Goodbye, Janette

by Harold Robbins

  “Have you known her a long time?”

  “Three years,” he said.

  “Johann, I’m very happy for you,” she said. “Congratulations, and I can’t wait to meet her. I really mean it and I will as soon as I come home.”

  “When will that be?” he asked.

  “I’ll be here a little longer than I thought,” she said. “About another month.”

  He was silent for a moment. “Too bad. Lauren misses you. She’s very lonely in that big house.”

  “It can’t be helped,” she said. “But even when I’m home we don’t see that much of each other. She’s usually in bed by the time I get in.”

  “Heidi and I took her out to the zoo last Sunday,” he said. “Heidi adores her. Maybe we’ll try to keep her a little company until you get back.”

  “That will be lovely,” she said. “Please thank your wife for me.”

  “It’s nothing,” he said. “I’m anxious to see you, to see what you look like.”

  She laughed. “I think you’re going to be surprised. But it all can wait. After all, you’re on your honeymoon.”

  He laughed. “That’s right.”

  “A big kiss to you and your wife,” she said. “And I look forward to see you both in Paris.”

  Slowly she put down the telephone. Johann married. Strangely, she found it hard to believe.

  ***

  Jacques was at his usual table in a corner against the wall at the front of the Relais Plaza at lunchtime. Usually he sat there sipping his white wine, casually watching everyone as they entered or left the restaurant, but today he had the International Herald Tribune and Vogue open on the table before him and was studying them carefully. The showings were over and the verdict was in. Yves St. Laurent. As far as the press was concerned there was no one else. Even the photographs of the young American Presidential candidate and his wife standing in front of the Elysée did not attract as much attention.

  It had been just a little more than four years ago that Michel de Brunhof, the editor of French Vogue, had spoken to him about finding a place with Shiki for the young boy who was living with him and attending the Académie de Couture. But even after seeing the boy’s drawings and sketches, Shiki wouldn’t have him. He had no time to waste on amateurs and dreamers and it would take too long to teach him the practical side of the business.

  Even after that, he had taken the designs to Johann and urged him to overrule Shiki or, if not to overrule him, start another small salon to reflect a newer, younger approach to couture. Johann studied them but shook his head. They were losing enough money in the couture division without beginning another operation that would increase their losses. Reluctantly he had taken the drawings back to de Brunhof. A month later the young man was at Dior. Almost immediately the boy’s name began to appear in numerous stories and articles in Vogue, and the rest was history. Dior had his heart attack and Marcel Boussac appointed the young man as designer for the House of Dior.

  Jacques stared down at the magazine. If only de Brunhof had come to him one year earlier when Tanya was still alive. She would have snapped him up. Even gotten rid of Shiki if that was the only way. Always the big if. But she was gone, and Johann’s approach to the business was oriented to the balance sheet rather than the concept.

  But perhaps it wasn’t too late. This was St. Laurent’s last showing before he began his compulsory military service in the French Army. Two years. Boussac was not going to mark time with the House of Dior just because of that. He couldn’t afford to lose the momentum that had been created. There were a number of names that were being bruited about as St. Laurent’s possible successor but he already knew who it would be. The designer who ran their house in London—Marc Bohan. He wasn’t St. Laurent, but as talented and individual in his own way, and very strong. By the time St. Laurent came out of the army, Bohan would be so entrenched at Dior that it would take a nuclear bomb to get him out of there. Then St. Laurent would be forced to look for a new home. This time, Jacques was not about to let him get away. Not even if it meant that he had to go out himself and find the money to found a new house of couture.

  He sipped at his kir slowly and idly kept turning the pages of the magazine. His, as usual, was an advance copy; it would not be on the newsstands for sale to the general public until next week. He always made it a point to go through the magazine thoroughly, reading the advertisements as well as the articles. In a way, the ads were even more important because they offered clues as to the directions that the various houses were taking. Almost halfway through the magazine he came to a sudden halt. He stared down at it in a sort of shock, his brain refusing to believe his eyes.

  Spread across the two pages was a color photograph of a beautiful nude girl lying on her side, facing the camera, looking down at her hand, on the engagement finger of which was a large heart-shaped diamond ring. In bold type across the two pages were the words, “A simple diamond is all any beautiful woman needs to wear.” Then, in small letters, in the corner of the second page beneath the photograph: “janette marie de la Beauville for harry winston.”

  “Merde!” His lips moved silently. He was angry. More with himself than with the photograph. With all his contacts, he should have known about it before it even happened. But somehow she had managed to see that it was kept from him. Then the humor of it got to him and he began to smile. He studied the photograph. She had never looked more beautiful. He signaled the waiter.

  “Another kir, Monsieur?”

  “No,” he said. “I’ll have a whiskey. With lots of ice.” He closed the magazine. To hell with Yves St. Laurent for the moment. This photograph was going to be the talk of Paris for the coming season. The waiter put the whiskey in front of him and he took a deep drink. Already his mind was working on how to capitalize on it.

  ***

  Johann looked down at the magazine, then leaned back in his chair. “Quite startling,” he said. “Why do you think she did it?”

