One Fifth Avenue (53 page)

Outside, Enid stood on the sidewalk across the street from One Fifth, gazing at the building. She tried to see the building the way Flossie saw it—as just another building—but couldn’t. One Fifth was like a piece of living art, unique and beautifully executed, perfectly positioned at the end of Fifth Avenue, in close—but not too close—proximity to Washington Square Park. And there was the address itself. “One Fifth.” Clean and au-thoritative and implying so many things—class and money and prestige and even, Enid thought, a bit of magic, the kind of real-life magic that made life so endlessly interesting. Flossie was wrong, Enid decided. Everyone wanted to live in One Fifth, and if they didn’t, it was only because O N E F I F T H AV E N U E

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they lacked imagination. She raised her hand to hail a cab and, getting into the backseat, gave the driver the address of the New York Public Library.

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Alan, the PA, rapped on the door of Schiffer Diamond’s location trailer.

The door was opened a crack by the publicist, Karen. “Philip Oakland’s here,” Alan said, standing aside to let Philip pass. Behind him was a band of paparazzi and two news crews, having discovered the location of the day’s shooting at the Ukrainian Institute on Fifth Avenue and then finding Schiffer’s trailer on a side street. Billy Litchfield wasn’t of particular interest to them, but Schiffer Diamond was. She had found the body. It was possible she’d had something to do with his death or knew something about it or had given him drugs or taken drugs herself. In the trailer was a leather couch, a small table, a makeup area, a bathroom with a shower, and a tiny bedroom with a single bed and chair. The lawyer, Johnnie Toochin, who had been called in to help with damage control, now sat on the leather couch, talking on his phone. “Hey, Philip,” Johnnie said, greet-ing him with a raised hand. “What a mess.”

“Where is she?” Philip asked Karen, who motioned to the bedroom.

Philip opened the narrow door. Schiffer was sitting on the bed wearing a terry-cloth robe, her legs crossed beneath her. She was staring blankly at a script but looked up when Philip came in.

“I don’t know if I can do this today,” she said.

“Of course you can. You’re a great actress,” Philip said. He sat down in the chair across from her.

“That was one of the last things Billy said to me.” She pulled the robe across her body as if she were cold. “You know, if it weren’t for Billy, we might never have met.”

“Yes, we would have. Somehow.”

“No.” She shook her head. “I wouldn’t have become an actress, and I wouldn’t have done
Summer Morning
. I keep thinking about how a chance meeting with one person can change your life. Is it fate or coincidence?”

“But you had the opportunity. And you made it work.”

“That’s right, Philip,” she said. She looked at him, her expression vul-366

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nerable. She had yet to have her makeup done. Her face was clean, and there were little lines around her eyes. “I keep wondering why we can’t do that. Make it work.”

“I fucked up again, didn’t I?” Philip said.

“Yeah.” She nodded. “And I guess I did, too. All those years, I kept thinking, What if ? What if I hadn’t gone to Europe. Or what if I’d seen you that time when you came to L.A.”

“Or what if I’d managed to break up with Lola?” Philip asked. “Would you still being seeing Brumminger?”

“You have to ask?” Schiffer said.

“Yeah,” Philip said. “I guess I’ve never managed to ask the right question.”

“Will you ever manage it, Philip? If not, we should end this right now.

I need to know. I want to move on one way or another. I want it to be clean.”

Philip leaned back in the chair and put his hands in his hair. Then he started laughing.

“What’s so damn funny?” she asked.

“This,” he said. “This situation. Look,” he said, sitting next to her on the bed and taking her hand. “This is probably the worst time to ask you this, but do you really want to marry me?”

She looked down at his hand and shook her head. “What do you think, schoolboy?”

19

Acouple of hours later, Schiffer Diamond, made up and wearing a long gown for the scene at the Ukrainian Institute, came out of her trailer. Philip was still holding her hand, as if he didn’t dare let go of her, and after he helped her down the steps, the photographers closed in with their cameras. Philip and Schiffer exchanged a look and began running down the sidewalk to a waiting van. The paparazzi were taken by surprise, and there was a jostling in the crowd, and two photographers were knocked down. Nevertheless, Thayer Core managed to hold up his iPhone and snap a picture of the happy couple, which he then e-mailed to Lola. “I think your BF is cheating on you,” he wrote.

