One Fifth Avenue

by Candace Bushnell

  “Thank you,” Enid said. Philip had wanted to come with her, just like old times, but Enid had refused. She could make it perfectly well on her own, and besides, now that Philip was engaged, he should go with his fiancée. It was time to move on, she’d insisted. And so Philip and Schiffer had gone ahead to do press, which was as it should be.

  The event was being held in the gold-and-white ballroom and was three flights up. Enid had always taken the stairs, which were marble and felt like part of a movie set, but the kindly young man led her to the elevator. Enid looked around the metal box and shook her head. “Somehow it doesn’t have quite the same effect,” she remarked.

  “Excuse me?” the young man said.

  “Never mind. It doesn’t matter.”

  The elevator doors opened into the large foyer where the cocktail portion of these evenings was always held, and Enid felt better again, seeing that nothing had really changed. Then Annalisa Rice came forward and, kissing her on both cheeks, said, “I’m so glad you made it.”

  “I wouldn’t have missed it, my dear,” Enid said. “Your first big charity event. And the head of the committee. Are you giving a speech? The head of the committee always gives a speech.”

  “Yes. I wrote something this afternoon.”

  “Good girl,” Enid said. “Are you nervous? You shouldn’t be. You’ve met the president, remember?”

  Annalisa took Enid’s arm and walked her to the edge of the room. “Paul did something terrible. He just told me. It slipped out while we were getting dressed—”

  Enid cut her off. “Whatever it is, you must forget it. Put it out of your mind. You must behave as if everything is wonderful, no matter what you’re feeling. People expect it of you now.”

  “But—”

  “Billy Litchfield would have told you the same thing,” Enid said. Seeing the look of terror on Annalisa’s face, Enid patted her arm reassuringly. “Rearrange your expression, my dear. That’s better. Now go on. You have a roomful of people wanting to talk to you.”

  “Thank you, Enid,” Annalisa said. She walked off, and Enid moved into the room. Several long tables covered in white cloth were set up along the walls, displaying the wares of a silent auction. Enid stopped in front of a large color photograph of an enormous yacht. Below was a description of the yacht, and a sign-up sheet on which bidders could write down their offer. “The Impressor,” it read. “Two-hundred-and-fifty-foot super-yacht. Four master staterooms with king-size beds. Twelve staff members, including yoga and scuba-diving instructors. Available in July. Bidding starts at two hundred and fifty thousand a week.”

  Enid looked up and found Paul Rice by her side. “You should bid on this,” Enid said.

  Paul, for some reason, glared at her, although Enid thought this was probably his usual reaction to being greeted by relative strangers. “Really?” Paul said. “Why?”

  “We all know about your aquarium, dear,” Enid said. “You obviously like fish. There’s a scuba-diving instructor on board. The ocean is like a giant aquarium, I suppose. Have you ever scuba-dived?”

  “No,” Paul said.

  “I’ve heard it’s very easy to learn,” Enid said, and moved away.

  The gong sounded for dinner. “Nini!” Philip exclaimed, having just found her in the crowd. “I’ve been looking for you all night. Where were you?”

  “I was having a little chat with Paul Rice.”

  “Why on earth would you do that? Especially after all the trouble he’s caused in the building.”

  “I like his wife,” Enid declared. “Wouldn’t it be lovely if something happened to Paul, and Annalisa ended up in the apartment without him?”

  “Plotting a murder?” Philip asked, and laughed.

  “Of course not, dear,” Enid replied. “But it’s happened before.”

  “Murder?” Philip said, shaking his head.

  “No, dear,” Enid replied. “Accidents.”

  Philip rolled his eyes and led her to the head table. They were seated with Annalisa and Paul, and Schiffer, of course, and a few other people whom Enid didn’t know, but who appeared to be business associates of Paul’s. Schiffer was seated next to Paul with Philip next to her, followed by Enid. “This is a wonderful event,” Schiffer said to Paul, trying to make conversation.

  “It’s good for business. That’s all,” Paul replied.

