Trophies, p.3
Trophies, page 3
Running for and sure to win open California seat as Democrat—with a Zane endorsement, safe Democratic state, and homely opponents in both the primary and general, it was a given. Blue Dog—probable no vote on Environmental Regulations, All Tax Break/Subsidies, Rollbacks, and Nationalized Health Care. Swing on Women’s issues, Separation of Church and State. Contact advantage for all things Business/Land Development. Future Earmark King. Hosted Fund-raising.
She made a note of the date.
(Aha!)
Marion found what had been troubling her. She was glad she’d recorded it.
There was another, older notation. One from Powell’s days as top dog at Crane; a secretary had brought a sexual-harassment and battery suit against him. Depositions revealed that Powell had a reputation for putting his arm a little too far around women. By the end of a workday, Jack could give an exact account of who was and who wasn’t wearing an underwire bra. Ugh. Better put Ivan on perv watch tonight.
But the notation didn’t end there.
She’d also recorded the fact that six months later, the secretary had dropped the lawsuit. Coincidentally, at the same time Powell allowed himself to be bought out of Crane. In other words, the top dog had become a liability.
And now he was a politician? Talk about throwing grease on the liability fire!
(Too much smelling, Marion.)
Still, she made a note to call the Senate Majority Leader and Speaker of the House to warn them before she moved on.
In a lighter vein, she also noted that producer Billy Price had fallen in love with a local girl while filming on location and married her on the spot. A twenty-five-year-old beauty queen who gave tours of town hall. Must’ve been some tour, she thought.
A quick scan of some names from the guest list proved she was well prepped, after all.
Marion slapped the book shut with an exhale. Nineteen years. No yips.
The Black Book had started out as a method for dealing with black-hole baboon-screaming panic at the notion of social interaction. And as she grew, it grew. Now, her Black Book was the best goddamned sourcebook on the planet.
And the old Marion was dead. She’d never have to feel that social panic again.
She’d rather take a carving knife to her throat.
The Black Book went back into the wall safe. Her life was excellent.
Marion stripped down, slathered on a custom body cream that simultaneously moisturized, exfoliated, and performed heroic Preparation H dermis tightening, and buzzed downstairs to send up hair and makeup while she admired her silky hide.
Turning around, she came face-to-face with Ivan. Marion didn’t cover up. She’d been changing in front of her assistant for years and he’d never batted an eye.
More confirmation for her asexual theory.
Ivan’s conduct was so nonreactive to her nudity that even her Richard didn’t give a shit if Ivan saw bod. Of course she drew the line at waxing and other private ablutions, but having an open door to the closet really made things efficient, especially when they needed to discuss matters that couldn’t be blared over the intercom system.
“Mrs. Zane,” he said without batting an eye. “We tracked down Xiocena. Her niece woke up with terrible stomach pains that wouldn’t go away, so she’s taking her to the trauma center at Mercy, downtown.”
“Oh no! Why didn’t she tell me? Downtown hospitals could take hours. I would’ve set her up with Lyndy.”
“I’ll check in for updates at fifteen-minute intervals.”
“Yes, please. Xio adores that girl; she’s all the family she’s got.”
“Right. Very good.” Ivan exited as silently as he’d come.
Damn! She should be with Xiocena, helping her not Jack Powell.
Hair and makeup arrived. No choice but to wait.
An hour later, Marion was in complete battle dress. Alone, she regarded the package:
The dress was constructed, yet easy-to-undress soft. The heeled slingbacks gave a bare effect while providing proper political modesty. She wore the pearls but no other jewelry besides an eleven-carat, cushion-cut, D-color, flawless Key to the Kingdom. Thick, dark auburn locks fell long enough past her shoulders to advertise sexuality. Brazilian surgeons, in the eighties, had given her a perfect “Suzy Parker.” (At the time Marion had no idea who Suzy Parker was, only that she was somebody beautiful, and that was an improvement.) Assorted exclusive face whisperers protected it from succumbing to thinned, over-Botoxed muscles or formula-heavy balloon lips that stretched the skin below women’s noses until their faces resembled those of great apes. The faint smattering of freckles across her upper cheeks and nose tended to put both men and women at ease. Her breasts were wide rather than deep, allowing Marion to simultaneously wear fashion without looking matronly and thrill every man who ever took off her bra. Body sculptors had created her tiny waist without allowing the obliques to build out into “column body.” Modern science, in the form of a vicious vacuum cleaner/laser blaster, forbade cellulite from even considering encroachment on her taut thighs, and thanks to Pilates, Power Plates, squats, and the “evil ham-curl machine,” you could serve a martini off her ass. At forty-five, she could pass for barely thirty. Make that a damn good-looking barely thirty. The fat little outcast from Cleveland was now a Total Trophy. Marion couldn’t help but chuckle.
