“Do tell me about yourself, my dear,” she said.
Diana nodded. “My name is Diana Verity. I work in computer software.”
“Diana is a director of her company,” Claire chimed in. “She’s English. She used to be—”
The clawlike hands clapped almost girlishly. “Diana Foxton. Ernest Foxton of Blakely’s. The Chinese hooker. Am I right?”
“Elspeth!” Claire protested, but Diana waved the protest aside.
“Absolutely right,” she said. “Luckily I found out quickly enough to get out.”
“But you didn’t even take him for every cent,” Elspeth said. She had to hand it to the English girl, she wasn’t running off, sniveling, like young women normally did. “At least that’s what I heard.”
“Right again.”
“How independent of you.” Elspeth Merriman beamed, displaying new false teeth, white and marvelously realistic, that the discreet little man in Switzerland had done such an excellent job on. “And you used to give the most wonderful parties.”
Diana waved at the scarlet splash of society drifting across the gorgeous cream of the room. “Not, I’m afraid, as wonderful as yours.”
Claire Bryant smiled into her drink and suppressed a cheer. Diana really could handle the old bat, huh? Elspeth was the absolute queen of New York society at the moment. She chaired every party that really mattered, she knew all the right charity boards, and best of all, she was old enough to enjoy trouble. Elspeth, in her rich, pampered, jet-set way, simply didn’t give a fuck. Which was why Claire’s grandfather had once romanced her, and why his descendant liked her now. Claire had heard Diana’s whole story, and what her friend hadn’t spilled, she’d filled in for herself. It was quite easy to connect the dots.
Diana needed a husband. With Elspeth Merriman’s help, she could snag a spectacular one.
Claire had never liked Jodie Goodfriend or Natasha Zuckerman. The Wall Street wives liked to think they owned this city. Certainly Diana’s fall had entertained the town for a few weeks. But Claire was a New Yorker born and bred. She liked survivors. And clearly the English rose in the silk gown qualified in spades.
Claire glanced to her right and her blond eyebrow arched. Speak of the devil, as the old saying went, and his horns appear. Or even her horns.
“Darling Elspeth.” Brushing Claire aside, Jodie Goodfriend, skeleton-thin with glossy hair the color of straw, had arrived in a wave of Joy perfume and the standard set of dazzling rubies. She wore a costly cheongsam the shade of spilt blood that showed off her bony hips and nonexistent ass. Typical Jodie. She hadn’t even looked to see who else Elspeth might be talking to. She just charged in and expected everyone to give way.
Claire noticed Diana was not flinching. She waited for the penny to drop.
“Hello, Jodie,” Elspeth said in her sweetest tone, “you know Diana Verity, I believe?”
Jodie turned to her left and jumped a little. What was Diana doing here? Wasn’t she dead and buried? How many calls from her had Jodie refused to take before the stupid little limey had finally got the message that divorced girls weren’t welcome in the club?
“We have met,” Jodie said after a little pause. Her tone was cutting. One party does not a comeback make, sweetie, her pursed lips seemed to say. “Before Ernie divorced you, Diana, I think?”
“You think right.” Diana found she was slightly amused. “You came to six of my dinner parties and ate out with me twice a week.”
Jodie waved one hand in the air to indicate how unimportant that was in the scheme of things. “Oh yes, I recall. So many dinners … so many luncheons … it’s hard to keep them all straight in one’s head.”
“It must be, with your busy schedule of shopping,” Diana replied.
Jodie froze. Rather than begging and pleading to be admitted back into the fold—as dear Felicity had done—Diana was actually daring to be rude to her, Jodie Goodfriend, wife of the chairman of Croesus Bank!
People had stopped talking and were looking their way. Enjoying the spat. Well, now was the time to put the little upstart in her place.
“I like to shop. It’s important to keep oneself looking nice for one’s husband. Part of what it takes to make a marriage work,” she said cuttingly. “Perhaps you wouldn’t know too much about that. I dare say you have other interests. Shopping for roach-infested apartments in Alphabet City.”
