Lawrence Eisenberg

By Lawrence Eisenberg

Being crippled got you no sympathy in designer shoe stores, Danny found. When he had asked the Armani salesman whether he could buy only the right loafer to save money, he'd received a smile flecked with Northern Italian attitude. It should have been obvious to the slim-hipped snob with the puffed upper lip that it was a joke, since Danny's left foot was in a royal blue mesh surgical shoe with white wedged heel and open toe.

"I have to wear this for seven more weeks," he'd said.

Declining comment, the Italian had closed the box on the shoes he'd just sold, accepted Danny's credit card, and asked-- wearily--whether he could help him with anything else. Several responses came to mind, but Danny just shook his head.

Moments later, he heard busy whispering at the counter. The salesman was in conference with an associate, who was pointing alternately at Danny and his credit card. Returning with the package and a new attitude, he smiled. "Grazie, Signore Baldwin. Is a pleasure to serve you."

Obviously the associate was an observer of flash fame, because how Danny had gotten the broken metatarsal had been all over TV and the New York papers. Eight days ago, while rushing for the #57 bus, he'd collided with a man running at incredible speed. As he broke away, the man had thrown a heavy package toward the ground and it had landed on Danny's foot. Almost simultaneously, West End Avenue was filled with cop cars, sirens and an army of officers and plainclothesmen. While Danny was forcing himself not to scream in pain, he found out that his body had been the stopping force for Julio Hernandez-Colon, third in command to a leading Colombian drug dealer, and his foot had served the same function for a leather carry-on filled with 11 kilos of heroin and six of uncut cocaine, which Julio, knowing he was being followed by the law, had tried to dump.

"How can I kick a habit with a broken foot?" Danny had told the street reporter for “News Channel Four.” That had gotten him bookings on “Good Morning America” and Letterman (he'd had the presence of mind to turn down Jerry Springer). Jay Leno, Conan O'Brien and even Ted Koppel had made jokes about him on their shows. And each day since the accident, strangers had stopped him with upraised thumbs, "V" signs and jokes. This morning, as he was about to slip his Metro card into the bus's fare slot, the driver pushed his hand away. "This one's on the city, mister. Most people in this town kick ass. You kicked smack." Several old women in the front seats applauded. It was all titillating, but Danny couldn't wait for it to subside. As a professional observer, he didn't much like being the observed.

Glancing into the full-length mirror set between the closets in his bedroom, he grabbed the hairbrush and smoothed down the left side behind his ear. "It's as good as it's going to get," he said, shaking his head. He was nervous, and for what? All it was was a party. Yet any New York editorial/show business party was essentially an audition arena for every guest. And he was out of practice. Not that he felt like auditioning for anything, but he hadn't been to an industry event in a year and figured people should know he was still alive.

Not to mention that this was the most hyped party in months, being held aboard Victor Kyushi's yacht. When people said the name "Kyushi" their voices became hushed--or shrill. Nicknamed "MegaNip" by the Wall Street Journal, he was born in Hiroshima, schooled in Oxford, self-taught in sharkery and, as recorded in financial publications for the past two decades, seemed to buy and sell real estate, corporations and works of art every day of his life. The rupture of the Japanese economy in the late '90s had had no effect on him. Among his many companies, he owned a large share of the U.S. media, having established himself as the leading Pacific invader after Rupert Murdoch.

His latest acquisition--and the reason for the party-- was That's Entertainment, the successful six-year-old weekly magazine for which Danny had recently written two stories. Founded by Shepley Farnham, an eccentric Idaho billionaire and patron of the arts, That's Entertainment had become one of the most desirable publications for billionaires to add to their portfolios. But Farnham had resisted all bids until five weeks ago, when Kyushi came around and made him an offer whose dollar value had yet to become public.

In the press release that had been issued by the Kyushi organization, the new owner stated that he had no intention of tampering with the magazine's editorial integrity. Based on past history, media critics were skeptical: of the 22 U.S. newspapers and magazines Kyushi had bought since the late '70s (in addition to a movie studio, a seven-station TV network and two book publishing companies), many had been transformed from decent publications into lowlife tabloid half-breeds, all in the name of profit (and some weren't even profitable). These international plunderers were amazing, Danny thought. Buy something, change it until it's unrecognizable, and then, when nobody wants to read it any more, sell it to another plunderer. Murdoch to Bertelsmann to Kyushi and back again. But first, give a party.

He practiced party expressions in the mirror: Pleased surprise, elitist amusement, self-effacing confidence, along with the Baldwin Blank, an inadvertent facial reaction that had taken him half his life to do on purpose: a face so expressionless as to resemble a film freeze frame; a psychotherapist had once characterized it as controlled anger or shock. If there were new expressions he'd missed in the past year, he'd have to learn them.

Zampano, his 17-year-old Siamese cat, was sniffing at his surgical shoe, and he picked up the nine-pound purring load and deposited him on the bed, getting a suspicious blue-eyed glare. The cat positioned himself, like a rye bread, in the center of the blue-flowered spread, brown tail wagging furiously.

Moving to Suzy's nighttable, Danny switched on "Babette," an art-deco lamp featuring a foot-high pewter statue of a woman holding her bare breast while her blue and red stained-glass skirt was lit from within. A year and a half ago they'd found the lamp in a Paris antique shop. Mild haggling with the screechy, heavily- lipsticked proprietor had reached a crescendo when she gave her chest a nearly-fatal pounding and shouted, "Non, non! Je suis Francais!" That meant that, because she was French, her final price was $500 and they closed the deal. Danny saluted Babette, then stroked Suzy's pillow, on which she'd died almost 11 months ago.

As he drew away, he felt a tug in his lower back. Only eight days without exercise, and already he was out of shape; and it would get worse, because the orthopedist had told him to avoid working out until his foot healed. Yet there was just so much shape available to a 38-year-old body, even one that exercised regularly. He'd learned to accept a back that sometimes went out, hands that occasionally twinged (arthritis at his age?), erections that weren't as steely or as long-lasting--not that he needed them for anything. But now, just now, he realized that today, for the first time since Suzy had gotten sick, he'd woken up without cobwebs of despair covering his eyes; that a sense of dread was no longer his constant companion. He felt, in fact, on an even keel.

As he was opening the front door, the phone rang. Maybe it was Amy. He hobbled back to the kitchen.

"Good evening," said the booming Diesel voice on the other end. "This is the Paradise Ministry Phone Line calling."

