Man Trouble

by Melanie Craft

  Carter gave him the recorder.

  “Okay, folks,” Tom said. “Here's the deal. You two are Molly's friends. That's terrific. Friends of Molly are friends of ours, which is why we need to help each other. If we work together, we can make this a very good experience for all of us, if you get my meaning. Capisce?”

  “Yes, indeed,” Elaine said. “I have several ideas about how this campaign can be improved. When would you like to meet to discuss our strategy?”

  “What?” Tom stared at her, taken aback. “No, no. What I meant was—”

  Elaine patted him on the arm. “I don't mean to imply that I don't admire your work. You've done a good job so far, but your lack of expertise in certain areas is rather obvious. Fortunately, I know exactly what to do, and I'll be happy to advise you.”

  “Advise me?” Tom exclaimed. “Me! Do you know who I am?”

  Elaine sighed. “Male vanity can be so tiresome,” she said. “Of course I know who you are, Mr. Amadeo, but the ability to promote the careers of movie stars and basketball players does not necessarily qualify you to deal with the subtle complexities of this situation.”

  “Subtle…what?” Tom sputtered. “Listen, lady. I know who you are, too. I've seen you on Oprah, and I'll be goddamned if I'll let some Chanel-covered dilettante tell me that I'm not qualified to do my job.”

  “My gown is by Valentino,” Elaine said. “Which delivers an entirely different message than Chanel. This is a perfect example of the problem. Just like a man, you're focusing entirely on the big picture and ignoring the details. You are trying to club the media over the head with your message, which was fine in the beginning, but you cannot beat people into believing that Jake has changed. One must seduce in order to persuade, and seduction is all about detail. Consider Molly's dress.”

  “What about it? I picked it myself. She looks great.”

  “No, she looks entirely wrong. Gold taffeta is too stuffy, and it doesn't suit her. She should be wearing chiffon. A pale color…sky blue, I think. It's not seasonal, but it would make her look fresh and angelic in the midst of all of this formal black.”

  Tom glared at her. “Gold is the Berenger signature color.”

  “That may be so, but Molly is not a Berenger mascot. Her hair is also wrong. It should be loose, not sprayed into a helmet. You dressed her up like a fifty-year-old political wife. I cannot imagine what you were thinking.”

  “Hah,” Tom said triumphantly. “I knew it. You don't have a clue about this business. Making her look like a political wife was the whole idea. She looks stable and respectable. And elegant. She looks like a fucking grande dame of society. She's the antibimbo, which is exactly what we want. Babe, I have been doing this for twenty years. I am the king of marketing, and you are an amateur.”

  Elaine gazed disdainfully at him, as if he were some kind of hairy barbarian. “Does she look like the love of Jake's life?”

  They both turned to Jake, who had been hoping to stay out of the discussion. Tom was a pro, but Elaine had a point. His first thought upon seeing Molly that evening was that she looked like one of his mother's friends from Palm Beach. In his opinion, she had been much more attractive when she arrived in New York that morning, fresh off the plane from Antigua. She had been wearing a fuzzy cream-colored sweater and snug jeans, and he had been amused to see that she had a sunburned nose.

  “Well?” Elaine asked Jake. “Does she?”

  “No,” Jake admitted. “I like women with less shellac on them.”

  “What the hell difference does that make?” Tom demanded, throwing up his hands. “This isn't about reality, it's about image. We have a message to deliver. Jake Berenger is a Family Man.”

  “Perhaps you should write your message on a sign and glue it to Molly's forehead,” Elaine suggested tartly. “That would make it equally convincing. Right now the poor girl looks and sounds like a puppet, and every journalist I know is wondering if this is some sort of publicity stunt. I've been doing my best to help, but you need to show the world why Jake Berenger fell in love with Molly Shaw, and why he is now changing his entire life for her. If you don't do that, no one will believe your message, and your whole campaign will be a failure.”

  Tom stared at her, speechless.

  Elaine looked smug. “Thank goodness you came to me in time,” she said.

