Shades of Fortune

by Birmingham, Stephen;

  He says nothing.

  “Because, you see, I also think you don’t understand what I’ve tried to do with this business, and that also hurts—hurts more than anything that’s happened between us.”

  “That’s not true, Mimi. I’ve always admired your ambition.”

  “Ambition?” she says, studying the network of cracks in the vase. “I’ve never thought of it as ambition. I think of ambition as wanting money, or power, or fame. But that’s not really what I ever wanted, though I suppose I’ve been able to achieve some of those things.”

  “What was it you wanted, then?”

  “I guess I’ve always thought of myself as Little Miss Fix-It,” she says quietly. “I’m always trying to set things to rights. As a little girl, I was always thinking of ways I could make my parents’ marriage better. When Daddy died, I wanted to take over his company in order to vindicate his memory. People were saying that he’d taken an ailing company and run it into the ground. I wanted to prove that he’d left something that was salvageable. I also wanted to do right by Mother, since when he died he left her in a worse state than ever, and what would have become of her if we’d let Miray go into bankruptcy? I wanted to do right by Granny Flo. Grandpa had pirated her trusts, and I wanted to see to it that she got those funds back. I wanted to do right by Nonie, who was always bitter about how she’d been treated in Grandpa’s will. I even wanted to do right by Edwee, I suppose. I wanted to do right by the family.”

  “And you’ve done all those things,” he says.

  “And now I want to do right by Badger. He’ll take the company over someday, and I want to hand it over to him in the best possible shape. And now we have this—this perfume that you mentioned. Yes, it’s only perfume. And when we started developing this product two years ago, it was more like fun and games. But suddenly it’s become terribly important, Brad. Everything hangs or falls, depending on the success of this little scent. And the ad campaign—the man with the scar—it’s a terribly risky thing we’re doing. If the public doesn’t buy it, and the scent fails … well, if that fails, Badger’s privatization plan could also fail. If that fails, we remain a takeover target, and if we lose the company, that’s the end of it for me, and for Badger, and for everybody we’ve worked with, and of everything we’ve worked for, for twenty-five years. Do you see why what happens Thursday night at the Pierre, and in the weeks that follow, is suddenly, all at once, so terribly important for me, and for Badger, and for all the rest of us? Our competition would like to see us fail. But we—we’re simply desperate for success!”

  “I can understand all that,” he says. “But I guess what I don’t quite see is how I fit into all of this.”

  She hesitates. “You fit,” she says. “Or at least I thought you did. I thought I needed you for balance. For balance and sanity and solidity. For your logical lawyer’s mind. For ballast. Mine is a crazy business. There’s no logic to it at all. It’s all nonsense and fairy tales, when you get right down to it. I used to think it was nice, at the end of the day, to leave that crazy business and come home to you, to a world where there were real causes and effects and explanations, and to get my balance back. That’s why I thought ours was a good marriage. My business was all Las Vegas chaos. Yours was about order, sequence, and precedence. In our lives, we seemed to balance each other out. And we were both successful, and hardly competitive. And I thought that was … kind of nice. But now I’m not so sure.”

  “Because of what I’ve done, you mean.”

  “No, not because of that. I’ve known about your woman friend for some time. What hurts much more than that is what you said the other night. Because, you see, Brad, I think you find this business that I’m in a little bit … frivolous. A little bit superficial. Not quite classy enough for your taste. After all, you’re a prominent Wall Street lawyer, with your eye on the Senate, and then maybe the Supreme Court. And I … well, it said it on the cover of Time, didn’t it? ‘Beauty Queen.’ Is a Beauty Queen the right sort of wife for a senator, or a Supreme Court justice? I think that’s what you’ve begun to wonder lately. This business of mine is too … too Jewish, maybe? After all, with the exception of the late Miss Arden, it is pretty much a Jewish business. And I’m not even sure about Arden. After all, she changed her name from Graham to Arden, and she could have changed it to Graham from Goldstone. That’s what hurts the most, Brad: to think that my success has made you a little bit ashamed—no, not ashamed, perhaps, but a little bit embarrassed by me.”

