Scruples (82 page)

There was applause for the song and two new presenters, one ravishing boy and one ravishing girl, gibbering with nerves, were trying to announce an award for, as far as Billy could tell, the Best Animated Film. As the titles of the films and the names of the animators, many of them Czech or Japanese rolled, with many mispronunciations, trembling off their lips—didn’t they rehearse?—Billy resumed her thoughts.

It would be easy, in fact inevitable, to slip, under the providential cover of fruitfulness, into the joys of motherhood, but she was beginning to know herself too well now—and not a minute too soon—to imagine that she would be satisfied with late-blooming maternity into the indefinite future. What if she tried to compensate for her inability to control Vito with an attempt to control her children—child—children? It would certainly present a temptation and she wasn’t awfully good at resisting temptation, but it must not be allowed to happen. Vito would always belong to himself and, therefore, it followed that her children would ultimately belong to themselves too. She didn’t have to like this piece of basic knowledge so recently arrived at, but she had to learn to live with it. Finally. No, the only person with whom she would always come first, who would always belong to her, was herself.

Finished, long, long ago, were the days when Ellis had put her first above everything. Finished not so long ago, the days when she could separate the life of her body from the rest of her life and decide how to lead it, as much in cold blood as a bitch in heat could be. All those cocks of all the various male nurses, Jake included, had been exactly what one of the words for them was: tools. Pieces of machinery. Vito’s penis was like those other words, the arm is a member of the body, just as a heart is an organ. When it was in her it was not an “it,” it was Vito, the love of her life, come what may.

Billy turned her attention back to the stage where four identically black-bearded gentlemen were all receiving Oscars. Animators? Raskolnikov, Rumpelstiltskin, Rashomon, and von Rundstedt? Surely not? Yet they were from Toronto, so they must be animators. All quite as usual.

The next nominees were for Best Costume Design. Billy watched, distracted from the flow of her thoughts, by the images flashed on the giant screen. As the winner was announced—would it be Edith Head again winning her ninth Oscar? No, not Edith this time but another designer. What misguided impulse had made her try to bring back sequin-paved body armour tonight of all nights?—Billy picked up her drifting interior monologue.

There was a major dilemma at the bull’s-eye center of her life. In fact she could put it into one sentence. If she wanted to stay married to Vito,
and she did
, without too much resentment, without too much jealousy and without more than the normal strain and pain of any marriage, she had to establish an abiding interest in life that did not depend on him in any way. Could this by any chance be the compromise Jessica had been so unenlightening about?

She didn’t need to make an Aunt Cornelia list to know where, amid all the interests the world offered, that choice lay. Everything pointed to Scruples. She had had the original idea. She had managed to see it through until it became workable. True, she had almost loused it up. When she made a mistake it was not just a beaut, it was a goddamned work of art, a bloody masterpiece. But she had known that it was wrong and she had picked Valentine to fix it. The fact that Valentine had turned up with Spider, who had had the imagination to turn Scruples around, would have meant nothing if she hadn’t cooperated fully as soon as he showed her the way. In other words, if she said so herself, she had what was usually called executive ability.

Billy interrupted her self-congratulations as the award for Best Achievement in Cinematography came up. Svenberg had been nominated and she found she was holding her breath. Damn. John Alonzo. Poor Per, but he was so happy with the ads for
Mirrors
, and he did have two Oscars already.

As another song was given a production worthy of Radio Qty Music Hall in the 1950s—where did they dig up these songs?—Billy’s head filled with ideas the way a Fourth of July sparkler gives off flashes of light There were still rich women in the world who lived much too far away from Scruples. She could open branches of Scruples in cities flung across continents. Rio was ripe for it—Zurich—Milan—Sao Paulo—Monte Carlo—all full of very rich, very bored, very elegant women. Munich—Chicago—either Dallas or Houston.

And New York. Ah, New York. Once, at lunch, about six years ago, Gerry Stutz had told her why she had never opened a branch of Bendel’s. She’d said that there weren’t enough women in any city in the United States except New York who could understand and support the Bendel approach to retailing. She’d enjoy giving Gerry a run for her money. The Scruples approach was not as confined to avant-garde chic as Bendel’s, It could be modified, tilted, angled to suit any metropolis so long as the country in which the city was located held a large leisure class.

