One Fifth Avenue (29 page)

He came quickly and felt the sleepy calm that followed the satiation of pleasure. He closed his eyes. Lola rolled over and began playing with his hair. “Philip?” she asked sweetly. “What are you doing for Thanksgiving? Do you want to come to Atlanta with me?”

“Maybe,” he said before he fell asleep.

11

T he drilling had begun again in the Rices’ apartment. Enid Merle got up from her desk in annoyance and went outside. On the terrace above was a pile of copper pipes. So the Rices still hadn’t finished the renovations on their bathrooms. Or maybe the pipes were for the aquarium Paul Rice was rumored to be installing in Mrs. Houghton’s ballroom. Enid hoped the renovation wouldn’t drive her into becoming one of those particular types of old people who, with little in their lives on which to focus, become obsessed with their neighbors. She turned on the History Channel to distract herself. The programs were a reminder of the true nature of human beings—while there were always a few who strived for greatness, most of humankind was engaged in the crude art of staying alive, reproduction, and indulgence in the baser instincts, including murder, paranoia, and war.

Her bell rang. Expecting Philip, she opened the door and found Mindy Gooch standing in the hallway. Mindy’s arms were crossed, and she wore her usual grim expression. “I need to talk to you about something,” she said.

“Come in.” Enid held open the door so Mindy could pass. Mindy’s visit 200

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was curious, Enid thought, as they hadn’t spoken since Mrs. Houghton’s funeral.

“I think we have a problem,” Mindy said.

Enid smiled. “I’ve lived in this building my entire life, dear,” she said, thinking that Mindy was referring to their lack of communication. “I was here before you moved in. And I expect to be here after you move out.

If we don’t speak for the next five years, it won’t be an issue for me.”

“I’m not talking about you,” Mindy said. “I mean the Rices. Something has to be done about them.”

“Is that so,” Enid said coldly.

“Paul Rice came by my office last week.”

“Trying to be friendly, I suppose.”

“Trying to bribe me to approve his in-the-wall air conditioners.”

“And what did you say?”

“I told him no.”

“Well, then,” Enid said. “What’s the problem?”

“This,” Mindy said. She opened her hand and held up a tiny green plastic toy soldier thrusting a bayonet.

“I don’t understand,” Enid said.

“This morning, when I opened my door to get the newspaper, I found a whole troop of them arranged on the mat.”

“And you think Paul Rice did it,” Enid said skeptically.

“I don’t think he did it. I know he did it,” Mindy said. “He told me if I didn’t approve his air conditioners, it was war. If this isn’t a sign,” she continued, shaking the little green army man in Enid’s face, “I don’t know what is.”

“You must confront him,” Enid said.

“I can’t do it alone,” Mindy said. “I need your help.”

“I don’t see how I can help you,” Enid said calmly. “Dealing with unpleasant residents is your job. After all, you are the president of the board.”

“You were the president of the board for fifteen years,” Mindy said.

“There must be something we can do. Some way to get them out.”

Enid smiled. “They’ve only just moved in.”

“Look, Enid,” Mindy said, beginning to lose patience. “We were friendly once.”

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“Yes, we were.” Enid nodded. “We were friendly for a long time.We were even friendly after you conspired to have me removed as president.”

“I thought you didn’t want the job anymore,” Mindy protested.

“I didn’t, and that’s why I forgave you. I thought, If she wants the job that much, why not let her have it?”

Mindy looked away. “What if the approval was a mistake?” she asked tentatively.

Enid sighed. “There’s nothing we can do. The only way we can force them out is if they don’t pay their maintenance. And given the circumstances, I’d say that’s highly unlikely.”

“I’m not sure I can live in the same building with this man,” Mindy said.

“Then perhaps you’ll have to move,” Enid said. She held open her door.

“So sorry I can’t help you, dear. Have a good day.”

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Lola put down the novel
Atonement
and, opening the door to the terrace, stepped out onto the icy surface in her high-heeled Chloé boots.

She peered over the edge and, still seeing no sign of Philip, went back inside. She closed the book and glared at the cover. It was a gift from Philip, although “gift” probably wasn’t the right word. “Suggestion” was more like it. He had given her the book after they’d had a disastrous dinner with one of his old friends. “This is a great book,” he’d said. “I thought you might enjoy it.”

