“YOU’RE MAKING TOO MUCH scandal," Holly Chamers said in April. He was sitting with Nikos in the New York office, drinking espresso and reviewing strategy on next week’s stock offering.
“I can afford scandal,” Nikos said quietly.
“We’ve persuaded a very conservative brokerage house to underwrite us. They don’t appreciate their client showing up in tabloids between the disco gossip and the cocaine busts.”
“It’s a changed world, Holly. Fame is an asset nowadays. Any kind of fame. A mass murderer could franchise hamburgers. A dictator’s mistress could put her name on a line of blue jeans. And a hundred banks would be waiting in line to back them.”
Holly shook his head dubiously. “I still wish you’d slow down a little with the singer.”
Nikos paced to the window and turned. “She’s an oasis for me. She gets my mind off work. She gets my mind off all the nonsense, all the parties and cruises and people I can’t stand. Most of all she gets my mind off my ridiculous marriage. I’m crazy without her and with her I’m sane. I don’t understand it and I don’t want to understand it. All I know is, I need her.”
The phone rang. Nikos snatched up the receiver, listened an instant, shot off commands. “She’ll be singing at the Paris Opera Wednesday. It’s a late curtain. Have the limousine waiting at the stage door. And make sure the plane’s waiting at the airport.”
Nikos hung up and his counsel’s blue eyes pierced him. “And you’ll be waiting on your yacht in Cannes, I suppose?”
Nikos didn’t deny it.
Holly smiled a cynical, accepting smile. “Face it. You’ve never had sense where women are concerned, you never will.”
“What’s the point to women if I have to have sense? I have sense in business. I’ve earned a little madness.”
“And if the principessa’s on that yacht, a little madness is exactly what you’re going to get.”
Nikos had done all the inviting himself. He had persuaded the Marquis and Marchioness of Ava to come on board for three days. Sir Herbert Parry, who painted the royal family and did society portraits, was staying at the Angleterre in Nice and Nikos had gotten him to join the party for Thursday and Friday and bring Lady Parry, Britain’s first woman Chancellor of the Exchequer. He felt reasonably sure that with a British cabinet minister on board Maggie would behave herself and not slip into one of her famous public pouts.
Vanessa arrived by seaplane from the airport Thursday night. She seemed to shine in her plain white dress, and even at night her wide-brimmed red straw hat threw a warm glow on her face.
Nikos made introductions.
Maggie hid her shock well. “You could have warned me,” she hissed later, as they were going to their stateroom.
“And spoil the surprise?”
“Don’t you dare humiliate me, Nikos. Not in front of these people.”
He made no attempt to seek Vanessa out. But the next day he saw her on the deck just after sunset. She was standing at the railing some distance from the others, staring out at the sea, her face sweet and serious. He joined her.
The sky was hushed and the lights and sounds of Nice seemed to come across an enormous gulf of space and time.
“I’d like to stand here beside you forever,” he said.
She smiled. “You’d get bored with that.”
“I’d never be bored with you.”
He ached to press her close to him and cover her face and throat with kisses. But he sensed that was not the way.
“Oh, Nikos, I’m so insignificant compared to your friends. They run empires and I…warble.”
“You’re more significant than any of them, and you know it.”
She squeezed his hand for just a moment, gratefully. “Why are you so good for my ego?”
“Why are you so good for mine?”
After dinner Maggie rose and clapped her hands for silence. “Vanessa, could I possibly persuade you to sing a few songs in the ship’s lounge? I’m sure our guests would love it as much as I would.”
The guests applauded, and Vanessa felt a burn of anger creeping up her neck and face. She was tempted to say she never sang except onstage; but she realized that this was exactly the reply her hostess hoped to force out of her.
Vanessa gathered all her graciousness into a smile. “I’d be delighted to sing.”
Instinct told Nikos not to applaud too loudly, not to court Vanessa Billings too openly. He excused himself and went to his stateroom after her third selection.
Through the open porthole he heard a soprano voice floating effortlessly through “Regnava nel Silenzio,” from Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor. The sound came to him above the waves, like a memory. His book fell to his lap and he dozed off smiling.
Maggie came into the stateroom a little after two in the morning. She was stripping off jewels, talking irritably as Nikos woke up. “I don’t care for the way your Miss Billings carries on. She treated our guests as if they were a backers’ audition.”
“How so?”
“Monopolizing things, singing all those dull songs.”
“Be fair, Maggie. It was you who asked her to sing.”
“But not all those arias.”
