The First Wives Club (37 page)

Today had brought news of another failure, another “misplaced accusation.”

Miguel had had it. He looked at the photo of his wife and his two kids. They lived in New Jersey now, far from El Barrio, Miguel only saw them every other weekend. He was a family kind of man, and he missed them.

They had been separated now for almost five months. Miguel had found a cheap studio sublet near Columbia and was back to eating out of cans, sleeping on a mattress on the floor. He hated living this way, but he would not concede, would not do his wife’s bidding like a dog. She called him crazy, and bitter.

Well, perhaps he was, but he was also right. It amazed him that if he’d chosen to be a run-of-the-mill accident-claims lawyer, he might still have a home and family and a wife who didn’t think he was loco en /a cabeza.

Miguel thought again of Mrs. Paradise. She certainly didn’t look like any other woman he knew. But her appeal wasn’t just the way she looked.

She had seemed so vulnerable, yet so determined. Miguel reached for the phone at the same time he flipped through his Rolodex.

“Mrs. Paradise?” he said when she answered. “This is Miguel De Los Santos at the SEC. I wanted to talk to you some more about Gil Griffin. Could we meet for lunch?”

After the date was arranged, he found that he had actually been nervous asking her, and when she accepted. He couldn’t promise her an open-and-shut case, but he could promise hen-and himself—some action.

His eyes focused once again and took in the photo of the U.S. Senate he had mounted on the wall. Under it he had put his own caption, White, male millionaires working for you. He was bitter, no doubt about it.

You guys are not going to win, he thought.

Four more months. That was it. I’ll nail one of these guys in four months.

Sweeping his feet off the desk and changing from a man of thought to one of action, he walked to the Year at a Glance calendar on his wall.

He picked up a thick red marker and circled a date.

He walked back to his desk and with a sigh, reached down for one of the Old Faithfuls. He picked it up and laid it on the marred surface of his desk.

Maybe this time, he thought. Maybe this time I can bring down one of the corrupt jefes. Putting on his new reading glasses, he opened the file titled Gilbert Criffin—Federated Funds Douglas Witter.” Out to Lunch.

Bill watched Gil enter Bankers and Brokers restaurant and, like a politician, maneuver between the crowded tables, handshaking and backslapping. He made his way to Bill, who sat in the much soughtafter corner booth reserved under Gil’s name. “What a mob scene,” Gil said, pretending he didn’t like the attention his entrance brought.

After ordering drinks from the hovering captain, Bill got right to the point.

“Have you heard about Morty Cushman and the IRS?” Gil nodded. Christ, the guy knew everything. “He called me. Asked if we could represent him. Imagine.” He spoke with disdain. The firm didn’t like dirty clients.

Gil shrugged and said, “You ever hear of an overnight millionaire who didn’t have tax problems? It’ll blow over. Anyhow”—he took a sip of his San Pellegrino—“it’s not our problem.”

Bill twirled his martini around in the stemmed glass. “I know it’s not our problem. It’s just that when I hear the IRS is sniffing around one of the principals of a company we took public, it’s just a little too close to home.

It makes my partners nervous.” He took a big gulp of his drink. He was uncomfortable with it as well, but wasn’t going to let Gil see him sweat. “And I heard something about a meeting you had with the SEC—nothing serious, I hope, Gil. No relation to the Cushman deal.”

“Just the usual compliance garbage. Routine.” Gil seemed impervious, very upbeat. “Look,” Gil continued, “from what I hear, this IRS flap has nothing to do with the stock issue. It has something to do with his divorce. It’s his personal taxes, his personal problem.”’ Placing his hand on Bill’s shoulder, Gil smiled. “I hear she’s going for his balls.”

Bill smiled grimly, reassured but insulted, Gil, knowing about Bill’s own divorce, wasn’t very tactful. And Gil knew about Phoebe, too, although Bill knew that Gil could never understand what he had with Phoebe. He could never appreciate a woman like her.

“And speaking of balls, I had to take Federated’s business away from Aaron Paradise’s ad agency. Aaron is having his own financial problems and tried to get me involved. He pulled a number on Anne, and I was supposed to take the weight. Can’t have that, now, can l?”

Bill nodded, but his thoughts were still on Phoebe. Gil brought him back to the present when he nudged him and asked, “What’s worse than getting married to a broad like that Brenda?”

