Queen Takes King

by Gigi Levangie Grazer

  Every day, and it didn’t matter what time he arrived, within five minutes, Jacks would hear the thump, thump, thumping of his father’s hooves along the eighteenth-century Aubusson carpet lining the hallway.

  His heart rate would leap at the sound. Pound, thump, pound, thump, pound, thump; Jacks’s hysterical heartbeat and his father’s footsteps—like a garage band’s amateur rhythms.

  Jacks’s breathing would become shallow, raspy. His throat would dry up. He would reach for his water glass, and his hand would shake.

  Artemus would enter Jackson’s office, the wretched paper, thick with un-news, in his hand. He would have to unfold it first; unfolding was part of the game.

  His father would fumble with his reading glasses, and then his earpiece would catch on his suit, lengthening the torture by long seconds. Meanwhile, Jackson would fill his mind with pleasant thoughts:

  Lara’s pussy. (Blond curly twisted hairs!)

  Her lower lip.

  Money.

  Larry King was his friend.

  Then: snap went the paper.

  “You read this one, this morning, boy? You’re not going to believe this one,” crowed his father.

  Jackson summoned the image of Lara unwrapping herself from slick hotel sheets and walking into the bathroom while he pretended to be asleep. A smile weaved its way into his mind without disturbing his poker face. He’d found his image.

  “The self-proclaimed People’s Billionaire, developer Jackson Power—”

  Lara was shy about the ass he loved. She didn’t like the bubble molded by hours spent performing gymnastics.

  “Blah blahblahblah,” his father continued.

  The bubble never fit right in designer skirts made for Popsicle-stick figures. And forget designer jeans.

  “When I was coming up, you avoided this hooey like the plague, I’ll tell you—you never saw the Roses in the papers, the Zeckendorfs, the Speyers. Never!”

  Lara got too tall, shoulders too broad, too big for a sport for little people. He pictured her as a teenager. Did she have braces? Jackson couldn’t believe he didn’t know.

  “Jackson? Are you hearing me?” His father’s voice reached around. “You are losing it, my boy. Losing it!”

  Meanwhile, in the warmly lit hotel suite snugly situated in his mind, Jackson waited patiently for Lara to come back out of the bathroom. Jacks felt tiny pricks of desperation. He sensed Lara slipping away, her muscle and bones becoming loose in his hands, turning to water, flowing through his grasp even as he gripped tighter.

  Was this love or insanity? Was there a difference? The only distractions from obsessive love were work, drink, and new pussy. But the thought of new pussy was a turnoff to him, though he would admit this to no one.

  “You’re ruining the name I created!” his father growled. “You keep this up, I’m taking over the entire operation!”

  Thump, thump, thump, slam.

  22

  KEEP YOUR GAME FACE ON

  THE HUMILIATIONS continued to pour in.

  “Darling, I knew he was cheating with her, everyone knew of course.”

  Cynthia’s service had reported over twenty calls a day—friends, relatives, reporters, people she hardly knew, asking her to a “casual” lunch at Serafina or La Goulue.

  “That tart. I can’t even watch the show anymore. Did you see who she interviewed today?”

  Cynthia avoided answering most. The calls she did return were claws wrapped in silk.

  “The hair. Is it Ukrainian extensions? That’s not found in nature, is it? It’s so fabulous!”

  In her “padded cell,” Cynthia sucked down a diet Red Bull and assessed herself in a full-length mirror. “You look like a boy dressed up in Mother’s tea suit,” Cynthia murmured. Turning to profile, she wondered about her once-stylish ballerina breasts. Was everything about her outmoded? Suddenly, it seemed to her, the Upper East Side had become the Las Vegas strip. Seventy-year-old matrons were getting boob jobs! Was it only a matter of time before she succumbed to Silicone Fever? And if she did, would she fall over on her face?

  Cynthia held out her hand, unadorned by a wedding ring for the first time in twenty-five years. Over the past two weeks, she’d scanned every left hand on the street for the telltale ghostly white band of skin on the ring finger. She felt like the Colombo of Dumped Wives.

