I got together with Ashley, Anna, and Mariella every few weekends. Our friendship was filled with late nights in SoHo and occasional after-work events. We once went to one of Mariella’s functions—a book launch at the Oscar de la Renta flagship store on the Upper East Side—where we crossed paths with real estate developer Aby Rosen, whose company, RFR Realty, owned the building Anna was working to lease. When Anna spotted him, she walked over excitedly to say hello. I watched from across the room, marveling to see an assertive young woman holding her own in conversation with such a prominent businessman.
Nights would start with Ashley and me making plans to meet for drinks. By the end of our hang time, a group would have joined us. One at a time they would arrive: Mariella, Anna, and sometimes others. We had a more-the-merrier mentality, and those New York nights had a flow: we’d start at a restaurant, stop by a bar, and end with a dance floor or two. Most of the places we frequented have since closed and their names have been forgotten. Whatever their particular theme, they were iterations of the same core concept, designed to draw the fashionable crowd of the moment.
* * *
As the months went on, Anna was in touch with me independently from the rest of the group. I was flattered she had singled me out, and we started getting together on occasion, just the two of us. That’s when our friendship began to solidify. Nick and I were still together, but as a photo assistant for Annie Leibovitz, he traveled nonstop for work. My college friends mainly lived elsewhere and the ones in New York were Brooklyn-based and preoccupied with all-consuming jobs. So when I wasn’t out with Ashley and the rest of the gang, I was often by myself.
As far as I could tell, Anna was single, but romance and relationships were never her chief concern. In passing, she would mention old flings but nothing much else. This made it difficult to get a read on her taste in men, which I was curious about. Her apathy toward dating added to her mysteriousness. It seemed like she chose to be alone on purpose, and that independence was one of her hallmarks.
One afternoon in a cab on my way downtown, I received a text from Anna asking me to swing by. At the time, she was living in the Standard, High Line, not far from my apartment. The Standard was a hotel I associated with three things: partying, thanks to the two nightclubs on the top floors of the hotel; exhibitionism, since one wall in each of the guest rooms featured a large window that revealed the uncensored activities of its inhabitants to the Meatpacking District below; and André Balazs, the hotel’s owner. Little did I know then that only one of these factors was of interest to Anna: the millionaire hospitality mogul whom she would later meet.
I arrived as the sun was setting, the lounge area out front saturated in a soft crimson glow. I found Anna there, on a mod, curved bench with red cushions atop its white base. She was with someone I hadn’t seen before, a Korean-American guy, dressed in all black, who looked to be in his early thirties. I can’t remember if she told me he’d be there or if I thought I was meeting her alone. Either way, as I approached, she stood to greet me and then introduced a person I’d heard her mention before: Hunter.
Hunter Lee Soik was a tech entrepreneur. I’ve since heard him called a “futurist”—whatever that might be. I couldn’t tell if they were “together” or not at the time. She would later refer to him as her ex-boyfriend, but their relationship status was ambiguous. They were not overly affectionate, but since Anna told me they were sharing a hotel room, I assumed they were sleeping together. Hunter was visiting from Dubai, where he’d moved after living in New York. He was a little cold at first, inscrutable, as he reclined to watch Anna and me chitchat. He engaged me slowly, asking the usual questions about who I was and where I worked. When he described his background, we realized that we had Art + Commerce in common. He’d worked for them as a consultant, he said.
Hunter became more talkative as the evening went on. Once he’d warmed to me, I found him interesting and eloquent. He seemed to know at least a little about a lot.
After a bit, we decided to relocate to the Boom Boom Room, the hotel’s swanky lounge upstairs. It was quieter than I’d seen it before, since I’d only been for parties and on weekends. We sat at a table in the back, next to a glass wall that looked out over Manhattan.
