For All the Wrong Reasons

by Louise Bagshawe

  The kids’ book sector in America was dying fast. Who read anymore, when there was Disney and Barney? Did parents take the time to read stories to kids? No. They stuck them in front of a VCR. If Cicero’s Green Eggs could breathe life into the sector, so much the better. They needed a Harry Potter.

  Besides, the sellers and distributors weren’t looking at Cicero. Ernie’s careful PR department had done their highly paid job, and to them, Michael Cicero was just a kid himself, the “product manager” on the line. Product managers were very replaceable. To the trade, Ernie Foxton, Wall Street magician, the bottom-line king, had come up with this idea. If it flew, he’d get all the credit. If it tanked, Cicero was there to take the fall.

  The presentation finally concluded with huge applause and a rush toward the sales department. Yes! Ernie’s skinny fist balled under his desk as he accepted congratulations. Now that they had the hard product, the really enjoyable part of his Green Eggs takeover could begin. Ernie hadn’t forgotten the way Michael Cicero had made him grovel. He’d been longing for payback. Now that his production people had seen the little wop’s goods, which he’d been so secretive about in that broom cupboard on the fourth floor, they could duplicate them.

  Sell or stiff, either way, Michael Cicero was out.

  Ernie glanced out of his windows at the crawling traffic on Seventh Avenue and the huge billboards of Broadway. Mira had ridden him well this morning, and Diana was out of his hair, too. Who gave a fuck about her little temper tantrum? It was good, he decided, that she’d caught him. That would lay it on the line for her without him having to bother. Cicero, Diana, anybody who annoyed him from now on was going to be swept out of the way. Glittering Manhattan loved him. What did anybody else matter?

  He shook hands with the suits and nodded, friendly like, at Cicero as he bulldozed past him on his way downstairs. He was polite to Ernie, nothing more. Didn’t Cicero know he held his future in the palm of his hand? Ernie bristled. He’d teach the cowboy some respect. He glanced across the room and saw Marcia giving him that wary look of hers. It was about time he had her replaced. Transferred, to avoid any kind of a suit. And her replacement could be a younger woman with less of an ass, a thin, hard-looking girl like Mira Chen. Not Mira, though. You had to be wary of the law over here. Besides, Ernie thought, smirking, it was about time somebody other than Mira got a crack of the whip—so to speak. There were a lot of cruel women with stilettos and a taste for thong panties and money on the island of Manhattan.

  “Give me the call list, Marcia,” he said, smiling warmly at her, to let her know she wasn’t being sacked.

  She handed it over deferentially. “Here, sir. And there was another call for you just now. A Mrs. Felicity Metson.”

  “Felicity.” Ernie smiled. “Interesting. Get her back for me, and hold my calls until I’ve finished talking with her.”

  Gossip about Diana? Another warning? Classy tart, Felicity. Just the kind of girl he needed on his side right now.

  Maybe she’d know what the hell his wife was doing with herself.

  Ernie looked around his outer office. Everybody was doing their jobs, not looking him in the eye. That was fine, though. As long as he made money for this firm, they would be quiet as mice on tranquillizers.

  It’s good to be the king, he thought.

  *

  Diana was sitting at her desk, typing, when the phone rang. She’d thrown herself into this shabby little job, today. There was nothing else to do, except check on Consuela and leave messages for her girlfriends. Jodie and Natty were not at home, nor were Melissa or Robin, so she’d done the mindless work Susan Katz had given her. Diana was in a bad mood, and not even attempting to make conversation with the other bitches in the office. She got them herbal tea and coffee when they asked for it, then marched back to the file room or her desk. As she moved about the office, typing, filing, working, never wasting a second, they seemed to draw back from her, like they were scared. Diana reflected that they probably hadn’t heard about her and Ernie yet. They probably thought she was cooking up some elaborate scheme to get them all laid off.

  Good. Let them worry. She was busy.

