Pot of gold : a novel

by Michael, Judith

"Hi, babe," Brix said. "How'd you like to be the new Eiger Girl.?"

  Emma caught her breath. "They liked me.?"

  "They're crazy about you. They rushed through the proofs from the first two hours and they're fantastic; everybody's whooping it up. I'll probably get a medal; maybe even a bonus. They think I've got the greatest eye in history. They never even knew I thought about our ad campaigns; now they'll keep me in the loop when they start making plans. I'm not daddy's little boy anymore, and if things go the way I think they will, this is one vice president who's finally going to get to act like a vice president. This is the best thing that could happen to me; when I decide to get out of here, I'll have a title that means something. It's a—"

  "Brix. Excuse me, but when do they want me.?"

  "Monday, nine o'clock, at Yaeger Advertising. You'll get a call from Marty Lundeen pretrv' soon. And we ought to celebrate, right.? How about dinner tomorrow night.? Get all dressed up; we'll go someplace classy. And tell your ma you'll be home late."

  "Yes," Emma breathed.

  "Congratulations," Hannah said when she hung up. "How much are they paying you.''"

  "Oh, I don't i^^now," Emma said happily. "I forgot to ask. I'm sure I'll find out pretty soon."

  "And are they giving you a contract.^"

  "Not right away. Later, maybe. Later, I hope." She jumped up and walked around the kitchen, picking things up and putting them down, bouncing on her feet. "They liked me, Hannah; they really really liked me. Brix said the proofs were fantastic. There were two other girls they were ready to choose from, but they picked me instead; they liked me best. The Eiger Girl. Doesn't that sound unbelievable.'' I'm the Eiger Girl. I'm a model!"

  "Well, I'm so proud of you." Hannah hugged Emma and kissed her on both cheeks. "Didn't I say you're wonderful.'' I'm proud and happy for you."

  Emma snuggled into Hannah's arms, breathing in the warmth of her small, compact body. So much was happening; so many changes, so much to think about. "I'm so happy, so happy, so happy." But even though she said it over and over, underneath her excitement she was sad and she did not know what to do about it. She tried to ignore it, she tried to will it away, but it stayed there, like a haze over the sun, so that nothing was as bright as it should be. And so she clung to Hannah, and thought about being happy, being a model, being the Eiger Girl, being Brix's girl. But he didnt even think of me when they chose me; all he thought of was himself and how this would help him. "I'm so happy," she said again, to Hannah, and pushed away that disloyal thought about Brix and pretended the sadness was not there.

  And then she thought, he's just waiting until tomorrow night. I know he is. When we're together, when we're celebrating, then he'll tell me I was good. Tomorrow night Brix will say he's proud of me.

  NINE

  c

  L A I R E stood in Quentin's office, looking at photographs that covered two walls of the room. Eiger Laboratories was in a long, low brick building on the outskirts of Norwalk, and Quentin's office was in a corner, his large windows looking out on a wide, sloping lawn planted with trees, gardens, and flowering shrubs. The trees blazed with the colors of October, and the sun filtered through in a deep coppery^ glow; driving up, Claire had thought it looked like a college campus: a place where serious work was done in sereniry- and harmony by people who cared about what they were doing, who shared ideas, and formed friendships. The kind of place Emma was supposed to be in, starting the end of August. The kind of place she should be in, instead of spending her days in front of a camera and the rest of the time pushing the hours away between dates with Brix.

  Quentin's office was high ceilinged and furnished in oversize rosewood and leather furniture and a massive stainless steel desk. Standing in the center of the room, Claire felt as if she had shrunk, and she wondered if it had been designed deliberately with that in mind: to make visitors feel small. She looked again at the photographs, many of them artistically blurred pictures of Eiger products, the others photographs and drawings tracing the expansion of the original, small building to its present size.

  "It's very impressive," Claire said. "You just keep growing, as if you never stop to take a breath."

  He smiled, pleased with her, and Claire noticed, with a little shock, that she relaxed as soon as she saw that he was pleased.