"What's that?" he asked.

"Surely you've heard of us. We're not being immodest when we say we're trying to save the world," the woman said. "We're returning Suzy Baldwin's call."

He felt as though a giant, ugly hand was pressing into his windpipe. First they invaded your privacy, then they violated the dead. "Suzy...Baldwin...didn't...call...you."

The woman got belligerent. "Then how do you explain that I have her name and number?"

He breathed deeply to keep his voice from breaking. "I can't explain how you junk callers get names..."

Loudly she chanted, "Satan, I am binding you in the name of the Lord..!"

"Fuck you and Satan!" Danny slammed the phone down, feeling better, though not much. He ran his hand through his thick black hair, ruining the work the brush had done, and closed his eyes, trying to conjure up the happy memories of Suzy and shake off the ones at the end. Suzanne Joy Newman Baldwin, the best person he'd ever known, dead at 36. Two days before she died, she'd pulled him toward her and put a fleshless arm around his neck. "Sweet Danny, love of my life, I'm going to miss you so..."

Emotions he'd suppressed all those months exploded into tears. "You're half my life, Suzy. I'll never make it without you. Never...Wherever you're going, I'll come and get you."

Giggling through her tears, she said, "Invest in first class. It may take a long time to get to eternity."

She would have thought this phone call was hilarious. It occurred to him how the woman might have known Suzy's name: Her voice was still on the answering machine's outgoing tape. He'd never had the heart to remove it.

***

He hobbled down the West 72nd Street tunnel that led to the Hudson River. The doctor had said he should avoid walking, but he didn't feel like coping with a New York taxi tonight. It wasn't so much the driver's attitude, but the size of the back seat. Getting in, you banged your knees against the front seat; then you felt as though you were locked in the trunk. He decided he also needed more preparation time before limping into this party.

The river rustled softly as it drifted north, and the darkening September sky was streaked with red and orange, like a child's finger painting. Why was it familiar? Because, somewhere in a drawer was a similar work of art that Amy had done in pre- school when she was four, though the dominant colors there were purple and green, her idea of sailing ships at sunset. Amy was probably having dinner now, or in her dorm or out on a date. His baby, who'd left for Harvard 17 days ago, thinking she was an adult; telling him she'd transfer to a city school if he wanted her to, because she didn't like the idea of his being alone.

Well, he'd made it through the 17 days. The morning they said goodbye outside the house, Amy was so busy being brave and perky that she didn't notice he was doing a similar act. When the car service driver honked his horn she lost the facade. "Daddy..." She shut her eyes and began the sentence again. And again. Finally, she raced through it: "Daddy, there's no woman in this world good enough for you, but it would be okay, really, to start...dating. If you felt like it. Only if you felt like it. Ten months are long enough. Long enough, daddy. Ten months." Amy had a habit of repeating herself when she was nervous.

Maybe he'd meet a woman at this party; more precisely, a woman to whom he'd relate as a man. He flashed on Callie Mae Grant, or rather Callie Mae Grant Kyushi, Victor's wife, and wondered whether she would be at the party. Of course she would. But she probably wouldn't remember him.

They'd met six years earlier at a resort in Ft. Lauderdale on a spa press trip for the Spiegel Catalogue. He was covering for Playboy, she for Femme. His first glimpse of her was in the exercise room. She was as beautiful as Ava Gardner in “Mogambo,” which he'd just seen on TV. It was a kind of beauty that made you close your eyes and take a second look to be sure it hadn't been an illusion. She was in a red sweatsuit, but he'd felt as though he could see through to her skin. Later, he'd spotted her at the pool in a bathing suit and had had to put a towel on his lap. The tall, ivory-pink body seemed to swoop up from the ground, like a fabulous flower. Until the day he died he would remember the way her nipples seemed to move through the bathing suit fabric. It was the only time in all the years of his marriage that he wished he could have one rampaging, guiltless affair.

At lunch on that first day, he'd gotten a closer look. Besides the thick black curly hair, she had enormous yellow-green eyes and teeth that reminded him of grownup baby teeth: the two center top ones were a tantalizing bit longer than the others, and halfway across, when she smiled, he got a view of a snaggle tooth. They'd shared a table with six other editors and writers. After a while, the others drifted away.

Callie checked her watch. "I'm going to be late for nail- wrapping." Her voice was alternately sweet and husky, sometimes whispery, always taking him offguard. "What's your next activity?"

His eyes lit with feigned innocence. "Genital herbal wrap."

She smiled. "Sweet potato, the way you say it, it sounds real."

"You mean Femme hasn't done the definitive piece on it?"

A black curl fell onto her forehead and she didn't bother fixing it. "I'll suggest it, but only if you agree to be our model. What do you say, Danny? Got the guts--or the equipment?"

"How do you talk when you're not being subtle?"

"Subtlety doesn't get me good answers during my interviews, mushroom-face," she'd answered. He'd detected an occasional Southern intonation and asked about it.

In a syrupy accent, she said, "Callie Mae Grant was bo-un duht pooah in Soddy Daisy, Tennessee, just a bit no'th of Chattanooga, not fah fum the Smoky Mountains, but a long way fum Nashville an' light years fum Graceland..." She slid back into her current speech. "But, you see, I got out."

Suppressing a sigh, he'd nodded. "That's no surprise, with a puss like yours. I've never seen anybody with chartreuse eyes. Were you a Miss America?"

She twisted her lips. "Don't think I didn't win some of those local pageants. But before I could learn how to tapdance to Handel's 'Messiah', some nice agent saw a picture of me, brought me to New York and got me a modeling contract. Also a diction coach. I didn't become world-famous, but I was a very successful model for more than 11 years. Finally I decided I couldn't stand it anymore; being treated like a cut of meat, but rarely being able to eat meat because, heaven forbid, I might gain an ounce or a blemish. So I tried out for Femme--God knows, I had contacts in the fashion world--and got it. I've been there a year, and every day they're more astonished at how well I do my job. I guess when people are expecting incompetence, anything you do is a pleasant surprise. Funny, isn't it? Fashion editors work with models every day of their lives. Some have double digit IQs, but most are bright. Look at Cindy Crawford, with a multi-million dollar business. Yet as soon as the average model wants to do something that's considered cerebral, like ha-ha editorial work, she gets lumped with the others in Bimboland. 'Callie Mae Grant? The largest cavity in her body is her head'."

