“When mergers happen, things get shuffled,” he said finally. “If Coscom were still just Coscom, you’d have work for life. But with Barton Pharmaceuticals’ acquisition, it’s a whole different kettle of fish.”
“I appreciate that. But—”
He held up his hand. “When you deal with Barton, it’s not like dealing with other health and beauty companies, not even the biggest. This isn’t Estée Lauder or Max Factor.” He shook his head. “It’s Big Pharma—BarPharm—sweetie. Probably worth billions. For the life of me, I can’t figure out why they wanted a fifty-million-dollar cosmetics company in the first place.”
“Coscom’s not just another cosmetics company, Richard. We made it a leader, you and I. We built Gawjus into a top retail brand: it owns the eighteen-to-twenty-nine-year-old demographic. Just like Madame X will end up owning the fifty-plus.” Her voice quavered. “I did good work.”
“And I’m the first person to say that. As far as I’m concerned, you’re the best PR and image consultant in the business.”
Anna broke the awkward pause. “So?”
“Clive Madden.” He sighed. “I fought for you. I promise I did. But he’s determined to bring in a young, hungry agency and pay them half of what you’ve been getting.”
“Why didn’t he ask if I might be willing to work for less? Why not give me a chance to keep the business?”
“I suppose guys like Clive Madden are ruthless. That’s why they’re flown in from the UK to run a company after a merger. And he says you’re out.”
“That’s it? ‘Thanks for the success, we’re looking for a newer model, buh-bye’?”
“Your contract says four months’ notice. Madden wants you on board for the New York launch; then you can go, so you’ll work a month and get a three-month payoff. That’s the best I could do. God, Anna, I’m so sorry. I really am.”
“Jesus! He’s going to make me work the launch?” Her laughter burned like acid in her throat. “Not too cold-blooded, is he? What do I say to the editors? ‘Try our fabulous new cosmetic line for older women. Sadly, I’ve been judged past it myself, so I’m out the door’?”
“You’re not past it. Don’t be silly. Look, Pierre Barton himself is coming over from London for the launch. Maybe you can dazzle the chief, get some other work out of all this.”
“Does he know I’m being shoved out?”
“Pierre Barton probably doesn’t know who either of us is. He’s the head of a pharmaceutical company who for whatever reason wants to be in cosmetics, too. Why he’s bothering to show for a makeup launch is beyond me. Maybe he thinks the beauty sector is some kind of glamorous whirl.”
“And I get to be on hand to pamper his ego. Why not?” She shrugged. “Maybe he’ll present me with me a lifetime supply of whatever knockoff of Xanax he churns out . . .” Anna stopped to collect herself. “Ignore me, Richard. I don’t mean to drench myself—and you—in self-pity, but I just can’t help it.”
“Hey, kiddo, you’re a survivor.” He reached across, squeezed her hand, and then made the “bill, please” gesture in the direction of the waiter. Anna knew the serious talk was over. When Richard called her “kiddo,” it signalled he was back in the foppish forties dandy mode he wore like a boutonniere. “And it’s not as though you don’t have other clients.”
Richard didn’t know how much Coscom had taken over her client list. Nor was she going to tell him. No reason to make him feel worse.
“Things will be all right,” he told her outside as they waited for their cars. “You’re a fighter. You’re going to land on your feet.”
“Maybe.” She forced an upbeat lilt. “But I’m fifty-seven years old. I’ve got more than a few years on these newbies hungry for accounts . . . all these Stacies and Dacies and Tracies. It’s scary.”
“Look at you: You don’t even look forty-seven. You’re the sharpest advertising and PR pro in health and beauty. And you are, always, the ultimate in cool and a pleasure to be with. You’re the best!”
“Aw, Richard, you’re my guy.” Her smile this time was genuine. “And I know this, too, shall pass. We’ll talk strategy next week, ’kay?”
“It’s a date. You’ll knock ’em dead, Anna.”
