Bombshell (4 page)

She pursed her lips, as if aware she was treading on territory I didn't want to traverse. “I mean, don't you think you guys should talk? For closure?”

“I got all the closure I need,” I said. Like Ethan, I was capable of walking away without a backward glance. Which was why I was sure Ethan was doing just fine without me. Just like Michael Dubrow was apparently, I thought, the reminder of Claudia's suggestion that he had moved on to his next “piece of ass” sending a surprising flood of anger through me. I shrugged it off. I guess that was just the kind of man I was attracted to: independent or, as all the self-help books Angie had tried to foist on me of late put it, “emotionally unavailable.”

“Well, what does Shelley think?” she asked. Now I
knew
Angie was desperate to probe my inner state. Because in the months I'd been seeing Shelley, Angie had acted a bit like my therapist was the enemy, siding with me whenever I found fault, which was often, with the woman I was paying 140 bucks a session to cure me from whatever she believed ailed me. I secretly thought Angie was a bit jealous of Shelley. I guess she figured I should be able to confess all to her and get the advice I needed. She was, after all, my best friend.

“Oh, you know her,” I said. “She's always trying to tie everything back to Kristina. Some perceived slight she thinks I've suffered from a woman I've never met.” I waved a hand in the air, hoping to communicate the blandness I felt inside. “I thought I was safe from all that crap when I went to a psychoanalyst. Maybe I'm not remembering my Freud right, but isn't it my father who's supposed to fuck up my emotional life?” I sputtered out a mirthless laugh. What father? The original birth certificate I had managed to track down hadn't listed one. And the father who raised me was probably a candidate for Man of the Year, judging by the way everyone—my mother, his students, even the neighbors—worshiped him.

Now Angie was studying me as if, for a change, she thought my therapist might be on to something. “Another martini?” I said, downing the last of mine.

She frowned.

“C'mon, Ange,” I said, trying to rouse her. “This is New York City. There are plenty of men—” I waved a hand at our waiter, who I noticed was a particularly fine example of the breed “—and Stolichnaya to go around.”

 

And plenty of work to do, I realized. But I was feeling more than up to it. It was a good thing, too, because
Claudia had picked up the smoking habit she had given up months earlier after she had discovered a new line in her upper lip. Apparently she had bigger things to worry about now that Roxanne Dubrow had ruined her life, as she alleged whenever she returned reeking of smoke from the handicapped bathroom. I didn't mind her frequent absences, seeing as I felt like I could run this campaign single-handedly, with the assistance of Lori, of course.

But Claudia roused herself from her nicotine stupor just in time for the focus group testing. Because if we hoped to understand the desires, and insecurities, of the 18-to-24-year-old set just as keenly as we understood the desires, and insecurities, of the over-30 set, we needed to do some research. Even Dianne left the Dubrow family enclave in Old Brookville, Long Island, where she ran the Dubrow empire practically from the comfort of her home, to personally conduct the research. Although the building complex that housed Research and Development and one of our manufacturing complexes was only a short drive away in Bethpage, the market tests would be conducted in Cincinnati and Minneapolis. As VP of Marketing, Claudia had gone, too.

Though I was surprised I hadn't been invited this time, I didn't mind. In truth, I always found focus group research, although necessary in many ways, borderline ridiculous. As if the New Yorker in me, the woman who had been born and bred in the shopping mecca of the world, couldn't completely wrap my mind around the idea that a bunch of women from Middle America were going to tell me something about what women truly craved in cosmetic products.

So I was happy enough to maintain the Roxanne Dubrow fort on Park Avenue while Claudia and Dianne headed off to the Midwest to observe a hand-selected seg
ment of 18-to-24-year-olds who had been deemed our new target market.

I was equally glad when Claudia came back, as Lori had started to angst again over Dennis's pending applications. “What if he gets in? He doesn't even talk about what that will mean for us….” she whined during those moments when I clearly hadn't dumped enough work on her. I found myself nodding sympathetically at the appropriate intervals, all the while wondering if what Dennis did or ultimately didn't do mattered at all. Lori would either go with him or move on. Life went on no matter how much we angsted over it. This was one of the wisdoms that age had brought me. I took some measure of comfort in the idea that I was free from all the pining that came from being twenty-three. It was all so useless in the long run, wasn't it?

But as much as I hoped to disregard the pinings of youth, once Claudia dumped the focus group findings on me to review, I found myself deluged in information about what the 18-to-24-year-old female wanted most. At least when it came to her appearance.