He had an irresistible urge to lick her arm. "Why do women on magazines use three names? Wouldn't Callie Grant be easier than Callie Mae Grant?"

"Pish and tosh to you, collard-nose. Say Callie Grant a few times. Sounds like a Chinese waiter trying to say Cary Grant."

He laughed so hard he didn't realize he'd stuck his hand into his coffee. "Do you think your parents thought of that when they named you?"

"Hardly. My real last name was Grunt. Now ask me why I changed it, I dare you, mango-face."

"Callie, in the past hour you've called me all kinds of produce. Why do you do that?"

She widened the chartreuse eyes. "That's the way my momma talks. She got it from her momma. It goes back generations. They tell me one of my ancestors got it from a slave--among other things."

It was odd, he thought, that in all the years since, they'd never run into each other. And now she was Mrs. Kyushi. Why Kyushi had married her was obvious. Why she had married him wasn't. She could have had any billionaire.

***

Callie had just finished glueing the missing jet beads onto her shoe. Another pair would have done as well, but she was determined to make this work--and couldn't wait until tomorrow to call the designer, Pompey Fagiole, and ask what he thought he was foisting on the public. What a moron, she thought. His motto should be quality-out-of-control. If this was the sample sent to a fashion magazine, God knows what they were shipping to stores.

What if more beads began falling off at the party? She could always take along a surgical shoe like the one she'd seen on Danny Baldwin on TV. She wondered whether he would remember her. They'd barely known each other and it had been six years, but memories of him would drift by now and again.

She'd been at Femme for only a year, though she'd known most of the other women on the press trip from previous functions; people from Vogue and Harper's, New Woman, Glamour and Cosmo. Mostly women, but a handful of men. The first time she'd seen Danny was just after the group of 40 editors and writers had finished an aerobics session, all wearing designer sweats, courtesy of Spiegel. They were leaving the gym and she spotted him, in shorts, from behind. What a behind, she'd thought, not to mention the proverbial legs that wouldn't quit--so long and straight and perfect. Toned, but not muscle-bound, smooth and hairless. The rest of this person had to be wimpish, with acne and crossed eyes. Quickening her step to catch up, she glanced, surreptitiously, she thought. He turned full face and she saw this explosion of thick, straight black hair and smiling, almond-shaped eyes, black as onyx, with heavy lashes. Next, the kissy-kissy red lips, almost too full, and the straight, perfect nose. His pale skin looked as though it had never had a pore. When you're this gorgeous, you're either gay, married or Italian, she'd thought, glancing toward his left hand. Married.

At lunch following, they'd shared a table with several others, where she'd learned that he was 32 and had kicked around journalism for about 10 years. More significant was the fact that he'd been married--happily--for 12 years. He had a quick smile and a curious blank stare that seemed to appear without warning. Funny, how much she still remembered about him.

Over the next three days they'd talked spasmodically. She noticed that, while her questions were often startling, his answers were more so. She'd never met anybody so straight: he called everything the way he saw it. ("I went into the business of journalism because I wanted to get a little below the surface of things. You can never really get to the bottom, but partway in is a victory. I was also sick of reading blather that might just was well have been written by somebody's mother.") When Dr. Joyce Brothers was flown in to lecture the group on the psychology of buying from catalogues, and was using one of her familiar phrases, "Recent studies have shown...." he whispered, "Recent studies have shown that you can order a psychologist from the Spiegel catalogue. It costs just a little less than a Braun cappucino maker."

When she could force her attention away from his extraordinary looks--all the other women were calling him "Mr. Gorgeous" behind his back--she noticed something else: He seemed never at a loss for words, yet now and again a certain shyness or awkwardness took over, replacing the cosmopolitan New Yorker with a scruffy street kid, unsure of himself and uncomfortable coming through front doors. His voice ran the same gamut: deep and smooth, soothing and sensual, but sometimes almost cracking when he was excited.

One night after dinner, she addressed the table of eight editors and writers. "I'm thinking of writing a piece about what people consider the single most enjoyable element of sex. Why don't we try it out now?" Everybody stared at her. "OK, I'll start." She cleared her throat. "For me, it's the millisecond just before the two of us are joined, when I can feel the heat and the vague insecurity that the whole thing may suddenly be cancelled."

The woman from Vogue said, "Coitus Uncertainus!"

Callie laughed. "Danny, how about you?"

He nodded soberly. "The cigarette afterward."

Giggles around the table.

"But you don't smoke," said the woman from New Woman.

"It's an imaginary cigarette. Think of the eroticism of the unattainable nicotine." He shook his head and smiled. "I'm vamping. The single most enjoyable thing...is that I made it to the finish without embarassing myself." Again he shook his head. "I'm still vamping." His pale skin reddened. "What I'm really fumbling around to say is that, despite all the candor of the last few decades, I find sex so personal that I can't discuss it...Sorry."

In the silence that followed, Callie glanced around the table. Every woman seemed to have fallen in love with Danny.

The reporter from Self tapped his arm. "Hey, almond-eyes, some of us have been running a pool in the last few days. You wear a wedding ring and you don't really come on to any of us, but you project an ...availability. So what we want to know is: Do you fool around?"

"I wouldn't know how...Availability? Me?"

All the women nodded.

Callie knew a link had formed between them, but nothing would come of it because neither would push hard enough. Every time she seemed inclined, he'd tell her a story about his wife, Suzy.

Next day, they were seatmates on the plane, playing word games for the whole trip and, after the landing at LaGuardia, hugged and said they'd be in touch. They hadn't seen each other in the six years since.

She pulled down the hem of the black Donatella Versace dress, as though that would stretch it. At 36, she figured, her thighs still had another good year. But maybe she'd lengthen a few of the other hemlines. There was a certain desperation about dressing like a 15-year-old, even though it amused Victor. Sweet, thoughtful Victor.

She looked out of her 16th floor bedroom window at the Central Park zoo. In the three years she'd lived here she'd often watched children trailing in and out with parents. It was almost too late for her to be a parent. Victor didn't want children and she'd felt no overriding need. But now and again, when she looked down at the twittering kids walking into the zoo, she knew she'd missed out on something wonderful.

