“And this is an annual event?” Dane asked.
“Yes. Let me show you.” Dane followed Sheila, attending her litany — Marc Bohan of Dior, Crahay of Nina Ricci, Castillo of Lanvin (like so many medieval saints, or feudatories, or even Isaac of York or Macdonald of the Isles), Cardin, Chanel, Jacques Heim, Balmain, Goma, Vernet, and the all but hallowed Yves St. Laurent. From Sheila’s tone, Dane gathered that St. Laurent could cure scrofula by a laying on of hands.
“And that’s just France,” Sheila was saying.
He was actually taking notes.
“It’s like wine,” Sheila explained. “Any reasonable Frenchman will admit that certain French wines are inferior to their American counterparts. But we’re such snobs! We’d rather tipple a mediocre vintage with a French label than a first-rate California. It’s the same with clothes. All right, St. Laurent is tops. But it’s not because he’s French, it’s because he’s St. Laurent. Another thing that blows me sky-high is the women who won’t wear a gown unless it’s designed by a man. It makes me want to spit!”
“It becomes you,” said Dane. It did, too; anger put color into her cheeks, and a sparkle in her eyes that made them flash.
She stopped herself with one of her fresh, quick laughs. “Let’s go to lunch.”
“I had forgotten lunch could be fun,” Sheila Grey said. “Thank you, Mr. McKell.”
“Could you make it Dane?”
“Dane. Are you sure you’re writing a book with a designer-character in it?”
“Why would you doubt it?”
“I suppose I don’t care for people with hidden motives.” She laughed. “I’m always on the watch.”
“The only hidden motive I could have would be very personal, and I can’t imagine any woman resenting that.”
“At this point,” said Sheila, rising, “I’ve got to get back to the galleys.”
“Can we do this again soon? Tomorrow?”
“I shouldn’t...”
“Another session at your place, then lunch again?”
“Get thee behind me! All right, I surrender,” and that was that. He took her back to Fifth Avenue, and she talked shop all the way, Dane scribbling away.
Taking stock of the afternoon, he came to certain conclusions about Sheila Grey. She was accessible, at least in the sense that what Sheila fancied, Sheila took. Had her affair with his father begun in much the same way — directly, without persiflage? Had she run into Ashton McKell in the elevator, decided then and there, This man is for me, and invited him up for a drink?
He found himself wishing that he were meeting her under other circumstances. He admired her honesty of mind and manner, her forthright differences from most women — even the sprinkle of freckles he had faintly made out in natural light. Oddly, she did not arouse a man’s fighting instinct in the battle of the sexes. You could move comfortably in on her, without fuss, and she would either reject or accept in an uncomplicated way. He liked that.
Dane sighed. Between himself and Sheila Grey stood his father’s selfish arrogance and his mother’s helpless self-denial. This woman had chosen to become his father’s mistress a couple of dozen feet above the head of his mother; she would have to take the consequences.
But the only sinister thing in their growing relationship skulked in his own heart. Sheila was delightful. She chewed popcorn like the teenagers around them in a drive-in movie, watching a Blob from Outer Space crush tiny people underfoot and topple buildings until the clean-limbed young scientist with the gorgeous laboratory assistant destroyed him with his newly invented death ray. She clapped her hands at a tiny place he introduced her to, run by devotees of a Hindu sect, and ate her curds and whey as if she had stepped out of a Mother Goose book. When the bearded proprietor pressed a piece of fig candy on her, saying, “It promotes regularity, Sahibah,” Sheila smiled, and took it, and remarked, “I wish something could be done to promote regularity in high fashion. We caught someone using a miniature camera this morning. Naturally I fired him and destroyed the film. But you can’t help wondering if somebody got away with it yesterday. We’ll know about it if copies of our line go on sale on 14th Street, selling for $7.98, the day after our fall showing.”
It appeared that the art of couture espionage was highly developed. “I could give you material for a dozen novels,” Sheila said moodily.
“I’m having enough trouble with this one,” Dane said, grinning. “Incidentally, how about dinner at eight?”
This time her gaze impaled him. “You’re silly,” she said. “Nice, though. I’ll be wearing a mantilla and chewing on a red, red rose.”
Dane began to feel uneasy. Things were going too well. But then he shook the feeling off.
They dined at a little Belgian restaurant with outrageous prices, took a ferry ride to Staten Island, visited Hoboken, where they strolled about for a bit, agreeing that parts of the city had a Continental air — Dane compared it to the 14th Arondissement. On the ferry coming back, standing side by side in the bow, he took Sheila’s hand. She might have been any woman he liked. Her fingers lay cool and friendly in his clasp; the breeze lifted her hair and played with it. The great docks loomed, and Dane felt a twinge. Quite without calculation he said, “How about the Central Park Zoo tomorrow? The grilled armadillo there is out of this world.”
“You’d produce it, too.” Sheila’s laugh sounded wistful. “No, Dane, I’ve been playing hooky far too long. You’re wicked-bad for me.”
“Supper? I know an Armenian joint—”
“I really can’t, I’m too far behind. Tomorrow is out.”
Tomorrow was Wednesday. The thought struck him like a club. Of course. She wouldn’t date Yves St. Laurent himself on a Wednesday night. Wednesday nights were reserved for Daddy-o.
But there were other days and nights — the fights, the ballet, opera in a Connecticut barn, a county fair, a formal dinner at Pavillon one night and chopped liver at Lindy’s the next. On several occasions they spent the evening at Sheila’s apartment, listening to the hi-fi or viewing the summer re-runs on TV. On such occasions Sheila fed him.
“I have an understanding with the frozen-food people,” she told Dane, paraphrasing the old joke. “They don’t design clothes and I don’t stand over a hot cookbook.”
“Don’t apologize,” Dane said. “TV dinners constitute our only native art-form.”
She laughed, throwing her head back. Viewing the cream-smooth neck, he felt a lecherous stir and wondered if he shouldn’t encourage it. After all, he had been squiring her around for some time now without a single pass. Wouldn’t she begin to wonder?
The phone rang. Still laughing, Sheila answered it. “Oh, hi,” she said, in a remarkably different tone, moving back into the chair; and Dane sighed — the moment had gone. “How are you?... No, I’m fine... I couldn’t say.” She glanced at Dane, a mere flicker, and he said to himself: It’s my father. He got up and went to the window, and her voice sank. The reflection showed him a scowling and — it seemed to him — evil face.
“I’d like a drink,” Sheila said from behind him. The phone call was over; comedy, recommence! “Something tall and ginny. Be my bartender?”