  That rude oaf, Michael, had stormed off upstairs with his troops to do his silly presentation. Diana typed out daily meeting schedules and conference notes, spell-checked and printed, faxed, photocopied and carried, until her hands were covered in paper cuts and she had swollen ankles. Now she was taking his messy handwritten office rules and vacation schedules, and turning them into policy documents. It was better than filing, after all. Diana found that she was taking care with this, amazingly enough. It was too bad the way that lout Michael ordered her about, without giving him any ammunition. She didn’t want to let Susan Katz triumph over her more than she was already doing.

  Her phone buzzed and she picked it up.

  “Michael Cicero’s office.”

  “Darling, is that you?” Felicity gave a little laugh, and Diana twisted in agony on her seat. Oh great. Now Felicity knew she, Diana Foxton, was nothing more than a secretary. In fact she was reporting to a secretary. Diana blushed scarlet to the roots of her hair. “How nice to hear you sounding so businesslike.”

  “Oh, it’s so much fun to work,” Diana managed to say, “a completely new experience.”

  “Yes. Maybe that’s what’ll turn Ernest around,” Felicity suggested.

  “I really don’t care whether it does or not,” Diana lied, “it’s very enjoyable. Something I can do for myself.”

  “Indeed. It’s terrific you’ve got a hobby,” Felicity purred. “Anyway, the point is, sweetie, I’ve been doing some digging, and I have a marvelous little list of furnished places I thought you could use.”

  Diana was touched. It was good to have people she could rely on.

  “Thanks, Fee,” she said. “Fax it over.”

  *

  For the first week Diana did nothing but check in at the Pierre and enjoy herself. The suite had a phone, a fax, a silver bowl full of freshly cut blazing red roses replaced each morning, and a view of the park that reminded her of home. She took sauna baths and massages, manicures and pedicures, and managed to feel just a touch more human. All her friends came to visit and offered advice on the reconciliation, which Diana chose to ignore. To be quite honest, she thought, it’s bliss being away from Ernie. I’ll let him miss me.

  The trouble was that the Pierre called her up at work, and that turned her so-called colleagues into utter tyrants. They so hated the idea of anybody else having any fun. They seemed to violently object to the fact that her chauffeur dropped her at the office and that she went home to her gilded oasis each night. Besides which, Diana told herself, guiltily, as she sipped her fresh almond coffee and gazed out from her balcony over the warm colors in the park, swathed in her thick white robe, the bill was getting—possibly—perhaps—just a smidgen too rich.

  She handed in her work, bought herself a complete new wardrobe for the office on Ernie’s card, and reluctantly went apartment hunting.

  “But it’s all so shabby,” she complained to Felicity. “No views, no decor…”

  “It’s not that bad, sweetie,” Felicity reminded her, “you need to show Ernie how well you can make do on your own. And it’s only temporary.”

  They were in a top-floor apartment near the Flatiron, a one-bedroom snip at three thousand dollars a month. It had red-brick walls, and a plain white bathroom and oak closets.

  “It reminds me of a Holiday Inn,” Diana sniffed.

  Felicity looked across at Diana and allowed her growing dislike to have a free rein. Nobody had forced the spoiled little prima donna into this wretched, serviceable hovel, suitable for, say, a middle apartment management wife. Nobody had forced her to leave Ernie’s opulent apartment and move here, where there wasn’t even a walk-in closet. Diana had made her plain, unimpressive queen-size bed and now she would have to lie in it.

  “Well, I’m sure that by now dear Ernie has been calling and begging for a reconcilia
tion. Maybe you should just go home,” Felicity purred.

  She sat down delicately on the bed and felt the mattress. It was lumpy. No more interior designers for Diana Foxton. From now on it was Bed, Bath & Beyond, and lucky to be able to afford that. Felicity knew for a fact that their usual crowd had been cutting Diana off. Dinners had turned into lunches, and lunches into quick drinks after work. Well, as she knew, nobody liked to be associated with the stigma of impending divorce. It really was very ugly. And somehow the wives always felt it would be catching, like a nasty bout of Spanish flu.

  Men had the power, in the end. Men could always get rid of you and replace you. A woman of a certain age had no friends but her divorce lawyer and her pre-nup. Who else was going to marry her, once she was past thirty-five? There were twenty-eight-year-olds around every unwary corner. So, the wives really couldn’t stand a girl who dragged divorce back onto their husbands’ radar screens. A nice settled life was to be cultivated.

