Trading Up (4 page)

Janey took a sip but her eyes never left Mimi. She was destroyed but fascinated—by the way she moved her arms, by the way she tilted her head; as she opened her mouth to speak, Janey imagined she heard Mimi’s voice again, and she was transfixed, wondering what Mimi might be saying.

But she never got the opportunity to find out, because even though she would run into Mimi again and again over the next ten years, each time Mimi’s eyes would look over Janey’s shoulder, and her cold, rich voice would declare, “Nice to see you again”—the greeting New Yorkers used when they had no idea if they’d met before.

The message, Janey understood, was clear: She and Mimi might be in the same room, but Janey was as far from Mimi’s world as she’d been as a six-year-old kid, staring at Mimi’s photograph in
Good Housekeeping
.

But eventually, Janey began to notice a subtle change in Mimi’s attitude.

Whereas before Mimi had merely been noncommittal, in the past five years her

“nice to see you again” began to take on a tone that bordered on open dislike. Janey suspected that this was because she’d slept with many of the same men Mimi had slept with, and Mimi was jealous.

Janey figured that she and Mimi had at least ten lovers in common, including Redmon Richardly and the screenwriter Bill Westacott. It continued to gall her that while everybody knew Mimi was a wild party girl who slept with whomever she pleased, nobody ever called Mimi a slut or looked askance at her behavior. It proved yet another truth about New York society: A rich girl could sleep with a hundred men and people would call her bohemian, while a poor girl who did the same thing was labeled a gold digger or a whore.

But all that had changed the day Janey became a Victoria’s Secret model. It was as if, after all those long years in New York, she’d suddenly emerged in full color.

People suddenly
got
her, they understood who she was and what she was doing. And then the coveted invitation to Mimi’s party had arrived.

Exactly one month ago to the day, a heavy cream envelope had been messengered to Janey’s apartment in New York. She lived in the same walk-up building on East Sixty-seventh Street that she’d moved into ten years before, and she mused that she was lucky she was home at the time, because if she hadn’t been, there was no doorman to receive the missive, and then what would have happened?

On the envelope was written only her name, “Miss Janey Wilcox,” with no address—implying that an address might be tacky—and even before she opened the envelope, she knew what it contained.

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Carefully sliding her finger under the flap, so that the envelope would remain in pristine condition (these were the kinds of things she liked to save), she removed the simple ecru card inside. Written on the upper-left-hand corner in the English style, her name was written out in calligraphy, and printed below were the words:

“Mimi Kilroy and George Paxton, at home, Friday, May twenty-seventh.” And in that moment, Janey’s deep hatred of Mimi evaporated. It was difficult to sustain hatred, especially when it was bathed in the warm light of attention and acknowledgment. And Janey had reflected that while New York could certainly be superficial, it was a glorious sort of superficial, especially if you were on the inside.

Three years ago, at the age of thirty-nine, Mimi Kilroy had finally settled down and married George Paxton, the billionaire.

Five years earlier, George Paxton, who supposedly hailed from outside of Boston, which could mean anywhere really, had suddenly popped up on the social scene in New York. It was practically a rule in New York society that every few years, a billionaire would appear as if from nowhere, usually in the form of a middle-aged man who had suddenly made a fortune and was in the throes of a midlife crisis. Having slaved for years to make money, he was now in the position to finally enjoy his life, and the very first thing to go was always the first wife. Such was the story of George Paxton.

His first two years in New York followed the usual lines: He was feted and petted, and continually fixed up on blind dates, because there is nothing more exciting to society than a newly single man flush with a fortune he isn’t exactly sure how to spend. And after he’d had two years of dating the finest single women the Upper East Side could offer—women with fake breasts and no breasts, women with bodies perfected by Pilates, women with caramel-colored hair and sable coats, women who sat on boards and ran their own companies, women who were lawyers and doctors and real estate agents, women who were divorced from other rich men; and after he’d had his cock sucked and pushed into vaginas and anuses, been tied up and held down, had his nipples squeezed and his balls shaved and suffered the perpetual worry about getting (and keeping) a hard-on—then, and only then, was he introduced to Mimi Kilroy.

