Scruples (46 page)

Dear Mr. Baldwin
,

Our customers come here in part because they have an itch to spend money, in part because they need a new dress, often, largely because they would like a little romance in their lives without actually deceiving their husbands. They are sophisticated, spoiled, self-indulgent, self-involved, much traveled, and utterly youth-conscious, no matter what their age. To a woman they want to be STROKED, psychically. To be brutal, you may think of them as gratification junkies
.

Please unleash all your fantasies. You have not one client here but hundreds. Each individual fitting room will have its particular admirers, whether you choose to do it as a villa in Portofino or as a Moroccan seraglio or even as a Queen Anne boudoir in Kent. Our only specific requirements are a large armoire or built-in closet in which accessories can be kept, lots and lots of mirrors, and a comfortable piece of furniture on which each customer can lie down at full length. Finally, at the risk of sounding lewd, could I suggest that the mood, the ambience of each room be that in which a bidet, in a corner behind a screen, would seem possible and appropriate? I don’t mean that we install a real bidet, just the atmosphere that suggests the possible need for such a convenience
.

With admiration and respect
,

Spider Elliott

It was Billy who had inspired him to add the request for an armoire. She knew that women tended to wear their most comfortable old shoes when they went shopping and to leave their best jewelry at home. She couldn’t bear the idea of losing the sale of a Galanos chiffon because of the lack of a pair of evening shoes and the ropes of pearls that should complement the dress and clinch the sale. She intended to stock the armoires with heaps of the newest shoes and scarves and costume jewelry of every description, not for sale, just to accessorize the outfits.

Perhaps Billy’s greatest personal contribution to the new Scruples was in her body-snatching capacity. She was well known to every saleswoman in town from her many years as a compulsive shopper, and once convinced that a knowledge of French mattered not a whit compared to charm and warmth, she proved an adroit kidnapper: first Rosel Korman, formerly of the Saks Park Avenue Room, dignified, calm, and lovable; then Bohemian, be-hatted Marguerite from Giorgio’s; wise, ponytailed Sue from Alan Austin, both Elizabeth and Mirelle, two tiny, young Frenchwomen from Dinallo, friendly, blond Christine and relaxed, redheaded Ellen, both from the General Store, Holly, tactful and enthusiastic, from Charles Galley, as well as another dozen of the top salespeople in town. She also hired the best alteration experts, headed by Henriette Schor from Saks. Her only recruiting failure had been lovely Kendall, who wouldn’t leave Dorso’s for any inducement, but, as even Billy had to admit in frustration, Dorso’s was a special sort of place. Billy also established a delivery service in a town where multimillionaire customers have to do their own pickups in every boutique.

While the store was closed, Valentine and Billy went over the stock. From the day she had conceived of Scruples Billy had been her own buyer. Her chief complaint about the other stores in Beverly Hills was that she could never find what she wanted in them. She had been convinced that if she could go to New York and see all the wholesale lines, she herself could choose far more exciting merchandise.

But Billy didn’t know the first thing about buying. It was as total and disastrous a mistake as attempting to duplicate Dior. Valentine wasn’t a professional buyer either, but at least she had worked closely with buyers on Seventh Avenue for four years and before that she had drunk in the buyer’s point of view at Balmain’s as it was reflected in the rehearsals of the new collections and in the hot arguments over whether this or that dress would “please.” Gently she unfolded to Billy the basic fact that it is not the buyer’s personal taste that must dominate but an understanding of the needs and the taste levels of her customers.

The art of buying for a store is intricate, and even for carefully trained, highly experienced veterans with many years of success behind them, each new season is fraught with pitfalls. There are the obvious pitfalls such as errors in judgment and wrong decisions about the acceptance of customers toward the new clothes being shown. Then there are the traps that cannot be anticipated: late deliveries, wrong fabrics, the permutations of Seventh Avenue politics, broken promises, bad weather, and the ups and downs of the stock market.

