Chapter 17

Jill Barnes' flight to New York was delightful. She had never been in a private jet before, and in fact she couldn't remember ever having flown. Furthermore, she could not even imagine the level of luxury the aircraft, a Gulfstream G-550, provided.

She was served a real breakfast and was thoroughly enjoying it when the pilot announced that they were in luck. "I don't know how many strings were pulled, but we're cleared into the Marine Air Terminal at LaGuardia. That will save you real time at the other end; it's a helluva lot faster into Manhattan from there than it is from Teterboro."

The plane got a straight-in approach — no circling — and the pilot just kissed the runway on touchdown. As soon as the door was opened, a silver Rolls pulled up to the drop-down boarding stairs. In light of heightened post-9/11 security, it was a marvel, but there it was. The chauffeur jumped out and opened the rear door, then handed out two women. Jill recognized both instantly. From her photograph that appeared beside her regular fashion columns, she recognized Nita Lucas. And from a near-infinite number of appearances on fashion magazine covers, she recognized Adrienne.

She studied the latter woman closely as the two strode over to where she was standing. Something about Adrienne appeared out of the ordinary. Suddenly, Jill realized what it was: The woman was far more beautiful at that moment than Jill had ever seen her before. By that time the three were exchanging greetings, but Jill, being the woman she was, just blurted out her new discovery.

Nita giggled while Adrienne just smiled warmly. "That's because I've put on about fifteen pounds, am a nursing mother and there's another bun in my oven right now." She paused and then added, "I'm a wife with a husband I adore, I have the most perfect baby girl that God, in His infinite mercy, has ever seen fit to create, along with her brother- or sister-to-be."

Then she slowly shook her head and concluded, "And this comes after being so thin and weak any stiff breeze would blow me down the street. Beyond that, I was a lesbian with no apparent chance of ever changing my status. But then I met Scott Cameron. The crazy part of it was I was introduced by a friend of Nita's — Bill Corcoran, by the way — in spite of the fact that not only did we live in the same apartment building, we were next-door neighbors! Can you believe it?"

While this was going on, the threesome had gotten back into the car and were being whisked over the Manhattan Bridge to Bergdorf Goodman. When they arrived, they were soon in an elevator riding up to the executive floor, and Jill had switched her attention to Nita.

Finally she blurted out, "I just do not understand it, Nita. How can a girl, not even 20 years old, possibly have achieved what you have?" But even as the words came out, they made no sense at all as Jill realized she had been reading Nita's fashion columns for years. She just shook her head.

Grinning, Nita asked, "Would it be better if I was on the shady side of 40? Or maybe if you knew that I'm the mother of six children? And about to give birth to number seven?"

"About to give birth? When? In eight and a half months?"

"Nope," Nita replied laconically. "Probably next week ... Monday, I guess." Turning to Adrienne she asked, "What do you think? Monday morning at my place? I'll call Dorie Jackson and see if she's free." Shaking her head she added, "We've never had the nerve to try a circumcision ourselves."

Jill's head had been going back and forth between her two friends like a spectator at a tennis match. "Do you mean what I think you mean? You're both going to deliver babies next Monday morning?" Then shaking her head firmly she added, "That's flat-out impossible!"

By that time they had entered the most sumptuous office Jill had ever seen. When she commented on it, Nita just shrugged and said, "They like to keep me happy here at Bergdorf's."

"Yeah," Adrienne commented drily. "Just about every year the Board of Directors asks her what position she would like for the following year. And the offer extends to any position in the company, starting with CEO." She giggled and added, "She insists she's happy being Executive Vice President & Fashion Director ... along with about eight weeks vacation a year."

Returning to her earlier topic, Jill remarked, "Pregnancy? Babies?"

The three women were in Nita's office and the two expectant mothers stripped. Both women, like Jill herself, had all-over tans. Nita's belly was flat while Adrienne's had a darling little bulge. Moving behind the two who were side by side, Jill reached around Nita's back and gently placed her fingers on the woman's abdomen. Instantly, she could feel movement in the woman's belly.

