of Madame’s orders and wishes were already known to me, and I had made these my own. As Madame used to say somewhat sardonically, “Where there’s a will, there is a relative!”
The long black limousine pulled up to the temple’s imposing carved limestone façade, revealing a ring of omnipresent photographers, all there to record the comings and goings of the rich and famous. After all, Madame Josephine Herz, née Josiah Herzenstein, and much later Princess Orlove (when she remarried in her forties), had cut a wide swath through international society. At eighty-three, she was more powerful than ever. Her death sent shock waves through the business and social press. THE DEATH OF BEAUTY, they wrote. AN ICON JOINS THE FIRMAMENT. Josephine was credited with inventing the beauty business and, in turn, becoming the wealthiest self-made woman in the known world. This, Josephine would not hesitate to remind me, was back when “Vomen could not get a loan!” When she was animated or angry, her true accent emerged and the w’s always became v’s. She would, of course, bang the table with her emerald cabochon or Burmese ruby when retelling this story.
Chanel sunglasses and flowers were in abundance in the soaring synagogue—as were furs of every species—chinchilla, mink, sable. A throng gathered for the first wave of important guests: Barbara, Frank, Lauren, and Pamela. These people needed no introduction to the press or to one another. The vast ceiling height was perhaps the one thing that could overpower all of these egos. The rest of the synagogue was filled with what I call the “professional mourners,” the climbers who wanted to be seen at her funeral. It was arguably the most important event on the New York social calendar for the season and, of course, a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for networking.
“There’s nothing like a good funeral,” the great comedian Alice Stark had often said. She often relayed to her good friend Josephine the business connections she had made when someone famous passed away. Today would be no different. They would all come. Friends, colleagues, relatives distant and near, and, of course, rivals and enemies. Many of these people had had a front-row seat to Madame’s century. Madame’s close-knit group approached me personally to offer condolences. Many overlooked the family, who by all accounts had always been a bit distant. The pr
ivilege of the offspring and the grandchildren was on grand display. These children, now grown, rich, confident, well educated, and diffident, were the end result of great wealth. This subtle and lingering arrogance as potent as one of her signature fragrances. I made a few introductions to Charlene, who, as third wife and social climber, wanted to know Nan or Pat, the only other social doyennes who mattered. And then, concluding this catalog of impressive guests, this growing armada of naval jewels, the other cosmetic pioneers arrived to pay their respects: Mickey Heron from Heron Cosmetics and his long-rumored mistress, CeeCee Lopez, the founder of Queen CeCee’s Hair Relaxer, who was, in addition to being Mickey’s girl, the world’s richest African American entrepreneur.
* * *
The funeral had all the bearings of a state funeral. After all, Madame had gone over all the details with me for years. Her favorite, Senator Lautenberg, delivering the eulogy: the sheer drama of her incredible life and her unassailable will to succeed. The daughter of Jewish Polish apothecaries who had braved new continents and built the largest beauty company in the world. Six thousand global employees, billions in revenue, homes and art and foundations. Buying and selling and buying it back for pennies on the dollar during wars and depressions. Her story read like a novel or a fable. Her son, Miles, now in his fifties, dabbed his eyes for effect as he recalled how his mother had braved the Nazis and English and French society. Only Picasso had not succumbed to her charms, deigning only to draw her and not paint her, the only artist of the twentieth century who had held out against her dollars and her will. And then there was her beautiful grandniece Jennifer, who pulled the iconic pink-and-green Lashmatic mascara out of the bottom of her bag and said to laughter that if her grandmother had invented the contact lens, it would not have had the same impact on women’s eyes—and lives.
Finally, at the tail end of the service, after remarks by the three rabbis, a visiting archbishop, and the wife of the vice president of the United States, all of whom had their own rhapsodic eulogies, there was an audible gasp.
She had arrived.
As we all knew she would. Swathed in sable and diamonds. Looking resplendent and confident and haughty. Acting the part of the victor, her icy blond hauteur more at home in Locust Valley than this citadel of Jewish prayer.
* * *
She took a discreet yet visible spot, exactly the row Josephine said she would, which sent audible shock waves rippling through the crowd. Constance Gardiner was in attendance and enjoying her triumph over Josephine’s demise, if nothing else. Constance, the society matron, the horsewoman, the belle of New York society. The other beauty industry pioneer. Their rivalry had been legendary and even scandalous. Constance had outlived Josephine! And in this way, Constance … had won; even their longevity, competitive.
I personally had always found Constance a bit masculine for my taste and also a bit scary. I knew she was going to approach me and deliver her final chess move. The Xanax had not dulled the anxiety and anticipation of that moment entirely. I tapped my English brogues and looked at my rose-gold Patek, which Madame had given me for my fortieth birthday, knowing that for a man like me, age was not something cosmetics could solve.
* * *
The rabbi intoned the prayers and let the crowd know that the family was receiving, after the cemetery, at Josephine’s grand and fabled Fifth Avenue duplex. People always gaped at the gargantuan rooms, ceiling heights, and Dubuffet murals. They also repeated the story that after being turned down by the building’s white-shoe board in the 1930s, Josephine had simply bought the building lock, stock, and barrel under a corporate name. After divorcing her first husband, she lived with her younger Russian prince, taking New York society by storm. Some said it was a marketing ploy when she married him and launched her Princess Orlove line of lipsticks, rouge, and perfume, but she outlived him, too! The funeral was perhaps the one time Constance would ever even think of being in the same room as Josephine, and she appeared to relish the chance to inventory the riches of Josephine’s life and, more important, the ruins.
