Listen to her! she thought, smiling. Dead-end job. Ridiculous. She already had a job people would kill for. Women were always telling each other to be happy with what they had, that it was the small things that mattered most. And she was happy and appreciative, but that didn’t mean that the big things weren’t important either. It didn’t mean that the big things in the outside world weren’t worth going after. Excitement, drive, success—these were the things that fueled a woman too. They gave her gravitas—weight in the world. How could a woman really be content unless she knew that she’d lived up to her true potential, or at least given it her best shot?
She turned and looked back at the clock on her desk. Thirty minutes now until her meeting with Victor. She walked to her door and poked her head out. “I’m going to be unavailable for the next few minutes,” she said to her assistants. “Do you mind holding my calls?”
“Sure,” they said. They were nice girls, agreeable and hardworking. Nico made it a point to take them out to lunch once a month. When she moved up, they would move up too. She would take them with her . . .
And now she did shut her door. She needed to think. She sat down in an armchair covered with a lambskin throw—Victory’s idea, she remembered. Victory had helped her with her office years ago, and she’d even found a place that had made the furniture, the desk and two armchairs. And now she had to thank Victory again, for she’d gotten the information needed for the coup from Glynnis Rourke. But that was how it worked. She’d helped Victory years ago with her career, by lending her money for her business. And now Victory had helped her, by setting up those secret meetings with Glynnis, which had taken place at Victory’s showroom . . .
But was it right? she wondered. There was something about what she was about to do that was so juvenile and petty. But maybe that was just her own conscience. Recently, the papers had been filled with a story about a politician who was not going to be getting a government position because of what people at first thought were “nanny problems,” but later turned out to be an affair with a high-level attorney at a law firm. Why this woman—Marianna was her name—had had an affair with Sam, the politician, was beyond Nico. Sam was old, bald, and pickled. But Marianna, who was in her mid-fifties, was the old model of the “powerful” woman—the woman who became successful because she loved being the only woman in a room filled with powerful men. She was the woman who didn’t trust, or like, other women; who still believed that the only way a woman could become successful was by being a bitch. But women like Wendy and Victory and herself, Nico thought, were a new model of powerful women. They weren’t bitches, and they weren’t enamored with that old-fashioned idea that being with powerful men made you more important. The new power babe wanted to be around other powerful women. They wanted women to be ruling the world, not men.
Nico absentmindedly rubbed a little piece of the lamb’s fur between her thumb and forefinger. Success in life could be boiled down to two things: having the courage to hold passionate beliefs, and being able to make commitments. Her passionate belief was that women ought to succeed to the very top, and she’d made a commitment to do it. But the tricky part was how you went about it. And being a courageous person, she had to ask herself, one more time, if she was going about this in the right way.
The strategy was simple, and Victory had dropped the plan in her lap that afternoon when Seymour was winning Best in Breed at the Westminster Dog Show. As Seymour was trotting around the ring in his dark blue velvet jacket with Tunie prancing by his side, Nico had received a text message from Victory: “Important info re: work. Top secret. Contact immediately.” After Seymour had collected his ribbon and she’d congratulated him, she’d slipped off to the bathroom to call Victory. The short version was that Glynnis Rourke, who had signed on to do a magazine with Mike Harness in conjunction with her talk show, was planning to sue Mike Harness and Splatch-Verner for breach of contract. Nico knew something about the project, but the first issue of the magazine kept getting delayed, and Mike had been secretive about it.
“He’s a sexist asshole,” Glynnis had exclaimed, during her and Nico’s first meeting. “You can’t talk to him straight. I told him his ideas were bullshit, and he got all huffy and walked out of the room. I’m sorry, but am I wrong about this? We’re doing business. It’s my name on the magazine, not his. Why should I have to coddle the guy’s ego? I mean, hello? Isn’t he a grown-up?”
