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Scruples Two had first defined. The catalog was a solid success, growing bigger by the month, thanks to expert management and brilliant execution. It was part of the American fashion establishment; even
Vogue
used and credited items from it, recognizing that many of their affluent readers also bought by mail order.
    Yes, everyone but she had fresh work on hand, Gigi realized clearly. Sasha, now Mrs. Josh Hillman, mother of little Nellie, was back too, after her maternity leave, busily chasing down new things to sell besides the core of Prince’s capsule collections, while Gigi was reduced to writing the obligatory copy she could do in her sleep. Now that she’d set the style, any good copywriter could be hired to continue it; they didn’t need her. No, damn it, Scruples Two had stopped being fun sometime in the past, and she hadn’t noticed until Sally Lou had brought it to her attention.
    “Gigi, I can see you’re not happy here.”
She spoke the words out loud and knew they were true. True and final.
    But, unlike the irresolvable fury with Zach, this was a dissatisfaction she could change, Gigi thought, getting up and pacing around the room. She’d never given Archie Rourke and Byron Bernheim the kind of
no
that meant absolutely positively not under any circumstances, goodbye and good luck, don’t call me and I won’t call you. She’d allowed them to keep trying to persuade her to join theiragency, enjoying their blandishments and blarney without intending to take them up on their offer. In fact, she’d given them very little serious thought. Why, when she’d considered herself tucked so snugly into her familiar job, should she hanker to leap into a new field she’d never worked in before, something highly problematic, something so unpredictable and challenging?
    “Because I’m bored—fucking bored fucking
bored!”
Gigi announced to the quiet room as she went into the kitchen to find something really fattening to eat.
    The next morning Gigi woke after a few hours of broken sleep to find that her recognitions of the evening before had crystallized into an unmistakable determination to change jobs. In the course of one night, Scruples Two had become part of the past, as beloved as ever but clearly an area in which her work was finished. Frost/Rourke/Bernheim now announced itself to her as the alluring, unscripted future. There’d never be a better time than today to make the change and get it over with, she decided as she gulped her breakfast and hurried to dress. All her work on the newest edition of the catalog was completed and last week when she’d spoken to Archie Rourke he’d been as eager as ever to entice her into the advertising business.
    Yes, she knew she was right to leave, but there was still the matter of breaking the news to Billy and Spider and Sasha. They were family members to her; she dreaded telling them.
    Why had Josie said it was tough to fire people? It was so much worse to quit, Gigi thought as she hesitated outside of Spider’s office, remembering the night she’d written the introductory copy for Scruples Two. Until that point the only things she’d written had been cards to go with gifts from her own collection of antique lingerie, cards in which she could riff as much as she liked, take any liberty, please herself without worrying about the public. She’d been so nervous before she’d read that introduction to him that when he’d liked it—no, when he’d loved it—she’d been asproud as she’d ever been in her life. Nothing would ever make her forget the flying thrill of that moment. Taking a deep breath, she opened Spider’s office door and went in.
    Spider was alone, studying a page of figures, his long, sinewy body contorted in various graceful ways, for no office chair had yet been invented that could accommodate him. As usual, he reminded Gigi of a great blond pagan who had been somehow transformed into a businessman without losing any of his free-spirited,