“And thanks for lunch, darling. Seriously.” She held her smile as his car arrived and he slid behind the wheel. But as soon as he’d driven off, she let the tears come. She couldn’t have stopped them if she’d wanted. And she didn’t give a damn if Angelina saw.
How could Richard have let this happen, she asked herself as she headed toward Laurel Canyon. They’d been close friends since meeting soon after she’d arrived in California. They’d grown together through Coscom. And now?
By the time she’d emerged on the San Fernando Valley side of the canyon, she’d admitted to herself that anyone would have done what Richard had. Being her friend didn’t necessitate an “If she goes, I go” meltdown, certainly not at a time when companies were folding faster than bad bluffers at a high-stakes poker game and anyone with a job went to bed thankful.
She should have spoken to Richard about going in-house before the acquisition, when the economy was better. But she hadn’t. The Coscom founders—now living in opulent retirement in Palm Springs—were difficult, so she had been thrilled with the company acquisition and the arrival of the seemingly equable Clive Madden.
She clicked her garage door open and pulled in. Just being home in Studio City, in her part of town—the less glamorous, more down-to-earth part of town—would soothe her. She loved the single-story 1930s bungalow she bought fifteen years ago when first starting to earn decent money. With a big office for herself and a smaller one for an assistant in the back, it was her ideal home. Anna moved in and never looked back. Until she started losing clients.
All of them. It was silly lying to Richard, but she feared even he might feel differently about her if he knew the truth. This was Los Angeles. Everyone loved a winner, and she was looking like less of one by the moment.
In the light-filled kitchen with its black vinyl diner booth and black-and-white checked linoleum, she poured herself a glass of pinot grigio, then she moved to the living room, slouching back on the overstuffed couch and staring at the peg-and-groove pine floorboards. She felt numb. And it wasn’t just shock. It was fear. Her car. Her house. Like hell. The Mercedes lease was up in just months; the car belonged to the dealership. She’d been trying to decide whether to buy it, paying it off over four years, or to lease a more expensive model. Yeah, right, she thought, raking her fingers through her long bangs and pushing the hair off her face. Forget the car; she’d be lucky to find a way to keep the house.
Anna had refinanced whenever the rates tumbled; even so, she had precious little equity in it because she saw refis as a way of giving herself bonuses. Her dwindling bank account wouldn’t buy her much time if she didn’t get clients. All that hard work—was she going to end up with nothing but a closetful of pricey clothes and some travel photos?
What she needed to do was get word out quickly and quietly that she was “accepting new clients,” agencyspeak for “desperate for work.” She made her way back to her office to check her email. Her Filofax lay open on the desk. It was one of the accessories that the digital natives had relegated to the 1980s dustbin, but she loved her fat black calfskin Filofax, with appointments scrawled in ink, just as she loved flipping through her old gray steel Rolodex to find phone numbers.
Among the emails, Anna found a much-needed reminder from her college friend Allie that they were meeting Jan for dinner at the Daily Grill at eight. Damn. She took her glass to the kitchen, then curled up on her bed for a brief nap. A nap and a hot shower—that would make her feel more like facing friends. Or so she hoped.
Jan was already pouring herself a glass from the bottle in the bucket stand at the side of the table as Anna walked the last few steps across the Daily Grill’s dining room.
“And what’s the occasion? Tell me quick, so I can drink.”
“Yeah, catch up, A,” Allie ordered. “We both got here early, so this is seconds for us.”
“Allie is George’s new agent,” Jan announced. “Sweet, huh?”
Anna raised her glass to her friends. Could any two people be less alike? Jan had been majoring in philosophy when the three of them ended up on the same dorm floor freshman year at Goucher College; she was then, as now, a pudgy, slightly pugnacious flower child with long, flyaway auburn hair. Just after graduation, she’d married George, a junior philosophy instructor far too self-important for his twenty-eight years, and turned into a full-time mother and later a grandmother. Now she worked part-time as a guidance counselor at a private school off Mulholland. Since George had started writing what his publishers promoted as “philosophical tales of those doomed to live forever” some years back, Jan didn’t need to worry about earning a real living.
