Princess Daisy (70 page)

“Yeah, you would not be exaggerating at all if you were to say we have too many products on the market today—the manufacturers are overdoing it completely.” Oh, Dick Johnson of those eleven eastern Pennsylvania cities which shelter a Hess’s, Inc., why were you not more like adventuresome Verda Gaines of Tucson who said, “Without new products, there is no progress.” Why???

Eleven percent of every dollar cosmetic and fragrance manufacturers spend goes into packaging. It was this fact that made Hilly Bijur erase Dick Johnson from his mind as he plunged into delighted contemplation of the marvellous
bottle that had been designed for the perfume. It was inspired, at Daisy’s suggestion, by the Easter eggs which Peter Carl Fabergé had made for the Imperial Family—fifty-seven eggs in all, between 1884 and 1917. Now they were scattered in museums all over the world, although some had found their way into private collections. Marjorie Merriweather Post, the great heiress of the General Foods Corporation, had been one of the few private people in the world to possess several of the Imperial eggs, and even in her vast collection of Russian treasures, they were the rarest, most prized objects.

The Princess Daisy bottle was egg shaped, hand-blown crystal, bound from its base to its top with four slender, rippling vermeil ribbons which came together above the stopper to form a bow. It stood on a graceful three-legged vermeil stand surmounted by an oval hoop into which it fit snugly. In a year of ever more modern bottles, at a time dominated by the severity of Halston’s packaging and the classicism of Chanel’s, the Elstree bottle was jewel-like, unique. It was impossible to see it and not want to lift it from its stand and caress it. After all, Bijur reflected, was the egg not considered nature’s most perfect form?
Take that
, Dick Johnson of Allentown! And take the rest of the packaging as well, jars and bottles and cases of deep, brilliant lapis lazuli blue, so highly glazed that they resembled Fabergé enamel itself, each one bearing a single white and gold daisy on a green stem, a highly stylized design which was the trademark for the entire line. They were so fucking
perfect
they could make you fucking cry, Bijur had told Patrick Shannon and, for once, Shannon had agreed without even trying to suggest a single improvement.

Princess Daisy perfume was going to sell at a hundred dollars an ounce. Justified? Bijur thought so. Unlike many perfumes that sold for less, it was made only from natural oils and essences, produced and bottled in France. Of course, it didn’t cost anything close to one hundred dollars an ounce to make it or bottle it or merchandise it—my God, he thought, if it fucking did, where would the profit be? When cosmetics and perfumes start selling for anything even
near
the price they cost to produce, it’d be like fucking Russia.

As Hilly Bijur walked briskly down Park Avenue to the Supracorp building, he thought about the Christmas catalogues which major stores all over the country had sent out
in August, almost all of them offering Princess Daisy perfume and gift boxes of various combinations of perfume, cologne, soap and bath powder. If they’d missed being in the Saks and Neiman-Marcus catalogues, to say nothing of the dozens of other catalogues in which they had been featured, Shannon’s wild dream wouldn’t have had a chance of being realized.

The Princess Daisy launch was being coordinated as if it were as important as D-Day. Shit, if you had a sense of perspective, it fucking
was
D-Day, Bijur ruminated. On the one hand there was Candice Bloom taking care of the fluff, building all that media excitement about Daisy herself which would finally flare into an explosion with the publication of the
People
cover story tomorrow, to say nothing of The Russian Winter Palace Ball, the launch party that should make every newsmagazine and newspaper women’s page in the country. And Helen Strauss had the advertising well in hand, the commercials, the double trade magazine ads, the four color brochures. Hilly himself was complacent about his shipments of perfume in the New Jersey warehouse. Everything had arrived from France in good time and in good shape and the salesmen had taken spectacular orders. Even Saks Fifth Avenue, traditionally the one store to get a perfume before anyone in New York had been persuaded to share the launch with Bendel’s and Bloomingdale’s; the special Princess Daisy capsule collection of fall fashions by Bill Blass was one of the most opulent that consistently elegant designer had ever created, and the clothes had been shipped to major stores across the country to be shown in banks of display windows the week of the launch; the Elstree saleswomen were being given an extra bonus commission on top of their regular commission for the first three months of sales; the samples of Princess Daisy perfume had already arrived in the chosen stores by the tens of thousands, to be distributed with an open hand at special designer “out-posts” on the stores’ ground floors, and Daisy herself was scheduled to fly from one city to another on a whirlwind tour of thirty major markets during the weeks following the party to make personal appearances at the largest department stores and draw the winning number which would give one of the women at each store who had bought Princess Daisy perfume or cosmetics a gift certificate for a thousand dollars.