She wanted color. Lots of it. Shine, sparkle, glitter.

She wanted to stand out. Be unique.

She wanted to be strong, yet feminine. A lithe athlete in strawberry-scented lip gloss.

She owned an average of two Juicy Couture outfits, spent more time surfing the Internet than she did watching TV and preferred cosmetics called “Don't Quit Your Day Job” to the more descriptive “Passionfruit Pink.”

I also learned that the person she most aspired to be was Irina Barbalovich.

Which is exactly why Roxanne Dubrow, or more specifically, Dianne, wanted her to be their new face.

And so the wooing began. It was simple enough at first. Not many people in the fashion industry turned down a personal phone call from Dianne Dubrow, least of all Mimi Blaustein, CEO of Turner Modeling Agency and agent to its current star property, Irina.

As with most relationships, the courtship began with food. Lunch was promptly arranged. And because a lot was riding on this relationship, restaurant selection was of the utmost importance. Lori was promptly sent on a mission to uncover Irina's preferences.

This was not such a difficult mission. The Internet was rife with interviews and sites devoted to Irina. Apparently the entire universe wanted to know what Irina wanted, and I had to assume, since no one knew Irina from any other nineteen-year-old up until recently, this desire was that her hips were slight enough and her abs tight enough to make her irresistible in a pair of low-slung jeans; that her bust-to-hip ratio made her absolutely stunning in most any fabric a designer draped on her.

What Lori uncovered was that Irina was a vegan of the worst kind. Nondairy. Wheat-free. And wholly organic.

Thank God we were in New York City, probably the only place in the world where you could find a restaurant that was up-to-the-moment chic yet capable of creating well-presented plates featuring food that had not been tortured during its lifespan, sprayed with pesticides, kept alive by antibiotics or mishandled in any way, shape or form.

That restaurant was Mandela, a short walk away on Madison Avenue, and usually a month-long wait for a reservation. Unless you happened to be dining with Irina, of course.

Miraculously, or not so miraculously depending on how you looked at it, Mandela just so happened to have an open
ing during the very two-hour spread that Mimi's assistant had allotted for Irina to make herself available to Dianne Dubrow and Co.

The reservation was made for six people, according to the hastily scrawled note Claudia had left lying on Lori's desk, which I had come across while dropping off some files.

Six? It seemed like a curious number. Irina and her agent. Claudia, Dianne and me. Who was the sixth? I wondered.

It certainly wasn't Lori, because although she had, through her administrative support, probably worked as hard as I had to prepare us for this meeting, she never got to enjoy the perks like Claudia and I did. It could have been Lana Jacobs, though we generally didn't bring in PR at this point—not until we had the prospective model on board. Mark Sulzberg from Legal? Way too soon for that. It wasn't like Irina was ready to sign a contract with us yet, especially since we weren't the only players in the fashion industry vying for Irina's hand.

It could have been Phillip Landau, the up-and-coming photographer who had first captured Irina for
Vogue.
The two had become almost inseparable since that career-boosting fashion spread, and their constant camaraderie might have sparked rumors of romance, if not for the fact that Phillip was gay.

Still curious, I popped my head into Claudia's office. “So who's going to lunch next week?” I inquired.

Claudia looked up from the issue of
W
she'd been poring over, whether because she was trend-spotting or simply gathering ammunition for her next shopping spree I wasn't sure.

“Lunch?” Claudia said, gazing up at me in what looked like a drug-induced fog. She was shopping, I decided. Nothing else could put a glaze like the one I saw in Claudia's eyes
right now like the pursuit of the latest handbag or cut of trouser.

“With Irina?”

Her gaze sharpened up immediately, as if the very utterance of Irina's name put all her senses on full alert. “Well, Irina and Mimi, of course. Me and Dianne,” she said, ticking off each name on the tips of her manicured fingers. “Michael—”

“Michael Dubrow?” I asked, startled. “Why is he coming?”

Claudia eyed me speculatively. I must have been showing a little more emotion than the situation warranted.

Hoping to dispel any suspicion I may have caused, I said, “It just seems peculiar that the vice president of our Overseas Division is attending a lunch to woo our latest model, don't you think?” Even as I said the words with the veneer of cool indifference that had become my trademark, new anxiety washed over me. I hadn't seen Michael at close range for quite some time. Shortly after our affair, he had taken over management of the Overseas Division, which kept him out of the country a lot. When he was in the States, he usually worked out of the Long Island office, and even if he did come to New York, he was easy enough to avoid, seeing as the doors to the family town house in Sutton Place weren't exactly open to all. The few times I did find myself in meetings with him in our Park Avenue offices, there were enough other people in the room for me to maintain a cool, corporate indifference to him from across the room. But the intimacy of sitting across a table in a restaurant from Michael suddenly seemed like too much to bear. It surprised me to what extent he could unravel me after all this time. Maybe I
was
getting soft in my old age.

