One Fifth Avenue Read online

  “So in other words,” Mindy said, “he was a terrorist.”

  “I guess you could say that,” James said. And that was the last conversation they’d had about the book.

  But just because you didn’t talk about something didn’t mean it went away. That book, all eight hundred manuscript pages, had lain between them like a brick for months, until James finally delivered the copy to his publisher.

  Now she found James on the cement pad in the back of the apartment, drinking a Scotch. She sat down next to him on a chair with metal arms and a woven plastic seat that she’d purchased from an online catalog years ago, when such transactions were new and marveled over (“I bought it online!” “No!” “Yes. And it was so easy!”), and wriggled her feet out of her shoes. “Your galleys have arrived,” she said. She looked at the glass in his hand. “Isn’t it a little early to start drinking?” she asked.

  James held up the glass. “I’m celebrating. Apple wants to carry my book. They’re going to put it in their stores in February. They want to experiment with books, and they’ve chosen mine as the first. Redmon says we’re practically guaranteed sales of two hundred thousand copies. Because people trust the Apple name. Not the name of the author. The author doesn’t matter. It’s the opinion of the computer that counts. I could make half a million dollars.” He paused. “What do you think?” he asked after a moment.

  “I’m stunned,” Mindy said.

  That evening, Enid crossed Fifth Avenue to visit her stepmother, Flossie Davis. Enid did not relish these visits, but since Flossie was ninety-three, Enid felt it would be cruel to avoid her. Flossie couldn’t last much longer, but on the other hand, she’d been knocking at death’s door (her words) for the past fifteen years, and death had yet to answer.

  As usual, Enid found Flossie in bed. Flossie rarely left her two-bedroom apartment but always managed to complete the grotesque makeup routine she’d adopted as a teenaged showgirl. Her white hair was tinted a sickly yellow and piled on top of her head. When she was younger, she’d worn it bleached and teased, like a swirl of cotton candy. Enid had a theory that this constant bleaching had affected Flossie’s brain, as she never got anything quite right and was querulously insistent on her rightness even when all evidence pointed to the contrary. The only thing Flossie had managed to get partially right was men. At nineteen, she’d snatched up Enid’s father, Bugsy Merle, an oil prospector from Texas; when he passed away at fifty-five from a heart attack, she’d married the elderly widower, Stanley Davis, who had owned a chain of newspapers. With plenty of money and little to do, Flossie had spent much of her life pursuing the goal of becoming New York’s reigning socialite, but she’d never developed the self-control or discipline needed to succeed. She now suffered from heart trouble and gum infections, wheezed when she spoke, and had only television and visits from Enid and Philip to keep her company. Flossie was a reminder that it was terrible to get old and that there was very little to be done about it.

  “And now Louise is dead,” Flossie said triumphantly. “I can’t say I’m sorry. Nobody deserved death more than she. I knew she’d come to a bad end.”

  Enid sighed. This was typical Flossie, completely illogical in her analyses. It came, Enid thought, from never having had to really apply herself.

  “I would hardly call her death ‘just deserts,’” Enid said carefully. “She was ninety-nine. Everyone dies eventually. It’s not a punishment. From the moment we’re born, life only goes in one direction.”

  “Why bring that up?” Flossie said.

  “It’s important to face the truth,” Enid said.

  “I never want to face the truth,” Flossie said. “What’s good about the truth? If everyone faced the truth, they would kill themselves.”

  “That might be true,” Enid said.

  “But not you, Enid,” Flossie said, pushing herself up on her elbows in preparation for a verbal attack. “You never married, never had children. Most women would have killed themselves. But not you. You go on and on. I admire that. I could never be a spinster myself.”

  “‘Single’ is the word they use now.”

  “Well,” Flossie said brightly, “I suppose you can’t miss what you never had.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Enid said. “If that were true, there would be no envy in the world. No unhappiness.”

  “I was not envious of Louise,” Flossie said. “Everyone says I was, but I wasn’t. Why would I be envious of her? She didn’t even have a good figure. No bosom.”

  “Flossie,” Enid said patiently. “If you weren’t envious, then why did you accuse her of robbery?”

  “Because I was right,” Flossie said. Her wheezing increased, and she reached for an inhaler on the coffee table. “The woman,” she said between gasps, “was a thief! And worse.”

  Enid got up and fetched Flossie a glass of water. When she returned, she said gently, “Drink your water. And forget about it.”

  “Then where is it?” Flossie said. “Where is the Cross of Bloody Mary?”

  “There’s no proof the cross ever existed,” Enid said firmly.

  “No proof?” Flossie’s eyes bulged. “It’s right there. In the painting by Holbein. It’s hanging around her neck. And there are documents that talk about Pope Julius the Third’s gift to Queen Mary for her efforts to keep England Catholic.”

  “There’s one document,” Enid said. “And that document has never been shown to be authentic.”

  “What about the photograph?”

  “Taken in 1910. About as real as the famous photograph of the Loch Ness Monster.”