  Jake left Tom and Elaine together and made his way through the crowd toward the stage. It was a few minutes before ten, when he was scheduled to address the crowd with one of the welcome-and-thank-you-for-coming speeches that he had given so many times that he no longer bothered to prepare in advance.

  Cal Kennedy, the manager of the new Berenger Grand, was already onstage with the mayor of New York. Jake greeted them, then stood, waiting while the jazz band finished the last song of the set. He looked out over the dense crowd, his eyes instinctively finding Molly. She was talking to another journalist, one who Jake didn't recognize, and who wasn't on the schedule. One of Tom's assistants stood nearby, waiting for her to finish. He was to escort her through the crowd and onto the stage for the final photo op of the evening.

  She was speaking at length to this new reporter, a petite woman who was writing fast on her notepad. Jake wondered what she was saying, and why Tom's assistant was maintaining such an unnecessarily respectful distance. He was supposed to be monitoring the conversation so that he could intervene if Molly started to say something indiscreet.

  He tapped his fingers against his leg. Tom's assistant glanced at his watch, then at the stage. “Don't look at me,” Jake muttered. “Look at her. That's your job.”

  He reminded himself that Molly knew what she was doing. He had supervised every word she said since they arrived, and she hadn't made a single mistake. But she had given brief, careful answers when he had been with her. Now unsupervised, she was suddenly holding forth as if she were at the head of a lecture class. What, exactly, was she talking about? He remembered her strange, enigmatic smile just before they had left his apartment. I could harm you intentionally, but why would I do that?

  The band's final number closed with a blast of sound from the saxophone, and applause broke out through the ballroom. That was supposed to be Jake's cue to take the microphone, but he didn't. He had an uneasy feeling in the pit of his stomach. What had Elaine Newberg meant when she told him that he should be glad that Molly wasn't holding his methods against him?

  The music and the last applause were dying away, and heads were turning expectantly toward him. He frowned. Molly was leaning toward the reporter. She was listening now, nodding, and Tom's useless assistant didn't seem to be planning to break up the conversation. Abruptly Jake faced Cal Kennedy.

  “Can you do the welcome?” he asked.

  Cal looked surprised. “Sure. I didn't prepare anything, but I could just—”

  “Great,” Jake said. “It's all yours. Excuse me.”

  He walked down the stairs at the side of the stage and quickly crossed the room to Elaine. Her back was to him, and he reached out and grasped her by the elbow.

  She turned, and he beckoned her away from the group. “You said that I put Molly through a trauma,” he said without preamble. “What did you mean?”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “You also said that I should be glad that she isn't holding my methods against me. What methods? What trauma?”

  Elaine looked stern. “That cannot possibly be a genuine question, Mr. Berenger. You know exactly what I meant.”

  “No, I don't. Explain.”

  She sighed. “I suppose that my willingness to offer my help has given you the impression that I approve of what you did to Molly. In fact, I think it was very ruthless. Necessary…perhaps. That's debatable. But—”

  “Tell me what I did to Molly,” Jake said through his teeth. “Now.”

  “You betrayed her to the press,” Elaine said impatiently. “She lost her job because of you. It was very selfish—oh, damn, there's the society columnist from Style Weekly starin
g at us. She doesn't like me, and she's going to be wondering what's happening here.”

  “I didn't betray Molly to anyone,” Jake said sharply. “Who told you that?”

  Elaine gave a cheery little wave to the columnist. “Jake, dear, would you mind smiling a bit? It would be better to make this look like a cozy tête-à-tête…”

  “Who told you that?”

  “Molly did, of course. I admit that I was glad to see her leave Belden. Carter and I felt very strongly that she didn't belong there, but we agreed that she needed to make that decision for herself. Your interference was—”

  “Interference!” Jake exclaimed. “I just said that I didn't have anything to do with it. It was some professor at Belden who blew the whistle on Molly. She told me so herself.”

  “Oh?” Elaine said. “How odd. That's not what she said to us. She's very sure that you did it. I suppose that she didn't confront you because she decided not to hold it against you.”