Yet if some of those fulfilled mothers down below had ever gotten a glimpse of the way she lived, they might make a quick trade. When Victor was home, there were always dinner parties here, attended by the elite of the world, who, it was said, would walk barefoot on broken glass for an invitation. And Callie never had to do anything but approve the menu and get dressed. Then there were the endless parties, dinners and banquets, many boring, but some lots of fun. And the Kyushi home: five live-in help, twenty six rooms on four floors, filled with canvasses that were the envy of most museums, and decorated in the best historical periods that Tarina Racinda, one of society's most in-demand decorators, could find at auction houses around the world: English, Italian and Spanish Renaissance, French Regence, an occasional piece of Native American art. Most of the decorating had taken place before she and Victor had married, though she'd been given carte blanche to change or discard anything--except the small Van Gogh self-portrait over the bed. Because it was all inoffensive enough and decorating was not among her interests, she let Tarina finish the job, supervised by Miko Matthews, Victor's personal assistant.

But one area was her private territory: the front half of the apartment's fourth floor, which Victor had named "CallieLand": office, sitting room, bedroom, two baths and kitchen-dining room, from which, through a dumbwaiter, she could get food from the main kitchen. She could seal the suite off from the rest of the apartment if she chose, and it was accessible from the exterior elevator only by her personal code punch. The back of the 18th floor was given over to staff quarters and storage rooms. Often, when Victor was out of town and she was close to deadline on an issue, she slept there, because she always felt more at home. Sometimes, after hours or on weekends, she'd use it for business meetings.

The Callie Suite was decorated in what she called "White Trash Nouveau Antebellum"--huge, dark, massive cabinets and tables, set off by large couches and chairs with heavy floral upholstery. Her desk was a copy of the one Scarlett had used in the sawmill scenes of Gone With the Wind and the curtains were green velvet, duplicates of those Scarlett had made into a dress. In front of the window was an authentic Confederate Army telescope. Miko Matthews, usually the essence of tact, had bitten away smiles when Callie had told her this decor was what pleased her.

Though Callie knew she'd been changed, maybe a tad spoiled, by years of success as a model and magazine editor, by exposure to money and privilege, she'd managed--at least privately--to stay un- self important and never took for granted what she had. One day, when Tarina Racinda had shown her a picture of a dark breakfront from the Louisiana Delta, with the comment, "Sixteen poor families could live inside this." Callie had said, "Don't snicker. I might have been one of those poor families."

Tarina, who'd spent a lifetime dropping the names of the society people whose homes she'd decorated, and suffered from delusions of other peoples' grandeur, had laughed patronizingly behind her spotted hand. Callie, in a rare temper outburst, had told her that she had a choice: either respect Callie's taste in furniture and never again laugh at her, or not bother returning to the Kyushi residence. Tarina managed to repress her airs of displaced royalty and apologized. Even though, to hear her tell it, the rich of New York were taking numbers to wait for her services, losing a client like Victor Kyushi would get around town fast enough to push her onto life's second rung, a fate too unbearable to contemplate.

Callie left the bedroom and took the stairs up two flights to CallieLand. In the sitting room, she opened the giant pre-Civil War armoire, which contained a TV, piles of old magazines and an assortment of office supplies. She twisted one of the tiny decorative knobs framing the inside of the thick door and a panel slid open, revealing racks and drawers filled with the impressive jewel collection Victor had bought her. Sweet Victor. Studying the diamond bracelets and large stud earrings, the pearls and emeralds, she giggled. "As God is my witness, I'll never be hungry again."

***

Lolling on the beige doeskin couch in his office on the 44th floor of the Madison Avenue building he owned, Victor Kyushi hummed along with “Stranger In Paradise,” coming from his desk speaker, as he reminisced about his days in Oxford. From the first day, he'd graciously accepted the sly mockery and patronizing of his fellow students, and privately vowed he would outstrip the achievements of all of them. Considering the contemptible provincialism of those self-styled London sophisticates, it was almost too easy. While the prim little wankers spent their sweaty nights tossing off to skin magazines, he always had a variety of willing women, though he never bothered mentioning this. It was only important that he knew. He also never explained the complicated and delightful ways in which he'd gotten certain tips on horseracing and stocks, or just how wealthy he'd become during his last two years of school.

On graduation day, he overheard one of his classmates saying that Victor Kyushi would probably have a big future in kimono manufacturing. Within one year he'd earned two million pounds, a fact that he made sure was well publicized. Then the supplicating began: "Renewing old school ties, y'know," followed by subtle employment feelers, offers of investment opportunities, attempts to renew social relationships, as though any had existed. He'd brushed them aside. After all, he was Victor Kyushi, who could better spend his time with heads of state. Ironically, at last count, seven members of the class of 1972--including the kimono wisecracker--were happy to be employed by one or another of Victor's companies in mid-level jobs, from which their shortcomings would never let them rise. Revenge was a bottomless jar of sweets.

Now singing along with “Baubles, Bangles and Beads,” he moved his outspread legs rhythmically, quickening the pace. He was looking forward to tonight's party, to see which captains of commerce would be willing to do anything to court favor with him, which expensive women would gladly slip away from their husbands to grab an hour with Victor Kyushi, how many of them would gladly leave those husbands to become the next Mrs. Victor Kyushi, even though he would never leave his wonderful Callie. This was truly his world and there was no pleasure that would ever be denied him.

Miko Matthews, his good right arm, his mainstay for the past 21 years, was, even now, in front of him, completing her daily ritual. His legs opening and closing like scissor blades, he finally permitted himself a long sigh, stopping short of a gasp, as he patted the top of her head affectionately. She pulled back, stood up and made the Japanese gesture of thank you, then drifted into the bathing chamber to draw his bath. Victor followed her in, inspecting his naked body in the mirror. He'd worked, he'd trained to keep this body virile, but Buddha had been very generous. Moving into the scrubbing area with a CD of “Carousel,” he slipped it into the player in the wall and sat on a stool as Miko applied the soapy brush to his back. Yes, this was his world, much more than the public ever imagined.


CHAPTER 2

From a block away, Danny could see the twinkling lights strung around the rail of the yacht's main deck and across its masts, a sight he could have seen from his living room window if he'd thought of it. He had actually been aboard seven years ago, to do a story for Cash/Business--just before Kyushi had bought the ship and the magazine. The title had been: "14 Voyages In 25 Years For $40 Million Luxury Ship." The 3,500 ton S.S. Princess Nara was 300 feet long, with six decks, 35 luxury cabins, five lounges, two dining rooms, a swimming pool, beauty salon and a crew of 105. It had been built in 1968 for a Greek cruise line that went under before it ever sailed. The Corinth Sky was then bought at auction by a Swiss speculator, who held it for seven years, finally selling the S.S. Grimsel to an Italian financier. In 1994, when the latter went to prison, his family sold the S.S. Isola Bella to Victor Kyushi's holding company. Since then, the Princess Nara had made 17 voyages, with many of the original Greek crew still on board. In 1997, during a Mediterranean cruise, on which Kyushi hadn't been present, a passenger, Prince Friederich von and zu Hohenlatter, had vanished. Speculation about suicide or murder lingered, especially in the tabloid press, but it never caught the public's fancy; nobody seemed too concerned about missing old Eurotrash.