  “I don’t know why you don’t believe me,” Flossie said, looking at Enid with hurt eyes. “I saw it myself. In the basement of the Met. I shouldn’t have let it out of my sight, but I had the Pauline Trigère fashion show in the afternoon. And Louise did go to the Met that day.”

  “Flossie dear,” Enid said firmly. “Don’t you understand? You might just as easily have taken the cross yourself. If it exists at all.”

  “But I didn’t take it,” Flossie said stubbornly. “Louise did.”

  Enid sighed. Flossie had been beating this rumor drum for fifty years. It was her stubborn insistence that Louise had stolen this cross that had caused Flossie’s eventual removal from the board of the Metropolitan Museum in a charge led by Louise Houghton, who had subtly suggested that Flossie suffered from a slight mental impairment. As this was generally believed to be true, Louise had prevailed, and Flossie had never forgiven Louise not only her supposed crime but also her betrayal, which had led to Flossie’s permanent fall from grace in New York society.

  Flossie could have worked her way back in, but she refused to let go of her crazy idea that Louise Houghton, a woman above reproach, had stolen the Cross of Bloody Mary and kept it hidden somewhere in her apartment. Even now Flossie pointed out the window and, with a wheeze, said, “I’m telling you, that cross is in her apartment right now. It’s just sitting there, waiting to be discovered.”

  “Why would Louise Houghton take it?” Enid asked patiently.

  “Because she was a Catholic. And Catholics are like that,” Flossie said.

  “You must give this up,” Enid said. “It’s time. Louise is dead. You must face the facts.”

  “Why?”

  “Think about your legacy,” Enid said. “Do you want to go to your grave with everyone thinking you were the crazy old woman who accused Louise Houghton?”

  “I don’t care what people think,” Flossie said proudly. “I never have. And I’ll never understand how my very own stepdaughter continued to be friends with Louise.”

  “Ah, Flossie.” Enid shook her head. “If everyone in New York took sides over these petty, insignificant arguments, no one would have any friends at all.”

  “I read something funny today,” the makeup artist said. “‘The Joys of Not Having It All.’”

  “Not having it all?” Schiffer asked. “I’m living it.”

  “A friend e-mailed it to m
e. I can e-mail it to you if you want.”

  “Sure,” Schiffer said. “I’d love that.”

  The makeup artist stepped back to look at Schiffer in the long mirror. “What do you think?”

  “It’s perfect. We want it natural. I don’t think a mother superior would wear much makeup.”

  “And after she has sex for the first time, we can make it more glamorous.”

  The red-haired PA, Alan, stuck his head into the makeup room. “They’re ready for you,” he said to Schiffer.

  “I’m ready,” she said, getting out of the chair.

  “Schiffer Diamond is on her way,” Alan said into a headset.

  They walked down a short corridor, then went through the construction department. Two tall metal doors led to one of the six sets. Inside, behind a maze of gray plywood walls, was a white backdrop. Several director’s chairs were set up a few feet away, clustered in front of a monitor. The director, Asa Williams, introduced himself. He was a brooding, gaunt man with a shaved head and a tattoo on his left wrist. He’d directed lots of TV and, recently, two hit movies. Milling around was the usual crowd of crew and executives, all wondering, no doubt, what Schiffer was going to be like. Difficult or professional? Schiffer was friendly but removed.

  “You know the drill, right?” Asa said. She was led onto the set. Told to walk toward the camera. Turn to the right. Turn to the left. The battery in the camera died. There was a four-minute break while someone replaced it. She walked away and stood behind the director’s chairs. The executive producers were in a conversation with the network executives. “She still looks good.”

  “Yes, she looks great.”

  “But too pale, maybe.”

  She was sent back to the makeup room for an adjustment. Sitting in the chair, she recalled the afternoon when Philip had knocked on the door of her trailer. He was still put out that she’d called his movie lousy. “If you think my movie sucks, why are you in it?” he’d asked.

  “I didn’t say it sucked. I said it was lousy. There’s a big difference. You’re going to need much thicker skin if you’re going to survive in Hollywood,” she’d said.

  “Who said I want to survive in Hollywood? And what makes you think I don’t have thick skin?”

  “And what do you know, anyway?” he asked later, when they were having drinks at the outdoor tiki bar in the hotel. “It’s only your second movie.”

  “I’m a fast learner,” she said. “How about you?”

  He ordered two shots of tequila, then two more. There was a pool table in the back of the bar, and they used every excuse to accidentally touch each other. The first kiss happened outside the bathroom, located in a little hut. When she came out, he was waiting for her. “I was thinking about what you said, about how Hollywood corrupts.”

  She leaned back against the rough wood of the hut and laughed. “You don’t have to take everything I say at face value. Sometimes I say things just to hear how they sound. Any crime in that?”

  “No,” he said, putting his hand on the wall above her shoulder. “But it means I’m never going to know when you’re serious.” Her head was tilted back to look at him, although he wasn’t so much taller than she was—maybe six inches. But then his arm was around her back, and they were kissing, and his mouth was so soft. They were both startled and broke away, then went back to the bar and had another tequila shot, but the line had been crossed, and soon they were kissing at the bar and putting their hands on each other’s faces and backs until the bartender said, “Get a room.”

