He grabbed me by my arms and turned me around to the light and before I could force myself out of his grip, he’d subjected me to a rapid appraisal from every angle except the back of my head. I felt as if I were something for sale that was unquestionably a fake, the only question being, a fake what? Every blink of his eye announced, “Get the hell out of my way, I’m in charge here and you’re not.”
“Nothing wrong with the schnoz,” he finally said as if to reassure me. Me! I was so furious on behalf of the insult to my fine nose that I sputtered and couldn’t get the words out before he continued. “Half the duchesses in Italy have one just like it,” he said, as if he were giving me news I was too dumb to know. “American women don’t understand the appeal of a real nose. Someday I’ll explain it to you. If I have time, that is. You could probably stand to lose a couple of pounds, pal, but personally I’m not offended by a woman who’s a bit zaftig. And you’re a terrific contrast to the girls. You’ll make the readers understand the huge difference between models and ordinary people, they’ll be able to relate to you.”
Then Mike Aaron, that insulting pond scum, had the incredible balls to actually smile at me, right into my eyes, a patented smile if ever I’d seen one, as if I, poor mere mortal, was going to be so impressed by eye contact—be still my heart!—and his cocky show of perfect teeth that I wouldn’t mind his using me as an example of Everywoman. If he’d given me that smile years ago, when I was a freshman in high school, I bet I’d have fainted. I know I’d have fainted. Forward, into his arms … I was never one to lose an opportunity.
But today I was another person, tested and tempered by time, all passion spent, as someone once said.
“Justine modeled professionally for years, Big Game,” I managed to say coldly, but without sounding irritated. “I’m a civilian and that changes the rules.”
“ ‘Big Game’? Nobody’s called me that since I was a kid.”
“ ‘Big Game Aaron,’ the boy wonder of Abraham Lincoln,” I sneered, with a pretty terrific smile of my own. “Always came ready to play, yeah, that’s what they said. I was there when you lost to Erasmus. Personally lost, blew it all by yourself. That last crucial free throw, remember? What an air ball! It must have been ten feet short. Bad luck, Big Game, or was it, could it have been … nerves?”
“You are one mean bitch!”
“Got it in one, kid. Congratulations. So keep out of my face!”
And he had, more or less. He certainly hadn’t tried that smile on me again and if I happened to be in the shot he was getting, at least I knew it wouldn’t be a close-up. I don’t think Mike wanted to hear more about his sports career. Even the best players have off-days and he couldn’t know that I’d only watched him play his senior year, which had been, the Erasmus Hall game aside, fucking brilliant.
I left Mike and Maude with the girls, who were clustered together, leaning, no doubt photogenically, over a balcony and getting their first breath of Paris air. The clerk from Reception, who’d never left my side, led me to the door of my room and flung it open, motioning for me to walk in.
“What on earth is this?” I asked him.
“This is what Madame d’Angelle herself arranged for you.”
I looked around the gigantic corner suite. There was a vast, almost circular sitting room with three sets of floor-to-ceiling French doors that opened onto balconies of their own. There were two magnificent bedrooms, one even bigger than the other, with large dressing rooms and gorgeous bathrooms, plus a guest john in the entrance hall. The whole thing was ridiculous.
“Madame d’Angelle didn’t know if you’d prefer to sleep on the Avenue Montaigne side or the courtyard, so she took both bedrooms,” he explained. “The courtyard side is perhaps more quiet.”
“But these flowers?” I flopped my hands at the lushly filled vases that stood everywhere I looked.
“I don’t know, Madame. I haven’t read the cards.” He gave me that nervous shoulder twitch known as the Gallic shrug, as if the French had invented it.
“May I summon the maid to unpack for Madame?”
“Yeah, sure, why not? And please get me a Valium on ice. The big blue one, not the little yellow one.”
“Madame?”
“Never mind.” I’d finally realized that all this had been intended for Justine. When had she sent the fax saying that she wasn’t coming? When had Necker gotten the news? Not before this morning, obviously, or I wouldn’t be surrounded by so many flowers that there was every chance I’d get hay fever in the middle of winter. Frankie, I said to myself, enjoy it while you have the chance, tomorrow you’ll be moved to a broom closet.
