It was understood that the Avenue in On the Avenue magazine referred to Park Avenue, specifically between Fifty-ninth and Eighty-sixth Streets, an area that remained a canyon of wealth and privilege where society dames practiced the hostess arts. The magazine’s offices weren’t actually on Park, though. Commercial space on Park was far too banal and corporate, and On the Avenue, while still the gazette of record for the Upper East Side set, was getting edgier in recent years in an effort to expand its demographics. That meant extending their cultural and physical reach beyond the confines of the Upper East Side.
In fact, millennials, even the right sort, didn’t want to live there anymore, despite that (far) East Side real estate prices were now among the cheapest in Manhattan. For a typical twenty-something, living in, say, Yorkville was a social death sentence. The neighborhood had the faint odor of junior investment bankers, wielding their pickup routines in Second Avenue bars. It had reached the point where not even junior investment bankers themselves wanted to live there. The financial crisis of 2008 put a stake in whatever cachet that sort had left, so they sought credibility by flocking to previously unthinkable neighborhoods like the East Village and even Brooklyn.
Lulu lived on Fifth, though, which was a different animal. By virtue of its world-class views of Central Park, Fifth Avenue was forever protected from the vicissitudes of real estate trends.
Sheldon often talked about how much Manhattan had changed since his own youth. The map of acceptable places to live had expanded remarkably. Prior to the Ed Koch era, no self-respecting socialite or preppie would have been caught dead living outside a narrow Upper East Side rectangle bordered by Fifth Avenue on the west and Lexington on the east.
The irrepressible Koch willed the city out of the fetid, garbage-strewn days of the seventies (which Lulu knew mostly from movies like The French Connection—Sheldon loved film of the era). The term yuppies was coined to describe all the new twenty-somethings, with their yellow power ties and ready cash. This new breed branched out, first setting their sights on the West Side. The bodegas of Columbus Avenue yielded to trendy restaurants, designer-clothing stores, and specialty-food shops like Zabar’s. Next, cultural control of the West Village was wrested from any lingering bohemians. The trend continued through the nineties as one neighborhood after another fell to gentrification. By the aughts, the map had been expanded to most of Manhattan, and even to the so-called outer boroughs (except Staten Island, of course). Some moneyed white people, those who fancied themselves progressive champions or urban pioneers, even colonized Harlem, driving up rents and infuriating local activists.
OTA, as everyone called On the Avenue, made its home in the Meatpacking District, which had long transitioned from its past of warehouses and abattoirs. Occupying land on the distant West Side, not far from Greenwich Village, it laid claim to a patina of carefully maintained grittiness, something cherished by its residents. They loved saying they lived in the “Meatpacking District,” as if they were being self-deprecating. Never mind that there remained but a single abattoir, one situated right next to the new branch of the Whitney. Young neighborhood newcomers loved the ironic contrast.
* * *
Lulu arrived at OTA to find the freight elevator broken, so she had to walk the two flights up. (A broken elevator only burnished OTA’s edgier bona fides.) She felt confident in her Prada camel off-the-shoulder cashmere sweater and skinny-fit, carefully destroyed jeans. The office was in a large loft with the requisite high interior ceilings and brick walls, adorned with framed oversize OTA covers. The open layout had rows of long tables each lined with fashionable-looking young women and large-screen, razor-thin iMacs. Cricket Hayes stared imperiously down from one of the framed covers.
There didn’t appear to be a receptionist, so Lulu walked up to the nearest person. “Excuse me, I’m looking for Wendy Faircloth?”
The woman looked up. “Oh, you must be Lulu. Let me get Wendy for you. My name is Judy, by the way.”
Lulu was pleased to be expected, which of course she had to be, but it pleased her nonetheless.
The imprimatur of OTA could set a girl up for life, transforming another random party girl on the prowl into a branded socialite. That status was conferred with exposure, and that exposure was determined inside these exposed-brick walls. Perhaps her photo might hang here someday next to Cricket’s.
