“And miserable later,” Nico laughed.
“But it’s the first snow that matters. It’s a reminder that it can snow, after all.”
Yes . . . yes, Nico thought, nodding at her daughter. Thank goodness for the first snow, it was a reminder—no matter how old you became and how much you’d seen, things could still be new if you were willing to believe they still mattered.
Katrina suddenly turned to her, frowning. “Mother?” she asked, rubbing the top of the leather on the console between them. “You and Daddy are . . . happy, aren’t you?”
“Of course. Why wouldn’t we be?”
She shrugged. “It’s just that . . . someone said they saw a blind item . . .” She lowered her voice, glancing at the back of Dimitri’s head. “In the Post. It made it sound like . . . like you were having an affair.”
For a second, the world was collapsing around her, the bare black trees in the sidewalk toppling into the street, the pretty redbrick town houses crumbling in front of her eyes. “A blind item?” she asked.
“You know, Mother. They do them all the time in Page Six. They don’t say the name, but it sounded like you.”
“Did you see it?” Nico asked evenly, the world beginning to right itself.
“Someone showed it to me at school. A couple of days ago.”
“I never saw it,” Nico said reassuringly, as if the fact that she hadn’t seen it must mean that it wasn’t true. “Those blind items could be anyone. They’re probably completely made up.”
“It said the woman was having an affair with a ‘hot male model who was eager to trade in his underwear for boy-toy status.’ ”
“That’s just ridiculous, Kat,” she said, not wanting to sound too defensive. Why had Kat memorized that line? she wondered. And what were children doing reading the New York Post, and especially Page Six? But of course, all the kids her age were obsessed with status and gossip.
“So you’re not having an affair?” Katrina asked insistently, wanting to be relieved of the burden of possibility and all it might imply. Hedging was not a good idea, Nico thought, even though she didn’t like the idea of baldly lying to her daughter. “Absolutely not, darling. Daddy and I are very happy. You don’t have to worry about us.”
I must end it now. Today, Nico thought. This is a sign. It’s December first, on the first day of snow. She had promised herself that if any hint of the affair got out, she would finish it immediately. She had been thinking all along that she didn’t want to hurt Seymour, but Seymour was a grown-up, he could probably withstand an assault to his psyche. Now she saw that it was Katrina who couldn’t. Katrina would not be able to understand the situation, and why should she? She had no life experience to give her the tools, and hopefully, she wouldn’t for a long time. But the reality that her mother was having an affair would destroy Katrina’s vision of her father—it would weaken Seymour in her eyes, to say nothing of what she would think of her mother. Girls like Katrina had a black-and-white morality; an idealism about how people should behave. They didn’t understand about the weakness of the flesh. There was something pure and almost saintly about Katrina in her innocence.
“I knew you weren’t, Mommy,” Katrina said, slightly triumphant as she leaned over to give her mother a kiss. The car had arrived at her school—a charming brick building with a small playground next door, fenced off from the street by a chain-link fence. Inside, clusters of children were gathered in small groups, arranged by some atavistic pecking order known only, and instinctually, to them. “Good-bye, sweetie,” Nico said. “I’ll see you tonight.”
She sat back in the car then, relieved. She had come so close—how could she have allowed herself to take such a chance? It was bad judgment. She must not use bad judgment, she berated herself. It was a flaw. She knew better. She must eradicate this flaw; stomp it out.
The car moved slowly forward along the narrow West Village street. Ahead of her, on the right, she spotted Shane Healy walking down the sidewalk with two of Wendy’s children—Magda and Tyler. They were Shane’s children too, she supposed, but she specifically thought of them as Wendy’s, especially after what Shane had tried to do. Taking the children away. It was pitiful. And Wendy had trumped him, by coming up with the perfect solution. Her eyes narrowed. “Dimitri,” she asked. “Could you pull over for a second? I see someone I know.”
