Lipstick Jungle

  She had sighed, pulling the valise out from underneath a pile of shoes in the closet. “I have to provide. Remember what Dr. Vincent said? I’m only trying to do my part. Providing for the family.”

  Shane was too clever for her. “Dr. Vincent says there’s a line between providing and escaping.”

  A terrible thought crossed her mind. Dr. Vincent was right. She did want to escape. From Shane, her nagging Mousewife. She wondered when Dr. Vincent would get to that part of the program.

  But suddenly she felt guilty. She mustn’t think about Shane that way, ever. He was only trying to do his best and what was best for the family. So she’d turned around and begun giving him a blow job. She was on her knees anyway, so what the hell.

  “We were supposed to see Shirlee tonight. She isn’t going to be happy,” he said afterward. He left the room and returned a couple of minutes later. “It’s okay after all. Shirlee said we can reschedule a phone session with her tomorrow. So what time is good for you . . . ?”

  From Romania?

  Poooooo. Pooooo, went the hum of the engines.

  She opened her eyes and ripped off her sleeping mask. She was all keyed up now. She looked at her watch. Seven p.m. New York time. One a.m. in Paris, and two a.m. in Romania. The pill hadn’t worked, and now she’d never get to sleep.

  She sat up, pressing the button to raise the bed into a sitting position. She reached into her valise and took out two scripts. One was the screenplay for Ragged Pilgrims, filled with her notes, and the second one was the shooting script with the scenes rearranged by day. Together, these documents were her bible. Then she took out her computer, turned it on, and inserted a disk.

  The disk contained the dailies from the last two weeks. Ragged Pilgrims was shot on film, and every two days a special courier from the production department would fly from Romania to New York to deliver the film to the processing center in Queens. He would then drive the film to the Splatch-Verner building where she would screen it. After that, the film was digitally copied onto a disk, so she could go back and study it more thoroughly on her computer.

  She put the shooting script on her lap and began watching the dailies, comparing her notes to what she was seeing on her computer screen.

  She gritted her teeth in frustration, causing a sharp pain in her jaw just below her ear. That was all she needed right now—a TMJ flare-up. She’d had it on and off for years, and it always happened when she was overwhelmingly stressed. She pressed down hard on her jaw, trying to loosen the muscles. There was nothing she could do other than live with the pain.

  She peered at the screen again. She was right, she thought, so far the dailies were a disaster. She’d been in this business for nearly twenty-five years, and she had absolute confidence in her opinions. The problem wasn’t that the actors weren’t saying the correct lines, it was the way they were saying them and the tone of the scenes that was all wrong. This was the impossible part of moviemaking, the art of it, in a sense: getting your vision and what was in your head onto the screen. But that distance was a chasm, filled with hundreds of people—all of whom had their own ideas.

  Like Bob Wayburn, the director. She grimaced. She and Bob were literally not on the same page when it came to Ragged Pilgrims, and he knew it. This was the reason Bob had refused to take her calls for the past two weeks. It was outrageous but not unusual, and in some circumstances she would have let it go. If, for instance, Bob was right—if he was teasing a nuance out of the script that she hadn’t envisioned herself—or if there was enough material in the dailies to fix the movie in editing. She always made visits to the locations and sets of every movie Parador produced, and if the circumstances were slightly different, she would have been able to put off the trip to Romania for a few more days, until after the weekend, after Magda picked out her pony. But Ragged Pilgrims wasn’t the average movie. It was the kind of film that came along once every five to ten years, a movie with heart and intelligence and fascinating characters. It was, in short, what people in the industry referred to as “worthy.”

