Scruples Two (33 page)

Once, when she’d arrived home in triumph, bearing one of the first lightweight, two-way, all-in-one stretch corsets, a historic object that dated from 1934, Sasha had protested that she should never have bought such a horrifying garment. Gigi insisted that whoever had owned it must have blessed its inventor, who had liberated women from the boned corsets of an earlier day. Each bit of lingerie that she brought home seemed to her to have a history, each one could tell a wondrous story if she could only be alive to its vibrations, and no matter how much Sasha laughed at her and told her she was turning into a fetishist, she stubbornly added to her collection, finding ever more alluring and delicate examples of forgotten styles.

“Sasha,” Gigi asked seriously, “do you think I’m getting cynical?”

“You’ve grown up awfully fast since you started working, but cynical? No, I don’t think so. It seems to me that a cynic would sneer at the possibility of human goodness or sincerity … you don’t sneer, you just keep hoping to find it … if anything, you’re the opposite of a cynic, a cockeyed optimist or something like that.”

“That’s what Zach says.”

“Does he?”

“Yes,” Gigi said, curling up on the pillows near Sasha. “When I told him that every time I worked on a wedding I thought it was a shame to spend so much money when there was only a fifty-percent chance that the couple would stay married, he said I was just being realistic, and that realistic is good.”

“Did he?”

“Uh-huh. And when I told Zach that I thought it was disgusting to give elaborate birthday parties for two- and three-year-olds, just so that the parents could show off how much money they had to each other, he said it was my social conscience speaking, and I should be glad I had one, but I should also realize that any party spreads money around to lots of different businesses and working people.”

“No kidding.”

“Yep. And when Zach and I talked about the theater he said that I should think of parties as theatrical productions, that I should divorce them from their emotional quotient. Zach told me not to agonize the way I used to do about whether the hosts were having fun at their own parties, because they were the producers and it wasn’t their business to have fun. Zach said I should only worry about how the guests were enjoying it, because the guests were the audience and the entire party was mounted for them. Zach said when a party’s successful, the hosts have plenty of time to be happy when it’s over, but that there’s no way I can hope to eliminate their nervousness while it’s going on. His point of view has been a big help to me. Very steadying. Zach knows so much. No wonder he’s such a terrific director.”

“You think so, do you?”

“Oh yes, Sasha. Zach’s truly wise,” Gigi assured his sister. “He said that anytime you become a professional, no matter how glamorous your profession seems to the outside world, you have to turn into a worker bee, like him or me. Zach said that on the one hand you have to personally give up the illusion of your profession—which unfortunately is exactly what drew you to it in the first place—because you learn firsthand about the nuts and bolts and grind and sweat that create it, but on the other hand you’ve made it happen for a lot of other people, and that’s your reward … that and the fun of the work itself, the process.”

“When did you have this conversation with Zach?”

“Oh, every now and then, different times, it wasn’t all in one conversation.”

“I see. I see.” Sasha meticulously tested her toenails and found them dry. “Gigi, what’s in that box? Just looking at it, I know you’ve been lingerie-shopping.”

Gigi untied the string of the cardboard box and pulled out a garment unlike any that Sasha had seen before. “That’s not lingerie,” Sasha declared.

“Yes it is. It’s what they called a breakfast jacket,” Gigi answered, caressing the soft deep rose velvet from which the supple, hip-length jacket was made. “Look, it’s lined in pleated beige chiffon, and this dark fur that trims the edges is something they used to call ‘kolinsky,’ according to the woman who sold it to me. Isn’t it heavenly? Imagine slipping this on for breakfast when the fire hasn’t quite warmed the room. Have another kipper, m’dear.”

“It looks as if it’s your size,” Sasha said. “Come on, try it on.”

Gigi put on the jacket, which was designed with deep armholes and no buttons so that it fell open in an almost oriental way. She twirled around twice, her eyes closed in pleasure. “I thought I’d give it to Jessica for Christmas … it might hang a bit on her, but she can always belt it.”

“Why don’t you keep it? It’s perfect for you.”

“I’m trying to get all my Christmas shopping done by the end of the month. You know how busy we get around Christmas … I’ll never have time to get away from the office after November hits and people start to think about holiday parties. Groaning-board time is almost upon us.”

