Scruples Two (60 page)

A frosty bitch. That’s what Spider’s first impression of her had been. Mild, favorable,
generous
, compared to the reality.

Oh God, she must be still angry at Spider, Billy thought. She didn’t have a single good reason, but she felt, deep in her gut, that she wouldn’t be satisfied until she could hurt him and hurt him, until she’d reduced him to tears. Yes, to tears. Nothing less. He was so fucking invulnerable, so sure of himself, so at ease with life, so comfortable with people, so unshy, so.… everything she wasn’t. How could she be this kind of person, this loathsome dog in the manger, envying him his personality and lashing out at him so unforgivably because he was just being himself?

Couldn’t it be stress, she asked herself, deep in misery. Couldn’t stress, which was blamed for everything that went wrong from death to pimples, be the real reason she’d been so hideous to Spider? The stress of producing this wretched,
bloody
catalog? Yes, it was all the fault of the catalog, Billy told herself, as she had a piercing memory of the moment when she’d been swept up in Spider’s arms and greeted as joyously as if she were the one and only person in the world he’d really wanted to see. There had been no catalog then, no horde of employees, no business partnership … just a simple, happy relationship that she’d ruined for all time.
Never
. They could never go back after the words she’d said.

Billy pulled the old afghan up over her curls so that she was enfolded by it from head to toe, and gave herself up completely to a storm of hot, brokenhearted tears.

There should be an escalator, or even a fireman’s ladder, between the two floors occupied by Scruples Two, Josie Speilberg told herself as she stood waiting impatiently for the arrival of one of the four elevators that serviced the Century City office tower in which the company was located. How did they expect her to run this whole enterprise when she had to waste a good twenty-five minutes a day traveling from floor to floor?

The years during which she’d worked at Mrs. Ikehorn’s house were like a long, lazy luxury cruise on board an ocean liner compared to the white-water rapids, the electric, nonstop hurlyburly of the catalog. She’d always thought she wanted a more active job, she’d always felt that her talents were greater than she needed to run any house, no matter how big, but now, as office manager of Scruples Two, she was stretched in a dozen different directions. Of course the status and salary that went with it had changed her life, but still, had nobody any consideration for her? As if she hadn’t enough to do, acting as the essential liaison between merchandise and catalog production, she also had to keep track of marketing and operations and the rapid progress of the vast Virginia operation.

Everybody was a boss of something, all the departments had their own heads, but in effect, Josie estimated, she was the boss of the bosses, keeping them informed of what was going on from minute to minute. They’d all formed the habit of calling her on the office intercom to see where they could reach this one or that one—no question about it, she was paying the price of being the most efficient and organized person in the whole operation.

She was the only essential person at Scruples Two, Josie Speilberg decided as she stepped into the empty elevator, smiling prudently and contentedly to herself. Ultimately essential, and to think that she’d once believed no one was indispensable. Particularly now, with the fashion show weekend almost upon them and everybody plain silly with nerves. Who but she had hired the travel agents to arrange all the incredibly complicated plans that guaranteed that three hundred members of the national and local media would all arrive here tomorrow, early on Friday afternoon, and be transported back to their home bases by Monday evening? Who had located all the hotel rooms and arranged for all the limos and buses? Who had worked with the party planners and the PR people to coordinate every detail of the festivities, since Mrs. Ikehorn was too busy to give it a minute and Spider was out of the office on location photo shoots almost all the time? Who delivered the messages from one of them to the other? She would really like to know how they thought they could have communicated if she weren’t around. By satellite?

Surely her title should be changed. Office managers worried about stationery and telephones and payrolls and replacing carpets—she had two assistants to handle that. Vice-president in charge of—what?
Sanity
. Yes, it might be a new position in any company, but there must be a few other unsung women all over the world who deserved to wear that title, besides herself. She’d make corporate history, Josie resolved.