Allie Moyes was a stark contrast, poured into black leather pants and a fitted white shirt, her maquillage as perfect as if she’d sprung full-blown from a Serge Lutens photo shoot, her short black hair sleeked with brilliantine à la Joel Grey in Cabaret. In college, she’d been a borderline outcast, a “lipstick lesbian” business major at a time when every gay woman was called a “bull dyke” and all women were expected to major in education or liberal arts while awaiting their Mrs. degree. She’d confessed to Anna that she couldn’t imagine why anyone would choose a women’s college other than to meet girls—and she met many. Now an important agent at an important show business agency, she was as tough in her dealings with studios as she was kind to her friends.
“You’re handling writers as well as actors now, Allie?” Anna asked, sipping her wine.
“I’m starting to. I think they’ll be offering me a partnership in the agency—in preparation for which, I’m now also handling our novelists who sell movie rights. Which includes George.”
“That’s great! And lucky George, too.”
Jan was reaching for one of the menus on the table. “Let’s order. Sorry, but I had meetings at school, skipped lunch, and now I’m famished. And then we want to hear all the latest about you.”
“Me? Same old, same old.” Anna ducked her head and studied the menu. “Let’s see. Calories or conscience? Chicken pot pie or chicken Caesar?”
She wouldn’t spoil the evening with her news. She worked hard at keeping her mind on the conversation—Jan repeating the laudatory advance buzz for the film adaptation of George’s Die with Me Again, Allie filling them in on the latest happenings of her girlfriend Shawna, the former Stevie Nicks in a local Fleetwood Mac tribute band who was now starting to see some success as an actress.
After the meal, the subject turned—as it so often did—to looks and the passage of time. “I need some of that Madame X,” Jan said mournfully. “I’m starting to look my age, and you know that’s a bad thing in these parts.”
“I’ll give you some products. But Madame X is makeup, hon,” Anna reminded her. “You never wear makeup.”
“Maybe it’s time to start. I want to be like Allie, looking sixteen.”
“I take it you’ve finally stopped telling people your age?” Allie snorted. “Remember, Anna, when I had to tell her she couldn’t be my friend if she was going to tell people how old she was and that we were at school together? Not all of us have rich husbands to fall back on if the powers that be decide to put us out to pasture.”
“I don’t have a lifetime guarantee.” Jan’s lips drooped. “George is at that age, you know? When men start thinking about the trade-in-for-a-younger-model option. You wouldn’t believe how many of his friends have armpieces instead of wives.”
“Oh, I’d believe it. Just don’t ever let him forget he’s older than you,” Allie said succinctly. “Why not see my doctor? Then let me take you shopping and to the salon and gym. In a month, we’ll have a whole new you.”
“Oh, I couldn’t have a face-lift!” Jan quickly added, “Not that anyone would guess you’d had one, Allie.”
“I had a neck-lift, Jan, and that’s all. And I’m not suggesting you go under the knife. Just some light laser for the sun damage and fine lines, implants to plump out your cheeks, some alpha hydroxy acid creams. A derm can handle that. Just come with me the next time I go. You, too, A?”
Anna jumped. “Me?” she all but shrieked. “You think I look old?”
“Mmmm.” Allie leaned in, undressing Anna’s face with her eyes. “Hardly old. You have such good bone structure. Still . . . maybe a zap of Botox for the crease between your eyes, laser for those lip lines, and a touch of filler to get rid of the marionette lines.”
Anna forced a laugh. Jesus, she thought, just what I need. “You’re making me sound like Grandma Moses! I don’t have marionette lines!”
Allie ran her right index finger lightly from the left corner of Anna’s mouth toward her chin. “They’re not bad, but they do scream ‘Fifty-plus!’”
“Gawd, we should have had two bottles of wine,” Jan said tiredly. “I think I’m depressed now.”
“Nothing to be depressed about. Just a fact of life,” Allie told her calmly. “Old isn’t the new Young, guys. Old is the same old Old. You think they’d be offering me a partnership if the big cheeses at the agency knew my real age? No way, Jay! I need to stay forever nubile.”
