Cheap Diamonds

by Norris Church Mailer

  Finally I made it up to the head of the line, my arms practically falling off, and hoisted the box over the counter to a girl with blue eye shadow, home-bleached hair, and a bad attitude. Not full of Christmas cheer, that one, although I couldn’t blame her. Being a postal clerk at Christmas would not be my dream job. Daddy was the postmaster in Sweet Valley, and I hung around there sometimes. Those people were under a lot of pressure, especially at Christmastime.

  It would be the first Christmas I wouldn’t be there with the family, and that was sad, but I just couldn’t make myself stop grinning. People were glancing at me and whispering to one another like they thought I was somebody important, but they couldn’t quite figure out who. It was because the Diamonds & Ermine ad and commercial had come out! Everybody back home, of course, went crazy. Mama bought all the copies of Vogue they had at the Kroger store and drove around to every place that sold magazines within twenty-five miles to find more. Lucille wrote and wanted to know who the cute guy with me was, and if I was sleeping with him. They kept the TV on day and night, just in case the commercial ran. If it did, they stopped whatever they were doing and watched. Of course, the thing went over big in Buchanan, as well, I can tell you. Baby wrote me about it.

  Dear Cherry,

  You’re always a big star with me, but you got nothing on Lale—he’s the star of Buchanan. That’s all anybody is talking about. Nobody knows what to think about the two of you together, and of course they all think you’re engaged or something. I keep telling everyone that it’s just a job and there is nothing between the two of you, but of course they don’t believe it. You’re both pretty good actors—you guys did look like you were in love, and if I didn’t know better, I’d think so myself. What is up with those voices, though? It’s hilarious to hear those accents coming out of your mouths. People really think the two of you have changed your voices. I can’t believe how ignorant these hillbillies are. I bet your life is changing already, big time. I had no idea you would be so successful this soon! I’m sad that I’m not there with you. I miss you so much. I don’t know if Cassie has seen the commercial or not. I haven’t heard a word from her. She took a little trip to Little Rock and never came back, but she called Bernadette and said she was okay, just spending a few days with a friend. At least she’s moving on, thank goodness.

  But I have my own news. Leo and I have really started something and it is so incredible, but so hard at the same time. We have to keep it a total secret, of course. We meet out at the old mill, in our hidden cellar room. It’s not so creepy now. We fixed it up with a mattress, candles, and quilts. It’s not that cold down there, and there is even a little fireplace. Oh, Cherry, I love him so much. And he loves me. I hate to tell you, since Aurelius is like he is and all, but Leo does everything to me, and he is amazing—a quick learner, given that he hasn’t had all that much experience. Most of all, even more than the actual sex, I love to hear him talk. He is so smart and knows everything about the history of the Church, and photography and music and art—I never get tired of listening to him. I don’t know what he is going to do about the priesthood. It was his whole life. I’m only the second woman he has ever been with, and that’s a little scary, too. We talk about it endlessly. I know he agonizes over it, but when we’re together, it doesn’t matter. There is no Church and no black robes in the mill cellar. There is just us, doing what God designed us to do. I don’t feel guilty at all about it—I think celibacy is a stupid rule and sooner or later they are going to run out of guys who want to be priests. I hope. Maybe then they will change it.

  Hang in with Aurelius. Be patient. Maybe he’ll get better. You aren’t tempted to go with Lale, are you? He is pretty cute. And I bet he knows a thing or two about pleasing a woman. Oops. Forget I said that. I don’t want to be disloyal to Cassie, and I’m sure you don’t either.

  Love,

  Baby

  The agency had their big Christmas party at Elaine’s. All Suzan’s models were there, plus photographers, bookers, magazine editors, designers, stylists, hair and makeup people, everyone who was anybody in the fashion business. The place was so crowded the waiters had to pass drinks overhead. A hand would appear, take one off the tray, and disappear back into the mass of people. I had brought Aurelius, who was cool as always, but seemed a little uncomfortable. Maybe because he was one of the few black men there. I hadn’t realized before how it must feel to always be in the minority everywhere you go. Suzan only had three black women and two black men models in the whole agency. There has never been a black girl on the cover of Vogue, although after Martin Luther King was assassinated in ’68, Glamour put Katiti Kironde on the cover, just that once. Naomi Sims has been on the cover of The New York Times’s Fashions of the Times magazine, and Diana Vreeland has used her in a Vogue layout, but not on the cover. Still, it seems like things are changing for them. An all-black agency called Black Beauties opened a couple of years ago, and even the blonde-obsessed Fords have a few.

