It was eight-thirty when they finally started the show. The entire train station where they sat went dark, and an antique train came slowly toward them, as what seemed like a thousand drums began beating in the pulsating rhythms of the jungle, and a hundred men dressed as Masai warriors appeared from nowhere and stood glaring at them. When the lights came back on, it was awesome, and John was watching it in fascination. He had already spotted Catherine Deneuve, Madonna and her entourage, and the queen of Jordan sitting nearby. They were in impressive company, and John alternated between watching what was happening and keeping an eye on Fiona. She sat quiet and still, concentrating on what was coming, and within instants, it began to happen, as the music got louder, and three men with two tigers and a snow leopard walked slowly through the crowd. And as she saw them, Fiona smiled.
“This,” she said with a look at John, “is pure Dior.” The only thing missing was an elephant, and within moments, one arrived with two handlers and a huge rhinestone-covered saddle. John couldn't help wondering if the animals were likely to panic in the crowd, but no one seemed to care, they were waiting with bated breath for the clothes, which came next.
Each model was preceded and followed by a Masai warrior, in authentic dress, with spears, and scars, and heavily painted. And each model was exquisite, as one by one they stepped off the train. The clothes were beaded, colorful, exotic, with long sweeping painted taffeta skirts, or lace leggings covered with beads, extraordinary intricately beaded bustiers, or some stepped off the train with their breasts bare, as John tried not to stare. In fact, one of them walked straight up to John, enveloped in a huge embroidered coat, and slowly opened it, unveiling her flawless body, wearing only a G-string, as Fiona watched with amusement. The models loved playing with the crowd. John fought valiantly to appear calm and not squirm in his chair as the model walked away. It had been an unforgettable moment. And all the while, Fiona sat watching the girls file past with an unreadable expression, which was part of her mystique. She had a well-trained poker face that allowed no one to guess if she approved of the clothes or not. She would let the world know what she thought when she was ready to and not before. And John didn't ask her. He loved watching her, and the proceedings.
The evening gowns that came toward the end of the show were equally fabulous and unique. He couldn't imagine any of the women he knew wearing these creations to the opening of the Met, or any of the events he went to, but he loved watching them, and seeing all the drama and spectacle that surrounded the models. And when the bride came out, she was wearing a huge exaggerated version of a Masai headdress, a white painted taffeta skirt so enormous she could hardly get it off the train, and a gold breastplate entirely encrusted with diamonds. And at the instant the model stepped off the train, John Galliano appeared on a white elephant, wearing a loincloth, and an identical breastplate himself. And half a dozen of the painted warriors lifted the bride up to him, and sat her behind him on the elephant, as they both waved and were led away. The tigers and snow leopard had been removed by then, which seemed fortunate to John, as the crowd around them went absolutely berserk, screaming and shouting and cheering and applauding, as the rest of the models filed past, and the drum music got deafeningly louder. And moments later the warriors and models got on the train, and were carried out of the station. It was pandemonium on the platform, as Fiona finally turned to look at John.
“Well?” She looked amused, and could see that he was stunned. He had been mesmerized by the performance. It was heady stuff for a novice, or even an aficionado of the couture shows. But in this realm at least, John was decidedly a virgin. This was a hell of a way to go.
“Just another day at the office for you, I guess.” He smiled at her. He had loved it. “But it blew my socks off. Absolutely amazing. All of it. The clothes, the women, the warriors, the music, the animals. I didn't know where to look first.” In a far, far more glamorous way, it had reminded him of his first time at a three-ring circus. This wasn't even Disneyland. It was nirvana. “Is it always like this?”
“At Dior it is. They seem to outdo themselves every time. The old houses never did anything like this. The shows used to be elegant and sedate. But Dior has been this way ever since Galliano. It's more about theater than fashion. It's more of a publicity campaign than a serious intent to dress women. But it works for them, and the press loves it.”
