Lipstick Jungle

“So you’re not having an affair?” Katrina asked insistently, wanting to be relieved of the burden of possibility and all it might imply. Hedging was not a good idea, Nico thought, even though she didn’t like the idea of baldly lying to her daughter. “Absolutely not, darling. Daddy and I are very happy. You don’t have to worry about us.”

I must end it now. Today, Nico thought. This is a sign. It’s December first, on the first day of snow. She had promised herself that if any hint of the affair got out, she would finish it immediately. She had been thinking all along that she didn’t want to hurt Seymour, but Seymour was a grown-up, he could probably withstand an assault to his psyche. Now she saw that it was Katrina who couldn’t. Katrina would not be able to understand the situation, and why should she? She had no life experience to give her the tools, and hopefully, she wouldn’t for a long time. But the reality that her mother was having an affair would destroy Katrina’s vision of her father—it would weaken Seymour in her eyes, to say nothing of what she would think of her mother. Girls like Katrina had a black-and-white morality; an idealism about how people should behave. They didn’t understand about the weakness of the flesh. There was something pure and almost saintly about Katrina in her innocence.

“I knew you weren’t, Mommy,” Katrina said, slightly triumphant as she leaned over to give her mother a kiss. The car had arrived at her school—a charming brick building with a small playground next door, fenced off from the street by a chain-link fence. Inside, clusters of children were gathered in small groups, arranged by some atavistic pecking order known only, and instinctually, to them. “Good-bye, sweetie,” Nico said. “I’ll see you tonight.”

She sat back in the car then, relieved. She had come so close—how could she have allowed herself to take such a chance? It was bad judgment. She must not use bad judgment, she berated herself. It was a flaw. She knew better. She must eradicate this flaw; stomp it out.

The car moved slowly forward along the narrow West Village street. Ahead of her, on the right, she spotted Shane Healy walking down the sidewalk with two of Wendy’s children—Magda and Tyler. They were Shane’s children too, she supposed, but she specifically thought of them as Wendy’s, especially after what Shane had tried to do. Taking the children away. It was pitiful. And Wendy had trumped him, by coming up with the perfect solution. Her eyes narrowed. “Dimitri,” she asked. “Could you pull over for a second? I see someone I know.”

The car stopped, and when Shane had nearly reached it, she lowered the window. “Hello, Shane,” she said pointedly, giving him a cold smile. And before he could respond, she raised the window, disappearing behind the tinted glass. Now that was really immature, she thought, but fun. Shane had to be reminded that he couldn’t get away with anything anymore. That all of Wendy’s friends were watching him and watching out for her.

This small, yet satisfying piece of business taken care of, the car proceeded through the West Village and onto the West Side Highway. The Hudson River was the same dull whitish gray as the sky—flat and yet, for some reason, extremely soothing. It was nice to drive along the river every day on her way to work, and she never neglected to look at it. She ticked off the particular landmarks as they passed by: the asphalt park where people bicycled or Rollerbladed; the ugly blue corrugated structure where the city imprisoned impounded cars; Chelsea Piers, where Katrina rode horses; and then around a little corner, and to the right, a series of billboards. The first one was for a ministorage company, always a little tasteless, she thought, with a photograph of a GI Joe and the tagline, “My mommy doesn’t want me to come out and play.” But coming around the corner today, she did a double-take. Instead of GI Joe, there was a giant image of Victory Ford. Victory, looking astounding in a huge white hat like the one Katrina had been wearing, was just stepping out of a white limousine, and looking to the side with those startling, almond-colored eyes. And what an expression on her face. Stepping out in front of the photographers, as though she had humbly and most respectfully conquered the world. And underneath was the line: “Victory Ford: Live It,” and on the bottom at the right, three dots—pastel pink, blue, and green—followed by the Huckabees logo. And there it was for all the world to see, she thought proudly. Victory’s triumphs were always thrilling, but this one was particularly satisfying because she had helped engineer the deal between Victory Ford and Huckabees, and there was something so gratifying in not just having great ideas, but in being able to make them happen.

