Lipstick Jungle

  “Hey, whaddya think about that?” she said, lowering the paper to reveal a face that resembled a cherub’s, which stood in stark contrast to her personality, which was often compared to a pit bull’s. “They got Hillary at number one, of course, you can’t beat the future president of the United States when it comes to power, I guess, and me at number six, ’cause I’m supposedly worth so much money—fifty-two million—which isn’t exactly true, and they got your friend Nico at number eight, and good old Wendy at twelve . . . and you, kid, at number seventeen. What the hell are we doing sittin’ here? We oughta be out there takin’ over the world.”

  “Oh, we are,” Victory said, looking up from her drawing. Glynnis was a darling old friend (an old friend she saw only three or four times a year, but they were always thrilled to see each other), who had come to her first show and, in typical fashion, had demanded to “congratulate the chef” afterward. Glynnis had been a stand-up comic back then, but in the last ten years, her career had skyrocketed with her own television show, magazine, and now, an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress in Wendy’s movie The Spotted Pig. “Just as soon as we get you dressed for the Academy Awards,” Victory added.

  “Clothes! Ha. I hate ’em,” Glynnis said dismissively, and continued reading. “ ‘Victory Ford, forty-three’—d’ya mind that they put your age in there? I think lying about your age stinks—like a woman who lies about her age would lie about anything, huh? ‘The fashion darling who’s every New York woman’s best friend is poised to take over Europe when she merges her twenty-five-million-dollar company with B et C. Look for even chic-er accessories to go with the clothes we love.’ Nice.”

  “Very nice. But not entirely correct.”

  “Aw, fuck ’em,” Glynnis said. “The press always gets everything wrong.” She threw the newspaper onto the coffee table in disgust, and sprang up onto her feet. Glynnis was chunky—in fact, she was fat—but had the energy of a gymnast. As a person, she was adorable, but as a client, she was every fashion designer’s worst nightmare, being no taller than five foot two. But Glynnis had called her that morning at eight a.m. having just heard the news of her nomination, begging Victory to dress her. Victory, she insisted, was the only one who wouldn’t try to put her in, as Glynnis said, “Some goddamned prom gown.”

  Spring sunlight was coming in through the bank of windows in the front of her office, and for a moment, Victory felt wistful, thinking about how much she loved her life right now. Could it get any better, she thought, than sitting in her own office at the company she’d built from the ground up, and having just been named one of New York’s Fifty Most Powerful Women (it didn’t necessarily mean anything, but it was always nice to be recognized), and dressing Glynnis Rourke for the Oscars? Glynnis was just the beginning, of course; in the next few days she’d be inundated with requests from actresses and their stylists, all looking for the perfect gown—and indeed, Jenny Cadine’s stylist had already called. She would be almost perfectly happy, she thought, to just continue on like this forever. But of course, she couldn’t do that. In the next few days, she had to make the biggest decision of her life . . .

  “Glynnis?” Victory asked, looking up at Glynnis, who was bouncing around, punching the air like a boxer. “Did you ever think that all this would happen to you?”

  “That’s a question I ask myself all the time,” Glynnis said, taking a swipe at an imaginary opponent. “When you’re a kid, you have an idea in your head that you want to be rich and famous, but you don’t really know what that is. Then you come to New York, and you see it, and you wonder how the hell you’re ever going to get there. But you love what you do, and you keep doin’ it, and then you get a couple a’ breaks maybe, and you start to get somewhere. But getting to here, well, it’s like you happened to get on the right train. Those numb-nuts in Hollywood always say the universe decides”—punch, punch—“but that’s because most of ’em are so lame they can’t even take responsibility for wipin’ their own butts. But there’s something to it, I think. And if you get the opportunities, you gotta go with it. ’Course, you gotta be willing to pay the price, which is that you got assholes trying to kill you all the time and control you.” Glynnis fell into the chair exhausted, but in a moment recovered enough to jab the newspaper with her finger. “You gonna take that deal?” she asked.

  Victory sighed, rubbing her bottom lip. “It’s a lot of money,” she said. “And I want to make money. I always think that we lie when we say that making money isn’t important—after all, if you look around, there’s no way to have real power without money, and that’s why men still rule the world, isn’t it? But I don’t know . . .”

