Maxi raised her eyebrows so high that they disappeared under her rumpled bangs. “With three more issues to go, that’s over seven million dollars … still, it’s not as bad as the Defense Department. My auction had better break some records.”
“Don’t try to increase your circulation,” Monty warned her. “Success kills.”
“Don’t worry. I do understand that much. Is this the only business in the world where the product costs the manufacturer more to make than it costs the person who buys it?”
“Ever heard of movies?” Monty asked sadly. “Or theater? Or ballet or opera or concerts? Or television shows that don’t work?”
“So, essentially, we’re in show business?” Maxi summed up.
“Damn right we are,” Monty brooded.
“If you had money, would you put it into show business?”
“No,” Monty mourned. “Show business is two dirty words.”
“If you don’t cheer up, I’ll goose you,” Maxi threatened. He gave her a bleak grimace that tried to pass for a smile.
“We’d better pray that the price of paper or printing or distribution doesn’t go up,” Maxi said thoughtfully.
“And that Barney Shore doesn’t drop dead,” Monty added helpfully.
“I hope you can run fester than I can, you bastard,” Maxi exclaimed, charging at him, her middle finger already in position. “Here I come!”
“Frankly, Maxi, I think you’re bonkers, obsessed, over the hill,” India said as she unpacked the nine suitcases she had brought for a week’s stay. “If someone wanted to buy my family business, and the payoff meant that I’d have more money than I’ve ever heard of, I’d jump at the chance. You can’t even be sure that your father wouldn’t have sold if UBC had made him an offer.”
“He was only sixty-one when he died. I’m positive that he would never have sold and retired. What would he have done with the rest of his life? He lived for his magazines. They were his anchor, and he was my anchor. Don’t you understand?”
“And you identify with him? A sort of transference?”
“I guess someone like you would feel the need to put it into that particular, simple-minded jargon. I see you’ve discussed it with Doctor Florence Florsheim.”
“Naturally,” India said with dignity. “I try not to talk about you, but it’s getting more and more difficult since I met Toby.”
“And what did the good woman say?”
“She said maybe you didn’t want a hundred million dollars.”
“Oh, so she’s started to have opinions, has she?”
“About other people, sure. She’s human, after all. She just doesn’t have opinions about me, or at least she doesn’t tell me about them bluntly. She lets me arrive at my own conclusions about her opinions.”
“India, would it surprise you to know that she’s right? I don’t want a hundred million dollars.”
“Why ever not?”
“Ever since you became a movie star you’ve been complaining about how being publicly beautiful is a drag. How many women do you know who would understand that problem? And sympathize? You keep moaning about how this special and particular arrangement of your chromosomes has turned you into some kind of freak; how strangers get all sorts of delusional notions about you because of the particular way your cheekbones slant, because of the size of your eyes and their color; how millions of people project impossible dreams on your frail little shoulders based on the shape of your chin, the length of your nose, the color of your hair, and God knows what else. You say that no one can see ‘the real you’ but an old friend like me, or Toby, who’s blind, or your analyst, who doesn’t care. You complain that you intimidate people just because of an accident of birth; that they make you shy because you know what they’re thinking; that you can’t make friends with other women because of envy; that your looks invite the unwelcome attention of all kinds of sick creeps like that guy who keeps phoning and writing you those awful letters. Are you still getting them, by the way?”
“Unfortunately, yes. Please don’t mention it in front of Toby—my ‘fan’ called here today, he’s getting crazier by the minute. But let’s not talk about him. And anyway, what do weird types like that have to do with money?”
“Money invites the same kind of fantasies, only worse. You used to be smarter, India. People would read about the sale in the papers—whenever a private company is sold the details get spread all over the financial pages and leak over into the regular press, and I’d never seem even remotely human again. I’d be one of those immensely rich women whose fortunes get listed in magazines and any chance I still have of leading a normal life would disappear. As it is, it’s bad enough. When people meet me for the first time I can actually see the pupils of their eyes change, as if I glowed in the dark, had a halo or an aura. They can never see me without it; it taints every word they say, and makes them shut up and listen when I make the most banal remark. Money is great and it’s also a serious barrier to being allowed to join the rest of the human race.” Maxi sighed, and twisted her white streak into a corkscrew curl.
“There are times, particularly at the office, when I’m genuinely just one of the gang, and it’s heaven. Being an Amberville obviously means being rich, but nobody knows exactly how rich, and it’s that particular detail, that number, that dollar value, that Americans get off on. And not just Americans. Everybody. It makes them crazy. And as bad as it would be for me, it would be much worse for Angelica, because at least I’m my own person, I more or less know who I am, and who my friends are, but Angelica would be so exposed, so much in the spotlight as she grew up. Now she’s still a regular little girl.”
“She may be regular but she’s not a little girl anymore. Not the last time I looked, which was this morning,” India said.
“She’s only twelve and a bit,” Maxi said defensively.
