“Let me know if there’s anything I can do. And that was a nice write-up in the Post today,” he added.
What write-up? she thought. But she supposed it didn’t really matter, as long as Victor was pleased.
“I hope you’re going to take the afternoon off and celebrate a little,” Victor said. “Any special plans?”
“Not really,” she said. “I’m just in Palm Beach, with my family. I just bought my daughter a pony.”
“Good for you,” Victor said. “There’s nothing better for little girls than ponies, I always say. It teaches them responsibility. But I don’t need to tell you that, eh? Well, congratulations again, and my regards to your family. There’s nothing like family time. We all need more of it. Enjoy.”
“Thank you, Victor,” she said.
The Citation was waiting for her at the airport with the steps lowered. The car pulled through a chain-link fence and onto the tarmac, and the flight attendant came forward to carry her luggage. “That was a quick trip,” he remarked.
“Yes,” she said. “I had a little business to take care of. It went more smoothly than I thought it might.” She boarded the plane, strapping herself into a wide seat of soft beige calfskin leather. “Would you like something?” the attendant asked. “How about caviar and champagne?” he asked with a wink. “It’s Dom Perignon. Victor Matrick ordered it specially for you.”
Why not? she thought. And then: So Victor knew she had taken the plane. It made sense, she supposed. Victor knew everything . . .
In a rack in front of her was a collection of newspapers and magazines. She pulled out the New York Post—“50 Most Powerful Women!” it proclaimed.
She opened it up. Inside was her picture taken at a black-tie movie premiere. She
had put on makeup that night, and had worn her contact lenses with her hair pulled up. She didn’t look so bad, she thought, but really, who cared?
Underneath was the copy: “Wendy Healy, 43, President, Parador Pictures. When Comstock Dibble was booted out as President, there was only one woman for the job—bespectacled brainiac beauty Wendy Healy. She took Parador mainstream, and netted the company two hundred million dollars.”
Oh, she thought. She folded up the paper and put it on the seat next to her. The pilot started the engines, and the plane taxied to the runway. She supposed she should have been pleased by the mention, but instead, she felt nothing. The plane sped down the runway, and she watched the scenery blur outside the window, thinking that she would never feel anything again.
Chapter 12
IT WAS, NICO O’NEILLY THOUGHT, LOOKING OUT OF the window of the town house, a perfect day for taking over the world.
It was seven-thirty on a Thursday morning, and she was dawdling a little over her soft-boiled egg, wanting to remember exactly what this day looked like, and specifically how this morning felt—the morning she was to meet with Victor Matrick to give him the news about Mike Harness. The very interesting news that, she was quite sure, would finish Mike off. Once and for all.
She turned the egg over onto its side, and neatly sliced off the tip, which was exactly what she was going to do with Mike’s head. It would be a clean break, and hopefully, Mike would only feel it a little, and only for a couple of seconds. One . . . two, she thought, shaking salt onto the top of the exposed egg. She picked up a toast soldier, which was exactly half an inch wide, and dipped it into the yolk. She chewed thoughtfully and with pleasure. As usual, both the egg (boiled for four and a half minutes) and the toast soldiers were perfect, having been prepared by her own hand. Nico ate the same thing for breakfast every day—a soft-boiled egg, half a slice of toast, and a cup of English breakfast tea with sugar and lemon—and because these items had to be prepared exactly (the tea water, for instance, had to come to a full boil for thirty seconds), she always made her own breakfast. There were some things in life that were simply easier to do yourself.
She stared out through the French windows again to the little garden in back. Spring was well and truly here—the cherry trees (which were some special pedigreed species of flowering fruit tree normally found only in Washington, D.C., that Seymour had bought from a senator’s wife) already had full, fuzzy buds; in a few more days, there’d be flowers. And in a couple of weeks, they would open the house in East Hampton, and how heavenly that would be. They used the house in May, June, and July, leaving August for the crowds, but the best month was May, when the sea air was warm and sleepy, and the grass as sharply green as shards of glass. She always told herself that she would garden and never did, but maybe this year she would get around to planting a flower or two . . .
“Did you see this?” Seymour asked, coming into the breakfast room with the New York Times in his hand. Seymour was dressed for the day like a college student—in jeans and some type of expensive sneaker, his longish hair tucked back behind his ears. His eyes were shrewd—their normal expression—and Nico smiled, thinking Seymour had probably come out of the womb with those eyes and terrified everyone in the delivery room.
“What, darling?” she asked.
“Story in the Metro section. About Trent Couler. The fashion designer who just went out of business. I hope Victory reads the story,” he said, hovering above her.
“Why?” Nico asked, taking a sip of her tea.
“It should make her feel good about taking that offer. She’ll be safe,” Seymour said.
“I’m not sure Victory wants to be safe,” Nico said.
“Everyone wants to be safe,” Seymour said. “Now she can retire.”
Nico smiled to herself and took a bite of her egg. Seymour’s attitude was so like a man, she thought. It was ironic, but when you scratched the surface, most successful men were working for one thing only—to retire—and the sooner the better. Whereas women were the complete opposite. She had never heard a woman say she was working so she could retire to a desert island or to live on a boat. It was probably, she thought, because most women didn’t think they deserved to do nothing.
“Maybe I’ll take Victory to lunch,” Seymour said, going out of the room.
Nico nodded, looking after him. Victory was probably too busy to go to lunch with Seymour, but it didn’t matter. No wonder Seymour didn’t really understand, she thought. Thanks to her, Seymour was, in a sense, retired himself, his only real obligation being the one class he taught at Columbia.
But he handled his spare time beautifully, she corrected herself. She never would have been able to keep herself as wonderfully occupied as Seymour did. And she felt another one of those guilty pangs. “How can you cheat on Seymour?” Victory had asked her.