Trading Up Read Free

.” Comstock sighed as if she were completely hopeless and said, “Don’t be jealous.”
    “I’m not jealous,” Janey squealed. There was nothing she hated more than having her deficiencies pointed out to her. “Why on earth would I be jealous of Mauve Binchely?” Mauve was, in Janey’s estimation, practically ancient for a woman—
    nearly forty-five—and had only one good feature: her hair, which was dark and wavy and hung halfway down her back.
    But Comstock had obviously grown bored with the direction of this conversation, because he suddenly repeated, “Janey, you and I have always been friends,” and added, “so I know you’re not going to make trouble for me.” 18947_ch01.qxd 4/14/03 11:22 PM Page 9
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    “Why would I make trouble?” Janey asked.
    “Now, come on, Janey,” Comstock said, in a low, conspiratorial growl. “You know you’re a dangerous woman.”
    Janey’s initial reaction was to be pleased with this sally—in her more egotistical moments she did fancy herself a dangerous woman who might someday take over the world—but she suspected there was a veiled threat behind Comstock’s words.
    Last year, when she’d been broke, people had whispered behind her back that she was a whore. This year, now that she was finally successful and making it on her own, they were whispering that she was a dangerous woman. But that was New York. In a sultry voice that belied her growing consternation, she said, “If you want to be friends, Comstock, you’re doing a pretty bad job of it.” He laughed, but in the next second his tone became menacing. “You know better than to fuck with me . . . ,” he said, and for a moment, Janey wondered if he was going to explode in one of his legendary outbursts. Comstock Dibble, while acknowledged as a genius in the movie business, was equally known for his irrational displays of temper—he often called women “cunts”—after which he usually sent flowers. There were at least a dozen powerful men like him in New York, who could be charming one minute and rabid the next, but as long as Comstock remained the head of Parador Pictures, and as long as Parador continued to be the media’s darling, Comstock would not suffer for it, and that was New York, too.
    A less confident girl might have been frightened, but Janey Wilcox wasn’t that kind of girl—she’d always prided herself on not being intimidated by powerful men.
    And so, in a voice full of wide-eyed innocence, she said, “Are you threatening me, Comstock?” as he spurted out, “I know you’re going to Mimi Kilroy’s tonight.” Janey was so surprised she started to laugh. “Really, Comstock,” she said. “Don’t you have better things to do than to call me about a . . . party ?”
    “As a matter of fact, I do,” he said, adopting their familiar tone of bantering.
    “And that’s why I’m so pissed off about this. Goddammit, Janey. Why can’t you just stay home?”
    “Why can’t you?” Janey asked.
    “Mauve is Mimi’s best friend.”
    “So?” Janey said coldly.
    “Listen, Janey,” Comstock said. “I’m just trying to give you a friendly warning.
    It’s better for both of us if no one knows we know each other.” Janey was unable to resist reminding Comstock of their former relationship.
    “No, Comstock,” she said with a laugh. “It’s better for you if no one knows you fucked me last summer.”
    And then Comstock finally did lose his temper. “Will you shut up and listen?” he shouted. Adding, “You fucking cunt!”

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    His scream was so loud that Janey was convinced he could be heard through her cell phone by people in the neighboring cars on the Long Island Expressway.
    And if he thought he could talk to her like that, he was sorely mistaken. She wasn’t that desperate little girl he’d fucked over last summer, and she meant him to know it. “Now you listen, Comstock,” she