Smoke and Mirrors (21 page)

7

AFter listening
to her mother endlessly bemoaning her poverty, Erin had believed no one could be more concerned with money, or the lack thereof. She had been mistaken. Money—and the lack thereof—was a constant source of anxiety to Rosemary's staff. There just wasn't enough.

Erin had read about the unending debate on campaign financing; she decided it was like the weather—everybody complained about it, but nobody did anything about it. A few people, including Rosemary, had tried, but bills limiting contributions, personal expenditures, and paid advertising had a strange habit of dying in committee or being emasculated by amendments.

Over $211 million spent on Senate races, almost $239 million on the House. Add the cost of presidential campaigns and state races, and the total became horrifying—and the implications even more so. The candidate with the most money didn't always win, but he had an edge that was difficult, if not impossible, to overcome.

Television was one of the reasons why the cost of a campaign had increased so astronomically. TV spots were the most effective method of reaching large numbers of voters. They were also one of the most expensive. (The United States was one of the few Western democratic nations to allow paid commercial political advertising; Rosemary's attempt to introduce a bill forbidding this pleasant and lucrative activity hadn't even made it to committee.) The cost of a single thirty-second spot on a local station in New York City was over $8000. New York was the most expensive market in the country, but D.C. wasn't far behind; and since most of Virginia
picked up the Washington stations, Joe had insisted they buy time on "Eyewitness News" and the others. They had saved the major effort for the final weeks of the campaign, and Rosemary had reluctantly agreed to hire a professional media firm to produce the spot. She remarked that she didn't know where the hell the money was going to come from; and Nick, trying to hide his resentment at being supplanted, said sourly that he didn't either.

"Listen, it's no criticism of you, Nick," Joe insisted. "You've done a great job. You just don't have the technical equipment— special effects, and all that jazz."

Nobody mentioned specific figures, but Erin's reading had given her some idea of the amounts involved. Fifty thousand up front, plus 15 percent of the buy (the total amount spent on radio and TV time). Or $75,000 clear. Both figures were real, from real campaigns, covering the cost of production only, not the cost of air time.

Joe had high hopes for a reception-fund-raiser that was to be given that weekend by one of Rosemary's supporters. One thousand a head was the asking price, as Joe crudely put it. He obviously hoped for more, and nobody was vulgar enough to ask how he planned to get around the laws limiting campaign contributions. There were ways. Even Erin knew that now.

The reception was being hosted by a Hollywood actress whose enthusiasm for liberal causes was as notorious as her habit of acquiring and discarding husbands. (When asked why she bothered to marry the gentlemen in question, whose tenure usually averaged less than a year, she had replied that she was just an old-fashioned girl.) Her current spouse owned a beautiful mansion near Leesburg that was considered one of the showplaces of the old South, but the attraction was not so much the house and its collection of valuable antiques as the guest list, which glittered with big names from the show-biz world. Entertainment was to be provided by a famous concert pianist and the hottest new rock group, whose lead singer was one of the lady's exes.

It had never occurred to Erin that she would be asked to attend. She had taken a certain malicious pleasure in informing Fran of that fact, when her roommate called with the transparent hope of wangling an invitation, or, more accurately, a free ticket.

Fran wasn't convinced. "What do you mean, you aren't going? My God, you've got no more imagination than a goldfish. Can't you think of some way—"

"I could poison Kay," Erin said. "Was that what you had in mind? Sorry, Fran, that wouldn't do it. Anyway, I'm not interested in going."

"Now that," said Fran, "has to be a flat-out lie. Honest to God, Erin, I can't believe you. I know you aren't exactly the most forceful person in the world, but there you are, in a position where you could do yourself and your friends a lot of favors—"

"Friends like you?" Erin inquired softly.

"You wouldn't have had the nerve to write Rosemary if I hadn't pushed you."

There was too much truth in that for Erin to deny it, even if Fran had given her time to do so. "You owe me," Fran insisted. "I'd kill to go to that party. Get to work on it."

"No," Erin said.

"I have a couple of other ideas I want to discuss with you. Like, you could ask Rosemary . . . What did you say?"

"I said no. No party, no pressure, no whatever you were going to propose. I don't owe you a damn thing, Fran, especially if it means betraying the confidence Rosemary has in me. Such as it is."

