Second Chance (7 page)

“Don't worry about me. I'm looking forward to it, Fiona.”

“Good. I'll see you downstairs.” She hung up quickly, and predictably it was seven-thirty when he saw her hurrying through the lobby. There were a million people milling around, or so it seemed, the usual summer tourists who stayed at the Ritz and came from everywhere and those who had come for the haute couture. There were models, photographers, editors, reporters, clients of haute couture wearing their prizes from the last shows in January, European, American, Arab, and Asian women, with their husbands in tow, and a crowd of gawkers staring at them all. And outside the hotel there were groupies and paparazzi waiting to snap photographs of anyone well known. According to the whispers in the crowd, Madonna had just cruised through moments before. Like most of the other stars staying in the hotel, they were going to the Dior show. Moments later Fiona and John slipped into the chauffeured car she'd hired for her stay, and they sped off toward the station. Adrian and both their assistants were following in a separate car. Their photographers were already at the train station, and had been set up there for hours. The shots they got were all important. The haute couture shows in Paris were the World Series of Fashion.

As Fiona glanced over at him, she smiled in amusement. “I can't believe you're doing this with me. You're a hell of a good sport, John.”

“Just ignorant, I guess. I have no idea what I'm getting into.” But it already seemed like fun to him. He loved the atmosphere and the underlying sense of tension and anticipation. “How are they going to do this in a train station?” They were headed toward the Gare d'Austerlitz.

“God knows. We'll see. If I lose you after the show, find the car outside, or meet me back at the hotel.” She was anticipating barely controlled chaos, which was an appropriate assumption at almost any of the shows.

“Do you want to pin my address to my shirt? My mother did that once when we went to Disneyland. She had absolutely no confidence in my ability to remember my own name. She was right of course. I got lost as soon as we got there.”

“Just don't forget mine,” she said with a rueful grin as they got out of the car, and fought their way through the crowd. Their VIP tickets were large silver cardboard invitations that were easy to spot, but in spite of that, it took them nearly twenty minutes to fight their way through. It was after eight by the time they got in, and were taken to leopard-printed directors' chairs set up on the platform. The chairs seemed to stretch as far as the eye could see. And the theme was, as Fiona already knew, African jungle.

It was eight-thirty when they finally started the show. The entire train station where they sat went dark, and an antique train came slowly toward them, as what seemed like a thousand drums began beating in the pulsating rhythms of the jungle, and a hundred men dressed as Masai warriors appeared from nowhere and stood glaring at them. When the lights came back on, it was awesome, and John was watching it in fascination. He had already spotted Catherine Deneuve, Madonna and her entourage, and the queen of Jordan sitting nearby. They were in impressive company, and John alternated between watching what was happening and keeping an eye on Fiona. She sat quiet and still, concentrating on what was coming, and within instants, it began to happen, as the music got louder, and three men with two tigers and a snow leopard walked slowly through the crowd. And as she saw them, Fiona smiled.

“This,” she said with a look at John, “is pure Dior.” The only thing missing was an elephant, and within moments, one arrived with two handlers and a huge rhinestone-covered saddle. John couldn't help wondering if the animals were likely to panic in the crowd, but no one seemed to care, they were waiting with bated breath for the clothes, which came next.

Each model was preceded and followed by a Masai warrior, in authentic dress, with spears, and scars, and heavily painted. And each model was exquisite, as one by one they stepped off the train. The clothes were beaded, colorful, exotic, with long sweeping painted taffeta skirts, or lace leggings covered with beads, extraordinary intricately beaded bustiers, or some stepped off the train with their breasts bare, as John tried not to stare. In fact, one of them walked straight up to John, enveloped in a huge embroidered coat, and slowly opened it, unveiling her flawless body, wearing only a G-string, as Fiona watched with amusement. The models loved playing with the crowd. John fought valiantly to appear calm and not squirm in his chair as the model walked away. It had been an unforgettable moment. And all the while, Fiona sat watching the girls file past with an unreadable expression, which was part of her mystique. She had a well-trained poker face that allowed no one to guess if she approved of the clothes or not. She would let the world know what she thought when she was ready to and not before. And John didn't ask her. He loved watching her, and the proceedings.