“What did you expect? ‘Melancholy Baby’?”
“At least that would have been short. I thought she’d never shut up. Did you invite her to annoy me? Are you having an affair with her?”
“Do you see me in her bed?”
“Not yet.”
Nikos opened a book. “Then why don’t you just relax about Vanessa and enjoy her?”
“Why on earth should I enjoy that woman?”
“A lot of hostesses would kill to have her for five days.”
“You invited her for five days?”
Nikos nodded and turned a page of his book.
Maggie thumped a gold bracelet down onto the bureau. “Then I’m getting off this ship and you can entertain La Billings and all your old bores yourself.”
The Maria-Kristina docked at Corfu three days later. Principessa Maggie disembarked, carrying her overnight case, and dropped into the back seat of the only taxi at the dock.
Rage beat in her heart. “Take me into town.”
The taxi honked its way through twisting cobbled streets. Maggie gazed at perfume shops, liquor shops, souvenir shops. She gazed at an art shop with a window full of local-looking paintings and sculptures and handicrafts.
She realized she was staring at the solution.
“Driver—stop here, please.”
The air over New York City’s Jamaica Bay had turned misty and smoggy as Air France Flight 546 from Paris touched safely down. The terminal swarmed with travelers. Press and TV reporters added to the congestion, clustering like bees in the exit corridor.
A figure in black mink raised a hand to her face as she passed through customs, placing dark glasses over her eyes. Too late. A woman from Newsweek recognized her, and then CBS and the Washington Post took up the shout: “Miss Billings!”
They rushed with her in a wave, leaving no lane of clearance.
“Are you having an affair with Nikos Stratiotis?”
She removed the glasses and faced them. “I’ll tell you if you tell me who wrote La Traviata.”
“Richard Wagner.”
“There will be no June wedding.”
Ames had been sitting at his typewriter for three hours and nothing had flowed but crumpled sheets into the wastebasket. He snapped the power switch off and went to get a beer.
Fran was in bed with a book and she called out as he passed the open door. “Coming to bed soon?”
“Depends if I get lucky at the typewriter.”
He pulled a beer from the fridge and went to the study and dropped down in front of the TV. He played with the remote control, channel-hopping to see what they had on this late at night.
He was slumped in the Barcalounger, peering at commercials and late movies, when a woman’s mocking voice drew him up with a start. “There will be no June wedding.”
As he stared at Vanessa Billings’s face her lips parted in a luminous smile. He realized he had been daydreaming about that smile, following it in his half-conscious thoughts for days now. He leapt up from the chair, pressed the “record” button on the VCR, was able to get just a snippet of her before a commercial cut her short.
He ran the tape back, stopped the frame on her, stared. He sat half an hour gazing at her face.
“This is crazy.”
He gulped the last of the now-warm beer and went and took a long hot stinging shower. When he came into the bedroom the light was out and he could hear Fran’s breathing, regular and untroubled in sleep.
He got another beer, dropped down again in front of the TV, lit a cigarette and began staring again at the face.
“I’m sorry to trouble you, Mr. Stratiotis, but the shipping agent won’t release the statues unless he’s paid cash.”
Nikos glanced up from his desk. “What statues?”
“The Cupids Mrs. Stratiotis ordered in Corfu.” His secretary handed him the duplicate invoice.
His eyes quickly scanned the column of figures—$132,000 to ship stones first-class letter rate. He felt the unreality of it and a dull fatigue cut into him. “From now on, Mrs. Stratiotis’s expenses are her own affair—not mine, not this company’s. And Miss Owens—I mean all her expenses. Please see to it.”
In absolute rigidity Principessa Maggie listened as the shipping agent explained why the Cupids could not be sent by limousine to the apartment. She pressed another button on the phone.
“Tell the chauffeur I need him to take me shopping.”
Maggie was looking at rings when a cabochon sapphire engraved with a tiny figure caught her eye.
The salesman showed it to her under a magnifying glass. “Diana, goddess of the hunt.”
Maggie pulled off two rings, making room, and slipped Diana onto her finger. “It’s loose.”
“We can tighten the band.”
She sighed. “How long will that take?”
“Would tomorrow noon be convenient?”
“No, I need it for a party tonight.” She handed back the ring and stalked around the display counters like a starved lioness. And then she saw a display case full of necklaces. “How very pretty,” she said. “How very, very pretty.”
“If Madame is considering sapphires, we have a lovely—”
She cut the salesman short, pointing to a gold necklace of eight emerald-cut solitaire diamonds. She tried it on. “How much?”
