Fortune Is a Woman (24 page)

“Jumped out of your birthday cake?”

That reminded her. It was Venus’ birthday today. “Quite a surprise.”

“I see. And how did you feel about it?”

“What? Now you’re my shrink?”

Paula chuckled. “If you want.”

“Out of my league, embarrassed, awkward–shall I continue, Dr. Treadwell?”

“You don’t have to. I get the picture. Top it off?”

Lydia thought about it. “Just a splash. Helaine won’t approve.”

“Aw, she won’t know. Use some mouthwash before you go.” She filled the glass. “So, tell me how that goes. Will she mind if you call on Venus while she’s away?”

“I am not going to call on anyone while she’s away. This is not a splash, Paula.”

“Work with me here–because you don’t want to, or because she’ll mind?”

Lydia contemplated the cubes of ice slowly disappearing in her glass. “Yes.”

_____

PM Entertainments was scrambling. Venus Angelo had crashed their website for three days in a row and Sebastion was thrilled with himself. “Get it back up, get it up!” She had amassed enough e-mail solicitations to keep her in dinners and lunches till her forty-fifth birthday.

There were other offers, too, but Sebastion dismissed those. People are compelled to be so bold online.

“Who?”

“Sharon Chambers…the model?”

“Model what? Yeah, I heard of her.”

“She’s been very persistent, Venus. She sent you gladiolas, a bracelet. Must have known it was your birthday.”

“Bracelet, c’mon–diamond?”

“Diamond
s
.”

“Di–and that doesn’t bother you, Mr. Jones?”

(Why should it?) “Why should it, Ms. Angelo?”

(Silence.)

“What should I tell her? She wants your number.”

“Tell her I’m very flattered, but I’m seeing some–I’m in love with someone.”

“Is that true, Venus?”

“Yeah…it’s true.”

“Well, I’m honored then.”

“It’s not you, Sebastion.”

“I know.”

Keeping the Faith

Helaine zipped the last bag, tagged it and placed it beside the others in the penthouse parlor. It’s times like these a woman has to ask herself does she really know what she’s doing or has she gone out of her mind?

She caught a glimpse of herself in the looking glass. “What am I doing?” she wailed to the woman in it. There was no answer. She held herself and counted the suitcases one more time. Lucky seven.

She was aware of Lydia’s eleventh-hour intervention in Venus Angelo’s firing, that she had saved the girl’s career by threatening to resign. Delilah had divulged this information to her over lunch. She hadn’t batted an eye when she heard it, but Helaine had been wondering how it happened that she had lost a full-time executive director before she ever got one.

So now she knew and wasn’t sure what to make of it.

Seven bags for Saturday. She stared at the tired woman in the mirror, reached behind her head and pulled the hairpin out. A blond wave cascaded to her shoulders. She squinted as she tugged at the strands. There were sparkles of silver highlights in it, of a slightly different texture than the rest. Sort of kinky.

She adored Venus, but she did not trust her with her wife. She trusted her wife, because Lydia Beaumont was guileless.

That was good and that was bad, Helaine acknowledged, lifting the hair from her shoulders and holding it there, sizing up her mirror self this afternoon as she waited for Lydia to return, bracing herself psychologically, in the event that she came in high on martinis again. Good cleavage, she complimented the blond, and the woman smiled coyly in return.

If she was drinking, their encounter this evening would be wild. Helaine bent over and started to remove a stocking, stopped herself and rolled it up again. Let ’em rip, she decided, pinning it with the garter. That’s what they’re there for.

Oh, I must be out of my mind to do this
, she thought, sitting down on suitcase number three and resting her back against the wall. Must be. She missed her wife already and she was not even gone.

The castle was particularly quiet today, the curtains partially drawn in a halfhearted attempt to divert the sun which poured generously this afternoon into the sun-room. She was rarely home in the afternoon except for the weekends and even then she was hardly ever alone, at least not for long. She would be alone for five months now, only a private secretary and some aides to socialize with, sporadic lovemaking whenever Lydia could break away from work. If she would.

Helaine was anxious for guileless Lydia. She had made no bones about not wanting her to go. She had expressed her concerns eloquently. “I love you. I need to have you every night.”