  His look at her now is hard and level. “That,” he says, “is horseshit. That is absolute horseshit. You’re the woman I married, and the woman I love. I wouldn’t love you any differently, or any less, if you drove a garbage truck.”

  She looks at him briefly, then returns her gaze to the pink Sevres vase, tracing its cracks again with her fingertip.

  “And I think you know it’s horseshit,” he says. Then he says, “Were you ever unfaithful to me, Mimi?”

  She says nothing, but her scrutiny of the cracked vase grows more intense.

  “Who was he, Mimi?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” she says. “It was a long time ago, and the circumstances were quite different.” But even as she says this, she realizes that neither the time gone by, nor the different circumstances, have much bearing on the matter.

  “Why were the circumstances different?”

  “You’d moved out on me, moved to the Harvard Club. My father was having terrible problems. My mother was drunk all the time. The emotional center seemed to have dropped out of my life. I was scared. I had nowhere to turn. I needed someone to lean on.”

  “You called me and asked me to come back. You said you needed me.”

  “I did.”

  “The other night you said you needed me at your launch party. If you still need me, I’ll be there.”

  “Thank you, Brad. It’s only for appearances, I know, but in this business appearances are everything.”

  “It was Michael Horowitz, wasn’t it?” he says.

  She closes her eyes, and two tears squeeze out.

  “I forgave you long ago,” he says.

  Now it is Monday, and her uncle Edwee is in her office, and she has been trying to demonstrate the advantages of privatization to him, but Edwee, it seems, has an entirely different agenda. She had been shocked, first off, by his appearance. When he walked in her office door, she hardly recognized him. His long mane of silver hair, usually so impeccably blow-dried, combed, and sprayed, is a tangled and disheveled mass. He is unshaven and looks as though he needs a bath. His silk Sulka shirt is open at the collar, and his necktie is askew. He is wearing one of his bespoke Savile Row suits, but it is so rumpled that he might have slept in it. Even the signature red carnation in his buttonhole looks many days old. His socks sag at the ankles, and one of his shoelaces is undone. At first, she thought that Brad had been right, that he was undergoing some sort of breakdown. She also thought that he might have been drinking, or that he might be under the influence of some sort of drug. She also wondered whether he might be delivering some sort of theatrical performance and had dressed, rather carefully, for the part. As he speaks, his come-and-go stammer is more pronounced than ever.

  “I don’t c-c-c-c-care what you do with your damned c-c-c-company,” he shouts, pounding his fist on her desk. “All I want to know is what’s become of my m-m-m-m-m-m-mother’s Goya!”

  “Edwee, dear,” she says gently, trying to calm him, “I have no idea what she’s done with it. Why would I know anything about that?”

  “I’m telling you I want you to f-f-f-find out!”

  “Why don’t you just ask her, Edwee?”

  “I’ve tried that. She just pulls her senile act on me. It’s all an act, you know. It’s like her blind act. She can see just as well as you and I. I want you to go up to the Carlyle, M-M-Mimi, and find out what she’s done with it.”

  “Why me? I have nothing to do with her art collection.”

  “You’re
the only one who has any influ-flu-flu-fluence on her. You’re Henry’s daughter. He was always her favorite child.”

  “Perhaps she gave it to the Prado in Madrid. I remember, several years ago, she had some correspondence with them about it. Perhaps she’s loaned it to an exhibition. You see, Edwee, the point is that it’s her painting. She’s free to do with it whatever she wishes. It’s hardly up to me to interfere with whatever it is your mother wants to do.”

  “She’s not f-f-f-free! If nobody else wants it, it could be given to me. Nonie doesn’t want it. De M-M-M-Montebello doesn’t want it.”

  “Which really astonishes me,” Mimi says. “I thought he’d had his eye on that painting for years—and I know Granny was prepared to offer it to the museum as an outright gift.”

  “He doesn’t want it because it’s a f-f-f-fake! He wrote me a letter and told me so.”

