An Inconvenient Woman by Dominick Dunne Read Free Book Online Page A

Mendelson. He just loved us in different ways
.
    “
Jules was a guy who’d had his own way all his life. And he thought he could have the two of us, and he could have as far as I was concerned, but it just didn’t work out that way
.
    “
You see, I had no intention of letting happen what happened between us. You’ve certainly seen enough pictures of Jules; he was never going to win any prizes in the looks department. And I’d never gone out with a guy that age before. There’s something about power that’s very sexy, you know, and what Jules lacked in the looks department, he more than made up for in the power department. When Jules walked into a room or a restaurant, people turned around. My friend, Glyceria, who was Faye Converse’s maid, told me that in her time, women used to think Henry Kissinger was attractive. It’s another version of the same thing, you know
.
    “
And he was good to me. He wanted to improve me. He once said to me, ‘You’ve got to start reading the newspapers, not just the gossip columns.’ And then he started asking me about stuff in the news, like Gorbachev, and Bush, and the deficit, and stuff like that, and he could explain things to me so that I could understand. If you should happen to have any questions about the European currency after 1992, for instance, I’ll probably be able to help you out, because he talked about that all the time. And he wanted me to wear nice clothes, and he began to buy me classy gifts, like this ring here with the sapphire and the diamonds, and these yellow diamond earrings. When I was seeing that putz Casper Stieglitz before I met Jules, all that he ever gave me was black satin underwear from Frederick’s of Hollywood. And pretty soon, I started to fall in love with Jules
.”

3
    T he night before, Philip Quennell and Camilla Ebury had made love for the first time, as well as the second and the third, each time experiencing increased acts of intimacy. Awakening later than Camilla, Philip lay in bed without moving and watched her as she brushed her hair, with a raised arm and long hard strokes, at the same time gazing into her dressing table mirror with an intent stare. The strap of her nightgown had fallen from her shoulder, and her concentration on her hairbrushing was complete.
    “When I was a child, my nanny—Temple she was called, short for Templeton—made me brush my hair one hundred times each morning, no matter what. I used to hate it, but it became a habit, and now I find that my day is imperfect if I don’t do it the first thing. Of course, I don’t think about my hair when I brush it. It is for me a time for thinking,” said Camilla.
    “How did you know I was awake?” asked Philip.
    “I could see you in the mirror,” she said.
    “Nice back,” he said.
    “Hmmm?”
    “Nice back, I said.”
    “Thanks.”
    “It’s a good look the way your strap has fallen off your shoulder.”
    “I’m experiencing shyness, if you can believe it.”
    He smiled at her.
    “Do you always sleep with your pearls on?”
    “Always. They belonged to my uncle.”
    “The place card changer, that uncle?”
    She laughed. “Uncle Hector, although I never call him uncle. Hector Paradiso.”
    “As in Paradiso Boulevard, on the way to the airport?”
    “Yes. The Paradisos were a Land Grant family. Hector’s great-grandfather, or great-great, I’m not sure, I never get it straight, was one of the founders of the city, way back when. My mother was his older sister.”
    “Now let me get this straight. On your father’s side, according to Pauline Mendelson, you’re natural gas, and on your mother’s side, you’re from a Land Grant family. Right?”
    “Right.”
    “You’re what’s called well connected, where I come from.”
    “I cover all the bases, at least in Los Angeles.”
    “I know it’s none of my business, but why did Uncle Hector have a pearl necklace?”
    “It belonged to his mother, my grandmother, whom I never knew. When Hector was