She laughed lightly.
Diana smiled back. The adrenaline was crackling through her blood. So the bitch in front of her had read that article in the tabloid? Of course she had. How can I ever have liked this woman? Diana wondered.
“That was difficult,” she acknowledged. “Of course I moved out of there long ago. I have a little duplex in the Brompton Building now.”
Jodie stiffened. The Brompton Building was the latest fashionable place for rich young things to live. Not in the league of her Bronxville country house, of course, but definitely respectable.
“Seeing a new man? What quick work,” she shot back.
Diana gave her that aggravatingly superior smile. “Not exactly. I have a business. I am a director of Imperial Games. I find talent, talk to banks, organize personnel and office space, and oversee marketing.”
“Ah. A career girl. I find many women turn to that if they find the social scene a little hard to handle,” Jodie said, after a pause. Director? Of a company? Everybody knew the only thing Diana Foxton could direct was her cook.
“Really,” Diana said, coolly. “I thought it was the other way around.”
The aggravating, wretched Bryant girl was actually sniggering! Jodie saw the amused faces of that old witch Elspeth’s friends smiling as though the most amusing thing had just happened. She wracked her brain for a comeback, but there was none to be found. Jodie flushed as red as her tight little dress, and flounced off. She would dig out her mobile and call Natasha and Felicity. Diana would pay for this.
“You made an enemy there,” Claire said once Jodie was out of sight. “Jodie has influence. You want to be careful.”
“Bullshit,” Diana said. “If anybody needs to be careful, it’s her. You can say one thing for hitting rock bottom. You find out who your friends are. Or in my case, aren’t.”
“A wonderful performance, my dear.” Elspeth cackled, squeezing Diana’s arm. She hadn’t enjoyed herself so much for thirty years. “I’m having a little party, a dinner really, far more fun than this tiresome zoo. My house on East Seventy-fifth, next Friday. Do come. I have a few people I’d love to introduce you to.”
“I’d like that,” Diana said, “Elspeth.”
She smiled graciously at her hostess. Next to her, she saw Claire itching to get her home so they could gossip and plan a strategy. How divine if she could get revenge on Felicity, Natasha and Jodie, all the people who snubbed her so viciously on her way out of the safely married circles. The thought occurred to her that Michael would probably call this shallow and stupid, but who cared what he thought?
Diana glanced around the opulent ballroom at the guests who were nodding their appreciation of her verbal spar. These were movers and shakers, the kind she had longed to seat around her own table when she had been married to Ernie. She met everyone’s gaze and prepared to do some serious mingling. Claire had taken one of her arms, and Elspeth Merriman the other.
I’m back! Diana thought.
*
Ernie scanned the figures laid out in front of him and did some quick calculations in his head. If the top-secret sales projections for their software—his marketing whizzes had come up with the name Education Station—were on target, he would bring Blakely’s quarterly profits up another 21 percent by the next report. And with his profit share agreement, that could mean a bonus of anywhere up to two million.
Not to mention the delicious fact that he would shaft that little Yank bastard again at the same time.
“Yeah, I like it,” Ernie told Peter Davits.
The Russian grinned back. “I thought you might, Mr. F
oxton.”
Their design boys had been up all night for over a week, running off covers, packaging and text that looked and sounded just like Imperial’s snazzy product. Better, he could offer the market what Cicero could not—the gaming resources of Signor Bertaloni’s company and instant distribution power in Toys “R” Us and Kmart. Just to hammer the final nail in the coffin, he was going for what Michael could never afford—TV spots. Commercials would run coast to coast, from the Cartoon Network to the chat shows that stay-home moms loved to watch. Soon Education Station would be the only name worth having in the house.
Lee Tatton, his marketing vice-president, chimed in. “Just think, sir. Once our line is known, kids will think everything else is a cheap ripoff. Research shows how brand loyal they are. There are lots of better-made dolls than Barbie, but any kid will tell you what she wants. It has to be right.”