  Like so many of his friends, she thought. When did I start doing that? "We don't stop or slow down," Quentin said. "We still have a lot of catching up to do. We'll never be as huge as Avon or Helene Curtis—that isn't what I want—but we can be at the top if we don't make any mistakes."

  "What kind of mistakes.^"

  "Imitating other companies, tagging along at the tail end of a fad, waiting too long to bring out a product so that others get in first. A lot of it is timing. What do you think of our packaging.''"

  Claire looked back at the photographs of Eiger products. "I like some of them."

  "Which ones don't you like.'^"

  She found herself tensing up again, worried about criticizing designs he had probably approved. But this is my business, she thought, I know more about it than he does. I should believe in myself enough to say what I think.

  But still she hesitated. Because even now, after five months of lunches and cocktails, shopping trips and matinees in New York, she still was not as insouciant as the women who were guiding her. They had a way of being oblivious to their surroundings that Claire could not seem to master. Whether it was the playful monkeys painted on the walls of Le Cirque or the huge floral displays at Le Bernardin or the limousines lined up outside Broadway theaters on Wednesday afternoons or the homeless huddled in shapeless bundles in Fifth Avenue doorways, she always paused in her conversation or in walking along the street to take it all in, to reflect on it, and to wonder that she was really there and living this kind of life. Someday, she thought, she might be as sophisticated as Roz and Selma and Lucy and Vera and Lorraine, as familiar and casual with all the things of the world.

  "Tell me which ones you don't like," Quentin said. It was an order. "And why."

  Claire took a deep breath and touched the labels in a photograph of a group of oval jars. "This group; all these slashing lines and angles. Cleansing cream ought to be soft and silky, and these probably are, but everything about the labels is hard and aggressive. I might use them on something aimed at men, but not for the face or hair. Athlete's foot, FTiaybe. Or insect repellent."

  He chuckled. "What else.''"

  Emboldened, Claire moved to another photograph. "If you're

  going to use a black case for lipstick, it ought to be more sensual. This looks like a weapon to me. I'd round the top, or maybe . . . oh, this would be better: curve it in, like a shallow bowl, and make the bowl gold. And I'd make your black-on-black design gold, too, but I'd use something with longer lines, scrolls, maybe, so the fingertips would feel a smooth, unbroken curve, not a lot of little fiower petals, or whatever these are." She stopped short, afraid she had said too much.

  Quentin's face was impassive. "Anything else.'^"

  "No."

  "You like everything but those two.'^ I don't believe it."

  Claire hesitated again. "I have some thoughts about most of them. But I don't know anything about your company or whether you're aiming your designs at young women or older women, or male and female executives, or what kind of image you want to project, and I'd have to know—"

  "You'd know all those things if you were designing from scratch. I asked you, as an expert, to comment on our current designs, and I want your comments on all of them. That black lipstick case was a total failure in the stores; we pulled it after six months. The photograph should have been pulled, too; I don't know why it's still there. The cleansing cream isn't doing as well as we thought it would, and you may have told me why." He pushed his high-backed leather chair away from his desk and stood beside Claire to look at the photographs. "You have a good eye. I need that here, but for much more than a critique of our current lines. I gave a contract to Bingham Des
ign—you know them.'"'

  "Yes. They're very' good."

  "I haven't seen any sign of it. I gave them a contract for the PK-20 line four months ago, and I haven't got anything, a label, a package, point-of-sale material, anything that I like. I've told them I'm replacing them. I want you to take it over."

  Claire looked at him in surprise. "As what.^"

  "Head of design for PK-20, consultant, temporary^ chief designer, whatever you want to call yourself. I'll give you an office here, and you can hire your own group if that's what you need, whatever it takes for you to get something to me in a hurry; we're behind on our release date because we can't get decent designs. I want vou to do this, Claire."

  She was staring at him. "I don't believe it," she murmured.

