Lace (67 page)

They talked nonstop, with much infectious giggling, of children, husbands, lovers, houses, friends, enemies and all the paraphernalia of being alive. Then, more thoughtfully, they drifted into a
grown-up version of the way they used to talk in the moonlight, after lights-out at school, as they discussed what they wished they’d been taught.

“To earn my own living,” Pagan said firmly.

“To handle my own financial affairs,” Kate said, thinking of how her father’s estate had been mismanaged.

“To realise that we were going to run into trouble,” Maxine said thoughtfully. “You cannot expect to skip through life with a princess-and-the-pea attitude, hoping to find no
lump under the bedclothes. The bed is always lumpy.”

Judy said, “I wish we hadn’t picked up the idea that you were a failure if you didn’t have a man because then you would be without status and protection.”

“We picked up that idea from our mothers as well as our fathers,” Kate pointed out. “It was our mothers who brought us up to be dependent and lazy where it matters
most—in the head.”

“I suppose we can’t blame our parents for not teaching us things that they didn’t know themselves,” Maxine argued. “They did the best they could.”

Judy said, “That was the problem. Somehow you got this feeling that a dependent woman
was
feminine and an independent woman
wasn’t
feminine, that it was unfeminine to
be responsible for yourself.”

Kate agreed. “I might have avoided a lot of the problems I ran into if only I’d had the self-confidence to think for myself instead of relying on other people’s
opinions.” They stood up and wandered over the lawn toward the lake and the rose garden beyond as Kate continued, “From birth we were all wrapped up in warm lace shawls and it’s
very tempting not to struggle out of them, to stay snuggled up in the lace and let someone else run the world for you. But these shawls are spiderwebs of false security. . . .”

“Which is worse than no security,” Maxine injected, “because they make you so damned vulnerable when you find that your lace shawl has been whipped away by Fate, leaving you
naked and defenseless.”

Judy nodded in agreement, thinking that it would be nice to pick a rose to send to her mother.

But it was a very small rose garden.

S
HORTLY AFTER
J
UDY
returned to New York, Tom put his head around her door. “We’ve
landed our first dirty movie. Empire Studios has bought that French film,
Q.
The title’s a pun, remember? It means ‘ass’ in French. Lili stars, and we’re going to
tour her. We have to think up something special because her English isn’t so great. Okay if you handle it?”

“Sure. Maybe we could tie in with the Jewelry Federation’s Year of the Emerald launch. How would Lili like to tour in two million dollars’ worth of emeralds? That’s
pretty special!”

Judy set up the tour for early January, which was always the dead season: nothing much was happening, everyone was at home in front of the TV. She decided to travel with Lili because Lili was
definitely difficult and the emeralds could easily attract trouble. Anyway, it was time Judy visited her outposts.

After delays from the Legion of Decency and innumerable Bible Belt organizations,
Q
was released just before Lili’s twentieth birthday, and after Christmas she flew to the States to
promote it. Serge had come ahead of her. He wanted to talk to a few people on the Coast. Surprisingly, he didn’t meet Lili when she flew in, but the press agent waiting at the airport told
her that Serge had been feeling ill, he’d see Lili by the hotel pool. Lili let him see that she wasn’t pleased. A likely story, she thought—probably a hangover. Or some girl. It
was too bad, she’d just travelled halfway around the world to meet him and he couldn’t even be bothered to turn up at the airport.

She sulked until they reached Beverly Hills.

Lili found Serge lying on a yellow daybed, on the sunny side of the aquamarine rectangle. Opposite him was a row of lemon-and-white tented cabanas. A few children were jumping off the diving
board at one end, but apart from that nobody seemed to be swimming—none of the women had the sort of hair that got wet, their hairstyles were all immaculate and twenty years out of date and
several women even wore diamond jewelry with their swimsuits. Serge looked up at Lili and waved a languid hand. “God, I feel terrible,” he moaned.

She forced herself to look concerned, solicitous, bent over to kiss his cheek. “What’s wrong, Serge?”

He groaned again peevishly, scratched his hairy belly, lifted his sunglasses and said, “Liver. The hotel doctor says I need a rest. Christ, I can’t tell you how terrible I
feel.”

“Why aren’t you in bed then?” She still didn’t believe him, didn’t even believe he’d seen a doctor; it was simply too damn comfortable lying here in the sun,
with palm trees waving beyond the high pink walls. He had some chick here, hidden away. “What’s that you’re drinking?”