Lola got the e-mail immediately and tried to call Philip. She’d suspected something like this would happen, but now that it had, she couldn’t believe it. Philip didn’t answer his phone, of course, so she texted Thayer Core to find out where he was. Then she opened the closet to get dressed, her hands trembling so violently with frustration and anger that she knocked several tops off their hangers. This gave her a wicked idea, and she went into the kitchen, found the scissors, and pulling several pairs of jeans from the shelf on Philip’s side of the closet, cut the legs off. She 368

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refolded the tops of the mangled jeans and replaced them on the shelf.

Then she kicked the cutoff legs under the bed, put on her makeup, and went out.

She found Thayer standing behind a police barricade on Seventy-ninth Street. There was a carnival atmosphere, with the presence of the paparazzi drawing the attention of passersby who kept stopping to find out what was going on. “I’m going in,” Lola announced grimly, stepping around the barricade. Four beefy Teamsters were blocking the entrance.

“I’m Philip Oakland’s girlfriend,” she said, attempting to explain why she must be allowed to pass.

“Sorry,” one of the Teamsters said, impassive.

“I know he’s in there. And I have to see him,” she wailed.

A young woman sidled up next to her. “Did you say you were Philip Oakland’s girlfriend?” she asked.

“That’s right,” Lola said.

“He just went in with Schiffer Diamond. We thought
they
were together.”

“I’m his girlfriend,” Lola said. “I
live
with him.”

“You’re kidding,” the girl said, and put her cell phone in Lola’s face to record her remarks. “What’s your name?”

“Lola Fabrikant. Philip and I have been together for months.”

“And Schiffer Diamond stole him from you?”

“Yes,” Lola said, realizing she had an opportunity to play a significant part in this drama. Rising to the occasion, she summoned her most confused tone of voice and said, “I woke up this morning, and everything was fine. Then two hours ago, someone texted me a photograph of the two of them holding hands.”

The girl gasped in horror. “You just found out?”

“That’s right. And I might even be pregnant with his baby.”

“What a scumbag!” the girl declared in female solidarity.

Hearing this pronouncement on Philip’s character, Lola was momentarily worried that she’d gone too far. She hadn’t meant to say she was pregnant, but she’d gotten caught up in the moment, and it had just slipped out. But she couldn’t take it back now—and besides, Philip
had
wronged her. And it certainly was possible that she could be pregnant.

“Brandon!” the girl shouted, waving at one of the photographers and O N E F I F T H AV E N U E

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pointing at Lola. “She says she’s Philip Oakland’s girlfriend. And she’s having his baby. We need a photograph.” The photographer leaned across the barricade and snapped Lola’s picture. Within seconds, the rest of the pack followed suit, aiming their cameras at her and clicking off shots.

Lola put her hand on her hip and posed prettily, glad that she’d had the foresight to dress in high heels and a trench coat. At last, she thought.

This was the moment she’d been waiting for her entire life. She smiled, knowing it was crucial she look stunning in the photographs that would undoubtedly be all over the Internet in a matter of hours.

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Billy’s death was not ruled a suicide but an accidental overdose. He hadn’t taken as many pills as suspected; rather, it was the combination of four different kinds of prescription medication that did him in. Two weeks after his death, a service was held for him at St. Ambrose Church, where Billy had mourned the death of Mrs. Louise Houghton just nine months earlier.

It turned out that Billy had recently made a will, leaving all his worldly belongings to his niece and requesting that a service be held in the church patronized by his idol, Mrs. Louise Houghton. Many of the hundreds of people who knew Billy came, and although the Brewers claimed Billy had sold them the Cross of Bloody Mary, there was, people agreed, no way to prove it, especially when Johnnie Toochin revealed that Mrs. Houghton had left Billy a wooden box filled only with costume jewelry. However, the box was never discovered, and so the provenance of the cross remained a mystery, and Billy’s reputation stayed intact.

During his memorial service, several people gave eulogies about how wonderful Billy was, and how he represented a certain era in New York, and how, with his passing, that era was finished.

“New York isn’t New York anymore without Billy Litchfield,” declared an old-monied banker who was the husband of a famous socialite.