“Come to think of it, aren’t you dying for dinner? It’s been a long time since lunch, and I was on my feet all afternoon, peddling bras and panties.”

“There’s lots of Creole chicken stew left over from yesterday,” Gigi said. “It’ll be even better reheated. It won’t take any time in the microwave.”

“What!” Sasha was immobile with shock. “Did you say
reheated? Warmed up?
Did you say
microwave?”

“I know, Sasha, I know perfectly well that tonight’s the night I always teach you to cook something new, but just once couldn’t you please, please eat something you didn’t make?”

“Oh, I suppose so,” Sasha conceded unwillingly. “Although it wasn’t in our original deal. You don’t see me canceling your lessons without notice.”

“Sasha?” Gigi cleared her throat. “Sasha, I don’t think I’m ever going to make it as a Great Slut. Your lessons are being wasted on me.”

“Aha! So that’s why you don’t want to give me a cooking lesson!”

“No! That’s a coincidence. I’ve been intending to explain for a long time, but I didn’t want to spoil our fun. Sasha, I might as well admit that I’m no good at balancing more than one man at a time—it feels … oh, I don’t know.… icky?… . there’s got to be a better word, but you know what I mean. It goes against my grain. Look at it this way, at least I found it out so I’ll never have to wonder if I’m missing something. And, Sasha, I don’t really enjoy making men suffer, even though I know how good and necessary it is for them. I’ve been taking your lessons under false pretenses because I didn’t want to let you down. It sounded like a terrific idea when you first explained to me, but … well, whatever I thought way back then, I simply don’t have what it takes, I keep backsliding and I know you’d disapprove … so I think we should give it up.”

“This does not mean you are going back on my cooking lessons.” Sasha’s tone contained no question. It was as good as a contract.

“No, no, no. I’ll give you double lessons, as many as you want, I promise,” Gigi wailed and disappeared into the bedroom, still wearing the jacket over her underwear.

Sasha put away the implements in her pedicure kit and lay back on the couch, contemplating a microwaved dinner more calmly. In fact it would be rather nice not to have a cooking lesson, not to have to change into jeans and an apron and follow Gigi’s complicated instructions. She probably knew more about cooking than any woman would ever need. But she wasn’t going to touch that microwave. That was Gigi’s department. And she’d make Gigi set the table too, and clean up afterwards, to punish her for her failure to follow through on her opportunities.

Sasha looked up as Gigi slipped into the living room. She was dressed to go out, in high black boots into which she’d tucked dark green, wide-wale corduroy trousers. She’d belted a black cashmere turtleneck sweater tightly around her waist with a wide belt of woven silver and gold, and she wore the rose velvet breakfast jacket tossed gallantly over her shoulders. She looked like a small Russian officer in the army of the Czar, Sasha thought, uncoiling in surprise.

“Just where is your apron, Miss Orsini? I believe there is a chicken stew waiting to be reheated.”

“Oh, Sasha, please, would you mind eating alone tonight?” Gigi asked pleadingly.

“On Monday night, the Monday night we keep for each other? I don’t believe you said that!”

“I have … a sort of appointment … more or less of a … date.” Gigi was backing slowly into the hallway that led to the front door.

“You have a
date?
With a man? Are you mad? You know you need Monday off!” Sasha followed her and cut off her retreat.

“Not if I don’t go out with three different men all week long. Not if I’m taking up monogamy,” Gigi said defiantly.

“I was afraid of this.” Sasha shook her noble head indignantly, her long black hair tumbling over the shoulders of her white satin pajamas. “All my lessons down the drain, all wasted on you. I never should have let you in on my secrets … but I blame myself, you never had the makings of a slut, great or otherwise, you don’t have the heart for it. So you have a date, do you? Just who is important enough to cause you to stand me up?”

“I’m just going to grab a bite,” Gigi said defensively.

“I didn’t ask
what
you were going to do, I asked who with?”

“I need some advice, some professional advice, I’m going out to get it.”

“I didn’t ask
why
you were going out for dinner, I asked who with?”

“Sort of.… Zach.”

“There is nobody,
nobody
on this earth, who is ‘sort of Zach,’ ” Sasha spat, her dark eyes narrowing in rage. “And you, Gigi Orsini, know it. Don’t you?”