  But I didn’t have time to worry about Aurelius. It seemed like I was one of the big girls now, because everyone was coming up to tell me how great the commercial was, how beautiful the ad, to touch me, and give me their cards, which I stuck in my purse until there was a fat stack of them. The photographers all said they wanted to work with me, and I smiled and said yes to everything. In all the confusion and my neglect, Aurelius wandered away, although he was easy to find because he was tall and his Afro stuck up above the crowd. I spotted him talking to one of the black models and got a pang of jealousy. He had never said how many girlfriends he’d had, or anything about other women at all. In fact, I realized I knew precious little about him at all. I’m sure he must have had quite a few, he was so good-looking. A lot of girls were checking him out. I felt like I’d brought a T-bone steak to a pit-bull party. Well, if he was going to be attracted to other girls, then so be it. I’d give him a lot of rope, because, like Rod McKuen, or somebody like that, said, “If you love someone, let them go. If they don’t come back, they were never yours.” Or words to that effect. It sounded good in the poem, but not so good in practice. Did I love him? Did he love me? Mama always said if you have to ask yourself, you don’t. But I sure didn’t want him to go off with anybody else, especially one of the beautiful black girls.

  Sal wriggled up to me. He was wearing a red velvet Santa cap with white fur trim.

  “Oh, my God! I’m dying. How can we breathe in here? You are so lucky, Miss Cherry, to be taller than most people because at least the air is fresher up there. I’m about to expire from the heat!”

  “Well, take off that stupid fur hat. Here, I’ll put it in my bag for you.” I got the hat off his head and wiped the sweat with my napkin. It came back brown from the makeup.

  “Oops, I smeared your makeup. You’ll have to go fix it.”

  “I’ll never get near the bathroom. There’s a line out the door. Nobody will notice.” We edged our way to the back of the room, which wasn’t so crowded. At least we could stand and talk without bumping our drinks on each other’s faces.

  “So you’re the belle of the ball. Got any offers from Hollywood yet?”

  “No, don’t be silly, but Suzan thinks I’ll get a lot of work out of it. Apparently there was a big surge in the perfume sales right after it came out.”

  “Wonderful! Oh, my God! There’s Diana Vreeland coming in the door! You have to meet her. This is the time—I can feel it in my bones.”

  She was tiny, but her personality took up a lot of room. I had heard her name forever, since she was the editor in chief of Vogue, but I had never really seen a good picture of her. She was shockingly ugly, a dark little woman with a wad of coal-black hair poofed up like a goiter on top of her head and the rest chopped blunt under her ears. She had beady black eyes and the biggest nose I had ever seen on a human being. She wore a fire-engine-red knit dress to match her lipstick and rouge, and her skinny little arms were heavy with ivory bangles. An ivory necklace shaped like the tooth of some prehistoric tiger
dangled from a gold chain thick enough to tether a ship. I couldn’t take my eyes off her. The crowd parted like Moses was directing the band, and she immediately was surrounded by people taking her coat, handing her a drink, and acting like they would kneel and kiss her feet if they only had the room. I didn’t want to be another one trying to get her to notice me, so I just hung back sipping my glass of white wine, chatting with Sal. After several minutes, I heard a voice like a well-smoked foghorn.

  “You!”

  I turned and there she stood, a pint-size samurai, pointing a cadmium-vermilion-lacquered fingernail at me.

  “Me?”

  “Yes, you.” She came toward me and I bent down to be able to hear her above the howl of the party.

  “The Diamonds & Ermine girl. Marvelous! I had no idea you were this tall! Divine!”