  “Well, lemme tell ya something,” Glynnis said, speaking out of the side of her mouth. “Making a couple a’ million is hard. But making twenty million is really hard. And then after you make it, guess what? For some weirdo reason, which I still haven’t quite figured out, it isn’t that much different from having two million. Hell, you know? It’s not even a plane.”

  “Could be NetJet miles, though,” Victory said. And she suddenly felt pensive again. Where else could you find women like Glynnis and Wendy and Nico except New York? Certainly not in Paris, she thought, where even the women who were successful conducted themselves like they were a specialized species of overbred dog, with their scarves and their simple tweed skirts and their aloof demeanor. They never talked about money, and they never talked about taking over the world. Goddammit, she thought. She liked talking about money. And she liked talking about taking over the world. Even if it never happened, it was still exciting to think about it.

  She picked up her sketch and stood up, walking to the long table under the window. “The problem is that it seems like easy money,” she said. “Twenty-five million to buy the company, and my name. I don’t trust easy money, Glyn, there’s always a catch. By the way, I’m thinking Beatles for you for the Oscars. Specifically Abbey Road; John Lennon in that white suit.”

  “A suit, eh? I like that,” Glynnis said, jumping up and bouncing over to the table.

  “Doll, you’re going to love whatever I put on you,” Victory said, playfully chiding her. “Don’t question the designer. Do you think you could go barefoot like Paul McCartney? And walk with your toes up?”

  “Whaddya? Crazy?” Glynnis exclaimed, taking this suggestion in the teasing manner in which it was intended. “They won’t let you in without shoes—Julia Roberts tried it once, I think. It’s got something to do with the health code.”

  “You remember that image of the Beatles on the cover of Abbey Road, don’t you?” Victory asked. “We’re going to do long pants, big bells pooling around your feet; long silk shirt, loose, light blue but not baby blue, something icy to set off your dark hair, and then a thin dark-blue heavy silk tie knotted at the breastbone and then the jacket—short, gorgeous light blue plaid with red and yellow threads—deceptively casual because it’s going to be covered in clear sequins.”

  “Wow,” Glynnis exclaimed, holding up the drawing. “How the hell did you do that?”

  “It’s what I do. I can’t figure out how you do what you do either.”

  “Mutual admiration society, huh?” Glynnis said. And Glynnis, who was given to passionate and dramatic outbursts, suddenly got misty-eyed. “Jeez, Vic. You’d do this for me?”

  “Of course, darling.”

  “It’s so cool . . . Hell, I’m going to be the coolest woman at the Oscars.” And this business now taken care of, Glynnis alighted on another topic. “If I have to go to court, whaddya think I should wear?”

  “Are you going to court?” Victory asked, raising her eyebrows.

  “Well, I might, see?” Glynnis explained. She plopped herself back down in the chair, scooting forward to perch on the edge. “You know how you said you were worried about B et C taking your name? I got kind of the same problem brewing. It’s with that magazine I’m doing with Splatch-Verner. ’Course this stuff is supposed to be top secret and totally confidential, b
ut we girls can trust each other.” She sat back in her chair, narrowing her eyes. Watching her expression change, Victory was reminded of the fact that while the world saw Glynnis as a wacky comedienne, in real life she was a killer businesswoman. “See? I’m kinda pissed off, Vic,” she continued. “And you don’t want to mess with me when I’m pissed off.”

  Victory nodded. “What’s the problem?” she asked.

  “Well,” Glynnis said, folding her arms. “You ever heard of a guy by the name of Mike Harness?”

  * * *

  “NICO O’NEILLY, 42,” READ the entry in the Post’s “50 Most Powerful Women.” “Don’t let her legendary cool fool you. When it comes to magazines, they don’t come any hotter. She turned the aging Bonfire magazine into Splatch-Verner’s most profitable organ—and rumor is she’ll soon be tapped to overhaul the entire three-billion-dollar magazine division.”

