Microsoft Word - Rogers, Rosemary - The Crowd Pleasers

by kps

  There had been one long, nerve-wracking session with Dr. Haldane before she left America-the doctor listening, and nodding his head sometimes, commenting only at the end. "So you had an adventure, eh? Very good. And Europe, I think, is a good idea too. To cut all the old cords. Have fun, Anne. Enjoy yourself and be yourself.

  Perhaps your new self?"

  Well, no one could say she wasn't trying. Along with her new clothes and makeup, she acquired a surface polish and sophistication. And discovered that because it really wasn't too important to her, everything came her way. Like the modeling stint, which proved fun after all, and quite an experience. A four-page layout for Elle, only she didn't stay in Paris long enough to find out how the pictures turned out. The months passed quickly while Anne traveled. Watching Webb on the screen in Rome gave her a jolt (dammit, why did she have to remember so much about him?) . But she went on from there to London with the Honorable Violet Somers and her parents, the decision already made that she and Violet would share a flat, and Violet would introduce her to "everybody who's exciting, love!"

  Violet had found her the "play-at-work" job with Majco Oil, an American company with a luxurious suite of offices in a West End high-rise. Duncan Frazier, head of the London branch, and Violet's boss, was American in spite of his Scottish name; he had, it turned out, attended Harvard with Craig. It just happened that he needed a personal assistant-a young woman who was both intelligent and attractive, to accompany him to the invariable diplomatic cocktail parties and act as hostess for the ones he gave. Duncan swore that Anne's arrival in London was a godsend. She wasn't to know that Duncan was not the only person to feel relieved she had put down some tentative roots at last.

  After eight months in London Anne had begun to feel Iike a Londoner, like she belonged there, the inevitable feeling that seemed to overtake every foreigner who lived in London for any length of time. In spite of the weather, in spite of the traffic snarls each morning, the inadequate heating, the strikes, London, with its ancient and modern rubbing comfortably along together, cast its spell on her as Paris never had.

  Feeling free ... was it a remembered song title, or just an emotion that continued to grow inside her until it became almost a conviction? Anne didn't want to stop to define it, especially after the pictures in Elle made her suddenly well-known and sought after as a model. She couldn't believe it at first, until the telephone calls and offers became almost a nuisance.

  Duncan Frazier, upset and worried, begged her not to desert him completely.

  "Christ's sake, Anne! You quit and they'll probably send me some horseface from the head office! Listen-you know there's not that much to do. If you want to go ahead with the damned modeling, can't you at least work for me part time? You don't need the money, do you? And it's good psychology, to make them chase you harder. Damn it-you don't really want to be a bloody model, do you?"

  "I don't know ..." She was honestly confused. Here was the chance to do something on her own-to be someone special. Did she want to turn it down?

  Violet, much more excited than Anne was, told her frankly that she'd be worse than a fool if she did. "Are you crazy? Anne-you could be famous! Have your picture in all the magazines ... oh, what wouldn't I give to be as slim as you are, and as tall!" She added shrewdly, "Are you worried about what your father might think? Modeling's quite respectable now, you know! Look at Marisa Berenson-and a half-dozen others I could name! The kind of modeling they want you to do is respectable, anyhow!"

  Violet chuckled wickedly, and Anne couldn't help smiling back at her. Violet's short, curly hair and big brown eyes made her look like an amoral child, an impression that her full breasts and perfectly formed figure belied. And Violet, much to the horror of Mummy and Daddy, had once actually modeled in the nude for Penthouse, making it very obvious that she was perfectly formed everywhere. She had more men chasing her than she knew what to do with, and she was always complaining that she was bored, bored, bored!

  "But, love, do it! Think of all the exciting people you'll meet!" Anne found herself wavering. "Think!" Violet went on urgently. "What a chance! And if you're feeling guilty about Dune, he won't mind if you only model part time. You could pick your assignments-be choosy. All the better, because it'll make you a bigger star. Come on, Anne! And leave it to me-I'll talk Dune into being reasonable."

  Why not? Hadn't Harris Phelps said it to her once? "You have good bone structure, Anne." High cheekbones, very dark blue eyes, a naturally cool and reserved expression that, along with her cloud of fine, silky blonde hair, became her trademark.

