For All the Wrong Reasons

by Louise Bagshawe

  For five hours she scrubbed and swept and washed filthy dishes. She collected three bags full of garbage, and struggled down six flights of stairs to the groaning Dumpster at the back of the building. The tiny Hoover sucked up so much dirt that the burgundy carpet turned out to be bright magenta. Diana tied a towel over her nose and mouth, and beat the rugs out the window while clouds of dust billowed up, choking the pigeons.

  It took her forever, but when she was done, the tiny apartment was clean. Under the piles of rubbish she’d discovered a tatty leather couch and one armchair. The floors were hardwood; maybe she could persuade Rita to throw out the revolting rug. Even the air seemed cleaner and fresher now that she had sucked out so much filth. She threw out some of the ugliest plants, certain her new roommate would never notice. Exhausted, Diana peeled off her dirty jeans and T-shirt and crept to the shower room to rinse herself off. There was no bath, of course. That was a luxury she was going to have to live without.

  Shattered, exhausted, miserable, Diana slunk back into her tiny, hot little bedroom, stretched out on the coverlet, and shut her eyes. She was asleep when her head hit the pillow.

  *

  She called nobody. What would she say? “I’m living in Hell’s Kitchen, I’ve been fired from my job and my marriage, and I clean to make part of my rent?” No, it was too humiliating. She’d get herself a new job, Diana decided. She had youth, class and a certain notoriety. Maybe she couldn’t afford the best restaurants and the charity lunches anymore, but she wasn’t going to let that beat her. She was Diana Foxton—still—and she had a brain.

  Saying little to Rita, Diana swallowed her pride and went back to every magazine that would see her. Every place she went she heard the same story.

  “We need current experience.”

  “We’re looking for younger girls.”

  “We have no vacancies at this time,” the sickly-sweet Vogue personnel officer assured her, “but we’ll be sure to check back with you when something turns up.”

  She tried other places. Even publishing houses. She got little for her trouble but blisters and stares. Wasn’t that the ex-wife of Ernie Foxton? Diana sat there and sweated out the horrors of the interviews, the snide comments, the pointed questions. Working for a swiftly shut subsidiary of Ernie’s didn’t seem to count for anything.

  “Yes, well. It wasn’t real work, Ms. Foxton.” The people at HarperCollins were polite enough, but the woman here was telling her the same story. “The company receives hundreds of applications each month from college students and other qualified personnel who’ve formerly worked here.”

  “I see.” Diana gazed despairingly into her lap. She had eaten humble pie for weeks now, and what good had it done her? Maybe she should give in and take Ernie’s paltry check. Maybe she should crawl back to London with her tail between her legs. The curse of Hello! strikes again.

  “Can I make a suggestion?”

  The polished young woman across the desk was giving her the first kind smile she’d seen in days.

  “Sure.” Diana shrugged. “I’ll listen to anything at this point.”

  “You need contacts,” she said. “Some friend that’ll give you a job. Because nobody else is going to hire you.”

  *

  Diana managed to make it three blocks away before the tears started. The lump rose up in her throat, like a betrayal. Every morning she got up, washed her hair and made-up with costly cosmetics that she wouldn’t be able to replace when they ran out.

  It got harder and harder to keep her head high.

  None of her former friends would talk to her. Natasha seemed always to be out when she called. She’d left four unreturned messages for Jodie and five for Laura before the nasty truth sank in. She was a pariah, and none of them wanted anything to do with her. Except Claire, of course. Claire had always told her she could get a job on her own. Somehow going to Claire and begging for help would be worst of all.

  She refused to call Ernie. Partly out of pride, partly because she wasn’t sure he’d take her call. Diana imagined being put off by his secretary. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Foxton, he’s not available. Can I take a message?”

  She shook her head. It would never come to that. Nor was she going to run back to Daddy. What a laugh Felicity Metson would have over that.

  There was a French Roast on the corner of Fortieth and Park. Diana ducked into it and ordered herself a large black cup of coffee with a sweet shot of Amaretto. She took it to a corner table in the shadows, and decided to consider her options. If there were any.