  Cynthia’s eyes lighted on the Monet print she’d hung above the nightstand. She’d been to that garden, that bridge, seen the drooping trees, their branches forming lace curtains; she’d heard the gurgling water, felt the sun’s fingers on her face. Artemus Power owned the original. He bought beautiful things because other people said they were beautiful. He was circled like carrion, by vultures in pearls and sleek suits, executives from Sotheby’s and Christie’s, hoping for a shot at the collection upon his passing. They didn’t know what Cynthia felt from the first time she’d met him; here was the first man who would cheat Death.

  She shuddered to think that her husband would one day inherit the responsibility for such beauty.

  Husband? Was-band.

  Mental List of Things Not to Do: Do not cry in public. Do not sit in a dark room at five o’clock, when the light is dim and the air in the room feels like something you can sink your hand into. When you run into Wasband at 740, do not give him ammunition: no splotchy skin, no watery eyes, no tics, no frowning, no evidence of momentary weakness.

  Do not smile incessantly. Smiling is plaster on a million lies. Do not forget the decisive moment. The photograph, the black-and-white sucker punch of the lovers’ near-embrace. Keep in mind, Cynthia, how you stared at that photograph until finally it had dissolved into pinpricks.

  Do not ask him back. Ever. (Remember when the publisher’s wife asked him back? He never stopped talking about it!)

  Mental List of Things to Do: Sleep. Eat. Exercise. Still your mind. Pop a Xanax. When you run into Wasband, look effortlessly stunning and acquire Zen-like, Dalai Lama/Richard Gere state. Repeat in your mind: I am a pond. I am a still pond. I am a still pond sprinkled with water lilies. I am a Monet. Also, call your lawyer.

  Ah! Cynthia dialed.

  “Ricardo Bloomenfeld, please,” Cynthia said.

  The secretary patched her through in a nanosecond, a sure sign of the money Ricardo stood to make on the settlement.

  “Cynthia, darling, how are you?” The voice wrapped her in clouds. A talking head on CNBC whose pithy quotes crept their way into People magazine, Ricardo Bloomenfeld held the hands of many an aging Manhattan divorcee during acrimonious legal proceedings. Every time a billionaire’s marriage hurtled toward rancorous oblivion, you could count on hearing Ricardo’s observations.

  “Ricardo, the situation is unlivable,” Cynthia said. “Jackson’s in the guest wing. For weeks, we’ve been running into each other. He’s doing it on purpose. He obviously wants me to move out. Last week he threw a tantrum and smashed an antique cassolette. He hurt his hand, by the way. I just ignored him. Like what you do with a three-year-old. I could stay at the Four Seasons or the Plaza—Vivi says I could move in with her.” She stopped to take a breath.

  “Absolutely not,” Ricardo said. “Stay right where you are. This is about justice. Dignity and justice. Do not move a nail file until that cheating bastard of a husband pisses out a ton of dough. He insists on staying, you insist on staying. Share meals, share the bedroom, share the fucking bidet if you must. 740 is our leverage. Got it?”

  Cynthia figured. Jackson Power had been too weak to stand up to the pressure from his father, who’d threatened to block him from his will if Cynthia didn’t sign a prenup. Could Ricardo crush it? Cynthia signed. Money wasn’t an issue then. Then.

  “Got it,” said Cynthia, and hung up. She checked her tasteful diamond-encrusted watch.

  “Showtime,” she said.

  TO PARAPHRASE Benjamin Franklin—nothing in Cynthia’s life was certain except for death, taxes, and Fashion Week. Cynthia Power could find her seat blindfolded in Oscar’s front row�
�two seats down from Barbara, directly across from Anna. She loved the parade of hats, tweed half-coats, the sparkle of third-generation diamonds. The society ladies who filled the room wore white gloves on dotted hands, their spindly legs crossed at the ankles; their hair was “set,” lips painted on, for their own ceased to exist. Here was civility, sophistication, a return to the old ways.

  Cynthia found her seat next to Buffy Mortimer and felt the warm glow of relief. She’d chosen the pale cast of her chenille suit carefully, and had slipped off one of her gold chains. At her age, Cynthia utilized the ultimate fashion accessory: moderation. After sixty, one could pile on loads of rings, gold chains, wear long, heavy earrings that accentuated the great monuments to gravity—earlobes. The widows were the boldest fashion plates of the ladies whose hunting grounds ran from Ninety-second to Sixty-second and east from Madison: widowdom (kids grown and sex drive dimmed to the glow of a pin light) conferred the ultimate social standing.

