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‘I, uh, came for lunch?’
‘Avec?’
‘I’m getting wet here. Susannah, she’s …’
‘Qui?’
‘Susannah Briarcliff, surely you …’
The door opened. Jean-François Perrier looked right through me. I pointed out to him that I was with my friend Susannah over there, smiled foolishly and stared plaintively into his deep blue eyes. He waved his hands to motion for the busboy to take me there. No-contact rule in play. Francesca the check girl sized me up and concluded that I wasn’t really one of them. So she decided to sip her Diet Coke at the bar rather than bother with my raincoat. I shook the raindrops off my umbrella in disgust.
La Pierre Noire has no sign on the awning, no published phone number. It is the executive watering hole of one of the world’s most peculiar tribes: a breed of very rich humans inhabiting a specific grid that stretches from Manhattan’s 70th to 79th Streets to the north and south, bordered by Park Avenue and Fifth Avenue to the east and west.
Pity the poor West Sider who strolls by and mistakenly believes this is a restaurant operating by normal procedures, one that actually caters to the public. None too soon will they learn that they are not welcome, even though many tables are free. From the window, one can see rich tangerine velvet banquettes that surround the small, café-style mahogany tables. Handsome thirty-something French waiters dressed in blue jeans and starched, yellow Oxford cloth shirts squeeze between the tight tables.
My closest girlfriends don’t have lunch for a living like Susannah Briarcliff. Most of them have actual jobs, but Susannah is one of the few inhabitants of the Grid whom I go out of my way to see. It’s easy to forget that beneath Susannah’s fabulous wealth and stunning genes, there’s a fun girl that lurks inside. You can basically look for her in any column with party pictures – Harper’s Bazaar, Vogue, the New York Times Style section – and it’s kind of like finding Waldo. Susannah has two kids, three dogs, seven on staff and one of the largest apartments in the city. All this courtesy of her family ties to one of America’s great real-estate dynasties. She’s five feet ten, has a thin athletic build and a shortish blonde Meg Ryan haircut. She is also married to a top editor for the New York Times, which sets her apart from most of the East Side socialites married to dead-wood bankers. Although she doesn’t reach the best-friend category – Kathryn from downtown and Abby and Charles from work all hold that title – she’s a close second.
I slipped into the plush banquette beside her. ‘Jamie. You look good. Really good.’
‘I’m not sure I’m properly dressed …’
‘Stop.’
Twelve of the fifteen tables were taken, filled with New York’s young socialites in fur-collared sweaters and their gay party planners, most of them charlatans who charge three hundred and fifty dollars an hour to pick out just the right fuchsia water goblet to go with a kasbah-themed dinner for twelve. Or just the right cheetah-print heel for a plain black suit. If any of these women purchase a recognizable piece of a certain season, they have to burn it before the following year. And once a blouse or shirt appears in Vogue, it’s already passé for them. I studied my khaki trousers, white blouse and plain black silk sweater. When I’d tell my mother about these women around me – and how sometimes I felt that I didn’t measure up – she’d chastise me for getting sucked into their nonsense. ‘How do you expect to get where you want to go if you’re rubbernecking at everyone else along the way? Don’t focus on what you wrongly perceive as your shortcomings.’
Ingrid Harris blasted through the door with her nanny and four-year-old daughter Vanessa. Jean-François stumbled on his thick French loafers as he ran to greet her. ‘Chérie!’ Kiss kiss.
He snapped his fingers and Francesca eagerly swept the tan shawl off Ingrid’s shoulders. She then unbuckled the fireman hooks from Vanessa’s rain jacket, revealing a pink tutu underneath. The nanny stood back, and held her own coat, used to this drill.
Ingrid looked perfectly gorgeous: she had far-apart brown doe eyes and long layered hair pulled back with a Jackie O-sized pair of black sunglasses. Better than anyone, Ingrid knew that serious style is all about attitude. She was wearing ratty jeans and a four-thousand-dollar lime-green Chanel jacket, as if she just grabbed it off the closet floor. It’s not what you’re wearing, it’s how you wear it; you can’t act like you’re all excited about an expensive fancy new jacket. You wouldn’t be ‘one of them’ if you did that.
‘Jamie, nice to see you. Hello, Susannah.’ Susannah mustered a smile but didn’t speak or even look up. She concentrated on dipping bread into her rosemary-scented olive oil and twisting a straw in her San Pellegrino.
An uncomfortable silence ensued. I broke in. ‘Ingrid, I still can’t believe you had a baby just a month ago. Your body – you look fabulous!’
Ingrid threw back her silky caramel mane. ‘Well, I told them what path to take to get me back to normal quickly, and I was right, even though they all objected.’
Susannah chortled. ‘What you did wasn’t normal. I’m sorry but most doctors would object.’
