“Sure,” said Spider, transcendently joyous but not blinded, “yeah, right, Billy, yes in advance to everything. Oh, my darling, that’ll be the day.”
Epilogue
One Year Later
There are many cunning ways in which to wake up a sleeping man without his ever knowing that he’s been deliberately aroused, Billy told herself, as she lay wide awake next to Spider in her big bed. You can move as vigorously as possible from side to side, until the mattress begins to feel like a rough sea; you can twitch the sheets and blankets up so far that they cover his mouth and nose and he has to wake up to get some air; you can tickle him sneakily in any number of tender places, until he’s irritated enough to open his eyes; you can even choose one hair on his head and pull it out so that his efforts to remain unconscious are doomed. Or you can shout “Boo!” into his ear and immediately lie back, feigning drowsy innocence, as he bolts upright in surprise.
But was it fair to wake someone who was sleeping as profoundly as he was? Spider was probably enjoying REM sleep, the deepest stage, in which dreams come, that restorative phase of sleep, deprived of which for days at a time, people soon become disoriented and unhappy and start having delusions. But hadn’t he had more than enough sleep for anybody’s needs, Billy asked herself fretfully, while she’d been up all night, trotting to her flower-filled bathroom every hour, walking miles around the enormous bedroom to stop her legs from cramping, getting carefully back into bed and composing herself once again for the rest that hadn’t come? Wide awake, she stared upward in the predawn dimness as she tried to decide whether Spider would be angry if she neglected to wake him up and share the saga of her disturbed night with him?
Yet there was an advantage to her being conscious while he slept. Even if she couldn’t look into the limitless blue of his eyes, even if she wasn’t listening to his voice or watching his pagan smile, in sleep he belonged entirely to her, and she could bask in uninterrupted contemplation of the heaven of sharing a bed with him. She could dote on him, that’s what she could do, dote as much as she liked, dote in an unashamed, unobserved orgy of being helplessly in love, a condition she’d learned was not for public display.
As hard as she tried, she hadn’t mastered the art of entirely avoiding doting at the office. She’d noticed those amused little nudges people gave each other when Spider was running a meeting, and she’d become so mesmerized by him that she lost track of the subject under discussion and couldn’t produce a sensible opinion when it was asked of her. Heather, the most intellectual of Spider’s six sisters, had told her that the two of them were a model of uxoriousness. When she’d looked it up in the dictionary, pleased at the implied praise but not wanting to admit that she didn’t know what it meant, she’d found an illustrative quotation affixed to the word describing a woman who had “melted into absolute uxorial imbecility.” And another of a man who, according to Tennyson, was “a prince whose manhood was all gone, and molten down in mere uxoriousness.” Well! If that old prude Tennyson were around, she’d set him straight pretty damn quick on the manhood question, and as for Heather, she couldn’t have possibly meant it that way, she must have been trying to show off her vocabulary, missing by a mile.
Marrying a man with six sisters was a continuing revelation, Billy mused. Ellis had had no family, and Vito, if he had one back East in Riverdale, had never bothered to introduce her to them. But Spider’s parents lived nearby in Pasadena, four of his sisters were scattered around in Los Angeles, and the two others weren’t farther than an hour’s plane or car ride from their childhood home. Their reunions were frequent—how had she managed not to hear more about the Elliott family before she married Spider, Billy wondered—demonstrative, wildly good-natured, uninhibitedly verbal, and revolving around Spider in a way that stopped just short of going slightly overboard. The only son, the only brother … it was natural that they all adored him. They actually flirted with him, if she was any judge, and who better? Thank goodness she couldn’t be jealous of her husband’s very own sisters, or was there another horrid, little-known word, like uxorious, that she didn’t know about, Billy asked herself suspiciously—a word that might explain why, as much as she was charmed by the warm, happy feeling of becoming an instant member of a huge, loving family, a feeling she’d never known before and had always missed until her marriage, she was never too unhappy to see them all go home and leave her and Spider alone together?
