Venus had been at the firm for only three years when Lydia Beaumont promoted her to be her assistant. A meteoric rise to be sure and she couldn’t turn the offer down, no matter how much her family razzed her about it.
They had never approved of her working for “The Man” anyway, let alone one disguised as a beautiful woman.
Her sister was her worst critic.
“You a ho, Venus.”
“Kiss my–”
“Stop it, both of you!”
“C’mon, Mama. She’s such a–”
“Out, Jasmine!”
“Yeah,” Venus said. “Git.”
Jasmine huffed and ran out. Venus heard the door slam and put her head in her hands. Her father, who had been completely silent this afternoon, got up from the table and left the room.
“What do ya’ll expect me to do,” Venus finally implored, “march on Washington or something? I don’t see any of you making sacrifices.”
Her mother raised her hand to end the discourse. “How’s Michael taking all this?” she asked.
Venus was too perturbed to change her tone. “What do you care, anyway?”
“Well I do care. I care about my baby girl. I was hoping he was right with it, that’s all.”
“He’s fine, Mama. He’s not contesting it.”
Divorce. What next? “Then you’re lucky, Venus. This time, anyway.”
“This time? What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing, baby. Eat your food. Why are you always on edge? If you don’t like coming here then you don’t have to. She’s just a kid, Venus. She’s only teasing.”
Venus hesitated before responding. “I get you this beautiful place–remember how we used to have to live?–and all I get is hassle when I come home.” She pointed toward the living room. “He doesn’t even speak to me.”
“He never did, Venus, so don’t you fret over it. Eat. Everyone knows what you done for us. Eat.”
“Maybe the food’s not bland enough,” Venus heard her father say from the couch. “She likes everything bland now.”
“Blond, my ass,” Venus muttered in return and with that she got up, kissed her mother goodbye and took a cab downtown to Frank’s Place.
_____
Frank’s was crowded and rowdy this Friday. Harry, the waiter, sat Venus temporarily at the bar and apologized profusely for inconveniencing her. It was against his policy to seat women alone at the bar, especially pretty women, which Venus was. When her table was finally ready, she found he had left a glass of cognac for her. On the house, he said, in passing. She thanked him and shot it down.
Michael had been such a love about everything; an uncontested divorce. Venus had shared the news with her family only because it was something they had to know. There was no way around it.
So that was that and she would be free again and she didn’t have to wear this silly ring anymore. But she didn’t exactly relish having to sleep alone either. What could she do about that? she wanted to know this Friday, this minute. The cognac burned. Nothing.
Lydia Beaumont. Lydia. Beaumont.
They had not been to the club together in weeks. In fact, Lydia had taken time off so the knee would heal. She was expected back on Monday. In the interim, Venus had asked her husband for a divorce. It seemed right. She hailed Harry and ordered another cognac, some fries and wings, a mesclun salad.
Beaumont and Kristenson were happily married. What could she do about that? Harry brought the salad. Nothing. She thanked him. Nothing, that’s right. And no one knew better than Venus just how happily married they were. It was Venus who delivered Helaine’s cryptic love messages to Lydia at the office. Venus who saw the focus go out of Lydia’s eyes after she got them. Venus who was forced to observe for the rest of the day the dreamy-eyed VP proceeding then hot and distracted. Another cognac. Another thank-you. Venus had been to their home and to their cocktail parties and to their dinner gatherings and every other kind of event, in every other kind of setting and it was no act, they were happy with each other. Harry brought the wings and fries. She thanked him again. She could see the sparks fly from one to the other, those fireworks. That they were still fresh in love was so painfully clear, their sex life so… well, they never even noticed anyone else. The wings were very hot. Had she said painfully clear or painfully hot? She gulped the cognac down. God, everything tasted like jet fuel tonight. She searched the room for the headwaiter, her mouth on fire.
A good waiter is hard to find. Harry was better than good. He was a mind reader. “Here you go,” he said, depositing a glass of water.
That man did everything right. “Thank you.”