Ingrid, not at all intimidated, put her hands on her hips. ‘It may have sounded abnormal to you with your two perfect children delivered naturally. But I don’t come from the same Pilgrim stock as you do. My people don’t believe in voluntary discomfort.’
‘That doesn’t mean …’
‘And that means nothing was going to make me push. I said that to my doctor the second he told me I was pregnant. I said, “Dr Shecter, that’s wonderful news but just so you know: I don’t push.”’
I thought Susannah was going to kill her.
‘Too sweaty. Told him my motto: “If I can’t do it in heels, I’m not interested.” I just told him I wouldn’t do it. And I wanted a C-section.’
‘And what did he say?’ asked Susannah.
‘He said, “Sweetheart, I got news for you. Your body’s gonna push whether you like it or not.” And I said, “No, buddy, I got news for you which you are clearly not understanding: I do not push.”’
‘So what did you do?’
‘I went to another doctor who understood that I meant what I said, so he basically agreed to the C-section and told me we’d do it in the thirty-ninth week.’
Susannah rolled her eyes.
‘But then that doctor wouldn’t promise to give me general anaesthesia.’ Ingrid tapped her boot and crossed her arms impatiently. ‘Well, I told them at East Side Presbyterian that they were bringing it back for me!’
‘And they agreed?’ Susannah asked incredulously. ‘Without a medical reason?’
‘Well, my dear, they sure didn’t want to, but I made Henry give the Chief of Obstetrics a membership at the Atlantic Golf Club, so they really had no choice.’
Susannah coughed into her napkin like she might throw up. Despite Ingrid’s crazy behaviour, I admired her for always getting what she wanted and never being scared to ask.
‘Which is why I came over here, Jamie,’ Ingrid continued. ‘Did you get my email about the auction?’
‘I did.’
‘This year they aren’t holding it in that hideous gallery space in the West Village. I told them if they did, I wouldn’t chair the event. I said to the organizing committee, “Hello?!! Look at the crowd that is coming. Rich people don’t like to leave the Upper East Side! We also don’t like to pretend we’re poor and hip. OK? Because we’re not.” So they’re doing it at Doubles. Nice and close for you.’
‘I’m not sure I can come.’
‘Even if you can’t, we want your anchor to let us auction off a visit to a taping of Newsnight with Joe Goodman. You’re close to him, right? I mean you’ve worked at his show for as long as I’ve known you.’
‘Well, he is my boss – I, I, I’m not sure I really feel comfortable …’
‘Oh, puh-lease, Jamie. What’s more important to you, a few awkward moments with your boss or a cure for Alzheimer’s? So I can count on you?’
‘Well, I, I have to check with his …’
‘Tell you what. How ‘bout I just send him a nice note on my personal stationery saying you and I are the dearest of friends and couldn’t he please …’
‘Ingrid, I don’t think he’d respond well to that, I think I should ask him.’
‘OK, fine, that’s what I said in the first place. You ask him.’ She had outfoxed me and she knew it. I had to smile.
‘And, by the way,’ she whispered as she raised her newly waxed eyebrows and glared down at my feet.
I looked down at my strappy black sandals, thinking I had stepped in something on the sidewalk.
‘Those shoes,’ she instructed with grave concern. ‘Soooo night-time. It’s noon, for God’s sakes.’
As the main courses arrived, chicken paillard with braised endives for Susannah and tricolore salad with grilled shrimp for me, I broached the one topic that had been on the forefront of my mind.
‘I’m worried about Dylan. He kind of lost it at a basketball game.’
‘I heard.’
‘You did?’
‘Yeah. Foetal position instead of scoring a basket?’
‘Oh, no, do you think all the kids are talking about it?’
‘Yes.’
‘They are? Oh, God.’ I buried my head in my napkin.
Susannah pulled it away. ‘Sounds like it was a scary moment in the game.’
‘He just sobbed in my arms. He was so ashamed.’
She rubbed my shoulder. ‘Performance anxiety, that’s all.’
‘Well, that and a little more. Whether it’s normal or not, I don’t know – but I think Phillip’s hours are creating serious self-esteem issues for him. He doesn’t want me to do his homework, he wants Phillip to help. He was completely devastated last week when Phillip didn’t take him to the baseball birthday party on Saturday. He was crying like a four-year-old, throwing his toys all over his room, and dumping his baseball cards on the floor. And then the whole basketball moment too.’
‘Is he still seeing that shrink?’
‘We stopped. He begged me not to make him go. And honestly that guy didn’t seem to be helping. He made him feel like something was wrong with him. And you know, he’s fine, there’s nothing wrong with Dylan. I don’t want to paint him as this hyper-depressed kid. He’s still my wonderful boy who gets enthusiastic about his Lego, and he’s a great reader and so school is fine, but there’s still something not right.’