  “Darling,” Buffy said. She smiled with stained teeth, her red lipstick making stick figures above her lip line. She wore a hat of green-and-white houndstooth. In her lap sat a Yorkshire terrier with a diamond-and-emerald collar, customized to match her owner’s outfit. Buffy put a curled, speckled hand over Cynthia’s, her rings weighing more than Cynthia’s leg. Cynthia felt a thrill. Buffy’s clear acknowledgment of her was a watershed. As the grand doyenne of the crumbling estate of old-money Manhattan, every move the woman made was analyzed under the subatomic microscope of the New York Social Diary.

  Cynthia had survived!

  THE MUSIC started. Cynthia recognized the ribbon of sound—the hypnotic Pachelbel Canon. She had danced to this enchantment. Clearly the planets had aligned.

  Suddenly, light flashes and scurrying. A ball of people rolled toward Cynthia and cracked open. In its center was a tiny teenage creature with a ratty mane and pouty lips, eyes rimmed by lack of sleep and a kohl pencil. Those eyes were on Cynthia.

  “Um, that’s my seat,” the Creature whined.

  A harried woman with a black ponytail and severe cat’s-eye glasses, her face floating above a stark black ensemble, started to pull Cynthia from the seat she’d inhabited for years. The seat she’d grown up in, in which she’d been pregnant, twice. The seat that she had made, the seat that had made her.

  “Get up,” the woman in nervous breakdown mode said. “Nicki’s sitting here. Get up.”

  Cynthia’s mouth opened. “This is my seat—”

  “A-14,” the woman said. “Get up or we will have you escorted out.”

  Escorted out? Cynthia’s hand grasped at her ticket. “But this has always been my seat,” she said. The Creature was wearing an Oscar; Cynthia wanted to rip the dress off of her. Oscar, who had dressed Audrey, Jackie, had created Sophia—how could he let this happen?

  Cynthia’s ticket was torn from her hand.

  “Second row,” the spider in black sneered.

  Cynthia’s catapulted from her seat and fled down the aisle. She didn’t even look back as the flamingos took to the runway.

  23

  THE QUEEN AS WING-MOM

  CYNTHIA WAS hyperventilating when she hit the sidewalk. She signaled her confused driver, then jumped into the car, panting and mortified. Where to go? Margot’s apartment? Margot would tell her to bomb the place. The only thing she hated more than a fashion show was a fashion show plus an after-party.

  Dr. Gold?

  Vivienne!

  “Vivi,” Cynthia said into her cell phone.

  “Cynthia?”

  “Can I come by?” Cynthia asked, repressing her hysteria.

  “I’m on my way out,” Vivi said.

  “I’ll come with you,” Cynthia said.

  “But, Cynthia—I’m going to a bar.”

  “Perfect!” Cynthia exclaimed. “I could use a drink.”

  “Cynthia—it’s—”

  Cynthia cut her off. “Where? Just tell me. I’m heading there.”

  “Okayyy…,” Vivienne said, “it’s on Vestry and Greenwich. The Cat’s Meow.”

  “Cat’s Meow. Got it.” Cynthia hung up.

  Vivienne met her outside, smoking a cigarette. Cynthia grabbed it and took a puff.

  “Disgusting habit,” Cynthia said. “Unless it’s a French brand.”

  She tossed the cigarette to the curb, then walked inside, arm in arm with Vivienne.

  Wall-to-wall patrons. Cynthia and Vivienne squeezed their way to the front of the bar.

  “I’ll have a Lone Star,” Vivienne said to the bartender, a platinum blond rocker, nose piercings, tattooed shoulders, tight leather vest.

  “Do you have white Burgundy?” Cynthia asked. The Pink doppelganger looked at Vivienne—

  “And a Lone Star for my mother,” Vivienne said.

  Cynthia’s eyes focused in the dark; she looked closely at the clientele and turned back to Vivienne.

  “A lesbian bar,” she whispered. “You didn’t warn me.”

  “And you didn’t even think to ask,” Vivienne replied.

  Point, Vivienne.

  FIRST BEER

  “So,” Cynthia asked, sneaking glances at the customers, “how come no one’s looking at me?”

  “Because you remind them of their mothers,” Vivienne replied.