After the service, I stood, pulling on my navy cashmere overcoat, comforted by the buttery feeling of the material, and saw her making her way through the crowd. Constance was always so very sure of herself. Suddenly she was before me, her South Sea pearls worn in defiance, each one the size of a large marble. Her face was still beautiful, pulled yet handsome. And she still had that Kate Hepburn style, wearing defiance as casually as her slacks. It was as though Constance had chosen to maintain 1930s-film style forever.
She took a moment to nod to the notables and to greet those people offering her condolences, as if the two beauty industry pioneers had been comrades-in-arms, despite their half-century-long battle. Finally, she spoke stridently.
“I’m so very sorry, Robert,” she said, using my formal name, “I know how dedicated you were to her. It must be very hard to know she is gone.” She paused. “And isn’t coming back.” She spoke in a clipped mid-Atlantic accent.
“Yes, we all admired her so,” I said. “The woman who invented the beauty business.” I had rehearsed the line over and over with Madame. I promised her I would say it as a parting gift, and I had delivered on my promise.
“That is debatable, depending on who you talk to and who signs your paycheck,” she said. “So, are you going to come work for me now? I will double your salary, of course.”
“Madame made me independently wealthy,” I said, “and I would only work for a prestige house.” I said this somewhat more meekly than intended.
“My, my…” She laughed. “You really learned from the old goat.”
“Come now, Constance. This is, after all, her funeral.” I had regained my confidence.
“Fine.” She dug into her black crocodile Hermès purse. “Let’s not make this any more uncomfortable than it has to be. I thought you should see this. Now that the old dragon has gone to her reward, I am suing for patent infringement.” She shoved papers into my hand. The old case. Perhaps the most acrimonious battle that had raged between the two women.
“There is no way you can overturn the patent,” I said.
“She stole Lashmatic from me all those years ago and I’m prepared to fight again,” she said.
Miles, incensed at her mere presence, strode over with Jonny and joined the conversation. Soon, Charlene joined the ever-growing crowd. “Constance,” said Miles, “don’t you think you could have waited till the body was cold before you started hovering like a vulture?”
“I thought, perhaps, the private schools and family privilege would have given you a bit of polish, but you’re as direct and blunt as your mother, may she rest in peace. I’m just here to claim what is rightfully mine.”
“I think it’s time you left,” Charlene said, drawing herself into a regal posture.
“I just needed the opportunity to serve you the papers, given you people have layers of protection. I would have preferred not to have done it at a funeral, but … I had no choice.” She looked at me as if that were apology enough.
“Constance, don’t you think that Josephine anticipated you would come?” I said, withdrawing another crisp envelope from my pocket. “We are countersuing you, your company and also personally. You do know now if we win, you have to also pay all our legal fees.”
“Well, we shall see who pays whom.” She was caught off guard by the counterattack, so well planned and perfectly executed.
“Constance, if you pursue this action, we will have to call CeeCee to the stand,” I said, delivering my final chess move. Checkmate.
She reddened. “What do you know about CeeCee?”
“Everything,” I said. This was the final hand that Josephine had dealt for me. The rip cord, if you will. I had pulled it.
“Leave it to Josephine to play dirty, even in death.”
“You’re wrong. Her business is very much clean and her family is very much alive.”
“Miles.” Constance eyed Josephine’s son and her handsome grandson, Jonny.
“Yes,” Miles said.
“I may have hated your mother, but she was indeed a worthy opponent.” Her voice cracked before she turned on her Chanel slingbacks and disappeared into the throng of mourners and hangers-on.
“Bobby, you did very well.” Miles patted me on my back. Even Jonny smiled at the exchange. We glanced at one another, our strange little tribe, and turned to attend to the long line of friends and business associates waiting to be received.
Later, as I walked outside past the flashbulbs toward the waiting cars, I looked up to a parting sky. The sun had broken through the film of grey clouds, casting a lovely and unique pink glow. Pink, of course! The exact hue of the Lashmatic package. I smiled, knowing that Madame had found a way, as she always did, to break through.
And, better yet, to get her way.
1
HOLLYWOOD DREAMS
New York City, 1933
A Technicolor sky hung over the city even though it was only early May. At times, even New York City seemed to have caught the bug. The pear trees that bloomed like white fireworks every April may as well have sprouted palm trees. Everyone, it seemed, had just stepped out of a Garbo movie, and Josephine Herz (née Josiah Herzenstein) would be damned if she would not capitalize on this craze.
A young, well-kept woman was the first to grace her newly opened, eponymous salon on Fifth Avenue. With bleached-blond “marcelled” hair, a substantial bust, and a mouth that looked as though it had been carved from a pound of chopped meat, her new client had all the ammunition to entrap any man in the city, to keep him on the dole, and her cosmetic hygienist, in this case Herz Beauty, on the payroll. She lowered herself onto the padded leather salon chair like a descending butterfly and batted her eyes as though they too might flutter from her face.
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