Trading Up (9 page)

Leaving her sister and Mimi in East Hampton, she had decided that it was a perfect day for a late-afternoon drive. There was a straightaway from Sag Main Road to Scuttle Hole Road, and Janey slid the stick shift into fourth gear and accel-erated to seventy. Her hair, secured in a ponytail, blew madly behind her; she loved the feeling of freedom speed gave her, and at that moment, she reflected that she could never go fast enough. But then she had to slow down to make the turn that led to the Two Trees horse farm.

Smoothing back her hair, she eased the car down to twenty miles an hour (she swore she could hear the engine crying against such restraint), and scanned the mown field where several cars were parked. Sure enough, parked at the end on an 18947_ch01.qxd 4/14/03 11:22 PM Page 46

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arrogant angle, so no other cars could park next to it, was Harold Vane’s black Maserati. She recognized it immediately, because three years before she’d been Harold’s girlfriend for the whole summer, and had spent far too much time in that car being driven around by Harold. Harold was too jumpy to be a good driver, but when Janey had pointed this out to him, he’d looked at her in alarm and had ground the gears, so she never mentioned it again.

She steered the Boxster along a dirt track, thinking that dear, darling Harold, with his shiny bald head and his ever-shiny shoes, was really
quite
a show-off. But as he was so charming and kind (he’d loaned Janey money last summer when she was broke), it was difficult to fault him for anything.

And now, Janey thought, checking her face in the mirrored sun visor and leisurely applying her trademark Pussy Pink lipstick, he had taken up polo! It was extraordinary, really, especially as Harold, who was little and neurotic (he was over fifty, but couldn’t keep still), was the last person she could imagine on a horse. But Janey had a “feeling” that polo was going to be very big this summer, and Harold was one of those people who loved being on the leading edge of the next stylish thing. And as he had supposedly made a killing in the stock market in the past two years, why shouldn’t he spend his leisure time as he pleased, no matter how ridiculous it might make him look?

In the distance, tiny riders on tiny horses raced up and down a green velvet field, but they were too far away to make out their identities. Janey began strolling toward them, thinking about how pleased (and surprised) Harold would be to see her, and immediately found that there was a small impediment: It had rained in the past two days, and her three-inch, spike-heeled Dolce & Gabbana sandals were sinking into the earth, giving her an ungainly gait. This would never do, so she stumbled the few feet back to her car to take off her shoes.

As she bent over to unfasten the strap, she had the uncomfortable feeling that someone was watching her. She hated being caught unawares—had, indeed, always hated being in situations in which she couldn’t control the impression she might create—and she jerked her head up. Sure enough, not only was she being watched, she was being watched by the very person she had secretly come to impress: Zizi.

Now, this was unfortunate, she thought. He was leaning against a Range Rover with his arms folded across his chest (where on earth had he come from, Janey thought, the field had been deserted when she’d driven in), and on his face was an unmistakable smirk of amusement, as if he
knew
she had come specifically to find him. And the worst thing about it, she thought, as she checked her balance against the car, was that he was every bit as good-looking as she’d thought he would be when he had passed her on the highway in his Ferrari. No, cancel that: He was 18947_ch01.qxd 4/14/03 11:22 PM Page 47

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better-looking. He had that dangerous sort of male beauty on which a woman might stupidly and readily throw away her pride, and he knew it.

For a second, she considered getting into her car and driving away (now
that
would confuse him), but then he started walking toward her. She quickly looked down at her feet, wondering if he was going to stop and talk to her, but instead, he strode by (he was a good five inches taller than she was, and she was 5'10"), and as he passed, he said playfully, “You need boots.”

“Boots?” she scoffed. “What for?”

“The mud,” he called over his shoulder.

And that was it.

She had a nearly uncontrollable urge to run after him, which was probably what he expected her to do (which was what she imagined
he
expected
all
women would want to do), as she stood awkwardly with one naked, exposed foot poised over the grass.

And then he stopped and turned.

“Well?” he asked.

“Well what?” she said.

“Can I help you?”

“I’m looking for Harold Vane,” she said, as if to emphasize the fact that she was not looking for him.