“Does anyone wear the clothes?” He couldn't imagine it, although a wedding with Galliano's bride in the gold and diamond breastplate would have been interesting certainly.
“Not many. And they make a lot of changes and adjustments. There are only thirty or forty women in the world who wear couture anyway, so many of the houses are closing. The workmanship is so intense, the cost of the materials and labor so high, they all lose money on it. Which is why in some cases they make it about publicity now and not making money. But in some ways, it has an impact on ready-to-wear, and it's worth covering from that standpoint. Because sooner or later, we'll see some mutation of this on real women who buy their clothes at Barney's.”
“I can hardly wait for that,” John said, and she laughed. “I'd love to see that at my office.”
“You might at some point, in a very watered-down version. Sooner or later it gets there, in a forum and rendition tolerable to the masses. This is where it starts, in its purest form.” It was one way to look at it, and he knew she was intensely knowledgeable about her business. He had even more respect for her, and was even more fascinated by her, after seeing her in Paris. And she was obviously enjoying being with him.
As the crowd began to thin, they made their way toward the exits. They were going back to the hotel for a drink, and eventually they were going to a public swimming pool for the party hosted by Dior. But Fiona said there was no point going before midnight. It was already ten o'clock as they left the station. And ten-thirty when they got back to the hotel, and they settled in at a corner table in the bar for cocktails and hors d'oeuvres. He was starving by then, but she said she wasn't hungry. Adrian stopped in to see them for a few minutes, said he thought the show was fabulous, and every five minutes, someone else stopped to say hello to Fiona. It was more than obvious that in this realm she was queen.
“Do you ever get a break from all this?” he asked with interest.
“Not here,” she said, sipping a glass of white wine. He had ordered a martini, and he didn't complain to her that it was mostly vermouth. He didn't really care. He was having too much fun with her to care what he drank. And it was easy to see how much she loved it, not just the attention, but the ambiance. She was totally in her element, surrounded by her subjects and slaves. Everyone wanted to know what she thought of the clothes, and she was ready to admit finally that she loved them for the most part.
“What did you love about them?” he asked, intrigued.
“The workmanship, the detail, the imagination, the color, the mood. The painted skirts were fabulous, they were works of art. He really is a genius. You know, in haute couture, every single stitch in any garment must be sewn by hand. There isn't a single machine stitch in the entire collection,” she explained. It was all a mystery to John. It was about as far as you could get from the world of the little black cocktail dress that he understood. It was Fiona's world, not his. And he admired her for it. “Do you like clothes?” she asked as they munched nuts, and little hors d'oeuvres, while exotic-looking people continued to interrupt them. They were all paying homage to Fiona, and some seemed curious about John when she introduced him. But most ignored him. It was Fiona they wanted to talk to, and approached in droves.
“I like well-dressed women. This is a little beyond me, but it certainly is fun to watch. And very different.” She nodded, as yet another hanger-on stopped at their table. “You don't get much peace here.” In fact she got none at all. But she hadn't come to Paris for peace.
“I don't expect to,” she said calmly. The truth was she didn't get much peace anywhere, and didn't mind it. This was what she h
ad filled her life with instead of a husband and children. The only constants in her life were her work, Adrian, and Sir Winston. The rest was stage sets and actors who came and went onstage. She loved the visuals and the drama. “I think too much peace makes me nervous. I miss the noise.”
“How are you on vacation?” he asked with interest. It was hard to imagine her doing nothing, or alone. She seemed so much a part of the chaos she lived in, he could no longer imagine her without it, nor could she. He suspected that long term, or full time, it would drive him crazy, but it totally fascinated him for now.
“I get anxious for the first week,” she said honestly in answer to his question. “And bored the second.” They both laughed at what she'd said.
“And the third?”
“I go back to work.”
“That's what I thought. So no taking a month off on a desert island. That's too bad.”