She’d speak to Mrs. Ikehorn about it as soon as the weekend was over. Now would not be a good time, in fact now would be a singularly stupid time, with Mrs. Ikehorn uncharacteristically down in the dumps, yet gritting her teeth and visibly gearing herself up to acting as hostess for the entire three days. Hating the limelight as she did, as fundamentally shy and antisocial as she was—did Mrs. Ikehorn think that she’d kept that particular little secret hidden from her? She had nevertheless recognized and bowed to the fact that it was her physical presence, her newsworthiness, that had made the across-the-board acceptance of her invitations so prompt. Her reclusiveness after the death of Ellis Ikehorn had only whetted the appetite of the press for new material about her. No one knew yet that Scruples Two was a catalog, not a new boutique. The secret had been amazingly well kept, there had been no leaks in the press.

Josie Speilberg, Vice-President in Charge of Sanity. Yes, it had a nice ring to it. And there would undoubtedly be members of the press who would want to interview her one day, not the same way they were clamoring for time with Mrs. Ikehorn, of course.… but nevertheless.

Nothing she had told Sasha about the sheer hell of weddings had penetrated, Gigi reflected. Not one word. There must be some sort of basic human instinct, as impervious to the thinking process as reproduction, that caused otherwise perfectly sensible people to feel that they wouldn’t be satisfactorily or even legally married unless they did it in the most public way possible.

The wedding itself was still six weeks away, but Sasha and her mother, the wee and terrorizing Tatiana Nevsky, had been on the phone with each other for hours every day. Apparently, chieftainess Tatiana was as pleased with this marriage as she would have been if Sasha had married Prince Andrew—never a real possibility, even with Charles taken—and Sasha was basking in the unusual glow of her mother’s approval. Josh, of course, like all grooms, was just along for the ride. Nobody cared that all he wanted was to get it over with.

The combination of the fashion show weekend and the looming wedding was enough to make anybody but a veteran of the catering wars lose her head, Gigi told herself with a measure of pride. There was nothing that wasn’t under control. Each model would go down the runway properly accessorized. They’d rehearsed and rehearsed; each pair of girls shared one professional dresser and each had an individual rack of accessories, all clearly marked, as well as a list of the dozen outfits each of them would wear. The assembly of all the different combinations simply wouldn’t have been possible if Prince hadn’t hand-tailored a flock of additional samples, but he had come through handsomely. In fact he was so tickled with himself over his enlightened, young, image-busting designs for Scruples Two that he was arriving tonight, Thursday, so that he could work the fashion press all weekend, in addition to narrating the actual show himself. It would all go smoothly, in spite of Billy’s apprehension, which must be the reason for the dismal depression she couldn’t seem to get over, Gigi assured herself in a flurry of worry, or her name wasn’t Graziella Giovanna Orsini. Oy!

It was the fucking maid-of-honor dress that had been the final straw. Leave it to Tatiana Nevsky to dictate, from three thousand miles away, the dresses that she and the bridesmaids, who included Josh’s daughter, were going to wear! Talk about interference! This surpassed, in sheer undue influence, anything any bride’s grande-dame mother had pulled at Voyage to Bountiful, Gigi thought wrathfully, as she drove her shocking pink Volvo to Josh’s condo in a new high-rise on Wilshire Boulevard, to which the dress had been air-expressed.

Gigi had never seen a maid-of-honor dress she didn’t loathe. There was some sort of collusion in the fashion industry which dictated that all female members of a wedding, except the bride, must become martyrs. Something constipated the designers of these garments so that they were never what any woman would willingly choose to wear, particularly anyone with a sense of her own style. They were as predictably stiff and ceremonious as costumes from a grammar school historical pageant, without the excuse of tradition. Perhaps the designers, like the schoolteachers, knew that they could get away with it, since they counted on the indulgence of the audience. Personally, she’d rather come as Pocahontas.

Gigi left her car with the parking attendant and took the elevator up to Josh’s luxurious apartment, where Sasha opened the door for her so quickly that she must have been listening for the sound of the elevator door to open.

Grumpily, Gigi gave Sasha a kiss. “Where’s the masterpiece that we couldn’t have found right here? Does your mother think there are no decent stores in Beverly Hills?” she inquired.

“You’ve always had a sour attitude about my darling little mother,” Sasha said, far more merrily than the situation warranted.