  Anne Mallory, overnight sensation and the face of the year, appeared on covers and in center spreads, making the Edwardian look popular all over again. No nudes or semi-nudes. Flowery pastel chiffons, clinging and flowing. Parasols and misty photography set against the green English countryside-usually with a lake or the river in the background. And before the camera, Anne followed directions easily and calmly, as though she had been posing all her life. Even Duncan stopped being sulky and actually seemed proud to be seen with her at dinner and cocktail parties.

  "See-I told you!" Violet crowed triumphantly, genuinely, generously happy for Anne.

  They got on well together, perhaps because they were such opposites. And they continued to share the same comfortable flat on Cheyne Row, an arrangement that was convenient for both of them. It had two bedrooms, so Violet could invite her boyfriends into hers without disturbing Anne, and Anne could use Violet as an excuse not to invite her escorts in. She was sick of groping hands and hungry, searching mouths followed by the inevitable question most of them asked afterwards.

  "What's the matter, love? Don't like men?"

  She learned to come back with answers. "I like to choose my own men, thank you!"

  Or, depending on the man, "I was raped once, when I was very young. It's turned me off."

  It really didn't matter what she told them. They didn't matter, and that was it. Maybe it had something to do with Violet's attitude towards sex. Violet admitted frankly that she liked to screw, and always had. And after all, what was wrong with that? "It'd probably do you good, love. I mean-haven't you had any affairs since you were married?"

  "Of course I have!" But since Webb, Webb who had taught her too much in too short a time, leaving her craving more, there had been only one other man. Sophie's father, the elegant Frenchman who had teased and cajoled her into modeling some of his latest creations for Elle, had wined her and dined her and taken her to bed-all with great charm and finesse and without pressure. He'd been a gentle and considerate lover, but ... nothing! What had she expected? Fireworks? The kind of cruel, careless chemistry that Webb had? Antoine had been very understanding, very French.

  "So? Sometimes it happens, sometimes it doesn't. I am sorry for you that you could not find the same pleasure you have given me, petite Anne. You have such a lovely body, with so much passion locked in!" They had parted friends, and seeing her off on her flight to Spain, he had handed her a flat gold-wrapped box, waving aside her confused thanks as he kissed her on the cheek.

  "It's you, petite Anne. I designed it for the woman who lives locked inside you, waiting to be set free." The gown hung in her closet, carefully swathed in tissue paper and thin plastic-flame-colored. chiffon, daringly low-cut, made to cling from the high waist to the hips without seeming to, before the layers that formed the skirt flowed down to her ankles.

  She hadn't worn it yet.

  Moving into autumn, the weather turned unseasonably chill in the fog-shrouded evenings. The calendar on Duncan's office wall had been turned to a sunlit picture of the ocean, framed by twisted cypress trees. Monterey cypress! Anne thought, staring at the picture. California. She felt the familiar tug of homesickness, mixed with something else. So long ago-she had been a child, spending summers in Carmel and later on in the big stone house her artist great-grandfather had built on the lonely, majestic Big Sur coast. She had loved It, The screeching of gulls, the incessant crashing of waves against
the rocks below the cliffs-soughing up the white sands of the small private beach where her mother had loved to lie, reading or sunbathing.

  Dark, morbid thoughts she wanted to forget. Why remember now that her mother had drowned in that same ocean, when Anne was only seven? Very long ago ...

  Dune wasn't in yet, and the ringing of the telephone on his desk startled Anne. She picked it up, purposefully averting her eyes from the picture that had brought up the almost-buried memories.

  "Mr. Frazier's office." Funny how even here at Majco Oil they'd picked up the British formality. Where was Violet? Why hadn't she picked it up in the outer office? A slight crackling on the line, and then Marlene Cranshaw's affectedly English voice.

  "It's really for you, Anne. I saw you walk into Mr. Frazier's sanctum, and so I had the call switched over. Hold on a moment."

  For me? Anne thought, frowning; hearing the slight click in her ear and then the shock of an unexpectedly familiar voice. "Craig? What on earth are you doing in London?"

