One Fifth Avenue (8 page)

Mindy stood in her doorway, blocking Enid’s entry. She didn’t want O N E F I F T H AV E N U E

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Enid to see her apartment. She was private about her space, but also embarrassed. Plus, her hostility toward Philip often extended to Enid, as she was his aunt. “He’s gone upstate with friends. I’ll tell him to ring your buzzer when he gets back.”

Enid didn’t move away. “What do you think?” she asked.

“About what?” Mindy said.

“It might not be a bad idea to break up the apartment.”

“I don’t know why you’re interested,” Mindy said.

“I’ve lived in the building for over sixty years. Naturally, I’m interested in everything that goes on here.”

“I appreciate that, Enid. But you’re no longer on the board.”

“Not technically,” Enid said. “But I have a lot of friends.”

“We all do,” Mindy said, although in her case, she wasn’t sure this was entirely true.

“If we split up the apartment, we could probably sell to people who already live in the building. It could save you a lot of headaches,” Enid pointed out.

Ah, Mindy thought. Enid wanted the bottom floor for Philip. It made sense. Philip could break through from his own apartment. And he probably had the money. Not enough for the whole apartment but enough for one floor.

“I’ll think about it,” Mindy said. She closed the door firmly and went back to her accounts. No matter how she added them up, they were still short. That was that, then. There was no way she would allow Philip Oakland to get the bottom floor of that apartment. If she and James couldn’t have a floor, why should he?

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“Check out
Sanderson
vs.
English
,” Annalisa Rice said into the phone. “It’s all very clear. And of course there’s the moral element, which always sways juries. It’s like an Aesop’s fable.”

“Damn, Rice,” said the male voice at the other end. “Why’d you have to go and move to New York on me?”

“Change, Riley,” Annalisa replied. “It’s good, remember?”

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Candace Bushnell

“I know you,” Riley said. “You’re probably already on to the next big thing. Are you running someone’s campaign? Or running for office yourself?”

“Neither.” Annalisa laughed. “I’ve made a U-turn, to put it mildly. You won’t believe what I’m doing right now.”

“Helping the homeless?”

“Consorting with the rich. I’m going to the Hamptons for the weekend.”

Riley laughed, too. “I always said you were too glamorous for Washington.”

“Damn you, Riley,” Annalisa said. “I miss you guys.”

“You can always come back,” Riley said.

“Too late,” Annalisa said. She said goodbye and hung up the phone, twisting her auburn hair into her trademark ponytail. She went to the window and, pushing back the heavy gold drapes, looked out at the street.

It was a long way down. She pushed at the window, longing for some fresh air in the overly air-conditioned suite, and remembered that the windows were bolted shut. She looked at her watch; it was three o’clock. She had two hours to pack and get to the heliport. It should have been plenty of time. But she didn’t know what to pack. What did one wear to a weekend in the Hamptons?

“Paul, what should I bring?” she’d asked that morning.

“Oh, hell. I don’t know,” Paul had said. Paul was her husband. He was engaged in getting out the door by seven A.M. on the dot, sitting on the edge of a hassock, pulling on thin silk socks and Italian loafers. Paul had never worn proper shoes before. He’d never had to, before New York.

Back in Washington, he’d always worn leather Adidas tennis shoes.

“Are those new?” Annalisa asked, referring to the shoes.

“I can’t say. What does new mean, exactly?” Paul asked. “Six months old? A day? These kinds of questions are only answerable if you know the context of the person asking.”

Annalisa laughed. “Paul, you have to help me. They’re your friends.”

“Partners,” Paul corrected. “Anyway, what difference does it make?

You’ll be the best-looking woman there.”

“It’s the Hamptons. They probably have a dress code.”

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“Why don’t you call Sandy’s wife, Connie?”

“I don’t know her,” Annalisa said.

“Sure you do. She’s Sandy’s wife.”

“Oh, Paul,” she said. It just doesn’t work that way, she thought, but refrained from explaining. Paul wouldn’t understand.

Paul leaned across the bed to kiss her goodbye. “Are you looking at apartments today?” he asked.

“I’m always looking at apartments. You’d think that with fifteen million dollars to spend, it would be easy.”

“If it’s not enough, spend more,” Paul said.

“I love you,” she called after him.

