Gibbon's Decline and Fall (14 page)

Down the deeply carpeted hall, on the way toward his own sanctum, he saw doors shut that normally stood open and heard behind them an irritated buzz, like bees getting ready to swarm. Outside his office, however, Maybelle Corson was much herself, as she gave him her meager smile and a handful of messages: Bettiann had called, his lawyer had called. Nothing about the buzz, so it wasn't something Maybelle knew about.

Nonetheless, the buzz was there. Even inside his office, as he returned calls and scribbled notes to himself, he could feel the tension. Carpenter and Mason Advertising occupied the twenty-fifth through the thirtieth floors, and William had always been able to tell the temper of the office just by listening to the hum that came through the walls, the echoes in the ducts. This afternoon there was something frantic going on.

“Maybelle?” he said, pressing a key.

“Yes, Mr. Carpenter?”

“Come in, will you?”

She slid through the door like an eel, smooth as silk, her dark-colored, high-necked, long-sleeved dress with its neat collar and cuffs like something out of the forties or fifties.

“What did Bettiann want?”

“Just to know whether you'd be home for dinner.”

“Call her and tell her yes. Now, what's going on out there?”

She shook her head slowly, not to dislodge a hair of that tightly moussed coiffure. “I'm not sure, sir. There seems to be a good deal of whispering behind closed doors. It started this morning, shortly after we opened.”

“Find out.”

“Yes, sir.” She oozed out once more, nose twitching busily, already on the trail. Maybelle Corson had her sources. A clerk here, a secretary there, a junior staff member somewhere else. She cultivated them, maternally. She got them little promotions or little raises or better desks, nearer windows. She handled little matters, like sexual harassment, without making a court case of it. Then, when Maybelle needed to know what was really going on with this account executive or that layout department, they told all.

He dug into the messages. General Motors's sports vehicle, El Tigre, wasn't selling well, the ad manager wondered if it might be the new ad campaign. Ditto the ad manager for Forever Young, a new line of skin products. Hell. William hadn't liked either campaign; they'd felt wrong, somehow—too pushy, too sexy—but that's what his people had come up with, and that's what the clients had bought. He didn't second-guess his people unless he had to, and he never second-guessed clients.

His buzzer. “Yes?”

“Mr. Carpenter?”

“Come in, Maybelle.”

She oozed in once more. “Everyone's chattering about riots, Mr. Carpenter. Evidently it started with a New York fashion house being burned yesterday, and then several Scalawag shoe outlets were burned this morning, and the TV says it's being blamed on the advertising—”

“What!”

She came closer to the desk, lowering her voice almost to a whisper. “Scalawag stores in Chicago, New York, Boston, Miami, and Washington, D.C., have been burned. Just the stores, no injury to people. There may be others, as well, but those are the ones we've heard about. Mobs of women invaded them and trashed them, sir. They left signs taking off on the campaign slogan: ‘Scalawags, the Walk of a Woman.' ”

He stared for a moment in disbelief. “Signs?”

“Well, graffiti. Saying various things, sir. ‘The walk of a woman, away,' was one. And, ‘The walk of an angry woman.' ”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“I don't know. Nobody knows.”

“Get Vitorici in here. And Liz Johnson. And ask Webber to handle my Spinsoft appointment.”

She scurried out, not so smoothly this time, lines between her eyes. “Leave the door open,” he called. “Send them in as soon as they get here.”

Which was only moments. Vitorici arrived almost at once, as though he'd been launched from a cannon. He looked worried, tie awry, his usually polished surfaces abraded. His assistant, Liz Johnson, slipped through the door only moments later, her egglike cheeks smudged, hairdo perforated by pencils, mouth screwed up.

“All right,” said William. “Let's have it.”

They looked at each other, her eyebrows raised, his squirming like caterpillars, she shrugging, he lip chewing, both shifting uncomfortably. Vitorici elected himself spokesman.

“I've been trying to get better information, Bill. The whole thing is rather sketchy at the moment. At first we thought it was like the college bombings, or like the women being shot on street corners, but in this case the perpetrators
were
women. We've thought of lesbian protests, maybe, or a buyers' strike, or some kind of consumers' demonstration. Perhaps we've totally misread the buster generation.”

