For All the Wrong Reasons (3 page)

College would have been nice but Michael was white and male and free of obvious disabilities, unless you counted a disastrous haircut and a passion for Kung-Fu movies. He lost scholarship places to women with worse grades than his, and his natural sexism deepened. There were always enough girls hanging around for him to be cocky and arrogant; though he was bookish he was also tough. He didn't enjoy team sports because he was too much of a loner, but he started curling his first weights at nine years old and never really stopped.

When he was thirteen Michael took up karate. There was no point wasting time with hockey and ball when the school gang beat him up for his lunch money every second day. Two months into his training, Michael kicked the hell out of the ringleader, and never got bothered again. He even beat up a few kids himself. If he ever looked back he might have been ashamed, but Michael didn't waste too much time examining his conscience. That was then: that was life on the street. Kick or be kicked.

The girls spoiled him. They did his homework, and tidied up his room. He had a way of blunt speaking some chicks seemed to enjoy. He paid on dates, even if a date consisted of a soda and a candy bar at the local five and dime, but he didn't compromise. If a girl complained about his karate schedule, they broke up. It never bothered Michael, because there was always another honey right there to take her place.

He thought of women as weak and pretty, future wives and mothers. He didn't mind if a girl was smart. In fact, he couldn't stand stupidity. He wasn't great at the bar pickup game, because if a girl was stupid, Michael had an irresistible urge to tell her so.

Last week he'd hit some place on the West Side with his friend Big Steve who lived out in Westchester. Big Steve was still teasing him about the way the chick of the night had sat next to him, put her hand on his forearm and, gazing into his eyes, spilled out the story of her screwed-up life. Michael turned to her and said, “You know, I really don't want to hear your sob stories. I just met you.” She was offended. Too bad. He was no good at pretending to be interested in bullshit.

The fact that women took the scholarship places when they had lower grades made him angry, but he took it on the chin. Columbia offered him a place to read political science, but he hated the attitude of the professors, so he left. In the end he attended a local college, and worked four jobs to pay for his tuition. His father hung Michael's diploma on the kitchen wall in his restaurant. It meant even more to Francesco than to Michael; his father had been a peasant from Naples right off the boat, and now his son was a Master of Arts. He backed off from the restaurant idea. His daughters, Maria and Sophia, had both made good marriages. Francesco was sure that Michael would do well, too.

Michael had taken out a bank loan and founded a tiny publishing company, for children's books, operating out of the East Village. He had faith that there was a huge market for children that just wasn't being reached. Kids like himself, kids who would love to read if only they got the opportunity, if they could be taught about letters by something other than
Sesame Street.
The market was out there for sure. He just had to find it.

He hired one assistant and talked to a friend from college, Joe. Joe's father owned a printing press and agreed to put out a small print run if Michael could come up with something to print. That was the trouble. He advertised for writers in the
Village Voice,
and got flooded with rubbish, full of spelling mistakes and grammatical errors. It was a huge mistake. Michael got his phone number changed so he didn't waste all day telling so-called children's novelists why their stuff wasn't going to make it.

After two months he had impatient creditors, a bored secretary, and not much time. The truth was, he knew nothing about publishing.

Francesco gave him the idea that saved him.

“Sure, there's good stuff out there,” he said, considering it pretty hard for a man who mostly read menus. “It's just most of the good writers are dead. They died hundreds of years ago. Nobody writes like that anymore.”

It was the answer. Michael bolted from his seat and drove back to his office. He could re-issue children's classics, and never have to pay the writers a cent. Edward Lear was as dead as a dodo, and after a while his stuff went into what was called “public domain”—you didn't have to pay for it. It took him a week to find Seth Horowitz: a smart, gay kid at NYU with an incredible talent for drawing. He knocked out a version of
The Owl and the Pussycat
in three days. Joe's father gave them a break on the printing run, and Green Eggs had its first book.

Then all he had to do was sell it.

He didn't have a dollar for advertising, but he had passion. Michael loaded up copies of
Owl
into a knapsack and cycled around every kindergarten and library in Manhattan. For every nine “no”s, he got one “yes.” After a month he had sold every copy.