The evening gowns that came toward the end of the show were equally fabulous and unique. He couldn't imagine any of the women he knew wearing these creations to the opening of the Met, or any of the events he went to, but he loved watching them, and seeing all the drama and spectacle that surrounded the models. And when the bride came out, she was wearing a huge exaggerated version of a Masai headdress, a white painted taffeta skirt so enormous she could hardly get it off the train, and a gold breastplate entirely encrusted with diamonds. And at the instant the model stepped off the train, John Galliano appeared on a white elephant, wearing a loincloth, and an identical breastplate himself. And half a dozen of the painted warriors lifted the bride up to him, and sat her behind him on the elephant, as they both waved and were led away. The tigers and snow leopard had been removed by then, which seemed fortunate to John, as the crowd around them went absolutely berserk, screaming and shouting and cheering and applauding, as the rest of the models filed past, and the drum music got deafeningly louder. And moments later the warriors and models got on the train, and were carried out of the station. It was pandemonium on the platform, as Fiona finally turned to look at John.

“Well?” She looked amused, and could see that he was stunned. He had been mesmerized by the performance. It was heady stuff for a novice, or even an aficionado of the couture shows. But in this realm at least, John was decidedly a virgin. This was a hell of a way to go.

“Just another day at the office for you, I guess.” He smiled at her. He had loved it. “But it blew my socks off. Absolutely amazing. All of it. The clothes, the women, the warriors, the music, the animals. I didn't know where to look first.” In a far, far more glamorous way, it had reminded him of his first time at a three-ring circus. This wasn't even Disneyland. It was nirvana. “Is it always like this?”

“At Dior it is. They seem to outdo themselves every time. The old houses never did anything like this. The shows used to be elegant and sedate. But Dior has been this way ever since Galliano. It's more about theater than fashion. It's more of a publicity campaign than a serious intent to dress women. But it works for them, and the press loves it.”

“Does anyone wear the clothes?” He couldn't imagine it, although a wedding with Galliano's bride in the gold and diamond breastplate would have been interesting certainly.

“Not many. And they make a lot of changes and adjustments. There are only thirty or forty women in the world who wear couture anyway, so many of the houses are closing. The workmanship is so intense, the cost of the materials and labor so high, they all lose money on it. Which is why in some cases they make it about publicity now and not making money. But in some ways, it has an impact on ready-to-wear, and it's worth covering from that standpoint. Because sooner or later, we'll see some mutation of this on real women who buy their clothes at Barney's.”

“I can hardly wait for that,” John said, and she laughed. “I'd love to see that at my office.”

“You might at some point, in a very watered-down version. Sooner or later it gets there, in a forum and rendition tolerable to the masses. This is where it starts, in its purest form.” It was one way to look at it, and he knew she was intensely knowledgeable about her business. He had even more respect for her, and was even more fascinated by her, after seeing her in Paris. And she was obviously enjoying being with him.

As the crowd began to thin, they made their way toward the exits. They were going back to the hotel for a drink, and eventually they were going to a public swimming pool for the party hosted by Dior. But Fiona said there was no point going before midnight. It was already ten o'clock as they left the station. And ten-thirty when they got back to the hotel, and they settled in at a corner table in the bar for cocktails and hors d'oeuvres. He was starving by then, but she said she wasn't hungry. Adrian stopped in to see them for a few minutes, said he thought the show was fabulous, and every five minutes, someone else stopped to say hello to Fiona. It was more than obvious that in this realm she was queen.

“Do you ever get a break from all this?” he asked with interest.

“Not here,” she said, sipping a glass of white wine. He had ordered a martini, and he didn't complain to her that it was mostly vermouth. He didn't really care. He was having too much fun with her to care what he drank. And it was easy to see how much she loved it, not just the attention, but the ambiance. She was totally in her element, surrounded by her subjects and slaves. Everyone wanted to know what she thought of the clothes, and she was ready to admit finally that she loved them for the most part.

“What did you love about them?” he asked, intrigued.