“Madame d’Angelle left me this note to deliver to you by hand,” he said as he was leaving.
Dear Justine,
Bienvenu à Paris! I hope you and the girls all had a most pleasant flight and that the accommodations are comfortable. On the part of Monsieur Necker I should like to invite you and your three “debutantes” to an informal dinner at his home this evening at eight. There will be a car arriving for you at seven forty-five. If there’s anything you need, please let the hotel manager know. He has instructions to provide anything you request.
I’m looking forward to tonight with great pleasure.
Most sincerely,
Gabrielle d’Angelle
I read this note over twice. This was a clear-cut command performance with no chance to refuse. How could Necker be so cold-blooded that he’d use Gabrielle to invite Justine to dinner in a group instead of arranging his meeting with her himself?
Then I started thinking about alternatives. The girls would be thrilled to be invited to a dinner party their first night in Paris and if we didn’t celebrate somehow they’d be disappointed. And did I really expect Necker to make an ordinary phone call to Justine? Wasn’t a party, with other people around to cushion things, the best way to handle this tense meeting?
On reflection, I thought the plan was as good a one as could be worked out. Talk about your awkward situations! There was only one problem, Justine wasn’t in Paris. No, make that two problems. She wasn’t and I was.
I left the maid to unpack the suitcase full of new clothes I hadn’t seen yet and, since I still didn’t know their room numbers, I went down the wide corridor to find the girls and tell them about dinner. Standing by the elevator I spied Mike bending with what looked like tender interest over the hand of an unknown blond who had her back to me. As fast a worker as ever, I thought scornfully, and walked past him without stopping.
“Frankie, wait up! Meet poor, unfortunate Peaches Wilcox,” he commanded.
I turned to say hello to the world’s merriest widow, who looked as if she were tap dancing happily somewhere in the neighborhood of thirty-six. Whoever had done her face had done real good.
“Hi, neighbor,” she drawled. “Isn’t it wonderful! We’re all on the same floor! I’ve been reading all about this Cinderella story in Women’s Wear—I’m so thrilled to be in on the action. Can I give a party for everybody just as soon as possible? Introduce the girls to some cute guys?”
“We’d love it,” Mike Aaron answered for me. “Peaches bruised a couple of fingers skiing,” he explained, still holding her injured hand solicitously, “so she left Saint-Moritz … can’t grasp her ski pole tightly enough.”
“Do you know anything more frustrating than having to sit around a hotel when everyone else is charging down the mountain?” She flashed a smile even I, critic though I am, had to admit looked as if not only the friendliness but the teeth themselves were genuine.
“Golly, no,” I agreed through my very own original teeth. “I just hate it when that happens.”
“Mike photographed me for a story on the most glamorous women in Texas,” she said demurely. “That’s how we got to know each other. Isn’t it a coincidence that we’d bump into each other here?”
“I just love it when that happens.”
“So do I,” Mike said, giving me a dirty look. “You trying to fi
nd the girls?” he asked.
“That seems to be my lot in life.”
“They’re all in Maude’s room, telling her, on the record, how they lost their virginity. I had to leave. It was much too graphic for me and I just hate it when that happens.”
“Thanks, Aaron,” I said and charged off down the hall.
“Room 311” he yelled after me.
I knocked on the door of 311, breathing fire. Not one of my girls had ever been interviewed before. They had no idea of how even a few words could be twisted and quoted out of context by any magazine writer, particularly Maude Callender. She opened the door, frowning when she saw me. Her ascot was off and her buttoned boots were lying on the floor. So were all my charges, sprawled out, eating enormous club sandwiches from a pile on a platter and drinking Cokes.
“Have you girls been read your Miranda Rights?” I asked angrily.
“Astonishing,” Maude said acidly, “all three of them turn out to be virgins. Who would have bet money on that?”
“Isn’t that why Zing is calling this story ‘Innocents Abroad’?” Jordan asked, darting me a private look that might as well have been a wink.