OTA had articles, but they tended to be fluff about society decorators or the histories of older New York families. Mostly, people opened OTA for the party pictures, which some snarkily referred to as the society sports pages. Photographers like Patrick McMullan were dispatched nightly to the “right” events to snap pictures of city swells coming and going. That was the goal, to get in those pictures, with the largest footprint and the best page position possible. Pictures were forever, after all. They were the ultimate social currency.
“Hello, Lulu,” said the elegant woman breezing into the room. “I’m Wendy Faircloth. Welcome to OTA.”
Lulu recognized her right away from the masthead page of the magazine, something Lulu had carefully studied. Wendy wore a black leather pencil skirt with a white Anne Fontaine shirt. Her perfectly highlighted hair was swept up in a messy bun, intentionally arranged to appear random, as though no effort were made at all. Lulu knew just how expensive such noneffort efforts were.
“Yes, hi! I’m delighted to be here.” They shook hands. Gold bangles rattled on Wendy’s wrist.
“Can I have Judy get you some coffee? We just got a new Jura, and I don’t want to tell you what it cost! We also have Bai tea if you’re not a coffee drinker.”
“Espresso would be perfect.” Lulu thought that sounded more sophisticated than just coffee, and the caffeine hit would be welcome after last night.
“Of course,” Judy said, scurrying off.
“So, you’re our Devon girl. Very impressive. My son applied, but they just don’t want many kids from our crowd anymore.” Wendy didn’t need to add she meant white private-school kids from Manhattan. “You must be a smart one.”
“I got lucky, but thank you.” Maybe this whole Devon thing will be useful after all.
“You look smashing, by the way. Is that Hermès?”
“Prada, actually.”
“Ah, yes. I should have known. You wear it so well!”
“Thank you.” Beaming on the inside, Lulu realized she had broken out in a large smile, which she immediately dialed back. Mustn’t be eager. Judy arrived with the espresso, which Lulu gratefully accepted. She took a sip and mentally thanked the caffeine gods.
“We’ll have a number of designers for the shoot—I have some ideas I can’t wait to try on you! Come with me, if you would. The others are already here.” Wendy led Lulu through the aisles of luminous iMacs, then through glass doors into a studio area where a number of people were milling about. “Come meet your fellow cover girls.”
Did she say cover? Lulu tried once again to keep a lid on her excitement. A cover would totally put her on the map. They walked over to where the other girls were sampling clothes from various racks.
The competition.
“Lulu, this is Cassie Little and Christina Fellows,” Wendy said. They exchanged hellos, in full I don’t give a shit mode. Cassie, in particular, barely looked up from her phone. Lulu had met them both before, and more than once, but if Cassie and Christina remembered, they weren’t letting on, and Lulu was not going to give them the upper hand by letting on herself. “And where’s Aubrey disappeared to?” Wendy asked.
“Here!” came a voice from behind one of the racks.
Aubrey St. John. Spence, Columbia, St. Anthony Hall. Third-generation Wall Street money. Grandfather was chairman of Morgan Stanley and board chair at Sloan Kettering. Aubrey was the leading contender to be seated at the socialite throne after Cricket Hayes abdicated by moving to Palm Beach. Seriously, thought Lulu. Who moves to Palm Beach at twenty-nine? It’s Night of the Living Dead down there. The brand she built, just to blow it off like that
…
“We’ve met before, haven’t we?” Aubrey asked.
“Maybe in East Hampton?” Lulu ventured.
“Of course.” Aubrey was older than Lulu, so it was entirely possible Aubrey didn’t remember, but Lulu remembered precisely. It was two summers ago, at the Katzes’ clambake on Main Beach. Marvin Katz was a producer friend of Sheldon’s who’d won several Emmys.
“All right, ladies, come come!” Wendy clapped her hands. “Let’s get you to makeup and styling and then we’ll go to wardrobe.”
This process took well over two hours, although Lulu was perfectly content to be fussed over. They emerged as glamorous 1940s movie starlets with formal gowns and elegant waves in their hair, as if on their way to a ball. The set was throwback Victorian, done in olive greens and browns, with a couch, heavy drapes, and numerous large pillows. Wendy arranged the girls, putting Aubrey in the center of the couch with Lulu standing slightly to the side. This annoyed Lulu, but she knew that saying anything would be a misstep. They would probably rearrange the seating multiple times anyway.