“Going on thirteen and watch out! Raging hormones. She’ll be rich and insanely beautiful. She’s got Rocco’s looks, that kid. You’re still terribly pretty, Maxi, even if you are almost thirty,” India said, giving her a slow, professional, critical assessment, “but nothing to compare with Angelica. No offense meant.”
“No offense taken, creep. After all I only married Rocco because he was so handsome.”
“If I remember correctly, there was just a bit more to it than that.”
“The worst thing about old friends is that they don’t have the grace to disremember. Rocco always was a miserable grouch but as he gets older he gets worse. He’s so flawed that it’s hard to pick out his worst aspect but I think that probably it’s his ingratitude. I cured his head cold and he’s never called to thank me.”
“Do you know how to cure head colds? That could be valuable; science has been looking for a way for years,” India commented dubiously.
“Only certain head colds. What’s more I almost gave him a bunch of presents for something he did for Justin. I didn’t because that’s when my money ran out, but it’s just as well. He has a basically odious nature.”
“I always liked Rocco,” India announced with determination. “He must still be divine to look at, at least.”
“Some people might think so, I suppose, but it won’t last much longer, no beauty does, you know,” Maxi said. “Not even yours,” she added in a compassionate voice.
“Tell me, Maxi, how’s your sex life?” India inquired, her turquoise eyes unswervingly observant. “Something seems to be biting your ass. I detect a little oversensitivity, a degree of irritability. Knowing you, it’s got to be a new man.”
“Ha! Who has time for sex? I’ve forgotten about it. When you’re as busy as I am, sexual appetites just go away somewhere and you don’t miss them.”
“So that’s what it is, lack of libido. On the other hand it’s the only thing I can think of to keep you out of trouble. Remember, you’ve taken a vow never to marry another man.”
“Who would I marry? And more to the point, why would I marry? Who was it who said, ‘I’ve been
a man and I’ve been a woman and there’s got to be something better’? That’s the way I feel about marriage.”
“I think you’re scrambled. Didn’t Tallulah Bankhead say, ‘I’ve had a man and I’ve had a woman and there’s got to be something better’?”
“Never mind,” Maxi said. “You know what I mean.”
“Actually not. I can’t think of anything I want more than marriage,” India said wistfully.
“Not having tried it, naturally you’re tempted. Anyway, Toby is a hundred times superior to any of my husbands. If you can only manage to talk him into it.”
“That would make us sisters-in-law and I don’t know if I could live with your currently pessimistic view of the world. Cheer up. If everything falls apart at B&B and you end up wildly, ridiculously rich you can give it all away to charity. Or you could start your own cult. You could buy the Getty—no, you wouldn’t have enough for that. Well, you could buy a movie studio and get rid of the money that way, faster than you think.”
“Why don’t you write a novel called Unsolicited Advice? Or maybe one called I Also Do Windows?” Maxi suggested, tweaking India’s famous nose. “I appreciate your thoughts and comments, but, you see, I am in show business already.”
Man Ray Lefkowitz and Rap Kelly, Rocco’s partners, having lunch together, sat in the Perigord Park eating shad roe and covertly eavesdropping on Maxi who was at the next table working over the most important space buyer on the Seagram account. Her voice, as it drifted over to them, was as potent as a dose of nitroglycerine wafting up a man’s spine, yielding, addictive and yet businesslike, maintaining a firm borderline that never crossed over into the overtly seductive.
“We’ve finally got the demographics, George,” Maxi said. “You’re one of the first to know.” She sounded almost clandestine yet somehow ingenuous. “Naturally it took time to collect them, but our four million readers are, on the average, working women as well as wives and mothers. She’s between nineteen and forty-four years old and last year she personally earned over twenty-six thousand dollars, which is roughly twenty-two percent of all the income earned by all the women in America put together. And George, teetotaler she most definitely is not. She buys B&B because it makes her feel good—that you know already. But did you know that seventy percent of our readers read B&B while they’re enjoying a drink? Maybe relaxing from their work, maybe just sitting around waiting for their guys to arrive, maybe making dinner—we don’t have the breakdown on that yet, but the figures should be in soon. B&B is simply not the sort of magazine you read when you’re on a diet and have decided to cut out wine and liquor—our reader is too busy being nice to herself, day in, day out. She’s the sort who celebrates … and if there’s nothing to celebrate, she decides to celebrate anyway.”
“Are you sure she’s not an alcoholic, Maxi?” George asked. Maxi turned slightly toward him, with the faintest necessary movement, the minimal successful movement of someone who knows that she has the best legs, the best posture that shows off the best breasts, the best shoulder pads and the best haircut of any woman in the room.
“You have a delightful sense of humor for such an attractive man,” Maxi said, with enough of a twist of diabolical mockery mixed into her winsome flattery to make him wonder exactly what she had meant … all that night long. “So many otherwise sensational men lack humor. They take themselves so seriously.”
“I know what you mean,” George assured her, pedaling like mad. Where exactly was she coming from? “Interesting demographics. Very interesting. Four million women, all sipping a drink and reading B&B.”