Her own mother wouldn’t recognize her.
Downstairs for one final check. And a perfect little blended margarita waiting for her in the kitchen, courtesy of Jeff.
Thank God, they started making Porfidio again. No hangover whatsoever.
Ivan stuck his head into the kitchen. “Any minute, Mrs. Zane.”
He tossed her a breath mint and disappeared.
As she risked brain freeze gulping down the rest of her drink, a waitress, exiting the kitchen, caused Marion to do a double take. The woman wasn’t on their regular catering crew, but that wasn’t what struck her.
She looked familiar, but not as a waitress.
It wasn’t so much the woman’s face she recognized, it was her…what? Being? She tried to grasp the impression but it was fading like a phantom cramp. A past life? Had she contracted hyperspiritual hysteria from her pal Patti Fink? Nah. Nobody but Patti held a passport to that disassociated locale.
Anyway, personal fortunes undulated wildly in this town. The waitress may very well have had dealings with Marion in a different capacity. Maybe she’d assisted her at a store or a restaurant or maybe she was a long-forgotten client back in the eighties when Marion was a young real-estate Turk.
But it must have ended badly…
The hair on her neck was prickling and her arms were doing an imitation of raw chicken. This wasn’t a yip. It felt…dangerous? She frowned and set her glass down.
“Marion.”
Richard was searching her out, via intercom. No time for “once upon a time.”
But it took almost a minute to shake off the chicken skin.
2
Lyndy
“Suzie Stein wants the number of my what? Is she retarded? First of all, nobody styles me, and second…hello…hello?”
The iPhone flashed CALL TERMINATED BY NETWORK. “Communication by Cell Phone” instantly rose in rank on Lyndy’s interminable and constantly distended list of life’s disappointments.
“Driver!”
Lyndy banged on the limo’s partition, making furious spasmodic gestures, which included shaking the iPhone as if it were a can of hairspray at their chauffeur. “NO RE-CEP-TION! TAKE SUN-SET!” she bawled.
The chauffeur, impressed yet again by the soundproofing efficiency of the Bentley manufacturer’s choice of glass, changed course without batting an eye. His turning was smooth, yet precisely abrupt enough to cause Lyndy to lap-slosh her goblet full of Armed Response, an immune-system supercharger and crucial prerequisite to any activities that bore the distinct possibility of leading to human contact.
Lyndy’s “disappointment” ratcheted up into a state of ground-glass agitation.
Didn’t the moron see she was on the phone? With a beverage? That’s three times this week he’d been completely oblivious to her needs. He’d be gone by morning.
And no more drivers. (Unless it was to an awards show, or an event with a red carpet, or an evening where they wanted to drink, or anywhere without valet.) She’d buy a Jaguar Vanden Plas in aquamarine to match the color of her contacts and chauffeur herself.
And give the finger to all those self-satisfied little Prius jockeys!
Lyndy’s lips stretched tight while she IM’ed instructions to her personal assistant, Jojo, to play dumb to the Stein woman’s pathetic request. New-money vampires. This town was thick with them. She hated the way they thought they could just suck up the details of your life and use them to replicate like a bad horror-movie creature. Her hand moved reactively to the collar of her perfect Brioni casual-yet-regal suit as if it were about to be snatched away.
Stylist! Like some twaddling actress. She didn’t have a look. She had an…air. Yes, an air into which one had to be born. She was a Montgomery, for heaven’s sake. Since California had achieved statehood, the name had been synonymous with privilege, refinement, and social hegemony. Montgomerys had graced polo fields, governor’s mansions, ballrooms, and country clubs from Humboldt to San Diego. Few California cities of note were without a museum or municipal building that bore the family name. The Montgomery lifestyle was a culture unto itself. There was no formula for the clothes they wore on their tall, sportif frames. It was they way they wore them.