She had set up the meeting between Peter Borsch and Victory six months ago, when Victory had come back from France and the disastrous incident with Pierre Berteuil on his boat. Nico would never have done anything like that, but Victory had a different style. She was creative, not corporate; she strained at the ties when she suddenly had to behave with corporate hypocrisy and became like a teenager determined to rebel against the adults. Victory would always do things her way or not at all, Nico thought. She had earned the right to take those kinds of chances, and now, Victory would become richer than all of them. But she and Wendy had always known that that was the way it would be.

She picked up her cell phone. “Darling,” she said excitedly. “I’m just passing your billboard now. I’m so proud of you.”

“I just passed it myself. I had the driver go up the West Side Highway so I could see it—they put it up last night, after midnight,” Victory said. “Do you like it?”

“I love it,” Nico said. “It’s perfect. Where are you?”

“I’m on Thirty-third Street.”

“I’m on Thirty-first. Tell your driver to slow down and we’ll catch up.”

Nico smiled childishly. She loved this, she thought. She didn’t know why, but it was funny, like when you were waiting on the street, talking to someone on their cell phone and asking where they were, and they were just a few feet away. Those kinds of things still made her laugh. Victory was in a new gold Cadillac DeVille; Dimitri pulled up alongside and both women rolled down their windows as their cars moved slowly through the intersection. “Where did you get that car?” Nico shouted.

>

“I just bought it,” Victory said, leaning out the window. “I’ve already sold twenty thousand white hats, and it’s not even nine a.m.”

“That’s brilliant. But that car is hideous.”

“Isn’t it fabulous? No one else has anything like it. And it was only fifty-three thousand dollars. A bargain,” she screamed. “When Lyne sees it, he’s going to have a heart attack.”

“That’s excellent, darling. See you at lunch?”

Victory nodded and waved. “Twelve-thirty,” she shouted. Her car suddenly sped up to catch the light, veering sharply up Thirty-sixth Street. Nico sat back on the seat, keeping the window down and letting the cold air brace her face like an icy cloth, just for the hell of it. And besides, she thought, cold air was supposed to be very good for the skin.

* * *

“MAGDA SAW KATRINA’S HAT, and now she has to have one too,” Wendy said.

“That’s no problem,” Victory said. “I’ll bring her one tonight.”

“By the way, I saw Shane this morning,” Nico said. “I was a little rude to him. I’m sorry. I couldn’t help it.” She put her menu aside and placed her napkin on her lap, unconsciously surveying the restaurant. They were at table number one, the table she was now usually given at Michael’s. Even though she knew she wasn’t, technically, the most successful woman in the place (there were a couple of newscasters who certainly made more money than she did), ever since she’d been promoted, she seemed to be radiating an almost palpable (and she hoped, generous) sense of power. On the other hand, it might also be due to the fact that she had tipped the maître d’ a thousand dollars on the day when the three of them had come for lunch to celebrate.

“Don’t worry about it,” Wendy said. “Shane thinks a lot of people are rude to him, now that we’ve split up. He says he hardly gets invited to parties anymore . . .”

“That is so sad,” Victory said, genuinely sorry for Shane, Nico thought. Victory had a soft spot for everybody, and she had even given Muffie Williams a job (paying her, Nico knew, a small percentage of the profits from the huge licensing deal with Huckabees), after Muffie had quit B et C in June, saying she couldn’t take Pierre Berteuil anymore either.

“He will live,” Wendy said, referring to Shane. “Anyway, I want to know about this hat that everyone’s talking about. A hat!” she said to Nico. “How brilliant is that?”

“It’s just a hat,” Victory said. “Nothing like your movie. Are Shane and Selden both coming?”

Wendy nodded. “I’ve told them that they have to get along. Shane anyway. Selden is perfectly willing to be reasonable. And Magda loves him of course. She might be more in love with him than I am. She’s actually lost ten pounds.”

“That’s because you’re happy, and it makes her happy,” Nico said.