“I spent a month in Tahiti once after I'd been sick, and my doctor insisted I go to a warm climate and rest. I nearly went out of my mind. I take my vacations in Paris, London, and New York.”
“And St. Tropez,” he added, and she smiled.
“That's more of this, with water and bikinis. It's not really peace. But it's a lot of fun.” He conceded that it would be, especially with her. She was a rare, exotic bird, with plumage as bright and colorful as what he had just seen at Dior—there was nothing small and brown and tame about her. Nothing at all. But he liked her this way. Immensely so. “Are you ready for another round of Dior?” she inquired with a look of mischief.
“More tigers and elephants and warriors?” They were intriguing, but he had had enough of them for one day.
“No, it's a water theme,” Fiona told him, but once again, when they arrived, he was completely bowled over by what they had done to an ordinary swimming pool. There was a Lucite dance floor placed over the pool, with huge exotic fish swimming under it, and girls painted to look like fish in brilliant hues with stripes of gold wearing only body paint and nothing else as they wandered through the crowd. And men in tiny gold bikinis with incredible bodies served food and drinks. The techno music was deafening as people danced and writhed on the Lucite floor. The entire party was decorated to look as though it were underwater. They served sushi and exotic seafood, and every supermodel in Paris was there, along with movie stars, photographers, socialites, aristocracy and royalty, exquisite people, and the elite of the fashion world. And again everyone knew Fiona and greeted her. It was an incredible evening, but John was grateful when they left in less than an hour. Fiona had done her duty and was satisfied to leave, as they both leaned back against the seat in the limousine, relieved to have escaped the noise.
“My God, that was quite a scene,” he said, unable to find words to comment on it. He was beginning to feel like Alice in Wonderland, or as though he had overdosed on LSD at lunch. He couldn't imagine spending a week doing this twice a year, but she seemed to thrive on it, and be unperturbed by the frenzy and turmoil. She smiled peacefully at him as they drove back to the Ritz under an incredibly beautiful Paris night sky.
“The other parties this week won't be as exotic as this. Dior goes all out.” She knew they had spent three million dollars on the party they'd just left and much more on the show they'd seen that afternoon. The other houses were more circumspect, both in their budgets and their themes. This was quite an introduction for him, and as they approached the Place Vendôme, Fiona asked the driver to stop and turned to John. “Do you want to walk for a few minutes, or are you too tired?” She liked walking in Paris before she went home to bed, but it had been a long day for both of them, and jet lag was finally catching up with her.
“I'd like that,” he said quietly, as she dismissed the car for the night, and they strolled slowly down the rue Castiglione to the Place Vendôme. Suddenly they felt like real people in a real world in the most beautiful city on the planet, and he was grateful for the exercise and the air. It seemed to restore some normalcy to the night after all the exotic things they'd experienced and seen. “I was beginning to feel like I was on drugs,” he admitted, as they walked into the square, and stopped to look in shop windows. He felt almost normal again, just tired.
“Have you had enough of it?” Fiona asked, curious about the extent of his tolerance for her milieu.
“Not yet. I'm fascinated, although today will be hard to top. I'm going to be disappointed, I think, if the other shows are anything less.”
“Not less, just more restrained. You might enjoy them more. They're not as much sensory overload as Dior. That's their stock-in-trade.”
“And yours?” he asked, as he tucked her hand in his arm and they walked on.
“Maybe. I like the beautiful and the exotic, interesting people with talent and creative spirits. I think I've gotten spoiled. Sometimes I'm not sure what normal is anymore. This is all normal to me. I forget sometimes that other people lead simpler lives.”