A mob of papparazzi stood near the gangway and several shot Danny's picture, one shouting, "That's the guy with the foot!"

Eight crew members in silver uniforms smiled at him as he boarded the silver and black ship, festooned with the Kyushi flag, a silver "K" on a black background. An officer handed him champagne in fluted crystal, and a crewman, whose name tag read "Dionysis," escorted him to the main lounge, where a band played “Fly Me To the Moon.”

Danny was amused by the change in decor. He'd remembered this lounge as an attractive room with elegant blue and white furniture and carpets. Now, thanks to Tarina Racinda, decorator to the rich, it looked like a ranch in New Mexico, with dried cattle bone artifacts and paintings featuring sleeping men with sombreros over their faces. The room was already half full, and Danny spotted Liz Smith, Cindy Adams, a covy of gossip reporters he semi-recognized from People, the New York Post's "Page Six," and an assortment of print reporters and magazine editors for whom he'd written. Also a smattering of local TV anchors and several famous tycoons, some just recently paroled. Mingling among them were men in black suits with silver ties. Those were the Kyushi executives, wearing the company colors.

Threatening to swell the room's boundaries were a few centers of the universe: people talking loudly enough to give a wide audience the benefit of their wit or spheres of influence, some even shouting their own names, as in, "So when he walked into the room he stared at me and said, 'Ray Smart! What are you doing here?'" Others, across the room from each other, instead of coming together, carried on screaming conversations, punctuated by outbursts of forced laughter and the almost constant ringing of cell phones.

As he drifted through the lounge he heard bits of commentary about Victor Kyushi. ("The reason he's not tied in with the Mafia is that the Mafia is afraid of him..." "He could eat Trump as an hors doevre..." "Most yachts are used for assignations. This one is used for assassinations. Do you think the ghost of Prince Hohenlatter is among us?"..."I hear Kyushi bought the Taj Mahal to use as storage for his paintings.")

He spotted Ozzie Perkins, editor of That's Entertainment. Perkins, a medium height, muscular man with hounds-tooth hair and round, deceptively ingenuous grey eyes, waved, inviting him over. On his way, Danny was greeted by people who looked at his surgical shoe and called out such greetings as "Hi, Long John Silver," "If it isn't Peg Leg Bates" and "Captain Hook lives!" One man got creative with, "What is that--resortwear for cripples?"

Ozzie wore a dark blue suit self-consciously, explaining that he was a sweater man, but what the hell, this was a party. One more time he complimented Danny on the two pieces he'd written for the magazine, saying they'd probably run in December issues, then said the magazine would like him to go to France to do an on-set story about a movie being filmed there.

Danny tried to suppress his excitement. "It sounds great--as long as it's after October 26. That's the day the doctor takes off the cast."

"It's early November to end of December. Your choice. How's your foot holding up?"

"Better than the jokes about it."

"Hell, don't complain. You're famous."

Danny sighed. "I can't wait to be anonymous again. Fame is only fun on a short term basis. Look, I've written enough about it to know how narcotic it is. Fame alters your mind. Just today, a shoe salesman gave me attitude until he found out 'who' I was, then became Mr. Charm. And I enjoyed his embarassment and hated myself for it. Fame unbalances the natural order of things. If the salesman is a little dick, let him stay one. I don't want him doing a reversal because I'm temporarily in the news."

"You ought to consider writing a piece about it."

"I think every piece I've ever written has that element."

Ozzie smiled. "But none has it as the main subject. An essay. Think about it: fame oozing into your life like some primordial slime, finally taking it over...Were you always a free-lance writer?"

Danny shook his head. "I was a writer for 'Eyewitness News' for four years, hoping I might someday become a correspondent on '60 Minutes'. But that never happened and I got sick of watching the buffy-giggly faces making all that money for reading my copy as though they'd made it up. So I went to work for Newsday's New York bureau for a couple of years. It was fun, but no exercise in journalistic excitement. Five years ago I decided to go free-lance. But show business stories aren't all I do. I've written political and consumer pieces, too. They can be just as dramatic." Why was he getting the feeling this was a job interview?

"Did you go to school in the New York area?"

Danny nodded. "B.A., Princeton. M.S., Columbia Journalism. Thirty eight, 6 foot one, 170ish. Widower, one daughter, age 17, freshman at Harvard. Resident of Manhattan's west side. HIV negative. Hobbies include tossing powdered eggs on women who wear imitation fur."

Ozzie shivered with laughter, and Danny knew he was on a roll. "Something else you should know, Ozzie, and I'm not joking about this: I used to stutter badly, but only on the letter 'f'. On rare occasions I still do. Do you want to know what cured me? Not four years of analysis, but one month in group therapy. And it's thanks to another patient. She decided that the reason for my stutter was that I had a lifelong fear of saying 'fuck,' which was obviously a manifestation of a fear of intimacy. She continued her analysis by asking me whether I did the bodily equivalent of stuttering when I was having sex. I told her, 'Only during f-f-f- fellatio. I think it was the surprised look on her face that cured me--as much as I am cured. That and four years of karate. I was sliding toward a green belt a year ago when I decided to quit. I'd become too peaceful and controlled--at an inappropriate time. I'm beginning to think I need another shot of it."

Ozzie gently punched Danny's arm. "Have you ever thought of writing a column?"

"About what?"

"Show business, with your off-center approach."

Danny shook his head. "I'm not cut out to be a columnist. You have a couple of very capable ones right in this floating slave market."

"There!" Ozzie said. "'Floating slave market'. It was a throwaway. Think of what you could do every week."