“I believe he's coming to escort Courtney,” she said, feasting her gaze once more on the magazine before her.

“Courtney?”

“Courtney Manchester. The new director of R & D?” she said, looking at me again. “I guess he feels responsible for her. Or something,” she continued. “After all, he did, in a sense,
acquire
her, right along with the Sparkle line. Knowing him, he probably wants to claim the company's new baby as his own so he can reap all the glory once Roxy D takes off.” She snorted. “But I suppose with the amount of money this company is dropping on this product,
something
glorious is bound to happen.”

As Claudia moved on to her typical rant about how Michael—or even Dianne, for that matter—didn't know a thing about successfully marketing a product beyond throwing a bunch of money at it, I nodded absently, my mind whirling with the implications of what she had just told me. For a brief moment, I wasn't even sure what bothered me more: the fact that I suspected Michael was openly wooing his next conquest or the fact that, clearly, I was not a main player in Roxanne Dubrow's next big campaign. I hadn't even been invited to this fucking lunch.

Before the steam visibly shot out of my ears, I interrupted Claudia's tirade with a hurried excuse about a call I needed to make to a sales rep, then headed straight for my office, closing the door behind me.

And while I sat there contemplating the fact that my future at Roxanne Dubrow was not as rosy as I had once thought, I found myself clicking on the e-mail archive where I had filed the semiannual corporate newsletters we received.

Glancing through the file, I quickly located the newsletter announcing Roxanne Dubrow's acquisition of Sparkle and opened it up, my eyes seeking out the article—and more
specifically, the photo of Courtney Manchester I had barely glanced at when it first arrived. But I took it all in now.

Like Courtney Manchester's winning smile. Her russet hair and sparkling green eyes.

Michael always was a sucker for a pretty face. And this one was downright irresistible to him, I was sure.

If he wasn't sleeping with her yet, it was only a matter of time.

To think I had once let this man inside me without a condom.

But not even my anger could squash the sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. Why did this bother me so much? I had dumped better men than Michael since, at least in terms of how available Drew or Ethan had made themselves to me.

Because you loved him,
a little voice whispered, as I remembered how many nights I had lain awake during our affair, wishing he weren't so powerful, so ambitious, so hard to nail down for more than just some fleeting yet utterly intimate encounters.

Is that what love was? Longing followed by pain and loss?

If that was true, I didn't want any part of it.

I
f I could have flung myself wholeheartedly into the new campaign, I would have. Anything to avoid thinking about what a disappointment the men in my life were.

But since Claudia had carefully excluded me from any meaningful role in the Roxy D campaign, I no longer felt compelled to work late reviewing advertising firms and drafting proposals. If Claudia wanted this baby all to herself, then she could deal with it all by herself.

I had better things to do. It wasn't like Roxanne Dubrow was going to survive next year on the strength of Roxy D alone. There was still, according to our market research, a whole segment of women in the 35-to-50-year-old range who had yet to discover the wonders of Youth Elixir, our
flagship moisturizer. I decided to concern myself once more with the demographic that needed me most, at least from a skincare perspective. Besides, the Youth Elixir campaign needed all my creative energy if I hoped to keep it afloat now that the budget for it had been cut nearly in half.

I had carefully explained to Shelley the challenge of promoting the Youth Elixir on a drastically reduced budget that week during our session. I could see she was looking for an opening to talk about something with a bit more emotional depth than whether or not I could single-handedly raise Youth Elixir to new sales heights, but I didn't give her the chance. What was the point of wallowing in whatever problems she imagined remained beneath the surface?

Still, I was aware of some lingering malaise over Michael, one I could not erase as effectively as I had Ethan.

No less than three times that week, I caught myself fantasizing about some big scene in which, with one or two killing statements, I revealed to Courtney as well as to Michael's doting sister, Dianne, that Michael Dubrow was a womanizing jerk. Which was why I decided to disappear for the few hours that I lived in danger of running into Michael and his entourage.

So, at eleven-thirty on the appointed day—a full forty-five minutes before the Dubrow clan was due to arrive via car service from Long Island—I went to Bloomingdale's.

