Lipstick Jungle

  And when they failed, when they died, for a few days afterward, she was always in a secret black hole of shame. It wasn’t the movie that had failed, it was she. She had let herself down, and all the other people involved . . .

  “Oh, Wendy,” Shane always said, rolling his eyes with a disgusted sigh. “Why do you care so much? It’s only a stupid Hollywood movie.”

  And she would always smile and say, “You’re right, babe.” But really, he was wrong. The key to life was that you had to care—really care—about something. You had to make a commitment to your passions . . .

  Her cell phone rang. “Shane,” she whispered to the girls.

  “Lucky.” Sharline nodded and smiled. Neither Sharline nor Myra had had a serious relationship in over five years, a reality that always seemed to be on the edge of their consciousness.

  Wendy stood up to take the call out in the hall. The padded doors of the screening room closed silently behind her.

  “Hi,” she said eagerly. It was the first time they’d spoken all day.

  “Are you busy?” he asked, a little coldly, she thought. Didn’t he know she was about to start a screening? But maybe she hadn’t told him.

  “Is everything okay, sweetheart?” she asked, warm and motherly.

  “We have to talk,” he said.

  “Are the kids okay? Nothing happened to Magda, did it?”

  “The kids are fine,” he said dismissively. “We have to talk.”

  This didn’t sound good. Dozens of scenarios raced through her mind. Someone she knew was dead; they’d received a letter from the IRS demanding back taxes; his partners had thrown him out of the restaurant . . . She looked up. Victor Matrick was strolling briskly down the hall. How was it that men and mothers seemed to have a sixth sense of when it was most inconvenient to call?

  “I have to call you back. After the screening,” she said, in as normal a tone of voice as she could muster, and hung up.

  “Hello, Wendy,” Victor said, shaking her hand.

  “Good to see you, Victor. We’re all so glad you could make this.” She stood awkwardly for a second, trying to let him pass so that he could enter the screening room first. She was a woman, but he was older and more powerful. Age before beauty, she thought. But after years in the business, she still didn’t know how to handle men like Victor Matrick—the old white men in positions of authority. She hated male authority. Every time she came face-to-face with a man like Victor, she felt like a little girl again, having to go head-to-head with her father. They hadn’t had a good relationship. He was distant and dismissive of her, as if he never really expected her to amount to much (he was still surprised that she had a job, and was even more shocked by the amount of money she made—when he found out she made over three million dollars a year, his only comment was, “I don’t understand the world anymore”). Nico, on the other hand, knew exactly what to do with men like Victor. She used subtle flattery. She spoke to them on their level. She acted as if she were one of them. Wendy could never do that. She wasn’t “one of them,” so it seemed pointless to pretend.

  “Do you think we’ve got a hit here, Wendy?” he asked. Victor was one of those old corporate types who said your name again and again, supposedly to make you feel important, but probably more to intimidate you by reminding you that they had a perfect memory and you didn’t.

  “Victor,” she said. “It’s going to be huge.”

  “That’s what I like to hear from my executives. Enthusiasm,” Victor said, making his right hand into a fist and pounding it into his left. “Let’s play ball!”

  Wendy followed Victor into the screening room and sat down in the row behind him. The screen crackled to life, the white light illuminating the back of Victor’s full head of short, yellowing gray hair. Wendy pushed back into her seat, wondering, for a moment, how Victor would have reacted if she went up to him and said, “Right, Victor! Let’s play Barbies!”

  * * *

  EXACTLY ONE HUNDRED AND eleven minutes later, Tanner Cole leaned over and kissed Jenny Cadine in a horse-drawn carriage racing through the Mall in Central Park. Wendy had seen the ending hundreds of times in the editing room, but she still felt the same rush of tearful satisfaction that can only be achieved when the audience believes the world has been set right by true love. It should have been the easiest ending to achieve, but, in fact, was the most difficult. The rules were rigid: a high-status man falls in love with a lower-status, but worthy and deserving, woman. (Or girl. That was even better.) Fifty years of feminism and education and success had done little to eradicate the power of this myth, and there were times when the fact that she was selling this bullshit to women made Wendy feel uneasy. But what choice did she have? She was in the business of entertainment, not truth, and besides, how many women would eagerly sign up for the opposite: high-status woman (smart, powerful, successful) falls in love with lower-status male . . . and ends up taking care of him?