About now, Michael was earning just enough to pay his assistant, his overhead and his rent, and even afford small luxuries like decent coffee. His big break could not be far away. He knew it. He walked down the rickety stairs of his pre-war apartment building to the street to spend one more day looking for it.

THREE

Diana settled back against the black leather of the chauffeur-driven Mercedes, squeezed her husband's hand, and thought about New York.

Her things, what little there were of them, had already been shipped: real lavender bags and other small reminders of England, some new things from Chloe and Hussein Chalwar, and her wedding dress, dry-cleaned, boxed and pressed, to be presented perhaps to a daughter should she and Ernie ever get a minute to themselves to start working on one. Apart from that, she took very little. Only the Prada and Chanel had survived the move. What more perfect excuse could you have to start your wardrobe from scratch than emigrating to a new country? Ernie was still buried in his new reports and balance sheets for Blakely's and just signed off whatever Diana wanted. And to conquer New York, nothing but the latest stuff would do.

Her engagement ring, a not so subtle diamond rock, now glittered next to a thin band of platinum. Diana glanced down at it smugly. Her status had taken rather a leap. She was now Diana Foxton, Mrs. Ernest Foxton. In fact, there was a large box of creamy Smythson writing paper in the boot, zipped away in her Gucci luggage (Louis Vuitton was so yesterday), with her new name emblazoned all over it. Diana crossed her legs under her sage-green Joseph suit, her string of pearls at her neck, and tried to get used to it. To be honest, she preferred her maiden name. A part of her missed being Diana Verity. But that was silly; married women in her circles didn't keep their own names, particularly when they weren't going to work.

“Do you think they'll have got our place ready, darling?” she asked. “I need a really good bath when I get off a plane. I always feel so sticky and bloated.”

“'Course they will.” Ernie had his nose in a report and answered her absently. “I told you, the supervisor's hired us a temporary maid. She'll have done everything, even stocked the fridge.”

“I bet there won't be any bubble bath,” Diana pouted. “I should have stocked up before I left.”

“I can't be expected to sort out your toiletries,” Ernie said, rather shortly.

“I know that, sweetie.”

Diana glanced out of the window as London swept past and wondered how much she would miss it. Susie had given her a big hug at the end of the reception at Brown's, and told her the scene would never be the same. She might miss Catherine Connor and Emma Norman, her girlfriends who used to drink with her at the Groucho and Soho House. But there was only so many times you can go to the Met Bar, and that old Liam and Patsy, Jude and Sadie, Tara and Tamara thing was just … played out. I want
fun,
Diana thought impetuously, pushing her dark hair back from her blue eyes, sweeping a soft hand finished with a plain French manicure across delicate cheekbones dusted over with a sheer tinted moisturiser and just a hint of bronzing powder. Her reflection in the rear-view mirror showed that the Stila lip gloss she had chosen for today was a definite improvement on her old matte look. She resolved to wear nothing but lip glosses from now on in. Or at least until she got bored with them.

So the clubs were done. What about London's culture? There
was
an awful lot of it, but what Londoner ever bothered to go? The British Museum, the National Gallery … just pretty piles of stone you drove past on your way down to the King's Road. She might miss her family, but Daddy had been pretty sour once the wedding bills had finally come in, and Ma was still bugging her about Ernie not being the right chap, and her sisters Iseult and Camilla both thought she should get a job, which was insanity, of course. Why should one get a job when you could, instead, spend your days shopping and lunching and having fun?

Diana batted away all the criticism. It was mostly due to jealousy, anyway. Ernie was
so
dashing and
so
successful, the sad fact of the matter was they just couldn't handle it.

Camilla was a lawyer and made about a hundred grand a year, and had twins. She had absolutely no fashion sense and lived south of the river, in a big Victorian pile with a garden. Yet Ma was always holding Milla up to her as some sort of shining example.

Diana remembered the farewell tea Milla had given her yesterday afternoon in her garden. She had cried and given Diana a big hug and offered her a home-made pancake.