“We thought that was the reason we were picked,” April added, lifting that head of hers that lacked only a tiara to finish it properly. “At least I know I did.”
“I’ve been kissed,” Tinker offered, plaintively, her million-dollar pout working overtime. “ ‘Soul kissed,’ I think he called it. Does that count? It was only the one time and I didn’t like it much.”
“Don’t let anyone do that to you again,” Jordan snapped. “That’s the first step on the road to perdition. It’s a well-known fact.”
“But it was New Year’s Eve,” Tinker explained.
“That’s not an excuse,” Jordan told her. “They’ll always find something—if it’s not New Year’s Eve it’s Saint Patrick’s Day or Presidents’ Day—just say no.”
“Well, this hasn’t been an entirely wasted session,” Maude announced. “At least I know that you girls are accomplished liars, a fact that doesn’t do me any good because it’s not as if I had proof.”
“The four of us are invited to dinner tonight at Monsieur Necker’s,” I told the girls. “So go decide what you’re going to wear. Come on, all of you, off the floor. And that better be the last club sandwich any of you eat before the collection.”
Maude looked at me in a way I didn’t like one little bit. I could hear her thinking that I was not in a position of strength to enforce dietary discipline. Somehow she knew about my six extra pounds. She had a point. Nightmares of the girls ordering room service at any hour danced in my head.
“After this dinner party,” I heard myself saying, “I’m going on a diet. I’m counting on the three of you to make me stick to it and inspire me by your example.”
“You’re starting a diet in Paris?” Maude asked incredulously, scribbling away in her notebook. “Is that on the record?”
“Maude, this story isn’t about me, it’s about them.”
“It’s about what Maxi Amberville wants, as usual,” Maude said. “And she didn’t put anybody off limits. Are Mike and I invited to this party?”
“Nope, this party is about what Necker wants and he doesn’t know anything about Zing. Sorry about that.”
“Frankly, I’m not. I need a good night’s sleep. I’ll catch up with Necker later,” Maude said, wriggling out of her dandy’s jacket, unbuttoning her vest and stretching widely as she took that off too.
She looked relaxed for the first time since she’d joined us on the trip over. In just her trousers and ruffled shirt I was interested to see that she looked no more oddly dressed than any of us and a thousand times more attractive than I would have imagined. Her costume, her carapace of strict tailoring from another century, certainly worked to give her a safe place from which to quiz the world. Amazing what the choice of a uniform can do. Now, with her short ash-blond hair messed up and her observant expression turned off, Maude was, and no other word will do, truly pretty. I looked at her closely and realized that she couldn’t be more than thirty-nine or forty. She had a surprisingly voluptuous and feminine body once she lost her jacket and vest, terrific breasts under that shirt, a slim waist and decidedly feminine hips. The half-boy, half-girl look disappeared with her clothes.
“I’m whipped,” she said. “Jet lag is bad enough without trying to talk to a bunch of kids. Want a sandwich?”
“No, thanks,” I said regretfully. She didn’t know it but my diet had just started. “Zaftig” has never been one of my favorite words and when that eagle-eyed Aaron used it about me, I hate to admit it but I winced.
“Diet Coke?” she asked, waving me to a chair.
“Love one,” I answered, sitting down. It occurred to me that it would be smarter to be friendly with her than not.
“Maude, I know you have to ask a lot of questions for your story, but why don’t you wait a little, until you get to know the girls naturally? They’re basically good kids but they’re gun-shy. People are always prying and poking at models, as if they weren’t really human. Why, for instance, are you so interested in whether they’re virgins or not? After all, this is the nineties, what difference does it make?”
“Because of all the talk today about chastity and abstinence—two years ago I wouldn’t have dreamed of asking that question, but now it’s become interesting again, even important, because they’re role models to other girls. If one or two of them are virgins, that’s meaningful, even newsworthy. Three would be a banner headline.”
“I see your point, but I still think it’s too early to expect them to be honest with you. Remember, they’re used to being treated like freaks by everyone but each other and their agencies, and that makes them gun-shy.”
“But they are freaks,” she protested. “Not one woman in ten million looks like them. They’re aberrations of nature.”