Billy felt her fingertips tingling with the excitement of her visions. All those cities to visit, locations to scout, offers to be made on land, deals to be consummated, architects to be found and commissioned, interior decorators to hire, to consult with, the habits of the local wealthy community to explore. Each Scruples would be different from any other store in the world except for its basic kinship to the Scruples in Beverly Hills. There were salespeople to be trained, new buyers to be discovered, store managers to be hired, an infinitude of new refinements on the one basic theme of Scruples. Enough to last a lifetime. Billy shivered in delight. She felt, she realized, the way Vito must feel when a new picture went into pre-production. No less love for her, just more passion for something that had nothing to do with her, didn’t threaten her place in any way. Oh, lovely! But one thing at a time, or her balloon would grow too heavy and fall to earth.

Vito nudged her gently. She seemed lost in some sort of dream and the nominees for Best Director were about to be announced. Billy came alert immediately and was surprised by the surge of tension she felt. She did so love Fifi. The two presenters—Christ, who chose them?—seemed more engrossed in their jokes, bad jokes too and poorly memorized, than in getting down to the envelopes. It was sadistic. The reading of the five names seemed to take five minutes. The ritualistic fumbling with the envelope went on for an eon. How was it humanly possible for two normal people to be unable to open one envelope? Fiorio Hill. Poor Fifi. Why was Vito jumping up and—it was Fifi. As she watched his familiar figure, clad almost unrecognizably in an elegant brown-velvet dinner jacket, run up to the stage, Billy wondered if she’d ever known Fifi’s whole name or was she just too full of her own ideas to make the connection?

Thank God, another song. Time-out. She wished she’d brought a pad and pencil. No, no,
no
. That was wrong. That was exactly what she must not do. She knew that if, in a mood of gut-thrilling covetousness, she so much as wrote down the names of the cities in which she was dreaming of establishing a branch of Scruples, she’d be on the phone within hours, avariciously and imperiously giving orders to real-estate brokers, pouncing on choice corners, ravening to get started, impatient to the point of frenzy to see her ideas come to life. She had changed enough, she told herself solemnly, to see the ease with which she’d make such a mistake. She had even changed enough to avoid it. Fleetingly, but implacably, Billy reminded herself of some of the things she had gobbled down in her life; once, long ago, it had been food; then, in New York, all those young men; then, after she met Ellis, the rich years of travel, too many houses, all the jewels, coming when she was so young that she was surfeited before the end of her twenties; then the clothes, the mountains of clothes, more than nine tenths unworn; and finally again, the men, Jake in the pool house, the others in her studio. She’d had too much, so very much too much, and so much of it unsavored, swallowed without chewing. Now she knew where she wanted to go. The days of unfulfilling cupidity were over, the days of a sensible, discriminating choice of priorities lay ahead. How very Bostonian of her. So she hadn’t left Boston totally behind after all.

Billy resolved not to make the mistake of trying to plan the future of Scruples alone, in secret, self-indulging acquisitiveness. She just wasn’t smart enough. It took executive ability to admit that. Valentine, and in particular, Spider, would be in on everything. They’d both be vice-presidents of the new branches, of the new company that would be formed, with more money and bigger profit shares for them both. Who knows—it might even cheer up Spider, cure whatever ailed him?

Vito pinched her sharply, bringing her back to the vast, crowded auditorium. He hissed in her ear, “What the hell is Dolly doing?” and pointed to Dolly who had, until now, been seated a few rows in front of them.