Billy felt her humiliation about the lack of sales at Scruples grow lighter—it could have happened to anyone. As Valentine sensed that Billy had become less touchy on the subject of stock, she ventured to suggest to her that perhaps much of what she had ordered in the past had been simply too—intellectual—for most women. Yes, Valentine said, a totally chic woman, as tall as Billy Ikehorn, could wear all that she had bought for Scruples, but where were the clothes for the women less dedicated to strict chic, where were the pretty clothes in good taste, the sexy clothes, the feminine clothes, the touch-me clothes, the frankly glamorous clothes? In short, the clothes that would sell. Where were the “little numbers” that fulfilled many different needs without being so ruthlessly memorable that they could not be worn frequently? And did Billy not feel that while women were in Scruples buying from designer collections, they should be able to pick up sports clothes, separates, resort clothes, casual clothes? Less expensive, of course, but, on the other hand, why should another store get even those dollars? Of course they would never compromise on quality, but they must extend their horizons.

“You’re leading me somewhere in a very crafty way, Valentine,” Billy observed.

“But sensibly,” Valentine countered.

“And, I trust, with good judgment?”

“Yes.”

“Which means?” asked Billy, trying to see one step ahead of this demoniac creature she had hired.

“Before we can reopen we must have completely new stock. I must go to New York, of course, and also to Paris, London, Rome, and Milan for designer ready-to-wear. There is still time to get fall-winter deliveries before it’s too late. For sportswear, you must hire another buyer—perhaps two—but we must have the best. Our customers are lazy and they don’t like to have to park here for one kind of dress, then drive around and repark somewhere else to find pants and sweaters and blouses.”

“Now that I know the extent of the job and the dangers if you guess wrong—” Billy said thoughtfully.

“Yes?”

“Do you think—after all, you have never bought for a store before, Valentine—do you think we should hire someone with lots of background to go to New York and Europe?”

“It is as you prefer. When you hired me you wanted me to be your buyer. But I am content to remain your custom-order designer—on the same terms of course. Or you can try me. At worst, we lose one season.”

Billy pretended to be considering the alternatives. There weren’t any at this late date, and she knew it, and Valentine knew she knew it. There simply wasn’t a minute left in which to look for another buyer. Valentine should have left on her buying trip a week ago.

“My Aunt Cornelia used to say ‘In for a penny, in for a pound,’ or perhaps it was ‘If a thing is worth doing, it is worth doing right.’ ”

“A most sensible woman,” said Valentine in a neutral tone.

“Yes. Indeed. When can you leave?”

Experienced travelers often debate which is the more devilishly inconvenient airport, Chicago’s O’Hare International or London’s Heathrow. Valentine, who had never been to Chicago and certainly never intended to go, was passionately in favor of declaring Heathrow an outpost of hell by the time she had trudged three quarters of a mile through bare, glass-windowed corridors with damp English night visible outside, carrying her heavy hand luggage and weighed down by her bulky knit coat, only to find that she now had to negotiate what looked like at least another mile of moving pavement. The flat metal grid quivered unnervingly as she gingerly stepped on it, but it was better than walking. By the time she had gone through British passport control and approached customs she was almost whimpering with fatigue. Her whirlwind buying trip had been draining, both mentally and physically. She passionately wanted Scruples to be a success, but no matter how cleverly Elliott packaged it, there would be no real future if the stock didn’t measure up to the demands of the very special customers she had observed so carefully in Beverly Hills and at the parties given for Elliott.

But as she was waved quickly through customs her only thought had nothing to do with Scruples. She wanted to find the man from the Savoy. Billy’s last instructions had been clear.

“Look for the man in the gray uniform with a cap that says ‘The Savoy’ on his hatband. He’s stationed there to watch out for people booked into the Savoy chain. I’ve arranged for you to stay at the Berkeley. It’s the best now, or so I’ve heard, and they’ll take good care of you.”

Valentine spotted a tall, kindly looking man in a smartly tailored gray uniform and walked up to him with relief.