  SECOND BEER

  “Wait a minute,” Cynthia asked, attempting the merest shimmy just along the edge of the dance floor as Mariah Carey wailed, pointing at three girls huddled at the bar—“how come those girls are looking at me?”

  “Because you remind them of their mothers.”

  “Ewww!” Cynthia cried and stopped bouncing. She looked at her daughter—“So…Keiko!”

  “It’s Aiko!”

  “She’s a dancer, right?”

  A bull dyke, short hair slicked back, plaid shirt, interrupted them. “Want to dance?” she asked Cynthia.

  “No, oh, no, thank you,” Cynthia replied. “But thank you for asking!”

  The dyke shrugged, and walked away.

  “Aiko’s a Japanese folk dancer,” Vivienne said. “I know, a little weird. I have a Mommy Complex—I’m dealing with it!”

  “So…where is she? Is she joining you?”

  “We’re having a thing. It’s nothing. I’m too bossy. It’ll blow over. She’s just being overly sensitive.”

  “That’s what your father used to say about me—‘Cynthia’s overly sensitive!’ Until I wasn’t anymore.”

  THIRD BEER

  Cynthia and Vivienne were slow dancing, like a father and daughter at a wedding—Vivienne’s head on her mother’s shoulder.

  “I wanted to be like you, Mom, but I’m built like a softball player.”

  “No, you’re not. You’re just…big-boned,” Cynthia said, and then, “You’re stepping on my toes.” Mom, Cynthia thought. She called me Mom.

  “It’s true, Mom, come on—” Vivienne said. “Would you let me lead, please?”

  “You’ve been leading the whole time!” Cynthia pouted. “You’re just showing off.”

  “Can I cut in?” A woman appeared at their side.

  “No,” Vivienne and Cynthia said at once.

  “Anyway, I always felt ashamed,” Vivienne continued. “You’re a dancer, you’re perfect. But here”—Vivienne swept her arm around the room—“I saw other girls who look like softball players. And I haven’t been leading—”

  “Vivienne…”

  “It’s not that I love you any less, but I have to be who I am. Can you just follow me, here?”

  “You know something? You know something?” Cynthia asked.

  “May I?” A younger girl, a grad student type, tapped Cynthia on the shoulder.

  “Go away!” Cynthia said, without taking her eyes off her daughter. “Vivienne, you’re a hell of a lot braver than your mother.”

  “Don’t sound so serious, Cynthia. Just have fun.”

  “Fun? I have a vague memory of fun,” Cynthia said. “Between the ballet board and the divorce, there’s not a lot o
f room for laughs. That horrible Fred Plotzicki just got Gislaine’s grandchild into Spence. How do I compete?”

  “Play a different game,” said Vivi. “C’mon. Aren’t you Cynthia ‘I’m in Control Here’ Power? I’ve spent most of my life intimidated by you.”

  “Really?” Cynthia felt herself blush.

  “Mom,” Vivienne said, “the board struggle, the divorce—it’s like chess. Think three moves ahead.”

  Cynthia thought about Jacks’s teaching Vivienne chess—she’d caught on so quickly that Cynthia had actually felt jealous. Cynthia had never mastered the game—until now.

  Manhattan: the Ultimate Chessboard.

  “I could throw an amazing dinner party.”

  “Um. I was thinking along more aggressive lines. But I guess the right dinner party could be menacing.”

  “Finger bowls, ivory-handled fish knives, formal attire, Marcus Samuelson!” Cynthia exclaimed, then, “You’re really intimidated by me?”

  “Of course,” Vivienne said.

  “Then can I give you some advice?” Cynthia asked.

  “No,” said Vivienne. “And for a dancer, Mom, you really don’t know how to stay on beat.”

  24

  QUEEN’S GAMBIT

  AT PRECISELY 2:56 P.M. the girl with the bold teeth and bridge-and-tunnel accent led Jackson Power and his lawyer, Penn Stewart, to the conference room in the mediation office on the forty-third floor of a skyscraper owned by the Tishmans. Neutral territory.

  “It’ll be just a few moments,” promised the girl. She had a tiny roll around her midriff at the top of her hip; it looked delicious. A lifetime ago, Jackson would have called her on a phony pretense as the first step on the smooth road to getting what he wanted: Fresh Pussy.

  The girl offered a bland smile. “May I get you two anything to drink?”