The car stopped, and when Shane had nearly reached it, she lowered the window. “Hello, Shane,” she said pointedly, giving him a cold smile. And before he could respond, she raised the window, disappearing behind the tinted glass. Now that was really immature, she thought, but fun. Shane had to be reminded that he couldn’t get away with anything anymore. That all of Wendy’s friends were watching him and watching out for her.
This small, yet satisfying piece of business taken care of, the car proceeded through the West Village and onto the West Side Highway. The Hudson River was the same dull whitish gray as the sky—flat and yet, for some reason, extremely soothing. It was nice to drive along the river every day on her way to work, and she never neglected to look at it. She ticked off the particular landmarks as they passed by: the asphalt park where people bicycled or Rollerbladed; the ugly blue corrugated structure where the city imprisoned impounded cars; Chelsea Piers, where Katrina rode horses; and then around a little corner, and to the right, a series of billboards. The first one was for a ministorage company, always a little tasteless, she thought, with a photograph of a GI Joe and the tagline, “My mommy doesn’t want me to come out and play.” But coming around the corner today, she did a double-take. Instead of GI Joe, there was a giant image of Victory Ford. Victory, looking astounding in a huge white hat like the one Katrina had been wearing, was just stepping out of a white limousine, and looking to the side with those startling, almond-colored eyes. And what an expression on her face. Stepping out in front of the photographers, as though she had humbly and most respectfully conquered the world. And underneath was the line: “Victory Ford: Live It,” and on the bottom at the right, three dots—pastel pink, blue, and green—followed by the Huckabees logo. And there it was for all the world to see, she thought proudly. Victory’s triumphs were always thrilling, but this one was particularly satisfying because she had helped engineer the deal between Victory Ford and Huckabees, and there was something so gratifying in not just having great ideas, but in being able to make them happen.
She had set up the meeting between Peter Borsch and Victory six months ago, when Victory had come back from France and the disastrous incident with Pierre Berteuil on his boat. Nico would never have done anything like that, but Victory had a different style. She was creative, not corporate; she strained at the ties when she suddenly had to behave with corporate hypocrisy and became like a teenager determined to rebel against the adults. Victory would always do things her way or not at all, Nico thought. She had earned the right to take those kinds of chances, and now, Victory would become richer than all of them. But she and Wendy had always known that that was the way it would be.
She picked up her cell phone. “Darling,” she said excitedly. “I’m just passing your billboard now. I’m so proud of you.”
“I just passed it myself. I had the driver go up the West Side Highway so I could see it—they put it up last night, after midnight,” Victory said. “Do you like it?”
“I love it,” Nico said. “It’s perfect. Where are you?”
“I’m on Thirty-third Street.”
“I’m on Thirty-first. Tell your driver to slow down and we’ll catch up.”
Nico smiled childishly. She loved this, she thought. She didn’t know why, but it was funny, like when you were waiting on the street, talking to someone on their cell phone and asking where they were, and they were just a few feet away. Those kinds of things still made her laugh. Victory was in a new gold Cadillac DeVille; Dimitri pulled up alongside and both women rolled down their windows as their cars moved slowly through the intersection. “Where did you get that car?” Nico shouted.
>
“I just bought it,” Victory said, leaning out the window. “I’ve already sold twenty thousand white hats, and it’s not even nine a.m.”
“That’s brilliant. But that car is hideous.”
“Isn’t it fabulous? No one else has anything like it. And it was only fifty-three thousand dollars. A bargain,” she screamed. “When Lyne sees it, he’s going to have a heart attack.”
“That’s excellent, darling. See you at lunch?”
Victory nodded and waved. “Twelve-thirty,” she shouted. Her car suddenly sped up to catch the light, veering sharply up Thirty-sixth Street. Nico sat back on the seat, keeping the window down and letting the cold air brace her face like an icy cloth, just for the hell of it. And besides, she thought, cold air was supposed to be very good for the skin.
* * *
“MAGDA SAW KATRINA’S HAT, and now she has to have one too,” Wendy said.
“That’s no problem,” Victory said. “I’ll bring her one tonight.”
