Scruples (78 page)

“Eating? Nothing, thank you very much. I’ve been too nervous to eat. Just the thought of it makes me sick. No, there’s something wrong with the slip. If anything, I’ve lost weight.”

Valentine whipped out her tape measure.

“For heaven’s sake, Val, you know my measurements by heart. Put that away. This is getting ridiculous.”

Paying no attention to Billy, Valentine measured her waist and then, after a second of reflection, her bust. She muttered something to herself in French.

“What are you saying, damn it? Stop that crooning and articulate. I hate it when you speak French as if I couldn’t understand it!”

“All I said,
Madame
, is that the waistline is the first thing to go.”

“To go? Go where, for God’s sake. Are you trying to tell me I’m losing my figure?”

“Not exactly. An inch and a half in the waist, an inch across the bust. That’s how much you’ve changed. Most people would still consider that an acceptable figure, but you can’t wear this dress without this slip.”

“Damn,” Billy said, aggrieved. “I’ve only missed exercise class for five months. I’ve been working like a dog for this body since I was eighteen and when I neglect it for a few months, look what it does—it’s not fair!”

“You can’t fool Mother Nature,” smiled Valentine.

“Stop smirking. This is serious. Oh, what the hell, it’s not the end of the world. I’ll wear something else tonight, and start exercising at Ron’s every day, get Richie to really push me hard, and in a month I’ll be back to normal.”

“In a month you’ll begin to show.”

“Show?”

“Show.”
Valentine made a gesture with her hands, puffing out an imaginary belly.

“Nuts! Valentine, you have gone completely nuts! Do you think Dolly is infectious? Christ almighty, give you one maternity dress to design and you develop a raving case of babies on the brain.”

Valentine said nothing, quirked her eyebrows knowingly, obviously holding her ground.

“You’re a designer, not a gynecologist; you don’t know what on earth you’re talking about,” Billy was shouting.

“At Balmain we always knew first, before the doctor, even before the
woman
. The waistline is the first to go, it’s well known,” Valentine said, softly fervent. Her small, amused face was thrilled with certainty.

Billy was throwing on her street clothes, screaming all the while. “You fucking French! Always so fucking sure of yourselves. Know-it-alls. It couldn’t be that the slip doesn’t fit, it has to be that I’m pregnant. How far can you carry that sort of crap? One of the damn models wore the dress out dancing and had it dry-cleaned. Check and you’ll find out! I’ll never leave another dress here, that’s for sure.” She turned to leave.

“Billy—”

“Please, Valentine, no excuses. I can’t even get a decent dress to wear out of my own store. Damn, damn,
damn.”
She slammed out the door.

Valentine stood gazing at the crimson pools of satin and taffeta on the floor and the tape measure in her hand. She knew she should be angry. Where was her famous temper? But a tear rolled off the tip of her little pointed nose. A tear for Billy.

Curt Arvey had been pleased with Vito’s phone call. The bastard wants to make up, he thought grimly, as he accepted Vito’s invitation to lunch. “Bury the hatchet.” What a marvelously original way to put it. Obviously, Orsini had seen he had gone as far as he could go and was trying to mend his fences before it was too late. It was so overt, but still it satisfied Arvey’s sense of importance to be wooed and courted by someone with whom he’d been in bitter conflict only a few weeks ago. Sure,
Mirrors
was making him a fortune, but Orsini was crazy if he thought that made every cheap trick he’d pulled smell like roses. The man was a tricky son of a bitch. But why not let Vito pay for his lunch? They’d have to greet each other at the Oscars tonight anyway.

They met at Ma Maison, another sharp bit of business on Vito’s part, Arvey considered. At the table next to them Sue Mengers was drinking a banana daiquiri. After lunch everyone in town would know they’d eaten together and suppose that they were friends again. Well, let that cock-sucker hang on to the studio’s coattails for another few hours, for all the good it would do him. After tonight Vito Orsini would be just another producer whose picture didn’t make it Back to square one. Could anybody remember who had produced the four pictures that didn’t win last year’s Osar? Or even the one that had? But a studio went on forever and so did a smart studio head.