The salesman coughed softly into his fist. “One million, one hundred twenty-five thousand.”
She walked to a mirror by the window and studied herself. No doubt about it, her chinline was getting a little soft. Damn, that meant another trip to Brazil.
“I’ll take it. Can you put it in a box for me?”
“Certainly. And how does Madame prefer to pay?”
“Charge, as usual.”
The salesman’s teeth came down against his lower lip for one instant of hesitation. “Just one moment, please.”
She pretended to be studying brooches but in the mirror she was watching the salesman confer with the manager. She sensed a hush come over the two men. Finally the manager approached.
“Madame wishes to charge the necklace?”
“As I charge all my purchases.”
The manager’s face took on a grave expression. “Then Madame is unaware that Mr. Stratiotis has issued instructions?”
“What sort of instructions?”
“His office has ordered Madame’s charge account closed. Of course, if Madame would care to pay by check—”
A wave of rage and incredulity swept her. She felt the catch pop as she ripped the necklace off and flung it onto the display case.
“Thank you very kindly, but Madame does not care to.”
The party that night was one of Carlotta Busch’s typical mixes of old guard America and new New York. Saltonstalls and Randolfs and Pinkneys rubbed shoulders with the new TV anchorwoman from CBS, fashion designers, Broadway composers. Maggie sensed sudden silences when she joined groups, eyes following her that averted themselves when she returned a glance. She suspected that word had already gotten around, but she didn’t know for sure until after dinner.
She was in one of the bathrooms on the second story. Through double doors, in the neighboring bathroom, she heard laughter.
And then a woman’s voice. “Mimsy Hoyt and Happy Blumenthal were there when the manager told her. She made a disgusting scene.”
And another woman. “Couldn’t happen to a sweeter princess.”
Maggie returned quickly to the party, wanting to burst into tears and commit murder at the same time. She felt she had been walked over with cleats and after three minutes chatting with the man who Rolfed all the stars in Hollywood she had to excuse herself and go outdoors. She walked with conscious, straightbacked grace, wondering how early she dared go home.
The lights of Queens were not commanding, but the view of them from Carlotta’s terrace was. A puff of wind blew the light material of Maggie’s dress against her, outlining for an instant firm breasts and a waist not quite as small as she would have wished. A tugboat hooted on the river.
A voice behind her said, “Do you mind, ma’am?”
She turned and found herself facing a tall man, six foot two or so, with a long face and close-set penetrating green eyes. She’d seen him somewhere, couldn’t remember where.
He took a cigar from his inner breast pocket, extracted it from its cylindrical case, waited for her permission.
“Go right ahead,” she said. “Smoke never bothers me.”
“The name’s Johnny Day Hill.”
Now Maggie remembered. The trial lawyer. He’d just gotten an heiress acquitted of a murder charge in Baton Rouge. Typical of Carlotta to have snagged him for dinner the day of the verdict.
“I’m Maggie Stratiotis.”
“Heard lots about you.” He placed the cigar in the corner of his mouth, took a moment coaxing it to light. “You’ve got a case. Closing your charge accounts. That’s nonsupport.”
She stiffened. It was too much. Even perfect strangers knew.
“Refusing to pay shipping on your purchases and then letting the press know. That’s defamation.” He spoke with a husky voice and an easy smile. “I advise you to bring suit, young lady.”
She let the mask of noncomprehension fall. “How much could I get?”
“A sizable allowance based on reasonable expenses.”
“What’s reasonable?”
“How much has he ever let you spend in a month? Double it.”
“That might be $150,000.”
“We’ll try for a quarter-million. I get a third.”
At 2:30 P.M. on May 3, in judge’s chambers in fourth district civil court in Manhattan, attorney Johnny Day Hill asked the court to grant his client Maggie Stratiotis $250,000 a month in temporary living expenses.
Attorney Holly Chambers, representing Nikos Stratiotis, asked his honor if the court might have a breakdown of those expenses.
Johnny Day Hill crossed his Texas boots and consulted the jottings in his memorandum pad. “Mrs. Stratiotis requires $27,000 a month to maintain her Manhattan co-op; $1,400 a month for club memberships; $1,200 for American Express; $1,200 for Diners Club. And $3,600 for travel and lodging; $12,000 for entertaining; $8,000 for staff; $5,000 for contributions to charity; $25,000 for clothing.”
“A month?” his honor asked, eyebrows flexing.
“A month, Your Honor. And $37,000 for jewelry and furs.”