Hunter told me about his job at the Dubai Future Foundation, explaining that he worked to curate the country’s cultural and artistic offerings. His responsibilities sounded formidable, if a little overstated. He went on to say that he had created an app called Shadow, back when he was living in the US, which was designed to foster a “community of dreamers.” The tool functioned like an alarm clock, but its wake-up call was gentle so that you could better remember and then transcribe your dreams as you came out of them. The app would then use an algorithm to extract keywords from users’ recordings. Those keywords would anonymously upload to a global dream database, so that users could track the content of dreamers around the world. Hunter had launched a crowdsourcing campaign on Kickstarter to raise capital for the project. I admired his initiative.
So, not only was Hunter helping to shape the cultural future of an entire country, he’d also come up with an app. I’d google him later and discover that his concept for Shadow had been covered by The New Yorker, Wired, The Atlantic, Forbes, Fast Company, Business Insider, and Vice—he’d even given a TED Talk.
As far as I could tell, whether they were together or not, Anna and Hunter had all of the makings of an international power couple. Watching the two of them, I could see the marks of time spent together. Much of their communication was nonverbal: secret messages exchanged through casual glances, nods, and smirks. They shared a history on which their mysterious dynamic relied—a history about which I knew very little.
I soon learned that Anna had been introduced to many of her acquaintances through Hunter, including a fashion designer, one of the founders of the video-hosting platform Vine, and Mariella. Evidently, Hunter was well connected in certain circles. He went back to Dubai shortly after our visit, but Anna stayed in touch with their shared contacts.
One such connection was a philanthropist named Meera, a divorced woman in her fifties who had been married to the former vice-chairman of a leading financial services company. On a Saturday in June, Anna and I took a Metro-North train up from the city to visit Meera at her estate in Hyde Park on the Hudson River. She was hosting a lunch, and Anna had been invited. Anna, in turn, had asked me to come.
That morning, I arrived to Grand Central Terminal early. Anna was running late, so for the sake of expediency I waited in line and bought round-trip tickets for us both.
Five minutes before departure, I stood anxiously on the platform next to our train. Anna claimed to be in the station, but she had yet to appear. Finally, with only seconds to spare, I spotted her. She was jogging toward me, in a black fitted dress, with her sunglasses on, carrying a black leather jacket, a Balenciaga tote, and a shopping bag full of gossip magazines to read on the journey. On board, we managed to find two empty seats side by side.
Nearly two hours later, we arrived at the Poughkeepsie train station. We taxied to the Hyde Park address and arrived to a tasteful, old-looking mansion. Meera answered the front door and welcomed us warmly, air-kissing each side of our cheeks.
“Thanks so much for having us,” Anna said cheerfully, stepping inside. We followed our host into the kitchen, where a household staff was busy preparing for lunch. Meera gave a few instructions and then pointed Anna and me toward the adjacent living room. “Come meet the others,” she said, leading the way. The living room was a rustic open space with beams stretched across its vaulted wood ceiling. Off the living room was an outdoor deck with sweeping views of the estate’s grounds, its tennis court, the distant Catskills, and the Hudson River.
A circle of casually dressed young adults, roughly the same age as Anna and me, were sitting on the plush sofas chatting. They paused in their conversation and turned to look as we entered. I noticed they studied Anna more than me, which wasn’t unusual—she h
ad that effect on a room.
Meera introduced us. “This is Anna Delvey,” she announced, “a talented young woman who is working on her own art foundation.” Some people raised their eyebrows, while others nodded approvingly. I was described as Anna’s good friend, and then as a photo editor for Vanity Fair. I felt like a sidekick, and in essence, I suppose I was.
Through snippets of conversation, I deduced the gathering was a reunion associated with United World Colleges, and surmised that Anna had been invited by Meera even though she wasn’t an alumna of the schools. I was intimidated as I surveyed the room, aware that everyone already seemed to know each other well. I remember thinking that, despite my nerves, I should make an effort to talk with new people. It would be the polite thing to do (which I knew because of my upbringing), and it might even be interesting.
