That Kathy de Bourgh, while eighty years old and not a Hollywood starlet, possessed this glow was evident to Liz even from halfway back in the vast hotel ballroom where the National Society of Women in Finance keynote speech occurred. The speech began at one-fifteen in the afternoon, before an audience of two thousand; no more than a dozen of them, by Liz’s calculation, were men. Two large screens on either side of the stage projected Kathy de Bourgh’s image to all corners of the room, and in the first few seconds after Kathy de Bourgh was introduced, Liz noted that she had had Botox, as well as dermal fillers, though after that it was Kathy de Bourgh’s poise and the substance of her speech that Liz focused on. Because Liz had read Revolutions and Rebellions as well as Kathy de Bourgh’s subsequent book of essays and her memoir, much of the advice she dispensed and some of the personal anecdotes she shared were familiar, but her crisp and energetic delivery made everything fresh. Whether citing statistics about the dearth of women in professional leadership roles or recommending the steps individual women could take to command authority, she showed confidence and good humor. Being an icon, it seemed, agreed with her.
At the speech’s conclusion, Liz waited in her chair in the ballroom, as directed to do via a text that morning from Kathy de Bourgh’s publicist, Valerie. After eight minutes, Valerie texted to say Kathy de Bourgh was on a call but Liz would be escorted to the greenroom imminently.
And then, as they had many times already in the last thirty hours, Darcy’s remarks outside her sisters’ apartment came back to her. I’m in love with you. I can’t stop thinking about you. Yes, his confession had contained multiple slights, but those words had flanked them. To recall such declarations was marvelously bothersome, it was vexing and delectable. I’m in love with you. I can’t stop thinking about you. They made her feel as if her heart were releasing lava.
She had planned to blithely leave Darcy behind, but it seemed now that matters between them were unresolved. What it was that needed to be settled, however—what she might convey to him—continued to elude her. Surely it was related to the indifference to his feelings, the defiance even, that she’d demonstrated during their final conversation. If on certain topics he’d shown insensitivity, she’d concluded that his misbehavior had been of a less egregious variety than her own. She also couldn’t help wondering: Was he still in love with her? Had her hostile response immediately nullified his desire? Really, how could it not have?
“Liz?” Approaching from a door near the stage was a young woman in a charcoal pantsuit. “I’m Valerie Wright. Kathy de Bourgh is ready to see you.”
IN THE GREENROOM, Kathy de Bourgh was eating an arugula salad. She stood to firmly shake Liz’s hand and said, “I apologize for keeping you waiting, but my dog has keratitis and I was touching base with the vet.”
“I’m so sorry,” Liz said. She knew that Kathy de Bourgh was the owner of a Pekingese named Button, though Liz did not mention this knowledge because of the fine line between due diligence and creepiness.
As they sat, Kathy de Bourgh smiled and said, “Now that we’ve both apologized within the first thirty seconds of our conversation about women and power, shall we begin?” While Liz set her two digital recorders on the glass tabletop and turned them on, Kathy de Bourgh added, “You might not know this, but I myself was once a writer for Mascara.”
“Oh, it’s one of our claims to fame,” Liz said. She was reassured that Kathy de Bourgh knew what publication she was being interviewed for; regularly, very famous people didn’t.
“That was roughly fifteen thousand years ago,” Kathy de Bourgh said. “During the Pleistocene epoch.”
Liz said, “Knowing you’d worked for the magazine was the main reason I was excited to get a job there.”
Kathy de Bourgh laughed. “Liz, flattery will get you everywhere.”