Даниэла Стил: The Affair

“It will also seem as though we endorse infidelity, and men cheating on their wives. This is America, Charity. Americans don’t like men who cheat. This isn’t France.” Charity had worked for a French fashion magazine before coming to Mode, and it came dangerously close to tabloid journalism. Rose’s face was expressionless and her tone cold when she turned her electric-blue gaze on the senior stylist who was so determined to put Pascale on the cover. “We’re not a tabloid or a movie magazine,” Rose reminded her sternly. “There are plenty of other magazines to cover that. Let’s not forget who we are.” Charity looked frustrated, and they went on to other details of the issue that had to be decided in the coming weeks. When the meeting ended, they hadn’t agreed on the cover yet.

“I think he’s fooled around before,” Charity said, as the meeting came to a close. “I forget who he’s married to, someone ordinary but nice looking. I think she’s a writer or a journalist or something.”

“She’s a well-known interior designer,” Rose corrected her. “And they have young children. I don’t like the story.” She stood up, which was the signal for all of them to go back to work. The meeting had lasted for two hours, and they had covered considerable ground on other points. There were a million component parts to their big issue. In the end, the final decisions would be made by Rose, but they all knew that without exception, Rose did what was best for Mode, and had unfailing instincts for what that was, whatever her personal opinions. They respected her for it, even Charity, who didn’t agree with her in this instance. Their other options all seemed like such a bore to her. She was the youngest of the senior staff, and on most occasions, Rose liked the spice she brought to it, but not this time.

—

Rose left the conference room quickly after the meeting. She knew there would be a mountain of emails and messages on her desk. Jen Morgan would handle as many as she could, but most of them would require callbacks from Rose to reach resolution. The proverbial buck stopped with her. She never complained about it. Even her rivals agreed that she was one of the best editors in the business, and courageous about the stands she took. She was a strong defender of women’s rights. Integrity and honesty were important to her, vital in fact, and were at the heart of every interview and editorial.

She flew past Jen’s desk, barely looking at her, clutching a thick stack of files from the meeting to her chest. She had appointments lined up all day long and was in a rush.

“Do we have a cover?” Jen smiled at her.

“Not yet. I have to make a confidential call. I’ll probably be on for fifteen or twenty minutes. Hold my calls till then,” she said, as she reached her office and paused in the doorway. Jen sat just outside.

“The stack on your desk is already pretty bad,” Jen reminded her. “Another twenty minutes and you’ll be buried.”

“Can’t be helped. I’ve got to make this call. There’s a storm brewing.” She offered no explanation as to the nature of the storm.

Jen raised an eyebrow but didn’t ask. She knew not to, and also that Rose wouldn’t have told her what it was about anyway. She rarely confided in anyone at work, even her trusted assistant. “I’ll hold back the invading armies,” Jen promised. She was good at her job, and Rose appreciated her for handling the million tiny details of her position so well.

Rose walked into her office and closed the door, then sat down at her desk. She saw that Jen hadn’t been exaggerating. There was a tall stack of messages, printed emails, and other material on her desk. She tried not to look at it as she dialed the familiar number.

She knew she wouldn’t be able to reach Olivia at that hour, so she didn’t call her. At thirty-nine, she had recently been appointed a superior court judge and would either be on the bench or conferring with lawyers in chambers. Olivia was Rose’s third daughter and Rose was proud of her, and the others. Olivia had an enormously responsible job now. She was married to Harley Foster, a federal court judge, who was twenty-one years older than she was. He had been one of her law school professors. They had a fourteen-year-old son, Will, and were a very serious, conservative family.

Athena, her oldest, was never her first choice to call with a problem. She had a laid-back, philosophical, ultra-positive California take on life, and always told her mother that everything would be all right, even if it was obvious that it wouldn’t. Her perspective was entirely different from her mother’s and her sisters’. She had made other choices in her life. Athena was forty-three years old, had lived in L.A. for fifteen years, was a TV chef, had written the definitive vegetarian and vegan cookbooks, and owned her own vegan restaurants. She had lived with the same partner for thirteen years. Joe Tyler was a chef too, owned his own very successful restaurant in L.A., and was five years younger than Athena. They weren’t married and had no wish to be. They lived together and were happy as they were. They shared a flock of dogs that Athena referred to as her “babies.” She said they were the only ones she wanted. Athena said that marriage was a man-made invention that just didn’t work most of the time, and children weren’t for her. She was great with them, but content to play with other people’s children when she had the chance. That was the only “kid fix” she wanted, and Joe agreed with her.

Rose had called her second daughter, Venetia, forty-one years old, a stunningly successful fashion designer who had set up her business fourteen years before, with the sound financial advice of Ben Wade, her venture capitalist husband. Venetia was a remarkable, creative woman, and always had been. She was fearless in running her business, and the designs she created always made a sensation. They were as odd and zany as she was, and she came up with creations that looked like trailer park meets Paris and Las Vegas, on steroids. When Rose first saw her designs, she couldn’t imagine who would buy them, unless they were as odd and eccentric as her daughter. But the clothes worked, and seemed to fulfill nearly every woman’s fantasy of how they wanted to look. There were sequins and leopard prints in expensive Italian fabrics, serious little Chanel-style jackets in white mink and denim to wear with jeans. She had priced them high to place them in the luxury market, and much to Rose’s amazement they took off and were a major hit. A year after she started her business, Mode did a feature article on her, and so did The Wall Street Journal . She was as tall as her mother, and her dark-haired, green-eyed, movie-star-handsome husband, Ben, was even taller. Venetia had a striking figure and went to the gym at five a.m. every day. She combined discipline and creativity, a blend that had made her a success. She had a wild mane of long curly red hair. The press called her the Golden Lioness, because she also had the Midas touch and a great head for business.

She had gone to both Parsons School of Design and Columbia Business School. She and Ben had three very appealing although somewhat wild children, two boys, Jack and Seth, and the youngest, India, a girl. Venetia said she wanted more, but hadn’t convinced Ben yet. Somehow she managed to do it all, work, marriage, motherhood, just as her mother had. Unlike Rose, however, Venetia had a townhouse in New York that usually looked like a bomb had hit it, but she looked great, and so did the kids. They were all bright and lively, and her five-year-old daughter had her mother’s creative streak. She wanted to design sneakers with sparkles on them when she grew up.

In spite of how busy she was, Venetia always took time to listen to her sisters’ or her mother’s problems, and gave them impressively good advice.