  “Really, Edwee? Well, if it’s a fake, then what’s all the fuss about? Why do you care so much what happens to a fake Goya?”

  “Because I w-w-w-want it! Because I’ve always wanted it. There’s a space on the wall of my study that’s been waiting for it!”

  “Then why don’t you go out and commission somebody to do another fake? That shouldn’t cost much.”

  “I don’t want another fake! I want that fake!”

  “Really, Edwee, I think that this is a matter that will have to be sorted out between you and Granny. I don’t want to get involved in it.”

  “You mean, you refuse?”

  “Yes. I just don’t have the time to get involved in this.”

  He sits in the chair opposite her desk for a long time, glaring at her, saying nothing.

  “And if that’s all, Edwee …,” she begins.

  He looks away from her. “Have you talked to Brad lately?” he says.

  “My husband? Of course. I talk to him every day.”

  “Did he tell you what I have in my possession?”

  “He mentioned something, yes,” she says easily. “Some sort of film. I didn’t pay too much attention.”

  “What I have,” he says, “is a videotape. It features your young male model, Mr. Gordon. It depicts him performing fellatio, and frontal and anal intercourse, with a woman … and another man.”

  “Oh, dear,” she says. “Isn’t it sad? These young models in New York—they often have to do that sort of thing in order to earn enough to eat. It’s so hard getting started on a modeling career in this town.”

  “But couldn’t that be a little … embarrassing … to your new ad campaign? Your Mireille Man, involved in something like this? If I were to release this?”

  “Oh, it could be, I suppose,” she says, tapping a pencil lightly on her desktop. “I’d have to see what’s on the tape in order to decide.”

  “You’ll see it, all right! Aren’t you planning to show him in your new commercials at your party Thursday night? It said so in the invitation.”

  “That’s correct.”

  “What if I were to release the tape before the party? What if word of it got to the press?”

  “Well, if worse came to worst, we might have to shoot some new commercials, using another model. Male models, unfortunately, are a dime a dozen. This man was only one of several finalists for the job. But that would be a worst-case scenario.”

  “Won’t that cost you a lot of money? Didn’t I read in the Times that it costs nearly a million dollars to produce a thirty-second television spot?”

  “Something like that. But it’s only money. And, if I have to skip a dividend or two—”

  “Skip a dividend! But that’s all we have to live on is our dividends! You wouldn’t dare do that.”

  “Wouldn’t I?” she says with a smile. “You seem to forget that I am the president of this company, Edwee, dear.”

  “You wouldn’t dare! As a stockholder, I—we—”

  She laughs. “Don’t worry, Edwee, dear. I was really only teasing you. You won’t lose any of your precious dividends. It won’t cost the company anything to reshoot a few commercials. We have insurance for this sort of thing.”

  “Insurance?”

  “Of course. With something called a morals clause. If Mr. Gordon has violated the morals clause in his contract, as it sounds as though he may have done, our insurance will cover everything. A morals clause is standard in all film and television contracts for performers. So don’t worry about that, Edwee.”

  “Worry? Me? You’re the one who should be worried, Mimi! What about this videotape of mine?”

  “Well, as I believe my husband told you, we refuse to take this threat of yours seriously until we’ve seen the alleged tape. Why don’t you bring it around sometime? We have plenty of facilities here for screening videotapes. Actually, if it’s as juicy as you say it is, there are some people here in the office who would probably get a kick out of seeing it!”

  He jumps to his feet. “Damn it, Mimi,” he shouts. “You’ll pay for this! You’ll see! You’ll pay for this! You’ll be sorry when I’m through with you! If you don’t find my mother’s Goya for me before your party Thursday night, you’ll be sorry!”

  “And do me a favor, Edwee, dear,” she says. “That suit of yours needs pressing badly. And do something about your hair and fingernails. That messy, mousey look went out in the sixties.”

  He charges across her office toward the door.

  “Love to little Gloria!” she calls after him as he stalks out the door and slams it hard behind him.

  And Mimi takes a deep breath.