“Are you saying this is an age-related thing?”

Vitorici looked around, got no help from Liz Johnson. “Well, the … the perpetrators are all … elderly. And the campaign was aimed at the teen-to-twentyish woman, which means any woman wanting to look that age. Women agile enough to manage the shoes, I mean.…”

“He means four-inch heels aren't for everyone. Or platform soles,” said Liz in a crisp, no-nonsense voice. “You may recall I advised against that ‘Walk of a Woman' approach. The visuals, that whole fashion-show sequence with the extreme clothes and makeup. I also complained about the quasi-rock bump-and-grind music.”

“Bump and grind?” Vitorici yelled. “Do you know how much we paid for the right to use that song? It won an Oscar!”

“It won an Oscar as a romantic ballad, but then the production
people had it rearranged as stripper music,” she snarled. “And the director had the models twitching their bottoms like belly dancers. I also objected to his using anorexic models with no breasts or hips who look as though they've just been released from a gulag.”

“Enough,” William muttered. The two shut up, he red in the face, she very pale. “Has anyone claimed responsibility? Has anyone issued a statement?”

Liz answered. “No one was arrested. They all got away. It was very well planned, just like the thing in New York yesterday. Noon news broadcasts said the fire departments in the various cities had received a communiqué, but they didn't quote it.”

William let out his breath explosively, unaware he'd been holding it. “We'd better talk to Scalawag. Who's their sales manager? Mierson?”

“You'd better talk to more than Scalawag,” said Liz grimly. “If this is happening to them, I'd worry about Seal-sleek Swimwear—and the Lovelace lingerie account, and the new Forever Young skin-care line—”

“Why them?”

“In my opinion the ad campaigns are equally insulting, for one.”

“You worked on all of them,” Vitorici yelled.

“I got outvoted on all of them,” she hollered with equal vehemence. “The female viewpoint was not considered germane.”

“One thing at a time,” snarled William. “Set a meeting with the Scalawag people first. And as soon as the rioters, trashers, whatever, are identified, send someone to talk with them. I want to know who put them up to this.”

“Who put them up to it?” asked Liz, eyebrows raised.

“Who put them up to it,” he asserted. “We could chase our tails all over the place looking for motivations that aren't there, when the whole thing may have been planned by the competition.”

“Euro-boot is hiring rioters to lower Scalawag's market share?” Her question trembled on the verge of laughter.

“Do it, Liz.” His voice was threatening, not a voice he usually used with his people.

“Of course, Mr. Carpenter,” she said coldly. “Immediately.”

Damn. Now he'd offended her, and if it turned out she'd been right … damn.

As they left, Maybelle was hovering at the door. She'd obviously listened to it all.

“Yes, Maybelle?”

“It's not my place to comment, Mr. Carpenter, but I don't think it's a conspiracy—”

“Not your place,” he snarled. “You're right, Maybelle.”

“Yes, sir.” She went out, silently fuming. So let him find out for himself. Up until a month ago Lilian, Maybelle's youngest daughter, went to the mall every chance she got, after school, on weekends, hanging out, spending what money she had on clothes and shoes. Not Scalawag, of course. Cheap imitations of Scalawag was the best she could do, prancing around with her bottom swinging. Then she stopped going. When Maybelle asked why, she said it was boring. She said none of her friends were going anymore. She said she was through spending all her money on stuff.

“Stuff?” Maybelle had asked, openmouthed.

“Mother. I only did it because everybody else did. We're all through. We're saving for cars, for college, for something useful.” She'd looked up patiently, smiling kindly on old Mom, as though their roles had been reversed, leaving Maybelle at a loss.

“Where did you get this approach to life?”

“I don't know.” Lilian had shrugged. “It just makes sense.”

Four daughters, and this was the first time one of them had ever left Maybelle speechless.

Let William Carpenter find out for himself. Let him figure out what the hell was going on!