“And if Education Station gets known first, Imperial will look like a cheap imitator,” Davits said.
“Too right.” Ernie smirked.
“But I have to warn you, television is not cheap. The campaign will cost us, of that there is no doubt.”
“I don’t give a fuck what it costs.” Imperial was barely weeks away from a launch. “You get those spots on the air. Find an agency that can pull it together fast. I want to launch and I want to launch now.”
THIRTY-THREE
It barely took two weeks.
Diana smiled when she thought about it. She had blazed back onto the social scene like a comet, her sparks and glow trailing right behind the conflagration of Elspeth Merriman’s prestige. During the day, she went over the careful planning of the IPO with Michael, keeping a cool professional distance and never allowing herself to dwell on the way he still made her ache, late at night, when the last kiss had been planted into the air beside her cheek, and the last glass of champagne drained to the bottom. Only in those moments, when she lay tucked up and alone on her Pratesi sheets, looking out through her window at the night glitter of Manhattan’s skyline, did she really let herself feel the hole he created when he left. OK, technically she had left, but he had forced her into it.
Diana shook her head and picked up her new diamond earrings to distract herself. She’d said she wasn’t going to think about him. It was annoying the way she couldn’t control her thoughts sometimes. The business was cracking along, and she basked in Michael’s reflected glory. The world was waking up to Imperial. This morning there had been half a paragraph, buried deep inside the Wall Street Journal. Goldman Sachs thought that interest in the IPO would be substantial. She had been a part of it. Even though Diana knew nothing about computer programming, she certainly knew about gossip. People gossiped in every circle in life, not just Hollywood and the social-register crowds. Net geeks and comic-book freaks gossiped just as much as anyone else. Her ability to tap that rich stream to find the best, most committed people had made her Michael’s best headhunter.
And she couldn’t fault him on the business front. He’d given her a chance when nobody else wanted to know her. Now he gave her credit, and not only that but pay and a title to go with it. In his personal relationships Michael was a sexist, domineering bastard—don’t go there again, Diana—but as far as the company went, he was fair. A slave driver, sure. A stern boss—absolutely. But you prospered at Imperial if you did good work. Black, white, pink with green spots, he didn’t give a fuck. He promoted men and women according to just one thing—how good they were.
Last week Michael had hired Jim East, a legendary marketing man who hadn’t worked in twenty years. He was excellent at what he did. He was also seventy-eight. The fact that he shared an office with Opie said a lot about Michael’s blinkers. He just didn’t see anything strange in that.
Outside the office, though, Diana wasn’t going to worry about what her boss thought.
Elspeth had been busy. A cocktail party here, a dinner there, mixed doubles at her country club, and suddenly Diana found herself back. It was fun to be worrying again about what dress to wear next, to play with her make-up and be torn between Prada and Lulu Guinness as far as the bags went. She varied what she wore and the tabloids picked up on her style. Women’s Wear Daily loved her mix of Stella McCartney, Chanel and Richard Tyler when the whole world seemed to be beige and conservative—nothing but Ralph Lauren and Calvin Klein, the Gwyneth Paltrow clones who swarmed everywhere. She met and was sweet to Natasha Zuckerman, and everybody strained to hear what was said. Felicity Metson was supposedly furious. Diana tried to tell herself she was above petty things like what Felicity thought. But secretly she loved it. It was too much fun.
She selected a pink dress by Ghost, a wisp of nothing that clung to her curves and swept to the floor, and matched it with a rose silk Hermes scarf. The diamond drops in her ears were decoration enough. A quick spritz of the wild rose and lavender scent she had blended for her in Paris, a tug on of her latest Manolos, and Diana was ready to go.
Her phone buzzed. It was the doorman. Her car had arrived.
“I’ll be right down,” Diana said.