“Now, George, I never said that. Only seventy percent of my four million readers drink while they read B&B. The others do other things. Then they drink. That’s why I have so many liquor clients who want to buy next year’s run of the back cover.”
At the next table the two men eyed each other with faces that were a study in willful blankness.
“Kelly, she can’t get away with that,” whispered Lefkowitz. “George won’t buy it. Nobody would buy such a blatant lie.”
“Wanna bet?” Kelly hissed at him.
“Actually, no. I mean, look at her, for goodness’ sakes. Yum.”
“After all, what does it cost him? He’s not spending his own money,” said Kelly, finally laughing.
“Where do you suppose she gets the demographics?”
“Pravda?” Kelly ventured.
“They’re more accurate. Listen, let’s do her a good deed,” proposed Lefkowitz. “Rocco’s been awfully uncreative lately. We’ve only pulled down two new accounts since that magazine of Maxi’s started. All right, they each bill about twenty-five million a year, but I still think something is bothering him. I wouldn’t be surprised if it isn’t connected to worrying about the success of B&B—you know what it’s like to have an ex-wife who goes into business.”
“Tell me. No, don’t tell me, I know,” Kelly amended quickly.
“Let’s be nice to her.”
“Rocco said that we weren’t to give her any favored-nations treatment.”
“I just said nice,” Man Ray Lefkowitz said, “nothing extravagant.”
They paid their check and rose to leave, passing Maxi’s table as they turned toward the door.
“Miss Amberville, I didn’t see you there,” Kelly said. “Oh, hi, George, how’d you get so lucky? Trying to get the jump on the rest of the space buyers? Naughty boy—but I don’t blame you. I hope you’re paying for lunch. Miss Amberville, may I say how pleased we are with our buys in B&B? Best deals we ever made.”
“Just a minute, Kelly,” said Lefkowitz, who saw, not to his surprise, that Kelly had cast him in the role of the bad cop. “Just one tiny minute. I think that B&B owes us a favor. We bought in before the first issue was published. That showed confidence and the willingness to take a risk on a new book. I think that as far as the proposed changes in ad rates are concerned, we should get some sort of break. Something, I don’t know what, but something, damn it! I’m not suggesting that we can renew at those start-up giveaway prices … but I’ll be very unhappy if we don’t deserve some kind of favored-nations treatment. After all, Miss Amberville is almost a member of the family.”
“Hey, guys, take it easy,” Maxi said sweetly. “I’ll split the difference … on one buy. Tell Rocco that there’s no way, no way in the world, that I’m about to give away space in my magazine this time around. I suppose he told you to hit on me?”
“Those weren’t his exact words,” Kelly said sheepishly.
“No, Rocco always speaks of you with respect. He did say that this was the time to buy, if you were selling, but he wasn’t taking anything for granted, just because … well, because of old times’ sake,” Lefkowitz finished delicately.
“Where,” asked Maxi, “are the snow jobs of yesteryear?”
“Do you fellows intend to join our table or just stand there?” George asked in irritation. “I’m trying to do a little business here. See you two around, huh?”
* * *
“I hope that your auction is coming up soon,” Monty said, watching Maxi sign checks toward the end of May. “Tomorrow would be good. Today would be better.”
“It isn’t exactly tomorrow,” Maxi said, carefully casual. “I thought all I had to do was make a phone call and it would happen like that—sort of a superior garage sale. But no, Sotheby’s tells me that the jewelry can’t be sold until their next jewelry sale in the fall—it’s past the season now, there aren’t enough rich people in town, it’s too soon to be pre-Christmas, all sorts of silly reasons. And my collections are just too varied: the pictures have to wait till exactly the right big picture sale; the boxes won’t bring as much until they’re included in a major box sale. Boring. Almost the only thing that they can sell in June is my furniture. Auction-arranging is some sort of fine art in itself and they refuse to let me rush them into anything. Apparently I didn’t have quite enough of everything to warrant their doing a special auction of all my possessi
ons at the same time; unless I’d dropped dead, which, I gather, would have given everything a certain cachet and brought in more money.” Maxi shrugged it off: a petty problem.
“June! You’re not getting any more money until then?”
“You heard me. And who knows how much it will be, after they finish taking out their commission? The apartment turns out to have been my major asset and Donald was only able to sell it for almost the six million he gave me. I returned the difference. It had something to do with the overvalued dollar. Almost half of Trump Tower is owned by foreigners and last month they weren’t spending dollars. Ah—go figure the economy. It’s a waste of time.”
“We’re in very deep into … waste products, Maxi.”
“Eighty-five percent—maybe more—of the advertisers have renewed at the new rates.”
“Some of them don’t go into effect until July, many of them not till August or September.”
“Why don’t we borrow from a bank against the page rate increases? Our advertisers are all major companies. They’re good for the money. No, Monty, don’t tell me we can’t. I know it already … I’ve tried.”
“If it were up to me, I’d lend you anything but I’m not a bank. I wish I were.” Monty sighed as if he were about to be embalmed. “Don’t you think it’s time to ask the staff to take pay cuts?”
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