  Nah. It just didn’t have quite the same impact.

  Sharline leaned forward and tapped Wendy on the shoulder. “I want that to happen to me,” she whined, indicating the freeze-frame kiss of Tanner Cole and Jenny Cadine over which the credits had begun to roll.

  “That is never going to happen to us,” Myra snorted. “Haven’t you figured that out yet?”

  “But I want it to happen,” Sharline objected.

  “I want a yacht and a private plane. But I’m not going to get those either,” Myra hissed.

  Everyone began standing up. “It’s fantastic, baby,” Tanner Cole shouted from the front of the room.

  “Terrific job, everyone,” Victor Matrick said. “Really, really top-notch. Selden, what do you say? A hit?”

  Wendy smiled. Her stomach flipped over in a jolt of anxiety mixed with fear and anger. It was her movie, not Selden Rose’s. Selden hadn’t had anything to do with it, other than reading the script and making a few phone calls to secure Peter Simonson as the director. And now Selden had moved over to Victor and was shaking his hand, sucking up to Victor by congratulating him as if it were all Victor’s doing. That fucking namby-pamby Selden Rose with his nappy head of hair and that goofy grin (some women in the company actually thought he was handsome, but Wendy virulently disagreed) was trying to horn in on her credit . . .

  She stepped into the aisle, placing herself directly in front of Victor and Selden. It was crucial that she make her presence felt. She wasn’t often in a room with Victor Matrick, and she had to milk every possible second. She cocked her head and smiled at Selden, pretending to listen to him. She’d known Selden Rose for years, from ages ago when he was still in L.A. Selden was known for being ruthlessly ambitious. Well, so was she. Two could play at any game.

  “Victor,” she said, sycophantishly (it was sickening but had to be done), “I’ve got to congratulate you on your dedication to quality. The intelligence of Splatch-Verner is all over this movie . . .”

  Victor’s eyes glittered—with either the gleam of insanity, old age, or a combination of both—and he said, “My intelligence, Wendy, lies in hiring the best people in the world to run my companies. You’re both doing a terrific job.”

  Wendy smiled. Out of the corner of her eye she saw that Jenny Cadine and Tanner Cole were moving up the aisle toward her. In about thirty seconds, Jenny would be on top of her . . . and then her conversation with Selden and Victor would be over. Jenny would demand attention. She was a movie star, and therefore took precedence over everyone else.

  “Thank you, Victor,” Selden said, catching Wendy’s eye. “Wendy and I work very well together.”

  Wendy nearly gasped, but kept her face frozen in a rictus grin. So that was Selden’s game. She suddenly saw the whole picture: Selden wanted to incorporate Parador into his own division, MovieTime. He was angling to run both MovieTime and Parador and position himself as her boss—it was outrageous! Three years ago, when Splatch-Verner acquired Parador and she’d become president, Selden Rose hadn’t wanted anything to do with Parador . .
. there was some kind of nasty business with his ex-wife . . . and it was even rumored that Selden was rooting for Parador to fail. But then she’d turned Parador around by producing five hit movies in the last two years while MovieTime was still limping along—no wonder Selden was out for blood.

  Jenny Cadine was nearly on top of her. Wendy breathed in through her nose, hoping to give her brain a boost of oxygen. If she let Selden get away with this in front of Victor, he’d have his grubby little fingers in the crack and he’d keep pushing and pushing until he opened up a chasm.

  She had to slam his fingers in the door!

  “Selden’s been a big help to me, Victor,” Wendy said, nodding in seeming acknowledgment of Selden’s previous comment. “We only had a couple of meetings on The Spotted Pig, but Selden put us in touch with Peter Simonson, the director.” She smiled as if the whole success of the movie was due to one little phone call. “Who did an amazing job,” she concluded.