  He looked annoyed. "What don't you believe.^ I didn't expect coyness from you, Claire, or some kind of theatrical modesty. You know you can do it; why would you say anything but yes.'"'

  "It's not that; it's the timing." Claire shook her head in disbelief. "My whole working life, I dreamed about someone saying just those words to me. AH the years I was an assistant to other designers, all I wanted was for someone to say to me, 'I want you to take it over.' Do you know how that sounds to someone who never had a chance to take over anything.^ Head of design. Do you know how that sounds.-' And now that I don't need a job at all, you're handing it to me."

  "Then you'll do it. We'll have to start right away; we'll get you an office this afternoon."

  Damn you, Claire thought. He had no idea how she felt, nor did he care. His agenda was all that was important to him. It was as if he had shut a door on her or reduced her to one small, anonymous cog in the engine of Eiger Laboratories.

  But then she told herself that it made no difference what Quentin said or didn't say; she did not need him or depend on him. What was much more important was the realization that she really did need this job. It had nothing to do with money; it had to do with how she felt about herself. It had to do with what she was, and what she made of herself. And for some time now, she hadn't known what that was.

  She understood now what Gina had meant just before she got a job here at Eiger Labs. Because for the past few months, Claire had thought of herself as a woman who had won the lottery, a woman who went to a lot of lunches, a woman who did a lot of shopping, a woman who was a mother—though her daughter wasn't letting her do much mothering these days. She did not know any more what to call herself.

  Nobody can know how that feels until you get fired: like you re not connected with the rest of the world that's busy going to work and doing things; you feel like you 're not real and not alive because you 're not doing anything.

  You don't have to be fired, Claire thought. You can just lose your way.

  She wanted to do something she was proud of. She wanted to

  be able to say, I'm Claire Goddard, a designer, and this is what I've designed. It's my creation, no one else's.

  If I can. Vve never designed anything on my own. I've never been a success.

  "And you'll make a list of people you want to hire," Quentin said. "It may even become a permanent group; if this works out, I'll want you to look at all our other lines as well. Once you've critiqued them, you can redesign them." He contemplated her for a minute. "You understand, I don't expect you to be here as an employee. You'll decide how much you want to work. That's one of the reasons you should put together the best group you can find, so you can trust them when you're not here. I want you mainly as a consultant; you've been busy with Roz and Vera and the rest of them, and I don't want you to let anything interfere with that. Once we get PK-20 taken care of, that is."

  I have to try, she thought. I have so much money and I still don't know what I can do with myself. And no amount of money can give that to me; I have to do it by myself.

  "Yes," she said, "I'd like to do that. All of it."

  He looked surprised; he had assumed it was all settled. "When you come in tomorrow, call Carol Block in Personnel for whatever you need; she'll call the people you want in your group, too. You can take them from any other company; we'll make it worth their while. Which reminds me, we haven't talked about your consultant's fee."

  "No," Claire began, afraid he would not think her worth whatever amount she said. But then she thought, he wants to work with me, he wants us to work together, and he thinks I'm worth a lot. Why not agree with him.'' "Two hundred dollars an hour. And I'll meet whatever deadline you set me."

  "Done," he said without hesitation. He pulled her to him and kissed her, and Claire leaned against his bulk and felt a new kind of triumph: a sharing of his power. He was the one who bestowed gifts and made dreams come true, and she was the one he admired; she was the one he was asking to work with him.

  "This is becoming quite a family business," he said with a smile.

  Claire looked at him somberly. "We haven't talked about Emma's modeling."

  "I've told you I think she's very good; what else is there to say? Her modeling isn't our affair."

  "It may not be yours, but it's mine. I'm responsible for her."

  He shrugged. "She can be responsible for herself. She's a mature young woman. Why haven't you brought it up before now.^"

  "I wanted to wait. I thought it might not last."

  "Of course it will last. I told you what Hale said: she's a natural model and she photographs superbly. He says she's his find of the decade."