That morning, Annalisa had considered asking Emme, the real estate agent, what one wore in the Hamptons, but judging from Emme’s appearance, Annalisa didn’t think she’d like the answer. Emme was at least sixty years old but had a face that sported the latest in plastic surgery tech-niques. All morning, Emme’s overarched eyebrows, plastic lips, and large white teeth kept distracting Annalisa, as did Emme’s hair, which was coarse and dark at the roots and frayed blond on the ends. Emme was considered the best real estate agent on the Upper East Side. “I know you’ve got plenty of money,” Emme said, “but money isn’t the issue. Everyone’s got plenty of money these days. It’s who you know that counts.” Then she’d asked, “Who do you know?”

“How about the president of the United States?” Annalisa said, twisting her ponytail.

“Will he write you a letter?” Emme asked, not catching the sarcasm.

“Probably not,” Annalisa said. “Considering I called his administration an embarrassment.”

“Everybody says that,” Emme said.

“Yes, but I said it on TV. I used to be a regular on
Washington
Morning
.”

“That’s not a good answer,” Emme said.

“How about Sandy Brewer?” Annalisa finally ventured.

“Who’s he?” Emme asked.

“My husband works with him.”

“But who
is
he?” Emme said.

54

Candace Bushnell

“He runs a fund,” Annalisa said cautiously, as Paul had told her repeatedly that she wasn’t to talk about what he did or how he made his money. It was a secret community, he said, like Skull and Bones at Yale.

“So he’s a hedge-fund manager,” Emme guessed correctly. “Nobody knows who they are or wants to know them. Nobody wants them as a member of their club.” She looked Annalisa up and down. “And it isn’t just about your husband. It’s about you, too. You have to be approved by the board.”

“I’m a lawyer,” Annalisa said. “I can’t see anyone objecting to that.”

“What kind of lawyer?” Emme asked.

“Class-action lawsuits. Among other things.”

“I could see a lot of people objecting to you,” Emme said. “Isn’t that really a glorified kind of ambulance chasing?” She shook her head. “We’d better concentrate on brownstones. If you buy a brownstone, you won’t have to worry about getting approved by a board.”

The morning of the day Annalisa and Paul were going to the Hamptons, Emme had shown her three town houses. One was a mess, smelling of milk and dirty diapers, with toys strewn everywhere. In the second town house, a woman of about thirty followed them around, holding a slippery two-year-old boy in her arms. “It’s a fantastic house,” the woman had said.

“Why are you moving?” Annalisa had asked.

“We’re moving to the country. We’ve got a house there. We’re putting on a big addition. It’s better for kids in the country, don’t you think?”

The third town house was larger and less expensive. The hitch was that it was broken up into apartments, most of which were occupied.

“You’d have to get the tenants to leave. It usually isn’t a problem. You pay them fifty thousand cash, and they’re happy to have the money,”

Emme had explained.

“But where will they go?” Annalisa asked.

“They’ll find a nice, clean studio apartment somewhere,” Emme said.

“Or they’ll move to Florida.”

“That doesn’t seem right,” Annalisa said. “Kicking people out of their apartments. It’s against my moral code.”

“You can’t stop progress,” Emme replied. “It’s unhealthy.”

And so another day passed during which she and Paul still didn’t have a place to live and were stuck in the suite at the Waldorf.

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Annalisa called Paul. “I can’t find anything to buy. Maybe we should rent in the meantime.”

“And move twice? It’s ergonomically wasteful.”

“Paul,” she said, “I’m going to go out of my mind if we have to stay in this suite for one more day. Actually, I’ll go out of my mind if I have to spend more time with Emme. Her face scares me.”

“So let’s change to a bigger suite. The staff can move our things.”

“The cost,” Annalisa said.

“Doesn’t matter. Love you,” he said.

She went downstairs into the bustle of the lobby. She had always stayed at the Waldorf when the law firm sent her to New York on business, and back then she’d thought the hotel lobby glamorous, with its grand staircases and brass and expensive wares displayed behind sparkling glass windows. The Waldorf was perfect for tourists and out-of-town businesspeople, but it was like a showgirl: One must enjoy the feathers and glitz without looking too closely. Otherwise, one saw the faded carpets and the dirty crystal in the chandeliers and the cheap polyester in the uniforms of the employees. One had time to observe these things, Annalisa noted, when one didn’t have enough to do.