“Thank you,” she’d said gratefully, although she knew exactly what he was up to. He was trying to educate her, and while she thought it was sweet of him, she couldn’t understand why he found it necessary. As far as she was concerned, it was Philip who needed educating. Every time she mentioned a hot new actor or some YouTube video everyone was talking about, or even when she played music for him off her iPod, he claimed never to have heard of any of it. This was frustrating, but she always refrained from criticizing him. She at least had the decency not to hurt his feelings and make him feel old.

In adopting this attitude, she’d found she could pretty much get Philip to do whatever she wanted. Today, for instance, they were going to visit the set of Schiffer Diamond’s new TV show. Everyone was talking about 202

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the show, and knowing Philip was, as he put it, “old friends” with Schiffer, Lola had wondered why he hadn’t gone to see her. Philip seemed to wonder, too, and, with her urging, went down to her apartment and left her a note. One evening, Schiffer called, and Philip went into his office and talked to her on the phone for an hour with his door closed while Lola waited impatiently outside. When he came out, he said he was going to see Schiffer on the set, but Lola shouldn’t bother coming with him, as it would be dull and she would be bored. This after it was her idea to go in the first place! Then she’d given him a foot massage and, while she was rubbing his feet, pointed out that a set visit would be good for her education. As his researcher and girlfriend, naturally, she wanted to understand everything about his work. “You know what I do,” he’d protested, but only mildly. “I sit at a computer all day.”

“That’s not true,” she said. “You’re going to Los Angeles for two weeks in January. And I’ll probably come out for a week. I’ll have to go to the set with you then—you can’t expect me to sit in a hotel room all day.”

“I thought we discussed L.A.,” he said, tensing his foot. “It’s going to be a nightmare. The first two weeks of production always are. I’ll be working sixteen-hour days. It won’t be fun for you at all.”

“You mean I won’t see you for two weeks?” she’d exclaimed. He must have felt guilty, because almost immediately, he agreed to take her with him to the set of
Lady Superior
after all. She was so pleased, she didn’t even mind about him not going to her parents’ house for Thanksgiving; she told herself it was too soon in their relationship to be spending holidays with each other’s families. She wouldn’t have wanted to spend Thanksgiving with Enid, which was what Philip had done, taking his aunt to a boring lunch at the Century Club. Philip had dragged Lola there once, and she’d vowed never to return. Everyone was over eighty. So Lola happily went back to Windsor Pines and met up with her girlfriends and stayed up until two A.M. on Friday night and showed off pictures of her and Philip and Philip’s apartment. One of her friends was engaged and planning a wedding; the others were trying to get their boyfriends to marry them. They looked at the photographs of Philip and his apartment and sighed in envy.

That was three weeks ago, and now it was nearly Christmas, and Philip had finally come up with a day for the set visit. Lola spent two days getO N E F I F T H AV E N U E

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ting ready. She’d had a massage and a spray tan, her dark hair was highlighted with strands of gold, and she’d bought a dress at Marc Jacobs. After the purchase, her mother called, wondering if she had indeed just spent twenty-three hundred dollars. Lola accused her mother of using her credit card to spy on her. They had had a rare fight, and Lola hung up, felt terrible, then called her mother back. Beetelle was nearly in tears. “Mommy, what’s wrong?” Lola demanded. When her mother didn’t respond, Lola asked in a panic, “Are you and Daddy getting a divorce?” “Your father and I are fine.” “So what’s the problem?” “Oh, Lola,” her mother said, sighing.

“We’ll talk about it when you come home for Christmas. In the meantime, try to be careful with money.”

This was very strange, and Lola hung up, perplexed. But then she decided it wasn’t important. Her mother got upset about money every now and again, but she always got over it and, feeling guilty, usually bought Lola a trinket like Chanel sunglasses.

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Philip, meanwhile, was around the corner, getting his hair cut. He’d frequented this particular salon, located on Ninth Street off Fifth, for thirty years. His mother started coming to the salon in the seventies, when the clients and stylists would play music on a boom box and snort cocaine.