“I’m Miss O’Neill. I have a reservation at the Berkeley. Could you get me a taxi, please, and do something—anything at all, about my baggage?”

He looked at her in a perfect combination of respect and admiration, as if he had known her for years and had spent his entire life at the airport just hoping that she would arrive someday.

“Ah, Madame! Yes indeed, Madame! A pleasure, I assure you. I hope you had a satisfactory flight from Paris. I believe there is a car and driver waiting for you. Porter.
Porter
. Just follow me, Madame, never mind the porter, he’ll be along in a minute.” He took Valentine’s hand baggage and coat and walked briskly off as she trailed numbly behind. A car and driver, now that was thoughtful of Billy—she certainly could have used one in Paris, Valentine thought, as the man from the Savoy handed her into a surprisingly huge gray Daimler with a uniformed chauffeur sitting up front behind a glass panel.

“I know what you’re thinking,” said Josh Hillman from the back seat. Valentine stared at him incredulously. “You’re wondering how much to tip the man from the Savoy and how much to tip the porter. Don’t bother, I’ve taken care of them.”

“What are you doing here?”

“This is a snatch—you’re completely in my power.”

“Oh Josh!” She went limp with laughter. “You make the most terrible Bogart.”

“Wait till you hear my Chevalier again. Valentine—Valentine—I missed you so much—I had to come—I thought I’d go nuts when you left so quickly. I’ve never had to fly six thousand miles before to get a second date, but just seeing that little, woeful face of yours—it’s worth every mile.”

“But I don’t understand. How did you get away? Where does your wife think you are?” Valentine managed to ask these questions even though he was kissing her so persistently and so adroitly that ten miles of London suburb went by before she uttered the last query.

“London, on business. Shut up, darling. Stop asking questions. Don’t be so obsessed with detail, just accept that I’m here.”

Valentine relaxed. He was right. She didn’t have the strength to make sense out of anything right now. “Wake me up when we get to Buckingham Palace,” she whispered and immediately fell asleep in Josh’s arms.

Half an hour later he kissed her awake as the car approached Buckingham Gate. As they drove slowly down the Mall with St. James’s Park and its great trees, noble and mysterious in the dark, on one side and the glory of Carlton House Terrace on the other, she kept whisking around to look at the illuminated palace behind her. The bulk of the Admiralty Arch loomed ahead of them. It is perhaps the most thrilling promenade in the world to those who love London.

Valentine, who had never been to London before, was dithering with rapture. As they reached the hotel, she gazed in wonder at the huge entrance foyer with its flagpoles flying banners from all four walls, like the dining hall of a regiment. Inside, a Telex machine was humming in a corner, and the marble floor was crisscrossed by a dozen discreetly scurrying, uniformed men, each with a clearly defined part, although she could not guess what, in the smooth functioning of the hotel. She and Josh followed a tailcoated, young, pink-cheeked desk clerk through many corridors before they came to their suite. As soon as the clerk left, Valentine ran to the windows, parted the curtains, and gazed out breathlessly.

“Oh, Josh—come quickly, look, there’s moonlight on the river and if I lean out I can see the—I think—yes—the Houses of Parliament—and across—what’s that big building all lit up—and look, just under us, a garden and a monument—what is it all, quick, explain it to me. Billy never said the Berkeley had a view like this.”

“Perhaps that’s because the Berkeley isn’t on the Thames, Valentine darling.”

“Where are we?”

“Precisely? We are above the Victoria Embankment Gardens. That is Cleopatra’s Needle you see down there, across is the Royal Festival Hall, and, to be even more exact, you are in the Maria Callas suite of the Savoy Hotel.” Valentine slowly sank down on one of the velvet couches in the grandly paneled, beautifully appointed, Chippendale sitting room and gazed into the blazing fire. It was so deliciously like an old-fashioned risqué novel: innocent girl in distress met at destination by darkly handsome semistranger, carried off to unknown hotel in unknown city, surrounded by sinister luxury.