Princess Daisy (52 page)

“It’s—I keep wondering if there hadn’t been that strike, would anything have ever happened? Wasn’t it maybe just the circumstances? We’d never even flirted before and I’ve worked for North for more than four years—If there
was
anything there before Venice I would have known it, wouldn’t I? Maybe it’s just one of those things?”

“That’s not a complaint and that’s not a feeling—that’s just a quibble. It
did
happen and it’s still going on. If he’d been stuck in Venice with someone he didn’t care for, nothing would have happened at all—right?”

“I suppose. On the other hand, in that magical atmosphere almost anyone might have looked good to him.”

“Daisy! Stop that at once!” Kiki was outraged at her friend. Even after years of experience, she still couldn’t believe that anyone so beautiful could poor-mouth herself like Daisy Valensky.

“You’re right—I’m doing it again, shit! But there was something just the other day that I can’t get out of my mind. We were lying around North’s place, we’d just made love and I was lying there, just wanting to be petted and hugged, you know—held—and he moved away, restlessly, and he said in this sort of remote, lazy voice—not bored exactly—well maybe just a little—and he said, ‘Daisy, amuse me.’ ”

“That
asshole!
”

“That’s exactly what I thought! I don’t plan to see him again, except at work.”

The two girls’ eyes met, each understanding the other perfectly.

“But what did you say next?” Kiki asked hotly.

“Nothing … I felt sick. I just got up and put on my clothes and came right home.”

“Why didn’t you tell me right away?”

“First I thought I was making too much out of it, being oversensitive or humorless about it—it was just a
little
thing,” Daisy said broodingly.

“Yeah, and it’s the little things like that you have to pay close attention to—those little things get you where you live and they show you where
he
lives,” Kiki said, smearing her polish in agitation. “Making ‘too much’ out of his talking to you as if you were some sort of amusing convenience? A harem girl, a popsie, a toy doll you can wind up and have it play a funny little tune? No wonder North’s been divorced twice—that son-of-a-bitch doesn’t know shit about women.” Kiki’s heart sank for Daisy.

“Listen, not to change the subject, but isn’t Luke coming for you in five minutes? You don’t even have all your make-up on yet, or even your dress. You’ll be late.”

Startled, Kiki reached into her closet and came out with a plastic garment bag from Saks. She opened it and deftly slipped into a simple, conservative and expensive dress in creamy off-white flannel with a belt of braided navy and cream-colored leather. She put her stockinged feet into demure navy pumps, closed at the heel and toe, and clasped a modest strand of pearls around her neck. She turned and looked defiantly at Daisy.

“What’s
that?
” Daisy said, in disbelief.

“Mollie Parnis,” Kiki rapped out.

“You’re not ready to go out?” Daisy asked. She’d seen Kiki in every possible variety of costumes, but this one was the most impossible to credit

“Yes.”

“Somebody died? It’s a funeral?”

“No.”

“It’s a girl who’s entering a convent and you’re invited to watch?”

“No.”

“You’ve been asked to the White House?”

“Not that either.”

“A costume party and you’re going as a nice girl.”

“Close. Luke’s taking me out to Pound Ridge … to meet his mother,” Kiki said with a little grin.

“Praise the Lord!” Daisy shouted, jumping up so excitedly that Theseus, half-asleep, was spilled to the floor.

“And sing hallelujah!” Kiki shrieked, breaking into a triumphant little dance.

“But you can’t, you simply
can’t
go like that!”

“Why not? It’s perfect—his mother is ultraconservative.”

“Because you’ll tip your hand. Who do you want to impress the most, Luke or his mother? If you dress like that, he’ll know you’re trying to get his mother’s approval and that’s
fatal
with a guy as cool and hip as Luke. You’ve got to look as if this isn’t any big deal. Don’t disguise yourself as a fiancée before he’s even asked you to marry him, for heaven’s sake. Oh, dumb, dumb … the Grosse Pointe has surfaced. He’ll laugh himself sick.”

“Oh fuck—you’re absolutely right,” Kiki wailed. “But what
am
I going to wear? I haven’t got anything even vaguely appropriate.” She was a study in dismay, plunging clumsily into her closet and throwing one outrageous get-up after another onto the floor in a panic.

“Pants? What about your good black crepe Holly Harp pants?” Daisy asked.