  Papers for the customers hung on wooden racks. Absently, Diana lifted the News, and stared in horror at Rush and Molloy. Her own face, beautiful, sorrowful, was staring out at her from the grimy newsprint. She was looking exhausted and was entering a subway station.

  Next to it was a snap of Felicity, wearing a long Calvin Klein evening gown—how conventional, Diana thought—dressed up with a diamond necklace and long drop earrings. Enough ice to sink the Titanic. Ernie, in a ridiculous tuxedo and cummerbund, was at her side. They were attending the super-prestigious New York Literary Lions bash—one of the charities, Diana remembered, feeling sick, that she’d been asked to chair.

  OUT WITH THE OLD, IN WITH THE NEW, read the headline.

  Nobody can say Ernie Foxton doesn’t practice what he preaches. The slash-and-burn downsizing in his company obviously extends to his marriage. Former society queen “Lady” Diana is now taking out her subway tokens, while new Fox flame Felicity M. sparkles brighter than the Fourth of July. Diana’s reportedly scrabbling for a job, too. We say good luck to her. If you can make it here, you can make it anywhere!

  Oh my God, Diana thought.

  “Are you OK, hon?”

  The waitress was hovering with her refill. “You look kinda pale.”

  “I’m fine.” To prove it, Diana sipped at her sweet coffee. “Thank you.”

  “If you’re sure,” the woman said, melting away.

  Tears of shame and humiliation prickled in Diana’s blue eyes, but she forced them back. No way was she about to break apart in public, and no way was she going home. There was a bubbling knot of anger in her stomach. Goddamn Felicity! She visualized Felicity laughing at her with the other girls. Her small fist curled into a defiant ball on the table.

  I will get a job, Diana vowed, even if I have to wait tables.

  What had all those women said?

  No experiences. No references.

  Diana looked out across Park Avenue, at the rich society matrons and the dog walkers, the doormen standing outside co-op buildings, several of which she had reviewed and rejected. That was her world; not this! She flipped through the paper, barely seeing any of the headlines. It was something to keep her from breaking down in public. The English were all about the stiff upper lip.

  Suddenly she stopped. In the business section, which she never read, there was a tiny headline, tucked away in the bottom left-hand corner of the page.

  AFTER THE EGGS … THE BACON.

  Which young entrepreneur—for all of five minutes—is starting again? In the same East Village digs he busted out of barely a month ago? Ah well … easy come, easy go, Michael. We hope East Eleventh isn’t too much of a drop from the multi-national midtown tower …

  Her heart jumped. It was him. It had to be him.

  Diana’s fingers curled around her coffee cup. Michael Cicero had done nothing but be rude, crude and obnoxious to her. Was she desperate enough to go asking for his help?

  A breeze ruffled the edges of the paper, flicking it back to the picture of her. Once again, Felicity’s diamonds glittered mockingly up at her from the black and white ink.

  She picked up her bag and stepped out onto the street to hail a cab. No more goddamn subways.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  “There’s nothing we can do, Mr. Cicero.” John Motta, the Italian lawyer who was assigned to him, at least gave him the courtesy of an explanation. “Grenouille and Bifte aren’t employed directly by Blake
ly’s, so there’s no obvious conflict of interest. You said you signed a disclosure-and-explanation policy form.”

  “She lied to me. Straight up.”

  “Right, and she’s probably getting a backhander from their main lawyers. Difficult to prove. It would cost you plenty, and we wouldn’t take a case like this on contingency. Too tough to win.” He smiled, showing one gold-capped tooth. “Suing lawyers is always a mess.”

  Michael sat there. “You’re telling me they can take my work, my company, my fonts, my illustrators and my contacts, and I can’t do a thing about it?”

  “Zip. They had you believing you were in partnership, correct?”

  “Damn right.”

  “You never were. You were an employee until the bonus phase kicked in. They terminated you just before that happened, without prejudice.”

  Michael got to his feet and paced around the plush offices, looking out at the financial district spread before him to the south. In the soothing, air-conditioned atmosphere of Greenbaum and Fischer, he was hearing these calm words telling him his dream was dead.

  “It seems prejudiced enough to me. I have to start over. With nothing.”

