'I still can't see the sense of it.'
'It's just an elaborate game.'
'Which you certainly know how to play.'
He was delighted. 'Don't I though?'
'I'll never learn the rules.'
'You should, my lamb. It's more than a bit silly, but it helps business. No one likes to work with a loser. But everyone playing the game wants to deal with the kind of person who can get the best table at the Polo Lounge.'
Wally Topelis was the only man she knew who could call a woman 'my lamb' and sound neither patronizing nor smarmy Although he was a small man, about the right size to be a professional jockey, he somehow made her think of Cary Grant in movies like To Catch a Thief. He had Grant's style: excellent manners observed without flourish; balletic grace in every movement, even in casual gestures; quiet charm; a subtle look of amusement, as if he found life to be a gentle joke.
Their captain arrived, and Wally called him Eugene and inquired about his children. Eugene seemed to regard Wally with affection, and Hilary realized that getting the best table in the Polo Lounge might also have something to do with treating the staff as friends rather than servants.
Eugene was carrying champagne, and after a couple of minutes of small talk, he held the bottle for Wally's inspection. Hilary glimpsed the label. 'Dom Perignon?'
'You deserve the best, my lamb.'
Eugene removed the foil from the neck of the bottle and began to untwist the wire that caged the cork.
Hilary frowned at Wally. 'You must really have bad news for me.'
'What makes you say that?'
'A hundred-dollar bottle of champagne....' Hilary looked at him thoughtfully. 'It's supposed to soothe my hurt feelings, cauterize my wounds.'
The cork popped. Eugene did his job well; very little of the precious liquid foamed out of the bottle.
'You're such a pessimist,' Wally said.
'A realist,' she said.
'Most people would have said, 'Ah, champagne. What are we celebrating?' But not Hilary Thomas.'
Eugene poured a sample of Dom Perignon. Wally tasted it and nodded approval.
'Are we celebrating?' Hilary asked. The possibility really had not occurred to her, and she suddenly felt weak as she considered it.
'In fact, we are,' Wally said.
Eugene slowly filled both glasses and slowly screwed the bottle into the shaved ice in the silver bucket. Clearly, he wanted to stick around long enough to hear what they were celebrating.
It was also obvious that Wally wanted the captain to hear the news and spread it. Grinning like Cary Grant, he leaned toward Hilary and said, 'We've got the deal with Warner Brothers.'
She stared, blinked, opened her mouth to speak, didn't know what to say. Finally: 'We don't.'
'We do.'
'We can't.'
'We can.'
'Nothing's that easy.'
'I tell you, we've got it.'
'They won't let me direct.'
'Oh, yes.'
'They won't give me final cut.'
'Yes, they will.'
'My God.'
She was stunned. Felt numb.
Eugene offered his congratulations and slipped away.
Wally laughed, shook his head. 'You know, you could have played that a lot better for Eugene's benefit. Pretty soon, people are going to see us celebrating, and they'll ask Eugene what it's about, and he'll tell them. Let the world think you always knew you'd get exactly what you wanted. Never show doubt or fear when you're swimming with sharks.'
'You're not kidding about this? We've actually got what we wanted?'
Raising his glass, Wally said, 'A toast. To my sweetest client, with the hope she'll eventually learn there are some clouds with silver linings and that a lot of apples don't have worms in them.'
They clinked glasses.
She said, 'The studio must have added a lot of tough conditions to the deal. A bottom of the barrel budget.