  Philip put his arm across Schiffer’s back, touching the nape of her neck. Schiffer leaned toward him, and they kissed briefly. On the other side of the table, Annalisa watched with a pang of envy. She and Paul would never have that now, she thought. Standing up to give her speech, she wondered what they would have.

  She made her way to the podium. On a monitor in front of her was a copy of her speech. Annalisa looked out at the sea of faces. Some people looked expectant, while others sat back in their chairs, looking smug. Well, why shouldn’t they be smug? she thought. They were all rich. They had helicopters and planes and country houses. And art. Lots and lots of art. Just like her and Paul. She glanced over at him. He was drumming his fingers on the table as if he couldn’t wait for the evening to be over.

  She took a breath and, veering from her prepared remarks, said, “I’d like to dedicate this evening to Billy Litchfield.”

  Paul jerked his head up, but Annalisa went on, “Billy lived his life in the pursuit of art as opposed to money, which probably sounds like a horrifying idea to those of you in the financial world. But Billy knew the real value of art—that it wasn’t in the price of a painting but in what art gave to the soul. Tonight all of your donations go to children who don’t have the privilege of having art in their lives. But with the King David Foundation, we can change that.”

  Annalisa smiled, took a breath, and continued, “Last year we raised over twenty million dollars in pledges. Tonight we want to raise more. Who’s willing to stand up and make the first pledge?”

  “I will,” said a man in the front. “Half a million dollars.”

  “A half million over here,” said another.

  “A million dollars,” someone shouted.

  “Two mil.”

  Not to be outdone, Paul stood up. “Five million dollars,” he said.

  Annalisa stared at him, her face impassive. Then she nodded, feeling a rush of excitement. The pledges continued. “Five million here, too!” exclaimed another man. In ten minutes, it was over. She’d raised thirty million dollars. Ah, she thought. So this was what it was all about.

  Afterward, as she returned to her seat, Enid reached out and grabbed her wrist. Annalisa bent down to hear what she was saying. “Well done, my dear,” Enid whispered. “Mrs. Houghton couldn’t have done it better herself.” Then she glanced over at Paul and, pulling Annalisa closer, said, “You’re very much like her, my dear. But you must remember not to go too far.”

  Six weeks later, Annalisa Rice leaned over the railing of the super-yacht and watched as Paul and the onboard scuba instructor disappeared beneath the surface of the waters in the Great Barrier Reef. She turned around, and almost immediately, one of the twelve crew members was by her side. “Can I get you anything, Mrs. Rice? Iced tea, perhaps?”

  “Iced tea would be lovely.”

  “What time would you like lunch?” the young woman asked.

  “When Mr. Rice gets back. Around one.”

  “Will he be diving again this afternoon?”

  “I hope not,” Annalisa said. “He’s not supposed to.”

  “No, ma’am.” The girl nodded and went into the galley to get the tea.

  Annalisa climbed the two flights of stairs to the top deck, where eight lounge chairs were arranged around a small pool. At one end was a covered cabana with more deck chairs; at the other end was a bar. Annalisa lay down on one of the deck chairs in the sun, tapping her fingers on the teak frame. She was bored. This was a terrible thought, especially for someone who was on a two-hundred-and-fifty-foot super-yacht. On the deck above, on the very top of the ship, was a helicopter, a speedboat, and
an assortment of Jet Skis and other water toys, all of which she might employ for her pleasure. But she wasn’t interested. She and Paul had been on the yacht for two weeks, and she was ready to get back to One Fifth, where she could at least be away from Paul during the day. Paul wouldn’t consider it, though. He’d fallen in love with his new hobby—scuba diving—and refused to cut his vacation short. He’d spent two million dollars to get the yacht, he pointed out, outbidding another guest at the King David gala by a hundred thousand dollars, and he planned to get his money’s worth. She couldn’t argue with him about that, could she? Besides, he added, it was the old lady downstairs—what was her name? Enid something—who’d suggested that he bid on the yacht in the first place.