A photographer, bald with a long ponytail, started shooting. Wendy surveyed the scene she had created. “There they are, the New Philanthropists!” she declared as the camera clicked away.
Lulu had never really done any philanthropy, if by philanthropy one meant actually giving money to something. But she did go to lots of expensive benefits (the tickets for which were always paid for by Sheldon), and she also lent her name to the various junior committees. Last year she’d cochaired a junior fund-raiser for the Southampton Hospital. The invitation, with her name printed prominently at the top, had gone out to thousands of people, and she had even said a few words up on the stage about the importance of good health care. Lulu quietly hoped it would be a stepping-stone to the Memorial Sloan Kettering Associates Committee, the ne plus ultra of New York junior committees.
“Come on, girls, look like you own this town!” implored the photographer. “No, no, that’s not it,” he said, evidently not happy with what he saw. “I want serene confidence, with maybe just a soupçon of fuck you. Can you give me that?” Lulu, sneering ever so slightly, wondered if the other girls knew what soupçon meant. Despite her ambivalence about Devon, she found it convenient to throw her credentials in people’s faces now and then, even if this time it was only mentally. It was always done subtly, of course. You go to Wake? I hear that’s so much fun.… Where do I go? Oh, I’m up in Havenport.
That line of thought got her where she needed to be, the soupçon. She tilted her head, striking her much-practiced signature-pose-to-be.
“Excellent, girls! You are stars!”
Lulu allowed herself to think about all the wonderful things that accrued to a top socialite. Designers longed to dress you, and you got to keep the clothes afterward. You never paid to go anywhere, with event organizers thrilled just to have your name attached. There were promotional deals with perfumes and clothing lines; it was all about building your own personal brand. Some, like Cricket Hayes, had parlayed that brand into reality TV shows. Cricket even had a considerable following in Japan. Or used to have.
And then there was social media. A million followers translated into $10,000 for a single tweet or Instagram post. “Want to know how Old Navy makes your butt look scary good?” Khloé Kardashian got paid $13,000 for sending that one tweet. One tweet. Not that Lulu found anything tasteful about the Kardashians—they officially horrified her—or Old Navy, which horrified her even more, but the family’s business model appealed to her immensely.
Finally, they called it a wrap. Wendy Faircloth swept back into the room, trailed by Judy, who held several bags. “Excellent job, girls. You shoot like pros. Judy has some small gifts for you.” Lulu accepted her bag and took a quick peek inside. Chloé perfume, a Burberry scarf, some other things she didn’t want to be caught ogling.
Before leaving, she took a detour through the clothing racks and stuffed a Dolce & Gabbana jacket into her bag. She’d had her eye on it earlier, and the magazine didn’t have to pay for any of this stuff anyway, she reasoned. Then she snapped a discreet selfie, making sure the OTA logo on the wall was clearly visible over her shoulder. She posted it to Instagram with the caption “Can you say glam?” Seconds later, the responses started.
“♥♥♥SO GORGEOUS!!!!!!!”
She hit refresh. “★BEAUTIFUL!!!!!!★”
Refresh. “STUNNING!! LOVE U!!!!!”
With a sense of well-being she hadn’t felt in months, Lulu summoned an Uber for the trip back up to Devon. On the road, the adrenaline of the day’s activities wore off and the previous night caught up with her.
She fell into a contented sleep.
Devon Daily
October 30
Accusations of Racism Against Professor
Several students are leveling accusations of racism against Devon faculty member Ephraim Russell. Russell, an assistant professor in the English Department, specializes in nineteenth-century American literature. Accusations center on the lack of minority representation in the course’s syllabus, as well as the allegedly profligate use of language many in the class find offensive and exclusionary.
“An entire century, and Ephraim Russell can’t find even one writer of color to choose from?” remarked Jaylen Biggs, president of the Afro-American Cultural Center. A review of Professor Russell’s syllabus by this paper confirms that all required reading is the work of white authors of European descent.