  Jacques laughed. “Because she’s smarter than both of us. That’s why. There’s more of her mother in her than either of us realized.”

  “I still don’t understand,” Johann said.

  “Image,” Jacques said. “With one photograph she created an image. Something Shiki has not been able to do for us in five years. The day after this magazine is on the street she will be the new queen of the young Parisian haut monde. They’ll fall all over themselves trying to be like her. Anything she does, anything she says will be law.”

  “How is that going to help us?” Johann asked.

  “It’s a whole new market. And we’ll be there first,” Jacques answered. “We won’t be struggling, as we have with Shiki, trying to penetrate a market in which all we wind up with are the crumbs that fall from the tables of the other designers. We’ll have to begin a brand-new line with a brand-new concept.”

  “And what about our investment in Shiki?”

  “Finished,” Jacques said. “Over. We never made any money with it so why continue flogging a dead horse?”

  “But Tanya thought—”

  Jacques interrupted him. “Tanya is dead. Janette is now. If Tanya were alive, she would be the first one to agree with me.”

  Johann was silent for a moment. “Have you spoken to Janette?”

  “Not yet. I wanted to speak to you first.”

  “It means writing off fifty million francs,” Johann said. “That’s half her money now, which means the decision should be half hers. I am only responsible for Lauren’s share, and as trustee I can’t bring myself to accept such a loss for my ward.”

  “Eventually it will all be lost. Shiki will never make it. We’ve given him every chance he could ask for.”

  “I don’t know,” Johann said. “I don’t feel comfortable in this part of the business. I never quite understood it. Nothing makes sense. Nobody seems to know what will sell and what will not. The wine business is something else. You produce so much, you sell so much, you always know what is going to happ
en. Even the fragrance company has a steady market. Not very big, but you can also figure on what will happen. Couture, zero. You spend a fortune designing a line, showing it, advertising it. Two days later it’s all down the sewer and you can’t even give the samples away. I’m sorry we ever went into it, but Tanya wouldn’t listen to me. She had her own ideas.”

  “Why don’t you talk to Janette?” Jacques said. “Maybe she has some ideas too.”

  Johann looked at him. “Do you really think so?”

  Jacques nodded. “I’m beginning to know that lady. She never does anything without a purpose.”

  Johann stared down at the magazine on his desk after Jacques had left the office. The Janette looking seductively up at him from the photograph was a very different girl from the one who had told him three years before that she was going to change the way she looked. But it was more than her appearance that was changed. Something else had happened.

  There had still been something of the child about the other Janette, a sophisticated naiveté. The naiveté was gone. This was a woman, aware of herself, of her body, her needs, her drives, her ambitions. But the calculation was hidden in her total look. What had emerged was the totality of her femaleness; yet, from the cut of her dark-auburn highlighted hair to the almost metallic rose-colored toenails, she was the epitome of the fashionably accepted figure, the individual flaws lost in that total look.

  ***

  She had been away almost five months before she returned to the office. And then no one had recognized her; even Johann’s secretary, who had known her for many years, had asked her name before she marched into his office, the shock evident in the secretary’s voice over the telephone when she announced her.

  He remembered looking up from his desk and just staring. She stood very still for a moment, then turned around slowly in full circle, then looked down at him with a smile. “Well, Johann, what do you think?”

  He was silent, then rose from his desk and kissed her on both cheeks. “You’re absolutely beautiful,” he said sincerely. “But do I know you?”

  “I don’t know,” she said with a half smile. “But then, I don’t know if I know myself. I’m going to have to find out.”

  He went back behind the desk and sat down. “When are you planning to come back to work?”

  “I’m not,” she said. “I still have much to discover. About myself. And about our business. And I think I will learn more working somewhere else for a while.”

  He thought about the hundred thousand gold louis in the bank in Switzerland and the note of caution that Tanya had left in one of the safe-deposit boxes.

  DEAR JOHANN,

  One third is yours because you loved Wolfgang as I did. The remainder I place in your trust for Janette and Lauren, to be used only in case of need. I love you and trust you and apologize for placing this additional burden on your shoulders. Be good to them, my friend, because in the end, my children, like myself, have no one else.

  TANYA

  He looked up at Janette still standing in front of his desk. His first impulse had been to tell her, and he had telephoned her from the bank vault in Switzerland. But she had not been ready for him to come to the clinic. Only now, he understood why. What she had done was much more than just diet. But perhaps it was all for the best. There had been no need such as Tanya had mentioned. And Janette had her own idea of the direction she wanted to take.

  “What are you going to do then?” he asked.

  “I’ve already done it,” she said. “I have a job as mannequin for Yves St. Laurent.”

  The name was vaguely familiar but he couldn’t place it. “Who is he?”

  “The new designer at Dior. He took over when Dior died and he’s already at work on his first collection. He thinks I’m just the type he needs.”

  “Good,” he said. Then he smiled suddenly. “It’s just as well then that I did not let Jacques go.”

  “You were right,” she said. “I know now I could never do his job as well as he does. Besides, I want something else.”

  What’s that?” he asked.

