Before she got fired and before she’d met Bruce, it wouldn’t have entered her mind to think about her career that way. She would have told herself that eliminating her adversaries was beneath her. But that was only because she wasn’t sure she could destroy them. She didn’t know if she had the guts. But sitting there on the toilet seat thinking about it, she realized that not only did she have no choice, but that she might even enjoy it.
She would wipe that mocking, disdainful, sexist grin right off of Bruce Chikalis’s face.
The next day she called Rebecca DeSoto. She and Seymour had
spent an hour discussing where the meeting should take place. Seymour thought it should be secret, but Nico disagreed. Besides, she couldn’t invite Rebecca De-Soto to lunch and take her someplace obscure—Rebecca would consider it an insult, and Nico remembered how shunned she’d felt after she’d been fired. She couldn’t probe Rebecca for information while acting like she was ashamed to be seen with her.
They went to Michael’s for lunch.
“You’re the only person who had the decency to send me a note,” Rebecca said. They were sitting at one of the front tables in full display of the restaurant, and Nico could feel the curious eyes of the other patrons. “You’ve got to watch out for Bruce. He’s dangerous,” Rebecca said cautiously.
Nico nodded. “How? Exactly,” she asked.
“Advertising,” Rebecca said. “He schedules important meetings with advertisers and then changes them, and then his assistant ‘forgets’ to tell you.”
The next day, Nico ran into Mike Harness in the elevator. “I hear you had lunch with Rebecca DeSoto yesterday at Michael’s,” he said casually.
Nico’s stomach tightened, but she reminded herself that she’d chosen Michael’s deliberately, so word would get around. She wanted people to know that she wasn’t frightened. “That’s right,” she said blandly. She offered no explanation or excuse. The ball was back in his court.
“An unusual choice of lunch partner, isn’t it?” Mike asked, scratching at the inside of his collar.
“Is it?” Nico said. “She’s a friend of mine.”
“I’d be careful if I were you,” Mike said, looking at the deep orange skin on the back of his hand. “I hear she’s a liar.”
“Thank you. I’ll keep that in mind,” Nico said.
Bastard, she thought, as she watched him walk off the elevator. Men always stuck together, no matter how wrong they were. Well, women could play at that game too.
Two weeks later, she began to execute her plan.
Victor was hosting a “Spring Fling” Sunday afternoon at his estate in Greenwich, Connecticut, which was, apparently, a yearly tradition for selected Splatch-Verner executives. The house was a turreted gray stone mansion built in the 1920s and set on fifty acres next to a land preserve. She and Seymour had a Jeep Wagoneer back then, and as they were pulling into a parking spot at the end of the mile-long driveway, Bruce Chikalis came roaring up in a vintage Porsche 911. Nico got out of the Jeep, holding Katrina in her arms, as Bruce leisurely slid out of his Porsche, taking the time to clean his sunglasses with a special cloth. He carefully put the sunglasses back on his face, looked over at Nico, and smiled—just as Victor Matrick came strolling around the side of the house dressed in tennis gear. “Now that’s how I really see you, Nico,” Bruce commented loudly. “As a mother. Isn’t it wonderful, Victor?”
Nico wanted to kill him, but instead, she caught Victor’s eye. Victor clapped Bruce on the back. “You should think about having kids one of these days yourself, Bruce,” he said. “I always find that family men make better executives.”
That was all Nico needed to hear.
At one point in the afternoon, she took Katrina into one of the guest rooms on the second floor to breast-feed her, and as she was heading back to the party, she ran into Victor in the hall.
“Thank you for that,” she said matter-of-factly, referring to the incident by the car. It seemed that Victor puffed up ever-so-slightly. “Got to keep these young bucks in place,” he said. “How’s it going, by the way?” They had almost reached the stairs—in a few seconds, they’d have to part company—this might be her only opportunity to speak to Victor alone.
“We’re going to have an amazing first issue,” Nico said confidently, shifting the baby from one hip to the other. “And I know we’re going to continue to grow as long as we remember that Bonfire is a magazine that promotes women. When advertisers see a male publisher walk in, well, I’m not sure that sends as strong and as powerful a message as we’re capable of.”
Victor nodded. “You might have a point,” he said. “I’ll think about it.”
She kept at it, bit by bit, taking every opportunity with Victor to remind him about sending the right message to advertisers, while constantly watching her back with Bruce. A few months passed with no real progress, but eventually, as it always does, opportunity knocked.
One of the cosmetics giants was hosting a weeklong promotion and celebration at an exclusive ski resort in Chile. They were flying celebrities, models, and magazine people in a private 747 for an exclusive “holiday”—it was the kind of event Bruce lived for. Unfortunately, Splatch-Verner frowned on executives taking trips to faraway places from which they couldn’t easily be called back. Nico knew that if Bruce had any sense, he would pass on the trip. The trick was to convince him to do otherwise and take the risk.
But how?
“These things are easier than you think,” Seymour said. “Men are simple. Just tell him he can’t go.”
“It’s not really my place to tell him what he can and can’t do,” Nico said.
“That’s the point,” Seymour said.
On Wednesday mornings, Nico had a weekly meeting with Bruce and his senior staff. At the end of the meeting, she brought up the event in Chile. “I don’t want you to go,” she said in her flat, affectless voice. “I think it would be a far better use of your time if you were in New York that week.”