Princess Daisy (57 page)

“What’s a good night for you? I haven’t made any plans for the rest of the week so you pick the day.”

“Tonight,” she said without a second’s hesitation. There was a moment of blank silence.

“Oh. Of course. Tonight.”

“It’s the corner of Prince and Greene. The southeast corner, third flight up. I’ll expect you at eight o’clock. Ignore the sign that says ‘Fierce Guard Dog’—he doesn’t bite unless I tell him to … as a rule.”

Daisy hung up before he had a chance to say goodbye. “Ginger,” she said to North’s secretary. “If North comes in, tell him I’ve taken the afternoon off. If he wants to know why, tell him I didn’t say. If any of the others need me, tell them to figure it out for themselves. If anyone calls, tell them I can’t be found. If anyone asks you what the hell is going on, tell them you don’t know.”

“It’ll be a pleasure,” Ginger assured her. “Got a date, huh?”

“Not exactly,” said Daisy.

Daisy knew exactly what she was looking for. There has never been a season, in spite of the programmed fluctuations of fashion, in spite of swings in taste from classic to kinky, in which Bill Blass has not quietly made a group of sublime black dresses, the witty, wily discretion of which combines the ultimate in rich-lady good taste with the ultimate in naughty-lady sexiness. Sometimes he does it with net and chiffon, sometimes with lace and silk, mixed with such supreme distillation of the tactile advantages of each fabric that it is impossible to say just where one melts into the other. Daisy finally found the Bill Blass she sought on Bendel’s second floor and, on her way out, she stopped at Jerry Miller’s first-floor shoe department, Shoe Biz, and bought a pair of thin, high-heeled black silk sandals with tiny rhinestone buckles. A pair of sheer taupe pantyhose were found on another counter and Daisy left the store on West 57th Street having spent just a dollar or two more than three weeks salary.

Recklessly she took a cab home instead of the subway, and, as soon as she’d hung up the dress, she washed her
hair in the shower. Even with a powerful blow dryer it took almost an hour to get it all dry, and by the time she finished her arms ached. Theseus, back from his brief stay with the landlady, cowered under a sofa. The only thing in the world he was afraid of was the hideous whine of the blow dryer. Fortunately Kiki was still out of town with Luke. Daisy would not have liked to answer questions about her extraordinary preparations for the evening ahead. She would not have liked inquisitive Kiki to wonder why she was cleaning up the living room, throwing dozens of extraneous objects in closets with abandon, until the room presented a perfectly neat and, in fact, elegant appearance—thanks to Eleanor Kavanaugh’s latest shipment of expensive white wicker furniture covered in a flowered Woodson print which cost forty dollars a yard and looked like the surface of a lily pond painted by Monet. She burrowed anxiously into Kiki’s chest of drawers until she eventually found the black silk evening bag she had counted on using. Kiki really should take better care of her things, Daisy thought, as, nervously, she started to dress.

At precisely eight o’clock the doorbell rang. As Daisy opened the door the smile on Patrick Shannon’s face froze.

Daisy had put herself together tonight with the most meticulous attention to each part of her self-presentation, but she hadn’t been able to assess the total and get an objective view of herself. All she was sure of was that she had made a desperate investment in the Blass dress and done her hair in the most classic way she knew. It was a roll of the dice, risking so much money, but the stakes were too high to leave anything to chance. Any one of her jumble-sale costumes, no matter how exquisitely made, might make her look eccentric. She had to look
solidly rich
. It was as simple as that.

How many times had she heard Nick-the-Greek explain that the reason North could charge a higher fee than any other director in the business was because he had more clients than he had time for—all, of course, thanks to Nick’s own efforts—and so, not needing the money, he commanded it? If she were to become the Elstree Girl, and now Daisy knew she had to take that job at whatever cost to herself, she had to make it pay enough so that she could take care of both Anabel and Danielle for a long time into the future. She couldn’t settle for model fees, not even the thousand dollars a day that certain top models
were commanding. It must be more money, much, much more. Against the spiritual threat which emanated like a stench from Ram, money was her only protection. It was the only shield solid enough to trust.