  She read through a few lines of the script, not that she necessarily needed to. She knew every line of dialogue, every stage direction, by heart. She’d been working on the project for five years, having bought the rights to the book, Ragged Pilgrims, when it was in manuscript form six months before it even became an actual book. No one, not even the publisher, had any idea that the book would go on to become an international best seller, remaining at the top of the New York Times’s best-seller list for over a year. But she had known. Sure, anyone in the business could figure out that they should option a book once it became a best seller. But knowing what was going to be a hit before it happened took a special kind of talent. She could still remember the experience of reading the first paragraph of Ragged Pilgrims, climbing into bed with the manuscript, exhausted but pushing herself to do another half-hour of work. It was after eleven, and Shane was next to her, watching TV. She’d had a lousy day. She was in a different job then—a producer at Global Pictures with her own production company—and Global had just hired a new president. The word was that he only wanted to do young, male-driven movies, and that Wendy was going to be one of the first to go. She remembered turning to Shane in despair. “I don’t know that it’s worth it, anymore,” she’d said. “No one seems to want to make the kinds of pictures I would even want to see.”

  “Oh Wendy,” Shane sighed, not taking his eyes off the TV screen. “You’re always so dramatic. Just get over it.”

  She’d given him a dirty look and started reading.

  Almost immediately, her heart began pounding in excitement. She turned the first page with a shaking hand. After three pages, she turned to Shane. “This is it,” she said.

  “What?” he asked.

  “The movie. The one I’ve been waiting for.”

  “Don’t you always say that?” he asked and yawned. He rolled over and turned out the light.

  She went into the kitchen. She stayed up all night reading, seated on a stool at the butcher-block countertop.

  Ragged Pilgrims was about the poignant adventures of three American nurses stationed in Europe during World War One, with female Hemingway-esque undertones. At nine a.m. she called the agent and made a deal to buy the option for $15,000, using her own savings for the purchase. It was, she thought, one of the smartest investments she’d ever made. Ragged Pilgrims could be an Oscar-winner—would be an Oscar-winner, she reminded herself—and by using her own money, she had ensured her involvement with the project. It meant that when she took it to a studio, they couldn’t take it away.

  Six months later, Ragged Pilgrims went on to be a best seller, and she was offered the position as president of Parador Pictures. She brought Ragged Pilgrims to Parador, and had spent the last four years fighting for it. Fighting to get the screenplay just right (it had taken three years and six screenwriters), and then going to bat for the project, insisting it would be a hit. The problem was the budget—the locations and costumes turned the movie into a $125 million picture—the most money Parador had ever put up for a film.

  Everyone at Parador was scared, except her. But that’s why she was the president and they weren’t. And until recently, until the past two weeks when they’d begun shooting, she’d been unshakable in her belief that the movie would be a hit, it would make money, and would be nominated for at least ten Oscars. And then she had seen the dailies.

  The movie was, at heart, a feminist film, and she could tell by the dailies that Bob Wayburn was a man who secretly hated women. Bob Wayburn was her only blunder, but it was a big one, and she’d overplayed her hand in hiring him, thinking he would bring a balanced perspective to the material. Instead, he was clobbering it. Bob Wayburn couldn’t be trusted, and he couldn’t be left alone.

  Things were going to get ugly. They were going to have to go back to the beginning and reshoot all the scenes they’d already shot, and Bob Wayburn would have a fit. But she’d dealt with arrogant, creative male type
s before, and the strategy was simple: My way or the highway, buddy. Bob would have two weeks to see things her way, and if he didn’t, she’d fire him. There was, of course, the possibility that he would quit—indeed, by the time her helicopter landed in the Romanian foothills, he might have already grandstanded with this gesture. But she was prepared for it. She’d spent the last three days constantly on the phone, secretly investigating other directors who would be interested in the job and who could actually do it, and she already had at least one lined up.

  She scribbled a few notes on the shooting script, and felt a wounding stab of guilt. The inescapable fact was that she had lied to Shane, she had lied to her family, and she was about to have to lie to Dr. Vincent. There was no way she could make it home for the weekend. Getting the movie back on track would take at least ten days, and then she’d probably have to return to Romania for another ten days later on in the schedule. It was wrong to lie (maybe “fudge” was a better word), but there were times in life when you had to make difficult choices, trusting that, someday, the people who cared about you would understand.

