Never Too Rich (11 page)

“
Klas?” Doris stared at her in
genuine bafflement.

“
Klas Claussen, my husband’s
assistant. He did something bad, and you walked in.” Anouk sighed
dramatically. “I would have died a thousand deaths, myself.
Pleeeeease, accept my most sincere apologies.”

Doris took a gulp of her water, wishing it were
vodka. She couldn’t believe it. The woman really was without
scruples! Doris would have gladly bet the entire Bucklin fortune
that Anouk knew perfectly well that it was Antonio she’d walked in
on,
not
Klas Claussen. And here the French-born queen of the
bitches stood, lying casually through her teeth!

Undeterred by Doris’ obvious incredulity, Anouk
said, “To appease, Antonio will give you three outfits. A present.”
She was well aware that Doris suspected she knew the truth. Not
that it mattered in the long run. The social amenities were being
observed, a formal apology was being extended (by Anouk de Riscal,
no less—what more could any woman want!), and the slightly
less-than-plausible excuse, while not a word of it had to be
believed, glossed over the incident.

“
I ... I couldn’t accept three
dresses,” Doris protested weakly.

“
Not three
dresses”
Anouk
corrected her. “Three
gowns.
‘Special Label,’ just like
mine. One-of-a-kind couture. No one has others like it.”

Doris Bucklin’s eyes glittered. She couldn’t believe
it!

Special Label.
Those two words packed a
wallop to make her salivate. Merely having hundreds of millions of
dollars was not enough to secure an item of Antonio de Riscal’s
Special Label line. Antonio had to
offer
it—and only to a
handful of superior people did he grant this supreme honor.

“
The apology is accepted,” Doris
found herself saying before she knew what she was doing.

“
Excellent, darling.” Anouk was
positively beaming. “You will love what Antonio makes for you. Just
call his secretary ...” She frowned. “No, better yet, call me. I
will arrange everything.” She switched gears adroitly; one last
bribe should sew Doris’ lips shut once and for all—and earn her
undying gratitude in the process. “By the way. We are giving a
dinner party tonight. I was so hoping you could come.”

“
I . . .” Doris was positively
delirious. She’d been trying to crash into the ionosphere of
society for years and had never quite made it.

“
Good. I take that as an
acceptance, yes?” Anouk glanced behind her at the sea of tables
stretching to the front of the restaurant. “I’m so sorry, but I
must run now. My luncheon date probably thinks I deserted
him.”

Doris looked up at her. “Of ... of course. Thank you
for . . . for dropping by.”

“
The pleasure is all mine.” Anouk
smiled down at her. “The party starts at eight-thirty. You may
bring any man you like, or I will seat you with someone
faaaabulous. Oh, and it is formal.”

Anouk shook Rosamund Moss’s hand again and leaned
down to blow a kiss past a bewildered Doris Bucklin’s left ear.
Then she confidently retraced her way back to her own table.

There. Mentally she clapped dirt off her hands.
She’d done what she’d come to do. One piece of dirty laundry was
out of the way.

Now she had to deal with Klas and Liz.

Chapter 11

“
Olympia, luv!” The great Alfredo
Toscani called out as he rushed toward her. He was still ten steps
away when he extended both arms.

“
Alfredo,” Olympia squealed
lavishly in return. “Darling.” They embraced lightly and she blew
three perfunctory kisses past each of his ears. “I do appreciate
your doing this on such short notice.”

“
For you, Olympia, I move heaven
and earth!”

She smiled her absolutely brightest smile.

Shirley could only stare. For her, after being so
long among the grimy troglodytes who called themselves the Satan’s
Warriors, Alfredo Toscani’s polite manners and scrubbed cleanliness
came as something of a shock.

Now that bold colors were all the rage, Alfredo wore
white—in this case, blinding, immaculate flannel and silk that
showed Italian tailoring—as if it were the height of summer, which
it certainly seemed like in his town house, with its radiating heat
and luxuriant tropical foliage.

Alfredo Toscani was short and lean, with dark
Italian good looks. From a distance, with his trim, wiry figure and
quick youthful movements, it wasn’t hard to mistake him for twenty
years younger.