The woman who greeted Shannon was not the fantastic girl he’d met dressed in green sequins and corduroy with fake emeralds pinned in her long hair, nor the disheveled, furious, funny figure in carpenter’s overalls, but the most unreasonably beautiful creature he’d ever seen. He literally gaped as he looked at her. The heavy, low braided chignon into which all of Daisy’s hair was caught, emphasized the length and molding of her neck, and the proud, high carriage of her head. With her hair pulled back from her face, the particular ripe peach bloom of Daisy’s skin, her thick, straight brows over her dark purple, pansy-centered eyes and full, strongly marked mouth, all stood out in the kind of relief which the wonder of her unbound hair would have diminished. Her dress had a halter top of dotted black net which dissolved at the slender, wrapped waist into a swoosh of full, rustling black skirts, and from it her arms and shoulders, quite unornamented by any jewels, rose in simple majesty.

“Aren’t you going to come in?” Daisy said, with a gracious smile, which she had sternly prevented from turning into a satisfied grin. Apparently she’d managed to achieve the effect she was trying for, if the test was rendering Pat Shannon unable to function normally. And he was.

Silently he walked into the apartment and stood in the center of the living room.

As gently as if she were talking to a sleepwalker, Daisy asked, “Won’t you sit down and have a drink?” Shannon sat.

“Vodka, whiskey, white wine?” Shannon nodded agreement, to all her suggestions, his eyes never leaving her. Rather than disturb his concentration, she poured wine for both of them, brought the drinks and sat down near him. Finally he spoke, automatically saying the first thing that entered his bedazzled mind.

“I like your apartment.”

Demurely she answered, “My roommate and I have lived here for four years. It’s rather an amusing part of town.”

Daisy could tell from the faint tightening of the lines around his mouth that he was aware of how many dif
ferent kinds of romantic relationships were tucked into the convenient, ubiquitous title of roommate.

“She’s Kiki Kavanaugh,” Daisy continued, composedly. “Perhaps you know her father—he’s president of United Motors? No? She’s back home this week,” Daisy said. “I was supposed to go, too—Uncle Jerry, Kiki’s father, is having a birthday and I’m considered part of the family, but I didn’t think it was quite fair to leave the studio. My assistants aren’t as dependable as I’d like and I’ve just been away in Nassau.”

“Your work,” Shannon asked tentatively, “is it something recent? When we met in Middleburg somebody said that you were a painter … at least that was the impression I got.”

“Oh, that—it’s just my hobby. I love children and I love horses and I love to paint, so sometimes I treat myself to all three of them together,” Daisy said with a fine carelessness. “Actually I’ve worked for North since school—it’s so much more amusing to
do
something, don’t you think? Otherwise, life tends to become self-indulgent … one simply must fight that dreadful tendency to drift. And the studio is the ideal solution. No week is the same as any other, we have new problems, new crises, new solutions and never a second to get bored.”

She smiled as complacently as Marie Antoinette discussing her cows while she briefly batted her eyelashes in supplication to Kiki’s patron saint, the deity of all those who told lies in a good cause and gave themselves airs and graces.

Shannon looked at her questioningly. “Funny, I’ve picked up the idea that a job like yours demands a high degree of efficiency and very long, hard hours …”

“Oh, of course it does,” Daisy drawled. “But
that’s
the joy of it … it’s
such
a challenge! Would you enjoy doing something that wasn’t a challenge?” Daisy leaned languidly back against the water-lily pillows in an attitude which persuaded Shannon that long, hard hours must be the inevitable choice of any rich girl with a brain in her head.

“I take it North is a good man to work for?”

“The day he stops being one is the day I’ll quit,” Daisy said lightly, thinking of North’s sardonic snort if he could hear her. “Of course, you mustn’t judge by Nick-the-Greek—the one who insisted on displaying my hair—he’s
a bit of a barbarian, lacks finesse, but I’m fond of him just the same … he just got carried away.”

“So did you, rather.”

“Oh that I’m well known for my evil temper.” She smiled with that particular smile of people who are proud of their defects, because they are themselves so important that no one dares to rebuke them. Actually, Daisy thought, it was North’s smile she was borrowing.

There was a scratching at one of the doors of the apartment, followed by the sound of a body hurling itself against the door. Daisy murmured, “Excuse me,” and she walked toward the door, her skirts swaying, her back naked almost to the waist under the dotted net Patrick Shannon followed her with his eyes, marveling.

“Now stop it Theseus,” she called through the door.

“Is that your guard dog? I’d like to meet him, or her, as the case may be.” He was intensely curious about everything about this rare creature, Daisy. He imagined her idea of a guard dog would be an overbred Afghan, or a yapping poodle.