  30

  Now it is six o’clock on Monday evening, her secretary has left for the night, and Mimi sits alone in her office, reading her grandfather’s diaries. In some ways, as she reads, she recognizes the stern old man she remembers from years ago, but in other ways he emerges as a stranger. For example:

  January 7, 1940

  Problem with Edwin at his school in Florida. Man named Collier—a whole string of young schoolboys Edwin’s age! Worse than Fagin in Oliver Twist! Why do they not arrest this man Collier? No solid Evidence, they say. Edwin much too young to understand this sort of thing. School has him safely back, will keep an eye on him.

  January 18, 1940

  Edwin run away from school again! Authorities found him with Collier again. What does this scum of the earth do to keep himself out of prison? Corrupt Florida police, I know. Thank God no publicity. Edwin still a minor, but publicity of this nature could ruin Edwin’s Presidential chances later on. Was Edwin too young to send away to boarding school? Have found new school for him in Massachusetts. Closer to home, away from Collier influences. Damn Collier! If I were there I’d strangle the scum with my bare hands.…

  January 23, 1940

  Have straightened out Naomi’s problem with Bloomingdale’s. Store satisfied, store security people satisfied. No publicity. Naomi’s Dr. says she only does these things when she finds herself in stressful circumstances. Blames Naomi’s recent sudden marriage, and even more recent sudden divorce. Damn it, if Naomi would just marry a decent husband, and stay married to him, and start giving me grandsons I need to carry on, there wouldn’t be any “stressful circumstances”!

  January 26, 1940

  More trouble with Edwin at his new school in Mass. Ran away, took bus to Florida. Found with Collier again! Would start legal proceedings against Collier, but what about publicity? Oh, Edwin, what is wrong with you? I begin to despair. Edwin being returned to N.Y. on train tonight. Must find new school for him with greater discipline. School in Mass, doesn’t want him back—disruptive influence. Had words with Flo last night. Blame her for making him a “Mama’s boy.”

  Also, beginning in the late 1930s, Mimi has found entries referring to certain shadowy figures, working either within or outside the company, who seemed to have been engaged, without her grandfather’s approval, by his younger brother. In the diaries, these people are semi-cryptically identified as “Leo’s friends,” and the diaries become increasingly peppered with the phrase “G
ET LEO OUT,” or “LEO MUST GO,” as in the following series of entries over a two-and-a-half-year period:

  February 5, 1939

  Damned Leo! Had him on the carpet today about friends he is still using to “help” our business. Leo just laughed in my face and said this is all part of the normal cost of doing business. Everybody does it. The fool! These people are nothing but animals, no respect for human life. These friends of his could ruin us if any of this got out. Must begin working out careful plan to get Leo OUT—and his friends.

  May 27, 1939

  Guess what! Leo came in today to ask for promotion for his son Nate! Wants Nate promoted over Henry, because Nate is a few years older. Told Leo to go to hell. Leo is a schmuck, but Nate is a worse schmuck. Leo said, “Where would you be if I hadn’t added quick-drying chemical to paint?” I said, “Where would you be if I hadn’t figured out a way to sell it? You wanted to throw it all out—schmuck!” Work on ways to get Leo out.

  September 12, 1940

  Now it’s Alice who’s telling me how to run my business! Damn Alice! She came in to see me today, drunk of course. She tells me all the things I know already about Leo and his friends. Is Henry a fool? He was a fool to tell Alice about any of this, because when Alice is drunk she runs off at the mouth. A woman has no business interfering with her husband’s business. Told her that. A woman has no business coming to her husband’s place of business and demanding this & that. Why doesn’t Alice stay home and take care of her baby? Told her all this. Told her she is nothing but a yenta and a troublemaker. I told Henry when he married her that I saw nothing but trouble ahead with her, and I was right. Told her to get out. Told her I never wanted to lay eyes on her again. Too harsh? Henry didn’t seem to think so when I told him what had happened. Just looked sheepish.… Alice puts him through holy hell, I know.…

  October 2, 1940

  Started work today on a plan to GET LEO OUT. It must be very careful, very detailed, and foolproof because even though Leo is stupid he can be a tough cookie.…