So what could go wrong? Christ—almost everything, Hilly Bijur thought, shuddering. In the crazy world of fragrance, who the fuck knew?

“Of course she’s unimportant, a totally unimportant miserable little bitch. You don’t have to tell me that … it only makes it worse, Robin, don’t you understand?” Vanessa said furiously. “She was never worthy of our kindness. And no, I do not want a Miltown or a Valium or a sleeping pill, so will you please stop trying to make me take one?”

It was three in the morning and Vanessa had awakened, as she had so often in the last months, in a knotted fury. Although she tried not to disturb him, Robin always seemed to know when she couldn’t sleep and woke, loyally prepared to listen as Vanessa poured once again over the rosary of her grievances. It made him sad to look at her. Although her long, slashingly elegant body was unchanged, her mouth was tightened in an unattractive line and her face looked thinner than it ever had, almost gaunt But no matter how he tried to distract her with plans for vacations, new ideas for redecorating, no matter how often he held her tight and massaged her upper back where the worst of the tension was, she wouldn’t forget Daisy and what Daisy had done to her.

“First and foremost, and you have to admit it, Robin, she was
never
properly grateful, not for a second. Oh, she said thank you, but only when it was absolutely necessary, when I persuaded Topsy to let her do the children in oil and when I got her that other commission. But how did she say thank you? As if she were doing
me
a favor! If there is one thing I can’t forgive, it’s ingratitude—she never had me fooled for a minute. And she owed us so much! How many parties I invited her to was she ‘too busy’ to come to? Who the hell does she think she is? No one—
no one
—is too busy to come here. Ever!”

“Vanessa, everyone who counts says you give the best parties in New York. What does she matter?” Robin said patiently for the hundredth time.

“That’s not the point and you know it. It’s her whole attitude! That high-and-mighty ‘You can’t touch me because I’m special,’ and ‘You don’t impress me no matter what you do’—it’s
that
I simply cannot endure. And what about those dresses you gave her? You practically had to
force them on her, for Christ’s sake—you’d think she preferred to wear those crazy, playacting castoffs of hers.”

“She has to wear decent clothes now,” Robin said, realizing an instant too late that he could hardly have been more tactless. Vanessa had been filled with wrath on the topic of Daisy ever since the unfortunate yacht incident last winter, but when the news of the Princess Daisy campaign was announced, when personal publicity started to appear about Daisy, when the story of the million-dollar contract was bruited about and, finally, now that she had heard that there was to be a
People
cover story, Vanessa’s envious outrage grew until it consumed her.

“I notice she didn’t come to you for them,” she sneered at her husband spitefully. When he merely shrugged and refused to answer, she sighed and touched his arm tenderly. “Sorry, darling, I didn’t mean that the way it sounded. Her taste is so outlandish that of course she wouldn’t have the intelligence or the class to wear your things, that’s all.”

“It’s all right,” he assured her. “Would you like a little wine? It might make you sleepy.” Vanessa shook her head again, sternly.