Mr. Right! What if Mr. Right is somebody’s missus? What if she was a pair of well-toned thighs and dreamy blue eyes and a to-die-for sultry mouth? Why didn’t the Love Doc write about that? Why didn’t she write about getting Mr. Right, huh? Maybe getting is much more difficult than keeping.
Getting, keeping, whatever. The immediate problem would be sleeping alone again. And dodging Paula tomorrow night. Where’s Michael? Why didn’t you bring your husband, Angelo?
She’d have to rehearse some lines for the Treadwell’s dinner party, but for right now, oh, man, how the thought of sleeping alone again horrified her. She sized up the situation at the bar and made a quick selection. I sleep alone for fucking no one, she reminded herself, deliberately passing over the guy with the dark hair and blue eyes for the hazel-eyed cutie standing beside him. Why should she sleep alone? For a woman? She winked at him and felt her ring under the table. He smiled confidently, laid a tip on the bar and headed toward her. Ah, that wedding ring. She pulled it off and hid it in her vest pocket. She’d have to put the darn thing on again tomorrow, just for appearance’s sake and so Paula wouldn’t notice and interrogate her about it. Tonight though, she wasn’t into sleeping alone. Not for no one. Not even Mr. Right.
She asked the gentleman to join her for dinner. He did.
_____
“Tell me about Venus.”
Lydia gave Helaine a mysterious look. “Tell you what, Lana?”
“What is her story? I find her so impressive.”
“Her story? Her story is that she was a child prodigy. Completed her undergraduate studies by age nineteen, graduate, MBA by twenty-two, Soloman-Schmitt twenty-three, assistant to the vice president twenty-six. Married last year. No children–or no children as yet. Athletic, honest, hardworking, indispensable.”
“And beautiful.”
“And beautiful, of course. But you don’t need that to work for Soloman-Schmitt.”
“Hah! But between the two of you it is looking rather like a market trend.”
“Now you flatter. You are attracted to my assistant, Dr. Kristenson?”
Helaine paused for a second. “No, my dear. You are.”
Lydia coughed and sat up. “I am?”
“Oh, yes. You are.”
“Lana, I really don’t think so.”
“I saw it last night at the dinner party. It happens to people all the time, Lydia Beaumont. Even people like you.”
“Helaine! You say this as casually as you might say, ‘darling, you have food on your chin.’ I am not attracted to Venus Angelo.”
“Oh, not true. I would be quite alarmed if you had food on your chin.”
“Oh? Good to know. And it would not alarm you if I was attracted to my assistant, which I adamantly deny?”
“It would alarm me if you were in love with your assistant, which you are not.”
Lydia put her head on Helaine’s bare shoulder and breathed down her neck. “Lana?”
“Yes?”
“I really wanted to rip that dress off you, last night. Did you happen to give any notice to that?”
“Yes, darling. I did see that, too.”
“Why don’t you be sweet to me then and put it on?”
“Now? Tonight?”
“Now. Tonight.”
Helaine threw her head back and laughed. “You have so very litt
le discipline in this department. For such a highly disciplined woman.”
“And does that alarm you?
Helaine thought for a moment. “No. I’ll be right back.”
Chapter 4
Flatterers Must Be Shunned
Paula Treadwell shunned flattery and surrounded herself with wise women and men who did not offend her if they spoke the truth. That is, when she asked them to. By example, Lydia Beaumont, too, chose for her counsel people of wisdom and integrity and gave them full liberty to speak the truth. That is, whenever she asked them to. Helaine Kristenson, on the other hand, with far more porous boundaries than the other two ladies, chose trustworthy friends and associates, but gave them license to speak the truth whenever they damn well pleased, and this, she hoped, would be all the time. Usually it was. Of course, truth is so subjective these days.
“Swell dinner party that was. Put the thank-you note in the mail already. You looked like an exotic dessert,” Robert Keagan Esq. said into his coffee.
Kay Keagan smirked. “Or exotic hors d’oeuvres.”