  And no one should have understood this better than Shane, she thought angrily. He’d been around the business long enough (had even been in it) to comprehend how it worked. The failure of Ragged Pilgrims simply was not an option, and she was morally committed to do everything in her power to make it a success. She would jump out of a plane if she had to; she would work twenty-four hours a day, she would cut off her right hand if that’s what was required. If she didn’t go to the location and fix it, she wouldn’t be fired—not immediately, anyway. But when the movie came out in nine months and it flopped, and Parador lost money (fifty or sixty million or more, possibly), she’d be given the boot in two seconds. If that happened, she might be able to get a less-important job at another major studio. But it would mean relocating her family to Los Angeles—ripping her children out of New York City and their schools and taking them away from their extended family. There was one major studio in New York City, and one top job as president. And she had it. From there, the only place to go was down.

  And that wasn’t going to happen. Not after she’d put in over twenty years of hard labor.

  Well, she wasn’t afraid to put in a few more. She worked—end of story. It was what she loved, and what she was made for.

  She continued to work all night, through the darkness over the Atlantic and into the pinkening dawn over Paris. Her plane pulled up to the gate at five-twenty a.m., local Paris time. She turned on her cell phone, changing the band to the European cellular network. The phone immediately began beeping. She pressed the button for her voice mail.

  “You have . . . thirty-two new messages,” the pleasant recording announced.

  Chapter 9

  IT WAS THE END OF MARCH AND SNOWING AGAIN, for the fifth time in about twice as many days.

  There were buses and slush everywhere on the streets, and cars honking, and everyone was sick of the snow (which they hoped would be the last of the year), and inside the taxi it was hot and damp with puddles of water on the floor, so that Victory rode with her knees cranked up, the toes of her suede boots pointing into the back of the front seat so that they wouldn’t get too wet.

  Why don’t you get a car and driver? Nico always asked her. She could probably have afforded it, but Victory wasn’t comfortable with needless expense. It was important to remember who you were and where you came from, no matter how successful you became. But now that it looked like she was about to get an offer from B et C to buy her company, she supposed she might get a car and driver. Maybe something really fancy—a Mercedes like the one Muffie Williams had . . .

  But she mustn’t get ahead of herself. Nothing was settled . . . yet.

  Pling. Her phone emitted a pleasant tone and she checked the text message.

  “Remember u own this town. Good luck!” Nico.

  “thnk you!”

  “nervous?”

  “naaaaah. piece o’ cake.”

  “call me after. we’ll look at jewels.”

  Victory gave the phone a wry smile. Nico, she thought, was almost more excited about her prospects than she was. Ever since Nico had found out about the first meeting, in Paris, with B et C, it was practically all they talked about, with Nico encouraging her and coaching her like a proud mother hen. “You can do this, Vic,” she kept telling her. “And on top of it, you deserve it. No one deserves to make thirty million dollars more than you do, considering how hard you’ve worked . . .”

  “But it’s probably less than thirty million. And I might have to leave New York and move to Paris . . .”

  “So you move to Paris,” Nico said dismissively. “You can always come back.” Nico was in Victory’s dusky pink showroom, ordering her clothes for fall, and she’d walked out of the small dressing room in one of the navy boy-cut pantsuits.

  “That’s fabulous,” Victory said.

  “Is everyone going to be wearing this?”

  “Probably,” Victory said. “The stores went crazy . . .”

  “See?” Nico said, putting her hands in the front pockets and strolling to the mirror. “We’re modern women. If we have to up and move to Paris for our careers, we do it. It’s exciting. How many people get these kinds of opportunities? I mean . . .”

  Nico had seemed just on the verge of revealing something important, but then appeared to change her mind, and began fiddling with the ruffle on the front of the shirt instead.