“They’re covered with paint. I forgot I had them on and painted scenery in them yesterday.”

“The other ones? The wools?”

“They’re all at the dry cleaners. Oh, Daisy, why am I such a mess? Why does this always happen to me? He’ll be here in a minute,” Kiki lamented.

“Just stand still for a second.” Daisy surveyed Kiki closely. “All right. Take off those pearls and your bra and your pantyhose and put the dress back on. Good, now put on your wedgies, the ones with the glitz all over and the twelve-inch cork soles. Lucky thing your legs are still tan. Now unbutton the dress to the waist. No, that’s too far … go up two buttons. Fine—I still see tits, but only a little. Here’s a belt …”

“Daisy, that’s Theseus’s collar,” Kiki protested.

“Shut up and see if it goes around your waist,” Daisy snapped. “Damn, too short, and it would have been perfect. Belt, belt …” she muttered, scrabbling through her drawers and finally pulling out a length of bright red chiffon onto which she had stitched a large 1920s diamanté buckle she’d unearthed in a thrift shop. She looked further and came up with a small red silk flower.

The doorbell rang. “Go do your eyes,” Daisy ordered. “I’ll entertain Luke. Don’t hurry it, stay calm, keep a
steady hand for God’s sake,” Daisy fretted, pushing Kiki into the bathroom and closing the door behind her.

Luke darted into the living room spouting greetings to Daisy and Theseus. To Daisy, who was accustomed to his usual absent-minded, dreamily remote manner, he seemed unquestionably nervous. Even his eyelids were too jumpy to be melancholy and he kept tugging at his beard and picking invisible lint off his sleeves.

“Where’s Kiki?”

“Just getting ready,” Daisy said with dignity.

“I suppose she’s got on one of her acid-green body stockings and some sort of Mayan serape?” Luke asked.

“Something like that I imagine.”

He turned away and looked out of the window, tapping his foot on the floor and drumming his fingers on the wall. “My mother hates it when I’m late,” he remarked.

“She won’t be long. What’s happening tonight?”

“Sort of a family dinner actually. In fact, my grandmother is going to be there,” he said moodily.

“A three-generation dinner, hmm?” Daisy probed.

“Also a couple of aunts and uncles who
invited
themselves when they heard I was coming with a girl.”

“Haven’t you ever brought a girl home for dinner before?” she asked, astonished.

“Not since high school.” Luke gave Daisy a swift, terrified, feverishly determined glance which told her everything she needed to know.

“Excuse me for a minute, Luke, I’ll just go in and see if I can persuade Kiki to hurry up,” she said. On the way to the bathroom she stopped in Kiki’s closet and retrieved the navy Ferragamo pumps and the navy and cream belt that Kiki had had on before. She looked consideringly at the bra and pantyhose which lay in a heap on the floor. She took the pantyhose and left the bra. No point in going overboard. She opened the bathroom door quietly. Kiki had put her eyes back on. “Take off those atrocious wedgies,” said Daisy, busy unclasping the red chiffon belt and retrieving the flower.

“What?”

“Change of procedure. Don’t ask me to explain. You don’t have time. Here’s your belt. Were those real pearls?”

“Of course—my mother’s.”

“Okay, put them back, too. Do up one more button and let me look at you. Here, brush your hair a little so it
doesn’t look too meek. You’ll do—divinely. Here’s a heavy sweater you can borrow—you don’t own a decent fall coat.”

“A white cashmere cardigan? Daisy, that’s from before we went to college, it’s from when you were a kid in London!”

“Anyone can buy a sweater, but ancient, definitely yellowing cashmere—they’ll understand that.”

“ ‘They’ who?”

“Never mind. Luke’s impatient to get going. No, wait … you still need something …” Daisy tucked the red silk flower in the belt. She stood back to inspect the effect. “Refined, elegant, expensive, quietly sexy and
patriotic …
could they ask for more?”

“I could be Jewish,” Kiki said gloomily.

“They can’t expect miracles.”

“ ‘They’ again—you’re making me nervous,” Kiki jittered, while she admired herself in the mirror.

“That’s all right, too, they’ll like it if you’re nervous—it’s only decent. Get going.” Daisy pulled Kiki away from the mirror and pushed her in the direction of the living room. She heard rapid, muffled greetings and then the front door slammed behind Luke and Kiki. Slowly she walked into the empty room. Theseus was standing there with a questioning tilt to his head, one white ear up, the other down.