“All right, so I have a date with Zach, so what?”

“What have I done? Oh God, where did I go wrong? How can such a thing be happening to me? Abomination! This is an abomination in the eyes of the Lord!”

“Sasha, calm down and stop yelling! What’s wrong with my going out with Zach?”

“I heard the word ‘monogamy’—I heard the name Zach—and you dare to ask what’s wrong?
You slut!
”

“Just tell me what’s wrong. You don’t have to be insulting.”

“Zach’s my brother,
mine
, that’s what’s wrong! I adore him!
I’m jealous!
That’s what’s wrong!”

“You’ll get over it,” Gigi said comfortingly. “It won’t take you more than a few days to realize that it’s better me than a stranger.”

“How do you know?” Sasha asked tragically. “How can you possibly be sure?”

“Human nature, Sasha,” Gigi said as she left the room. “Even you have some.”

12

O
h, come on, Cora, where’s your sense of adventure?” Billy pulled Cora de Lioncourt down the crowded side street of the Marché Saint-Honoré, a food market near the Ritz, and into the door of Le Rubis, an old-fashioned café-turned-wine bistro where the list of wines sold by the glass took up five feet of wall space. Billy found a paper-covered table in the packed room, installed herself and Cora, and gestured wildly until she caught the eye of the owner. “Léon,” she yelled over the din, “two glasses of Beaujolais Nouveau and two of your
rillettes
sandwiches.”

Cora de Lioncourt recoiled. “You can’t possibly order Beaujolais Nouveau. It’s a cabdriver’s wine, Billy, nobody drinks it!”

“You’ve lived in New York too long,” Billy laughed. “Cora, this is the biggest celebration since Bastille Day.… the Beaujolais Nouveau has arrived! Wake up! It’s November fifteenth, 1981, and all over France people are fighting to get the first glass … I brought you here as a special treat. My little Beaujol is the most intelligent wine in the world.”

“The cheapest, I’m sure, but what makes it intelligent?”

“No sooner is it harvested than it is
acheté, bu et pissé—
quick and to the point.”

“Bought, drunk and … eliminated. Charming. You might as well drink grape juice, in my opinion.”

“Now, now, Cora, don’t underestimate my expertise. There is Beaujol and Beaujol, most of it is of inferior quality or mixed with Algerian wine—but Le Rubis is one of the few places you can drink it with confidence
—
Leon’s been buying directly from the same grower forever, with no middlemen involved. He can serve us any Beaujolais in existence, so if you’re going to be snooty about
mon petit
Beaujol, I’ll buy you a glass of Moulin-â-Vent or Côte de Brouilly, or Saint-Amour—but I’m sticking with the Nouveau. Let’s try some of the
fromage fort
, shall we? It’s Léon’s special mixture of Roquefort and goat cheese—just the right thing to bring out the flavor of the wine.”

Cora’s eyes widened in horror as she looked at Billy drinking the fruity, light, almost unfermented wine that could be swilled with impunity.
Fromage fort! Rillettes
indeed! She wouldn’t dream of touching that country pâté made from shreds of fresh-cooked pork mixed with cold pork fat—food beloved of the lower classes, food no one had asked Cora to eat in all the years she’d lived in France.

Cora had already been in Paris for ten days, and Billy had been unexpectedly difficult to pin down to a lunch. Now that they were together, she fully expected to be taken to the Relais Plaza, the most fashionable place for two women to lunch in Paris … but no, here they were in this tumbledown hideout, not even a decent bistro, elbowed by a jolly mob of laughing patrons, shopgirls, businessmen, workingmen, and even a few street sweepers, who were all already well into the spirit of the long-awaited festivities, passing each other fresh glasses of the newly arrived wine directly over Cora’s head.

“I’ll eat your
rillettes
if you don’t want it, Cora,” Billy offered. “Shall I ask Léon for a menu? He does a good omelet.”

“Please.” She passed Billy her plate quickly.

“Oh, Cora, I’m sorry. You’re really not enjoying this at all, are you? I thought it would be amusing for a change. I know it’s a bit of a marketing gimmick, this whole Beaujolais madness, but it’s the closest the French get to the Halloween spirit. Come on, we’ll go somewhere quieter.”

