Glitter Baby (22 page)

“I’ve got an idea I want to talk over with you.” She sat on the plush burgundy couch across from his desk. His squished-in face looked even more unpleasant than usual.

“Why don’t you send me another of your memos?”

“I believe in the personal touch.”

His voice dripped cynicism. “But I look forward to all those bright college-girl suggestions. They make great toilet paper.”

It was going to be one of those days. He’d probably had a fight with his wife.

“What is it this time?” he said. “More nonsense about computerization? A new filing system? A frigging newsletter for our clients?”

She ignored his testiness. “Something more fundamental.” Acting under the flies/honey/vinegar theory, she adopted her most chipper manner. “I’ve been thinking about what happens when we negotiate a contract for our bigger clients. First, we have to clear everything with the client’s personal manager. Then, after our legal looks it over, the personal manager studies it, passes it on to a business manager, who passes it on to another lawyer. Once the deal has gone through, there’s a publicist, and then—”

“Get to the point. I’m dying of old age here.”

She carved a column in the air with her hand. “Here’s the client. Here we are. We get ten percent for finding the client a job. The personal manager gets fifteen percent for directing the client’s career, the business manager five percent for handling money, the attorney another five percent
for studying the small print, and the press agent gets two or three thousand a month for publicizing. Everybody takes a cut.”

Parker’s high-back chair squeaked as he shifted his weight. “Any client who’s big enough to have a team like that is in the top tax bracket, so all those commissions get deducted.”

“They still have to be paid. Compare that to the way you operate with Lynx. You’re their agent and personal manager. We do their tour publicity, and the pie isn’t split so many ways. With some smart expansion, we could make that kind of service available to your best clients. We could charge twenty percent commission, which is ten percent more than we’re getting now, but fifteen percent less than the client is paying out to all those different people. We make more, the client pays less, and everybody’s happy.”

He waved her off. “Lynx is a different situation. I knew from the beginning that I had a gold mine, and I wasn’t letting it get away from me. But an operation on the scale you’re talking about would be too expensive to run. Besides, most clients wouldn’t want their business centralized like that, even if it cost less. It would leave them too open to mismanagement, not to mention embezzlement.”

“Regular audits get built into the package. But the current system leaves them open to mismanagement, too. Three-quarters of these managers care more about their own cut than their client’s interests. Olivia Creighton is a perfect example. She hates doing commercials, but Bud Sharpe won’t let her accept any of the parts she’s been offered because they don’t pay as much as condominium commercials. Olivia has some good years left, and that’s shortsighted management.”

Parker had started glancing at his watch, and she knew she was beat, but still, she plunged on. “We can make money with this kind of organization, and it would be more efficient for clients. If we’re discriminating, being
represented by Parker Dayton would become a real status symbol. We’d be a ‘caviar agency’ with great clients beating down our door.”

“Fleur, I’m going to try this one more time, and you’d better watch my lips. I don’t want to be William Morris. I don’t want to be ICM. I’m happy with things just the way they are.”

She shouldn’t have wasted her breath. But as she headed back to her office, she couldn’t stop thinking about her idea. If someone honest and reliable had taken care of her interests when she was nineteen, she wouldn’t be out two million dollars.

She thought about her “caviar agency” all that day and into the next week. Putting together the kind of operation she imagined would be much more expensive than a standard agency. The nature of the project required a prestigious address and a diversified, well-paid staff. It would take a fortune just to get started. Still, the more she thought about it, the more certain she became that the right person could make it work. Unfortunately the right person had only five thousand dollars in her savings account and an under-abundance of courage.

That evening she met Simon Kale for tandoori at the Indian Pavilion. “What would you do if you weren’t already filthy rich and you needed big money?” she found herself asking.

He plucked some fennel seeds from the bowl in front of him. “I’d clean apartments. Really, Fleur, it’s impossible to find good help. I’d pay a fortune for someone reliable.”

“I’m serious. How would you go about it if you only had five thousand dollars in the bank and you needed a lot more? Like six figures more.”

“Are we eliminating drug dealing?”

She lifted an eyebrow at him.

“Well, then…” He selected another fennel seed. “I’d say the fastest way would be to pick up our telephone and call that bitch Gretchen Casimir.”