  She paused, congratulating herself on the perfection of her jab. It was enough to let Selden know that if he planned to cross the line, he was going to have a fight on his hands, while at the same time reminding Victor that, while she was in charge, she was still a team player. And the timing was brilliant. In the next second, Jenny Cadine walked up and draped herself over Wendy’s shoulder, which meant that any conversations not concerning Jenny were over.

  “Wen . . .” Jenny murmured seductively. “I’m tired. I want to come to your house for dinner tonight. Will you make me your famous lasagna?”

  Wendy patted Jenny’s arm. “You know Victor Matrick, don’t you?”

  Jenny, who was five foot nine and about 125 pounds (including at least four pounds of saline breast implants, Wendy thought), uncoiled herself with the elegance of a snake and held out a long, white arm. “Hello, Daddy,” she said, taking Victor’s hand and then leaning forward to give him a loud smooch on the check. Victor glowed. God bless Jenny, Wendy thought. She always knew which side her bread was buttered on. “I love this, big Daddy,” Jenny gushed. The group began to move toward the elevators.

  “Wendy’s working on a great new script for me,” Jenny said to Victor. Her blue eyes were enormous, and when she opened them wide for emphasis, it was impossible to turn away. “But it’s serious. We think it has Oscar potential . . .”

  “Talk to Wendy about it,” Victor said, patting her on the shoulder. “I never question my executives.” He smiled at the group and walked down the hallway to his office.

  Selden Rose pushed the elevator button. The screening room was on the second to the top floor, along with the secret elevator that went up to Victor’s private office and dining room, with the offices of the various divisions of Splatch-Verner below. Wendy’s floor was first. She kissed Jenny on the cheek and told her to come by the house at about eight. Selden was standing at the front of the elevator, fiddling with his cell phone, and Wendy wondered if he was angry. But it didn’t matter. Now that she’d buried him, she could afford to be generous. “Congratulations, Selden,” she said, and added without irony, “You did a great job.”

  Selden looked up. “It’s your project,” he said with a shrug. This was slightly surprising. Wendy had dealt with men like Selden Rose before (they were all over the movie business), and usually, this kind of subtle in-fighting led to an unspoken declaration of war. But perhaps Selden wasn’t as much of a killer as he was rumored to be—or perhaps she’d simply put him sufficiently back in his box for him to leave her alone for a couple of months. That was fine with her—she had plenty of other things to worry about. While she was walking down the hall to her corner office, her cell phone began beeping. In the last two hours, she’d accumulated fifteen new messages, including five from Josh, one from her daughter, and three from Shane. What was going on with him? He probably wanted money. He was right. They did need to talk. She wasn’t an ATM.

  She hit the speed dial for her daughter’s cell phone.

  “Hello, Motherrrrrr,” Magda said, drawing out the “r” for emphasis.

  “Hello, Countess Cootchy-Coo,” Wendy said.

  “I think you’re going to have to purchase moi a pony.”

  “I am, am I?” Wendy asked, not entirely displeased. She supposed that meant that Magda’s riding lesson with Nico’s daughter, Katrina, had gone well, which was exactly what she’d been hoping. Magda was such a funny little character. It would be good for her to have something to do with friends, something she was excited about. And besides, how much could a pony cost? It was only a miniature horse, wasn’t it? Two, maybe three thousand dollars?

  “Why don’t you find some ads for ponies on the Internet and we’ll talk about it,” Wendy said.

  Magda sighed with annoyance. “Motherrrrr. That isn’t how you find a pony. On the Internet.” The disgust in Magda’s voice was nearly palpable. “You have to fly down to Palm Beach in your private plane and there is a man who brings you the best ponies in the country . . .”