“By the way, I saw Shane this morning,” Nico said. “I was a little rude to him. I’m sorry. I couldn’t help it.” She put her menu aside and placed her napkin on her lap, unconsciously surveying the restaurant. They were at table number one, the table she was now usually given at Michael’s. Even though she knew she wasn’t, technically, the most successful woman in the place (there were a couple of newscasters who certainly made more money than she did), ever since she’d been promoted, she seemed to be radiating an almost palpable (and she hoped, generous) sense of power. On the other hand, it might also be due to the fact that she had tipped the maître d’ a thousand dollars on the day when the three of them had come for lunch to celebrate.
“Don’t worry about it,” Wendy said. “Shane thinks a lot of people are rude to him, now that we’ve split up. He says he hardly gets invited to parties anymore . . .”
“That is so sad,” Victory said, genuinely sorry for Shane, Nico thought. Victory had a soft spot for everybody, and she had even given Muffie Williams a job (paying her, Nico knew, a small percentage of the profits from the huge licensing deal with Huckabees), after Muffie had quit B et C in June, saying she couldn’t take Pierre Berteuil anymore either.
“He will live,” Wendy said, referring to Shane. “Anyway, I want to know about this hat that everyone’s talking about. A hat!” she said to Nico. “How brilliant is that?”
“It’s just a hat,” Victory said. “Nothing like your movie. Are Shane and Selden both coming?”
Wendy nodded. “I’ve told them that they have to get along. Shane anyway. Selden is perfectly willing to be reasonable. And Magda loves him of course. She might be more in love with him than I am. She’s actually lost ten pounds.”
“That’s because you’re happy, and it makes her happy,” Nico said.
“I know. But I feel a little guilty sometimes. That things should work out so easily,” Wendy said, referring to her new living arrangement. She had bought two lofts on the top two floors of a warehouse building in Soho, so while she and Shane didn’t technically live together, the children were as close to both parents as they could be, without those parents still being married. “I mean, it’s so easy to solve your problems when you’re a successful woman and you have your own money,” Wendy said. “I think about all the women who aren’t, and don’t, and the hell they must go through. It’s something we can never forget.”
“But that is the whole reason to become successful,” Nico said fiercely. “It’s when you really understand why you’ve worked so hard. So that when there is a crisis, your family doesn’t have to suffer.”
Wendy paused and looked down at her plate. There was a little smile on her face. “Well, you should know something, then. It’s too soon to tell anyone, and it might not work out, but I’m pregnant.”
Victory gasped, and for a second, Nico was so shocked, she couldn’t speak. “I know,” Wendy said. “It wasn’t on purpose. Selden said he couldn’t have children, but he was wrong.” She shrugged helplessly. “Sometimes you have to go with these things. I think it’s a gift, for finally getting Ragged Pilgrims onto the screen. I was going to buy a sapphire ring, but I guess this is better.”
Selden Rose! Nico thought. “Wendy, it’s wonderful,” she said, finally finding her voice.
“Victor might not like it, but I really don’t care,” Wendy said. “I’m the head of Parador. I’m putting my foot down. Selden’s already agreed that if one of us has to leave Splatch, he will. He’ll start his own company. He wants to, anyway.”
“You don’t have to worry about Victor,” Nico said, brushing Victor Matrick away as if he were no more significant than a janitor. “I’ll fix it up with him. I’ll make it sound like it was somehow all his idea, you and Selden being together and having a baby.”
“I don’t know,” Wendy said wistfully. “Ever since I spent those three days with Shane and the kids, taking care of them when they had chicken pox, and missing Victory’s and my sleepover in Cannes . . . I just thought, I can do this. I do do this. I’ve been doing this for years. This is me. I have my career, and I have kids. And I want them both. I need them both. I can’t be with my kids every minute, but they don’t want me to be with them every minute either. They don’t see me that way. And it’s okay. And I wasn’t afraid anymore. I just decided that I wasn’t going to feel guilty . . .”
“You never had anything to feel guilty about,” Victory protested. “I’m so happy for you,” she said, getting up to give Wendy a hug.