  “Thank you, Mrs. Vreeland. Coming from you, that means a lot.”

  “What else have you done? Do you have a book? Who are you with?”

  “Yes, ma’am, I mean, yes, I have a book. I’m with Suzan Hartman, and I’ve done legs for Vogue and hair for Clairol and several other things.”

  “Marvelous. Are you wearing Diamonds & Ermine right now?” She sniffed and frowned.

  “Um, not really. Although I do like it.”

  “You should always wear scent. Scent is as important to a well-turned-out woman as her makeup, her nail varnish, her pearls.”

  “Do you like Diamonds & Ermine, Mrs. Vreeland? Is it something you wear?”

  “No, but that doesn’t matter. Any scent is preferable to none. Chanel No. 5, to me, is the ideal scent for a woman. She can wear it anywhere, anytime, and everybody—husbands, beaus, taxi drivers—everybody loves it. Elaine, here at the restaurant, wears it. No one has gone beyond Chanel No. 5.” I remembered Elaine smelling particularly good when she hugged me. I’d graduated from a handshake to a hug, a big deal in these circles.

  “I like that one, too. Remember what Marilyn Monroe said about it…”

  “‘What do you sleep in, Miss Monroe?’”

  “‘Chanel No. 5’!” we said together, then laughed. Her whole face crinkled when she laughed and she didn’t seem ugly anymore.

  “Chanel was the first couturier who added scent to the wardrobe of the woman—did you know that? No designer had ever thought of such a thing. Chanel No. 5 is a totally marvelous product—best bottle, stopper, box—and of course, still one of the great scents. Do you know the story of why it’s called No. 5?” Mrs. Vreeland pulled out a long cigarette holder and inserted a pink cigarette. Sal whipped out a lighter and lit it for her. She took a puff, settled back, and looked at me. I was so mesmerized by her I forgot to speak. It didn’t matter.

  “Chanel wanted to put out a new scent, but didn’t yet know which one or what to name it. A number of scents to choose from had arrived at the rue Cambon. Coco called up one of her great Russian friends—a very aristocratic, superior man—and asked him. ‘Help me to choose. I have a migraine. My head is in quarters. You’ve got to do this. Come over instantly.’

  “He arrived and was taken to the bedroom, where Coco was lying on the bed, barely able to speak, she was in such pain.

  “‘Over there is a stack of ten handkerchieves,’ she said. ‘Place them along the mantelpiece. Put a sample of scent on each handkerchief, and when the alcohol’s blown off, let me know.’

  “He did this, and she pulled herself off the bed to go over to the mantel. She picked each one up in turn. First one: ‘C’est impossible!’ Second, ‘Horrible!’ The third, ‘Pas encore.’ The fourth, ‘Non.’ Then, suddenly, ‘Ça va, ça va!’ It was the fifth handkerchief! With those great instincts, she was correct even when she was practically unconscious.

  “As for men, the two best men’s scents in the world were both made by Rigaud. One was called L’Eau Merveilleux and the other was called Cananga. These were strong scents. They reminded me of marvelous Edwardian gentlemen in Paris early in this century. When my sister and I were children, we used to be brought in to curtsy to our parents’ friends and to kiss them good night, and it was a pleasure. Many of the men had whiskers and rather longish hair—this wasn’t an American stockbroking group—and they all smelled the same. It had bay rum in it, Florida water…it was clean. It was a healthy smell—good for the skin, good for the soul…and strong. There’s a whole school now that says the scent must be faint. This is ridiculous. I’m speaking from the experience of a lifetime.

  “Chanel always used to say, keep a bottle in your bag and refresh yourself with it continuously. I always carry purse scent—that way I’m never without it. Do you notice any scent on me now?” I leaned down to sniff. “Don’t come any closer—if you have to sniff like a hound it’s not enough!” I straightened up immediately. She took a little vial of Chanel No. 5 out of her purse, spritzed her neck and wrists, then continued.

