Lipstick Jungle

“I know. But I feel a little guilty sometimes. That things should work out so easily,” Wendy said, referring to her new living arrangement. She had bought two lofts on the top two floors of a warehouse building in Soho, so while she and Shane didn’t technically live together, the children were as close to both parents as they could be, without those parents still being married. “I mean, it’s so easy to solve your problems when you’re a successful woman and you have your own money,” Wendy said. “I think about all the women who aren’t, and don’t, and the hell they must go through. It’s something we can never forget.”

“But that is the whole reason to become successful,” Nico said fiercely. “It’s when you really understand why you’ve worked so hard. So that when there is a crisis, your family doesn’t have to suffer.”

Wendy paused and looked down at her plate. There was a little smile on her face. “Well, you should know something, then. It’s too soon to tell anyone, and it might not work out, but I’m pregnant.”

Victory gasped, and for a second, Nico was so shocked, she couldn’t speak. “I know,” Wendy said. “It wasn’t on purpose. Selden said he couldn’t have children, but he was wrong.” She shrugged helplessly. “Sometimes you have to go with these things. I think it’s a gift, for finally getting Ragged Pilgrims onto the screen. I was going to buy a sapphire ring, but I guess this is better.”

Selden Rose! Nico thought. “Wendy, it’s wonderful,” she said, finally finding her voice.

“Victor might not like it, but I really don’t care,” Wendy said. “I’m the head of Parador. I’m putting my foot down. Selden’s already agreed that if one of us has to leave Splatch, he will. He’ll start his own company. He wants to, anyway.”

“You don’t have to worry about Victor,” Nico said, brushing Victor Matrick away as if he were no more significant than a janitor. “I’ll fix it up with him. I’ll make it sound like it was somehow all his idea, you and Selden being together and having a baby.”

“I don’t know,” Wendy said wistfully. “Ever since I spent those three days with Shane and the kids, taking care of them when they had chicken pox, and missing Victory’s and my sleepover in Cannes . . . I just thought, I can do this. I do do this. I’ve been doing this for years. This is me. I have my career, and I have kids. And I want them both. I need them both. I can’t be with my kids every minute, but they don’t want me to be with them every minute either. They don’t see me that way. And it’s okay. And I wasn’t afraid anymore. I just decided that I wasn’t going to feel guilty . . .”

“You never had anything to feel guilty about,” Victory protested. “I’m so happy for you,” she said, getting up to give Wendy a hug.

“Hey. It’s just a kid,” Wendy said, with false sarcasm. “Another one . . . But at least it’s a real kid and not a grown man this time.”

Nico looked at Victory and Wendy, and tears almost came into her eyes—tears that would have come if she’d allowed them. We are all happy, she thought suddenly. “And Victory and her hat,” she said kindly. “It’s brilliant. That hat has already made twenty thousand women happy. Not to mention two little girls.”

Victory looked at her with gratitude. “I’m getting sentimental,” Nico thought. “That’s what’s happening to me. I must put a stop to it immediately.”

* * *

OUT ON THE SIDEWALK, after lunch, Nico thought about going to Kirby’s apartment and ending it at last. She’d been planning to swing by his apartment after Wendy’s premiere party, but perhaps it was better to get it over sooner rather than later. It had gone on for over a year, she thought. How had that happened? Like everything else in life, it had slid into a routine. First there was passion and excitement, and the thrill of getting away with it. Now there was just a little bit of the thrill left, of covering her tracks, of having something that was just her own, which nobody knew about; probably not unlike how drug addicts felt. Except that you could always tell when people were doing drugs, just as people were beginning to pick up on the fact that she was having an affair. She turned up Fifty-seventh Street and cringed, thinking about that blind item in the Post. It was like a huge warning flag. It meant that somebody knew something, but the editors didn’t think they had quite enough information to name names.