Perhaps it wasn’t, Mindy thought, but it still went on, the same as always. As if in confirmation of this fact, Lola Fabrikant flounced in halfway through the service, causing a stir in the back of the church. She was wearing a short black low-cut dress and, inexplicably, a small black hat with a 370

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veil that just covered her eyes. Lola thought the hat made her look mysterious and alluring, in keeping with her new role as the slighted young woman. The day after Schiffer and Philip were photographed together, Lola’s picture had appeared in three newspapers, and there were discussions about her on six blogs, in which the general consensus was that she was a babe and could do better than Philip. But after that, the interest in her had quickly waned. Now, although it would mean seeing Philip and Schiffer and Enid, she and Thayer had decided she ought to attend Billy’s service, if only to remind people of her existence.

Lola had agreed reluctantly. She could face Philip and Schiffer if she had to, but she was terrified of Enid. The day she’d gone to confront Philip on the set at the Ukrainian Institute, she’d returned to One Fifth after being “assaulted”—her words—by the paparazzi, realizing if she hung around any longer, she would lose her mystique. Safely inside Philip’s apartment, she waited for him all afternoon, going over the situation again and again in her mind and wishing she could take it all back. She reminded herself that she didn’t know for a fact that Philip and Schiffer were really together; he might have only been comforting her after all. She would have to figure out a way to exonerate herself. But at about five, Enid appeared in Philip’s apartment, coming up silently behind Lola, who was in the kitchen, pouring herself yet another vodka. Lola was so startled she nearly dropped the bottle.

“Oh, good, dear,” Enid said. “You’re here.”

“Where else would I be?” Lola asked nervously, taking a gulp of her drink.

“The question is, where should you be?” Enid said. She smiled broadly and sat down on the couch, patting the place next to her. “Come here, dear,” she said, giving Lola a frightening smile. “I want to talk to you.”

“Where’s Philip?” Lola demanded.

“I imagine he’s still with Schiffer.”

“Why?”

“Don’t you know, dear? He’s in love with her. He always has been, and I’m afraid for your sake, he always will be.”

“Did Philip ask you to tell me this, or are you doing it on your own?”

“I haven’t talked to Philip since this morning. I have, however, talked to quite a few other people who have informed me that you’re going to O N E F I F T H AV E N U E

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be in the papers tomorrow. Don’t look so surprised, dear,” Enid said. “I work for a newspaper. I have many, many contacts. That’s one of the advantages of being old. One collects lots of friends. Are you sure you don’t want to sit down?”

Lola tried to beg for mercy. “Oh, Enid,” she cried out, and kneeling down, she buried her head in the couch in shame. “It wasn’t my fault.

This girl came up to me, and I didn’t know what to say. She somehow got it out of me.”

“There, there,” Enid said, patting Lola’s head. “It happens to everyone once. You were just like a snake about to be attacked by a mongoose.”

“That’s right,” Lola said, although she had no idea what a mongoose was.

“I can fix everything. I only need to know if you’re pregnant, dear.”

Lola sat up and felt around for her drink. “I could be,” she said, becoming defiant.

Enid crossed one aged leg over the other. “If you are carrying Philip’s child, I suggest you pour that glass of vodka down the sink. Immediately.”

“I told you,” Lola said. “I don’t know if I’m pregnant or not.”

“Why don’t we find out?” Enid said. She reached into a paper bag and took out a pregnancy test.

“You can’t make me do that,” Lola shrieked, jumping back in horror.

Enid held out the kit. When Lola shook her head, Enid placed it on the coffee table between them.

“Where’s Philip?” Lola said. “If Philip knew what you were doing—”

“Philip is a man, my dear. And, unfortunately, slightly weak. Especially in the face of female hysteria. Men just can’t bear it, you know? They tune it out.” Enid crossed her arms and, looking Lola up and down, said soothingly, “I only have your best interests at heart. If you are pregnant, you’ll need looking after. Of course, you will have the baby. It would be so lovely if Philip had a child. And we’ll make sure you’re taken care of for life. I have an extra bedroom, and you can live with me.” She paused.

“On the other hand, if you do take the test and you’re not pregnant, I’ll make sure the story goes away quickly. With very little harm to you.”