And then there was the Swish Daily incident. Janey was in the designer showroom, getting fitted for his runway show, when suddenly he came in, looked at her, and screamed, "Oh my dear! Those hips!”
The fitter, a nondescript woman of about fifty, looked at Janey and shrugged. Janey tried to laugh, but the fact was that she had gained about ten pounds in the last year and hadn't been able to lose it.
"What are you talking about?" Janey said, turning sideways in the mirror to hide her discomfort, but it was no use. Swish came rushing up, knelt down, and put his hands on either side of her thighs.
"This is going to be a problem," he said.
At that moment, Aleeka Norton arrived in the showroom. She threw down a Louis Vuitton handbag and called across the floor, "Hey, Swish, leave her alone about her hips, huh? She's a woman, for Christ's sake. That’s the problem with you fags. You don't know women.”
"Hello, darling," Swish said. "I hope you're not getting fat on me too.”
"Oh shut up, Swish," Aleeka said. "Why don't you try eating pussy sometime? Then we'll talk about hips.”
Swish giggled and the fitting continued as if nothing had happened, but Janey was scared. She'd been pudgy as a child, and she'd heard stories about girls who got into their early thirties and suddenly put on weight and couldn't take it off, even if they'd never had children. Afterward she found Swish in his office, where he was pretending to study fabric swatches. "I'm not over, am I?" she asked. She was usually never this frank, but on the other hand, she usually didn't have to be.
"Oh my dear," Swish said sadly. "Of course you're not over. But your type of figure ... that nineties, fake-titted thing ...”
"I could take out the implants," Janey said.
"But can you take out everything else?" Swish said. He put down the fabric samples and regarded her frankly. "You know what if s like, Janey. You've seen these new girls. They've got hips the size of swizzle sticks. I think Ghisele is a size two. And she's five-eleven.”
"I get it," Janey said.
"Oh listen, Janey." Swish came out from behind the desk and took her hands in his. "We've known each other a long time. You were in my first fashion show. Remember?”
Janey nodded. The show had been held in an art gallery in Soho. "It was so hot," she said. "And we were late. We kept the audience waiting an hour and a half. And then they loved it.”
"They went mad," he said. "And the funny thing was, none of us knew what we were doing then." He let go of her hands and lit a cigarette, turning toward the large window that overlooked Prince Street. A bus had pulled up outside and was unloading tourists.
"You know, in some ways I really miss those days," he said. "There was everything to look forward to. It was like a big amusement ride, wasn't it, Janey?" He stubbed out his cigarette. "We didn't know then how nasty people could be.”
"No," Janey said. "We didn't.”
"I always wonder if it's the times that change, or just us getting older. Do you know?”
"No.”
He began moving things around on his desk. Janey shifted from one foot to the other. "You're not over, Janey," he said. "Not one of us can ever be over unless we decide to be. But take my advice. I tell all the girls this. Go to London.”
"London?" Janey said.
"London," Swish said, nodding. "You get married.”
“Well. Really—" Janey said.
Swish held up his hand. "But not to just anyone. You marry ... a titled Englishman. You know, a lord, a duke, a marquis ... Rupert and I were just over there in October and it was fantastic.”
Janey nodded patiently.
"Lady ... Janey," Swish said. "You have the stately home, the title, money, hounds ..." The phone rang, but Swish didn't answer it. "Oh darling, hounds are just fantastic, aren't they? You've got to do it. I could do the most fantastic trousseau for you. I could design my whole fall line around it. Lady Janey's Trousseau. What do you think?”
"Fantastic," Janey said. "But I don't know anyone in England.”
"Darling, you don't need to know anyone," Swish said. He laughed, caught up in his own fantasy. "A beautiful girl like you? English girls look like crap. There's no competition. You show up in London, and within minutes, you'll be everywhere.”
Janey smiled coldly but said nothing. Why was it, she thought, everyone assumed that if you were beautiful, things just fell in your lap? Ever since she was sixteen, she'd been promised this big fucking prize for being beautiful and (later) having tits, but where was it? Where was this fantastic life her beauty was supposed to bring her?
And now she had to move to another country? "I don't think so," she said.
"You could go this summer. I hear the summer season is very hot in London. Ascot and all that. I'll make you a hat.”
"I always go to the Hamptons for the summer," Janey said.
"The Hamptons?" Swish said. "You're not still caught up in that, are you? Darling," he said, "the Hamptons are over.”
"I'm looking for my own house this year," Janey said. She kissed him on the cheek and went out the door and got into the freight elevator. It was already early April. She was fat. And she still didn't have a house for the summer.
When she came out onto the street, she banged her hand against the building in frustration.
Her nail broke painfully below the quick. She stuck her finger in her mouth. A couple of tourists wandered by. "Are you a model?" one of them asked.
They were foreign, maybe from Denmark. "Yes," Janey said.
"Do you mind if we take your picture?”
"I don't give a shit what you do," Janey said. Two days later, she met Comstock Dibble.
His first words to her were: "They used to make fun of me in school. What did they do to you?”
“They stole my bicycle," Janey said.
He was smoking a cigar. He took a puff and held out his hand, clenching the cigar between his teeth. "Comstock Dibble," he said.
"The man who's going to save the movies," Janey said.
"Oh. So you read that shit, huh?" he said. "Who didn't?" Janey said. "It was only on the cover of the Sunday Times Magazine. “
They were standing in the middle of the VIP room in the nightclub Float, at the premiere for Comstock Dibble's new movie, Watches. It was crowded and smoky and loud. He shifted the cigar from one side of his mouth to the other.
"I like you," he said. "I want to get to know you better. Do you want to get to know me?”
Janey leaned toward him and put her hand on his shoulder. "Yes," she whispered.
The next day, a brand-new bicycle arrived at her apartment.
Janey ripped open the attached card with glee. It read: Dear Janey: If anyone tries to steal this bicycle, they'll have to deal with me.
Regards, Comstock Dibble
VI
Memorial Day weekend again. The grass and trees were beginning to turn a deep green, reminding Janey of every summer she'd had in the Hamptons and, she thought happily, was going to have again. The cottage she'd rented was only a converted carriage house in the back of a Victorian house in the town of Bridgehampton, but it was hers. It had a tiny kitchen, a living room with built-in cupboards that contained mismatched glassware, and two attic bedrooms that were furnished with old photographs and down comforters and feather pillows. It was charming. A steal, the real estate agent said, adding that the only reason it had been available was that the couple who usually rented it had decided to get divorced the week before, and couldn't agree on which one should get the house. "My luck," Janey said, as her cell phone rang. "Is it great?" the male voice asked.
"It is great." Janey giggled. She walked toward a little garden framed by hedges that contained white wicker tables and chairs, where she imagined she would hostess small but important dinners that summer.... She'd invite Comstock, and Harold Vane ... hell, she might even invite Redmon. After all, Redmon was a best-selling author no matter what you thought about the rest of him.