“Ah,
el patrón
. I will take you to him,” he said, giving her an intense look that implied there might be a larger meaning behind his words. He walked back to the Range Rover, opened the door, and removed a pair of rubber boots.

“Here,” he said with a smirk.

He held out the boots to her and their fingers touched. A jolt of electricity passed between them. The shock left Janey dizzy and slightly disoriented, as if she’d lost all sense of the horizon, while other details came into sharp relief: a gray crack on the tip of one black rubber boot, the gritty texture of the rough grass beneath her foot, and, burned into her brain, the strange creamy green color of his eyes, which reminded her of the warm Caribbean Sea through which one can clearly see shells and small bright fish against an oatmeal-colored bed of sand. Had he felt it too, she wondered wildly, or was it all in her imagination? And if not, what did it mean?

And then he was striding across the field with the confidence of a young god, as she clomped awkwardly after him, trying to keep up. She couldn’t take her eyes off him (who could have?), and as he turned and smiled, she saw that he had that air of deliberate kindness combined with a world-weary aloofness that is the mark of a person whose beauty has set him apart from the rest of humanity. “You are a fan of 18947_ch01.qxd 4/14/03 11:22 PM Page 48

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the polo?” he asked, and she answered with uncharacteristic honesty, “No. I don’t care a thing about it.”

She raised her eyebrows as if daring him to disapprove, but there was less aggression and more frank girlishness in this move than she would have normally employed with a man with whom she felt on uncertain footing, and he rewarded her with an appreciative laugh. She answered with a laugh of her own, uncontrived, and marveled at how her layers of bullshit seemed to have fallen away, revealing her pure being. And then their eyes met in shining conspiracy.

“This is really turning out to be a good day,” she said.

A thundering of hooves distracted them, and from the far end of the polo field a pack of horses and riders came galloping in their direction and passed by to the goalpost at the opposite end; lagging behind was a lone rider whose form might best be described as a sack of potatoes loosely strapped to a saddle. The sack seemed to veer dangerously in all directions at once; as it came closer Janey could make out the human form of Harold Vane.

Suddenly, the pack at the other end of the field turned and began galloping toward him; Harold’s startled expression indicated that he knew a collision was inevitable. Abandoning all pretense of riding ability, he threw himself upon the mercy of his horse, which, he no doubt assumed, probably did not want to be tram-pled either, and literally wrapped his arms around her neck. The horse, an old mare named Biscuit who had recently been brought out of retirement for the express purpose of safely squiring Harold on her back, immediately understood what to do.

Chomping down on the bit so that no amount of pulling on Harold’s part could deter her, she determinedly set off for the barn at a brisk trot.

At that point, Harold Vane’s only concern was staying on Biscuit for the mile-long trek to the barn, at which point a groom or stable boy would come running out with an annoying air of repressed disapproval; but suddenly his eye was caught by the pleasing lines of a beautiful woman, and a second later he realized that that woman was none other than Janey Wilcox. What the hell was she doing here? he wondered. And then he saw, with consternation, that she was standing close—too close—to his star polo player. They weren’t touching (
yet,
he thought), but nevertheless were posed in an attitude of intimacy, with her face tilted up toward his and his eyes looking down upon her, and, he thought, he would be goddamned if he allowed his only ten-goaler to get caught up with Janey. He would definitely have a little chat with Zizi and nip this thing in the bud, and he told himself that he was only doing it for the sake of the team—he intended to win, and he needed Zizi’s full concentration.

And Zizi would have to listen to him, he thought, clinging to Biscuit’s neck with the crablike patience of a rich man who is always confident of succeeding.

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After all, he was the boss, the man who was shelling out half a million dollars a month for the team, and the Argentinean polo players were intensely loyal to the wishes of their
patrón
. And so, he decided, he really had no need to be overly worried about Janey Wilcox. He reminded himself that he had had her and rejected her, and that Janey was one of those women who are great at getting men but lousy at keeping them.

But, as the sight of the barn thankfully appeared from behind a copse of trees, there was one truth to which his male vanity would never admit, and that was envy.