Holly Chambers punched buttons on a pocket calculator. “That leaves $128,600 a month unaccounted for.”
Johnny Day Hill smiled. “My client has a great many incidentals.”
Holly Chambers returned the smile. “My client would like to have those incidentals spelled out.”
Johnny Day Hill tucked his thumbs into his pearl-studded belt. “Your Honor, Mrs. Stratiotis is a public figure. Incidentals for public figures are astronomic. If the court wishes, my client can provide an audited accounting—”
The judge waved Mr. Hill silent. “This matter is not in court. We’re conducting an informal hearing.”
“Give her twice what she’s asking,” Nikos Stratiotis said.
Both attorneys’ heads shot around. Even Maggie Stratiotis, glowing in her blue picture hat, glanced across the room at her husband, a wrinkle of perplexity marring her flawlessly smooth brow.
“Your Honor,” Holly Chambers said, “may I confer with my client?” Holly took Nikos to the window with its seventeenth-story view of rain sluicing down on the traffic-jammed Brooklyn Bridge. “What the hell are you doing? I can get her down to $50,000.”
“I don’t want to haggle, Holly. I’ve got to be free of her. I don’t care what it costs.”
“I do care what it costs and that’s why you pay me.”
“You’re not hearing me, Holly.”
Nikos explained exactly what he had in mind and, shaking his head, Holly Chambers returned to the bench.
“Your Honor, my client attaches one condition to his offer. Mrs. Stratiotis must agree to an immediate, uncontested, no-fault divorce. She must agree here and now, in these chambers. Otherwise tomorrow morning my client will sue for divorce on grounds of adultery. He is prepared to introduce into open court evidence collected by the investigative firm of Meyers and O’Reilly.”
Maggie’s picture hat lifted itself a degree. She asked his honor if she might confer with her attorney.
A moment later Johnny Day Hill cleared his throat. “Your Honor, my client is willing to accept divorce plus $750,000 a month.”
“Your Honor!” Holly Chambers cried.
“Holly,” Nikos said, “shut up. Tell Mr. Hill his client has a deal.”
The refrigerator was jammed with Fran’s neatness: Tupperware containers of leftovers, bottles of whole milk and all-natural no-additive juice, wheels and wedges and rectangles of cheeses, Baggies of fruit and bowls of Cuisine-Arted veg.
Ames decided on a trapezoid of chèvre and a bowl of julienned carrots, and, why not, a beer; and took the armload back to his workroom.
He sat a long while, the curtains open to the darkening May afternoon, not eating, not writing, not really thinking, just sipping beer and massaging his knuckles and wondering how the hell he’d gotten a callus on his right palm.
A car honked in the drive. There were voices at the front door, and then Greg Hatoff was striding past Fran into the workroom, hand out, a big grin on his face.
“Hiya, Amesie. I just happened to be in the neighborhood, and…”
A lie. No New York magazine editor just happened to be in the Hamptons on a drizzly May weekday.
Greg glanced toward the sheet of paper in the typewriter carriage. “Scarlet Letter or Gone With the Wind?”
Ames forced a smile. “A little too early to say.”
Greg settled himself into the armchair. “How’d you like to slay a few giants for the magazine?”
“I’d love to. But I’m on a book.”
Undaunted, Greg tapped his fingers together. “Here’s the situation. Nikos Stratiotis, your favorite capitalist and mine, is ditching his wife, Maggie. Rumor hath it it’s the highest out-of-court settlement since Napoleon sacked Josephine. The selling point of this story is that anything this cheap could happen to such expensive people. And you’re the man to put it in words. Twenty-five thousand.”
“Words?”
“Dollars, dummy.”
“Talk to my agent.”
“You’re not hearing me out. There’s a quality edge. The same rumor hath it that Nikos is going to marry your favorite coloratura and mine, Vanessa affectionately known as La Billings.”
At that instant everything in the room, in the world, changed. It was as though Ames were suddenly alive, a warm body pressing against him, connections coming through his skin.
“All you have to do,” Greg said, “is interview her. We’ll set it up.”
It amazed Ames how many rationalizations were already there, waiting. The assignment would be a release from the commonplaces of his existence. It would help him through his block. It would be a glimpse of a world he’d never otherwise know.
But there was a deeper reason, a shape in his mind so dim and inexplicable he could barely articulate it even to himself. Stratiotis isn’t going to marry her. I’m going to.
He heard himself answer, in a voice not quite his own, “I’ll do it.”