  Nico shook her head and closed the paper, having read this now for about the tenth time that morning. It wasn’t a disaster, it just wasn’t exactly what she needed right now. She kept picturing Mike Harness, sitting in his Upper East Side apartment breakfast room (or maybe he was in his country house, in Greenwich, Connecticut), eating cereal and having an apoplectic fit over the item. If the situation were reversed, she knew she’d be having a fit right now. She imagined that Mike had already been on the phone to Victor Matrick, demanding to know what was going on. And Victor reassuring him, telling him that everything was fine and the press always got everything wrong anyway, and who more than he should know that?

  Except in this case, Nico thought, they had very decidedly gotten it right. Or nearly, anyway.

  She put the paper back on the Early American farm table (a steal at $10,000, Seymour had explained, because authentic Early American furniture was so limited in quantity), and went to the stairs to call her daughter. “Kat-Kat, we’re going to be late,” she called up. She looked at her watch—it was ten minutes to twelve, which meant they still had a little bit of a cushion in which to easily make it to Madison Square Garden on time. But she didn’t want to take any risks in missing Seymour. It was the day of the Westminster Dog Show; at one-thirty, the miniature dachshund class was taking place, in which Seymour was showing Petunia. Nico was convinced “Tunie” was going to win, but even if she didn’t, Nico didn’t want Seymour to stress about whether or not she and Katrina had made it.

  Feeling slightly nervous and excited on Seymour’s behalf, and eager to be on their way, she walked back across the foyer, glaring at the Post. Where on earth did they get that kind of insider information? she wondered. She hadn’t told anyone other than Seymour, Victory, and Wendy about the possibility of taking Mike’s job, and she knew none of them would tell anyone. Of course, ever since that secret weekend in St. Barts with Victor, she had solidified her position as Victor’s “golden girl,” and that was the kind of thing that got noticed. Especially since she and Victor had lunch every ten days or so, and were sometimes spotted in brief, huddled conferences in the hallway or at different events. Someone, she supposed, could easily make the assumption that she was being groomed for Mike’s job—or for something bigger than her own current position. But then another possibility struck her: Perhaps Victor had planted the item himself.

  It sounded far-fetched, even ridiculous, but as she’d gotten to know Victor better in the last few months, she’d realized that nothing was beyond (or even beneath) him, given the right circumstances. Victor Matrick was a crafty old bastard who used his benign and hearty Santa Claus-like manner to catch people unawares. “The most important thing in business is a persona, Nico,” he was fond of saying. “People want to know immediately what they’re dealing with. And when they think about you, you’ve got to stand out in their minds—like one of those characters in a novel.”

  Nico had nodded—not everything Victor said made sense at first (he really was a little crazy, but she’d found that most super-successful people were, to put it kindly, “different,” a label she supposed she’d have to apply to herself), but when she thought about what Victor said later, she usually found some kind of brilliance in it. “That’s what you’ve got, Nico,” Victor said. “Persona. That icy coolness. Makes people think you don’t care. It terrifies the hell out of them. But underneath that Grace Kelly exterior you care passionately. Come to think of it, Grace Kelly was supposed to be quite a passionate woman herself. She had all kinds of secret lovers.”

  Victor gave her one of his penetrating looks, and Nico had flushed, wondering if he was somehow referring to her secret affair with Kirby. But Victor couldn’t know about Kirby . . . could he?

  “Thank you, Victor,” she said in her soft, low voice. She didn’t, of course, tell Victor Matrick that her “cool persona” had arisen years ago only out of a terrifying shyness, which she’d spent her whole life battling, ever since she was a kid.

  And now, thinking about that item in the Post, she thought she saw Victor’s subtle hand all over it. The juxtaposition of the words “cool” and “hot” was eerily reminiscent of what Victor had said to her. Victor might have allowed the information to leak out in order to bring things to a head with Mike. On the other hand, if he hadn’t, he might suspect Nico herself of being the source—and that could mean trouble. Victor wouldn’t like the idea of her taking over the reins and trying to race to the finish.

  “Katrina, darling,” she called encouragingly, walking back to the staircase.

  “In just a minute, Mother,” Katrina shouted back.