Bill shook his head.

”Getting divorced from her,” Gil said, and laughed out loud. Bill joined in.

Gil called over his shoulder to the waiter. Turning again to Bill, he said, “Speaking of Brenda, I’m so hungry, I could eat a cow.”

“So everything is fine?” Bill asked.

“Hey.” Gil looked him in the eye. “It would take more than a greedy Jew to bring me down.”

Elise sat across from Larry on the banquette in the dining room of the Algonquin Hotel, nervously twirling her drink in damp circles on the white tablecloth. He looked so nice, his long, kind of hound dog face smiling. He looked so handsome, and so damn young. How old was he?

She couldn’t remember what year he’d said he’d been born. Please, she prayed, let him be at least thirty. He couldn’t be less than that.

She took a sip of the vodka and orange juice while waiting for their omelets. Although she’d prefer her vodka neat, she didn’t want to shock Larry.

Elise was, she admitted, embarrassed that she had used the excuse of the screenplay to invite Larry to lunch. Not that the revised screenplay wasn’t extraordinary. It was. But she was as interested in him as she was in the screenpla,y. She’d thought of him every day, every night for weeks. Arriving at the decision to call him had been agonizing. She’d hoped that he would call her, that he would seduce her into a relationship with him, even though she had been so clear at their last meeting that that was not what she wanted. And it seemed he had respected her decision. A gentleman, she thought, miserable, a perfect gentleman.

Was she obsessed? She fluctuated between gratitude for his gentlemanliness, and longing for his pursuit. The struggle between the old Elise and the new, she thought grimly. But there had been no ambivalence about how she felt remembering the time they had had together in the Carlyle. That, she now knew, had been nothing but good. And now so was his screenplay.

Eiise cleared her throat and smiled. ‘This ending is much more real.”

She tapped the blue-bound manuscript between them on the table.

Larry smiled proudly. “It is, isn’t it? Well, let’s be honest. The ending on the earlier draft was sentimental trash, but I didn’t have the courage to do it honestly. You gave me permission.”

“It’s painful this way, but it’s right.” Elise took another sip of her drink, though she wanted to gulp it and order a double. “There are no happy endings in life.”

“Do you believe that? I don’t.”

“When I was your age, I didn’t either. But enlightenment comes later.

Life wears you down.”

“Yes, but it also builds you up. I mean, at any time, things could change.

Look what happened to me. At Campbell’s, seeing you, and then the idea for the screenplay, and these lunches. God, you never know what could happen.

Tomorrow, your whole world could change.”

She envied him his enthusiasm and felt saddened that she couldn’t share it.

“Yes, and probably for the worse.”

He frowned at her. “I don’t believe that you’re really that cynical.

Cynicism is just a cover-up for despair.”

Elise hated how the conversation was going, hated hearing the world-weary tone in her voice. Then the waiter arrived with their omelets, and Elise changed the subject. “Larry, I’ve come to a decision.” She picked up a stem of parsley and twirled it between her fingers before placing it back on her plate. “It’s about something that affects both of us.” She took courage from the bright smile on his face. “I want to do that role, and if it means producing, then I’ll have to do that, too.”

She wasn’t prepared for the sudden look of sadness on Larry’s face.

“What’s the matter?”

“Nothing,” he said, but his eyes began to dart around the room, avoiding her eyes.

“Don’t lie.”

Larry looked down at his plate, his hands in his lap. Without looking at her, he said, “I thought you were talking about a personal decision.

About me.”

“This is a personal decision and it is about you. Don’t you want to see this film produced?”

“Of course. But it’s not the most important thing to me. Maybe I’m wrong, and I might be naive, but I think I could get this script produced without you.”

Now he looked directly into her eyes. “I think about you all the time.

What I can’t do is go on living without you.”

Elise shook her head. “You don’t have to keep up the sales pitch Larry. You’ve already closed. So cut the idle flattery.”

Larry drew back as if slapped, the suddenness of his movemet upsetting Elise’s water glass, spilling it across the table and onto her lap.

Elise sucked in her breath at the shock of the ice water. Well, she thought, I deserve that.

She quickly regained her composure. But Larry looked stricken, his anger fighting with his embarrassment and concern.

