She picked up the phone to call him, and as she did so, her eye fell on the CFDA Perry Ellis Award, proudly displayed in the middle of her mantelpiece. The award suddenly made her think twice. It was the curse, she thought wildly. The curse had finally found her after all. The Perry Ellis Award was the most coveted award in the fashion industry, given every two years to the most promising young designer in honor of Perry Ellis, who had died of AIDS in the late 1980s. Winning the award made a young designer’s career, catapulting him or her into the spotlight, but there was rumored to be a dark side: Several of the designers who had won the award had gone out of business. As one of the few women to have ever won the award, she’d been joking that being a woman had allowed her to survive the curse. But maybe it wasn’t true after all—and suddenly she saw her life unraveling before her. She was on a downward slide, and the next two seasons would bring the same reaction as the spring season, and the store orders would fall off and people would stop buying her clothes, and in a year and a half she’d be broke and on the street, and she’d have to move back to her hometown, single and a failure at forty-three . . .
The phone in her hand suddenly rang and she jumped, hastily pressing the button to connect the call. The woman’s voice on the other end was unfamiliar. “Victory Ford?” she asked.
“This is she,” Victory sa
id cautiously, thinking it was probably a telemarketer.
“Hi, this is Ellen from Lyne Bennett’s office.” She paused, as if to let the information that the great billionaire Lyne Bennett was calling sink in, and Victory nearly laughed. Why on earth would Lyne Bennett be calling her? she wondered. “I know this is out of the blue, but Mr. Bennett was wondering if you’d meet him for a drink next Thursday night at six p.m.?”
This time, Victory did laugh. What kind of man had his secretary make dates for him? But she mustn’t jump to conclusions. It probably wasn’t a date—she’d met Lyne Bennett several times over the years and he’d never paid attention to her. “Do you mind if I ask why?” she said.
Ellen sounded embarrassed and Victory immediately felt sympathy for her. What a job. “I think he . . . wants to get to know you, really. All I know is that he asked me to call you and see if you’d meet him.”
Victory thought for a moment. Rich men like Lyne Bennett had never been of much interest to her, but on the other hand, she wasn’t the type who attracted them either. She was too wild and outspoken to play the game of catering to a wealthy man, and she’d never bought the idea that a rich man’s money was the answer to a woman’s problems. But the fact that Lyne Bennett was bothering to seek her out meant that he might be different. And given her present situation, it probably wouldn’t hurt to at least be friendly.
“I’d be happy to meet him, but I’ve got the preopening of the Whitney Biennial next Thursday,” she said. “I don’t know if Lyne Bennett likes art . . .”
“He loves it,” Ellen said, sounding relieved. “He has one of the most important collections in the world . . .”
Victory smiled, wondering what she’d been thinking. Of course Lyne Bennett “loved” art. He was a billionaire, wasn’t he? And the first thing men did when they got money (after dating a supermodel, of course), was to polish their rough edges with art and culture.
Victory hung up, suddenly in a good mood. She interpreted Lyne Bennett’s phone call as a sign that something was about to change. Something new and interesting was going to happen—she could feel it. She looked at the phone confidently and dialed Japan.
Chapter 3
VICTORY UNFOLDED HER NAPKIN AND LOOKED AROUND the restaurant with relief.
Even if her collection hadn’t been a success, it was still great to be back in New York, where women could be themselves. Where they could be straightforward and say, “I want this!” and no one would treat them like they were the antichrist, violating some sacrosanct law about female behavior.
Unlike in Japan, she thought fiercely. “Miss Victory. You not say no to my proposition!” Mr. Ikito had insisted when she’d called him. “You woman. You listen to what man say. What man say is better.” And finally, she had had to give in, agreeing to put off her decision for another day. Which was really annoying. “Darling, you simply force the stores to take your designs,” her friend David Brumley had said, when he’d called her to console her after those disastrous reviews. “Don’t let them boss you around. You tell them what to do. Jeez.” Of course, it was easy for David to say. He was a successful fashion designer himself, but he was also a man, and gay. And known for being a diva. People were scared of David. Whereas no one, it seemed, was the least bit frightened of Victory Ford . . .
Well, she wasn’t going to think about it. Not now, when she was having lunch with her best girlfriends at Michael’s restaurant. Despite all the ups and downs, Victory had never become jaded about life in New York City, and she still got a thrill out of having lunch at Michael’s. It was ridiculously overpriced and as cliquey as a high school cafeteria, but the day you stopped appreciating the sublimely silly things in life was the day you became a dried-up old turd. And then no one would take your phone calls.
She was the first to arrive at the table, and she took the opportunity to scope out the scene. Michael’s was the high-priced canteen for the city’s movers and shakers, some of whom were so addicted to the action that they lunched there every day as if it were an exclusive country club. If you wanted to remind people of your presence, you had lunch at Michael’s, where it was rumored that the gossip columns paid off the waiters to report back on who had lunch with whom and what they talked about. The hot tables literally had numbers ranging from one to ten, and, probably because she was lunching with Nico O’Neilly and Wendy Healy (Victory was too modest about her own importance to add her name to the list), they were seated at table number two.