“It’s not that I don’t like it—it’s just that it’s so noisy that it’s hard to talk here,” Cora said, concealing her ruffled relief.

A few minutes later, after a brisk walk back to the Ritz, the two women were installed at a table in the Espadon, the Ritz restaurant.

“Tell me all about the new house,” Cora asked eagerly. “When will you move in? Can I visit this afternoon?”

“Oh … let’s wait till it’s finished,” Billy responded lightly. “There isn’t a stick of furniture in it yet.”

“Even empty, I’m dying to see it,” Cora replied. Billy was just being evasive. “This is my first trip to Paris since you bought it,” Cora added, a hint of reproach in her voice, “and once I leave, I won’t be back for months. I simply must have a preview before I go back to New York, or people will make it into even more of a mystery than they have already.”

“You mean people in New York have been.… gossiping about my place? Why should they bother?”

“Of course they gossip,” Cora said, showing her perfect teeth. “It’s only to be expected, given who you are. On a certain level, haven’t you noticed that when something very intriguing is going on in Paris or London, it seems to be happening in New York too? People feel a part of it, they take a proprietary interest. And you’ve managed to make them even more curious by turning into a dropout.”

“Cora, I have
not
been a dropout,” Billy said sharply. “Just last week I went to the Rothschilds’ ball and the Polignacs’ dinner.”

“Two parties in a week? That’s the same as being invisible during November. It’s the height of the Paris season, Billy, and you’ve been asked everywhere. You’ve made a lot of hostesses unhappy with all your refusals.” Cora’s tone was teasing, but it was clear that she was serious.

“Surely that’s my right?” Billy asked, her voice rising. “I hate going out more than twice a week. Even two evenings means spending an eternity on clothes and hair. I can’t begin to imagine how the women who do it every night handle the boredom of it.”

She put down her soup spoon with a bang, carried away by her words. “They get up, make phone calls and dress for lunch. After lunch they go shopping and have endless fittings. Then they get their hair done for the evening, go home to dress for dinner, put on more makeup, go out for the evening, and come home to take off their clothes and makeup and go to bed in order to start all over again the next morning. That’s their life, Cora, their
whole
life! How can they stand it?”

Billy’s face was alight with an emotion that Cora de Lioncourt couldn’t decipher. Could she possibly be sincerely indignant at a use of time women in society took for granted? Was she merely impatient with the repetitious quality of any social round, no matter how glamorous, how elevated? Or … or, and this was more likely, wasn’t Billy hiding a disappointment that all the preparations she had made for social occasions hadn’t yet produced any man whose name was attached to hers? After all, from everything Cora had heard, Billy herself had led exactly the life she’d just described for six months after arriving in Paris.

“A woman like you, who’s used to running a business, would naturally find such a life limited,” Cora said carefully. “But I promise you there are many women who would give all they have to lead that life you find so empty.”

“Would you?”

“Good heavens, no,” Cora said emphatically. “A collector always wakes up excited by the thrill of the chase—it’s like having a full-time job, except that you spend money instead of making it. I’ve always thought that the only way to be rich and stay interested in life was either to collect with passion—collect anything, it doesn’t matter what—or be very competitive at something you do well—some sport, for example. I’m sure that’s the explanation for golf.”

“And bridge.”

“Exactly. Now, when do I see this mystery house? Empty or not, I won’t be satisfied until I lay eyes on it.”

“We can go after lunch if you like,” Billy said, realizing that eventually she’d have to show Cora the house, and the sooner she got it done, the less she’d have to juggle her life while Cora was visiting. And Cora could report to anyone who was making a mystery out of the Rue Vaneau that it was just a big empty house in the process of being redecorated, no more, no less.

Merely meeting Cora for lunch today had meant an extra trip to the Ritz in order to transform herself into the Billy Ikehorn Cora expected to see. Changing her clothes for lunch, she’d found herself so rushed that her heart had pounded with anxiety as she abandoned one set of clothes for another. She’d have to go back to the hotel room she’d taken on the Rue Monsieur le Prince, stuff the Saint Laurent dress and coat she was wearing into the back of the closet, and change into something else before she could go back to Sam. No, damn it! That would mean going home in clothes different from those she’d worn when she left Sam this morning. He’d notice—he noticed everything about her. She’d have to return to the fucking Ritz, change fucking back into the fucking clothes she’d put on this fucking morning and then go home. And all this without using her fucking driver because she never let him pick her up at the Ritz or deposit her either at the Rue Vaneau or Sam’s studio. What a fucking drag!