“Hey. It’s just a kid,” Wendy said, with false sarcasm. “Another one . . . But at least it’s a real kid and not a grown man this time.”
Nico looked at Victory and Wendy, and tears almost came into her eyes—tears that would have come if she’d allowed them. We are all happy, she thought suddenly. “And Victory and her hat,” she said kindly. “It’s brilliant. That hat has already made twenty thousand women happy. Not to mention two little girls.”
Victory looked at her with gratitude. “I’m getting sentimental,” Nico thought. “That’s what’s happening to me. I must put a stop to it immediately.”
* * *
OUT ON THE SIDEWALK, after lunch, Nico thought about going to Kirby’s apartment and ending it at last. She’d been planning to swing by his apartment after Wendy’s premiere party, but perhaps it was better to get it over sooner rather than later. It had gone on for over a year, she thought. How had that happened? Like everything else in life, it had slid into a routine. First there was passion and excitement, and the thrill of getting away with it. Now there was just a little bit of the thrill left, of covering her tracks, of having something that was just her own, which nobody knew about; probably not unlike how drug addicts felt. Except that you could always tell when people were doing drugs, just as people were beginning to pick up on the fact that she was having an affair. She turned up Fifty-seventh Street and cringed, thinking about that blind item in the Post. It was like a huge warning flag. It meant that somebody knew something, but the editors didn’t think they had quite enough information to name names.
The sky felt very low and heavy, and walking quickly up West Fifty-seventh Street, Nico thought that if it weren’t for the cold, she would wonder if she were actually outside at all. The city always felt to her as if it were enclosed in a glass dome, and “being outdoors” was actually an illusion. They were all, she thought, looking at the faces of the passersby, like tiny creatures trapped in one of those water-filled paperweights into which a child might peer, fascinated and horrified by the goings-on in this miniscule world.
At the corner of Fifty-seventh and Fifth Avenue, she hesitated, meaning to cross over to the East Side and take a taxi up Madison Avenue to Kirby’s apartment, but she suddenly remembered about Seymour’s tie. Seymour wouldn’t be upset if she forgot, but he would notice. Seymour had a habit of remembering everything people said, and holding them to it. People needed to be accountable to their words, he said; they should do what they said they were going to d
o. Imagine what the world would be like if no one felt any responsibility to deliver on their promises—the whole world would be anarchy. “There are degrees of things,” she always tried to tell him. “You have to allow for circumstances and degrees.”
“Degrees—pah!” he’d say. “Degrees are the beginning of a slippery slope into chaos!”
She must get him that tie, she thought.
She crossed Fifth Avenue. It was like stepping over some imaginary line. The side of the city east of Fifth Avenue was so much nicer than the west side. Had the architects gotten together years ago and spelled it out—our side is going to be better than yours? She pushed through the revolving doors of the Bergdorf Men’s Store and a huff of warm, slightly scented air came at her like a hug. The smell was pine; Christmas was coming. This year, they would go to Aspen and St. Barts; Seymour would ski and swim, and she’d probably work most of the time.
Wendy was going to India with her brood and Selden, and was leaving Shane behind, but no, she probably wasn’t going now, now that she was pregnant. Shane must be furious about that, Nico thought, but there wasn’t anything he could do about it. Wendy was like one of those successful men who gets divorced and finds new happiness right away, while the woman is left steaming at home. Nico wasn’t sure about Selden yet—she was going to watch and wait—but she did love the fact that Wendy had so neatly turned the tables on Shane. And he couldn’t complain—Wendy had given him everything he’d been demanding in the divorce settlement: his own apartment, shared custody of the kids, alimony, and child support. She paid him $15,000 a month, and that was after taxes. “When we were married, I gave him everything he ever wanted, but it still wasn’t enough,” Wendy said, and Nico thought that that sounded exactly like what she’d heard so many men say about their ex-wives. Shane wanted something intangible (possibly self-esteem), something emotional, but the problem with filling that emotional emptiness was that it wasn’t something someone else could give you. It had to come from inside. Shane had, she supposed, made the same mistake all those unhappy housewives had made in the fifties.