Mimi wasn’t the sort of “gal” George Paxton ever thought he’d end up marrying—she was like a high-strung racehorse, and George was a basic kind of guy—

but after two years of feeling like a publicly traded stock, Mimi was, as he put it, “a breath of fresh air.” She didn’t take any of “it” too seriously, and besides, George had always prided himself on his ability to recognize a “good deal.” Not that George was the kind of man people imagined Mimi would marry. They’d expected a brilliant 18947_ch01.qxd 4/14/03 11:22 PM Page 21

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marriage—to a movie star or a handsome politician or even to one of the lesser English princes—and George was as nondescript as they came. Still, it was terribly clever to land a billionaire, and a middle-aged paunch could always be disguised under an expensive Italian suit. And if anyone knew how to spend George’s money it was Mimi, and that would be fun for everyone.

One of the very first things Mimi had done was to organize the purchase of the old Wannamaker estate in East Hampton. For years, this sandstone house, considered a white elephant with its fifteen bedrooms, indoor pool, and imported Italian frescoes, had stood vacant, the folly of Chester Wannamaker, who had built up a fortune in department stores in the early and middle part of the 1900s, and then had lost it all in the late 1970s when he tried to expand. The bank foreclosed on the house and the price was $8 million, but time, sand, and salt water had ravaged the mansion, and it was estimated that restoring the house would cost twice the purchasing price. It was exactly the sort of project Mimi loved, and in April, the restoration was finished, complete with a landing pad for George’s helicopter.

And now, all afternoon and into the early evening of the Memorial Day bash, this helicopter had been busily employed in ferrying high-profile guests from Manhattan to the house. At 7 p.m., as Janey turned the Porsche onto Georgica Pond Lane, the Sikorsky Black Hawk VH60 swooped out of the sky and disappeared behind the hedges next to the house. Janey wondered whom it contained and what kind of status was required to score not only an invitation to Mimi’s party but a lift on the helicopter as well, and she vowed that next year, she would be on that helicopter.

Nevertheless, it was still a thrill to present her invitation to the very nice man who stood at the foot of the polished granite stairs leading up to the house. “Your card, please,” he asked, and Janey opened her purse, which was small and beaded and all the rage because the designer had made only ten and had given one to her, and handed him her invitation.

“Welcome, Miss Wilcox,” the man said. “I’m sorry. I should have recognized you.”

“No problem,” Janey said graciously. She lifted the hem of her long yellow Oscar de la Renta dress that she’d borrowed for the occasion and tripped lightly up the stairs, noting the flowering apple trees and inhaling the sweet fragrance of the blossoms. There were jugglers in between the trees, tossing golden apples, and at the top of the steps, a string quartet. The heavy wooden doors to the house were thrown open, and Janey entered breathlessly to the sweeping wail of a violin.

Mimi stood resplendent in a white Tuleh gown at the end of a marble foyer, and, with a jolt of pleasure, Janey saw that she was talking to Rupert Jackson, the 18947_ch01.qxd 4/14/03 11:22 PM Page 22

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English movie star. Mimi turned and waved, and Janey approached, unable to prevent herself from thinking about what a great couple she and Rupert Jackson would make.

“Janey, darling,” Mimi said, coming forward to take her hands and kiss her on both cheeks. Her wrists were encircled in diamond bracelets; there were diamond earclips on her ears. Like so many New York women, Mimi had aged hardly a bit in the ten years or more that Janey had known her, and Janey wondered what she’d had done.

“What
beautiful
bracelets,” Janey remarked.

“Oh darling, they’re
nothing,
” Mimi said.

“Don’t you love the way rich people always act like a million dollars is nothing?” Rupert said.

“Darling, you know Janey Wilcox, don’t you?” Mimi asked.

“No, but I think I’d better,” Rupert said. There are two different types of actors, Janey thought—those who aren’t anything like their characters and those who are exactly like them, and Rupert Jackson was definitely the latter. He was as handsome in person as he was in his movies; he had the same crinkly smile and that forelock of brown hair that flopped over his forehead, and he said, “I’ve seen your photograph everywhere, and I’ve always wondered what that girl would be like in real life.

You must promise to discuss your underwear with me later.” Janey laughed out loud, and Mimi said playfully, “Now Rupert, Janey
is
the most beautiful woman at the party, but you’re practically engaged, and besides, I’ve already picked out someone else for her.”

