Lipstick Jungle

“No problem,” Victory said stiffly. She wondered if he was as uncomfortable as she was.

“Ellen!” he suddenly shouted. “Is the car downstairs?”

“You know it is.” Ellen’s voice came from around the corner.

“Yeah, but is it right in front of the entrance? I want to be able to walk out of the building and get right into the car. I don’t want to be standing on the sidewalk looking for Bumpy.”

“I’ll tell him you’re coming down now,” Ellen said cheerfully.

“Bumpy?” Victory asked, wondering what they’d find to talk about all evening.

“My driver,” Lyne explained. “Mr. Potholes. If there’s a pothole within five hundred yards of the car, Bumpy will find it. Isn’t that right, Ellen?”

he said, walking out of the office.

Victory looked at him, wondering if he was joking or serious.

Ellen was standing by her desk, holding up a black cashmere coat. Lyne slid his arms into the sleeves. “Bubbles?” he asked.

“Right here,” Ellen said, indicating a bottle of Cristal on her desk.

“They always serve shit champagne at the Whitney,” Lyne said, turning to Victory to explain. “I’ve told them to upgrade to at least Veuve, but they’re cheap bastards. So now I bring my own.”

Ellen followed them down to the SUV, carrying the bottle of champagne and two glasses. A woman would never dream of asking a secretary to perform that kind of service, Victory thought, giving Lyne a dirty look. He got into the backseat as Ellen handed him the bottle. “Have fun, kids,” she said.

Victory stared at her, catching Ellen’s eye. She shrugged helplessly.

Victory looked over at Lyne, who was expertly ripping the gold foil off the bottle of champagne. Her eyes narrowed. If nothing else came out of this evening, she was going to have to teach Lyne Bennett a little lesson.

* * *

THAT LYNE BENNETT IS such an asshole, Nico thought, glaring at the front page of the New York Post.

The headline screamed “Red Sox Rule,” but in a banner across the top was a picture of Lyne Bennett next to a caption that read: “Billionaire Involved in Doggie Scuffle. See Page Three.”

I hope some dog bit him, Nico thought, turning the page. The story, however, was slightly disappointing. It was only about how Lyne Bennett was trying to prevent the schoolyard next to his house from being turned into a dog run after six p.m. Lyne Bennett cited “unsanitary conditions” while the neighborhood dog owners were calling Lyne Bennett “a dog-hating bully.” Nico had to agree with them, along with the idea that there was nothing worse than a man who hated dogs. She had known Lyne Bennett for years, and every time she saw him, she sensed that he had been the kind of kid who would kick a dog when no one was looking. Thinking about men and dogs, however, reminded her of Kirby and his dog. And of what she’d done with Kirby two times last week. She’d promised herself that she would not think about Kirby when she was home and Seymour was around, because it wasn’t fair to Seymour. And so she closed the paper and tossed it onto the floor.

It was ten o’clock on Sunday morning. Nico was in “the cave”—the exercise room in the basement of the town house that Seymour had had specially built. The room was located one floor below the ground floor where the kitchen, garden, and dog kennels were, and it had originally been a windowless maze of small storage rooms. Seymour had carpeted the floors with sisal matting, and had built a shower, sauna, and steam room to the tune of $150,000, not including the state-of-the-art exercise equipment. It was on one such piece of equipment that Nico was now working out, something called an all-around trainer. The contraption required that the exerciser be strapped in, and every time Nico used it she felt as if she were the subject of some bizarre scientific experiment. Which, she supposed, in some way or another, she probably was.

She looked down at the digital readout. Ten more minutes to go. She stared at herself in the mirrored wall. She was huffing and puffing, and she frowned in concentration. You can do it, she urged herself on. Just . . . nine more minutes. And after that it would be eight, and so on, until she was done. She hated working out, but she had to. It wasn’t just for Seymour’s sake. It was literally part of her job. Victor Matrick had an edict that his executives should not only work hard, but play hard. Twice a year he scheduled an adventure getaway for his top twenty executives, a sampling of which consisted of class-four white-water rafting, jumping out of a plane (wimps could have an instructor strapped to their back), and mountain-biking in Utah. Spouses were welcome but not required, yet Seymour always accompanied her and always shone. “There’s no way anyone has time to train for these things specifically,” Seymour said. “So the trick is to always be prepared. As long as you’re always in shape, you’ll be able to compete.” Hence the exercise room.

Nico’s cell phone suddenly rang. It was hanging on a little hook on the side of the machine, and for a second, she stared at it nervously. Under normal circumstances, she would have left her cell phone upstairs, especially since it was Sunday. But as she was now having something with Kirby (she didn’t dare admit to herself that it was an affair), she didn’t want to take any chances. She’d told Kirby that under no circumstances was he to call her in the evening or on the weekend, but Kirby was the type who might suddenly become overwhelmed by passion and forget. She checked the number. It was Wendy.

“Hi,” she said, unstrapping herself from the machine.

“Victory is dating Lyne Bennett,” Wendy said, with a mixture of horror and admiration. “It’s in all the papers.”

“I know she had one date with him . . .”

“She went to the baseball game with him on Saturday night,” Wendy said, outraged. “Oh God. I hope she doesn’t turn into Sarah-Catherine. Sarah-Catherine dated him too.”

Nico wiped a trickle of sweat from the back of her neck. Why on earth was Wendy suddenly thinking about Sarah-Catherine? Especially since no one had heard from her (thank God) for at least three years. “I’m not crazy about Lyne Bennett, but Vic isn’t anything like Sarah-Catherine,” Nico said. “She has a real business. And real talent.” Wendy, she thought, was in that terrible space that women can fall into when their own life was falling apart and they assumed that everyone else’s was about to, as well. “Want to have lunch?” she asked, knowing that she shouldn’t, that she should put in some work time instead.

“I shouldn’t,” Wendy said.

“Neither should I,” Nico said. “Da Silvano at one? I’ll call Victory.”

She hung up the phone and picked up the Post, flipping quickly through the pages. There it was, on Page Six—a quarter-page color photo of Victory and Lyne Bennett, wearing Yankees baseball caps. Victory was standing up, cheering, while Lyne, who had a longish face that resembled, in Nico’s mind, a cough lozenge, had one fist raised in the air in triumph.