The whole thing was so upsetting…she dove into the recesses of her brown croc Birkin for her treasured silver cigarette case. Years of use had nearly worn away the gold-filigreed M, but Lyndy wouldn’t dream of reengraving it, wouldn’t dream of tampering with the case’s magic. She snapped it open, withdrew one of her grandmother’s handkerchiefs, scented with rose and lavender oil, and putting the lacy swatch to her face, breathed deeply. When her father moved out, he had discarded the case in the trash, but little Lyndy rescued it in childish hopes of possessing at least a piece of the parent who’d abandoned her in such haste. Through the years, the story of its origin had evolved and blurred until she referred to it as a family heirloom, passed down by a great-grandparent.
The case, handkerchief, and oil worked like a talisman. Huffing the pheromones of birthright transported her to a balmy night from her childhood:
She was in the summer gardens of Rancho del Rey, the Montgomery family estate in Santa Barbara. The oaks, sycamores, and Monterey pines had been garlanded with hundreds of rainbow-hued paper lanterns. To her six-year-old eyes, it looked as if a door had been opened to Faerie. Earlier, they had witnessed Uncle Clyde score the winning goal astride his magnificent polo pony, Xanadu, with only seconds left in the final chucker. Now everyone was celebrating in high Montgomery style! She remembered the heady perfume of fine cigars and horse manure. Les Brown’s band had thrown caution to the wind, playing a scandalous rendition of “Light My Fire.” Gaucho-clad waiters running back and forth to a buffet table groaning under iced lobster and caviar. Players, still in their jodhpurs and team shirts, backslapped handsome young men in madras jackets. Pastel summer frocks and upswept hair for the girls, each sporting an important piece of family jewelry, like an afterthought. Lyndy’s grandmother had bought her a dress from Bullocks Wilshire and the petticoat rustled with every step of her pert white Keds with no laces. Uncle Clyde sneaked her a sip of his Pims. Ronald Reagan laughing and dancing with her great-aunt. So casual. So effortlessly elegant. Swish! Swish!
Memories reserved for only a precious few.
“Suzie Stein’s practically forty—a little late to change one’s breeding and history. Let those Trophy wives cannibalize each other,” she proclaimed, triumphant.
Lyndy’s husband, Max, who resembled one of those fantastic fairy-tale illustrations of a palace guard with a human body and the head of a toad (and in Max’s case, the face of a mournful toad), patted her thigh while remaining entranced with the evening’s gridlock. “Tough break, sweetheart. You wanna pill?” he asked.
He didn’t see her shake her head or hear her proudly declare that her case was “comfort enough.” For Max, in the tradition of all wealthy husbands who found themselves decades into a marriage unblemished by a prenuptial contract, had developed shamanistic powers of detachment that would rival those of the most potent of mystics.
Right now Max was having an out-of-the-body experience in Rio by the Sea-o. Actually he’d brought his body along with him for this one: nubile topless girls of all possible racial combinations were attending him as he broiled upon a padded poolside chaise outside a mountaintop casino. He could see the statue of Christ, embracing the azure bay, taste the sugar-rimmed mojito, smell the coconut massage oil administered by a lush and lusty minx with emerald eyes and skin the color of chocolate crème brûlée.
“…not the first time and surely won’t be the last I have to deal with such women,” Lyndy was saying. “I’m just going to concentrate on making it through this evening.”
Lyndera Montgomery Wallert, socialite-philanthropist wife of Max Wallert—creator of two long-dead-yet-still-syndicated action series, producer of numerous lukewarm-domestic-but-overseas-hit action films, and undisclosed Dry Cleaning King of West Covina—was never one to confuse Reality with Facts:
Reality: Suzie Stein had phoned Jojo for the number of Lyndy’s hairstylist. Her grandmother was coming in from Boca that week and Lyndy’s sensible chestnut coif was a dead ringer for dear Nana’s.