  “Would you move?” Victory asked.

  “In a heartbeat.”

  “And leave Seymour?”

  “In two seconds,” Nico said, turning. Her expression, Victory thought, was only half-joking. “Of course, I’d take Katrina with me . . . The point is, Vic, you have to take the chance . . .”

  And then Nico had gotten this idea in her head that if Victory did get the offer, she was to go to Sotheby’s and buy an “important” piece of jewelry, for at least $25,000, to mark the occasion. Hence, the reference to the jewels.

  The taxi careened around the corner on Fifty-seventh Street, and Victory pressed her toes harder into the back of the seat to keep from losing her balance. Nico had been so funny lately, but Victory guessed it was only because of Nico’s own top-secret work situation. It would be incredible, she thought, if, in the next few weeks, both she and Nico suddenly became a whole lot richer and more successful. Nico was on the verge of taking over Mike Harness’s position at Splatch-Verner, which would mean not only a bigger salary (probably $2 million!), but stock options and bonuses that could potentially add up to several million. Of course, Nico’s state of affairs was totally hush-hush, while her own seemed to be known all over town. Just that morning, in Women’s Wear Daily, there had been another item about how Victory Ford was in secret negotiations with B et C for the purchase of her company, and the story had been picked up by the Post and the Daily News as well. Victory hadn’t said a word to anyone—besides, of course, Nico and Wendy and a few other key people, like her accountant, Marcia—but somehow the fashion press had gotten hold of the story, down to the last detail. Including the fact that she’d been in talks with B et C for two weeks, and had even flown to Paris twice for meetings.

  Well, there were no secrets in the fashion business, and it didn’t matter anyway. The industry thrived on buzz, and up to a certain point, perception really was more important than reality. As far as the fashion industry was concerned, Victory Ford was “hot” again. First there had been a story in Women’s Wear Daily about how her accessories line—those umbrellas and rainboots—had been flying off the shelves. Then her show had been declared a success, deemed a fresh new direction for fall. And right after that, there had been a frenzied series of meetings with B et C, arranged by Muffie Williams. Thank God for Muffie—and especially for Nico! There weren’t many people with whom you could discuss the possibility of making millions of dollars, and Lyne hadn’t been any use at all. “I hate the fucking frogs!” he kept grumbling.

  “
That’s not really helpful,” she’d replied.

  “Well, you’ve got to make your own decision, kiddo.”

  “I’m aware of that.”

  “In these situations, you get the offer first, and then decide,” Nico had said calmly. And Victory was reminded of the fact that when it came to the important things in life, like sex and business, it was really only your girlfriends who could understand.

  The taxi pulled up in front of the gleaming B et C tower, looking like a contemporary fairy castle in the snow, and Victory got out, carrying a portfolio filled with drawings for the next two seasons under her arm. The honchos had wanted to see some possibilities for upcoming seasons, and she’d been working like a dog to complete them in the past few weeks, in between jetting off to Paris and running her usual business. It was an axiom of life that the more successful you became, the harder you had to work, and she’d been working twelve- to sixteen-hour days, seven days a week. But if B et C made the offer and she took it, her life might get easier—she’d have more employees, and wouldn’t have to worry about moving money around to cover her manufacturing costs. As it was, with the big orders the stores were putting in for her fall collection, she’d need every penny of extra capital to cover production.

  And what a relief it would be not to have to constantly worry about money! That was the real luxury in life.

  She passed through the revolving door and stopped at the guard’s desk. B et C didn’t fool around—the uniformed guard had a gun strapped to a holster under his jacket. “Pierre Berteuil, please,” she said, giving him the name of the CEO of the company. She was buzzed into a small foyer with three elevators. She pressed the button; one of the doors opened and she got in. She stood firmly in the middle of the elevator, which was chic and black with chrome accents, tilting her head back to watch the floors tick by. Would this be her new home? she wondered. It was so sparse and elegant and cold . . .