Helaine beamed. “It’s nice to be edible, but it took me weeks to get into that dress.”
“And only a few minutes for Lydia, I bet.”
“Well…she is pretty handy.”
Lunch at Frank’s with her old friends. Helaine had resumed going there again, usually on weekdays, now and then on Saturdays, as she used to before all hell had broken out.
Total hell, but that was years ago. Things had quieted down since then and she was no longer sinking in scandal and front page exposés, courtesy of her ex “pal” Sharon Chambers, who was no longer super-modeling these days, having herself settled down into super-motherhood, a status that seemed, at least for the time being, to be keeping her too busy to make any more trouble for Helaine and Lydia. Of, course, the ten-year gag order Robert Keagan had slipped by Team Chambers did a great deal to contribute to the peace. Helaine was always grateful to him for it and from time to time expressed her gratitude, but he disliked the subject and rarely spoke of their past ordeal. Things had not gone their way and if Lydia hadn’t met Sharon’s demands, he knew they’d still be fighting the tarantula today, not to mention that Sharon’s kiss-and-tell would have long since been published, and who could predict the fallout from that, or what it might have done to Helaine’s career, or Lydia’s for that matter? Certainly, the ladies would never have been comfortable enough to marry if the melee dragged on still, or carried itself into the next decade.
“Tell me about Venus Angelo,” Robert asked.
Helaine glanced at him. “What do you want to know?”
He raised his eyebrows and shrugged. “Everything, I guess. She’s quite smitten with your wife, you know. I mean, I’m assuming you know that.”
She did. She had noticed that as well, although this observation she had kept secret from Lydia. She was still wondering when it had happened. She had met Venus on a handful of other occasions and had never detected it, so either it had escaped her attention, which she doubted, or it was something Ms. Angelo could no longer conceal. It was made more problematic by the discovery that Lydia was sexually attracted to the girl, albeit only mildly. A recent development as far as the doctor could tell. “She’s married,” Helaine said. “And so is Lydia.”
Kay nudged her husband under the table.
“I’m just curious,” he said. “They work closely together?”
Kay sighed impatiently.
Helaine cleared her throat. “She is Lydia’s assistant. Quite able, I hear. Loyal and honest. Have you suddenly no faith in Ms. Beaumont, Robert? Or do you know something I don’t?”
“I have nothing but faith in Lydia. It is Venus Angelo I doubt, perhaps because I simply don’t know her as well as you must.”
Helaine chewed her bottom lip. The truth was that she didn’t know very much at all about Lydia’s assistant except her professional qualifications, that she was married, that she was young and beautiful, that she was more than a little smitten with Lydia.
Helaine Kristenson absolutely abhorred being jealous of anyone. And Dr. Kristenson counseled her patients against it. Jealousy, she often preached, was to be avoided at all costs, lest it play a critical role in the disintegration of one’s union. She was not going to flirt with jealousy now. Not ever, if she could help it. She regained her composure, smiled and said, “I am registering your concerns and will keep an eye on the situation. Okay?”
He smiled and finished his mimosa. “Smart girl,” was his reply.
Kay’s shadow stabbed him to death.
_____
“Oh, come on. ‘Men will always be false to you unless they are compelled by necessity to be true.’ You know this stuff.”
“Paula? You’re saying you can’t trust Angelo anymore?”
“Open your eyes, Beaumont. Why is she true to you? Because you are the vice president of the Fortune 500 company that employs her? Or is there, perhaps, some other necessity?”
“My eyes are open. I don’t see–did I ask for your opinion on this? I don’t believe I did.”
“Ah-hah! I caught you. The girl is smitten with you not her job, and you know it. And if you don’t know it, you don’t want to know it. Anyone with an eye for such things can see how much she idolizes you. And can you think of anyone else you might know who does have an eye for such things, Beaumont? Hmm? How about a world renowned sex therapist? Know any of those? Yes, well, your blond is no dummy and if she makes a stink over it–which I would do if I were in her place, any woman would, the girl is a knockout in every way–then you won’t be able to concentrate on your work and then Soloman-Schmi–”
“Paula! Soloman-Schmitt? This is about Soloman-Schmitt? I will not demote my assistant. That is not in the best interests of Soloman-Schmitt. I will never do it.”