“That’s not an option.” Modeling was the one thing she wouldn’t consider. If she did this—not that she would, but if she did—it would have to be all hers.

“Have we considered prostitution?”

“Fishnet stockings are so unflattering.”

He brushed a stray seed from the sleeve of his silky gray shirt. “Since we’re being so picky, the best way would probably be to demand a loan from a filthy rich friend.”

She smiled at him. “You’d do it, too, wouldn’t you? I’d only have to ask.”

He pursed his lips. “Which, of course, you won’t.”

She leaned across the table and planted a kiss on his cheek. “Any other ideas?”

“Mmm…Peter, I suppose. He’s your best bet, considering all these silly restrictions you’ve set up.”

“Our Peter Zabel? Lead guitarist for Neon Lynx? How could he help me?”

“Tell me you’re kidding, pet. You used to place all those phone calls to his brokers for him. Peter knows more about making money than anyone I’ve met. He’s made a fortune for me in precious metals and new stock issues. I can’t believe he never gave you any tips.”

Fleur nearly knocked over her water glass. “Do you mean I was supposed to take him seriously?”

“Fleur…Fleur…Fleur…”

“But he’s such an idiot!”

“His banker would most definitely disagree.”

Another week passed before Fleur got up the courage to call Peter and lay out the situation in the vaguest terms. “What do you think? Speaking hypothetically. Could a person do anything with only five thousand dollars to start?”

“Depends on whether you’re willing to lose it or not,” Peter said. “High return means high risk. You’re talking commodities trading—currency, fuel oil, wheat. If sugar goes down a penny a pound, you lose your nest egg. Very risky. You could end up worse off than you are now.”

“I supposed…Yes.” And then she was horrified to hear herself go on. “I don’t care. Tell me what I have to do.”

Peter explained the basics, and she began spending every spare minute with her head buried in the books and articles he recommended on commodities trading. She read the
Journal of Commerce
on the subway, and she fell asleep with
Barron’s
propped on her pillow. All her classes in business and economics helped her grasp the basics, but did she really have the guts to do this? No. But she was going to do it anyway.

Following Peter’s advice, she invested two thousand in soybeans, bought a contract for liquefied propane, and, after studying weather forecasts, spent the rest on orange juice. Florida had a killer freeze, the soybeans rotted from too much rain, but liquefied propane went through the roof. She ended up with seven thousand. This time she divided it between copper, durum wheat, and more soybeans. Copper and wheat tanked, but soybeans pulled through to the tune of nine thousand dollars.

She reinvested every penny.

On April Fool’s Day, Kissy landed the plum role of Maggie in a workshop production of
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.
She danced around their apartment as she broke the news to Fleur. “I’d given up! Then this girl who was in a couple of my acting classes called. She remembered this scene I’d done…I can’t believe it! We start rehearsals next week. There’s no money, and it’s not a big enough production to attract anybody important, but at least I’ll be acting again.”

Once rehearsals began, Fleur didn’t see Kissy for days at a time, and when she did, Kissy was distracted. Not a single hunk passed through their apartment, and Fleur finally accused her of celibacy.

“I’m storing up my sexual energy,” Kissy replied.

The day of the production, Fleur was so nervous she couldn’t eat. She didn’t want to see Kissy humiliated, and
there was no way her little fluff ball of a roommate could take command of a heavyweight part like Maggie. Kissy belonged in sitcoms, exactly where she didn’t want to be.

A freight elevator took Fleur up to a chilly Soho loft with clanging pipes and peeling paint. The small stage at one end held nothing except a big brass bed. Fleur tried to convince herself the bed was a good omen where Kissy was concerned.

The audience was made up of other unemployed actors and starving artists, without a casting agent in sight. A bearded guy who smelled like linseed oil leaned forward from the row of chairs behind her. “So, are you a friend of the bride or the groom?”

“Uh—the bride,” she replied.

“Yeah, I thought so. Hey, I dig your hair.”

“Thanks.” Her hair brushed her shoulders now and attracted more attention than she liked, but cutting it felt like a weakness.

“You want to go out sometime?”

“No, thanks.”

“That’s cool.”