  Jake's guts went cold as he suddenly understood what was happening. Elaine was wrong; Molly hadn't decided to forgive him for his alleged crime. On the contrary, she had decided that the best revenge would be to wait until she was in a position where she could really screw him. Her mysterious statements in the apartment now made sense. He should have known then that something was wrong—he should have been alerted by the look on her face. She had learned what Skye Elliot had always known: that the media could be the most powerful weapon on earth. And just like Skye, Molly intended to use it against him. He had to stop her, if it wasn't already too late. He turned and pushed back into the crowd, heading for the spot where Molly had last been standing.

  CHAPTER 23

  Molly was talking to a female reporter from the National Enquirer when her peripheral vision caught the shape of a man with a camera approaching from the right. She began to shuffle stealthily, turning where she stood. The reporter looked surprised, but obligingly moved with her, and Molly kept talking, pretending that nothing unusual was happening. She had spent the past hour doing this weird revolving dance, trying to keep the photographers on her left, her best side, according to Tom. He had also instructed her not to eat anything, to prevent any sloppy shots of food halfway into her mouth. Champagne was permitted, because the glass served as a prop, and after consuming four glasses of Dom Perignon on an empty stomach, Molly was feeling increasingly talkative.

  Tom had also told her to smile with her tongue pushed firmly against the back of her front teeth, a move designed to tighten a sagging chin. A week earlier, Molly had not known that she had a sagging chin, and as she forced another smile, her tongue aching with the exertion, she decided that ignorance had been bliss. Vanity—like fire—was useful in small amounts, but it had the potential to destroy you if it got out of control. Tom had taught her all of the tricks used by actresses and models to look good in candid photos, but between dutifully employing those tricks and delivering Tom's prepared answers, Molly was left with very little brainpower to focus on anything else—much less to enjoy the party.

  When the reporter asked her about Pirate Gold, she was so happy to be released from the confines of Tom's script that she launched into an enthusiastic description of the latest adventures of Andre DuPre.

  “And when does the sequel come out?” asked the reporter, scribbling down what Molly had been saying.

  “The what?” Molly said, taken aback. She had been describing a story that existed only in her head.

  The reporter looked curiously at her. “You don't think of the new book as a sequel?”

  Molly hadn't even thought of it as a book. “Oh,” she said, “a sequel. Yes. Of course it is.” She smiled nervously. “I mean, what else would it be?”

  The reporter said something, but Molly wasn't listening. She thought of all the time that she'd spent insisting that she wasn't writing another novel. She thought of how she'd made the resolution to focus solely on her academic work, because it was the proper thing to do. And all the while, she had been spinning the story in her head and covertly writing down the best scenes. Her own denial suddenly seemed ludicrous. She was indeed working on a sequel, and why shouldn't she? Everything was different now. The gods of Academia had evicted her from the Garden of Belden, and she had nothing left to lose by indulging herself. Surprised, she laughed. Was it really as simple as that?

  An arm gripped her shoulders, solid as a plow yoke. Molly twisted, startled, and saw that the arm was attached to Jake. He and Tom had disappeared into the crowd a little while earlier, after spending close to an hour hovering nearby, monitoring her.

  “Hi there,” she said, clutching at him. She was slightly dizzy, and knew that she had better find some solid food before long.

  “Jake,” said the reporter, swiveling to focus on him with laserlike intensity. “Great party. Are you planning to—”

  “Sorry,” Jake said. His voice was neutral, but his arm felt like iron around Molly. “No time to talk. Excuse us.”

  Before Molly had a chance to say anything else, he was moving her away, walking her briskly toward the exit doors. Curious stares followed them.

  “Where are we going?” she asked, hurrying along with him, trying not to stumble over the hem of her gown. Something about his stride and his silence suggested that all was not well.

  He didn't answer, nor did he release her. They passed the marble reception desk with its towering arrangements of flowers, and approached the row of elevators.