Danny frowned. "I'm not temperamentally suited to it....'Dot, dot, dot, Tom Cruise is talking of reentering a monastery, though pals suspect it's merely to research his role in the biblical buddy movie, ‘The Jesus Caper’ ... Designer /perfumer/ author/famous divorcee Ivana Trump, still bitter, after all these years, that she lost the National Book Award for her ghosted novel, says she's the leading candidate for Mary Magdalene if she can get out of her Mother Teresa contract...Demi Moore--who used to be an actress--is having her breast enhancement reduced and will henceforth be known as Demi Tasse'...The largest memorial service in the history of Los Angeles was held yesterday for all the anchors and reporters on 'Entertainment Tonight', who laughed themselves to death... I can't take any of this seriously. How could I write a column?"

Ozzie punched his arm playfully. "I watched a tape of the Letterman interview you did about your broken foot. Six staff members watched, too. We were on the floor laughing. That's how you could write a column. Not to mention that I've read and enjoyed your stories for years."

Danny ran his teeth over his lower lip. "The Letterman thing was a fluke. I'm really uncomfortable--read terrified--of talking in public, but I figured since I'd once interviewed Letterman for the Times Magazine, the least I could do was reciprocate. I was actually surprised that I came off at all. I did stutter a couple of times, though--at 'foot fetish' and 'fornicate.' It's not an experience I'd like to repeat."

Ozzie barreled ahead. "A column would pay very well. I mean real bucks for no more than 750 words a week."

Danny sighed. "Thanks, Ozzie, but I can't. Just can't...How well?"

Ozzie pursed his lips knowingly. "How does 208 k's a year sound for just a little bit of brilliant writing every week?"

"Sounds spectacular, but I'm the wrong man."

Ozzie waved him off. "For Christ sakes, Danny. Think about it. Take a few days. Ask more questions. It doesn't have to be your standard gossip column. It could be anything you want to make it. Face it, even though most intellectuals--whoever the hell they are--frown on it, everything is gossip and everybody gossips. As long as people are alive, they'll be buzzing and dishing each other….Hey, we could call the column ‘Sizzle’. Does that appeal to you?"

Danny felt like shielding his eyes. He didn't want to think about this offer tonight. But how could he not? Ozzie was saying something, motionioning toward the entrance. "Here comes somebody you'll want to meet."

Heading toward them, nodding at Ozzie, was a tall, stooped man in a black pin-striped suit, with yellowed white hair, bright blue eyes and a deeply lined hot pink complexion. Late fifties, early sixties. As he came closer, Danny recognized him: Patrick Ennis, president of Kyushi Magazines, known around the business as the Smiling Scorpion of Eire.

Ozzie shook Ennis's hand and introduced him to Danny, adding, "This is one of the town's best writers. Danny's done two stories for us, and we hope he'll do a lot more." Obviously Ozzie had to be nice to this man. The day Kyushi bought That's Entertainment, Ennis became Ozzie's boss.

Ennis clasped Danny's left hand with both of his, the man's fingers feeling long and rubbery, like the Frankenstein hands you bought in novelty shops. Exhaling tobacco and whiskey breath, he said, in a liquid Irish accent, "I've read your pieces and thought they were super."

"Which pieces?" Danny asked.

Ennis raised his bushy eyebrows. "The ones you did for That's Entertainment."

"But they haven't been published yet," Danny said.

"The day after Victor made the deal, I began reading all the issues for the past four years, then asked for the inventory of unpublished stories and went through them. I'd be remiss in my job as president of Kyushi Magazines if I hadn't, lad. You're a hell of a writer." He turned to Ozzie. "I'm glad you'll be using Danny a lot." He studied Danny. "Baldwin...Irish background?"

Danny nodded. "My paternal grandfather was Seamus, my father is Sean, both of County Cork."

"And the females? County Mayo, I bet."

Danny shook his head. "My paternal grandmother was Isabella Mertrana of Palermo, and on my mother's side it's three generations of New Yorkers; and, before that, parts of eastern Europe."

Ennis smiled and patted Danny's arm. "Well, half an Irishman is better than none, I always say. But you seem to have inherited the classic black Irish eyes and hair--only a touch more handsome. You could be a movie star in the wink of an eye."

Ennis, he decided, was the sort of man who fed you such an unmitigated barrage of blarney that you didn't notice he was removing your appendix. "And where are your people from? Don't tell me, I'll guess: Ennis."

"Right on, lad. Not bad to have a city named after you--or vice-versa."

A man in a black suit and silver tie tapped Ennis' shoulder, saying he wanted to introduce him to some people. Ennis extended the rubbery fingers again.

Ozzie stared after him, then said, "Have you ever met Kyushi?"

"No. Have you?"

"He's a real personality boy. Brilliant, memorizes peoples' names and backgrounds, seems genuinely focussed on what you're saying and, while you're talking non-stop, he's quietly cutting your nuts off."

"Not unlike his staff leprechaun."

"But Kyushi is a different kettle of sushi. He's a very classy guy."

Danny cleared his throat exaggeratedly. "Classy? You mean he wears expensive clothes and stays in posh hotels? Owns planes and helicopters and yachts and Madison Avenue office buildings and houses everywhere? Recognizes fine wines? Gives lavish parties? That doesn't spell class to me. It only spells money. If he's that classy, why has he plundered so many respectable newspapers and magazines and turned them into toilet paper?"

Ozzie smiled. "Business. Pure and simple. I'm told that the ones that were really high-level to begin with haven't been touched. It's the middle area publication that gets downgraded to appeal to a larger readership. He left Femme alone because it's a superior book."

Danny smirked. "A few years ago I was doing a story for Cash/Business--just before Kyushi bought the magazine--about the art collections of international moneymen, and I had to contact an English reporter. We became friendly and I discovered he had quite a dossier on Kyushi. 'Unsavory' was a word that came up a lot. It's amazing that when people become rich, their reputations manage to get laundered along with their money. Oh, I know about all his aping of the other tycoons, the obligatory donations of art works to museums, the Kyushi Sculpture Gardens in Hawaii, the Kyushi Child Abuse Center in Japan, where there's no child abuse, and all the other smokescreens that bigtime white collar criminals do to cover their sins. The only truly classy thing Kyushi ever did, that I'm aware of, was to marry Callie Grant."

Ozzie's eyes got mischievous. "Well, as they used to says about Ari and Jackie O, I guess he gets the best that money can buy."

That wasn't fair to Callie, but Danny wasn't about to start an argument. Actually, how much did he know about Callie?

Young blond waiters cruised the lounge, offering heaped trays of caviar and smoked salmon. For Victor Kyushi the money obviously never ran out. Danny had once read that if Kyushi saw a thousand dollar bill on the sidewalk it wouldn't be worth his time to pick it up.