“Yeah, but Maude, they can’t help it. You should get used to seeing them as superlative human animals, not freaks. And the statistically astonishing fact that not one of them smokes, thank God, is a better angle than their sexual habits, if you ask me.” I think I set her off on the right path. Somewhat. Anyway, we made friends. A little. No one in the agency business believes that a journalist can be a real friend. We’ve all been burned too often.
By the time I got back to my private perfumed palace both beds had been turned down, the lamps were lit, and a fire glowed nicely in the sitting room. I walked into one of the dressing rooms and almost fell down in surprise at the sight of what the maid had unpacked.
Justine must really have felt guilty! There was a whole rack of stuff; dresses, pants, jackets, and two long coats, one in camel hair with a red shearling lining, the other a floor-length, black cashmere cape with a zip-in black satin quilted lining for evening. There were a half dozen pairs of shoes on the floor, yards of cashmere mufflers, handbags, gloves and piles of lingerie and pantyhose in the drawers. I ruffled through the clothes, discovering a paradise of more cashmere, silk and leather, all in the kind of good-taste colors from black to ivory with a few stops at red, pewter, moss green and subtle browns that makes it impossible to go wrong no matter what you throw on. Lots of the fabrics had that kind of reassuring stretchy feeling that promised a righteously helpful mixture of Lycra or spandex. I hope Justine got it all wholesale. On the other hand, as we taxpayers all know, there’s no free lunch, and there sure as hell is no free Donna Karan. What was I going to have to do for this?
I soon found out.
“What are you doing here?” Gabrielle d’Angelle gasped. She was standing right behind the manservant who had opened the door to Necker’s house on the Avenue de Suffren, bordering the garden of the Champ de Mars.
“Didn’t Justine explain in her fax?” I was as surprised as she was.
“Fax! We received no fax!”
“That’s impossible,” I said flatly. “She sent you one the minute she was sure.” Instinctively I vamped for time.
The dog had eaten my homework and my memory had stopped working from shock.
“ ‘Sure’ about what? Monsieur Necker expects Miss Loring!”
“Well, that’s tough, but when the doctors all say you can’t fly, you can’t fly. You understand that as well as I do, Gabrielle, and thanks for all the magnificent flowers, they’re incredible, even if you sent them to the wrong person. I’ll tell Justine how beautiful they are when I phone her.” Right! A monster ear infection. It all came back to me in a glorious flash. All, that is, except why she hadn’t sent the fax.
“We’d better both pray that the antibiotics work,” I added, “and that she recovers quickly enough to come over here before the collection. Those ear infections are dangerous, don’t you agree, Gabrielle?” When I’ve got trouble I always try to make it the other guy’s problem too.
“Come on in girls, for heaven’s sake,” I babbled on. “Gabrielle doesn’t want you to stand there in the cold, do you, Gabrielle?” I shooed them inside before she could answer. “The important thing is that the girls are here, safe and sound, isn’t that right, Gabrielle?”
“Of course,” she answered, transforming herself back into the smoothie I remembered. “Welcome to Paris, all three of you. I’m enchanted that you’re here.”
As she shook their hands I observed her body language and decided that she didn’t have an idea of what Necker was up to. She still looked slightly miffed at the change of chaperone to one of a lower status, but not one tenth of one percent as upset as her boss was going to be. What I was burning to know was how Justine could have screwed me like this. She’d sworn that she was going to send the fax once our plane took off. What the bloody hell could possibly have stopped her?
“Monsieur Necker is waiting to greet you upstairs,” Gabrielle informed us. “We’ll take the elevator.” Only then did I look around and realize that we were standing in a room with a black and white marble floor and the dimensions of a ballroom that could only be the entrance hall to the largest and grandest private house I’d ever seen. Since there was a staircase curving up against one wall, the sort of majestic staircase you’ve seen in the White House, with a presidential couple descending to greet distinguished guests, I didn’t see why we couldn’t walk up. Especially since it would take longer. Even one second longer was better. Never would be an ideal time for me to meet Necker, but the manservant was already taking our coats.
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