“The workmanship, the detail, the imagination, the color, the mood. The painted skirts were fabulous, they were works of art. He really is a genius. You know, in haute couture, every single stitch in any garment must be sewn by hand. There isn't a single machine stitch in the entire collection,” she explained. It was all a mystery to John. It was about as far as you could get from the world of the little black cocktail dress that he understood. It was Fiona's world, not his. And he admired her for it. “Do you like clothes?” she asked as they munched nuts, and little hors d'oeuvres, while exotic-looking people continued to interrupt them. They were all paying homage to Fiona, and some seemed curious about John when she introduced him. But most ignored him. It was Fiona they wanted to talk to, and approached in droves.

“I like well-dressed women. This is a little beyond me, but it certainly is fun to watch. And very different.” She nodded, as yet another hanger-on stopped at their table. “You don't get much peace here.” In fact she got none at all. But she hadn't come to Paris for peace.

“I don't expect to,” she said calmly. The truth was she didn't get much peace anywhere, and didn't mind it. This was what she had filled her life with instead of a husband and children. The only constants in her life were her work, Adrian, and Sir Winston. The rest was stage sets and actors who came and went onstage. She loved the visuals and the drama. “I think too much peace makes me nervous. I miss the noise.”

“How are you on vacation?” he asked with interest. It was hard to imagine her doing nothing, or alone. She seemed so much a part of the chaos she lived in, he could no longer imagine her without it, nor could she. He suspected that long term, or full time, it would drive him crazy, but it totally fascinated him for now.

“I get anxious for the first week,” she said honestly in answer to his question. “And bored the second.” They both laughed at what she'd said.

“And the third?”

“I go back to work.”

“That's what I thought. So no taking a month off on a desert island. That's too bad.”

“I spent a month in Tahiti once after I'd been sick, and my doctor insisted I go to a warm climate and rest. I nearly went out of my mind. I take my vacations in Paris, London, and New York.”

“And St. Tropez,” he added, and she smiled.

“That's more of this, with water and bikinis. It's not really peace. But it's a lot of fun.” He conceded that it would be, especially with her. She was a rare, exotic bird, with plumage as bright and colorful as what he had just seen at Dior—there was nothing small and brown and tame about her. Nothing at all. But he liked her this way. Immensely so. “Are you ready for another round of Dior?” she inquired with a look of mischief.

“More tigers and elephants and warriors?” They were intriguing, but he had had enough of them for one day.

“No, it's a water theme,” Fiona told him, but once again, when they arrived, he was completely bowled over by what they had done to an ordinary swimming pool. There was a Lucite dance floor placed over the pool, with huge exotic fish swimming under it, and girls painted to look like fish in brilliant hues with stripes of gold wearing only body paint and nothing else as they wandered through the crowd. And men in tiny gold bikinis with incredible bodies served food and drinks. The techno music was deafening as people danced and writhed on the Lucite floor. The entire party was decorated to look as though it were underwater. They served sushi and exotic seafood, and every supermodel in Paris was there, along with movie stars, photographers, socialites, aristocracy and royalty, exquisite people, and the elite of the fashion world. And again everyone knew Fiona and greeted her. It was an incredible evening, but John was grateful when they left in less than an hour. Fiona had done her duty and was satisfied to leave, as they both leaned back against the seat in the limousine, relieved to have escaped the noise.

“My God, that was quite a scene,” he said, unable to find words to comment on it. He was beginning to feel like Alice in Wonderland, or as though he had overdosed on LSD at lunch. He couldn't imagine spending a week doing this twice a year, but she seemed to thrive on it, and be unperturbed by the frenzy and turmoil. She smiled peacefully at him as they drove back to the Ritz under an incredibly beautiful Paris night sky.

“The other parties this week won't be as exotic as this. Dior goes all out.” She knew they had spent three million dollars on the party they'd just left and much more on the show they'd seen that afternoon. The other houses were more circumspect, both in their budgets and their themes. This was quite an introduction for him, and as they approached the Place Vendôme, Fiona asked the driver to stop and turned to John. “Do you want to walk for a few minutes, or are you too tired?” She liked walking in Paris before she went home to bed, but it had been a long day for both of them, and jet lag was finally catching up with her.