“You're going to be very bored if you leave all this one day, Fiona. Or maybe it will give you something exciting to write about.” But even after knowing her for such a short time, he could not imagine her doing anything other than what she was, with a flock of adoring minions revolving around her. It was heady air she breathed, and in the midst of it all, she was the queen bee, as powerful as any queen. He imagined it made it hard for her to ally with any man—and he was sure she was well aware of it. Few men would be willing to exist on the fringes of her world. And fewer still would be able or willing to participate in it. To most men, her life was like traveling on a rocket through outer space. And John felt that way too. But he enjoyed being with her, it was a rare opportunity. But not one he could have tolerated easily day to day. His own life seemed half-dead and incredibly mundane compared with hers, although he ran one of the largest ad agencies in the world. But even his world seemed tame compared to hers. He couldn't even begin to imagine what it would be like being married to her. And he wondered now if this was why she had never married, and he couldn't resist asking her as they approached the Ritz. He wondered if her single life was too much fun to give up and married life far too boring. He couldn't imagine anyone with a husband or wife staying in that world for long.
“Not really,” she said thoughtfully. “I've just never felt a need to be married, nor wanted to be. It seems so painful when it doesn't work out. I've never wanted to take that risk. Rather like jumping out of a burning building. If you're lucky, you might land in the net they hold out to you, but from what I can see, you're a lot more likely to hit the cement.” She looked at him with wide honest eyes, and he laughed, as they walked slowly into the Ritz. There were guards with dogs outside. And the paparazzi were still standing watch, waiting for celebrities to come home.
“That's one way to look at it, I guess. It's wonderful when it does work out. I loved being married. But you have to choose the right person, and maybe have a lot of luck.” They both thought of his late wife as he said it, although Fiona didn't want to go there.
“I've never liked gambling,” Fiona said honestly. “I'd rather spend my money on things I like, than risk losing it all. And I've never met anyone who I thought would really be able to tolerate being part of my life forever. I travel a lot, I'm too busy, I have a lot of crazy people around. My dog snores. And I like it all just the way it is.” Somehow, John found that hard to believe. In his mind, sooner or later, everyone realizes that they don't want to be alone. And yet, he had to admit that she seemed immensely content with her life just as it was.
“And what happens when you get old?”
“I'll deal with it. I've always thought that was a particularly stupid reason to get married. Why spend thirty years with someone who makes you uncomfortable, in order not to be alone when you get old? What if I got Alzheimer's and didn't even remember him? Think of all the time I'd have wasted being miserable, in order not to be unhappy when I'm old. That's like an insurance policy, not a union of minds and souls. Besides, I could go down in a plane next week
, and then I'd make someone terribly unhappy if something like that happened. This way the only one who'd be upset is my dog.” John found it an odd way to look at things, but she seemed comfortable with it.
It was the antithesis of the way he'd lived, with a long marriage, a wife he had loved, and two kids. And even though he'd been devastated when Ann died, he thought the years they'd shared before were well worth it. When he went, he wanted to be mourned by more than a dog. But Fiona didn't. She was very clear about it. She had seen her mother's pain each time a man left her life, and felt her own when her two long-term relationships had ended. She could only imagine that marriage, and losing a spouse, would be far worse, perhaps even unbearable. It was easier, in her mind at least, not to have one in the first place. So she filled her life with other things, pastimes, pursuits, projects, and people.
“Besides,” she continued thoughtfully, “I don't like being encumbered. Maybe I just like my freedom.” She grinned impishly at him as she shrugged her shoulders, but she did so without apology. “My life suits me as it is.” And in spite of his own very different ideas, he agreed with her. She seemed perfectly content with her existence, and made no bones about it.
Once back in the Ritz, they walked past the vitrines full of expensive items of jewelry and clothing, as he took her to the elevator on the Cambon side. Their rooms were on the third floor, and his was just down the hall from hers. He stood outside her door, as she reached into her bag to find the large blue plastic key. They put it on a heavy brass ring, and she always took the key off and left the brass part on the desk in her room. It was too heavy to drag around in her bag. John waited politely until she found it, inserted it in the electronic lock, and the door opened as she turned to thank him for coming to Paris with her. It had been fun sharing the Dior evening with him, from beginning to end. Or rather, from train station to pool.
Second Chance Page 6