Situated a few comfortable feet away and standing on its own, was table number one, the most coveted table in the restaurant. It was not only considered “The Power Table,” it was also the most private table in the restaurant because it was far enough away from the other tables to prevent eavesdropping. Seated at the table were the three women whom Victory secretly referred to as The Queen Bees. Older, wiser, and known for their occasional screaming fits, they were the ultimate career gals who had been cutting a swathe through the city for years. It was rumored that they secretly ran New York. Not only were they at the top of their fields, but having lived here for forty years or more, had deep connections with the people who mattered. Indeed, one of them, Susan Arrow, was known for having once said, “Everybody was a nobody at one time in their life, including the mayor.”
Susan Arrow might have been close to seventy, but it was nearly impossible to decipher her real age by looking at her. Something happened to successful women when they reached forty—it was like time began to reverse, and somehow they managed to look better and younger-looking than they had in their thirties. Sure, they had botox and fillers injected into their faces, and eyelifts and sometimes even facelifts, but the effect was more profound than the result of what could be achieved with the surgeon’s knife. Success and self-actualization was what really made women glow—they shone with the fullness of life. Susan Arrow had battled cancer, had had two facelifts and possibly breast implants, but who cared? She was still sexy, wearing a cream cashmere V-neck sweater (revealing a slightly incongruously youthful décolletage) and cream wool trousers. Victory and Nico always said they hoped they’d look half as good as she did when they got to be her age.
Susan was the founder and president of the notoriously successful public relations company ADL, and she was seated with Carla Andrews, the famous prime-time news journalist, and Muffie Williams, who, in her late fifties, was the youngest of the three. Muffie was the president of the American branch of B et C, the luxury goods conglomerate, which made her the most powerful woman in the United States fashion industry. Her appearance, however, stood in stark contrast to her fluffy-sounding WASP name. Muffie was a WASP (hailing from a Boston Brahmin family), but she looked severely French and unapproachable. Her dark hair was scraped back across her scalp and fastened into a small bun, and she always wore tinted blue Cartier glasses in what were supposedly eighteen-karat-gold frames. She was a ruthless businesswoman who didn’t suffer fools, and she could make or break a designer’s career.
Victory’s heart had skipped a beat when she’d first walked into Michael’s and seen Muffie—not necessarily from fear, more from admiration. To her, Muffie was the equivalent of Mick Jagger. Her taste was flawless and her standards nearly unreachable. A kind word from Muffie meant everything to Victory, and while some people might have found it childish, Victory still cherished the various comments Muffie had made to her over the years. After her first big show in the tents, six years ago, Muffie had come backstage, tapped her on the shoulder imperiously, and whispered in her fluttery East Coast accent, “That was very good, dear. Very, very good. You have poh-ten-ti-al.”
Under normal circumstances, Victory would have gone to the table to say hello, but she guessed that Muffie’s response to her show was probably in line with the critics, and while Muffie wouldn’t say anything about it if she didn’t like it, her silence would be just as effective. Sometimes it was better not to put yourself in a potentially awkward situation, and so when Muffie had caught her eye as she sat down, Victory decided to limit her greeting to a neutral nod of acknowledgment.
But now, as she was checking out the Queen Bee table, Muffie suddenly looked up and caught Victory staring. Victory smiled awkwardly, but Muffie didn’t seem offended. She stood up and, putting her napkin down on her seat, began walking toward her.
Jesus, Victory thought nervously. She couldn’t imagine that her show was so bad as to warrant Muffie making a special effort to let her know. In two seconds, Muffie was standing above her, her rail-thin physique clad in sequined tweed. “Darling, I’ve been meaning to call you,” she whispered.
Victory looked at her in surprise. Muffie had never honored her with a phone call before. Before she could respond, however, Muffie continued, “I want you to know that your show was excellent. The critics don’t know what they’re talking about—they get it wrong as often as they get it right. Continue with what you’re doing, dear, and eventually the world will catch up with you.” And having delivered her pronouncement, Muffie patted Victory on the shoulder twice (much like the queen tapping a knight with her sword, Victory thought), and went back to her table.
For a few seconds, Victory sat in shock, trying to absorb this unexpected compliment, and then she felt as if she were going to explode with happiness. These kinds of moments were rare, and no matter what happened in the future, she knew she would treasure Muffie’s comment as if it were a rare family jewel, taking it out and looking at it from time to time when she was feeling low.
There was a frisson of energy at the door, and Nico O’Neilly appeared, passing the maître d’ at a brisk clip as if he didn’t exist and heading right over to the table, her face lighting up when she saw Victory. Nico was almost always cool and often cold, but never with her friends. “Japan?” Nico asked, giving Victory a hug.
“Terrible,” Victory said. “But Muffie Williams just told me she thought my show was excellent. I’ll be d
ining out on that one for the next three years.”