“God, I’m sorry … ,” he began. “It’s just …”

While Elise mopped her skirt with the napkins the waiter handed her, she said, “I owe you the apology, Larry. What I said was insulting and provocative. I’m not usually so insensitive. I’m just frightened.”

”Of e?” he asked incredulously.

”No, not of you. Of my own feelings. You have to understand. I’ve always had a horror of bad publicity, and to imagine myself a laughingstock, well, it’s too painful.”

“Why would anyone laugh at you? Am I so disreputable? I know I haven’t had a movie produced, but I am a fairly decent photographer.”

“Yes, an excellent thirty-year-old photographer.”

“Well, twenty-eight, actually.”

Elise dropped her head, then spoke to the top of the table. “Oh Jesus.” She looked up and saw awareness grow on Larry’s face.

”Is that what all this is about, Elise? My age? For God’s sake, are you going to pass up something as good as this over something as irrelevant as that?”

“Easy for you to say,” she said, but with a little less conviction.

“It’s easy for you to say, too, Elise. Just say it. Are you going to let morons—fifty-year-old men who would date eleven-year-olds if they could get away with it—be the ones to set the social standards?”

”The standards have already been set. And not only by fifty-year-old men. By women, also. By women like my mother.”

“Yes, and probably my mother, too. But those rules aren’t carved in stone.

Things change. You’re changing.” He leaned across the table and took her ice-cold hands in his. “I’d be so very proud to be with you, Elise. We could have fun. We could make this work.” He paused.

“God, your hands are ice-cold.”

“You should feel inside my underpants.”

“That’s just what I’ve been trying to tell you.”

Despite herself, Elise laughed. This was it then. She prayed that the Algonquin Hotel had a room available. “Waiter!” she called. ‘The check, please.”

Aaron strutted into the dining room of the Advertising Club, the former Phipps mansion on Gramercy Park. With him was his star, his centerpiece, his advertising triumph, Morty the Madman, and his son Chris, his rising star.

Aaron liked to think of Morty as his creation, and he expected others to do so as well. As he followed the headwaiter and Morty and Chris to their table, he felt people pause and stare. As they sat down and ordered drinks, Aaron said, “Morty, you’re an adman’s dream come true.

Everyone’s looking at you.”

“Bullshit,” said Morty, squinting at the menu. “They’re looking at you.

They’re envious. Look what you pulled off.”’ Putting aside his menu, he looked directly at Aaron. “You’re a genius. You made us both rich.

You made my name a household word. I paid you a bundle, but it was worth every penny. And it didn’t hurt when I went public.” Aaron noticed Chris’s eyes on him and felt a surge of pride.

Chris leaned back in his chair and patted Aaron’s back. “That’s my dad.” Aaron looked around the former ballroom of the mansion. Always in good taste, he thought. Turning back to Morty, he felt the wolves at the surrounding tables nipping at his heels. Yeah, he’d made them both rich, and as a payback Morty had made him poor. Today he needed two things, assurance that Morty would expand his advertising budget in a big way, and confirmation that Morty would cover his losses.

He needed both badly. Aaron was still reeling from the loss of the Federated account. Their advertising manager wouldn’t give him any reason for their decision to pull out. And Gil Griffin wasn’t returning his calls. It was as if an ice curtain had dropped between Federated and the agency. He desperately needed Morty’s budget to double in order to cover the loss of the Federated account. Christ. I need Morty to cover all my losses, he thought.

Pulling this one off would be a trick. Well, love the bastard up and then see what you can pull out of him. After all, it is Thanksgiving, a time when even Morty should be in a good mood. And, Aaron told himself, I’m the phoenix, ready to soar again from the ruins of a disaster.

But instead of the surge of adrenaline he usually managed, there was merely a trickle. Maybe I’m a bit of a bedraggled phoenix, he thought.

Leslie hadn’t taken the news of the loss on the Morty the Madman stock very well. In fact, she’d been a bit of a bitch. Aaron was ready to admit to himself that he’d been a schmuck, but he wasn’t ready to admit it to Leslie.

And he certainly wasn’t ready to be called one.

Annie had been furious. Well, of course, she would be. She’d threatened to go to Gil Griffin, to raise a stink, to hire a lawyer.

He’d promised her he’d have the money all back in six months. The problem was, he didn’t know how.