“Not really,” Nico had murmured. The upshot was that, while contractually obligated to consult Glynnis on all decisions regarding content in the magazine, Mike had not. He wouldn’t take her phone calls and refused to meet with her in person, hiding behind e-mails. Glynnis had asked him repeatedly to scrap the project, but he’d refused, contending that they “owned” her name, and could do whatever they wanted with it. This had gone on for two months, and she was now going to sue for $50 million—“I’ll never get that, but you need a big number to scare these idiots,” she explained—and was planning on filing the legal papers any day now. Corporations like Splatch-Verner had lawsuits all the time, but Nico knew that this situation was different: Glynnis was a public figure, and highly vocal. It would be all over the papers.
And Victor Matrick wouldn’t like it.
She stood up, crossing to the window again, and drumming her fingers on the radiator. Victor was of a different generation. He would consider it unseemly for his top executive to be engaged in a public brawl with a celebrity. A couple of years ago, when Selden Rose had been married to that Victoria’s Secret model, Janey Wilcox, and Janey had gotten herself involved in a scandal that had been plastered all over the front pages of the newspapers, Victor Matrick had told Selden that he had to get rid of his wife or leave the company. Victory Ford had gotten the story out of Lyne Bennett, who had gotten it out of George Paxton, who was one of Selden’s best friends. Selden had only been involved in the scandal due to the unfortunate occurrence of being married to the source, so Nico could only imagine how Victor would feel about Mike’s problem. On the other hand, going to Victor with this information felt a little tattletale-ish. It was schoolyard stuff, she thought with disgust.
She narrowed her eyes and crossed her arms over her chest. This wasn’t exactly gossip, though, it was information. A man in the same situation wouldn’t have hesitated, she thought, wouldn’t have had any qualms about doing in another man with secret information. Nobody liked office politics, but they were simply unavoidable if you wanted to get to the top in a corporation. She had to do this. Mike was seriously messing up, and Victor had told her to find something.
She went into her private bathroom and opened the medicine cabinet, taking out a tube of lipstick and some face powder. She would be one of Victor’s first lieutenants now, she imagined, lightly running the lipstick over her mouth. She supposed there would always be some man to answer to, until the day came when she had Victor’s job. Then, and only then, would she not have to answer to anyone except herself . . .
But first things first. Everything had to be accomplished in order. And snapping the top back on the lipstick, she went upstairs.
* * *
THAT MORNING, VICTOR MATRICK’S desk was covered with handbags.
“Look, Nico,” he exclaimed proudly, as she walked in. “I bought all these purses, on the street, for less than three hundred bucks. Now that’s a great deal.”
Nico smiled and sat on a chintz-covered armchair in front of his desk. Victor, apparently, had been walking the streets again. Normally, he was driven around town in a woody station wagon with a crystal hood ornament in the shape of a griffin’s head, but every now and then he would get out and walk, returning with some “new” bargain he’d discovered was being sold on the streets. “Maureen”—that was his secretary—“says they’re counterfeit,” he said. “But who can tell the difference? Can you?” he asked.
Nico hesitated. This was either a genuine question, or some kind of mysterious test. Victor loved to come across as the doddering, genial old man,
but if he actually were doddering or genial, he wouldn’t have survived into his early eighties as the CEO of Splatch-Verner. One’s instinct, of course, was to pander to Victor, to agree with his sometimes ridiculous assertions, and to feign interest in his favorite topics, the biggest one being “the common man.” Which was disturbingly ironic, considering the fact that Victor owned two private planes and several houses, including a $30 million spread in Greenwich, Connecticut. For years, Victor had been obsessed with the Jerry Springer show until it went off the air; he was now consumed with Dr. Phil and reality shows. It wasn’t unusual for executives to have a meeting with Victor, in which they never got around to discussing the issue at hand, because Victor would spend an entire hour talking about an episode of “Blind Date—Uncensored.” They would walk out of the meeting proclaiming that the Old Man was on the edge of insanity, but Nico knew better than to underestimate him. He always knew what was going on, and used these bizarre discussions as a way to both stifle his executives and keep them off-balance. Nico had hoped that this meeting wasn’t going to be one of those meetings, but given the handbags on Victor’s desk, there was a good chance he was going to steer it off the rails.