“Fucking orange juice, with nothing in it—doctor’s orders.”

“May I?” She sipped his drink. It really was plain orange juice. Maybe he really
was
ill.

“You want some juice or something, Lili?”

“No, no thanks, but maybe something to eat. Has this doctor given you any medicine? How long are you likely to be ill? We’re supposed to start on Thursday, you know.”

“Yeah, I’ve been worrying about it.” While Serge heaved his body off his couch and wrapped himself in a lemon towelling robe, Lili took another look around the pool.
Middle-aged men in sunglasses were reading
Variety.
A couple of dark-brown old men, wearing heavy gold necklaces, were simultaneously smoking cigars, playing backgammon and talking on the
telephone.

“I didn’t expect Hollywood to be like this. These people look so ordinary, just like any families at a resort.” What sort of hotel had Serge picked? Where were the stars? Lili
was disappointed.

As Serge started to amble toward the cafe tables at one end of the pool, a pale, exquisite creature with waist-length golden curls appeared on the steps that led down from the hotel. She wore a
burgundy one-piece swimsuit, burgundy high-heeled sandals and burgundy toenails. As gently and carefully as if she were tending a sick child, she devoted herself to rubbing oil on the chest of her
escort, a tiny gnarled gnome with a head like a brown-speckled egg.

“That’s not a starlet. That’s a whore,” Serge said, reading Lili’s thoughts. “They have
wonderful
ones out here, sweetheart. She’s seen more
hotel rooms than a Gideon Bible distributor. Now come on, if you want lunch.”

They moved up to one of the white banquettes, sat down and ordered Caesar salads. Serge picked morosely at his lunch.

“The fact is, Lili, the doctor’s forbidden me to tour with you. I have to stay here, maybe move into a clinic, take tests—”

“I don’t believe you!”
Lili’s fork crashed to the table and she leaned toward him, raging in a low voice, so that the waiter couldn’t hear. After that
Globe
article written by Kate, Lili was terrified of seeing journalists without Serge. “I’m going to see this doctor for myself.” Except that there was no point, she
thought. Serge would have fixed him. She’d guessed right the first time. He’d found some bitch. Her velvet brown eyes glared. “You’ve got a girl here somewhere!” Her
voice was low, fast and angry. Serge knew she was building up to an explosion. “This is all I need, no protection on tour because my so-called manager is resting up in Hollywood, that
well-known health resort.” She glared at him. “You’re pushing me off on tour so you can screw some other bitch in comfort on
my
money.”

“For Christ’s sake, Lili, do we have to have a scene before you’ve been here five minutes? Even if they don’t speak French, they can hear that we’re having a fight.
Keep your fucking voice down and use your fucking brains.”

Three young men slumped into the banquette on their other side and ordered three black coffees and a telephone. “Think about it,” Serge urged. “I never allowed you to see one
goddamn reporter on your own after that English bitch fouled you up, did I? So is it likely that I’d suddenly push you off on a goddamn important, expensive four-week tour all by yourself? My
financial future is just as much at stake as yours is.”

“That’s true.” But somehow it didn’t feel right. “You’re not telling me everything. Something’s wrong. You’re being evasive, I can
feel
it.”

“Lili, darling, when I get you alone in our little pink bungalow, I’ll knock your fucking teeth in if you don’t shut up,” Serge said. “I’m feeling like
death—in fact, I may be dying—and you have to start a scene.” He was starting to feel self-righteous, because for once she was wrong. “There is
no
other chick
here—and if there was I couldn’t do much about it. I feel so sick I can hardly raise my goddamn head, let alone anything else.” Serge pushed his salad away. “You can speak
to the doctor yourself, when he calls tomorrow. Incidentally, I’ve also asked him to give you a quick physical—I thought it might be a good idea to check that you’re really fit
before you start this tour. And don’t worry, you’re
not
going alone. The president of the PR firm that arranged the tour is going to travel with you, and I’ll telephone you
every night. . . . Now could I
please
have a little sympathy?”

He certainly didn’t look well. In fact, he looked terrible. Lili leaned forward, contrite, and patted his hand.