Actually in his mid-fifties, Alfredo looked rich and
broadcast success from every pore. He wouldn’t have had it any
other way. His teeth were so absolutely perfect and white they had
to have been either capped or bonded, and his black hair, recently
a contrivance of Botticelli ringlets, until copied by a horde of
others, was now pulled back into a pony tail.

Shirley didn’t know it for the extravagantly
expensive rug it was; Olympia, who did, never let on that she was
the wiser. Toupees were a subject best left unmentioned.

Olympia smiled and pulled Shirley forward like a
sweepstakes prize. “Here she is, Alfredo!” Her voice held barely
subdued excitement, and her eyes gleamed triumphantly. “Well? What
do you think?”

Rubbing his chin thoughtfully, Alfredo began to walk
slow, professionally appraising circles around Shirley, who could
almost hear his sharp eyes clicking like a camera shutter.

Like Dorothy after she’d been swept up in the
tornado and deposited in Oz, Shirley suddenly found herself the
object of curiosity from a strange assortment of creatures. She was
not used to so much frank attention, and she kept averting her gaze
and flushing hotly.

After a good three minutes Alfredo turned his
attention from her back to Olympia. “What do I think?” he cried in
astonishment. “Why, she’s breathtaking, Olympia! Simply exquisite
from every angle!” Alfredo made a circle with his thumb and
forefinger and kissed it extravagantly. “She’s an angel! For once,
you actually underpraised one of your girls! What a figure! What
facial bones! What hair!” Stepping forward, he grabbed Shirley’s
jaw and moved her face this way and that. “Where on earth did you
find her?”

“
Oh, around,” Olympia said quickly.
She had lit another cigarette and waved it to indicate elusive
faraway places. She wasn’t about to give away any information until
she’d perfected a fictional biography for Shirley.

Alfredo eyed the old woman shrewdly. “Ah, I see,” he
said approvingly. “You’re playing your cards close to the chest.
Very wise, Olympia.”

Shirley felt too nervous to be pleased by the
extravagant words being bandied about. Exquisite? she thought.
Breathtaking? An angel? No one had ever directed such lavish praise
on her before. Her stepfather had called her a “devil,” her own
mother had once accused her of being a “wanton whore,” and to the
Satan’s Warriors she was simply known as “Snake’s ole lady.” It had
never occurred to her that she was beautiful, that she could use
that beauty to make something of herself. It had seemed enough
that, after a puberty spent agonizing over being too tall, too
bony, and having too many sharp facial angles that pretty girls
with perfect retrousse noses just didn’t have, she had somehow
turned into a rather pleasant-looking eighteen-year-old.

Now that she thought about it, even Snake, whom she
had never heard complimenting anyone or anything, had called her
“foxy” when he was in a particularly expansive mood. Still, that
didn’t mean she was beautiful.

To Shirley, beautiful women had always been those
she had seen on TV—Cybill Shepherd, perhaps, or Jaclyn Smith or
Victoria Principal—distant, unreachable creatures who might as well
have been from another planet. Women who were always expensively
dressed, beautifully groomed, and who gave off an indefinable aura
of glamour and quality—something a patched-Levi’s, no-makeup,
duffle-jacketed “ole lady” was surely not.

Now, however, the accolades were suddenly being
heaped upon her. “Exquisite”—such a disturbing word.
“Beautiful”—also disturbing. “Pretty”—now,
that
would have
been easier to handle. Maybe, she thought, she was on
Candid
Camera
and didn’t know it.

But no, they were too serious for that.

But what could there be about her for them to get so
serious about?

Alfredo raised an arm and imperiously clicked his
fingers. Silent as a wraith, a beautiful, feline black girl with a
shaved head, giant gold hoop earrings, and olive fatigues made of
parachute silk slid in through a doorway.

“
Panther, be a luv and take . . .
?” Alfredo looked questioningly at Olympia.

“
Billie Dawn,” Olympia said
quickly, changing Shirley’s name to that of the character’s in
Born Yesterday
she’d loved.

Shirley started to protest. What was wrong with her
own name? But things were moving too quickly for her to get a word
in edgewise.

“
Take Billie Dawn to Preparation,”
Alfredo decreed. “She’ll have the works.” Then, to Shirley, he
said: “Run along, Billie Dawn. There’s no need to be nervous.
There’s really nothing to it. Just relax and be
yourself.”