It wasn’t as if her sisters-in-law didn’t treat her lovingly, Billy thought, smiling at the thought of them. They each had children of their own, more than a dozen altogether, but they hovered with anticipation and veneration over her belly as if, in six more weeks, she could be counted on to produce another Shakespeare and another Mozart, instead of merely twin boys who would be merely the only other male Elliotts in existence except for Spider and his father. Her mother-in-law had vainly produced three sets of female twins, trying to give birth to another Spider, but she had accomplished the trick first crack out of the barrel, so to speak, as easily as taking a stroll in the woods, a roll off a log, a shot in the dark—something about fecundity seemed to lead directly to clichés, heartburn, sciatica and insomnia.
Spider moved slightly and she turned toward him hopefully, but he was as fast asleep as ever, his face hidden by one arm. Billy raised herself on her elbows, leaned closer to him and inhaled the smell of his hair. It was better than buttered popcorn, and ten times as tempting. Bravely she resisted the urge to ruffle it, and lay back on her pillows, meditating on motherhood.
Dolly had assured her that twins were no trouble at all, not really much more of a problem to raise than a single baby, but then, on the subject of her boys, Dolly lied like a bandit with the excuse that sticking to her diet took all the strength of mind she possessed. She was using hypnosis, acupuncture, crystals and channeling to bolster her resolve, as well as the thought of having to wear the Dolly Moons that sold in such huge numbers. Could it be Dolly’s own lack of willpower that caused her twins to be such free spirits, to put it kindly, Billy wondered. What would she do if her own babies turned out to be as stubborn as Dolly’s, Billy asked herself, as she patiently endured them duking it out in her womb. Didn’t they realize that there was room in there for both of them? Why did they have to try to trade places all night long? Or were they merely dancing a companionable tango? Perhaps she shouldn’t be so anxious for them to be born, perhaps she should be making the most of the last weeks of relative peace she’d have for a long while, but she felt as if she’d been put breathtakingly on hold with this enormous, mysterious, life-changing event looming in the near future.
The only things she’d been able to concentrate on lately had been the designs for the new Scruples Two maternity collection and the line of baby clothes, none of which would exist as finished samples until July.
How could they have imagined a catalog without those essential categories? Even without looking at statistics: she was pregnant; Sasha, with her customary efficiency, was two weeks more pregnant than she; two of Spider’s sisters, Petunia and January, were pregnant yet again; to say nothing of Dolly, who had just had to cancel a film in which she brought a lovelorn Arnold Schwarzenegger to his knees, because she too was going to have another baby in seven months. Four pregnant women besides herself in her immediate circle was enough to indicate a trend—or was it an epidemic?—and Scruples Two was nothing if not on top of trends, Billy thought with satisfaction. With hundreds of employees, most of them married women, they’d built model day care facilities in Virginia and Los Angeles so that their carefully trained staff could opt for motherhood, keep their jobs and work out flexible schedules … nothing less made any sense.
The entire catalog industry had been revolutionized by the stunning success of Scruples Two and its unprecedented swiftness of growth, right from the first mailing. They’d hit the market at exactly the right time with the right idea; millions of women with no time to go shopping needed well-priced, well-made, cleverly versatile clothe
s. The graphics Spider had worked out were so different from other catalogs that they’d grabbed an immediate audience, while Gigi’s copy had all but created a cult. Oh, they’d had their problems; one essential Prince scarf, intended to be worn with four different outfits, had been delivered in so jarring a combination of blues that not even Prince himself would have dared to wear them together; sixteen of their most carefully trained, friendly and helpful phone operators had quit in a single week to marry men they’d met via long distance when they’d called up to order antique lingerie as gifts; a wrong guess had left them short thirty-five thousand dark green velvet trousers; the single most popular Dolly Moon caused super-sensitive women to itch and had been returned by the tens of thousands—the list was longer, but through the quarterly sale catalogs they got rid of their mistakes and returns, and still made a healthy profit, with a customer base that was growing as quickly as their expertise and sense of the market.