"Why, Erin, I wouldn't do anything to hurt Rosemary, you ought to know me better than that." Fran's voice changed. She knew when she had gone too far. "I was only going to suggest..."

She went on and on. Erin finally hung up on her. She despised herself as much as she despised Fran; how could she have been such a spineless wimp as to let Fran push her around and put her down? Even more infuriating was the fact that Fran's eagerness had forced her to admit to herself that she had been lying when she said she didn't care about going.

Late Friday afternoon she left the office for a much-needed break. After pacing along the driveway to relax her stiff muscles, she sat down on the porch steps, where she was promptly submerged in cats. The beautiful fall weather held; a haze of warmth veiled the far-off hills, and sunlight freshened the colors of the massed chrysanthemums in the flower beds by the porch. They blazed gloriously—golden yellow, snowy white, all shades of russet
and rust and cinnamon. Her fingers buried in the soft fur of the feline who had been first onto her lap, Erin was enjoying a complete absence of coherent thought when Nick came around the corner of the house.

He shifted a cat and sat down beside her. "I thought you'd be upstairs primping. Don't Newman and Redford deserve your best?"

Erin stared. "Who?"

The question was meaningless in itself; it led to an agitated (on Erin's part), amused (on Nick's) exchange of query and response, and finally Erin let herself be convinced that Rosemary really did expect her to attend the party.

"She told me to keep a fatherly eye on you," said Nick, clinching the argument. "Now don't tell me you don't have anything to wear, that's such a tired old cliche. '

"But I don't—nothing suitable. The only formal dress I brought with me is one I bought in a thrift shop because it was only five bucks. Every other woman there will be wearing gowns they bought from Neiman Marcus and Saks and Garfinckel's. . . . I'll bet none of them have even heard of Second Time Around!"

Nick dismissed this argument with a shrug. "So what? You don't have to go if you don't want to, but think what you'll be missing."

"Redford and Newman," Erin murmured.

"Not to mention me in tails."

"That might make it all worthwhile."

"Rented, I hardly need add." Nick stretched his legs out and leaned back, bracing himself on his elbows. "Our youth and beauty will overcome any minor disadvantages of previously owned attire. We'll make those tired, paunchy, dissipated millionaires look sick."

Two cats climbed onto his outstretched legs. Erin added the one she had been holding and retired, leaving him up to his navel in fur.

Rosemary was on the Hill and wasn't expected back till evening; when Erin located Kay, she put the question rather tentatively. Kay frowned.

"I hadn't heard anything about it. But if Nick says so, I expect
he's right. I had hoped you would be able to help me with my hair. ..."

"It looks lovely," Erin said. She had chauffeured Kay to the hairdresser earlier in the afternoon. "But of course I'll be glad to help any way I can. "

"Thank you." Kay's voice was cool. "I have a few things to finish up here. Did you type those memos?"

Chastened, Erin went to her desk. Obviously Kay didn't approve of her going. So what? she thought defiantly, echoing Nick. She worked steadily until Kay came out of her office and summoned her with a curt "Leave the rest of them."

If she hadn't known she was being unfair, Erin would have suspected that Kay deliberately prolonged the process of dressing in order to shorten the time Erin could spend on herself. Kay tried on three different dresses before settling on the one Erin knew she had bought especially for the occasion.

It was not until she asked whether she should offer her assistance to Rosemary that she got an inkling of the real cause for Kay's ill humor. "She doesn't need either of us," Kay said with a short laugh. "She's got Raymond."

She pronounced it in the French fashion, with the accent on the last syllable and an exaggerated, drawn-out vowel. Seeing Erin's blank look, she explained, "He's a hairdresser and makeup 'artiste,' as he calls himself.
The
hairdresser; does the Vice President's wife, and all the other la-di-da types. Silly business, if you ask me, but Joe said this was an important occasion and only the best was good enough. Personally I can't stand the man; silly, affected creature. . . . There's Hoboken or Brooklyn under that fake French accent of his, or I miss my guess."

"I suppose this is a special occasion," Erin said.

Kay sniffed. "I think Rosemary will just end up looking ridiculous. Her own natural style is good enough for anybody."

Another prolonged period of fussing and indecision over jewelry, shoes, an evening wrap followed, before Kay finally dismissed Erin and suggested that she had better make haste or they would have to go without her.