“But you'll be so bored in New York. You don't even know anybody.”

“I'll make friends, Milla. I made lots of friends when I moved to London. I'll just do it all over again.”

“Friends? That crowd you hang out with?”

“They are my friends, so don't be horrible.”

“I wonder how many of them you'll keep up with once you reach Manhattan,” Milla said, rather shrewdly for her.

“There are such things as phone lines. And think how enjoyable it'll be in New York in spring. We'll throw lots of dinner parties. You love throwing dinner parties.”

Milla looked out at her two terrors trying to dismantle the oak tree in the garden. “What about your job?”

“Not everybody
wants
to work. I've rather had enough of
Vogue
and, anyway, Ernie's going to pull some strings in case I decide I do want to go back to it.”

Diana pushed a lock of chestnut hair back behind her ears, in which new sapphire and ruby studs, a wedding present from Ernie, glittered merrily. They were rather flashy, but jewels were jewels. Her beloved husband was actually making noises about getting her a part-time job, which was tiresome. She was hoping for a couple of years off from fashion writing and ringing up designers telling them what non-size Stella and Shalom were this week. It was good in that one got the perks—free samples, big discounts … but she thought that, given a little time with the ladies of New York, she would be getting the perks without doing the work, which was just about the story of her life.

“Well, that's good, angel. In the end you'd get bored with nothing to do.”

“Nothing to do? Oh, Milla!”

Diana laughed, and for the millionth time her sister marveled at how bewitching she looked when she smiled, lit up like Oxford Street before Christmas, the beautiful white teeth and slightly imperfect nose and sparkling eyes all crunched up together and simply adorable. It was easy to see how London had fallen under the spell of her incorrigible, layabout sister. If Milla had any reservations, they were about Ernie. It was true that he seemed devoted, and gave Di whatever she wanted. Some men loved a high-maintenance girl. It was just that Ernie didn't seem to appreciate Diana's ravishing smile the way Milla would have wanted him to. He always seemed a bit distracted. Oh well; perhaps that was just his way.

She poured tea for her sister, stirring in milk and sugar for herself and a slice of lemon for Diana. No doubts about the wedding, though. What a triumph. All the nasty little London scenesters who professed to love Di had been absolutely seething with envy. And Diana had been so gracious, kissing everybody, laughing so the whole room lit up, making a point to forget no one, not even the crusty old great-uncles Dad brought down from Shropshire. She had danced the first dance—a lovely stately waltz—and then later, had led the whole party in a mad disco-dancing frenzy to “Venus” by Bananarama. Ernie had moved around the room, smiling and getting his picture taken, seemingly oblivious to all the boyfriends and husbands casting longing looks at Diana. She was so radiant, so charming, so discreetly flirtatious! Milla sighed and bit into her pancake. She'd miss her sister. Diana was impossible, but impossible not to adore, too. She started to tell Diana about the people she knew in New York, watching her blue eyes glaze over. Milla's girlfriends were lawyers and bankers; not the trophy wife sort she supposed Diana would gravitate to.

Recalling the conversation, Diana smiled gently. Dear Milla. If only she could get her to loosen up just a little bit, how wonderful it would be! All that money, and no time to enjoy spending it. She glanced across at Ernie, buried as he was in his report. What had her sister said about him?

“The city's buzzing about Ernie.” Milla had been admiring Diana's amazing trousseau before the wedding and helping her select candidates for her going-away wardrobe. There would be no honeymoon, as Ernie wanted to get to his new job as quickly as possible, but Diana had said lightly, “Our whole lives will be a honeymoon,” so maybe there was no cause to be concerned.

“Buzzing how?”

Diana picked up a cream silk shirt, wondering if it would survive the trip. It contrasted so well with everything from burgundy to eggshell blue. You really couldn't do without cream silk and cotton. It gave you neutrality without washing out your complexion the way white tended to do. “Nothing good, I hope.” She gave Milla a quick glance and started to listen. Gossip about Ernie! That was interesting. It was good to be marrying a man who other people talked about.