Joe Jones and his brother had both bought houses before their first year in California was over, and were busy putting in pools, buying boats and looking for weekend getaways in the nearby mountains of Idyllwild, as tangible a sign of total confidence as she could hope for. Josie Speilberg had resisted an alluring kidnap attempt from L.L. Bean when she’d received her VP in Charge of Sanity title; Prince was in a state of permanent slow burn because he hadn’t thought of doing moderate-priced clothes himself, instead of being bound to them by contract for five more years—in short, business as usual, Billy thought, stuffing another pillow in the aching small of her back. Business as usual, that is, except for Cora de Lioncourt. Strange, how violently upset Maggie MacGregor had been at the swipe at her professionalism in that “P.D. Q.” article, revengeful enough to make it her business to find out who actually was responsible for the column. When she discovered through her network of informers that Cora had provided the information, although she hadn’t written the offending words, Maggie had exposed Cora’s secret traffic in kickbacks in a television half-hour devoted to the phenomenon that was just beginning to be known as Nouvelle Society. “The Ten Percent Empress of Social Climbers” she’d called the show, and it had ended Cora’s usefulness to anybody with a crash. Well, you couldn’t blame Maggie for being angry at being accused of sleeping her way to the top when her success had been based on hard work and talent, but that didn’t mean she liked Maggie any more than she ever had. Actually, come to think of it, if it hadn’t been for that horrid article, if it hadn’t been for Spider coming to find her that night to comfort her, it would have taken them longer to find out that they loved each other.… although nothing could have kept them apart.… sooner or later love, like a cough, makes itself known, Billy thought, happily philosophic, in spite of a discomfort that no well-placed pillow could cure.
She would give just about anything to be able to lie flat on her stomach, Billy thought with longing. Facedown, cheek pressed to the bottom sheet, blankets pulled up over the back of her neck, utterly relaxed, drifting off to sleep … she could remember it dimly, no, she could imagine it; memory was too fleeting to capture that delicious state, but imagination was powerful enough to work.
Imagination.… Zach Nevsky’s imagination had persuaded Vito to transpose an English comedy of manners to a San Francisco setting, thereby solving all the tricky nuances of the British class structure that had threatened to make Fair Play inaccessible to the mass audience. Nick De Salvo, playing the tough young owner of a restaurant on Fisherman’s Wharf, had starred with Meryl Streep, cast as a discreet, very-much-married society woman from Nob Hill, the two of them generating enough forbidden heat to make The French Lieutenant’s Woman seem downright unisex. Even the teenagers were going to see it, the make-out movie of the year. Vito had his first giant success in a long time.
The critics had singled Zach out for particular praise, forgetting the producer’s role, as usual, but the industry knew that even if Zachary Nevsky was on top of the most-wanted list of new directors in town, Vito Orsini was back in business in a big way. Curt Arvey was reported to be furious that he’d missed the chance to finance Fair Play, and was openly blaming Susan’s advice for his loss. Obviously she was busy trying to reel Vito back into the studio, even being spotted lunching here and there with him, although, Billy thought with a mental grimace, no amount of imagination could conjure up a situation in which Susan’s uptight, frigid, judgmental manner could influence Vito one way or another. Beginner’s luck, Billy told herself, she’d had beginner’s luck in her one fling in show business and she didn’t plan to risk it again. Impulsiveness had to stop somewhere.
Spider sighed and turned over so that his back was toward her. Billy, alert, stared at the outline of his body wistfully and edged herself closer, so that her abdomen came into warm contact with his backbone. Now, just when a major bout of kick-boxing would be welcome, the twins had perversely chosen to make peace. There was a rosy glow outside the drawn curtains that told her the sun was rising. What would happen if she opened them and let in a flood of light? Would even that wake her husband? Was ever a man so gifted at unconsciousness as Spider? So gifted at loving, so gifted at living, so gifted at being gifted? Was ever a woman as unselfish as she, Billy wondered, to allow such a gifted man to waste his time sleeping?