  “You should never put scent on immediately after your bath. That’s the biggest mistake going—there’s nothing for it to cling to. Napoleon never bathed in water, you know. His valet, I’m told, every morning, took literally a whole bottle of scent, L’Eau Imperiale—one of those divine Napoleonic flacons with bees all over it—and poured it right down the emperor’s body. One bottle! Now whether it was a pint bottle or a two-pint bottle…don’t ask me. But this is something I understand totally.” She paused to take a puff on her cigarette. I felt like I should contribute something, but didn’t know what.

  “That seems like a lot of perfume to buy every day. But then I guess Napoleon didn’t have to pinch his pennies.”

  “Perfume is an extravagance. But it’s odd that Americans, who God knows are an extravagant people, have never used scents properly. They buy bottles, but they don’t splash it on.”

  She paused again and took a long swallow of her drink. Chanel No. 5 wafted off of her. It, or the sheer overwhelming weight of her personality, was making me light-headed.

  “Come to my office Monday afternoon at two.”

  Then she turned on her heel and walked away, the waves of people parting as she moved. I shut my mouth, which I had found hanging open.

  “What was that?” I asked Sal, who was grinning at me.

  “I think that was the sound of your career being made, Miss Cherry, darlin’.”

  38

  * * *

  FOX IN THE HENHOUSE

  The light from the TV flickered across the room. Cassie sat crosslegged on the floor with a bowl of popcorn in her lap, crunched the little half-opened ones in her teeth, licked salt from her fingers. The show was some made-for-TV movie and she didn’t even know the plot, her mind flitting from one thought to another like a hummingbird. She was waiting for the commercial.

  Then it came on. She scooted closer to the set, like a three-year-old, and mouthed the words she had memorized along with the two on the screen.

  “You ought to be in Diamonds & Ermine,” he says, in a British accent. A good tight close-up of his face, eyes looking down at someone, small smile playing on his lips. The camera pans back to include her, ringlets of platinum hair fluffed out, her small nose tilted up in profile.

  “I agree, are you giving me a present?”

  She raises her pale eyebrow teasingly at the man, who wears a tuxedo and a white bow tie. He delicately runs a finger along her bare shoulder, just above a white ermine coat collar.

  “The best present.” He hands her a bottle of Diamonds & Ermine.

  She snuggles into the ermine, turns her head slightly away, as if she is totally uninterested.

  “Perfume?”

  He gets down on one knee, takes her chin in his hand, forcing her to look into his eyes.

  “Not simply perfume. An extraordinary elixir. Immensely complex. Like you, love.” She lifts her chin, moistens her glossy lips with a pink tongue.

  “Really? Complex how?”

  On it goes, coy touches, scorching looks. The words were meaningless. It was the seduction she could see so clearly. No matter how many times Cassie watche
d, it always ended the same way, with Cherry and Lale looking longingly into each other’s eyes, like they couldn’t wait until the camera was turned off and they could leap into bed, practically panting as they said the final exchange:

  “It needs only one more ingredient to attain perfection.”

  “And that is…?”

  “You, love.”

  You, love. You, love. You, love. It echoed in her head.

  It didn’t matter that the voices weren’t theirs. The eyes were. She knew it wasn’t acting. No wonder Cherry had never written her that she’d found him. What had she been thinking? She had sent a fox into the henhouse to find her rooster.

  After the months of staring at him on the pages of magazines, seeing him in motion was a shock. He had changed so much from the shaggy-haired boy in the worn Levi’s, but he still had those intense blue eyes, the lashes so thick they looked false. Through some trick of nature, he had a double row of eyelashes, like she’d read Elizabeth Taylor had. Cassie used to covet those eyelashes. She’d hoped the baby would have them, but she hadn’t. Not that it mattered now.

  Cassie turned off the TV and washed the bowl, put it back in the cabinet. As she brushed her teeth and got ready for bed, she looked at her profile in the mirror. No doubt about it—she had a big nose. It had a bony hump in the middle, thin nostrils like little wings on either side. They had studied a picture by John Singer Sargent called Madame X in art class and Lale said it looked like her. He meant it as a compliment, but Cassie knew she had even more of a bump, while Madame X’s nose was elegant and beautiful. Still, it must be said, Madame had quite a beak.