The food was laid out buffet-style, which encouraged people to mingle. I helped myself to pasta salad and roasted vegetables, and waited for Anna so we could join a group of other guests. But it was soon clear to me that Anna had other plans. She had no interest in engaging with anyone aside from the host and me. She led me to a corner of the dining room table, and we put our plates down before returning to the kitchen for drinks.
“Do you have any rosé?” Anna asked a server. “I’ll just take a glass of that.” Impulsively, I followed suit. We returned to our plates. I felt uncomfortable about our standoffishness, I was nervous that we were being rude, but I stuck with Anna, since I was her guest and she didn’t know anyone else. It was a relief when the host came to sit beside us.
Meera chatted with Anna and asked about her art foundation. As usual, the topic made Anna particularly animated. By then, I’d gotten used to hearing her repeat the keynotes of her progress: from the historic building on Park Avenue South (“the perfect location”) to the nonstop meetings with bankers and lawyers in her effort to finalize the lease. I was essentially invisible while the two of them spoke, but the role of quiet observer suited me nicely.
After we finished our food, we briefly joined the others in the living room before Anna suggested the two of us split off to check out the swimming pool. She refilled her wineglass, and we made our way outside, down a footpath that led to a gate in a rectangular white fence. There was another woman in the pool area, watching her young daughter swim. She supervised, with care and amusement, as the girl turned flips and emerged from the water feet first, in a handstand, toes pruned and pointed as her legs wavered. I felt a contrast in energies as I watched, aware of myself as some sort of buffer between their domestic innocence and Anna’s wildness and spontaneity.
Next to the pool, Anna drank and played with Snapchat, admiring herself in different filters as she held her phone up with one arm, selfie-cam engaged. I joined in, smiling by her side as we looked at ourselves on her iPhone’s screen, with pink noses and cutesy puppy ears. Then the rest of the group entered the pool area, led by the host on a tour of the property. At my suggestion, we abandoned our photo session to join in. Only Anna still had a wineglass. Her drinking seemed conspicuous, but maybe just to me. Was I overly sensitive? I cared what people thought of me—of us. I saw this in myself, and faced with Anna’s willingness to do whatever she wanted whenever she wanted, I felt that I should be more free-spirited, like her, or at least try not to worry so much.
Once the tour finished, people got ready to leave. A group that had driven up from the city in a rental car politely offered to give Anna and me a ride back. We accepted, agreeing to scrap our return train tickets. Three of us squeezed into the back seat, Anna in the middle.
Not long into our drive, Anna asked if there was an auxiliary audio cable, so that she could plug in her iPhone to play music. I marveled at her audacity (or was it confidence?) in making such a request, Anna having said little else up to that moment. She put on an album that felt incongruous to the passing scenery and the carful of mellow strangers, but it was Beyoncé, so no one objected. Conversation lulled and we wound our way back to the city, mostly silent save for Anna’s soundtrack.
That was one of the last days I spent with Anna in 2016. Over the summer, I was busy traveling. I went to weddings in Georgia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and New Hampshire. I went to South Carolina with my family, to Montauk with Nick, and on weekend trips to visit my best friends from college. For work, I went to Paris for a photo shoot of Bruce Springsteen, to Los Angeles for more photo shoots, and to Toronto to help with a portrait studio at the Toronto Film Festival.
By the time fall began, my schedule had calmed down, but Anna was already gone. She had been in New York on an ESTA visa, she said, which lasted only three months at a time. When it lapsed, she went back to Cologne, Germany, where, she explained, she was from.
That October, Vanity Fair hosted its annual New Establishment Summit in San Francisco, a conference which Anna had planned to attend. I’d even put her in touch with the magazine’s deputy director of special events to purchase a ticket, which would have cost her $6,000. She was aware of the price and didn’t seem to have a problem with it. But a few days before the event, Anna texted to say that a family friend had passed away and, at her mom’s request, she would stay in Germany for the services. I was focused on work, so her cancellation had little impact on my mood or plans.