Jill repeated the process with Adrienne who commented, "My husband, Scott, loves seeing my belly swell a bit — he calls it a baby bump — so that's what I do."

"I don't understand."

"Well, you see how flat Nita is. The fact is we can control the swelling from nothing — her — to full bore, but nobody we know with our peculiar powers has ever gone that far. Probably the greatest swelling was Tina Harrington's, but that was only because her husband is an artist and wanted to do a series of pregnant nudes. But she only went about halfway."

"But ... but what about this Monday morning stuff?"

Nita answered the question. "Oh, that ... The fact is that we can control the delivery to a degree. It's no biggie. And it avoids any of that labor-at-three-o'clock-in-the-morning nonsense."

Finally they were about to get down to work, but first Nita had a little confession to make. "Jill, I guess we really got you up here under false pretenses. We said it was to see the latest fashions for next season at private showings. The fact is," she confessed, "we want you to select the outfits to be shown at the UNCF [United Negro College Fund] show."

She paused and then elaborated. "It's a really big deal. My mother, Andy Taylor, and my mother-in-law and Andy's best friend, Marty Harris, are running it. And Caitie Corcoran is in it up to her neck, too." Again she paused before continuing, "It's being held at Symphony Hall at Lincoln Center, which is even being remodeled to provide a runway.

"Anyway," she repeated, "the selection of outfits to be shown is all yours."

Jill just swallowed hard.

The three then went into an adjoining conference room with a big table on which they could spread out the outfits that had been submitted for possible inclusion in the show. Everyone who was anyone in women's fashions had submitted entries.

After being told by the experts — Nita and Adrienne — how many outfits could be shown in the time available, Jill started right in. The two experts were astounded at the speed with which Jill went through the submissions and made her selections. Even though she appeared to only glance at each one, if either of the other two questioned a decision — either acceptance or rejection — Jill instantly gave a detailed explanation for her choice. In every case, her reasoning was convincing.

There was one outfit, though, that caused Jill to hesitate before rejecting it. When Nita raised a question, Jill replied, "It's utterly spectacular! The problem is there are only about fifty women alive who could wear it. And frankly, if you're filling Lincoln Center, you're going to be doing it with a large number of ordinary-type women. I want to focus on outfits that they could realistically consider wearing, and this isn't one of them. This requires a woman with an utterly perfect body."

Hearing Jill's explanation, Nita picked up the phone and spoke into it quietly. No sooner had she hung up than it rang. It was Melanie for Jill telling her that she had rented retail space for her idea, Styles of Lexington. Jill was thrilled.

At that point models started trouping in with outfits the two had preselected as being suitable for Jill herself. To the amusement of the pair — and to the chagrin of the relevant model — in every case the outfit looked far better on Jill than on the model chosen to show it off.

When the three were alone for a moment between models, Adrienne feigned sadness and commented, "This is awful! Do you realize, Jill Barnes, that every damned one of these models is in the thousand-dollar-an-hour set, or very close to it? And with your beauty, your poise and your grace, you outshine — and outperform — every single one of them!" Then she pretended to grump, "Not fair!"

At that point a woman came in carrying an outfit on a hanger. After carefully laying it out on the conference table, she withdrew without speaking a word. Very casually Nita said, "That's for you, Jill. Try it on."

Again Jill stripped to her thong and slipped into the dress. As she held it up before slipping it on she realized it was the outfit that earlier she had said could only be worn by about fifty women in the world. She slipped it on and turned to her friends for their opinion.

"She's right, you know, Nita," Adrienne remarked. "Only I think she might be generous with her number: I think fifty women might be too high."

"But whatever the true number is, there's one thing for damn sure," Nita added. "Whatever the number is, Jill's included in the group." To Jill she said, "On you it's utterly spectacular!"