“I think I see what you mean,” Annalisa replied.
“But she’ll be nice to you—at first,” Enid said. “She’s always nice, as long as she’s getting what she wants.”
“And what does she want?” Annalisa asked.
Enid laughed. Her laugh was unexpected, a great joyous whoop. “That’s a good question,” she said. “She wants power, I suppose, but other than power, I don’t think she has a clue. And that’s the problem with Mindy. She doesn’t know what she wants. You never know what you’re going to get with her.” Enid poured more tea. “On the other hand, the husband, James Gooch, is as mild as toast. And their boy, Sam, is brilliant. He’s some kind of computer whiz, but all children are these days—it’s quite frightening, don’t you think?”
“My husband’s what one might call a computer whiz as well.”
“Naturally.” Enid nodded. “He’s in finance, isn’t he? And they do all that wheeling and dealing on computers these days.”
“Actually, he’s a mathematician.”
“Ah, numbers,” Enid said. “They make my eyes glaze over. But I’m just a silly old woman who was barely taught anything in school. They didn’t used to teach girls mathematics, other than addition and subtraction, so one could make change, if necessary. But your husband appears to have done well. I heard he works for a hedge fund.”
“Yes, he’s a new partner,” Annalisa said. “But please don’t ask me what he does. All I know is that it involves algorithms. And the stock market.”
Enid stood up. “Let’s stop kidding ourselves,” she said.
“Excuse me?” Annalisa said.
“It’s four o’clock in the afternoon. I’ve been working all day, and you’ve been unpacking boxes. And it’s ninety-six degrees. What we both need is a nice gin and tonic.”
Several minutes later, Enid was telling Annalisa about the former owners of the penthouse apartment. “Louise Houghton didn’t like her husband at all,” she said. “Randolf H
oughton was a bastard. But he was her third husband, and that’s why they moved downtown in the first place. Louise assumed correctly that a twice-divorced woman wouldn’t be completely accepted in Upper East Side society. She convinced Randolf to move here, which was considered very bohemian and original and made everyone forget that Randolf was her third husband.”
“Why was he a bastard?” Annalisa asked politely.
“The usual reasons.” Enid smiled and finished her cocktail. “He drank. He cheated. Two qualities a woman could live with in those days but for the fact that Randolf was impossible to live with. He was rude and arrogant and quite possibly violent. They had terrible fights. I think he may have hit her. There were servants in the house at the time, but no one ever said a word.”
“And she didn’t divorce him?”
“She didn’t have to. Louise was lucky. Randolf died.”
“I see.”
“The world was a much more dangerous place back then,” Enid continued. “He died from sepsis. He was in South Africa, trying to get into the diamond business, when he cut his finger. While he was traveling back to the States, the cut got infected. He made it back to One Fifth, but a few days later, he was dead.”
“I can’t believe her husband died from a cut,” Annalisa said.
Enid smiled. “Staph. It’s a very dangerous bacteria. We had an outbreak in the building once. Years ago. Spread by a pet turtle. Aquatic creatures don’t belong in apartment buildings. But no matter. Louise had her grand apartment and all of Randolf’s money and the rest of her life to live unencumbered. Marriage was considered a bit of a trial for women back then. If a woman could manage to live independently, free of the matrimonial noose, it was considered a blessing.”
That evening, Annalisa bought a bottle of wine and a pizza and set this feast out for Paul on paper plates.
“I had the most interesting day,” she said eagerly, sitting cross-legged in the dining room on the recently stained parquet floors. The setting sun made the wood glow like the last embers of a fire. “I met Enid Merle. She invited me to tea.”
“Does she know anything about the parking space?”
“Let me get to that. I want to tell you everything.” Annalisa tore at a piece of pizza. “First we had tea and then gin and tonics. It turns out that all is not well between Mindy Gooch and Enid Merle. Enid says the only reason the Gooches got into the building at all is because of the real estate crash in the early nineties. The board decided to sell off six little rooms on the ground floor that used to be the coat-check room and tiny bedrooms for the staff and the place where they stored the luggage when the building was a hotel. ‘If it weren’t for baggage, the Gooches wouldn’t be here at all,’” Annalisa said, imitating Enid’s voice. “You should have seen her. She’s a real character.”
“Who?” Paul asked.
“Enid Merle. Paul,” Annalisa said, “can you please pay attention?”
Paul looked up from his pizza and, trying to satisfy his wife, said, “As long as she doesn’t give us any trouble.”
“Why would she give us trouble?”