Arvey enjoyed the conversation over lunch. He had a fresh audience for the topics closest to his heart; the record of disasters at other studios, the names of leaders in the industry who would find themselves looking for a job any day now; the number of pictures that were behind schedule at other studios and their nonexistent chance of recouping their cost; the inside gossip of what Wall Street firms were unhappy with the earnings of which studios and what they were going to do about it.

Vito nodded with interest, encouraging this gloating recital.

“But you, Curt? You’re in good shape I take it?”

“You’d better believe it, Vito. Experience talks in this business, and if I say so myself, I guess, right more than I guess wrong. Well show another twenty-five-cent profit per share this year—the stockholders should be satisfied for once, those leeches.”

“I wander how much of the profit comes from
Mirrors?”

“Some of it, no question—credit where credit is due. If I hadn’t given you the go-ahead, without even a script, the dividend would be a few pennies less. A nice little moneymaker.”

“I heard you had luck selling those television stations that the company owned and that the rest of the profit, the bulk of it, comes from
Mirrors.”

“Where do you get your financial information from, a gypsy tearoom?” Arvey became faintly mottled.

“Or maybe you expected to make it from that big picture of yours—
David Copperfield?”
Vito inquired politely.

“Pickwick!”
Arvey put down his fork with a bang.

“Pickwick!—David Copperfield
, it’s the same picture, just retitled it, who’ll know? It won’t show up in the earnings till next year anyway—and it might show up as a loss. I hear they haven’t even started to edit the thing. Yeah, better retitle it.” Vito
smiled
encouragingly.

“Pickwick!
happens to be opening at the Music Hall for the Easter Show,” Arvey said scathingly.

“The Music Hall? Didn’t
Lost Horizon
open there? Good place for that kind of kiddie picture. Nice thinking, Curt, if anything can help it, the Music Hall should.”

“Vito—” Arvey began, choking with indignation, but Vito interrupted him briskly, reassuringly.

“Listen, you’ve got nothing to worry about. With that rise in earnings, the stockholders’ll come in their pants. I’m sure, almost positive, that they’ll renew your contract, Curt, you’re in a great position this year. And if
Mirrors
wins tonight—”

Arvey broke in viciously. “Give a producer a decent break and he thinks he knows it all. Better enjoy it while it lasts, Vito;
Mirrors
is going to be yesterday’s news—and today is half over.”

Vito answered as if he hadn’t heard Arvey’s last words. “Yeah, if
Mirrors
wins, I think I’ll do a big picture next. A creative man needs variety—and I’ve always wanted to see Redford and Nicholson together—there’s a property they’re both dying to do—question of getting together on price—but I think I can buy it.”

“Come off it, Vito. I can tell a snow job when I hear one. Redford and Nicholson.
If
you win! You know as well as I do that there isn’t a chance. I want you to win as much as you do—after all, we’re in this together—but against those four blockbusters,
no way! Mirrors
is a small picture; remember, I told you that right from the very beginning. Small pictures almost never win.
Rocky
was a once-in-a-lifetime fluke. It certainly can’t happen twice in a row. Don’t build up false hopes, you’ll just feel worse tonight,” Arvey said, regaining his patronizing tone.

“Maybe I’ll get the anti-blockbuster vote,” Vito answered dreamily. “People in the industry know that every blockbuster that fails means six or eight or even ten other pictures that don’t get a chance to get made—thousands of jobs lost. Disappointing big pictures—and we’ve had more than our share this year—turn off the public—the industry knows that.”

“Dream on, Vito, dream on. Look, listen to the voice of experience. Have you any idea how long I’ve been head of the studio—since before you knew a lens from a view-finder. And I know all about how you got your nomination—those housewife matinees—did you think I wasn’t aware of the stunts you were pulling? But from a nomination to winning—it’s a whole other ball park, my boy.”

Vito addressed himself to his individual chocolate soufflé served with chilled whipped cream in a separate dish. He ate judiciously, Arvey studied him curiously.