“You may well wonder what’s going on,” she told him, with a catch in her voice. “But can you answer this question? Why, oh why, can’t I do for myself?”

20

W
hat the fuck do you mean, the sponsor’s coming!” North screamed into the phone. “Luke, you know as well as I do that that’s impossible. The campaign’s all set—why should he come now? Why should he come
ever?
”

“Listen, North, don’t you get angry at me. The last person I want in any meeting is anyone from the account’s side of the table, you know that,” Luke said heatedly. “But it’s unheard of that the man himself should insist on coming. On a small account I could begin to believe it, but the president of Supracorp? He should be a thousand miles above this sort of thing, damn it.”

“Who cares if he’s above or below—the point is he’s taking away our freedom!” North shouted.

“North, you just think you have freedom because that’s what you like to believe. Basically ain’t none of us got freedom—the money is there for the sponsor to decide how to spend it. He’s the one with freedom. All the freedom I have is to suggest clever ways for him to spread it around, and all the freedom you have is to make the commercials the best way you know how.”

“Spare me the deep-thinking bullshit. My point is that he’s gonna poke around in things he doesn’t know fuck-all about and he’s gonna think he’s smarter than we are and even if he likes what we’ve got he’s gonna change it just for the pleasure of meddling in something that’s none of his damn business. The bastard is going slumming! Probably he’s already given nervous breakdowns to everyone who works for him, so he’s looking for someone new to do in—I know the type.”

“You don’t know Patrick Shannon.”

“Do
you?
”

“No—but I’ve heard he’s tough, rough and smart as hell.”

“Perfect,” North said bitterly. “Just the kind of trouble I don’t want hanging around my production meetings. It’s bad enough with just the two of us. More rough, tough and smart is unnecessary.”

“Listen, I’m on your side. But I can’t tell him he isn’t welcome, can I?”

“You could try.”

“You try, North. You’re the one who’s so free.”

“I’ll see you tomorrow.” North hung up the phone and sat thinking about this new development. That an actual real live sponsor, that legendary hangover from the early days of radio and television, should come down from his place on Olympus and attend a commercial production meeting was an atrocity! North knew exactly where sponsors were supposed to be: they were disembodied, invisible entities, probably groups of people rather than one man, who sat somewhere up in the clouds of vast corporations, in enormous boardrooms, overlooking huge views of the Hudson and nodded yes or nodded no to advertising campaigns proposed, prepared and carried out by lesser beings.

They didn’t mess with the way the machine worked, they weren’t the mechanics who tended the Cadillac, but just the aloof, super-rich passengers. Somehow they managed to convey to the chauffeur the direction they wanted to take, but aside from this they had nothing to do with the running of the car. Or that’s the way it should be, by God! All the sponsor had to do was decide if a program “paused” for his message, or was “presented” by him, or was made “possible” by him or merely received a “word” from him.

The idea that the sponsor should choose to reveal himself in the person of Patrick Shannon was monstrous. What abomination could it lead to? Maybe he’d like to deliver the “message” himself like those homemade used-car commercials … maybe Pat Shannon was another Cal Worthington. So what if the Elstree campaign was going to be a multi-million-dollar media buy—this joker, Shannon, should have the grace to let his highly paid professionals worry about it. It followed that there was no telling how deeply he’d want to be involved. He’d already broken all
the rules by proposing to attend the meeting, just when Luke and the Elstree ad boys had finally agreed on a decent campaign. Nobody coming in at this point could spell anything but trouble. Major trouble.

“Daisy,” he snapped into the interoffice phone. “Come in here right away.” If Shannon was coming to the meeting, North wanted everyone in his organization to be there, too. Daisy’d have to be responsible for that. He had important things to attend to.

Daisy made a last survey of the large conference room. The most irregular meeting that was scheduled to begin in minutes had already caused such consternation and high irascibility that she had
decided
to make sure that, even if nothing else went smoothly, at least the people who would be gathered together would have enough ashtrays, pencils and carafes of ice water. It was a fortunate decision since somebody had forgotten to put out scratch paper. If people couldn’t doodle in preproduction meetings they would quickly take to using their nails on each other, Daisy thought, as she rushed to tell North’s secretary to provide piles of fresh white pads.