More troubling, according to some who were there, is the use of language that many feel creates an unsafe environment, particularly for students from marginalized groups. The Devon Daily was able to obtain exclusive video shot during Professor Russell’s class, and it confirms the use of certain racially charged words. Following one student’s reading of a passage containing multiple uses of the word “n****r,” the Professor responds, “Excellent. I love it.” Students can be heard gasping in response.
“I’m upset, I can’t even tell you,” said one African-American student, who declined to be identified. “I left class in tears yesterday. Professor Russell should be ashamed to let this sort of thing happen in a Devon classroom. I don’t feel safe at all.” When asked if Russell had provided content warnings to class members, she said no.
Martika Malik-Adams, Dean of the Devon Office of Diversity and Inclusion, said that the Bias Response Team is looking into the allegations. She added that new guidelines on content warnings are expected to be released sometime later this academic year. Each department has appointed a single representative to serve on the newly formed Committee on Safe and Open Classrooms, which will determine appropriate measures regarding content warnings. Dean Malik-Adams noted that Professor Barrett Smallwood will represent the English Department.
Professor Smallwood could not be reached for comment at press time, nor could Titus Cooley, English Department Chairperson.
Titus Cooley’s Office
EPH SAT GLUMLY outside Titus Cooley’s office. Until seeing the piece in the Daily, he hadn’t been overly concerned about the incident in his class. College kids did all sorts of strange things these days, and besides, why would he be a target? Mostly, that day in class struck him as odd, almost like a piece of performance art or agitprop.
He probably didn’t disagree with the students’ basic views, even if he thought the whole trigger-warning thing was silly. Most other professors felt the same about trigger warnings, he was sure, but were reluctant to say anything, as the concept was gaining traction. How or why this was the case was a mystery to Eph. Who drove these things, anyway? It couldn’t be the ragtag bunch who’d sandbagged his class.…
He could hear Titus talking on the phone. The words were unintelligible behind the formidable oak door, but Eph was pretty sure the conversation was about him. He’d meant to go to Titus earlier, just in case the incident became a “thing,” but he’d gotten sidetracked, and then a few more days went by and he figured it had blown over.
Then the article a
ppeared in the Daily.
In the online version, there were 247 comments and counting. He’d read a few but quickly stopped. He was called a lot of unpleasant things. The word fascist came up a lot. Arjun Choudhary, the dean of students, canceled Eph’s class today as a “safety precaution.”
Titus’s door swung open. “Ephraim. Come in, come in.”
Eph walked into the magnificent office with its view of Bingham Plaza and Titus walked him over to a sitting area. “Let me say right off I know you’re not some damned racist or, what was it…”
“‘Fascist.’”
“No, that wasn’t it.”
“‘White supremacist’?”
“That’s the one. You’re not one of those. I don’t suppose you’re a fascist, either.”
“Thank you, sir. That’s quite a low bar we’re setting.”
“Well, these are strange days, Ephraim, strange days.”
Titus had a habit of repeating words and phrases. He pulled a pipe from a rack and carefully stuffed it with tobacco. Striking a wooden match, he held the flame steadily over the bowl, drawing it in with a series of puffs. “I know, I know, it’s against the rules, but I contain the practice to this office, and no one seems to complain.”
Being the éminence grise of the English Department clearly had its benefits. Eph couldn’t recall the last time he’d seen someone smoke a pipe, and the smell was oaky and sweet. He found it calming.
“You could say the inmates are running things around here, you know,” continued Titus. “Between you and me, Strauss is terrified of them. The students, I mean. Well, everyone, really, but you didn’t hear me say that. But they’re an angry lot, and they use social media to hype everything up. Not that I really understand any of it, all this Twitter nonsense. They even have some sort of online petition about you.”
“Professor, if I may, what happened was clearly staged. Some of those students weren’t even in my class, and that video had to be doctored. I never said ‘I love it’ or ‘excellent’ after the kid read that passage. I know I must have said those words at some point, but it must have been in another part of the class.”
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