“My driver’s sick today,” Billy added smoothly. “I hope we can find a taxi.”

“Jean-François? I thought you were in Aix, buying antiques?” Billy was disagreeably surprised to see her decorator arriving at the Rue Vaneau. She had just given Cora a whirlwind tour of both floors of the restored manor house, and they were on their way out when Jean-François Delacroix entered. Without being impossibly rude, she had to introduce him to Cora, and it was five o’clock already.

“I came back on the TGV this morning, Madame. There wasn’t much to be had, and what there was, I bought yesterday.”

“Is this Monsieur Delacroix?” Cora asked.

“Oh, forgive me. May I present Jean-François Delacroix? Jean-François, this is the Comtesse de Lioncourt. We’re just leaving.”

“Everyone knows of the Comtesse and her exquisite taste,” the young decorator said, kissing Cora’s hand. “I tremble already.”

“Nonsense,” said Cora, “nothing’s installed yet … alas, in such a superb house there’s nothing for me to see, either to praise or to criticize. It is all potential, but splendid potential.”

“Madame, we needed time to perfect the setting, the frame, so that it will be light, flexible and pure throughout, the spirit of the eighteenth century revisited, as it were, by Madame Ikehorn’s sensibility. Meanwhile, I am storing the treasures we find in the old stables.”

“I wonder,” Cora said, quivering with eagerness, “if I could have a quick peek at them.”

“It would be my pleasure, Madame, but they are all carefully covered against the damp.”

“Oh no!” Cora almost stamped her foot in frustration. The visit had been pure irritation from beginning to end. Visiting bare rooms, with nothing to look at but architectural details and newly restored floors and walls had been a form of torture that had left her feeling murderous, yet she’d been fairly warned beforehand, so she couldn’t show how cheated she felt.

“Couldn’t you uncover something, something small?” She might yet salvage something from this afternoon.

“I could try, Madame, that is … if Madame Ikehorn …”

“Go ahead, Jean-François,” Billy said with resignation. Once Cora had heard the word “treasures,” Billy had known that there would be no avoiding a visit to the stables. “I’ll stay here and find out what that gardener is doing. He should have finished planting bulbs days ago. But don’t be long, it’s getting late and we have to find a taxi before the worst of the rush hour. You have only ten minutes.”

“Tell me where you went in Aix, Monsieur,” Cora asked, and she and the young decorator plunged into a discussion of the merits of the antiques dealers of Provence as they crossed the courtyard to the stable block. There he threw open the old doors, turned on the lights and revealed the two dozen old horse stalls, packed full.

Cora walked up and down, realizing quickly that each piece of furniture and each object was far too carefully wrapped for her to see anything in a short time.

“Yes, Madame,” the decorator shrugged, seeing her face, “I know, it is disappointing. I would like to have your opinion of many of the things I have bought. But, here, at least, I can show you something that has just arrived and has not yet been protected properly.” He pulled a tarpaulin away from what seemed to be a picture leaning up against a wall and revealed an oblong mirror, elaborately surrounded by a carved mirror frame, all of it glimmering and glistening dimly like a dark window into a jeweled past.

“Ah … lovely! Very lovely indeed. It isn’t French, is it? Late seventeenth century.”

“Precisely, Madame. It is German and was presented to the ruling House of Orange to celebrate a victory in battle.”

“It’s marvelously flamboyant. And in perfect condition, I see.”

“I intend it for Madame Ikehorn’s bedroom. To view oneself in such a mirror is to see oneself reincarnated in another era, do you not think so, Madame?”

“I agree, Monsieur,” Cora said, looking without pleasure at her reflection in the old glass. “Is the house to be surpassingly romantic, then?”

“Who can tell, Madame?”

“Surely you, Monsieur,” Cora said in surprise.

“I think I may well be the last man in Paris to know.” The young decorator spoke with an edge of bitterness that was at odds with his evident desire to show her something beautiful.

“How is that possible?” she probed, smiling as if she thought he meant to be merely modest.