Honesty, she decided, would be the best route. “Yes, Victor, I would know the difference.”
“You would?” Victor asked, picking up an imitation Louis Vuitton bag. “I was thinking about giving them as Christmas presents.” Nico raised her eyebrows. “To some of the boys’ wives,” he added.
“I wouldn’t,” Nico said. “They’ll know you bought them on the street. And then everyone will talk about it. They’ll say you’re cheap.” She closed her mouth. I could get fired for that, she thought, but I won’t.
“Ho, ho, ho,” Victor said. He had a shock of yellowish white hair, the color of very light urine, Nico thought, that rose up from the top of his forehead like a worn mane. At the annual office Christmas party, which was always held in a huge venue like the Roxy Ballroom and included nearly two thousand employees, Victor dressed up like Santa Claus. “So you don’t think they’re a good idea?” he asked again.
“No, I don’t,” Nico said.
Victor leaned over his desk and pressed the intercom button on his phone. “Maureen,” he said into the speaker, as if he didn’t quite trust it to work, “Nico O’Neilly says the purses are crap. Would you mind coming in here and removing them?”
Nico swung her leg impatiently. She wondered if Victor did any actual work during the day, a question his executives had been asking for years. “Mike is going to be sued,” she said suddenly.
“Is that so?” Victor said. “What do you think I should do with the purses?”
“Give them to charity. To the Salvation Army.”
Maureen, a woman of indeterminate age, came into the room. She’d been Victor’s secretary forever; people speculated that they’d once had an affair. “You decided you didn’t want them after all,” she said, almost scoldingly.
“Nico decided. Nico’s deciding everything today,” Victor said. Nico smiled politely. Would Victor have gone through this whole handbag rigamarole if she were a man? She doubted it.
“Does Mike know he’s going to be sued?” Victor asked, after Maureen had gathered up the handbags and exited the room.
“Not yet.”
“Hmmm,” Victor said, rubbing his chin. “Why don’t I know about this?”
“The papers haven’t been filed yet.”
“Will they be?”
“Oh yes,” Nico said grimly.
“By whom?”
“Glynnis Rourke,” Nico said. “She’s planning on suing Mike and Splatch-Verner. For breach of contract.”
“Ah yes,” Victor said, nodding. “Glynnis Rourke. America loves her, don’t they?”
“Yes, they do,” Nico said. “She’ll probably win the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress in Wendy Healy’s movie The Spotted Pig.”
“Wendy Healy,” Victor said musingly. “I hear she’s getting divorced.”
Nico stiffened slightly. This was one of the problems with Victor—you never knew where he would go. “I’ve heard that too,” she said, not wanting to give anything away.
“Heard?” Victor asked, becoming slightly aggressive. “I would think you would know.”
“It’s not exactly public information,” Nico said cautiously.
“Is it going to be?” Victor asked. He picked up a glass paperweight—a tourist trinket containing a miniature skyline of New York City—and shook it, scattering glitter over the silver buildings.
“I don’t think so,” Nico replied. She had to get Victor back on the subject of Mike, but if she was too heavy-handed, Victor would shut her out.
“What does the husband want?” Victor asked. He put down the paperweight and leaned forward, staring at her face. The whites of his eyes were slightly yellow with age as well, like ancient paper. But the irises were dark—a deep blue, almost black. “The husband doesn’t work, does he?” Victor said. “He’s going to want money. Lots of it.”
“I really don’t know, Victor,” she murmured, and suddenly wondered if she’d made a mistake.