“Robin, I assure you that I’m indifferent to all those cheap advertising ploys—I’d say let her have her moment in the limelight and who cares—but what I can’t forgive, what I’ll never be able to forgive, is the way she ruined that yachting party. Don’t you have any comprehension of what a fool she made me look? Do you have any understanding of the things people have been saying about us ever since? Yes,
ever
since, even now! Everyone on that boat must have blabbed to every last solitary soul they knew in the whole world. It’s been months and months and people haven’t stopped baiting me … ‘Vanessa, love, so that little family reunion you planned backfired, did it?’ ‘Vanessa, I’ve heard the most fascinating story … what
really
happened, darling?’ ‘Vanessa, why on earth did you have to turn the yacht back—Why did Daisy Valensky sneak off in the middle of the night? What could have caused Ram Valensky to spend the rest of his trip in his cabin … so rude of him, poor sweet … do tell … I’m sure you know more than you’re saying … how
could
they act that way toward you?’ Oh, Robin, you just wouldn’t believe the rumors—vindictive, mean, stupid, ugly—and all of them making me look like the biggest idiot alive. And it comes from everyone—people I thought were
friends—I hardly dare to make a lunch date even now because I know there’s going to be this inquisition. Don’t
you
see what she’s
done to me
, that pretentious bitch!”

“It was just a nine-day wonder, darling. I’m sure people can’t still be talking about it,” Robin said, without conviction. He had been the target of many questions himself.

“Bullshit—and you know it. It might have been all right if Ram hadn’t acted the way he did. I could have just said that Daisy was seasick or had an allergic attack or something, but he had to go and shut himself up, for God’s sake, and not even say goodbye to anybody—that’s what really did it, that’s what really made people talk. When I think how much trouble I went to for that bastard, talking Daisy into coming with us, I could die. Even if he did finance your new line, nothing entitled him to hold
me
up to ridicule,” she raged.

“Vanessa, dearest, please, you’re just eating yourself up about this. You can’t go on … you’ve got to try and put it behind you.”

“I damn well will!” Vanessa pulled herself up from her pillows and wrapped herself in a bathrobe.

“Robin, what time is it in England now?”

“Morning. Why?”

Without answering him she placed the call to London, waiting in their bedroom, that often photographed jungle of Victorian chintz and Edwardian lace, until she had Ram on the line.

“Hello, darling—it’s Vanessa! Robin and I were just having a nightcap and suddenly we both realized how frightfully long it’s been since we’ve had news of you. So I thought, why not just pick up a phone? We were so sorry you weren’t well on the yacht—in fact we were rather concerned. But of course I understand, I get the most fearful migraines too. No, no, don’t apologize. But you’re fine now? I’m so glad. Yes, Robin and I are both in the pink. And I suppose you’re up to date on all the good news about Daisy? She must have written you … such excitement, my dear, you can’t imagine. They’re making simply the most marvelous fuss about her—isn’t it thrilling? To think that she just never seemed to have two dimes to rub together and now a million dollars! That old title of yours is worth something over here after all … democracy or no democracy, like the English, we dearly love a lord. Even
People
is doing a cover story on her now and if anything will put her on the map, that will. So you, my darling, had
better get used to seeing your little sister simply plastered all over the billboards and magazines and television—even in England—hadn’t you? Just imagine, a Valensky
touting
lipsticks and God knows what else. Still, I suppose there are just no lengths she won’t go to for Patrick Shannon. What do you mean, what about Patrick Shannon? He’s the head of … sorry, darling, obviously you know who he is. What I meant was that they’re
madly
in love. Everyone in New York is gossiping about them ever since they came back from England together. They’re having the most
glorious
affair! It’s simply delicious to watch them … makes you believe in romance again. But didn’t you see them when they were over there together? Oh, I see … in the Mideast … so you missed the lovebirds. Well now,
there
is where I think Daisy’s been particularly clever.
People
covers are all well and good, but Patrick Shannon is the most divine man these old eyes have seen in years. And a man who gets
everything
he has ever wanted. Just yesterday there was an article about Elstree in
The New York Times
and they quoted him as saying that Daisy was ‘one of a kind.’ Pretty faint praise, considering—but, on the other hand, he was probably just being discreet—the last time I saw them at a restaurant together he could
barely
keep his hands off her. Now don’t be old-fashioned, Ram! Daisy’s hardly a teenager. She has a perfect right to a dozen lovers … but she only wants Shannon it seems, and who could quarrel with that?

“Well, listen sweetie, I won’t keep you any longer. Just checking to make sure you were better—old friends shouldn’t be out of touch for so long. Robin says to tell you he sends his best. Goodbye, love. See you in the funny papers, as they used to say.”