During the months that followed, I hung out with my college friends more than I did with Ashley and Mariella. I gave almost no thought to Anna. She was out of sight and out of mind. Until she returned one day, nearly half a year later, and jumped back into my life.
Chapter 4
Fast Friends
* * *
In February of 2017, a year after I first met her, Anna returned to New York. I had heard from her only a couple of times while she was away, occasional messages from an international number in which she said she was eager to get back and excited to catch up. It was a Sunday when she arrived. She checked into 11 Howard, not far from my apartment, and she invited me to lunch that same day.
She wanted to try Le Coucou, a fancy French restaurant that had recently opened to rave reviews, in the same building as her hotel. It was a place to be seen, as Anna was aware. “I’ve been dying to go,” I told her, knowing full well that reservations were impossible to come by, tables booked months in advance. As a guest of 11 Howard, she assumed the concierge could make a last-minute booking, but I wasn’t surprised when that didn’t pan out.
We decided to meet at Mamo instead, an Italian restaurant on West Broadway. As much as I was looking forward to seeing Anna, I wasn’t really sure what to expect. I didn’t actually know her very well, and it had been such a long while since I’d seen or even talked to her, it felt like we were meeting for the first time. I was also a bit confused as to why she’d picked me out as someone she wanted to see so soon after landing. Nonetheless, I took her invitation as a compliment and felt optimistic as I left my apartment. Working at V.F., I’d become good at cold calls and meeting strangers, but new friends had an incubation period, and it took time for me to feel comfortable. I had butterflies in my stomach as I pulled open the restaurant’s front door.
The décor had a Provence-does-Meatpacking feel, even though we were technically in SoHo. The dining room had bistro chairs, white tablecloths, and a rosé-colored banquette running along its left-hand side. A band of mirrors stretched across the rectangular room’s long walls, below vintage Italian movie posters in dark frames.
Anna had settled into the L-shaped booth closest to the door. Above her hung a poster of Lino Ventura and Jean-Paul Belmondo, both holding guns, floating above a dark cityscape. “ASFALTO CHE SCOTTA,” it read, in caps-locked Italian—“Hot Asphalt,” the Italian title of a film called Classe Tous Risque (“The Big Risk”).
Anna was smiling, her cheeks flushed, as she stood up for a hug. She wore fitted black casual attire, with a feathery fur coat draped over her shoulders, soft to the touch. Her round face was bare—surprisingly free of makeup, not even mascara—and her hair was down, freshly blown out, auburn, and
still long. She rearranged her belongings on the banquette to her left, steadying a large shopping bag as she sat down.
“How long have you been here?” I asked, taking a seat across from her. She’d only just arrived, having come directly from the Apple Store, where she’d purchased a laptop and two iPhones—one for her international number and one for a new local one, she explained.
Anna ordered a Bellini when the waiter came by—a young Italian with puppy-dog eyes—and I followed suit. She was ready to have a drink. She told me her parents weren’t big drinkers, and if she drank alone, “they’d think I had a problem or something.” According to Anna, her visit home had been a good time to get organized and to detox.
While she was away, she told me, she had enjoyed going for long hikes. I responded with enthusiasm: having grown up near the Smokey Mountains, I liked to hike, too. It would be a month or so before I realized that where I interpreted “hikes” to mean arduous treks up hilly trails, Anna used the words “hike” and “walk” interchangeably. No matter, she also seemed glad that we had an affinity for the same activity—we both liked to walk. It was a connection.
On her hikes at home, Anna said, she would put on headphones, listen to music, and explore the countryside, allowing her to clear her head.
“That sounds so nice,” I remarked. Nature and open spaces were luxuries I craved most while living in New York, with its endless cement and inescapable crowds. This comment did not land as I expected.
“It was totally boring,” she said dismissively.
My Friend Anna Page 5