Ozzie grabbed a glass of champagne from a passing tray. "Whatever you think of Kyushi, he may be the only tycoon alive who can sing the scores of every musical in the history of Broadway."

Danny frowned. "Is he out to get the gay vote?"

The lounge was filling up. Danny nodded at the Israeli advertising wiz, Saul Golli, a recent interview subject, whose Zum Golli Agency was among this year's hottest. Glancing around, he saw a couple of CEOs, Mike Wallace, and former Mayor Koch. Also Ralph Lauren, Calvin Klein, Donna Karan, an array of fashion editors and several free-lance writers he knew. Kyushi was the leading topic. At least half the people here probably wanted him dead, but wouldn't miss one of his parties for anything.

Every now and again a shriek of laughter would hit the room like shrapnel and taper off to an extended wheeze. It was coming from a deeply tanned, wizened little man with a shiny bald head, grey van dyke beard and a monocle. Danny had seen him at other parties, but had never figured out who he was.

Ozzie said, "That's Smeggy Petrovitch. You've seen his name in the columns. Society press agent, party planner, walker to the social set, intimate of visiting royalty, mostly pseudo."

Danny noticed Petrovitch had raised his monocle in the air, making a circle and dotting the center. "Where'd he get that first name?"

Ozzie cleared his throat exaggeratedly, his eyes smiling. "He's Russian. Says that Smeggy is a nickname for Smerdyakov. His mother, he claims, named him after a character in 'The Brothers Karamazov', because her mother had had an affair with Dostoyevsky in Moscow and there was some speculation that his mother was really Dostoyevsky's daughter."

Danny looked toward the ceiling. "God, strike me dead with an icon...Of all the characters in the book, his mother names him after the illegitimate brother who had epilepsy and was weird, besides."

Ozzie nodded, smiling. "As you stand here, you're writing columns in the air. You're throwing them away. I'm willing to pay you for them. Do you see how easy it can be?...Actually, word on the street is that Smeggy is short for Smegma. That seems more appropriate, doesn't it?"

Smeggy was now sharing his hysterical laughter with a wraithlike fiftiesh woman in a silver dress, her long white hair falling past her shoulders.

Ozzie answered Danny's unspoken question. "She's Smeggy's associate. Are you ready for this? She calls herself Garbo."

"What's her first name--Yetta?"

Ozzie shook his head. "She has no first name, or at least that's what Smeggy tells everyone. She's just Garbo."

Smeggy's high, Russian-accented voice carried across the lounge: "You know how discreet I am. I won't mention names, but her initials are Stephanie Le Bevre--those who know her pronounce it beaver. Well, Stephanie is 85 if she's a day, but she's taken up with her one millionth gay lover. You know who? Super chorus boy, Monty Brown--so aptly named--and Stephie has bought him a penis implant so he can peform sexually with her. One of those pump-me-up things. And she narrowly beat out two other dinosaurs on line for Monty: Gozzie Swillerton and Trichette Salonga."

Somebody said, "Salonga? Isn't she dead?"

Smeggy raised his monocle again. "Death is no excuse for celibacy." It came out as: "Dath eez no oxkyuze forrr tsalibahsee."

His audience was enraptured, though their laughter was upstaged several feet away by a giggle coming from a small blonde woman, very pretty, in an expensive tight black suit. She was playfully slapping her escort's chest. When he turned around, Danny noticed it was Helmut Gruenwald, a tycoon whose business conquests were almost as impressive as Kyushi's. The two men were billed as friends, but often went head to head on a deal. Danny had once interviewed Gruenwald and found him intriguing. For starters, he looked like a tennis star: not quite 40, very tall and muscular, with spiky blond hair and blue eyes. And, though he had a wife and three children in Geneva, he spent most of his time in New York, where he was a popular social figure (often called "Humpy Helmut" and "Grabass Gruenwald"). His official bio said he was from Bavaria ("Not Germany. Bavaria," he'd said. "We just happen to be on the same map as Germany, but have nothing to do with our Bosch cousins."). Conversely, he'd admitted that his first name was Michael; he'd used his middle name because Helmut was teutonic enough to arouse fear in business opponents. Like most men on his level of conquest, the fun was in the game of besting your opponent, whether it be the location of a restaurant table or sleeping with a woman the other one wanted.

"The woman with Gruenwald--where do I know her from?" Danny asked.

"Probably the columns. She dates a lot." He laughed.

"You mean a woman who sells her favors?"

Ozzie smirked. "On the contrary, Cheryl Marlin wouldn't accept money for doing what she loves. In the no-sex millennium, sophisticated men are fascinated by a woman who just enjoys sex. Every other woman wants to know your stance on pro-choice and global warming. Not bad things to want to know, but Cheryl doesn't care--or if she does, keeps it to herself. All she wants is something to keep her warm on a cold night. She has only one requirement: You have to be famous. It doesn't matter what field."

"What's her day job?"

"Sells real estate. And is very successful."

"How do you know all this?"

"Gossip. As I was telling you. Everybody knows--or speculates --about everybody else. People are so busy dishing, I sometimes wonder how anything gets done."

Smeggy, his voice louder than before, released his next bon mot: "She's wearing her heart on her sleeve. That's because she's had so many lifts and tucks, there's no room for it in her chest." His shriek/wheeze laugh followed.

Ozzie said he felt he should circulate, since the party was for his magazine, but that he'd catch up later, reminding him to “consider that column idea. Think ‘Sizzle’…I’m beginning to love the sound of it.” Sipping champagne, Danny honed in on several conversations. One group seemed obsessed with the word "power," as in "I had a power breakfast...a power lunch...a power brunch...a power cocktail...a power love tryst," culminating in "a power limo ride to the airport." Danny wondered whether they knew that the best power hot dog was at Gray's Papaya on 72nd and Broadway.

The lounge was now jammed and he wondered whether Kyushi was going to show up. More importantly, whether Callie would be with him.

Suddenly the band stopped in the middle of a number and switched to “Hail to the Chief.” Somebody said, loudly, "Give me a break!" The crowd parted as Victor Kyushi walked into the room. Lean, very tall, expensively tailored, and wearing glasses whose frames must have cost $800, he smiled as though he owned the world but didn't want people to think he was impressed by that fact. He moved gracefully through the crowd, shaking hands and accepting compliments.