Naturally, the proprietor was a dear friend of his mother’s. Everyone was a dear friend of his mother’s. She’d had that charming neediness that made people want to take care of her. She’d been a trust fund girl and considered a great beauty, but there was an air of tragedy about her that only increased her fascination. No one was surprised when she killed herself in 1983.

The proprietor, Peter, had been giving Philip the same haircut for years and was nearly finished, but Philip was trying to kill time. Peter had recently recovered from cancer and had begun to work out at a gym every day, so they talked about his routine. Then they talked about Peter’s house upstate in the Catskills. Then they talked about how the neighborhood was changing. Philip was dreading the set visit and the impending meeting of his former love and his current lover. There was a bald difference between “love” and “lover,” the first being legitimate and honorable, the 204

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second being temporary and even, he thought, when it came to Lola, slightly embarrassing.

This unpleasant reality had come to light during the dinner with the Yugoslavian director. The director, who happened to have won two Academy Awards, was an elderly man who drooled, and whose Russian wife, dressed in gold Dolce & Gabbana (and twenty years younger, about the same difference in age, Philip guessed, as he and Lola), had had to feed him his soup. The director was a curmudgeon, and his wife was ridiculous, but still, the man was a legend, and despite his age (which couldn’t be helped) and his silly wife, Philip had the utmost respect for him and had been looking forward to the dinner for months.

Lola, intentionally or not, was on her worst behavior. During a long dis-course during which the director explained his next project (a movie about an obscure civil war in Yugoslavia in the thirties), Lola had attended to her iPhone, sending texts and even taking a call from one of her girlfriends in Atlanta. “Put it away,” Philip had hissed at her. She gave him a hurt look, signaled to the waiter, and asked for a Jell-O shot, explaining to the table that she didn’t drink wine, as it was for old people. “Stop it, Lola,” he said.

“You do drink wine. You’ll have what everyone else is having.” “I don’t drink red wine,” she pointed out. “Besides, I need something strong to get through this dinner.” She’d asked the director if he’d ever worked on any popular movies. “Popular?” he’d asked, startled. “Vat is zat?”

“You know,” Lola said. “Movies for regular people.”

“Vat is regular people?” the director asked, insulted. “I think my tastes are too sophisticated for a young lady such as yourself.”

The old man hadn’t meant to be insulting, but it had come out that way. And Lola took the bait.

“What’s that mean?” she’d said. “I thought art was for the people. If the people can’t understand it, what’s the point?”

“This is zee problem with America,” the director said. He’d lifted his glass of wine to his mouth, his hand shaking so violently he spilled half the glass. “Too much democracy,” he exclaimed. “It’s zee death of art.”

For the rest of the evening, everyone ignored Lola.

In the taxi on the way back to One Fifth, Lola was fuming, staring out the window and playing with her hair.

“What’s wrong now?” Philip had asked.

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“No one paid any attention to me.”

“What are you talking about?” he said.

“I was ignored, Philip. Why should I be there if I’m going to be ignored?”

“You wouldn’t have been ignored if you hadn’t made that stupid remark about his films.”

“He’s an insignificant old man. Who cares about him and his movies?

Oh, excuse me,” she added with vehemence, “his
films
.”

“He’s a genius, Lola. He’s allowed his idiosyncracies. And he’s earned his respect. You need to learn to honor that.”

“Are you criticizing me?” she said warningly.

“I’m pointing out that you could stand to learn a thing or two about life.”

“Listen, Philip,” she’d said. “In case you haven’t figured it out, I don’t put anybody above me. I don’t care what they’ve accomplished. I’m as good as anyone. Even if they have won two Academy Awards. Do you really think that makes a person better than other people?”

“Yes, Lola, I do,” he said.

They went into the building in stony silence. It was yet another spat that ended in sex. She seemed to have a sixth sense about when he might be angry with her, and she always managed to divert his attention with some new sexual trick. That evening, she came out of the bathroom in crotchless panties, showing off the Brazilian wax she’d had that afternoon, as a “special treat” for him. He was helpless in the face of such sexual temptation, and the next morning, they went on as before.