The waiter raised his eyebrows at Anna and Jan’s frantic waving for the check. “Enough. I have work to prepare for school,” Jan blurted even as Anna mumbled something about going over some creative briefs before bed.
The drive home was short. Even so, the thoughts kept repeating themselves: Marionette lines? Botox? Me?
Those words were still in her head when she woke the next morning. Before she’d even made coffee, she was squinting at her sleep-blurred face in the bathroom mirror. She cursed each tiny crevice creeping upward from her top lip. She plucked at her cheeks, wondering when they’d gone so slack. The lines from her nose down to either side of her mouth weren’t so bad—a little highlighter could hide them. Still . . .
After coffee and a bowl of muesli, she dialed Allie’s private work number. “Hey, great seeing you last night.”
“Yeah, we should work less and do it more often. So what’s up, in fifty words or less?”
“I was thinking about what you said last night, about not succeeding because of being too old.”
“C’mon, Anna, you don’t have to worry. But, yeah, sure I meant it.”
“I was thinking, if I decided I wanted to go back to corporate—”
“Why would you want to do that, dopey? You’ve got what’s going to be one of the hottest cosmetics accounts in America, if not the world.”
“I’ve been thinking about in-house benefits,” Anna fibbed. “Some days, it just seems like too much hustle for too little reward.”
“Then you’d better write a novel I can sell to the movies, because no corporation’s going to look at you twice. And even the first time, they won’t really be looking at you, they’ll be looking through you. Maybe if you tried a headhunter in New York, something might—emphasis on might—happen.”
“Oh, come on.” Anna set down her cup with a vehemence that surprised her. “It can’t be impossible!”
“Look, even most men who snag great corporate jobs come from corporate—or they get a job in-house with a client. So your only hope would be Coscom. Seriously, Anna, it’s different for women. And not just in La-La Land.”
“So you’re resigned to Botox and Restylane and laser and eventually a full face-lift and hiding your birth certificate as though it were the Enigma code?”
Allie laughed. “Do I seem like the kind of person who’s ever resigned to things? Eventually, Shawna and I will buy a house in the South of France or som
eplace, and I’ll grow old gracefully. Right now, I do what I have to do to nail down that future. And what I have to do right now is a meeting, even though I’d rather talk to you. Sorry.”
“That’s okay. Thanks for the input.”
“The best thing for you is the status quo. You’ve got a strong ad campaign, and your client’s a winner. Don’t risk losing it all on a whim. Got it?”
“Yeah, got it. Thanks.”
It was Friday; she had cut her assistant down to just three days a week and was relieved one of them wasn’t today. After refilling her coffee cup in the kitchen, she took the Los Angeles Times from the front doorstep and got back into bed. Some days, it didn’t pay to get up. Certainly not when she’d just been told that her sole job opportunity was with the company that had precipitously decided they’d be absolutely fine without Anna Wallingham.
Chapter 2
Sunday, September 11, 2011
When she woke up, Anna thought she was back in her sweet cottage in Studio City. Then she opened her eyes to the plaster ceiling of a hostel room in Amsterdam, proof this nightmare was really happening. And it was September 11, never a good day.
She didn’t go downstairs until half past eight, when the dining room would be busiest. She ate a big Dutch breakfast from the buffet, then, before anyone could remember they’d never seen her passport, she hurried back upstairs for her things. She left the key on the bedside table and slipped out of the hostel.
On the Damrak, the main street running south from Central Station, she found an Internet café already abuzz with impoverished-looking backpackers. With trepidation, she scanned the major UK newspaper sites. Nothing. Googling “Pierre Barton,” she found a small item, no byline, that read “Investigation into Death of Pharma CEO?” It stated only that Barton had collapsed “at a friend’s” and been pronounced dead on arrival at the hospital yesterday morning, presumably of a heart attack. Almost as an afterthought, it added that there would be a coroner’s inquiry.
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