  Claire felt a surge of pride in Emma and she thought, if Emma was hearing the same praise, she could understand her excitement. But she knew it was not that simple. Emma was troubled, as well as excited, and Claire had begun to think she might still convince her to begin college in the winter semester. "I'm glad Hale thinks she's good, but I don't think she'll stay with it very long. She has a lot of other things to do, college for one."

  Quentin was amused. "I don't think so. She's smitten with Brix and with modeling and with doing her own thing, as they say. You can't stop her, and why should you try.^ It's about time she broke away from you."

  Claire stepped back from his solid, powerful body. "Of course I could stop her if I thought I should. I'm her mother and she's not eighteen yet."

  "But you won't do it. You already gave permission for us to hire her. Claire, leave her alone. She's having a good time and she's earning her own money. Do you know what she can make if she's popular with the public.'' We'll give her a contract for a hundred thousand or more, and if she's smart and willing to work hard while she's still young, she'll go a lot higher than that."

  "She doesn't need money; I have more than enough. She needs other things—"

  "She needs to be left alone."

  "—and I'm not sure she's having such a good time. She doesn't look happy to me."

  "Well, what do mothers know about it.''" he said, making it a joke. He looked at his watch. "We should leave soon, to get to the theater on time. Do you want to wait here while I finish up or would you rather look around the building.'"'

  "I'd rather look around," Claire said, masking her annoyance.

  He knew nothing about mothers, she thought, or fathers, either; that was clear. For the first time, she felt some sympathy for Brix.

  "Claire," Quentin said as she opened his office door. She looked back. "Emma has an unusual beauty that is perfect for our ads; we've been looking for someone like her for a long time. We'd just scrapped a whole campaign because I wasn't satisfied with the girl Hale was using; it's an enormous saving to us that we found Emma so quickly. We're going to use her in print and in personal appearances; Hale's already modified his marketing plan so it's built around her. Don't interfere with that."

  Don't tell me what to do with my daughter, Claire thought angrily. But she could not say the words. She could picture his face darkening and turning cold; she could imagine him not being pleased with her. And maybe she was wrong; maybe this was a wonderful chance for Emma. What right did she have to try to prevent it.'' "I'm her mother," she said at last. "I can't ju
st turn my back. But I've never forced Emma into anything, and I won't start now."

  "And you won't urge her to do anything else," he said, pressing her. "Or make her uncomfortable with her decision to work for us."

  Claire stood half in and half out of the doorway. "I want her to be happy. I'll help her, if I can, with whatever she wants to do."

  He gazed at her for a long moment. "I hope so," he said. "W^e'll leave in half an hour. I'll meet you at the front desk."

  Claire nodded and closed the door behind her. She was angry, at herself and at Quentin, and she was confused and uncertain about what she should do next, whether she wanted to work for him. No, work with him, she thought, but she knew that he had never said that; she was the one who had thought it. And she knew then, facing what should have been obvious from the start, that he thought of her as working for him, beneath him, part of the company he ran with an iron hand, and subject to his will.

  She walked down the brightly lit corridor that bisected this part of the building, glancing into small laboratories along one side and the open doors of a long laboratory on the other. Men and women sat on high stools at white, laminate-topped workbenches, writing, using microscopes, weighing powders on small balance scales, mixing ingredients in flasks and bowls, and on flat pieces

  of glass, like a painter's palette, using water from a small sink on each counter. At one open door, Claire stopped. Gina was working at a bench near the windows.

  Claire did not worry, as she usually would, about interrupting; she needed to talk and Gina was here. She walked past other benches and stood at Gina's, waiting. In a moment, Gina looked up, frowning. "Hey," she said, and slid off her stool and hugged Claire. "This is terrific; you get to see my lair." She stood back and eyed Claire's face. "What did he do, tell you he expects you to climb Mt. McKinley Sunday morning before lunch.-^"

  "He told me to stay out of Emma's life."

  "He didn't. The son of a bitch. And you told him to stay the hell out of your business."