Paula stared into her martini. Presently she responded, “You’re right,” and turned to Delilah Lewiston. “Is she the most obtuse person you have ever met or what?”
Lydia’s eyes met Delilah’s. “Okay, Del. Say it, please.”
Delilah had been silent throughout this exchange. She had missed the Treadwell’s dinner party, but Lydia’s reaction puzzled her. “Has Helaine said anything about this?”
Lydia balked at the question. She was not going to divulge what Helaine had actually said, but compared to this scene, she seemed the least concerned, the least threatened by the situation. If she was, Lydia doubted she would ever make a stink. It wasn’t her style. Besides there was nothing to it, nothing whatsoever to make a stink over. “Del, very little. Not like this nonsense.”
“Then it’s your call, Paula. I trust Liddy completely.”
Lydia smiled triumphantly. Paula pushed the food around her plate and dropped her fork in it for effect.
“I don’t want anymore scandal involving the firm and I do want you to pay attention to the situation, for chrissake. How can you be so ignorant? What–someone has to get naked and climb into your lap before you know they’ve got the hots for you? Grow up, Beaumont, and pay closer attention to the world you live in.”
Delilah choked back a laugh. It was true. Lydia Beaumont was the most obtuse person in the world. Scarcely aware most times that it even existed. And yet that world seemed so preoccupied with reminding Dame Beaumont that it was there.
Lydia looked askance. Delilah looked away.
_____
“Why are you always snickering at my predicaments?” Lydia demanded, after lunch was over and Paula had left them on the sidewalk to mull over her indictments. “Why is everything so funny to you?”
“It is funny, Liddy. Let’s go get drunk and get our names in the police blotter, make some headlines. That’ll show Paula Treadwell.”
Lydia laughed at the notion and then fell silent, as if everything Paula had said was finally hitting home. “Geesh, I’ve already gone through that nightmare. My name in all the papers. I sure wouldn’t want to go there again.”
“Yeeaah! So pay attention, Liddy.
Like the woman says.”
_____
“Sales are stable and still pretty high so they’re not anxious by any means, but they could be boosted with a revised edition. Some updated entries or the like. That’s not an uncommon marketing approach.”
Helaine was meeting with her agent this afternoon, her nose still bent about Venus, about Robert’s boldness in broaching the subject. Was it that obvious to other people?
“Dr. Kristenson?”
“Look, Sam, parts of the material are already so controversial. How could it ever get old?” This was becoming an annual event. The publisher’s request for a revised edition, her reluctance to provide it.
“They’re not actually asking for new content here and they’re not actually requesting that you really change anything or rack your brains for something new. They’d just like to see a little something different so it wouldn’t be exactly fraudulent on their part to claim that this is a new and revised edition. It’ll shoot up the charts again for a few weeks, maybe stay up there a few months and boost their sales for the end of the year. You find that too unethical, Dr.? Or are you simply too busy to accommodate the request? If so, they’re willing to hire someone to assist you. That is, if you would authorize it.”
An assistant. Helaine scoffed inaudibly. If Venus’ infatuation was so apparent to Robert and Kay, then who else had noticed it? Sharon’s exploits had been humiliating enough, especially since they were so frequently publicized, but Lydia’s would be devastating. Lydia was so much the opposite of Sharon. So…so faithful.
“Can I make a suggestion?” Sam asked.
She shook her head. Ultimately she didn’t believe it. Lydia was not the adulterous type. Maybe she would be, though, if she was hounded relentlessly about Venus, if Helaine made unreasonable demands and ultimatums as some jealous mates are wont to do. Wouldn’t that make Venus seem appealing? A refuge from the terrible nag waiting at home.
Fortune Is a Woman Page 2