  She laughed. “Oh, we have one.”

  Back in her room, they engaged in the long, delicious process of getting to know each other’s bodies. When they took off their shirts and pressed together, the sensation of skin on skin was a revelation. They lay together for a while, like high school kids who have all the time in the world and don’t need to go too far too fast; then they took off their pants and pantomimed sex—his penis touching her vagina through their undergarments. All through the night, they touched and kissed, dozing off and waking to the joy of finding the other in the bed, and then the kissing started again, and finally, in the early morning when it was right, he entered her. There was nothing like that first push, and it so overwhelmed them that he stopped, just let his penis be inside her, while they absorbed the miracle of two pieces that fit perfectly together.

  She had a seven A.M. call, but at ten A.M., during a break in shooting, he was in her trailer and they were doing it on the small bed in the back with the polyester sheets. They did it three more times that day, and during dinner with the crew, she sat with her leg over his, and he kept putting his hand under her shirt to touch her waist. By then the whole crew knew, but set romances were a given in the intimacy and stress of getting a movie made. Though they usually ended when the movie wrapped, Philip came to L.A. and moved into her bungalow. They played house like any other young couple discovering the wonders of companionship, when the mundane was new and even a trip to the supermarket could be an adventure. Their anonymous bliss lasted only a short while, however, because then the movie came out, and it was huge.

  Their relationship was suddenly public. They rented a bigger house with a gate in the Hollywood Hills, but they couldn’t keep the outside world from creeping in, and that started the trouble.

  Their first fight was over an article in a magazine that featured her on the cover. In the piece, she was quoted as saying, “I can’t take making movies too seriously. In the end, it’s not that different from what little girls do when they’re playing dress-up.” She came home from a meeting one afternoon and found the magazine on the coffee table and Philip in a foul mood over her quote. “Is that what you think about my work?” he said.

  “It doesn’t have anything to do with you.”

  “That’s right,” he said, “because everything is about you. Did you ever consider the fact that it’s my movie you were talking about?”

  “Don’t take yourself so seriously. It’s not attractive.” But she had, it seemed, irrevocably bruised his ego. They continued on for a little longer, then he moved back to New York. A miserable month passed before he called her. “I’ve been thinking. It’s not us. It’s Hollywood. Why don’t you come to New York?”

  She’d been twenty-four then, willing to take on any adventure. But that was over twenty years ago, she thought now, staring at her reflection in the makeup mirror. In the harsh light of the bare bulbs, there was no denying that she no longer looked like that girl. Her face had matured; it was more angular and hollow, and no one would mistake her for an ingenue. But she knew a lot more about what she wanted from life and what no longer mattered.

  But did Philip know? Leaning in to the mirror to check her makeup, she wondered what he’d thought when she’d run into him in the elevator. Did he see her as middle-aged? Did he still find her attractive?

  The last time she’d seen him had been ten years ago. She’d been in New York doing publicity for a movie when she ran into Philip in the lobby of One Fifth. They hadn’t talked in over a year, but they immediately fell into their old habits, and when she’d finished her last interview, they’d met for dinner at Da Silvano. At eleven o’clock there was a terrific thunderstorm, trapping everyone inside, and the waiters cleared away the tables and turned up the music, and everyone danced. “I love you,” Philip said. “You’re my best friend.”

  “You’re my best friend, too.”

  “We understand each other. We’ll always be friends.”

  They went back to her apartment. She had an antique four-poster bed she’d had shipped from England; that year she’d spent two months in London doing a play and become enamored with the idea of English country houses. Philip was propped up on his arms above her, his hair falling into her face. They made love hard and seriously, astounded by how good it still was, which once again brought up the issue of being together. He asked about her schedule. She was flying to Europe and was supposed to go directly back to L.A. but said she’d make
a detour and spend at least a few days in New York. Then she went to Europe and got stuck there for an extra two weeks and had to go directly back to L.A. Then she started a movie that was shooting in Vancouver and India. Six months passed, and she heard from someone that Philip was getting married. She got on a plane and flew to New York to confront him.

  “You can’t get married,” she said.

  “Why not?”

  “What about us?”

  “There is no us.”

  “Only because you don’t want there to be.”

  “Whether I want it or not is irrelevant. It doesn’t exist.”

  “Who is she?” Schiffer demanded. “What does she do?”

  Her name was Susan, and she taught at a private school in Manhattan. When Schiffer insisted, he showed her a photograph. She was twenty-six, pretty, and utterly bland. “After all the women you’ve been with, why her?” she asked.

  “I’m in love with her. She’s nice,” Philip said.

  Schiffer raged and then begged. “What does she have that I don’t have?”

  “She’s stable.”

  “I can be stable.”

  “She’s in the same place all the time.”

  “And that’s what you want? Some little mouse who will do everything you say?”

  “You don’t know Susan. She’s very independent.”

  “She’s dependent. That’s the real reason why you want to marry her. At least be truthful about your motives.”

  “We’re getting married on September twenty-sixth.”