Relax! Shirley stared at him. He had to be
kidding!

Chapter 12

The Shirley Goodman Resources Center of the Fashion
Institute of Technology is a concrete-and-glass structure deposited
on Seventh Avenue between Twenty-sixth and Twenty-seventh streets.
As architecture goes, it is sterile, unlovely, and
characterless—features that neither endeared themselves to Anouk
nor escaped her attention; she simply pushed through the double
glass doors with a speed that precluded her having to look at the
despised building.

The two-story white-marble-floored lobby was no
better, so bare it looked positively naked. Anouk, walking
confidently, as always with a clear destination in mind, skirted
the single piece of furniture, the reception desk, and headed
straight for the Samuel I. and Mitzi Newhouse Gallery, located
directly behind it.

Her step slowed and she stiffened with displeasure;
Liz Schreck was already waiting outside the gallery entrance,
pointedly gazing at her wristwatch and frowning.

No matter how many times Anouk had seen Liz over the
years, she still felt amusement—and was always more than slightly
taken aback— when she found herself face-to-face with the woman’s
startling reality. For Liz Schreck was, if anything, bad taste at
its epitome. The unkind bright lights bathed her in a surreal glare
and accentuated the hideousness of her bluish fake-fur coat,
causing the acrylic hairs to glitter with a chemical sheen while
making her towering orange coiffure, tented with a sheer pink
scarf, look like something manufactured. As if it would squeak when
you squeezed it.

Anouk sailed toward her with regal dignity. “My dear
Liz!” she said warmly. “I do so appreciate your coming early.”

“
Mrs. de Riscal.” Liz’s raspy
smoker’s voice was polite enough, but the eyes in her tilted-back
head were hard and accusing. Anouk could see at once that Liz would
not be as easy as Doris Bucklin. Liz could be quite unforgiving.
And mercilessly virtuous. Righteousness, wounded pride, defiance,
and a puritanical moral code anchored Liz Schreck firmly in
life.

“
Everyone will be arriving for the
memorial service in a few minutes,” Anouk said. “Why don’t we go to
the downstairs gallery so we can talk without being interrupted?”
Without waiting for Liz to respond, she took the woman gently but
firmly by the arm and steered her to the stairs down to the gallery
on the lower level.

It was like going from a huge bare box into an
exotic fashion jungle. The exhibit on display, “Surrealism in
Fashion,” was mounted in a confusing maze of hushed rooms and
corridors. The dark walls and carpeting gave the galleries a
tomblike feeling, and the bizarre fashions were set off splendidly
against this neutral backdrop. Every display was bathed in its own
pool of light.

Anouk was so mesmerized by the exhibit that she
nearly forgot her reason for being there. She made a mental note to
return in a few days. Only a true connoisseur of fashion—and if
ever there was one, it was she—could fully appreciate the show.
Every item transcended mere fashion. Each was a work of art.
Wearable sculpture.

And exotic! There was a bizarre metal bustier with
corkscrew “nipples,” a studded leather jacket-and-tights combo with
a chrome-plated codpiece, a startling gown of overlapping silk
chiffon leaves, a feather dress that would transform its wearer
into an exotic bird, and another that, with arms outstretched, made
its wearer into a walking, breathing curtain, complete with swagged
valance and rod.

Liz following, Anouk peeked into the various rooms
until she found one empty of people. “At last,” she said in
relieved tones, “privacy.”

Liz looked around the room disapprovingly. It had a
table set for dinner—with hats made to resemble various foods at
each place setting. “Well?” she prompted with her usual ruthless
let’s-get-down-to-business manner. “I’m all ears.”

Anouk nodded. “I wanted to speak to you about my
husband,” she said smoothly.

“
What about him?” Liz was eyeing
her cautiously.

Tugging her long black gloves off her fingers, Anouk
said slowly, “He told me what . . . transpired this morning.” She
looked and sounded splendidly in control, her every gesture and
syllable of such cool grace and assurance that no one could have
guessed how ill-at-ease she really felt. For even if it killed her,
Anouk de Riscal was never one to show her vulnerable underbelly—not
ever. “Needless to say,” she added, “Antonio is extremely
embarrassed.”