Fortunately the play started right then. Fleur took a deep breath and mentally crossed her fingers. The audience heard the sound of a shower running offstage, and Kissy made her entrance in an antique lace dress. Her accent was as thick as summer jasmine. She stripped off the dress and stretched. Her fingers formed tiny claws in the air. The man sitting next to Fleur shifted in his seat.

For two hours the audience sat spellbound as Kissy prowled and hissed and scratched her way across the stage. With dark, desperate eroticism and a voice like dime-store talcum powder, she radiated Maggie the Cat’s sexual frustration. It was one of the most riveting performances Fleur had ever seen, and it came straight from the soul of Kissy Sue Christie.

By the time the play was over, Fleur was drained. Now she understood Kissy’s problem in a way she couldn’t have
before. If Fleur, Kissy’s best friend, hadn’t believed she could be a serious dramatic actress, how could Kissy hope to convince a director?

Fleur pushed her way through the crowd. “You were incredible!” she exclaimed, when she reached Kissy’s side. “I’ve never seen anything like it!”

“I know,” Kissy replied with a giggle. “Come tell me how wonderful I was while I change out of costume.”

Fleur followed her to the makeshift dressing room where Kissy introduced her to the other female cast members. She chatted with all of them, then perched on a chair next to Kissy’s dressing table and told her another dozen times how wonderful she’d been.

“Everybody decent?” a masculine voice inquired from the other side of the door. “I need to pick up the costumes.”

“I’m the only one left, Michael,” Kissy called out. “Come on in. I have somebody I want you to meet.”

The door opened. Fleur turned.

“Fleurinda, you’ve heard me talk about our brilliant costume designer and the future dressmaker to the Beautiful People. Fleur Savagar meet Michael Anton.”

Everything stopped like a damaged frame of film frozen in a movie projector. He wore an antique purple satin bowling shirt and a pair of loosely cut wool trousers held up by suspenders. At twenty-three, he wasn’t much taller than he’d been the last time she’d seen him, maybe five feet, seven inches. He had shiny blond hair that fell in long waves level with his chin, a set of narrow shoulders, a small chest, and delicately carved features.

Gradually Kissy realized that something was wrong. “Do you two know each other?”

Michael Anton nodded. Fleur reached deep inside her. “This is one of your better moments, Kissy,” she said, as lightly as she could manage. “Michael is my brother Michel.”

“Oh boy.” Kissy’s gaze flicked from one to the other. “Should I play some organ music or something?”

Michel shoved one hand into the pocket of his trousers and leaned against the door. “How about a few notes on the kazoo?”

He carried himself with the languid grace of old money and the assurance of someone born with an aristocratic bloodline. Just like Alexi. But as he gazed at her, she saw eyes as blue as spring hyacinths.

She curled stiff fingers around her purse. “Did you know I was in New York?”

“I knew.”

She couldn’t stand there with him any longer. “I have to go.” She gave Kissy a quick peck on the cheek and left the dressing room without so much as a nod in his direction.

Kissy caught up with her on the street. “Fleur! Wait! I had no idea.”

She faked a smile. “Don’t worry about it. It was just a shock, that’s all.”

“Michael is…He’s really a terrific guy.”

“That’s…great.” She spotted a cab and stepped out from the curb to hail it. “Go to your cast party, Magnolia, and make them all bow when you come in the room.”

“I think I’d better go home with you.”

“Not on your life. This is your big night, and you’re going to enjoy every minute.” She climbed into the cab, waved, and shut the door. As the taxi pulled away, she sagged back into the seat and let the old bitterness swamp her.

In the weeks that followed, Fleur tried to forget about Michel, but one evening she found herself walking along West Fifty-fifth Street studying the numbers painted above the shop doors, now closed for the night. She found the address she was looking for. The location was good, but the unimposing storefront had badly lit windows…and the most beautiful garments she’d ever seen.

Michel had bucked the tide of current fashion trends
where women were dressing up in evening tuxedos and neckties so they could look like men. The small window held a quartet of outrageously feminine dresses that conjured up lavish Renaissance paintings. As she gazed at the silks, jerseys, and gracefully draped crepe de chine, she couldn’t remember how long it had been since she’d spent money on decent clothes. These exquisite garments rebuked her.