  "I'm at the airport right now-and this connection is terrible, so I won't talk long. I wanted to ask you if you'd be free for dinner this evening. I'm staying at the Inn on the Park." More crackles, and then, hesitantly for Craig, "I'd like to see you, Anne."

  After she hung up, she noticed the hastily scrawled note on Duncan's appointment book, lying open on the desk. "C. H.-Heathrow, 11 A.M." SO Dune had known. Why hadn't he told her? She had almost thought "warned her," which was ridiculous, of course. The divorce was final; Craig and Duncan were old friends, for heaven's sake!

  And they were all civilized peo -husband ...

  She's changed, Craig Hyatt thought. He had seen the pictures of her that had begun to appear in Harper's Bazaar. Vogue, Elle, and all the latest fashion journals, but he could hardly believe this was the same girl-woman who had been his wife. The photographs had not prepared him for the reality of seeing her again. Anne Mallory, top model. Wearing a deceptively simple linen jumpsuit, her face made more beautiful by her model's makeup. He remembered that she'd hated to wear any, and now here she was, with her eyes accentuated by smoky-gray eyeshadow that made them seem bigger, their blue darker. Faint sheen of blusher on her cheekbones, and the shiny moistness of her lips was obviously by courtesy of Lancome or Quant.

  Her smile was a trifle reserved, questioning him. "Craig, how nice to see you!"

  Formal. More than just a surface change. then. She had acquired poise, a sureness of herself. No longer defiant, the way he remembered her last.

  Over their candlelit table at the Coq d'Or, Craig found himself watching her almost surreptitiously, while he wondered what accounted for the difference in her.

  Duncan Frazier hadn't been too helpful. "I really don't know. and that's a fact. She keeps pretty much to herself, no girlish confidences, even to Violet. Violet's her roommate, a pretty little English dolly I was telling you about. All I know is that Anne doesn't sleep around, although not for lack of offers. I understand. She's intelligent and has a knack for getting people to open up, even while she doesn't say much herself. I had a hell of a time persuading her to stay on part time with us, by the way!"

  Craig had given Frazier the approving nod he expected. Frazier was a reliable man.

  He had grown into his oil-company-executive role, filling it out with his basic, efficient charm.

  But nothing-not the magazine pictures nor Duncan's report could really have prepared him for the stranger his ex-wife had become. With an assurance he was unfamiliar with, Anne had picked the Coq d'Or for their diner a deux. The maitre d'

  knew her, people recognized her, even if they were too well-bred to stare openly.

  "So this is what it feels like to go out to dinner with a celebrity!" Craig tried to keep his voice light, but it didn't work, Well, damn it! How could he not help remembering? She had been his wife, and he had never understood her. Marrying her young and still naive, he had hoped to find her malleable and easy to teach; but she had begun in too a short a time to resist his patient attempts to mold her into the kind of wife he needed. And now she had suddenly been transformed into exactly the kind of woman he had wanted her to be, the ideal politician's wife, attractive, poised, and sophisticated, but still a lady.

  She had even learned the art of making a polite disclaimer. "Oh, but I will never be a real celebrity ,Craig! I mean-I know I'm lucky enough to photograph well, but I'm not skinny enough for high fashion, and definitely not voluptuous enough for the other kind of modeling!" She gave him a slightly mischievous smile that shocked him.

  "When people get tired of seeing my face and the kind of clothes I can model well . . .

  I'll just disappear into obscurity again, that's all!"

  Looking back at her candle-shadowed face across the small table, Craig could not help his reactions. "How can you accept that now? Anne-I think we've both changed during the last year-matured, if you will. Why look forward to disappearing into obscurity? I think you've learned to look at things practically and objectively now. You realize that the modeling thing won't last forever, of course-but obscurity? I don't think so. You're-you've come into your potential, Anne, and there could be more; much, much more! Ambition-have you felt that yet, Anne?" Unwisely, he had let himself be carried away. Her eyes were wide and a trifle questioning-the eyes of an attractive and strangely knowing woman; leading him on to say more, promising understanding.

  She hadn't said anything yet, and Craig leaned forward urgently. "Think about what I've been saying, will you? I'm going back to the States next month, and I'd like you to come with me. I'd like us to try again, Anne-only this time on an equal footing. I'm planning to go into politics-I'll be running for Congress next fall, and I'd like to have you at my side as my wife again."