She needed her every night, too. Helaine checked her tote for the cell phone Lydia had recently purchased for the trip. She hated these obnoxious things, things that beeped or whistled or played tunes, always beeping or whistling or blaring some ridiculous ditty, in the theaters or the galleries, the restaurants, her lectures. She felt the side pocket. There it was, in the exact same place as the last time she had searched for it. It would be her lifeline now, the only way they could have each other every night.

Munich, Melbourne, Madrid…the time zones were overwhelming and, in truth, Helaine didn’t know for certain how they could arrange even this much, simply talking on the telephone. Carlos was good, but how could he manage it for her, make the sun set half a world away at the same hour Lydia’s was going down, the hour she would go to bed and need to talk to her?

She massaged her cheeks and forehead and yawned involuntarily. Light had flooded into the living room despite the curtains. Sunbeams and shadows confounded the patterns of the parquet floor and oriental rug, bedazzled the vase of yellow roses on the end table next to the old couch.

That couch and a few sticks of furniture were all that Helaine had found here when she first moved in with Lydia. And that drawing over there on the wall in the adjoining sun-room, the study of Manet’s
Olympia
, whose features, in a young student’s more modern interpretation, had been subtly altered, an alteration influenced by the standards for beauty of that time, circa 1950. Helaine loved that drawing, Manet’s nude goddess, who in this rendering bore more of a resemblance to Lydia than to the painting itself, or even, she was willing to bet, to the courtesan who had originally posed for it. She smiled a melancholy smile thinking of the gossip it had generated over the years. It was a resemblance that rarely went unnoticed by their guests, which had made the drawing quite a sensational conversation piece.

A hallway led from the living room to four separate rooms: the dining room with that dreadful wet bar, the spacious master bedroom with private bath, her home office and library and across from it, Lydia’s, which was never used for anything now but throwing weights around.

Helaine couldn’t imagine the place looking different than this and could never quite visualize it the way Lydia said it had looked before she renovated. What would it be without the beautiful wooden floors and golden oak trim, the wainscoting? How sterile and–dare she say it?–corporate it must have been. How gray.

She had changed it in hopes of “snagging a goddess” she had seen in Frank’s Place, Lydia claimed in her inimitable way. Even the queen-sized bed that had welcomed Helaine their first night had “never been used.” Helaine believed her, not just because the mattress was brand-new, but because of her candor. The woman simply oozed integrity. She could taste it in her sweat.

Which is why she no longer pressed her about Venus. Because Helaine understood it all now without asking and couldn’t bring herself to make Lydia say it. That Mr. Right would have been Venus Angelo if there had never been a Helaine Kristenson. That it would have been Venus because Lydia respected her, trusted her, relied on her, and found her sexually attractive. And because the way Venus loved her was legitimate to Lydia. It was unabashed adoration, the way she liked it to be, the way she already had it, unfortunately for Venus.

Helaine stood up and glanced in the mirror again. There was yet something else that prevented the match, something one can’t fake. Venus was a girl to Lydia. Her only flaw, but it was a major one. She could profess and protest love all she liked–and Helaine was positive she did–but Lydia had a woman and it was that woman she loved, wanted, and needed every night.

The place was brimming with proof of her. In the furniture she had brought when she said, “I do,” the books that lined the shelves and were stacked in the corners, her paintings and her piano and her perfume, the very scent of the place, the carpets, the flowers, the vases, the stemware, the linens, the hosiery hanging in the shower, the lingerie draped across the chair in the bedroom, the clothes in the closets, the feather pillows and satin sheets, the towels, the plates, the music. She was everywhere. Helaine could see herself everywhere. A fixture in Lydia’s life.

_____

“Ooh, mouthwash and…no, let me guess…whiskey. Methinks Scotch perhaps?”

“Lana–god, let me at that hair,” Lydia said, running her hands through it and stumbling over luggage in the process. “Oh, look at this. My little travel zealot’s all rearing to go. One, two, three…seven. Seven bags and poof, you’re gone, just like that?”

“I can’t believe how badly you’re handling this.”