She picked up her tiny Gucci clutch handbag and made for the elevator. It was a bore that Claire could not be with her tonight, but her fiancé had taken her off for a romantic weekend at his country house upstate. At any rate, with Elspeth behind her, Diana felt confident enough to mingle on her own. New York loves a go-getter, she thought, examining her silken, scented reflection in the glass doors of the elevator as it arrived. There was absolutely no reason why she shouldn’t give them what they wanted.
*
Diana arrived at the Victrix hotel at quarter to nine. The chauffeur held the door open, and she emerged into a small blast of popping flashlights, the cameras exploding around her. She wasn’t famous, but she was becoming a minor celebrity, like Aerin Lauder, or Marie-Chantal of Greece. She smiled and waved and headed inside. They might remark on the fact that she had come alone; they’d probably love it. You had to be pretty secure not to bother scouring the city for an escort.
I’m young, free and single, Diana thought. Why not enjoy it?
Tonight was one of the more vital moments on the social calendar. A fund-raiser for the new Republican mayoral candidate. Diana wasn’t a voter, but that didn’t matter; half the people here were registered Democrats. The point was that the place was full of celebrities and power brokers, New York’s television and media elite. Donald Trump was flying in from Atlantic City; Si Newhouse, Tina Brown, Barry Diller, the usual suspects were all expected. Hip young movie stars mixed with record moguls and starving artists, who had the thousand-dollars-a-plate tickets courtesy of their patrons in real estate or investment banking. Designers and mafia dons, who these days preferred Wall Street to the fish markets, plastic surgeons and minor princes would all rub shoulders here—and then again at the fund-raiser for the Democrats’ candidate two months later.
Diana would be sitting next to Elspeth. Shaking hands, smiling at people she knew—as well as people she didn’t, you had to be nice, because if you weren’t who knew when it might bite you in the ass?—she made her way through the ballroom to find her table. The Victrix was the most exclusive hotel in the city. It made the Plaza look like a YMCA hostel on a bad day. The parties were usually themed; tonight it was vaguely Republican. Torches that blazed with red, white and blue flames were propped in crystal sconces along the walls, and huge floral pillars fifteen feet high were covered in roses, poppies, hyacinths, arum lilies, any flowers that might contribute to the theme. Diana’s eyes widened a little. She was getting rather jaded with American opulence, but—wasn’t that an actual, incredibly rare, white Thai elephant in the center of the room, with a keeper dressed all in gold mounted upon him? She blinked. It was, definitely. You didn’t know whether to look at the decor or the guests first. The stars with glasses in their hands were illuminated by chandeliers in the shape of stars and glass bubbles, strategically placed along barely there wires, that made you feel as though you were inside a glass of champagne. A wait
er, dressed in a dark-blue suit—his colleagues were in reds and whites, too, of course—bowed and asked if madame preferred Cristal, vintage Krug, or perhaps Veuve Clicquot Rosé?
Slightly dazzled, Diana accepted the rosé. She liked Veuve Clicquot and, after all, the bubbly would now coordinate with her dress. She started to repent of having gone for something simple. There were women here in ball gowns. After the austerity of the nineties, it seemed that full-out glamor was making a bit of a comeback. But it was too late now. She took a slow, fortifying sip of the champagne, letting the bubbles sparkle over her tongue. There were table plans written out in beautiful calligraphy all over the room. She found one, and tried to ferret out her own name from the hundreds in front of her by the bloodred glow of one of the lamps. She couldn’t see Elspeth’s name either, but they were bound to be next to each other—
“Having trouble?”
Diana looked around. The voice, just behind her, was warm and friendly, definitely unusual for a party like this, where the guests would kiss each other all night long, then go home and bitch afterward. It was also male. It belonged to a tall man, with what looked like light-brown hair, though the lamp made it hard to see. He had clean-cut features, sparkling eyes, white teeth and, she noted, a marvelous white-tie suit. Many of the male guests had ignored the invitation and turned up in tuxedos. Not this one.
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