  Diana was infected and she was being put into quarantine.

  Felicity took careful note as a frown creased Diana’s perfect white brow. Of course Ernie hadn’t been calling. He’d spent the week closeted with the divorce lawyers she had put him on to.

  “He just needs a little more time.” Diana sighed. “Well, it’s ugly and squat, but at least it’s clean. I suppose I can put up with it for now. Until he comes to his senses.”

  “Absolutely,” Felicity soothed her. She patted her blond hair and told herself that this would make dining-out fodder for years. “I’ll call the Pierre and tell them to send your cases over.”

  “But we have to sign the lease, and all that stuff,” Diana said, a bit perplexed.

  Felicity waved her bony hand lightly in the air. “Darling! I already spoke to the leasing agents and you’re pre-approved. All you do is write them a check for six grand, and you can move in tonight. They even have the phone and electricity already turned on.”

  Diana opened her mouth, then shut it again. She didn’t know what to say. Felicity had been such a bedrock, but wasn’t she moving just a little fast? Surely I can’t complain that this is too convenient, Diana thought. I guess she’s just a very efficient girl.

  “Thanks, Fee. What would I do without you?” She gave her a hug. “Let me call you tomorrow and we’ll have that long brunch on Sunday.”

  “Sweetie, I can’t wait.” Felicity pressed her sleeve in a very light, detached manner. “What a bore that I have to run now. We could have organized a little apartment christening with the girls.”

  Diana threw up her hands. “Oh, heavens, no. I think I’d die if any of them saw me like this. Thank the Lord that it’s not permanent.”

  “Of course it isn’t,” said Felicity, gliding out of her door with a smile and a little wave.

  Diana sat on her standard-issue armchair, covered in boring beige cotton, and tried to suppress the waves of misgiving washing over her. She felt a pang of loneliness when Fee disappeared, and it seemed she had nobody else to call. Why hadn’t Jodie Goodfriend rung her back more than twice? It was too bad having to leave a lot of messages. Really, people weren’t very prompt. Mentally she crossed several people off her next dinner-party list. Even Natty had only come to drink with her twice, and then for a mere two glasses of white wine at the Rainbow Room. Hardly worth coming out for. Gosh, Diana thought miserably, I’m at the point where I’m ready to ask Susan Katz if she’d like to go out for tea after work. Not that I even feel like it after eight hours of wretched grunt work. What a failure her job had been. If it was intended to bring Ernie crawling back to her, it hadn’t exactly produced results. She’d already have quit if it hadn’t been for the sneers of Cicero and her husband.

  The phone rang, and Diana jumped half out of her skin. Who could it be? She hadn’t given the number out to a soul. She didn’t even know the number yet.

  “Mrs. Foxton? Madam, it’s Carlos at the Pierre. I wanted to check the bellhop had the correct address for your cases.”

  He read it off in a perfunctory way.

  “Yes.” Diana managed to lift her tone, to show how unembarrassed she was by this address. “It’s temporary.”

  “I’m sure, ma’am,” Carlos agreed, with the blandness of the terminally uninterested.

  Diana’s head swam. Hell. Now she was reduced to trying to justify herself to a concierge.

  “Just bring them right over,” she told him, and hung up.

  To distract herself, Diana went downstairs and wrote the front office a check. They gave her her keys, her phone number, and her gym pass. Maybe she’d go for a swim in the building’s tiny pool once her clothes arrived.

  It was important not to be conquered by this. And I won’t call Ernie, Diana insisted to herself. I don’t care how long it takes him. Let him do the crawling back.

  *

  Ernie was showing Sir Angus Carter out just as Felicity arrived at his apartment. He made the introduction, and watched her venial little eyes light up at the title. Cool as a cucumber she was, though. Nothing like Diana. At dinner last night she’d said she thought most marriages benefited from a little piece on the side. Discretion was what counted. Damn, how he agreed with her.