Fact: As a member of the stately Montgomery family, Lyndy’s perpetual burden was to gracefully endure spirit-sucking hordes of new-money vampires if she wanted to be successful in her return to the TOP.
And right now she was headed for an endurance marathon at the home of the Queen of the Vampires: Marion Zane.
When the Zanes had rolled into town, they were awful Orange County. It didn’t matter that they had billions, they were practically rubes. Naturally, Lyndy took pity on them and out of the goodness of her heart introduced them to her sophisticated Westside lifestyle, inviting Marion to private trunk-show luncheons at Barneys and a Civic Preservation Society dinner at Mr. Chow’s. Lyndy even went so far as to offer Marion a coveted seat on her beloved fund-raising board for Beverly Hills Central Hospital. She had been so disappointed when it was declined. Looking back, she now realized Marion had actually been feeding off her, using her exclusive connections as a launchpad to rocket herself up the social ladder. The moment of liftoff was forever seared into Lyndy’s consciousness:
She had given a large, star-studded dinner party in honor of Oscar de la Renta. She’d spent weeks planning every aspect of the affair, even personally shopping for the Venetian-glass Neapolitan dishes. Lyndy had plans to become buddies with Oscar. She even indulged in fantasies of a front-row seat at the Paris shows, gift boxes of gowns, and big, white, lacy blouses arriving at her home.
Instead she’d staged her own downfall.
When one guest couple developed the flu, she’d replaced them with a last-minute mercy invite to the friendless newcomer Zanes. What a dipshit mistake. The designer, who was seated beside her and obligated to be her dinner partner, barely said two words to his hostess all evening. He’d been too busy fielding a bombardment of conversational vomit fired by Marion Zane. The stupid, brazen wannabe even had the horrifically bad taste to engage Oscar in a political discussion. Forcing the man to explain himself in complicated anecdotes that left no room for any of Lyndy’s signature witticisms. Valiantly, she tried to change the subject, but it was like trying to cut vanilla pudding, so seamless was Marion’s theft. When Oscar abruptly checked his watch and said he was late for a flight, Lyndy thought: Poor man, he must be dying to get away from the bigmouth redhead. But when Oscar bid farewell to Marion, he invited her to visit him at his villa on Lake Como.
Lyndy would have given her left tit for a vacation invitation from Oscar de la Renta.
All she’d received was a pat on the arm and a hasty, “Thank-you-lovely-evening.”
He then turned back to Marion and embraced her. Embraced her! Oscar was into Marion.
Everyone else heard. Everyone else took note.
Lyndy Montgomery Wallert had been publicly humiliated.
And Marion Zane had been crowned.
Without remorse, the little bitch had actually sent a thank-you note the next day to rub Lyndy’s nose in her larceny. Next, she copied Lyndy and Max’s glamour and muscled her way into Hollywood. Lyndy knew Marion was behind the Zane Enterprises purchase of Quantum Studios. Horror-movie replication. Check under your beds for pods.
Suddenly it was Marion, instead of Lyndy, whose invitations were “unregrettable.” Marion whose charities had the thickest tribute books and most glamorous guest lists. Marion who had first crack at everything from designer collections (even before actresses) to insider trading tips. Marion who was the darling of great world and spiritual leaders. Marion who stole my goddamn spot at the TOP. Marion-the-new-money-vampire skank whose reception tonight is the A-list-place-to-be-I-can’t-miss-even-though-it’s-for-a-fucking-Democrat.
Marion the-Orange-County-Scuz-New-Money-Whore-Trophy-Wife-Cunt-Who-Stole-My-Oscar-Como-Vacation-and-My-Big-White-Blouses!
Lyndy realized she was digging her nails into the gel-padded seat of her custom ass-enhancing panties. She watched the blue anacondas disappear from the top of her hands as she used her handkerchief to return to the present, taking note that she had already spent her two-hour allotment that day dreaming of intricate and ultimate rat-fuck plans for Miz Zane. Plans that would culminate in perfect Unforgivable Humiliation. For years, she had bided her time, pretending to be one of that maroon-headed narcissist’s loyal inner circle of ninnies, but all the while she’d known that eventually Marion would leave herself vulnerable. And now a plan was in place. The Beast of Revenge was salivating.