  Jesus Christ! One riding lesson and she was talking like she was going to the Olympics. How had she picked up all this nonsense? “Sweetheart, we’re not getting a pony from Palm Beach,” Wendy said patiently. “I’m sure we can find a very nice pony right here in . . . New York City.” Was that possible? Where the hell did ponies come from, anyway? But there had to be ponies somewhere. After all, New York City was home to all kinds of vermin, human and otherwise . . . weren’t there all kinds of animals and bugs living here that no one really knew about? “We’ll discuss it when I get home. Jenny C. is coming for dinner.”

  “Jenny who?” Magda asked archly.

  Wendy sighed. “The actress, Magda. You remember. She’s one of your favorites. She was Princess Pointy-Nose in that movie you loved.”

  “That, Motherrrrrr, was an animated film.”

  “She was the voice,” Wendy said. She gave up. “Is Daddy home?”

  “He is not.”

  Wendy’s phone began beeping. Shane. “Daddy’s on the other line. I’ll call you back.” She clicked over. Shane was sending a text message.

  “i wnt d*vorce,” it said.

  It was such an obvious cry for attention that Wendy nearly laughed. Shane could never want a divorce. Where would he go? How would he eat? How would he be able to afford those expensive Dolce & Gabbana shirts he loved so much?

  “don2 b sil-e,” she wrote. “i luv u.”

  “i m c-re-us.”

  “pt off dvr-c,” she wrote. “jen c cum-ing 2 dinr.” And added, as a postscript, “cum-ing. gt it?”

  * * *

  FIVE-FIFTY SEVENTH AVENUE was the most prestigious building in the Garment District. Located in the middle of the block between Thirty-ninth and Fortieth Streets, it was a narrow building with discreetly elegant appointments—the building itself was constructed of marble, and a gleaming brass revolving door led to the small foyer. On the wall was a list of the occupants, a who’s who of the fashion industry: Oscar de la Renta, Donna Karan, Ralph Lauren—and in the middle of the list, Victory Ford.

  Victory sighed as she glanced at her name, and got into the elevator. She’d moved into the building four years before, from a messy loft space on one of the side streets, giving the fashion industry the message that she had arrived. Her studio was one of the smaller ones—only part of a floor as opposed to the three floors occupied by Ralph Lauren—but in the fashion industry, half of the battle was about perception. It was one of the reasons why a designer could appear to be the talk of the town one day, and out of business the next. She’d never forgotten the afternoon when she’d come back from lunch to discover moving men in the foyer, and that William Marshall had folded . . .

  But Willy had had backers, she reminded herself, as the elevator door slowly slid shut. Above the elevator door was a long strip with the logos of each designer in the building—the logos lit up as the elevator passed the floors. The rumor was that William had still been making money, but not enough to please his backers, so they’d pulled the plug. His crime was nothing worse t
han three shaky seasons in a row . . .

  That wouldn’t happen to her, she thought fiercely. Plus, William had been huge. And she wasn’t there yet. Not quite.

  The elevator dinged, and the whimsical “Victory Ford” logo lit up. She got out and walked the few steps to the frosted glass door etched with her logo. Her stomach suddenly dropped in fear. The rent on the space was $20,000 a month. That was $240,000 a year . . .

  “Hello, Clare,” she said cheerfully to the receptionist, as if nothing were wrong. Clare was young and pretty, a hardworking Citizen Girl who was still thrilled at having landed a dream job in the glamorous fashion industry.

  “Hi,” Clare said eagerly. “How was your trip?”

  “It was great,” Victory said, sliding out of her coat. Clare made a motion as if to take it, but Victory waved her away. She would never be comfortable asking subordinates to do what every normal person should do for themselves.

  “How was Japan?”

  “Hot,” Victory said.

  “Two huge packages just arrived for you,” Clare said.

  Victory nodded. She’d been dreading their arrival all morning, ever since she talked to Mr. Ikito and he had reiterated the brilliance of his plan in hiring Ms. Matsuda to do the designs. In fact, he said, she had already done them, and they would be arriving at her office today. “No take no for answer,” he’d said.

  She was really beginning to hate him. Why hadn’t she realized how much she disliked him before?