“He’s nervous with strangers,” Daisy warned, but she opened the door.

Theseus appeared, ears perked up like flags, and silently padded into the room with his drunken-sailor gait Shannon rose at the approach of the big, rough-coated animal, with the mixture of gray, brown and blue hair. Theseus gave Shannon a suspicious, furtive, sideways look and started to sidle past him to his favorite pillow on the floor. As he got closer to the visitor, to Daisy’s astonishment, he changed directions, reared up on his hind legs and hurled himself on Shannon in a brazen display of sniffing, licking and searching. Shannon, laughing, started to calm him with a game of tickle, scratch, rough and tumble that left Theseus his slave for life.

“How very strange,” Daisy said coldly. “He usually doesn’t go near strangers. Are you sure there isn’t anything to eat in your pockets?”

“Oh, dogs like me—dogs and children.”

“And that, I suppose, is traditionally the sign of a man you can trust?” she asked, leading the dog out of the room with a most unusual firmness of touch of which only Theseus was aware, since it was accomplished with an imperceptible movement of her strong wrist

“That’s what they say,” he called after her.

Daisy returned, walking with a dignity that made Shan
non think confusedly of throne rooms and crown jewels and the Changing of the Guard. “You haven’t touched your drink,” she said. “Can I give you something else?”

“Why don’t we go on to dinner?” he asked, looking down at his full glass in astonishment. How had it got there? An authentic guard dog. An authentic roommate. What more did she have hidden here? “The car and driver are just downstairs. At least, in this neighborhood, I hope they’re still there.”

“Oh, it’s absolutely safe. The Mafia protects us—half their grandparents still live within blocks—SoHo is the most crime-free area in the city.” Airily Daisy had converted her semi-slum street into a whimsically inhabited island paradise.

Le Cirque is the kind of grand and expensive New York restaurant that only certain New Yorkers really understand. It’s not about food, as the great restaurants are, and it’s not about décor, as so many others are, nor is it about beautiful or chic people. It is a restaurant about power. Only the powerful go there, to test their power by the table they are given and to enjoy their power in the company of other powerful people. Le Cirque is attractive enough, with its obviously costly décor of murals of costumed monkeys painted in a Watteau-Fragonard manner, its heavy linen tablecloths and flattering light coming from clusters of tulip-shaped fixtures. The food is firmly if unimpassionedly French. It could equally well be Spanish or Italian since most of the people who dine there order veal or fish, cooked as plainly as possible—the diet of thinness and ulcers—the diet of power. A visitor to New York might find himself lunching and dining at Le Cirque every day for a week if he were being treated to a display of the power of his hosts. On the other hand, if his hosts were true gourmets or devoted to amusing atmosphere, he might never even hear Le Cirque mentioned.

Daisy had never been there. It was not North’s kind of restaurant, since he refused to dress in a suit and tie for any meal unless Nick-the-Greek had finally persuaded him to be pleasant to a big client. Nor had Henry Kavanaugh, Daisy’s still languishing suitor, ever thought to take her there. Le Cirque at lunch was chiefly about publishing power, and at dinner it was about corporate power, but it had nothing to do with young-Grosse-Pointe-fortune power.

Tonight, as always, Patrick Shannon had one of the three best tables in the house, the banquettes just to the right of the entrance. Daisy sensed the power in the air as they walked into the restaurant. She glided to her seat perfectly aware that almost all of the people in the room were watching her, although she seemed oblivious to them. Her memories of the heavily power-weighted atmosphere of the Connaught made her impervious to being impressed by a mere restaurant, and no amount of being looked at could intimidate the daughter of Stash Valensky, who had become blithely accustomed to the covert sensation she and her father had made whenever they went out together on those Sunday mornings so many, many years ago.

She looked around with calm approval. “How pleasant,” she said in a casual lilt, breathing in the palpable atmosphere, compounded of smug self-satisfaction, of self-confidence, of frankly appraising glances from people who were secure enough not to think it rude to stare, and of the mutual congratulations—just on being there—that were beamed from one table to another until they formed an invisible tent in the scented air. Although Daisy was starving, she ordered with the unmistakable Spartan lightness of someone who is so often confronted by menus, one more elaborate than the next, that food has become almost, but not quite, boring.