The sky felt very low and heavy, and walking quickly up West Fifty-seventh Street, Nico thought that if it weren’t for the cold, she would wonder if she were actually outside at all. The city always felt to her as if it were enclosed in a glass dome, and “being outdoors” was actually an illusion. They were all, she thought, looking at the faces of the passersby, like tiny creatures trapped in one of those water-filled paperweights into which a child might peer, fascinated and horrified by the goings-on in this miniscule world.

At the corner of Fifty-seventh and Fifth Avenue, she hesitated, meaning to cross over to the East Side and take a taxi up Madison Avenue to Kirby’s apartment, but she suddenly remembered about Seymour’s tie. Seymour wouldn’t be upset if she forgot, but he would notice. Seymour had a habit of remembering everything people said, and holding them to it. People needed to be accountable to their words, he said; they should do what they said they were going to d

o. Imagine what the world would be like if no one felt any responsibility to deliver on their promises—the whole world would be anarchy. “There are degrees of things,” she always tried to tell him. “You have to allow for circumstances and degrees.”

“Degrees—pah!” he’d say. “Degrees are the beginning of a slippery slope into chaos!”

She must get him that tie, she thought.

She crossed Fifth Avenue. It was like stepping over some imaginary line. The side of the city east of Fifth Avenue was so much nicer than the west side. Had the architects gotten together years ago and spelled it out—our side is going to be better than yours? She pushed through the revolving doors of the Bergdorf Men’s Store and a huff of warm, slightly scented air came at her like a hug. The smell was pine; Christmas was coming. This year, they would go to Aspen and St. Barts; Seymour would ski and swim, and she’d probably work most of the time.

Wendy was going to India with her brood and Selden, and was leaving Shane behind, but no, she probably wasn’t going now, now that she was pregnant. Shane must be furious about that, Nico thought, but there wasn’t anything he could do about it. Wendy was like one of those successful men who gets divorced and finds new happiness right away, while the woman is left steaming at home. Nico wasn’t sure about Selden yet—she was going to watch and wait—but she did love the fact that Wendy had so neatly turned the tables on Shane. And he couldn’t complain—Wendy had given him everything he’d been demanding in the divorce settlement: his own apartment, shared custody of the kids, alimony, and child support. She paid him $15,000 a month, and that was after taxes. “When we were married, I gave him everything he ever wanted, but it still wasn’t enough,” Wendy said, and Nico thought that that sounded exactly like what she’d heard so many men say about their ex-wives. Shane wanted something intangible (possibly self-esteem), something emotional, but the problem with filling that emotional emptiness was that it wasn’t something someone else could give you. It had to come from inside. Shane had, she supposed, made the same mistake all those unhappy housewives had made in the fifties.

“You’d better be nice to Seymour,” Wendy said, only half-jokingly, “or he’s going to try to do the same thing to you.” It was a conversation, Nico imagined, that fifteen years ago, people could have only imagined men having. But no, Nico thought, fingering a tie, Seymour would never do that. Seymour was content. He was a team player. He was always trying to make their lives better, and she appreciated him. She was generous. When you were essentially “the man” in the relationship, you had to be generous, and you had to be careful never to point out to the other person that you were paying; that fundamentally it was your show. In other words, you had to try to behave the way women ideally wished men would behave, and rarely did.

A salesman in a dark suit and tie glided up behind her. “Can I help you?” he asked.

She suddenly felt like a man in a lingerie shop. “Yes. I’d like to buy a tie for my husband,” she said, thinking that she still liked the way that sounded, saying the words “my husband.” She must do this more often. She ought to buy Seymour a little something every week or so. He deserved it.

“Any special color? Or occasion?” the salesman asked.

“It’s for a movie premiere . . .”

“Is your husband in the movie business then?”

“No,” she said. “My friend is . . . it’s her premiere,” she said emphatically—there was no need for the salesman to know this, she thought, but it somehow seemed important to make this clear.

“So you’re guests, then.”

“Yes.”