Mindy was flattered but did her best not to show it. “Can she afford a twenty-million-dollar apartment?”
“Naturally, she comes with a husband. He’s in finance. My dear,” Billy said quickly, “we both know One Fifth has a great tradition of being home to creative types. But we also know what’s happened to the real estate market. No one in the arts can afford an apartment like that anymore. Unless, as you said, you agree to split it up.”
“I’ll never let that happen,” Mindy said, folding her arms.
“Good girl,” Billy said approvingly. “In any case, you can meet my friend.” Looking over Mindy’s shoulder, he saw Annalisa getting out of a cab. “Here she comes now.”
Mindy turned around. A tall young woman with auburn hair pulled back into a messy ponytail was approaching. She had a serious yet interesting face, the kind of face that other women appreciate as beautiful, possibly because it was the kind of beauty that appeared to be attached to a personality.
“This is Mindy Gooch,” Billy said to Annalisa. “Mindy lives in One Fifth. She was also a friend of Mrs. Houghton’s.”
“Nice to meet you,” Annalisa said. Her handshake was firm, and Mindy appreciated the fact that Annalisa didn’t try to kiss her on the cheek in the faux European manner, and that Billy had referred to her as a friend of Mrs. Houghton’s. Billy, Mindy thought, was a perfect example of how civilized Fifth Avenue residents ought to behave toward each other.
Inside the church, they took seats in a middle pew. Two rows ahead, Mindy recognized the back of Enid’s coiffed and bleached blond hair (she had once been a brunette, but gray hair had eventually gotten the better of her) next to Philip’s shiny brown bob. What kind of middle-aged man insisted on wearing his hair so long? They were a ridiculous pair, Mindy decided—the aging spinster and her silly nephew—with their attitudes and arrogance. It was too much. Enid Merle needed to be taught a lesson.
The church bell chimed mournfully ten times. Then the organ music began, and two priests in white robes, swinging balls of incense, came down the aisle, followed by the bishop in a blue gown and mitered hat. The congregation stood. Mindy bowed her head. Billy leaned toward her. “Who wants to break up the apartment?” he whispered.
“Enid Merle. And her nephew Philip.”
Billy nodded. The bishop reached the altar, and the congregation sat down. The traditional Catholic ceremony, which was what Mrs. Houghton had wanted, continued in Latin and English. Billy let the words flow over him. On the surface, he found it hard to believe that Enid Merle would want to break up Mrs. Houghton’s apartment. But there was a good reason Enid had survived as a gossip columnist for nearly fifty years. She wasn’t as kindly as she appeared, and while it was generally understood that Enid and Louise Houghton had been bosom buddies, Billy suspected that wasn’t the whole story. He recalled some trouble between them concerning Enid’s stepmother, which might have been resolved when the stepmother moved out of One Fifth. It was possible Enid Merle didn’t give a damn about preserving Louise Houghton’s legacy.
Still, the situation presented a moral dilemma. Billy didn’t want to thwart Enid, which might be dangerous, as Enid still controlled a segment of popular opinion through her syndicated column. And yet the apartment had been Mrs. Houghton’s pride and joy. She had ruled over all of Manhattan society from her perch in the sky, and even in the seventies and eighties, when downtown lost its luster and the Upper East Side ruled, Mrs. Houghton wouldn’t consider moving. When she relayed this information to Billy, she would tap on the floor with her marble-topped cane. “This is the center of New York Society,” she would insist in her grand low voice. “Not up there in the provinces,” she’d say, referring to the Upper East and West Sides of Manhattan. “Did you know it used to take an entire day to reach the Dakota? And then one was forced to spend the night in that Gothic monstrosity.” She would tap her cane again. “Society began here, and it will end here. Never forget your origins, Billy.”
A significant portion of society would end if Enid Merle had her way with the apartment, Billy thought. His mission was clear: As much as he admired Enid Merle, his loyalty must be to Mrs. Houghton’s wishes.
There was more praying, and the congregation knelt. Mindy folded her hands in front of her face. “I was thinking,” Billy whispered behind his closed palms. “What are you doing after this? Perhaps we could nip over to One Fifth and take a peek at the apartment.”
Mindy looked at Billy in surprise. She’d suspected a motive behind his sudden kindness, but she hadn’t expected him to go so far as to wheel and deal in the house of the Lord. But this was New York, where nothing was sacred. She peeked through her fingers at the back of her neighbors’ heads, and her resentment flared. The bishop led the mourners in the sign of the cross. “In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit,” Mindy said. She sat back in the pew and, staring straight ahead, whispered to Billy, “I think it can be arranged.”
Following the memorial service, Enid had organized a luncheon for twenty at the Village restaurant on Ninth Street, to which Philip Oakland accompanied his aunt. Although not technically open for lunch, the
restaurant, where Enid had been a patron for years—along with almost everyone else who lived in the neighborhood—made an exception for Enid and the sad occasion. Philip was well acquainted with Enid’s crowd, once New York’s best and brightest. These people and their particular rituals—which included speaking to the woman on your right during the appetizer and the woman on your left during the main course; exchanging inside information on politics, business, the media, and the arts; and, lastly, standing and speechifying during coffee—was so much a part of Philip’s life that he barely noticed how ancient these movers and shakers had become.
The conversation was, as usual, impassioned. Although the tragedy of Mrs. Houghton’s unfortunate accident and her untimely death—“she had another five good years in her,” most agreed—was part of the discussion, it eventually turned to the upcoming elections and the impending recession. Seated next to his aunt was an aged man who held himself stiffly upright in his chair. A former senator and speechwriter for Jack Kennedy, he held forth on the differences between the Democratic candidates’ oracular styles. The second course came—veal in a lemon butter sauce—and without missing a beat in the conversation, Enid picked up her knife and fork and began to cut up the senator’s meat. Her act of kindness terrified Philip. As he looked around the table, the scene was all at once garish to him, a picaresque grotesquery of old age.
He put down his fork. This was where his own life was headed; indeed, he was only a short hop away. His perceived reality panicked him, and everything that had recently gone wrong with his life came to the fore. There was trouble with his current screenplay; there would be trouble with the next one, if there was a next one, and if there was another book, he’d have trouble with that as well. Someday he’d be here, an impotent and insignificant windbag, needing someone to cut up his meat. And he didn’t even have a woman to soothe him.
He stood up and made his excuses. He had a conference call from Los Angeles that couldn’t be avoided—he’d only just gotten the message on his BlackBerry. “You can’t stay for dessert?” Enid asked. Then she exclaimed, “Oh, damn. There go the numbers.” His absence meant there would be an uneven number of men and women.
“Can’t be avoided, Nini,” he said, kissing her on her upturned cheek. “You’ll manage.”
He made it only halfway down the block before he called Lola. Her casual hello made his heart race, and he covered it up by becoming more serious than he’d intended. “This is Philip Oakland.”
“What’s up?” she said, although she sounded pleased to hear from him.
“I want to offer you the job. As my researcher. Can you start this afternoon?”
“No,” she said. “I’m busy.”
“How about tomorrow morning?”
“Can’t,” she said. “My mother’s leaving, and I have to say goodbye.”
“What time is she leaving?” he said, wondering how he’d gotten into this desperate-sounding exchange.
“I don’t know. Maybe ten? Or eleven?”
“Why don’t you come by in the afternoon?”