Danny assumed Callie had stayed home, but suddenly she appeared in the doorway, and conversation in the area became fragmented. In a black dress and simple hair style, she looked as he'd remembered: ravishing. From 20 feet away, their eyes met and she smiled. Like Victor, she made her way through the crowd effortlessly, exchanging a few words with everyone in her path. Finally she reached him. She was taller than he'd remembered, but that was the least of it. Gone were any concerns that six years might have distorted the beautiful face. Every feature seemed lusher, more clearly defined. He tried to keep his body under control as the mesmerizing chartreuse eyes studied him. She smiled, revealing the grownup baby teeth, and he was happy to see she still had the snaggle tooth, as though to highlight the perfection of everything else. Laying her hands on his shoulders, she rubbed her smooth cheek against his. She smelled of gardenias.

"You look great, Danny; still handsome to die for. And you don't have to tell me what you've been doing. I see your byline all over the place." She was the same Callie, but subtly different. It wasn't the kind of physical change caused by plastic surgery. More an attitude change, a certain aloofness; as though she wasn't entirely in this room.

He nodded. "And what's it like being editor and oracle?"

She raised an eyebrow. "All I have to do when I get up every morning is think of what the fashion trends will be in a year, what hemlines and necklines will do, which era will have a resurgence, and what hot boxoffice star we can get for a photo session that Vogue hasn't already grabbed up. I also need to nursemaid my good editors and direct the not-so-good ones. And, on a daily basis, I have to dodge the snipers who insist I got where I am by sleeping with the boss."

He raised his glass. "Callie Mae, since we haven't seen each other in years, I never had the chance to wish you luck on your marriage. I hope you'll always be happy."

She studied him. "I'd just like to be as happily married as you are. From six years ago I still remember how every woman at that spa wanted to jump your bones..." She smiled. "Myself included. But you stood fast. You loved your wife...I remember thinking I hope someday a man loves me that much."

"Does your husband love you that much? He'd be an idiot not to."

"You'd best ask Victor. The point I'm making is that your wife should kiss the ground every day, because what you have with her is almost unnatural...a schoolboy crush that never ended."

His face took on that blank expression she'd remembered. "My wife died last October."

She stroked his cheek. "Oh, Danny, I'm so sorry, so sorry. Here I'm running off at the mouth. Oh, God, how awful. Tell me."

He gave her abbreviated details of Suzy's illness, because getting specific would have made him cry. Kissing his cheek, she said, "You're too nice to have suffered like that."

He frowned. "Suffering sounds like such a noble concept. But when you're doing it, it becomes commonplace, like juice in the morning. You cover yourself with it when you go to bed. You get used to the fact that the smells of medicine and decay are synonymous with the person you love most. And you pray, wearily, that it'll, somehow, miraculously, go away. But whatever sorrow and loss and insecurity I've been through is meaningless compared to the pain Suzy suffered. Pain is not ennobling. It's evil. And anybody who says death is dignified should watch it. Life is dignified. Death is bullshit." He shook his head. "Sorry, Callie, I didn't intend to make a speech."

She studied his face, remembering her first view of those black almond eyes and that perfect nose. I'd just like to kiss you once on those incredible lips, but not in this lifetime. "Danny, sugar, I don't want us to go another six years without seeing each other." The Callie he'd once known was finally here.

"How do you do that?" he asked.

"What?"

"Flip in and out of your Callie skin. One minute you're the real Callie and the next you're a line-for-line copy."

She punched his arm lightly. "Leave it to you to notice. I do it without realizing...You know, when you're young and ambitious you talk about getting rich and famous, and the next thing you say is that money and fame aren't gonna change you. But they do--in subtle ways. Three years ago I married one of the most successful men in the world and became editor of an important magazine. And, without really noticing it, I grew a shell--the public Callie, who's a lot like the real one, but not quite; let's say a variation. In public I'm cool, cheerful, impeccable, because Callie Mae Grant and Callie Mae Kyushi are always under public scrutiny, and everybody is waiting for you to crack. It hasn't been too easy, and I've grown suspicious of a lot of people and their motives, but.." She sighed. "It comes with the territory..I promise that anytime I'm with you I'll be Callie Mae Grunt." She glanced at his thatch of straight black hair that seemed to grow in several directions. One sprig stood out horizontally and she tucked it behind his ear. "You have to meet Victor as soon as I can detach him from all the pilot fish in the room."

"I'm looking forward to meeting a man with the guts to have the band play 'Hail To the Chief' when he walks into a room."

Callie frowned. "Victor was very upset about that. It wasn't his idea. Let me go find him." As she hugged him, a tiny dimple appeared to the left of her chin and he wished he could run his tongue over it.

Without warning, Kyushi was in front of them, noting the hug. He was more formidable than he'd seemed across the room, like an expensively dressed black belt. When Callie introduced them, he bowed his head, and Danny heard his voice for the first time: deep, reassuring, impeccably British, like an announcer for 'Masterpiece Theatre'. His dark eyes seemed to zoom in on Danny's face. Smiling generously, he said he was familiar with Danny's work in magazines, especially the pieces he'd done on financial figures. He slid his arm possessively around Callie's shoulders, saying, "I hope you'll be writing for That's Entertainment."

Danny told him he'd done two pieces, and Kyushi said, "I once got a fortune cookie that said, 'Your wishes will be retroactive.' I thought it was the funniest message I'd ever read. And now look, here it's come true."

Tycoon slick talk, but Kyushi made it work. He was a smooth conversationalist: Asked Danny who he thought were the real celebrities ("Anybody who has a record high on the charts, is in the Nielsen top ten, has a heavy grossing movie or is being married to, sleeping with, or who has killed one of those people"); who were the unsung celebrities ("Public servants not on the take"); the most overrated ("Tennis players") and how he felt about international tycoons buying up everything ("Resentful. Sorry Mr. Kyushi").

Victor laughed. "I feel like Diogenes. One doesn't often find an honest man." He responded to the tapping of an acolyte. "Danny, I'm afraid I have to circulate, even more afraid that I have to take my wife with me."

Callie kissed Danny's cheek. "Remember, let's not let another six years go by, promise? Back atcha!"

Danny stared after her, still feeling the touch of her fingers on his hair. His eye caught several black beads dropping off her shoes, like a trail of crumbs.

END OF "SIZZLE" EXCERPT

Copyright Lawrence Eisenberg. 2006. All Rights Reserved