Lipstick Jungle

“Shane, darling,” Jenny said, patting the cushion next to her. “We were just talking about you.”

“Really?” he said, glancing over at Wendy. For a second, their eyes met. There was something hard in his look, but Wendy decided to ignore it. He probably felt guilty about missing dinner and was expecting her to give him a hard time. Well, she’d trump him. She’d ignore the fact that he was late; she wouldn’t even ask him where he’d been.

“We were talking about how lucky Wendy is to have you,” Jenny said flirtatiously.

Shane froze. “Is there any more wine?” he asked.

“Tons,” Wendy said, “if you remembered to order some.” She suddenly felt a need to assert her authority over the situation.

“W

ell, I didn’t,” Shane said.

“Well, I guess it doesn’t matter,” Wendy said. She felt a little bit guilty, so she got up and went into the kitchen and got Shane a glass and then poured him some wine and handed it to him.

“Thanks,” he said. He looked at her coldly, like she was a stranger.

“Our movie’s going to be a hit,” Jenny said, leaning forward and touching Shane on the leg. “Did Wendy tell you about it?”

“Of course it’s going to be a hit,” Shane said, taking a gulp of wine. “If you’re in it.”

Jenny left forty-five minutes later. Shane walked her down to her car. When he came back, a chill seemed to descend over the apartment.

Without looking at her, he went into the kitchen and poured himself a glass of vodka. “What are you doing?” Wendy asked. She wanted to touch him, to make everything right, but there was a wall around him. She gave up. “I don’t know what your problem is, Shane,” she said. And then her annoyance finally got the better of her. “But I suggest you get over it.”

He took a sip of vodka and looked down at the floor. “I wasn’t kidding, Wendy,” he said. “I want a divorce.”

Chapter 4

POOR WENDY, VICTORY THOUGHT, FOR THE MILLIONTH time that week.

It had been about ten days since Shane had dropped his bombshell about the divorce and had left the apartment. Wendy had called her at eleven-thirty that evening, drunk and in shock, and Victory had thrown a coat over her pajamas and had run over. There was no explanation for Shane’s behavior, and the apartment was in chaos. Magda was out of bed, demanding to know what was going on, and the baby, sensing that something was amiss, kept trying to breast-feed, even though she’d been weaned for over a year. Wendy didn’t have any milk, but she let her suckle anyway, thinking that if it made the baby feel better, it was worth it. “Look at me,” she exclaimed, sitting on the couch with her shirt open and one side of her bra pulled down, the baby attached to the nipple. “This is my fucking life. I work seventy hours a week and my husband just left me for no reason. How the hell did I end up like this?”

Victory looked at Wendy with concern. “You’re not going to go all Sarah-Catherine on me, are you?”

Luckily, Wendy laughed.

Sarah-Catherine was the quintessential example of a particular kind of girl who came to New York, thrived for a while, and then was eaten alive. She’d clawed her way to the top of the hotel business, and Bonfire had even featured a six-page story on her. But one evening, with very little warning, she went insane, window-shopping on Fifth Avenue naked at four in the morning.

“I’ll never understand why Sarah-Catherine went crazy,” Victory said to Wendy. “It scares me sometimes. It could happen to anyone.”

Wendy snorted, the baby still attached to her nipple. “She was crazy from the beginning. But she was successful, so no one noticed. She got away with it.”

“Who’s Sarah-Catherine?” Magda demanded.

“Someone you don’t want to grow up to be,” Victory said.

“I’m going to grow up to be just like my mother-r-r-r-r,” Magda said, in that quirky way she had of speaking. “I’m going to be a queen and boss people around.”

Wendy and Victory exchanged glances. “Mommy doesn’t really boss, darling. She tells people what to do. It’s part of her job.”

“You bossed daddy. Everyone says he loved it, but that’s why he left.”

Victory had managed to get Magda to go to bed, but only by promising to let her come to her showroom. Poor Magda was at that awful age, poised between being a little girl and an adolescent. She was pudgy and beginning to get breasts. Victory felt sorry for her, but what could you do?

Poor Wendy! she thought again, looking out of the window.

She was sitting in the backseat of a supercharged Mercedes SUV, feeling a little bit like a lamb being led to the slaughter. The intimidating vehicle belonged to Lyne Bennett, and had been sent expressly to pick her up. She’d tried to explain that she could get to the date under her own steam, but Ellen, Lyne’s assistant, had begged her to accept the ride. “He’ll get angry at me if you don’t,” she’d said.