  “What my mother wanted. My own fashion house. But it will take some time. I’m not ready for it yet.” She stepped toward his desk and picked up the picture in a standing frame, its back to her. She turned the photograph toward her. “Your wife?”

  “Yes. Heidi.”

  “She’s lovely,” she said, still holding the photograph. “When do I get to meet her?”

  “Tonight at dinner, if you like.”

  She nodded, returning the picture to the desk. “At home, at eight o’clock. I’ll have Henri do something special.”

  “We’ll be there.”

  “I’ll have Lauren wait up for you. She adores your wife. She speaks of no one but her.”

  Johann smiled. “Heidi loves her.”

  Janette smiled in return. “You are a lucky man. She must be a wonderful woman. Children have the greatest instincts. They’re like animals. They smell out the good and the bad. And if Lauren loves her, there has to be nothing but good.”

  That was more than two years ago. There had been other changes since then. Six months after Janette had returned from Switzerland, Heidi had approached him with the idea of having Lauren come to live with them.

  “I don’t know,” he had said thoughtfully.

  “Why not?” Heidi asked. “She lives in that big house practically alone. She rarely sees her sister, only the servants. She needs more than that. She’s entitled to more than that. She’s a beautiful, warm, loving child with no one to love.”

  “And you don’t think Janette is enough for her?”

  “You’re not stupid, Johann,” Heidi said with a tinge of exasperation. “You know better than that. Janette is too busy with her own life. She hasn’t time to give anything to the child, even if she wanted to.”

  He looked at Heidi. “You don’t like Janette, do you?”

  Heidi didn’t answer for a moment. “That has nothing to do with my suggestion. It doesn’t matter whether I like her or not. I’m concerned with Lauren.”

  “What if we have a child of our own?” Johann asked.

  “It wouldn’t make any difference. I would still want to give Lauren a home. I love her and she loves me.”

  He was silent for a moment. “If she does come to live with us, it may mean we could not move to America as soon as we had planned.”

  “I know now, whether she comes to live with us or not, we have to remain here. This is where your work is, this is where your responsibility lies. So that wouldn’t make any difference.”

  He nodded. “All right. I’ll talk to Janette tomorrow.”

  In a way he thought he detected a sense of relief in Janette when he spoke to her. Heidi found a larger apartment in the Bois de Boulogne and two months later Lauren came to live with them. The first thing Heidi did was to discharge the nanny and take over the care of the child herself. And Heidi had been right. Lauren bloomed, the dark shadows disappeared from her eyes, and now she was always happy and laughing.

  He took the magazine home with him that night and after dinner he showed the advertisement to Heidi. She looked at it for a moment, then up at him. “She is beautiful.”

  “Jacques said the time has come to start a whole couture around her,” he said.

  “What does she say?” Heidi asked.

  “I haven’t spoken to her yet.”

  “What do you think?”

  “It’s risky,” he answered. “We’re not making any money with Shiki. But on the other hand we’re not losing. Jacques feels that Shiki has had all the chances and is sure that he’ll never make it. But I don’t know. It’s a hundred-million-franc gamble and if it loses, I’ve severely hurt the little one’s inheritance.”

  “What about Janette?”

  “In fact, I’m not responsible for her share anymore. She’s of age and can make her own decisions if she wants.”

  “But she’s left that all to you still, hasn’t she?”

&nb
sp; He nodded.

  “I wonder why?” she asked.

  “I don’t know,” he answered. “She knows of her rights.”

  “If she took charge of her own affairs, could we then go to the States as we had planned?”

  “Perhaps,” he said, “if I could work out proper safeguards for Lauren so that she would be protected no matter what happens.”

  “My father said he was beginning to think of retirement. He would like you to come over and look into his business. He feels you would do well there.”

  “He’s prejudiced,” Johann said. “Besides he wants his daughter home.”

  “Perhaps,” she said. “But I happen to think my father is right. You would do well in America.” She paused for a moment. “Do you think if we did go, Lauren could come with us?”

  “It’s possible. I am her legal guardian still, and if there are no objections raised, there shouldn’t be any problems.”

  “Janette is the only one who could possibly raise objections,” Heidi said.

  “It’s just possible that Maurice might be able to do something. I don’t know. But on the record he is her father. Whether he really is or isn’t might not be pertinent.”

  “Maurice doesn’t give a damn,” she said.

  “If he thought there was money in it, he might.” He looked at her. “But we’re way ahead of ourselves, aren’t we? Nothing has happened yet.”

  She looked down at the photograph. “It may not be that far away,” she said thoughtfully. “Janette would not do something like this if she did not have a larger purpose in mind.”

  He smiled. “Jacques feels exactly the same way.”

  “Jacques is right,” she said. She looked down at the photograph again. “How big do you think that diamond on her finger is?”

  “I haven’t the faintest idea,” he said.

  “It has to be at least thirty carats.” She looked up at him. “Any girl that would pose nude with a thirty-carat diamond has to have big ideas.”

  ***

  Louise came down to the mannequins’ dressing room just behind the atelier, flushed with excitement. She went directly to where Janette was sitting in front of her dressing table making up her eyes for the evening. “The old man is in a rage,” she said. “He just saw your photograph.”