The two presenters for the Best Supporting Actress Award had just arrived at the podium. They stood still, without speaking, gorgeous faces fixed in expressions of paralyzed confusion, watching the floor of the theater where Dolly Moon was on her feet, saying something into the hush. A big man was lumbering up from the seat next to hers. It was unimaginable. Perhaps it was some sort of protest, a Marlon Brando number only with bad timing? All over the auditorium people were looking at Dolly, aware that something had gone wrong with the smooth functioning of the Awards. This was the moment of sacred suspense. Tradition dictated that, like all nominees, she was supposed to be sitting quietly, with a serene, unfocused look on her face, every feature in disciplined repose, ready to smile falsely when the winner was announced, or crumble slowly into disbelieving joy. Instead, she was standing and speaking at length in a tone of some mild agitation. Maggie’s producer got both the minicam and the mike on her in seconds. The audience in the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion couldn’t all hear what the television audience heard, so many of them half rose to their feet to crane in Dolly’s direction.

“Now Lester, Lester, darling, don’t be so upset—it’s only the waters breaking—there’s still plenty of time—oh, my goodness, poor Valentine, I’ve ruined the dress—” She was walking up the aisle now, the minicam right behind her, the mike man next to her. As Billy said later, it would have looked neater and unquestionably more glamorous if the camera had been in front, but the cameraman knew a classic shot when he saw one and Dolly’s rear view, the huge wet patch on her sea-foam dress, the copious rivulet of amniotic fluid that she left behind her on the carpet as she made her unhurried progress to the exit, were worth a thousand glimpses of her face. Anyway, she wasn’t rushing anywhere, she was turning her head from side to side, talking to the amazed audience.

“Would you all look and see if there’s an earring on the floor? I seem to be missing one—it’s probably rolling around under your feet—now, stop it Lester, there’s nothing to worry about—just everybody look for an earring—it’s a nine-karat diamond and I’m not sure it’s insured—what Lester?—no, don’t be silly, why should I say it’s a rhinestone, Billy wouldn’t wear rhinestones. No, Lester, I can’t walk any faster, it’s uphill, don’t you see, no, please don’t try to carry me, I weigh more than you do—oh my, this wasn’t supposed to happen for a week—
honestly
—but it just went ‘pop’—I didn’t mean to do it
here
—
”
and she giggled. And giggled and giggled. In millions of living rooms, all over the world, people were laughing. More people were laughing together at that one time than at any time since history began as Dolly Moon made her historic exit from the Oscars.

Billy sat through it all in a state of shock. Dolly’s face as she walked past her! She’d never forget that look of expectant rapture as she passed by, intent on one important task, even as she dealt with the embarrassment of the moment in her own artless fashion, which always seemed to work in the end. Dolly, her own Dolly, knew the secret. She waited patiently and eventually it all happened—even if her timing was just a little off. What did it matter? No one, Billy realized, not even she, could make her life “come out even.” Perhaps it was all for the best? Not that she had a choice. How interesting to realize, finally, that even with all her vast options there were areas in which she had no choice. Just like everyone else. It was such a relief. She felt rigid bands loosening somewhere in the area she had always thought of as her stomach but which she would now have to treat with a little more respect.

While the great earring scramble died down, the presenters announced Dolly’s Oscar, and Fifi, tears of laughter streaming down his face, hastily accepted it for her. Now the presenters had come to the awards for the Best Actor, Best Actress, and Best Picture. Vito squeezed Billy’s hand tightly. As they waited for the Best Actor Award to be presented, Vito was also casting the male leads in
The WASP
, in the event that Redford or Nicholson wasn’t available, while Billy was blown here and there in her balloon, the wind deciding the direction. Was there a history of twins in Vito’s family? And while the Best Actress made her acceptance speech, in one tiny corner of her balloon Billy had started to wonder if the word Scruples should be translated into Spanish for the Rio store or should it remain in English, and Vito was thinking about many points of profit he was going to be able to negotiate on his new film.

In the momentary wait, during which Oscar fever reaches its height, while the presenters walked out of the wings and downstage to read the list of nominations for Best Picture, Vito began to sweat What if Maggie had been wrong? Jesus—he’d have to buy the rights to the book out of his own profits on
Mirrors
, which were beginning finally to mount up. But what the hell. He shrugged his shoulders and smiled. Right or wrong, and when had Maggie ever been wrong, he had to have that book. It had been written for him to produce. He knew it.