“And you didn’t? Spare me. You disguised yourself every time you were destined to fall under her eye. She’s going to get the shock of her life when she gets out here and discovers you in full flower, unless you’re planning to wear your usual ‘Look, Ma, I’m invisible and flat-chested’ drag on your wedding day.”

“You worry too much,” Sasha said airily, with a lack of any sympathy, as if Gigi had no right to worry even a little, even with all the things going on that depended on her, from the fashion show to the wedding. Sasha had absolutely insisted that Gigi come to try on her dress today, of all days, the day before the press was descending, pointing out, incontestably, that the dress would need alterations because Gigi was so short, and, what’s more, she knew that Gigi was so organized that she’d have nothing left to do at this late date and would need to be distracted.

“Let’s see it,” Gigi said with resignation, as she spotted the large carton sitting on a table in Josh’s large, modern living room. Sasha opened the box and took out a dress that had been packed in dozens of sheets of tissue paper.

“At least it’s lavender,” Gigi said, circling it warily.

“My mother said that the color would set off your hair. Oh, for Pete’s sake, go into the bedroom and put the thing on, don’t just sniff at it suspiciously like Marcel does at Josh. Will you hurry? I can’t stand this suspense!”

“He still shedding?” Gigi asked over her shoulder, as she took the dress away from Sasha and moved reluctantly toward the bedroom.

“No, he’s resigned himself, except for the odd nasty glare. His visit to you cured him. The poor thing came back home pathetically happy, you didn’t give him enough attention. Will you go? I tell you I’m shaking!”

“Sorry about that,” Gigi laughed, and disappeared. In the bedroom she stripped down to her panty hose, took off her boots, and exchanged them for the pair of silver slippers she’d brought so that they could measure the hem. She stepped carefully into the cloudlike mass of lavender chiffon, not sure where some unseen zipper might be lurking. It went on lightly, in spite of its many layers of skirt, and zipped up surprisingly easily. Gigi turned to look at herself in the full-length mirror inside the closet.

Well. Maybe Tatiana Nevsky wasn’t as bad as Sasha had led her to believe. Maybe the woman was even a genius, Gigi thought excitedly, as she wrapped the wide velvet sash, in a deep shade of Parma violet, around her waist and expertly tied it in a large bow. The dress fit perfectly. It was a good six inches off the ground, the off-the-shoulder neckline hit her at exactly the right place, as low as humanly possible but snugly enough not to slip. The simple bodice was as slender as the skirt was full, the softly pleated sleeves were perfect, widening from the neckline to the wrist, so that they’d fall back in a graceful line when she held her bouquet at waist level. And, wonder of wonders, miracle of miracles, that was all there was to it, no trim, no sequins, no paillettes, nothing but a bell-shaped flutter of dozens of yards of chiffon that anyone could see immediately belonged on a ballet stage. A dress without time or place or season, with no excuse for existing but beauty. Gigi whirled around and around, her freshly streaked hair flying upward in a silken web, and watched the skirt rise and fall, forgetting Sasha, who seemed to be outside waiting for the verdict in tactful silence. She looked.… she looked.… like a Balanchine-inspired butterfly?… a flower with wings?… an ideal version of herself?

“Oh, Sasha, I take back all the awful things I’ve ever said about your mother,” she cried as she rushed back into the living room.

“I’ll tell Ma,” Zach said, standing in the center of the room, squarely facing her.

Gigi stopped dead, teetered on her high heels, and barely regained her balance, too shocked to move or speak. She turned so frighteningly pale that Zach took two hasty paces forward and grasped her by her arms so that she wouldn’t fall. “I told Sasha to warn you, but she thought—”

“You’re early,” Gigi heard herself say with lunatic logic. “The wedding … it’s weeks away …”

“That’s not why I’m here,” he said, putting one of his fingers under her chin and gently turning her face up toward him.

“Zach … oh, Zach …” she whispered, opening her arms wide and stretching them up to him, utterly bewildered but suddenly entirely certain that whatever was happening was right. Gigi was overwhelmed by a thunderous wave of welcome. This was far more than right, it was inevitable. Necessary, as nothing else had ever been.

“Do you have any idea how much I love you?” Zach asked her anxiously, not daring to kiss her until he’d heard her answer.