Lipstick Jungle

Come on, think! she urged herself. She gathered up her pathetic belongings and went back down to the lobby.

“Do you have the key?” she demanded of the guard.

“We don’t have no keys,” he said stubbornly.

“My husband changed the lock. While I was away. You must have the key.”

“We don’t keep no keys. We’re not allowed to.”

“Who has the key?”

“I dunno.”

“Does the super have the key?”

“I dunno.”

“Do you have his phone number?”

“Nope.”

Standoff. She felt a murderous violence toward this man who was probably only trying to “do his job.” If she were a man, she would have tried to hit him. “What’s your name?” she asked, fumbling in her bag for a pen.

“Lester James.”

“Thank you, Lester. I’m going to have you fired tomorrow.”

“Don’t threaten me, lady.”

“It’s not a threat.”

The encounter sent her heart pulsing wildly in her chest and she pushed through the glass doors to the street. Her fury, now released, was also overwhelming. How dare Shane steal her babies? She stepped out onto the street to hail a cab. A car nearly hit her, swerving at the last minute to avoid her, the driver then leaning on his horn in frustrated anger. She shot him the finger, her anger boiling over into a red-hot rage.

Several taxis passed, all occupied, and after several minutes she realized she was going to have to search for one. She began walking toward Seventh Avenue, carrying her valise, which now felt like it weighed about fifty pounds, and pulling the bedraggled rollerboard suitcase behind her. After a few feet, she stopped to shift the load, catching her breath from the exertion. Why were there no cabs? And noticing the clusters of young people on the street, she suddenly remembered it was Saturday night.

Saturday night in Chelsea at ten o’clock. It couldn’t get much worse. The area was filled with cheap restaurants and chic clubs; it was a destination point for weekend revelers. There would be no taxis, but there was a subway station on Twenty-third Street. And stopping every few feet to shift her load, she made her way painfully and slowly along the three blocks to the entrance of the subway station.

When she reached the chipped blue-painted railing that led to the steps, she paused, however, wondering where it was exactly that she should go. She could try Shane’s parents’ apartment on Central Park West—it was possible that Shane had left the kids there for the weekend and had taken off himself—but it was also possible that they wouldn’t be there, in which case she would waste at least half an hour in getting there, only to discover that she couldn’t get in. Or she could try Victory or Nico, but they might not be home either. The best plan was to go to a hotel . . . and she suddenly remembered that Parador Pictures had a corporate suite at the Mercer. She had never used it herself, it being a remnant from the days when Comstock Dibble had been the head of Parador and had us

ed it for his legendary after-parties and affairs. But she was quite sure the company still owned it—whenever the issue came up, someone always pointed out that they’d gotten it for so cheap, it was worth hanging on to.

For emergencies, she thought grimly, starting down the stairs, the rollerboard bouncing awkwardly behind her. A gaggle of girls pushed past her, nearly tripping her up; they wore short skirts and inexpensive high heels, and were chattering excitedly like starlings, full of youthful bravado. Did they know what was in store for them? Wendy wondered, looking them up and down with annoyance and admiration for their childish excitement. If they felt her stare, they didn’t show it, and, she suddenly realized, why should they? To them, she was completely insignificant, invisible, and even if they knew she was the head of Parador Pictures, would they have cared or been impressed? She doubted it. To them, she was nothing more than a desperate middle-aged woman, the kind of woman young girls looked at and, turning to their girlfriends, whispered, “Shoot me if I ever get to be like her, huh?”

But they would become like her. That’s what the young refused to understand. Everybody got older and shit happened to you. Bad shit. Shit you couldn’t control . . .

She stepped onto the train, riding downtown in a bubble of anonymity, grateful that no one was looking at her. She sighed and got off the train at the Spring Street station, dragging herself wearily up the steps to an old street paved with cobblestones. Out of all the neighborhoods in Manhattan, Soho in particular had the charged atmosphere of a movie set, populated with passersby who looked like extras from Central Casting, so perfectly did they fit into this environment. There was the feeling of everything being not quite real, or too perfectly clichéd to actually be true, and it began to rain in a fine, misty drizzle from a black patent leather sky.

She finally spoke to Shane at eleven-fifteen p.m.

He answered his phone with a rough and suspicious “Hello,” like a criminal on the run, she thought. She was relieved to hear his voice; and angry and frightened—frightened that he wouldn’t tell her where the children were, or that he might hang up on her, suspecting that he’d picked up the call only because she had dialed from the hotel phone and he hadn’t recognized the number. The wrongness of everything he’d done—taking her children, serving her with divorce papers, locking her out of her own apartment—was suddenly so overwhelming, she didn’t know where to begin. He had effectively cut her off at the knees. He had all the power and she none.

“Shane . . .” she began, firmly but not too aggressively.

He hesitated, from guilt or fear or surprise—trying to judge, she suspected, the tone in her voice and whether or not it was safe to go on.

“Oh, hi,” he said, as if bracing himself.

“Where are the children?” She walked unconsciously to the window, her head down, all her concentration focused on this tenuous lifeline held up to her ear.