  “What's happening?” Molly asked. Still, he said nothing. There was a uniformed security guard next to the private elevator, who nodded to Jake and used his key to open the doors. They stepped in, the doors closed, and only then did Jake let go of her. Molly was surprised to see that his face was set into grim lines.

  “Your secret is safe with me,” he said coldly. “Very cute. Too bad I didn't catch the reference earlier.”

  “Huh?” Molly said.

  “It's what I said on the day that I figured out that you were Sandra. You asked me not to tell, and I told you that your secret was safe with me. You repeated that back to me earlier this evening, before we left the apartment. What was that supposed to be, a warning? A test?”

  Molly frowned. “This is so strange,” she said. “I don't think I'm drunk, but I'm finding this conversation very hard to follow, so maybe I—”

  “Why the hell didn't you talk to me before you decided that I was the villain? I would have told you that I wasn't the one who gave away your secret. I had nothing to do with it.”

  The elevator stopped, and the doors slid open into the apartment's entrance foyer. Molly walked out into the hall, her gown making a whisking noise as the hem brushed against the stone floor. Through the archway leading to the living room, she could see the wide glass windows and the lights of the city below.

  Jake followed her. “Who was the reporter? And what did you say to her?”

  “I don't remember her name,” Molly said. “But she was from the National Enquirer.”

  “Great,” he muttered. He strode past her into the living room and toward the bar, where he pulled a crystal highball glass from the rack on the wall and poured himself a straight shot of whiskey. He turned to face her again.

  “Let me remind you that you signed a legally binding confidentiality agreement. Anything you said to the press will be evidence in court when I sue you for every goddamned penny you have. You should have done your homework before you messed with me, Molly. I am not a nice guy when I'm crossed.”

  Molly giggled. “You do seem cross,” she said. “And it's true, you aren't being very nice.” Now that she was away from the noise and excitement of the crowd, she could feel the effects of the champagne. The buzz, combined with the heady relief of having successfully handled the press, was making her giddy.

  Jake set his glass down on the bar with a thump, and the amber liquid sloshed up to touch the rim. “You're drunk? I don't believe this.”

  “No, no.” Molly said quickly. “Just a little light-head
ed, honestly. I was a very respectable fiancée. Now, what were you saying about suing me for every penny I have? I'm sorry—I'll be serious this time.”

  “This is a joke to you?” Jake demanded.

  “I'm not sure,” Molly said. “If I knew what you were talking about, I might have a better answer.”

  “I'm talking about the fact that you think you have a reason to want to destroy me. I know what's going on, Molly. There was no jealous professor at Belden who told the press about Sandra. You think I'm the one who told them. And you just paid me back in kind, didn't you? What did you tell the Enquirer reporter?”

  “Oh,” Molly said. Now she understood. Somehow, Jake had figured out that she knew the truth about what he'd done, and he had panicked, thinking that she would use the night's spotlight as her chance for revenge. It was a reasonable fear—she had considered the idea when it occurred to her earlier that evening. She had been shocked to realize that she actually had the power to hurt him in a way that had made her original plan seem about as painful as a mosquito bite. If she really wanted an eye for an eye, then exposing Jake's scheme to the press would be the way to do it. She had had the perfect opportunity when he had left her alone.

  Jake was staring at her, and she was secretly glad to see him looking so tense. In her opinion, he deserved more than a few moments of agony, and she was in no hurry to ease his mind. “You're the one who should have done his homework,” she said. “I spent my whole life working to earn that job at Belden. It was all I ever wanted, and then you came along and ruined everything. What made you think that I would just say, ‘Gosh, that's a shame,’ and then help you? Do I look like a human sacrifice? Maybe so, but I'm not.”

  “I didn't have anything to do with the loss of your job,” Jake said. “My mother and I both knew that you were Sandra, but neither of us told anyone else, especially not the press.”

  “Oh, please,” Molly scoffed, her temper rising. “Who else would have told them? Carter? Elaine? I don't think so. They are my friends. They care about me. You just saw an opportunity to use me…”