She was informed that a bigger suite was indeed available, and the manager was summoned. He had a soft face and jowls that pulled down the skin below his eyes; the available suite, he said, had two bedrooms and a living room and a bar and four bathrooms. It was twenty-five hundred a night, but if they were staying for a month, he’d give it to them for forty thousand. An odd feeling came over Annalisa, a rush of adren-aline, and she said she’d take it without seeing it first. It was the most exciting thing in weeks.

Back in the original suite, Annalisa opened the safe and put on the diamond-encrusted watch Paul had given her for her birthday. She couldn’t imagine what it had cost, probably twenty thousand dollars, but it put some perspective on the cost of the suite, she supposed. The watch was a little flashy for her taste, but Paul would notice if she didn’t wear it for the weekend. Under an attempt at a casual demeanor he had looked so eager and frightened and proud while she untied the ribbon on the blue handmade box with the beige suede lining. When she’d opened the box and removed the watch, Paul did the honors of closing the band 56

Candace Bushnell

around her wrist. “Do you like it?” he’d asked. “I love it,” she’d said, lying. “I truly love it.”

“Apparently, all the other wives have them. So you’ll fit in,” he said.

And noting her expression, added, “If you want to.”

“We don’t fit in,” she said. “That’s why people love us.”

Now she began to pack, placing a bathing suit and khaki shorts and three button-down shirts into a navy blue canvas roller bag. At the last minute, she tossed in a plain black sleeveless shift and a pair of black pumps with a sensible two-inch heel in case there was a fancy dinner. The dress wasn’t summery but would have to do. She put on a white T-shirt, jeans, and yellow Converse sneakers; then she went downstairs again and waited in line for a taxi, arriving at the Twenty-third Street heliport at four-thirty, half an hour early. She was early to nearly everything these days and seemed to spend a lot of her time waiting. The heliport was located under the FDR Drive. The air was dense with the heat of July and the exhaust from the cars stalled on the highway and the stench of the East River. Annalisa walked to the edge of the dock and peered into the murky brown water, watching a plastic bottle lapping at the wood as a condom floated by.

She checked her watch again. Paul would be neither early nor late but exactly on time, arriving at 4:55, as he’d said he would. Indeed, at 4:55, a Town Car pulled in through the chain-link fencing, and Paul got out, leaning into the backseat of the car to take out his briefcase and a small hard-sided Louis Vuitton case covered in black goatskin. Until recently, Annalisa had no idea Paul cared for such things. He bought something pricey nearly every week now. Last week it had been a cigar box from Asprey, although Paul did not smoke.

He loped toward her, talking on his cell phone. Paul was tall and had the slight stoop of those accustomed to minding their heads. He managed to stay on his phone while waving to the pilot of the seaplane and overseeing the stowage of their luggage while a steward helped Annalisa from the dock into the plane. The interior held eight seats done up in plush pale yellow suede, and while Paul and Annalisa were the only passengers, Paul elected to sit in the row in front of her. He finally got off his call, and she said, hesitantly and a little bit hurt, “Paul?”

Paul wore glasses, and his soft, dark curling hair was always a bit un-O N E F I F T H AV E N U E

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kempt. He was nearly handsome but for his hooded eyes and the slight gaps between his teeth. He was a mathematical genius, one of the youngest Ph.D.s at Georgetown ever, and there was always talk of him winning the Nobel Prize someday. But six months ago, he had taken a job with Sandy Brewer and, in two days, relocated to New York City at a small hotel on East Fifty-sixth Street. When they decided the move was permanent, Annalisa had joined him, but they’d lived long-distance for five months, and the residual effects were still there.

“Wouldn’t you like to sit together?” Annalisa asked. She hated having to beg.

“These cabins are so small,” he said. “Why be crowded? We’re together the whole weekend anyway.”

“You’re right,” she said. It was pointless pushing Paul on the small issues. Annalisa looked out the window. A middle-aged man was hurrying breathlessly toward the seaplane. Annalisa’s first impression was of a man freckled and nearly hairless, like an exotic species of cat. The man was wearing spectator shoes and a white linen suit with a navy silk pocket square; in one hand was a woven hat. He gave his bag to the pilot and came up into the cabin, taking a seat in the row behind Annalisa. “Hello,” he said, extending his hand over the top of the seats. “I’m Billy Litchfield.”