“I’m terribly hurt,” Rupert said. “Who is this lucky man?”

“Selden Rose,” Mimi said. “The new head of MovieTime. He just arrived by helicopter . . . He got stuck on the Long Island Expressway and we had to send the helicopter to rescue him.”

“Really? How extraordinary. What sort of man has to be rescued from the Long Island Expressway?” Rupert asked, and with an expression of mock horror on his face, he turned to Janey and winked. Janey had to agree with him—she had yet to meet this Selden Rose, but already he didn’t sound promising.

“Don’t listen to a word he says,” Mimi said. “Selden’s an old friend of George’s—but don’t worry, he’s not nearly as dull. I can never figure out exactly what George does, you see, other than the fact that he seems to own everything.” Janey and Rupert laughed dutifully, and out of the corner of her eye she saw Comstock Dibble enter the house with his fiancée, Mauve Binchely. This was good—Comstock wouldn’t dare misbehave toward her in front of Mimi. But Mimi was facing away from him and had yet to note his appearance.

“Sometimes I tell George that he owns
me,
” Mimi continued gaily, “and he loves 18947_ch01.qxd 4/14/03 11:22 PM Page 23

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it.” She had a way of making everything sound like a secret, and leaning toward Janey and touching her arm, she said, “Don’t ever get married, Janey, or at least not before you absolutely have to. It’s too boring. But Selden
is
different—he’s supposed to be brilliant—in any case, I’ve heard he actually reads books. George doesn’t read a thing, of course, unless it has dollar signs on it. I think he was a literature major at Harvard.”

Janey could feel Comstock’s eyes boring into her back. Tilting her head to the side and emitting a tinkling peal of laughter—a gesture she had copied from Mimi years ago—she said, “George?”

“Oh, no,
Selden,
” Mimi said. “George did go to Harvard, but sometimes I swear you would never know it . . . just look at him!” She indicated an unremarkable man of medium height, who was holding a lit cigar in one hand while furtively shoving a shrimp cocktail into his mouth with the other. “George!” Mimi called to him from across the room. George looked up guiltily, and taking the proffered napkin from the uniformed waitress who was holding a tray, wiped his mouth and strolled over.

Seeing him dressed in cream-colored trousers and a navy blue blazer with gold buttons, Janey had to agree that what everybody said about him was true: His appearance was so dull and ordinary that you wondered if you would recognize him the next time you met him. Even his eyes looked like they’d been inserted into his head on an assembly line.

“Darling,” Mimi said, exhaling a long sigh. “You know you shouldn’t smoke and eat at the same time . . . What would Mother say?”

“Luckily, Mother is dead, so I doubt she’d say anything,” George responded.

“Husbands are just like children,” Mimi said. “It’s something people always tell you, but you never believe it until you get married. George, have you met Janey Wilcox?”

George wiped his hand on his napkin and held out five stubby fingers. “Don’t know you but I know all about you,” he said. And then, without preamble, asked,

“What’s it like knowing that half of America has seen you in your underwear?”

“George!” Mimi exclaimed.

“I was about to ask that very question,” Rupert said.

“Maybe you should try it,” Janey said.

“I’m afraid I’d become more of a laughingstock than I already am,” Rupert said.

And Mimi said, “George, I swear darling, if you weren’t so rich, I’d divorce you.” And then Mimi turned and saw Comstock and Mauve. Janey caught Comstock’s eye and he quickly looked away.

The inevitable moment of meeting was diverted, however, when Mimi said,

“Rupert, darling, come and say hello to Mauve, will you? She’s got a terrible crush on you, but I promise to spare you at dinner.” Turning to George she said, “And as for 18947_ch01.qxd 4/14/03 11:22 PM Page 24

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you, darling, if you’re going to be rude to our guests, can you at least make yourself useful? Janey needs a drink.” And bearing Rupert away, she left Janey with George.

As he led her into an ornately decorated living room, he began babbling about the renovation, but Janey soon found herself losing attention. She was taken with her own thoughts, those being that Mimi and George’s marriage was exactly the sort of union she’d been trying to avoid her whole life. This wasn’t entirely truthful, as, so far,
any
man—rich or poor—had yet to express an interest in marrying her.