In case you think I was shirking my duties out of emotional distress, trust me, I did have some competitive shopping to do. Some of the major manufacturers had come out with new gift packages, and I needed to see what Roxanne Dubrow's competitors were up to, didn't I?

The fact that I dawdled in the designer section on Two once I was done in cosmetics had nothing to do with any
thing. After all, September was now fully upon us, and I could already feel the cooler weather creeping in. I needed to stock up on this season's trousers and sweaters if I hoped to make it through the coming winter.

By the time I left Bloomingdale's a full two hours later, I was armed with enough shopping bags to make my time away from the office look suspiciously like a personal shopping spree. So I opted for a quick cab ride across town to my apartment, where I relieved myself of all non-work-related expenditures, and took a few moments to dust powder over my face and freshen up my lipstick. Because if I was unfortunate enough to run into Michael, I needed to look gorgeous enough to fill him with a pang of regret that he would never, ever, have me in the horizontal—or otherwise—again.

Take that,
I said, standing before the full-length mirror in my bedroom and studying the way my light sweater hugged my curves, the way my narrow skirt accentuated my legs. My well-cut jacket that balanced the vamp element the skirt lent the whole outfit, setting me firmly in the tastefully-corporate-yet-supremely-feminine camp. A dab of lipstick (just a refresher, mind you—I didn't want to look like I was trying too hard) and I left the apartment, more than ready to face whatever Michael Dubrow had to dish out.

Of course, one glance at my watch as the cab rolled toward Park Avenue indicated that I had been gone almost three hours and was likely in no danger of running into any of the Dubrows. The way I calculated it, lunch had ended by two o'clock and Dianne et al. were on the L.I.E. no later than two-fifteen.

Which was why my eyes practically popped out of my head when my cab pulled up and I spotted the Dubrows' shiny dark luxury sedan parked in front of the building. The
driver sat inside reading a newspaper, as if he didn't anticipate leaving anytime soon.

I paid my cab fare and stepped out onto the sidewalk, knowing full well there was no way I could avoid the Dubrow clan any longer.

 

The first thing I noticed when I entered the office was that it was eerily empty—and surprisingly quiet. Lori's desk was vacant, and if not for the furious tapping of keys that I heard coming from Claudia's office, I would have thought the building had been evacuated.

I stopped in her doorway. “What's going on?”

She glanced up. “Where have you
been?
”

“Bloomingdale's,” I replied, holding up the single bag I had brought back to the office with me, which contained an assortment of offerings from our main competitors. “The winter gift packages are in stores,” I replied by way of explanation.

“Dianne has got everyone gathered in the conference room,” Claudia said. “We're about to have a champagne toast.”

“Don't tell me you got Mimi Blaustein to sign over her star property during lunch?”

“No, no,” Claudia said, shaking her head. “Please. You should have seen the way everyone was fawning over that Irina at lunch. Disgusting. As if anyone was really interested in what a girl barely out of her training bra had to say, which wasn't much.” She rolled her eyes. “No, Irina and Mimi are long gone. Something about a plane Irina had to catch to Paris.” I saw a hint of bleariness in her well-made-up eyes and realized that Claudia was likely exhausted from having to curb her irritation with the girl-barely-out-of-training-bra for the sake of the company's agenda. “I just wanted to
get this e-mail out before the end of day and I was hoping to buy
you
some extra time….”

“Time for what?” I blinked.

“Oh, God knows. Dianne has some sort of announcement she wants to make.”

 

Everyone was already assembled, from PR and Sales to the marketing teams for all three of the brands. I spotted Michael right away, chatting merrily with Doug Rutherford, the Director of Sales, who kept an office at the other end of our U-shaped space for when he was in town. In that one fleeting glance I allowed myself, I saw that Michael was just as handsome as ever, with his dark brown hair and thickly lashed blue eyes. Although he had just passed the forty-two mark, he somehow seemed younger-looking than ever. Michael epitomized the phrase “boyishly handsome,” with his (seemingly) guileless features and somewhat petulant mouth and jutting chin. It suited his position as the late-in-life baby, born a full twelve years after Dianne—much to the delight of Roxanne Dubrow and her late husband, Ambrose. And Michael was every bit as spoiled and selfish as that position in life allowed, I had realized just after he had carelessly made love to me as if it didn't matter. As if I didn't matter.