Yes, he had rejected Janey Wilcox, but that didn’t necessarily mean that he wanted another man to have her. And especially not a man who was twenty years younger, a hundred times better-looking, and, most of all, a good twelve inches taller.

He is exactly what I want,
Janey thought, driving home in her car. When it came to basic human emotions, such as love, hate, envy, joy, and triumph, Janey was neither sophisticated nor poetic, but she felt what she felt with the force of a genuine truth—

and she decided that she was as in love with Zizi as she’d ever been with anybody.

In any case, she thought, coming out onto Route 27 from Hayrack Road (on purpose—the slow traffic would give her time to think), she was not going to go for Selden Rose, especially not now, after those magical few minutes with Zizi. And now, with the Boxster throatily purring along in the thick traffic, and the warm weight of summer beginning to make itself felt, the memory of her encounter with Selden Rose at Mimi’s party three nights ago filled her with a triumphant sense of amusement.

Her first impression of Selden Rose was that in looks, anyway, he was acceptable: He was tall and dark, and while obviously over forty, his face still had some of the fat of youth. But as he shook her hand, giving her a vague, tight smile, she saw that he had the off-putting attitude of a man who knows that he is a catch and doesn’t mean to let anyone forget it.

And so, with a tiny air of resignation, she took her seat next to him. As she sat down, he deliberately turned away, and she experienced the distinct disappointment that her dress had been wasted on him.

He was in the middle of leading their half of the table in conversation. “The problem with people right now,” he said, with the confidence of a man who assumes that his opinions will always be taken seriously, “is that without war, there isn’t any moral purpose . . . People have become soft and amoral because they’ve been allowed to forget about the reality of death . . . We’ve become inured to it. Nowadays, death takes place behind closed doors . . . nobody ever
sees
death anymore . . .” And Janey, who really could not take this conversation too seriously, said,

“ ‘Inured’? That’s an awfully big word for East Hampton.” 18947_ch01.qxd 4/14/03 11:22 PM Page 50

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He turned to her—and about time, she thought—and without a trace of sarcasm in his voice, as if he really did think she was a dummy, said, “Oh. Would you like me to explain its meaning?”

“What? And spoil the pleasure of having to look it up in the dictionary? I think not,” Janey said, as she pointedly took a sip of champagne, which was a dry vintage Laurent-Perrier—the one that came in the pretty flowered bottle.

“Oh, well, suit yourself,” he said, as if he had no idea what to make of her, and Janey decided he had none of the subtle social graces at all, probably because he was from LA. And then she deliberately turned to the man on her left and he to the woman on his right.

The man to Janey’s left was the Republican senator from New York, an easy-going yet powerful man in his sixties named Mike Matthews. By discussing the benefits of the new, cleaned-up New York, Janey managed to keep the conversation going through the appetizer—a luxurious serving of beluga caviar mounded on top of three tiny cold potatoes—but when the plates were cleared away, there was a lull in the conversation and she was drawn back to Selden. He certainly seemed to have no end of stupid opinions, Janey noted, as she overheard him talking about the differences between men and women with the elegant middle-aged woman to his right. This particular type of conversation was inevitable, Janey thought, given that Selden was single—it was always only a matter of time before someone asked a single man
why
he was unattached—and, as if on cue, Selden said, “The truth is that—
biologically
—men choose women based on their looks.” And then had the nerve to add triumphantly, “And that’s the one thing feminism will never be able to change.”

The middle-aged woman smiled indulgently while Janey let out a ringing laugh of derision, causing him to turn back to her.

Janey smiled. His timing, she thought, couldn’t have been better; she’d been waiting for a moment just like this one. A few days ago, when she’d been in Book-Hampton, she’d picked up a new neofeminist tome titled
Beauty: How Men’s Expectations Have Ruined Women’s Lives,
and in her usual manner, had flipped through it, absorbing a few salient facts that she might later use at dinner parties. “As a matter of fact,” she said pleasantly, “you’re wrong. Before the 1900s—before the industrial revolution and the redistribution of wealth and the advent of the gold digger—men usually chose women based on the woman’s income and position or her ability to bear children or her ability to work. A man’s choice of a mate didn’t have anything to do with looks . . .”