“So you’re thinking of buying something?” he asked at last. The bastard wanted something from him. It would be a pleasure to turn him down.

“Uh huh. A book.
The WASP
. Heard of it?”

“What do you think I am, illiterate? My readers loved it. Susan loved it. I don’t have time to read, but I get outlines. Eleven months on the best-seller lists—if you can trust them, which I don’t. But one million five for the movie rights—they’re crazy. Nobody will pay that.”

“Billy’s wild about it—wants to buy it for me. If you don’t want your soufflé—?”

“Take it, I shouldn’t eat chocolate anyhow. So Billy wants to buy it, huh? I take it you have a birthday coming up? Nice, very nice.”

“It
is
nice, Curt, when your wife has faith in you. She’s got almost as good a nose as mine. You think
Mirrors
won’t win—my Italian nose says it will. Call it a hunch if you don’t want to be ethnic.”

“When you run a multimillion-dollar company you don’t play hunches as easily as when you have a rich wife—no offense, just the facts. Nicholson and Redford—do they really want to do it?”

“Yeah.”

“I just can’t believe that. And their salaries alone—Jesus—you’d be up to five, six million before you even bought the book. You’re talking a twenty-million-dollar budget. No, Vito, those deals are a little rich for your blood.”

“Tell you what, Curt, I’ll buy the book myself, or radier Billy will, and I’ll give you a free option of thirty days if you’re right about
Mirrors
not winning.”

“What’s the other half?”

“If I’m right, you buy the rights for me. Simple.”

“One million five?”

“The odds are against me and you don’t think I have a chance. But don’t sweat it. If you’re unwilling to risk your judgment, I’ll buy the book and find another studio. Shit, it’d take too long to order another soufflé, wouldn’t it? They’re so damn small.”

“You eat too much. Vito, I still think you’re a schmuck, but if you want to make this deal, OK. If you don’t mind, why don’t we make a memo of agreement while we’re here?” He signaled the waiter and asked for a menu.

“Curt, Curt—you can trust me,” Vito sounded hurt.

“After you stole my picture?” Arvey asked, busily writing.

“You got it back.”

“Nevertheless—I prefer something in writing.” Arvey and Vito both signed the memo and the waiter and Patrick Terail, the restaurant owner, witnessed it. Vito reached for the menu and started to fold it to put in his pocket when Arvey grabbed it from him.

“We’ll let Patrick hold it for us, eh Vito? Remember, this is the only copy. And I’ll pay for lunch. Otherwise it would cost you one million five,
plus
. I’m feeling generous today.”

Billy drove home from Scruples with all her senses focused on getting there safely. The short distance between Scruples and Sunset Boulevard is full of opportunities to hit jaywalkers and she knew she was so angry that she was afraid not to concentrate. Her self-control held as she ran through the enormous house, not speaking to any of the servants. She crossed her sitting room, her bedroom, and her bathroom, at last locking herself into her final refuge, her main dressing room. This room, thirty feet square, thickly carpeted in ivory, with pale lavender silk on the walls, held rack upon rack of clothes. In the center of the room a Lucite island was divided into hundreds of drawers, each one holding a different accessory. Beyond it, in another locked room, cooled to a permanent 45 degrees, hung Billy’s furs. Neither of the rooms was ever entered by anyone but Billy and her personal maid.

There was a deep bay window in the center of one of the walls, with a wide window seat covered in ivory velvet and piled high with silk cushions in the colors of anemones and Iceland poppies. She sank down, panting from her race through the house, and pulled up an old afghan she had never been parted from since Aunt Cornelia had knitted it for her. She tucked her cold feet under her thighs, wrapped one arm around the other, and made herself as small and as warm as possible. This hidden window seat was her ultimate private place where she came to think things out. It contained a phone, which only she ever used, and a buzzer to summon her maid. As long as she stayed in the bay window no member of her household dared to disturb her, and in her present mood Billy felt she might well spend the rest of her life there. The bastard had trapped her!