  “A legal term.” Motta bit back a smile. He admired the man’s anger and passion. A pity none of it was tempered with realism. Foxton had done a major number on this boy.

  Motta, usually very detached, was sorry he had to drop a few more bombshells.

  “You had a no-compete clause, good for one year.”

  “And?” Michael asked, his voice dangerously soft.

  “That means you can’t start again. Not children’s publishing. Not children’s books in any form. Plus, Seth Horowitz, and your other creatives—they can either work for Foxton, or not work at all. At least not in the book business. If they want to be illustrators, they have to wait a year to do it for you.”

  Michael’s heart did a slow flip in his chest. That was it then. He could not take a year off work. Game, set and match to Foxton.

  “I’ll call Seth,” he said after a few moments. “He has to draw. Stopping him drawing would be like stopping Pedro Martinez from pitching.”

  The lawyer nodded. “I’m sorry we couldn’t help.”

  “Not your fault.” Michael turned to leave, then stopped. “Just one last question. Am I barred from working in children’s fiction, or from all kinds of books?”

  “Let me check.”

  Michael’s pulse sped up as the smaller man ruffled through the papers. Already he had begun to formulate schemes for his revenge. What if he came out with a new poetry line, accessible stuff, or maybe travel guides, or even—

  “Yes.” Motta’s tone was final. “I’m sorry. You cannot work in the book business for the next year.”

  “Thank you.” Cicero said.

  He paid his bill on the spot, at the receptionist’s office. This was an episode in his life he wanted over and done with.

  He pictured Ernie Foxton, waiting to get his revenge for having to beg him to re-enter his offices. Michael had to give him credit. It had been pretty complete.

  You little fuck, he thought to himself. I’ll get you.

  The problem was, he had no idea how.

  *

  First Michael had sex with Iris. Then he told her.

  “I’ve got no money, no bonus, no company and no job. From now on, it’s cooking ourselves from the discount produce left over in the deli at the end of the day. You can cook while I look for work.”

  Iris had looked at him and laughed. “This is a joke, yes?”

  “No.” Michael noted the look of shocked horror on her face and enjoyed himself for the first time that day. Iris’s skin was still flushed and pinked from her long session of sex. Ever since she’d assumed he’d come home with two hundred and fifty grand, Iris had been even more insatiable than usual.

  Far be it from him to deny a desperate woman. Too thin for his taste, Iris was at least eager and inventive. She sucked him like her life depended on it, and liked to try and ride him, bucking on him like he was a prize horse at a rodeo. But Cicero didn’t let women take control. It was an easy thing to reach up and grab Iris’s wrists with one hand, and laugh as she struggled to free herself, while he plunged harder and harder into her. It never failed to turn her on. When he took control of her, so simply and ruthlessly, her half-faked moans of ecstasy turned into surprised, real ones, her pussy slicked up wet and tight around him, grabbing helplessly onto him, and he sensed the contractions just starting to shudder up in her flat belly.

  Michael didn’t like feminists. He agreed with the fat radio “shock jock” who labeled them Feminazis. As far as Michael was concerned, the history of the world was the history of men. They talked about equality of opportunity, but for every Ruth Bader Ginsburg or Margaret Thatcher there were ten Irises, ten Diana Foxtons. Beauties who would eschew work for weddings. Still the quickest, easiest route to riches.

  “It’s not a joke. I got nothing, and I don’t cook, so I hope you know a lot of recipes, babe.”

  She ranted and raved for ten minutes, and then, as he’d known she would, Iris packed up her stuff and got the hell out.

  “And if you think about calling, don’t,” she said.

  “I’ll try to remember that,” Michael said, wryly. To her fury, he patted her on the ass as she swept out the door.

  Gold-diggers. Women were gold-diggers, 99 percent of them. What had the sexual revolution done for them? Not too much, as far as he could work out. Any girl who had the chance would give up her job in ten seconds if she could wind up a kept woman.

  He thought of that joke Seth had told him, about the Hollywood studio head who got fired and called his trophy wife from a pay phone. “But you still love me, right?” he asks her. “Honey, of course I still love you,” she says sweetly, “and I’ll miss you, too.”