  ChapterTen

  "IT ALL SOUNDS SO ROMANTIC. Dinner by candlelight at a divine restaurant, and your handsome ex-husband is bowled over by the new you. He'll probably end up president someday and you'll be his first lady-smashing! What did you tell him?"

  Violet, curled up on the rug before the fire in her bathrobe, gazed up at Anne with frank curiosity. "Well?" she repeated impatiently with a shake of her still-damp curls.

  "You didn't put him off completely, did you? I know Aries tends to be dominating, but now he's discovered the change in you .. ."

  "Oh damn-that's what he kept saying too!" With an uncharacteristic gesture, Anne hurled her jacket onto the couch. "I've just started to discover how much I enjoy being me, and doing just as I please, Violet." She kicked off her shoes, and came to sit cross-legged in front of the fire, shrugging when she encountered Violet's laughing, faintly mocking look. "What do you think I told him? He took me by surprise-it isn't like Craig to be so direct! I said I had to think about it-all the stupid, corny, evasive things I could think of."

  "And?"

  "And he was very understanding. Just as I remember. Being logical and reasonable for me." Anne grimaced slightly. "He said things like, 'Of course you don't want to give up your career just yet: and 'I suppose you need time; I shouldn't have come on so strong.' He wants to see me again, and he promises not to rush me. It sounds like something from an old movie! I don't really want to think about Craig any more tonight. What about you? What have you been up to?"

  "Oh, well . . ." Violet stretched, and in the firelight her brown eyes suddenly flashed excited devilment. "I've been washing my hair-and plotting! Speaking of movies, and I don't mean the old ones, and the devil-do you know who's going to be in town to publicize his latest? Not that he needs to, of course, because he's already number one box-office draw in Europe. Guess?" Violet sat up suddenly, yanking newspapers off the coffee table. She held up the Daily Mirror's two page picture spread. "None other than Wicked Webb himself. Isn't he just gorgeous? And I'm going to meet him-trust little Vi to find a way!"

  Caught unprepared, Anne could feel the muscles in her face freeze into stony immobility, but her eyes could not tear themselves away from the pictures. Webb-with Carol, their heads clo
se together, smiling as if they shared some private joke.

  Webb alone, wearing a heavy polo-necked sweater, grinning his lazy, mocking grin.

  And Webb again, squinting into the camera-standing with his feet planted apart, thumbs hooked insolently and suggestively into the waistband of tight, faded levis, shirt open to the waist.

  Violet was peering over Anne's shoulder, sighing exaggeratedly. "That one is blown up ten times larger than life, and in color yet ... wow! I drove past the cinema today just to see. What do you think? Want me to fix it up so you get to meet him too? With him I'd settle for a one-night stand-I'll bet he's just fabulous in bed!" Violet giggled.

  "Maybe I'll give him one of my famous blow-jobs, just to show him what he's been missing. And then he'll have to reciprocate, won't he? I mean ..."

  "Violet, stop it!" She'd spoken too sharply, Anne realized, catching Violet's puzzled look. Oh damn! She was used to Violet's way of going on and on about things, being deliberately outrageous. Why should she mind now? Webb Carnahan was part of the past she'd come to Europe to forget. Old affair. A learning experience.

  No regrets-why should there be? It was just that seeing those pictures and listening to Violet's excited chatter had brought too many memories flooding back.

  "Anne, whatever is the matter? I'm sorry, love; did meeting your ex upset you that much?" And then in spite of her real concern, Violet's face brightened again with anticipation. "Why don't you forget about him and help me plan how we're going to arrange an introduction to Webb? It says here he's going to fly here from Italy for the premiere of Bad Blood. Come on, cheer up, do! And rack your brains-you've met so many interesting people recently, like Venetia Tressider and her crowd. Venetia's bound to know someone who knows him; I mean, she seems to know everyone, doesn't she? Maybe ... but then, Venetia might not want to share. I mean, she's such a bloody bitch when it comes to the really gorgeous men, isn't she? If she gets her claws in him first, then .. ."