“You don’t know,” Victor said thoughtfully, leaning back in his chair. He kept staring at her. It was, Nico thought, like being in a cage with a lion. She had never seen this side of Victor before. He was always capable of going off on a crazy tangent, but she had never sensed this underlying violence. But of course, it made sense.
Nico stared him down, saying nothing and opening her eyes as wide as possible.
Most people couldn’t tolerate a stare like that, and Victor Matrick was no exception. He started talking. “If you really want to get to the top in this company, you’d better know everything about everybody,” he said.
“In that case,” Nico said, in as bland a voice as she could muster, “I do know about it. I’d just rather not talk about it.”
“But you’re willing to come in here to rat on Mike.”
She felt her face redden. This was it, she thought. She’d taken the wrong tack, both with Wendy and with Mike, and now she was going to get fired. Maybe she should have told him about Wendy, and how Shane was demanding the apartment and custody of the children. But she couldn’t do that to Wendy; Victor might use it against her. She mustn’t get flustered. “I thought you’d want to know,” she said.
“Because Wendy is a friend of yours and Mike isn’t,” Victor said.
“Wendy’s company brought in over two hundred million dollars last year. The publishing division only brought in seventy-three million. And twenty-three of that seventy-three million came from Bonfire.” Thank God for facts, she thought. But Victor already knew this. What the hell was he doing?
“So you want Mike’s job,” Victor said.
“Yes, I do. We’ve been discussing it for months,” Nico said coolly. If she could just continue to use her usual tactics, she might come out of this alive.
“Have we?” Victor asked. “I don’t recall any such discussions.”
She stiffened and looked away. She wasn’t expecting this response, but she should have been. People said that Victor was capable of this—of completely denying that he had done or said something in the past, which then made the other person wonder if they were crazy. On the other hand, Victor was old. Maybe he really didn’t remember. I’m finished, she thought. Seymour will be so disappointed . . . How will I live with myself? Everyone was right . . . Victor Matrick is a fucking bastard. He is insane . . .
And it suddenly occurred to her that maybe Victor had set her up, in order to get her out. But how was that possible? The information had come from Glynnis herself, through Victory. Victory didn’t even know Victor Matrick, but undoubtedly he knew that they were friends. What if Victor had set Glynnis Rourke up—if he had, it meant that he was operating on a level of treachery that was nearly inconceivable. He was capable of anything. On the other hand, maybe Victor had simply been doing the same thing she’d been doing with Mike, watching and waiting, waiting
for her to fuck up.
“Well?” Victor asked.
She looked back at him. There was a network of tiny broken blood vessels covering his cheeks like a delicate spider’s web. He was so old! He ought to be dead, perhaps he actually was dead, and no one had figured it out. Twenty-five years, she thought. Twenty-five years of seventy-hour workweeks, sacrifices, triumphs, all about to go out the window, thanks to this creepy old man who was so clueless, he wanted to give his executives’ wives counterfeit handbags for Christmas. He was, she thought, quite simply the embodiment of everything that was wrong with the corporate business world. And someday, I will replace you, she thought.
She sat back in her chair and crossed her legs, stalling for time. There was nothing in the manual about how to behave in this situation, but whatever happened, she mustn’t beg or show fear. She had to turn this around—if she did, she could probably handle anything. She shrugged. “Don’t mess with me, Victor,” she said coolly, as if he had to be kidding and they were both in on the joke. “We both know that Mike should go.”
It was her best shot, she thought. She sounded firm, but not aggressive.
“Mike doesn’t think so,” Victor said. He smiled. The smile was like a cartoon drawing of a smile, exaggerated and unreal. Nico guessed that Victor’s response meant that he’d talked to Mike about it. That was her worst fear, that Mike would get Victor on his side to get her out.
“I wouldn’t expect him to,” Nico said. She suddenly pictured her soft-boiled egg and the knife she used to slice off the top. Just three hours ago, she’d been convinced of her success. How could she have made such a mistake?