Serge
was
ill. The truth was that he had syphilis. A couple of days before, he’d noticed two swollen lumps in his groin and then he found a small blister under his foreskin. Fuck,
he’d thought, and phoned the doctor, because you didn’t kid around with that, it could rot your brain, paralyze you, eat your nose away, even kill you.

The doctor had given him the usual caution about warning all sexual partners (which Serge ignored), and prescribed an immediate course of penicillin injections, which is why Serge had to stay in
one place and dump the one-town-a-day tour.

Thank God he hadn’t touched Lili for some time, Serge thought. But the doctor said she still had to have a physical. She’d be surprised when she found that the physical included a
vaginal examination, but he’d let the doctor handle that one—he was getting paid enough for being discreet.

If Lili was clean, there’d be no need to say anything to her. He didn’t want to upset her before she went on tour. But Serge was worried about that. He didn’t like sending his
bank account off on her own.

So Lili arrived alone at Kennedy, huddled in an ankle-length black fox coat, a cloud of black hair around the pale, feline face. Tired after her night flight, she hardly spoke
to Judy on the trip to the Pierre, where two bodyguards and a security man from the Jewelry Federation were waiting for her. They all moved to the manager’s office, where the door was locked,
then the safe was unlocked. A big, flat, dark-green leather case was brought out and put on the manager’s desk, then unlocked. Everyone looked at Lili. She moved forward, slowly swung the lid
back, and they all caught their breaths.

Inside, on dark-green velvet, to celebrate the Year of the Emerald, lay a magnificent bracelet of blazing emeralds encrusted with diamonds, an emerald and diamond brooch, a pair of green stud
earrings, a pair of heavy, chandelier earrings and two matching finger rings—both square cut emeralds—banded with diamonds. But the piece de resistance was a magnificent emerald
necklace.

Slowly, with both hands, Lili picked it up and held it to her white throat. Her fatigue fell away as she looked in the mirror at the green fire that flashed against her breast.

“It does tricks,” said Judy, “let me show you.” She picked up a silver diadem, and hooked the necklace over the top spikes, converting it into a tiara. Gently she lifted
it onto Lili’s head. Lili seemed to grow six inches, as regal as a Snow Queen.

“That will do nicely,” said Judy. “We’ll photograph you in that after you’ve freshened up. Sorry about the rush, but we need pictures right away for the press kits.
There’s a hairdresser waiting in your suite.”

By five o’clock that evening, the big reception room was hazy with cigarette smoke and buzzing with journalists flipping through their dark-green press kits. They quieted down as Judy
stood on the dais to introduce Lili, then looked expectantly toward the door, outside which Lili was slowly counting to ten before making her entrance.

Suddenly, she was in the room, head thrown back, chin high, in a white satin evening dress that was a perfect background for the emeralds that shone from her hair, her throat, her ears, her
wrists.

She gave a slow, gentle smile, then walked over to Judy, green fire flashing, her satin dress like a moonbeam. She’s got class, Judy thought with satisfaction, she looks like a princess,
not the two-bit stripper they’d expected. What a contrast to those wet rags she wore in the movie! And why not, Judy thought. She’d had Guy Saint Simon design the entire tour
wardrobe.

All over America, hotel detectives were waiting for them and the police had been alerted. After the “Today” show and other TV and some newspaper interviews in New
York, they flew to Seattle, then down to Houston, Dallas and Atlanta, then north again to Philadelphia, Boston, Cleveland, Baltimore and Detroit, followed by Los Angeles, Cincinnati and Pittsburgh,
where Lili was mobbed at the airport and they quickly decided to switch hotels. To Lili, the cities were a bewildering blur of hotel suites, heavily guarded cars, planes, tape recorders, cameras
and questions. She had to concentrate to catch the often fast-spoken queries in the strange accents; sometimes her own answers exasperated her; sometimes she fumbled for words; but the press was
amiable and the coverage was fantastic.

Merv Griffin was affable. Phil Donahue was lovable. Mike Douglas gave Lili an easy ride on what a poor orphan felt like when wearing two million dollars’ worth of emeralds: he jokingly
concluded that the emeralds were almost an inconvenience for any normal happy woman—too much trouble, too much of a responsibility. Johnny Carson took to Lili on sight and managed to cover
her career truthfully, but sympathetically, without making the sordid parts sound terrible, as if they were some kind of obstacle course Lili had bravely circumvented in order to reach her true
destiny—the spotlight of fame and the flashing green fire of those emeralds.