  Annalisa found this strange, along with Enid’s remark about going too far. Annalisa couldn’t understand what Enid had meant, but she didn’t doubt that Enid wanted Paul out of the building. Perhaps she figured a month without Paul Rice was better than nothing. But she needn’t have worried. She would probably get her wish, since Paul kept talking about how he wanted to sell One Fifth as soon as they returned.

  “The place is too small for us,” he complained.

  “We’re only two people,” Annalisa countered. “How much space do you need to take up in the world?”

  “A lot,” Paul said, not catching her sarcasm.

  She’d smiled but, as was often her habit now, didn’t respond. Ever since Paul had told her how he’d engineered Sandy Brewer’s downfall and, consequently, Billy Litchfield’s death, Annalisa had moved through her days on autopilot while trying to figure out what to do about Paul. She didn’t know who he was anymore—and he was dangerous. And when she’d brought up the topic of divorce, Paul wouldn’t hear of it.

  “If you really want to move,” she’d ventured one evening as he was feeding his fish, “perhaps you should. I could keep the apartment…”

  “You mean like in a divorce?” Paul had asked softly.

  “Well, yes, Paul. It happens these days.”

  “What makes you think I’d give you the apartment?” he’d said.

  “I’ve done all the work on it.”

  “With my money,” he’d scoffed.

  “I did give up my career for you. I moved to New York.”

  “And it hasn’t exactly been a hardship for you, has it?” Paul had replied. “I thought you loved it here. I thought you loved One Fifth. Although I don’t understand why.”

  “That’s not the point.”

  “You’re right,” Paul had said, turning away from his fish and going to stand by his desk. “It’s not the point. What is the point is that divorce is out of the question. I’ve had some meetings with the Indian government. They may be interested in doing the same kind of deal as the Chinese. A divorce would be inconvenient right now.”

  “When would it be convenient?” she’d asked.

  “I don’t know.” He hit a button on his computer. “On the other hand, as you’ve learned from the Billy Litchfield situation, death can be a much more practical solution. If Billy hadn’t died, he’d probably be in jail. That would have been terrible. Who knows what happens to people like him in prison?”

  So she had her answer. And since then she kept wondering if it was only a matter of time before Paul did her in as well. What imaginary slight would set him off? If she stayed with him, she’d be in a prison herself, always watching him, trying to gauge his mood, living in fear of the day when she couldn’t mollify him.

  Paul returned from scuba diving half an hour later, full of information about the various sea life he’d seen. At one o’clock, they sat down at opposite ends of a long table covered in crisp white linen and ate lobster and a citrus salad. “Are you going to dive this afternoon?” she asked.

  “I’m thinking about it. I want to explore the wreck of the Endeavor. Captain James Cook’s ship.”

  Two servers came in wearing gray uniforms and white gloves. They removed the plates and carefully laid out the silver for dessert. “Would you like more wine, ma’am?”

  “No, thank you,” Annalisa said. “I have a bit of a headache.”

  “It’s the barometric pressure. It’s changing. We may have some bad weather tomorrow.”

  “I’ll have more wine,” Paul said.

  As the server filled his glass, Annalisa said, “I really wish you wouldn’t dive this afternoon. You know it’s dangerous to do more than two dives a day. Especially after you’ve been drinking.”

  “I’ve had less than two glasses,” Paul said.

  “It’s enough,” she protested.

  Paul ignored her and defiantly took another sip of wine. “It’s my vacation. I’ll do as I please.”

  After lunch, Annalisa went to the stateroom to take a nap. While she was lying on the king-size bed, Paul came in to get changed. “I don’t know,” he said, yawning. “I might not dive after all.”

  “I’m glad you’re being sensible,” Annalisa said. “And you heard what the server said. The pressure’s changing. You don’t want to get caught in bad weather.”

  Paul looked out the stateroom window. “It’s perfectly sunny,” he said in his usual contrarian style. “If I don’t go, it could be days before I have another chance.”

  As Paul was suiting up, the captain of the yacht came out, holding a dive table. “Mr. Rice,” he said. “I need to remind you that this is your third deep dive today. You can’t stay down for longer than thirty minutes total, and you’ll need to include ten minutes to surface.”