Arrangement on a desk. A Steuben bud vase holding a spray of green orchids. A gold-and-onyx-mounted desk calendar at current date, April 9, 2000. Two boxes of stationery: one informal, with flowers—Bettiann Carpenter—one printed in businesslike dark gray on pale taupe—Mrs. William Carpenter, Eleven Foxtail Lane, Dallas, Texas. A complicated phone with a built-in directory. Two pairs of glasses; one bifocal, one for reading. An old, cheap address book, the cover scuffed, the corners worn, open at the
D's, Decline and Fall Club
. A silver-framed signed photograph of a grinning redhead in cap and gown: Love to Aunt Betty, I made it, Stace. Another of a
beautiful though sulky-faced youth: To Mom from Junior—the word “Junior” underlined and in quotes—Who would have been just as angry and dissatisfied and depressed if he'd been named anything else—as William frequently pointed out.

The desk had been crafted of solid black walnut to fit the alcove where it stood. The carpet had been special-ordered from Afghanistan. The pieces of furniture that had not been custom-made were collector's items. The fabric in the drapes was pure silk, loomed in Italy. The convex mirror above the credenza in the hall was eighteenth century, ornate yet dignified, reflecting a fish-eye image of the paneled, book-lined room, the desk and its occupant, Bettiann Carpenter née Bromlet, fifty-some odd but looking at least fifteen years younger. And damned well better, considering what it cost William to keep her svelte and well maintained. Good thing William had inherited all that oil money. Even on his salary he might not be able to afford her otherwise.

She stared across the room at the dwarf in the mirror, ignoring the distorted body and face to peer at the flawlessly arranged hair. Apricot Ice, the hairdresser had said. Carrot Puree, it looked like. William would have a fit, if he noticed at all. Sighing, she turned back to the desk.

Five unsealed envelopes lay in a fan on the polished wood before her. The sixth sheet of notepaper was beneath her hand:

Dearest Sophy …

Dearest Sophy, the Decline and Fall Club will meet in July this year, almost forty years of meetings—except for 1998, the year you went away. That year we didn't want to talk about your doing it, and we couldn't imagine talking about anything else, so we didn't hold the meeting at all. It was my year, but I just couldn't. None of us could
.

Dear Sophy, I'm working very hard at do-gooding, but it's only so I won't feel so guilty. Every day I make myself eat, the way I promised you. I think of you all the time. Dearest Sophy, wish you were here
.

She drew a heavy line through the last few words. She didn't wish Sophy were there. Sophy was there, so near as made no difference. Sophy wouldn't go away. Sometimes Bettiann would be sitting at the phone, talking to someone, a pencil in her hands, and when she hung up and looked down at the pad, there'd be words there, things Sophy might have said or written. Or when she woke up, there'd be lines on the
pad on her bedside table, Sophy's thoughts, often argumentative, sometimes contradictory. Sophy was still giving her what for! After all these years.

Bettiann gathered up the sealed envelopes and tapped them into a neat pile. Invitations to the other five to dinner in Santa Fe, Bettiann's annual treat because Bettiann had money. Or William did. Pity Mom had drunk herself to death long before the denouement, after all those years of telling Bettiann what beauty pageants were for. Mom had always said they were a respectable way for girls to offer themselves, a respectable place to show the wares to possible producers or sponsors or husbands. Looky but no touchy, of course, not until after the modeling contract or the movie contract or the wedding ceremony.

Well, it had worked. William had seen her first in a beauty pageant. He'd been a judge. He'd presented her with the college scholarship, and he'd looked her up after she'd graduated. He'd had this kind of Pygmalion idea about himself, or this Galatea idea about her, one. And even though she'd known William had money, she'd thought she was marrying for love. She'd thought love would make it okay. She'd thought William could make a miracle. It wasn't until later she knew she wasn't, it hadn't, he couldn't. She flushed. No one could, not even damned Patrick and his promises.…

If Sophy hadn't gone, they'd be meeting in Vermont this year. She'd asked for the year 2000, back at the beginning, when they were girls. She'd wanted the millennium, but she hadn't stuck around to claim it. With Sophy gone they'd celebrate the millennium in Santa Fe, with Carolyn as host.

“Host” to rhyme with “ghost.” Sometimes Bettiann would be so aware of the ghost that she'd actually look up, expecting her to appear. William even teased her about it.