The fear of being late made Erin clumsier than usual, and her hair seemed to have acquired an agitated life of its own; it clung
crackling to her fingers and fought every attempt to confine it in a roll or a chignon. The dress, a simple sheath of black lace over a slim underslip, could have done with a quick pressing, but Erin was afraid to take the time to look for an iron. The long tight sleeves were modest enough, but she tugged anxiously at the low-cut neckline, wondering if she was showing too much skin. She was putting on earrings, long dangles of jet and crystal, when she heard Kay's door open; with a last despairing look in the mirror she stepped into her black pumps, snatched up her knit stole and black evening bag, and bolted.

Kay didn't turn, though she must have heard Erin behind her on the stairs. Kay reached the landing and turned toward Rosemary's room just as the door of the room opened and a man came out. It could only be Raymond himself—tall and impossibly thin, a neat black short-cropped beard enlarging a jawline that without its aid would have jutted not at all. His vaguely vacuous expression hardened when he caught sight of Kay. He stopped short with a theatrical start. The two acolytes who had followed him out of the room pulled up short and stood quivering as they juggled the boxes and bags that presumably contained Raymond's tools. It would have been funny if the two girls had not been so visibly terrified, and if Raymond's faint smile had succeeded in concealing his dislike of the woman who passed him with only a brusque nod in response to his
"Bon soir, madame."

Raymond glared at Kay's back and stuck out a long red tongue. Turning, he saw Erin, who had been watching in fascination. His distorted features relaxed and he swept down on her, cooing. "Ah,
la pauvre petite belle!
Do you attend upon the dragon? She is beyond help; even I, Raymond, can do little for her; but you,
si belle, si charmante.
..."

His hand swooped out, gathered Erin's loose hair and gave it a painful twist. She was too startled to protest, nor could she move without hurting herself.

Raymond snapped his fingers. One of the girls rushed to him, the bag she carried already open, her hand fumbling inside. Like a surgeon awaiting the service of an operating-room nurse, Raymond accepted the hairpins the girl slapped into his open palm, and in a few darting movements had fixed the twisted coil to Erin's head.

The girls broke into a soprano duet of admiration. Raymond smiled complacently.
"Oui, out, c'est admirable.
I could do more,
vous comprenez,
had I the time. For you,
ma cherie,
there is no charge."

He passed on, trailed by his entourage. Erin raised a careful hand to her aching head. The pins felt as if they had been stabbed directly into her skull, but she was afraid to loosen them for fear Raymond would turn and see the sacrilege.

Rosemary emerged from her room. "Has he gone?" she asked in a stage whisper.

Erin nodded dumbly.

"He's a dreadful little man," Rosemary said. "But Joe insisted. . . . My dear, how pretty you look. I like your hair that way. ' Something in Erin's petrified look betrayed the truth. She began to laugh. "Don't tell me. Did Raymond ..."

"In about thirty seconds," Erin said. "Snap, snap, swoop, pounce. . . . I'm afraid to move. Does it look awful?"

Rosemary was whooping with laughter. "If you could see your face. ... It looks divine,
ma cherie.
Oh, dear, I mustn't laugh or my makeup will run. Every damned grain of mascara cost—"

"Here." Kay, who had followed her, produced a lace-trimmed handkerchief. She wasn't laughing. "Wipe your eyes, Rosemary. Personally I can't see what's so funny."

"You didn't see Erin's face." Rosemary accepted the handkerchief and dabbed carefully at her eyes. "Admit it, Kay, she looks adorable with her hair that way. Raymond may be a pompous poseur, but he knows his stuff. That's one of his favorite tricks, Erin—leaping on some unsuspecting female and transforming her with a single twist of the wrist."

"Hmph," Kay said.

"He did a wonderful job with you," Erin said.

The white streaks in Rosemary's hair lifted like wings, their contrast to the surrounding darkness subtly enhanced and shining. Upon closer examination Erin realized they really did shine; tiny flecks of glitter sparkled with the slightest movement. Bouffant puffs of black chiffon framed Rosemary's shoulders and throat; the dress itself was dramatically simple, a straight fall of satin that followed the curves of waist and hips before flaring to the floor.

"You ain't seen nothing yet," said Rosemary. With a snap of her wrist she unfurled a huge ostrich-feather fan whose soft rosy-pink color matched her lipstick. "Ta dah!"

Kay sighed loudly. "Rosemary—"