  All this week, Ernie had had to endure the thinly veiled references in the Post and News, the photos of his wife leaving the Pierre in those dark glasses, wrapped up like Jackie F***ing O. They’d even run a shot of Mira Chen, a half-nude still from some porno she’d apparently done back in college. Nice, really. He’d had a stab of regret, staring down at those aggressive little tits peeking out of the bondage halter, that he’d had to get the personnel department to terminate her for lying about her criminal record. She’d tried to order him to stop, but Ernie had just laughed at her.

  “I don’t think so, darlin’. Not this time.” Mira had begged and blubbered, and he knew he’d never be able to crawl to her boots again. “Now be a good girl, and don’t make it hard on yourself. I promise you, one word about me to the press and I’ll have the cops up your ass like a twelve-inch dildo.”

  “How can you?” Mira whimpered.

  “Very easily.” His power gave him a little thrill. Not sex, but better. There are a hundred replacements for the Miras of this world, but only one of me. “Maybe I’ll send you a little something, but that’s it. Don’t even fucking think of trying blackmail, because I’ll go right to the police. Remember, my whole office already saw what you got.”

  “Ernie, I thought we had something good,” she wailed.

  “So did I,” he said, and hung up.

  He’d waited three days. When she didn’t call, he sent her a pair of diamond earrings, anonymously. She could sell them before she got herself a new boyfriend. He felt no guilt. Love was a romantic illusion for suckers. Had that little whore thought she could actually be his wife? His wife wouldn’t be the type who sucked cock in another woman’s bedroom. Undemanding, presentable and savvy, that was what he wanted in a wife. He glanced across at Felicity. Maybe she could fill Diana’s vacancy. She seemed to know the score.

  TWENTY

  Felix Custer entered his boss’s office with the warm grin of a man who is about to impart some excellent news. He was fifty, and at first he’d balked at the idea of working for someone nearly half his age. But he’d been laid off by HarperCollins, and most employers in America were so addicted to youth that his age and experience had actually handicapped him. He’d taken what he could get. Cicero was bullheaded, blinkered and sharp as a tack. Now that the figures were in, Felix was going to look like a genius. The profits, the reorders, the low overhead from these unbelievably basic offices—the company had the best bottom line he’d seen in years.

  This was his first report, and it was going to be a show-stopper.

  Custer smiled at his colleagues. It was strange to be on a winning team of people who actually liked one another. The street below them seemed busy and vital, the huge spinning neon news tickers wrapped around the skyscrapers impressive, futuristic. Before midtown had just
stressed him out. He was starting to enjoy it again, like a kid.

  Michael Cicero was so determined, it rubbed off on everybody. Even Helen, Felix’s flighty assistant, had started to spend less time playing solitaire and more updating his Rolodex. Jake Harold, the commissioning editor, and Rachel Lilly, who coordinated their distribution, also looked smug. No wonder. These numbers would make anybody look smug. Felix’s wife had started boasting about his work again.

  Everybody was so damn happy in this office, it was like you expected a blond chick to bust in and start singing about the hills being alive with the sound of music.

  There was a rap on the door.

  “Come in,” Felix said genially.

  It swung open and Diana Foxton marched in. Custer’s good mood evaporated around the edges. She was an amazingly pretty girl, but nobody here noticed that. It was like looking at a lotus flower encased in a block of ice. Diana did her job well, if you could call it a job. Nobody spoke to her, because she was rich and cold. She had a “Do Not Approach” sign emblazoned on her forehead in neon letters. Felix disliked her as much as anybody else in this place, and passed on financial filing to her. She always took it without complaint, briskly and efficiently, and said nothing. It spooked folks, how silent she was. Diana ate lunch at her desk and went home on the dot of six P.M.

  He couldn’t deny she was good, though, she had a way with words. But when Felix took the time to congratulate her, he’d had nothing but a “Thank you, Mr. Custer,” in a tone that would have made an Eskimo freeze up.

  “Susan called in sick, so Mr. Cicero asked me to take the notes on this meeting,” Diana said.

  “Have a seat,” Felix said, coolly. “Where is Michael?”

  “Just taking a call from Ernest Foxton,” she replied, blue eyes looking up at him like she had nothing whatsoever to do with that person. It irritated Felix. She was probably spying on Green Eggs for her husband, and she made out like she’d never even heard of him. “He’ll be right out.”