‘And what does that darling Phillip have to say about all this?’ Susannah adored my husband; they had so much in common, both coming from the same little inbred WASPy fantasia land.
‘Who knows?’ I shrugged my shoulders.
‘What does that mean?’
‘He is concerned about Dylan. Of course he is. He’s just … you know, we don’t have a lot of time to talk these days.’
Susannah shook her finger at me. ‘Remember what I told you …?’
I bobbed my head.
She leaned in close to me. ‘And are you doing it?’
I put my hands in the air, like maybe I wasn’t.
She tapped the table. ‘I’ve told you this a hundred times. Always blow your husband. Always blow your husband.’
Even though I loved Susannah, it was sometimes hard to bond with her because there was so much about her that made me feel inferior. Starting with the fact that she always blew her husband first thing in the morning.
She tapped my hand this time. ‘Don’t ever forget what I said.’
‘You know what? I don’t always want to blow my husband.’
‘Neither do I! But it takes, like, ten minutes and you’re done and he’s so happy he’s bouncing around the room. It’ll save any marriage. I promise you. I wish I could go on Oprah and say this; it would prevent a lot of divorce. It’d be a good episode: “Always Blow Your Husband.”’
‘So how often, really, are you doing this now? Don’t exaggerate.’
She looked up and hesitated for a moment. ‘Four times a week.’
‘That’s a lot.’
‘And I initiate, that’s the key. You have to act really into it. That’s the other key.’
‘Really into it? Like what?’
‘Like you have to act all horny, that’s what they love.’
‘Well, even if I wanted to, even if I felt all horny first thing on a weekday morning, which I certainly don’t, Phillip is never around.’
‘Is Phillip travelling more now than he used to?’
‘He’s gone three nights a week now. And has a lot of client dinners when he’s in town.’
Susannah stepped off her blow-job soapbox and sighed. ‘That’s a lot for a nine-year-old. They didn’t sign up for the absent father thing.’
So true. ‘When I first moved to our apartment, I met all the East Side mothers who hired huge full-time staffs. Nothing against you, Susannah, I’d just never seen that. Separate nannies for each child, housekeepers to clean, chefs to cook, drivers to drive, house managers to run the whole household.’ Susannah nodded. She had all of those, and then some. ‘I even heard that they hired “guys” to roughhouse with the boys while the absentee investment banker fathers were kneading the dough. That one stuck out for me, hiring a “guy” to parent your child. I swore I’d never be one of those women who hired a substitute father in the afternoons.’
Susannah smiled. ‘And?’
‘And then I started thinking, here I am living this obscenely fortunate life, and I, well, maybe I should hire a “guy” for Dylan. You know, some male college kid who could pick Dylan up, kick the soccer ball around the park, talk about cars, whatever. But have I turned into one of these horrible women who can’t even deal with their own son? This is crazy.’ This conversation was making me anxious. I speared a huge shrimp and stuffed it in my mouth.
‘It’s not a “guy,” you fool,’ said Susannah.
‘Well, it is. That’s exactly what it is. I’ve surrendered. I’m like you. God help me.’
‘It’s not a guy,’ she interrupted. ‘It’s a manny. M for male nanny. Everyone knows that.’
Everyone but me. ‘Mannies? That’s what you call them? Are you kidding me?’
‘Forget the shrink. I’m telling you, get a manny! They give the sons male attention while the daddies are out sucking up to clients in Pittsburgh.’
‘So my city kid could go to the park and catch bugs and do all kinds of suburban boy stuff with his manny?’
‘Hell, yes! Jessica Baker’s manny takes her three sons to the ESPN Zone in Times Square every Tuesday. Do you want to go to the ESPN Zone in Times Square? No. Your housekeeper and nanny wouldn’t ever go there, or if they did, they’d sit in the corner and sulk. You know who else had mannies every summer?’
‘Who?’
‘The Kennedys. All those Kennedy cousins had mannies taking care of them up in Hyannis. Sailing mannies. Football mannies. Only they didn’t call them that. They called them governors.’ I laughed. Susannah continued, ‘Yes, dear, a manny is the answer to your prayers. Don’t fire the nanny or the housekeeper because I can assure you he won’t do windows or cook dinner. But, start hunting for one this afternoon. And your little pouty Dylan will be over the moon. Consider him the older cousin we all dreamed of, but with the patience only money can procure.’
CHAPTER FIVE Is There a Manny in the House? (#ulink_1d3198f5-a6f4-5219-b7f7-99b3b8012ce2)
The receptionist at work buzzed my phone. ‘Nathaniel Clarkson is here for you.’
I was hopeful. ‘Send him back, I’ll meet him halfway. Thanks, Deborah.’