  Nico paced across the worn antique Oriental carpet. If she took over Mike’s position, her title would be chairwoman and CEO of Verner, Inc. Each time she allowed herself to think about it, she was filled with excitement and pride—it would be a huge amount of work, but she knew she could do it. It was getting the title and the position that was the tricky part.

  During that weekend in St. Barts, she and Victor had spent hours talking about the magazine division. Victor felt that Mike Harness was too “old school,” still trying to come up with titles to interest men. They both knew that men didn’t read magazines anymore—at least not in the way they used to, in the so-called heyday of magazine publishing in the fifties, sixties, and seventies. The big audiences were younger, female, and celebrity-obsessed, Nico explained. Out of Splatch-Verner’s thirty-three magazine titles, only fifteen were making money, and Bonfire was leading. This fact alone ought to have been enough for Victor to fire Mike and replace him with her, Nico thought. But Victor wasn’t going to make it that easy.

  “Anyone who takes the position could have the same track record,” Victor said. And Nico wasn’t sure if he was challenging her or telling her that he wasn’t sure she’d be able to do a better job.

  “I’m quite sure I could increase profits by ten percent,” Nico said smoothly, in a voice that neither invited challenge nor sounded egotistically chest-pounding.

  “You’ve got some good ideas,” Victor said, nodding thoughtfully. “But it’s more than having ideas. There’s a lot of strategy. If I kick Mike out and install you, there’s going to be an outcry. You’re going to have a lot of people working against you, saying you don’t deserve it. Do you really want to start your first day of high school with half the class hating you?”

  “I’m sure I can handle it, Victor,” she murmured.

  “Oh, you probably can,” Victor said. “But I’m not sure I want to.”

  They were sitting on the deck of Victor’s house in St. Barts, having just finished lunch. Victor had cleverly dispatched Seymour and Mrs. Victor (after fifty years of marriage, Victor’s wife was so devoted to him, she insisted people call her “Mrs. Victor”) to town, where Mrs. Victor had promised to show Seymour the best place to buy cigars. The deck, constructed of a dark and expensive mahogany (it had to be replaced every three years due to the salt air, but Victor considered it “worth it”), swept across fifty feet to a pool, filled with clear blue water that spilled over the far edge into nothingness. Sitting on the deck, one had t
he sensation of being poised in the sky, or perched at the edge of a high cliff. “How do you suggest we handle this, Victor?” Nico asked.

  “I think it’s for you to handle, and me to admire,” Victor said enigmatically. Nico nodded, concentrating on the view to hide her frustration. What the hell was he talking about? “People like to understand,” Victor continued, tapping his fingernails on the inlaid marble table. His hands were large; the skin a parchment grayish-white and dotted with liver spots. “They like to be able to point to events and know the reason for them. If, for instance,” Victor said, staring out at the view as well, “Mike were to do something . . . egregious, or at least seemingly egregious, it would be so much more pleasant for everyone. ‘Aha,’ people will say. ‘That’s why Mike got fired . . . and that’s why Nico O’Neilly has taken his job.’ ”

  “Of course, Victor,” Nico said coolly. But inside, she found that even she was a bit horrified. Mike Harness had worked for Victor for probably thirty years; he’d been loyal, always putting the best interests of the company first. And here Victor was, plotting Mike’s downfall as if he were enjoying it.

  Do I really have the stomach for this? she wondered.

  But then she reminded herself of the job. The title was heady, there was no denying that, but it was the idea of the job itself that consumed her. She knew exactly what to do with the magazine division; she had to have the job. It belonged to her. It was her fate . . .

  “Keep your ears and eyes open,” Victor said. “When you find something, come to me and we’ll take the next step.” And then he stood up, the conversation finished. “Have you ever tried parasurfing?” he asked. “It’s a little dangerous, but great fun . . .”

  For the next three months, Nico had tried to follow Victor’s edict. She’d studied the financials of the publishing division for the past three years, but hadn’t been able to find anything unusual. Mike kept things ticking along at the same pace. The division wasn’t, perhaps, making as much money as they could have, but they weren’t losing new money either. But still, something would happen. It always did, eventually. It was just that timing was everything. Being too early was just as bad as being too late. And she wasn’t sure where she was in the continuum.