Not allowing myself to dwell on that face—or the surprising tremor of feeling that radiated through me, even after all this time—I made my eyes flit about the room until they fell on Dianne, who stood at the helm, her shiny brown hair framing her perfectly made-up face and flawless skin—well, as flawless as a woman of fifty-four could look. She was, as always, dressed to perfection in a fitted ivory suit (the season's new black, as of last week's issue of
W
), and looking like the petite but exquisite queen of the Dubrow clan that she
had become when her mother had gone into retirement over a decade ago. The sight of her filled me with a strange sort of relief, as it occurred to me that I had not seen Dianne in probably months. Though she had always ruled the roost from the Long Island office, previously she had made her presence in the New York office felt through frequent visits. I wondered now what had kept her away.

“Makes you want to puke, doesn't she?” Claudia said, startling me as she came to stand at my side.

“Puke?” I asked, confused.

“Courtney Manchester. The redhead talking to Dianne….”

I shifted my gaze, taking in the woman who stood by Dianne's side, smiling up at her with perfectly made-up porcelain features. I hadn't even recognized her. Probably because she looked even more beautiful than she did in that little photo I had dug up.

I decided to play neutral. What choice did I have? “Well, she's a beautiful woman,” I replied, as if this explained everything, right down to the tremble my body could barely contain.

Claudia snorted. “
Please.
Wait until you see her teeth. She's a Brit, remember?”

I tried to focus on this one seeming flaw as I made my way across the room to greet Dianne. I couldn't very well avoid the CEO of Roxanne Dubrow just because my heart felt like someone had just placed a large boulder on it. Besides, Dianne had already spotted me across the room and had gently waved me over, her face wreathed in the kind of gracious warmth that was a perk of her deluxe lifestyle.

“Grace Noonan!” Dianne said, holding out one well-manicured hand to me and pulling me into a cheek-grazing embrace. Dianne treated her employees as if they were fam
ily, only somehow I never truly felt like a member, no matter how many corporate hugs and Christmas gifts I'd collected over time. “We missed you at lunch today. Claudia said you had another appointment…?”

Before I could turn to send my boss a querying glance, Dianne introduced me to the lovely Courtney, who smiled pleasantly up at me. She was a tiny little thing—probably no more than five-four.

Suddenly there I was, smiling just as cordially back and extending a hand. Was this the woman who would convince Michael Dubrow that a relationship with one of his employees wouldn't destroy the Dubrow empire? I wondered, gazing on her pretty features, yes, there was the matter of a turned front tooth, but it really was quite charming, and listening to the pleasantries she uttered in that beautiful British accent. I took some small measure of comfort in the idea that maybe Michael's interest had more to do with the profit he saw in the merger between Sparkle and Roxanne Dubrow. Perhaps it was this small ray of hope that gave me strength when Michael himself finally made his way over to us.

Balls, I thought, as he gazed frankly at me, a confident smile on that well-shaped mouth. If nothing else, Michael Dubrow had a set of balls on him, I thought. I felt anew the desire to cut him down to size in front of Dianne, who gazed at him fondly as he stepped into our circle, and Courtney, who looked like she was about to fawn all over him, judging from the way her features softened when he stopped next to her.

“Grace, good to see you,” he said, nodding at me before turning to Courtney. “I assume you've met Courtney,” he continued, not taking his gaze from her, as if she were some precious jewel that had caught his eye.

And apparently, she was. Because no sooner had Michael
locked gazes with the lovely Courtney than Dianne suddenly remembered that she had gathered us all here for a reason. “It's time,” she said, with a clap of her hands that commanded the attention of everyone in the room and sent Lori, who, I noticed, had been circulating with a champagne-laden tray, to our circle. Once we had grabbed the remaining five glasses and Lori had tucked the tray beneath the conference table, Dianne stood center stage.

“I'm sure you are all wondering why I have gathered you here today,” she said, flashing us that gracious smile. “As it turns out, I have a wonderful announcement to make. Two, in fact,” she continued, her proud glance flitting over to Michael and Courtney.

“As you all know, last year we acquired the wonderful Sparkle line headed up by Courtney Manchester out of the U.K. And it is our fervent hope that by placing this line under the Roxanne Dubrow umbrella, the future of our great line will be secure. That's why I am proud to announce that Courtney Manchester, who will oversee the transformation of this new product under Roxanne Dubrow, has been promoted to the position of Vice President of Product Development.”

The room erupted in a smattering of applause, small enough for me to hear Claudia mutter, “As if we didn't see
that
coming.”

Then, as if the other thing that was coming was just as obvious, Dianne continued, “And I am also happy to announce another merger, this one a bit more personal.” Raising her glass she said, “To Michael and Courtney, who have just, this past weekend, announced their engagement.”