“Yeah, me either–is this for me?” she asked, turning once more to the blond mane. “And this…my consolation prize, Helaine?”

This was not the right time to confront the drinking problem, Dr. Kristenson reminded herself. It was trouble that had been fomenting for years, part of that despicable corporate culture. She had deceived herself about it, overlooked the warning signs. She was counting on Delilah to be more helpful now that she had called her attention to it. The Scotch, and possibly the mouthwash, too, she attributed to Paula. She would have to speak to her before leaving.

That was a Band-Aid, the doctor knew, but it would hold till she got back. “Follow me, my love,” she said softly. She was donning the white flag tonight and leaned gently against her wife so she would know it. “Follow me,” she whispered, taking Lydia’s hand.

“Where?”

“Bed, of course.”

_____

Girls, limes, coconuts, palm trees. Rio Joe lay on the beach frying. His mouth tasted to him like a dead animal and he felt sick, a trifle hung-over from the party last night, the first in what seemed a lifetime.

He had only intended to stay in the Cayman Islands a day, to break open his stash and run back with it, but the women were so hot and the sun was so warm, he gave himself the weekend.

Timing was everything, he mused, fishing around for his flip-flops and rolling up his towel. A day or a decade, no matter. He had the goods; he would pick the time. Behind his sunglasses there was a glint in his bloodshot eyes. Revenge, sweet revenge. He could taste that, too. He sneered like his old self again. All the way back to the hotel.

_____

“Well, what can you do? Can you make a cup of coffee?” Venus asked facetiously.

Former VP Kendle’s team of slackers was now VP Angelo’s burden. She had inherited his five remaining assistants and shouldn’t have been shocked to learn that every one of them was a professional putz, the group’s gross productivity a big fat zero. Little wonder she was the only one who had been given a private office. Five big fat zeros. “Can any of you make coffee?”

“Yeah, I think so.”

“You think so? You think you can manage me a cup? Well now, I guess I’ve underestimated you. How about you there? Can you make coffee, too? We can open a diner.”

They hung their heads, a pack of overfed dogs.

“Out,” she ordered, shutting her door after them.

Half an hour later, a knock and a sinking suspicion. “Come…?”

Four cups of coffee for VP Angelo.

_____

Everyone had boarded but Dr. Kristenson. Carlos was on standby. He was standing by the door of the jet with his hands on his hips.

It was time. “Come with me, darling. It’ll be fun,” she said. But it was too late for that.

_____

“Heads are going to roll here,” Venus threatened, “and I–where’s the fifth cup, or can’t you all count either?”

They consulted each other about the fifth cup of coffee.

“You didn’t put enough water in,” one complained.

“I didn’t? That’s your job.”

“You’re fired,” Venus interrupted. “You, too.”

Down to three. This would be easy. “Is this yours?” she demanded of another. It was lukewarm and too sweet. Weak.

“I quit,” he answered nonchalantly. He couldn’t work for a Venus Angelo. “I definitely quit.”

And then there were two.

“Are we fired, Ms. Angelo?”

Could she explain five firings? She didn’t think so. Not five in one day. “Nah,” she said, grudgingly. “Not yet anyway.”

They looked disappointed. “What do you want us to do?”

“Your work!”

_____

Paula was closing up shop for the day when she discovered Chairman Ackerly wandering the empty compound with a brown paper bag.

“Hey, Joe. Looking for me or Ms. Beaumont? She left hours ago.”

“You,” he said with a grin. “Here’s the spoils.”

She took the bag. “Told you he wouldn’t weep.“

“So you won fair and square. Took me awhile to collect all the bets. What are you going to do with it–illegal, you know?”

“We’ll put it toward the party fund. Got time for a quickie?”

“Eeeeaaah-yes. Drink I presume?”

“Drink, Joe. I’ve changed my wicked ways.”

“Oh? Terribly sorry to hear that.”

_____

“Angelo here. How may I help you?”

“Ah, Ms. Angelo. You can have dinner with me for starters. I hear it’s your birthday.”

“It is…who’s this?”

“Tonight? My place?”

“Uh…I’m…I might…identify yourself, please.”

“Too many women, too little time? Or just bad at voices?”