  Iris couldn’t get out fast enough once she realized that he wouldn’t be her cushy ticket to the big time. Michael was glad. It saved him the inevitable scene when he had to dump her. He liked things to be crisp and clean.

  *

  He took a week to gather his thoughts, and it wasn’t a pleasant one. His dwindling bank account would only make the rent here for two more months, maximum. Susan Katz called, crying and asking when she was coming back to work, and Michael had nothing to tell her. His contacts, built up over the last year, were useless. He couldn’t take a job in publishing. He couldn’t even set up another company. Foxton had him hamstrung.

  Barnes & Noble called. Waldenbooks phoned, too. Two of the most prestigious independents in New York City, offering him a buying post. But Michael couldn’t reconcile himself to that. He’d be working with books, sure—but not creating, not influencing. He’d be a numbers guy.

  He turned the offers down, politely, and rented a tiny space on East Eleventh, where he set up shop as a consultant. Except that Motta told him he couldn’t consult to publishers, which made the whole thing academic.

  Michael couldn’t afford an assistant to answer the phone, but that was OK, because it barely rang. A friend at Amazon gave him two thousand dollars to write a paper for them on finding independent book companies and getting them involved in the online revolution. It was the only commission he’d ever had, and it was a drop in the ocean of expenses that comprised living in New York.

  He sat on a rickety chair, in his cramped office, mopping up his sweat and trying to concentrate on the words blinking up from his laptop. It felt like a sauna in here, and the hot, heavy scents of the Dunkin’ Donuts next door filled the room and threatened to choke him. His jacket had long been surrendered and hung on a peg on the door. He’d downed two large jugs of iced tea and he was going to need to go out for a third one any minute now, because he was thirsty enough in this heat to start licking the condensation off the cracked glass fronting.

  Nothing was neat about this place except for the brass plate outside the door. IMPERIAL CONSULTANTS, it said, in small, businesslike letters. Michael had it handmade. It cost h
im seventy bucks he could barely afford, but it was worth it. It felt like the last touch of class he had.

  The tiny, hand-affixed bell jangled. Michael sat bolt upright, annoyed to be caught without his jacket on. Finally, a customer. He thanked God. He needed one right now. Maybe a rep from one of the major stores would be looking for a complete re-haul of their stocking policy. Better yet, maybe an agency would ask for his help. He’d managed to make stars of five complete unknowns before he got canned. Who knew who it might be?

  The door swung open.

  “Hi, Michael,” said Diana Foxton.

  He stared at her. She wore a simple cotton dress in an Indian print, flat sandals, and was carrying a tote bag. Her long hair was tied back in a ponytail that made her look even younger than usual, and a breath of perfume wafted in with her.

  She wore no make-up, and seemed amazingly beautiful.

  “Come to gloat?” Michael demanded. “If so, please, enjoy yourself, Mrs. Foxton, and then get out. I’m a busy man.”

  “I can see that,” Diana said, looking around the empty office. It was devoid of furniture apart from a fax machine and a phone.

  “Charming as ever.” Michael gritted his teeth. “Now that you have your report to take back to your husband, please leave me to get on with my work.”

  She stood in the center of his room, hesitantly. The thought crossed his mind that it was the first time he’d ever seen Diana Foxton nervous.

  “Can I sit down?”

  “If you must.” Cicero was puzzled, but maybe the heat was making her faint, or something. He didn’t want the chick crashing to the ground on his property. He indicated the hard chair positioned in front of his desk. “Go ahead.”

  “I need to ask you a favor,” she said quietly.

  Michael’s brow lifted. “Yeah? Amusing. What favor would that be? To provide your husband with more amusing anecdotes of how his little spy kept him updated?”

  Her eyes flashed. “I told you, I didn’t spy on you. And he’s not my husband.”

  Cicero shrugged. “If you’re not Diana Foxton, you’re a dead ringer for her.”

  “I am Diana Foxton. For the moment. I’m also separated, in the process of being divorced.” She tossed a folded copy of the News across the desk to him. “That’s me, and that’s my ex-husband. I found out about Green Eggs the same day you did. Ernie had served me with divorce papers the night before. I think it was his idea of a joke.”