  “I’m well aware of the time/nitrogen/oxygen ratio,” Paul said. “I’ve been doing math since I was three.” Holding the regulator over his face, he jumped in.

  As Paul descended, weightless and with the familiar childlike joy he’d recently discovered in being unfettered by gravity, he was joined by the yacht’s scuba instructor. The water was particularly clear in the Great Barrier Reef, even at eighty feet, and Paul had no trouble finding the wreck. The old ship was fascinating, and as Paul swam in and out of the hull, he was overcome by a feeling of pure happiness. This was why he couldn’t stop diving, he told himself. Then Paul recalled something from the diving manual and tried to remind himself that the giddy feeling could be a sign of impending nitrogen narcosis, but he quickly dismissed it. Surely he had another five or ten minutes. The giddy feeling increased, and when Paul saw the scuba instructor motioning for him to go up, instead of following his instructions, Paul swam away. For the first time in his life, he thought irrationally, he was denying the rigid rules of the monstrous numbers that had dominated his life. He was free.

  The scuba instructor swam after him, and what ensued next was an underwater tussle worthy of a James Bond movie. Eventually, the instructor won, twisting himself behind Paul’s back and putting him in a choke hold. Slowly, they ascended to the surface, but it was too late. An air bubble had formed and lodged itself in Paul’s spine; as he rose, the air bubble expanded rapidly. When Paul reached the surface, it exploded, ripping apart the nerves in his spine.

  “Yoo-hoo,” Enid Merle said, shouting up to Annalisa Rice. Annalisa looked over the side of the terrace, where she was overseeing the erection of a large white tent, and spotted Enid waving in excitement. “A reporter at the paper just called me—Sandy Brewer has been convicted. He’s going to jail.”

  “Come upstairs and tell me about it,” Annalisa called to her below.

  In a few minutes, Enid arrived on the terrace, panting slightly as she fanned the air in front of her face. “It’s so hot. I can’t believe how hot it is for September. They say it’s going to be ninety degrees on Saturday. And we’ll probably have a thunderstorm.”

  “We’ll be fine,” Annalisa said. “We have the tent and the whole apartment. I’ve cleared out most of Paul’s things from the ballroom, so we’ll have that space as well.”

  “How is Paul?” Enid asked, by rote.

  “Exactly the same,” Annalisa said. As she always did when she spoke about Paul, she lowered her voice and solemnly s
hook her head. “I saw him this morning.”

  “My dear, I don’t know how you can bear it,” Enid said.

  “There’s always the slight chance that he’ll recover. They say miracles do occur.”

  “Then he could end up being another Stephen Hawking,” Enid said reassuringly, patting Annalisa on the arm.

  “I’ve decided to donate money to the facility for a wing in Paul’s name. Even if Paul never comes out of the coma, it’s possible, in ten years, someone with similar injuries will.”

  “It’s the right thing to do, my dear,” Enid said, nodding approvingly. “And you still go to see him every day. It’s so admirable.”

  “It’s only thirty minutes by helicopter,” Annalisa said, moving into the cool of the apartment. “But tell me all about Sandy.”

  “Well,” Enid said, taking a large breath equal to the importance of her news. “He’s been sentenced to five years.”

  “That’s terrible.”

  “The prosecutor wanted to make an example of him. He’ll serve less time, I’m sure. Maybe two and a half years. Then he’ll get out, and everyone will forget about it. They always do. What I don’t understand is how Sandy Brewer got the cross in the first place.”

  “Don’t you know?” Annalisa asked.

  “No, my dear. I don’t.”

  “Come with me,” Annalisa said. “I have something to show you.”

  She led Enid upstairs to the master bedroom. There, on the top of her bureau, was the crude wooden box Mrs. Houghton had left Billy. “Do you recognize this?” Annalisa asked, opening the lid. She took out the jewelry she’d bought from Mrs. Houghton’s estate and, pointing to the hinge at the back, held out the box to Enid. “It has a false bottom,” she said.