She sighed deeply and plaintively a half-dozen times without result, gave up sighing—it took too much energy—and turned her busy mind to Gigi and Zach. He had been in San Francisco on location for months, and now he was directing a big film in Texas, but when he was in Los Angeles the two of them lived together in her apartment, Zach quickly turning her place into a West Coast version of the ongoing, crowded party of devoted friends he’d created in New York.
Billy approved of Gigi’s decision—unshared by Zach—not to rush into marriage. Gigi felt that since she was barely twenty-two, there was plenty of time to think about settling down to serious domesticity after they had actually lived together for a lengthy period of time. But, oh, Gigi was marvelously happy! She was able to handle her job at Scruples Two so routinely that she was considering a tempting offer to work as a copywriter at a rapidly growing advertising agency. She could manage to do both jobs, since the copy for Scruples Two didn’t have to be rewritten for each repeat catalog mailing, and her ambition had grown with the wildly enthusiastic acceptance of her antique lingerie, even though men bought it for women in far greater quantities than women bought it for themselves.
Sasha was planning to combine motherhood with a part-time career after a maternity leave of at least four months—she’d already hired a nanny who would help her out from the day she brought the baby home from the hospital. Yes, Sasha had all her bases covered, Billy thought, but she herself couldn’t seem to manage to make any firm plans at all besides finding a warmhearted and experienced nurse to help with the twins. How could she possibly know in advance what balance of motherhood and work would be right for her? She still felt very much a working woman by deep temperament and Scruples Two was in its early days, yet surely she’d want some solid time out to plunge into all the experiences of maternity? On the other hand, wasn’t it possible that too heavy a dose of the nursery might drive her up the wall? Nothing in her life had prepared her for a sensible compromise about the wonders and problems of motherhood. They were as unpredictable right now as the rest of her surprising tumble through life.… she knew only how lucky she was to be able to afford the inestimable luxury of choice.
The future was far too exciting, complicated and full of magic to contemplate for long, Billy concluded, closing her eyes at last, since even the back of Spider’s neck was so fascinating to look at that she was bedeviled by the desire to nuzzle it and there was no possibility of maneuvering herself that close to him. It had been so different only a year ago, she remembered dreamily.… the weekend of the fashion show, when she and Spider had barely managed to pry themselves apart long enough to shake hands with everybody from the press, much less make sense when they were interviewed. He’d been at her side dur
ing every jubilant day, his arm tightly around her waist or thrown around her shoulders, proudly and possessively, the two of them so intensely aware of each other that everything else had been an illusion, a fiction mounted for shadows. Their rapture had been contagious, too strong not to be visible, and soon Gigi suspected and Sasha, of course, took one look and knew right away, and then Prince caught on and rushed to inform all of his closest contacts in the media, which quickly meant that half a hundred relative strangers felt the right to ask them the most amazingly personal questions.… professionally intuitive questions.… somehow impossible to effectively.… deny.… even if … she’d wanted to.…
“Wake up, my darling,” Spider urged her four hours later, so persistently that Billy finally blinked in protest and opened her eyes.
“I didn’t want to wake you earlier,” he said, leaning over and kissing her, “but I’ve been wandering in and out of the bedroom like a lost soul, watching you sleep so sweetly—for more than four whole hours—and I just couldn’t stand it any longer. I felt too lonely for you. Anyway, it’s lunchtime and I’m positive it’s not good for the boys when you miss a meal, they need their nourishment, and if you sleep so late during the day, how will you get back to sleep at night?”
“Good question,” she murmured, yawning, stretching and feeling wonderfully refreshed.
“Aren’t you glad I woke you up?” he asked anxiously, gently pushing her blunt curls away from her forehead so that he could look at her more closely.
“Oh, I am,” Billy answered truthfully, on a wave of flawless, untroubled peace. “I’m so glad, sweetheart … sleeping is highly overrated, a complete waste of time, when we could be doing something else, like kissing or touching or talking or maybe.… even.…” she added hopefully, “trying to hug …?”
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