The Right Address

by Carrie Karasyov

  “Did you see the tits on that chick that came home with Drew Vance last night?” asked Tom, the young, handsome Dubliner. “Sheesh.”

  “I wished I could bend her over that little bench in the elevator, mamma mia,” replied Eddie, a second-generation Italian hailing from Palermo via Secaucus.

  “Drew’s probably way too much of a pansy to give it to her right—he subscribes to GQ. I bet he couldn’t even get the job done, the faggot.”

  Arthur Korn had had a long day at work. He exited his car, finally home. As he got out and walked toward the building, Eddie raced out to close his car door for him and Tom stiffened attentively and rose to take his worn-in briefcase.

  “Good evening, Mr. Korn,” said Tom politely.

  “Good evening, sir,” added Eddie.

  “Evening Tom, Eddie. Have my suits arrived from the tailor?”

  “Not as of yet, sir, but we’ll bring them up right away when they arrive.”

  Arthur thanked them and entered the elevator. His floor, eleven, was already lit up by Eddie, who controlled the security panel by his podium so that any tenant or visitor could go only to his or her appointed floor. (During parties and rush hour a third doorman was called on to act as elevator operator, as actually pressing the buttons might prove too tiresome to the denizens.)

  “Lucky bastard,” whispered Eddie under his breath. “I’d love to nail his wife.”

  “In the Bentley,” Tom added, with a sly smile.

  “But you just know she’s been around the block,” Eddie said. “And I ain’t referring to rides in the car.”

  “She’s got that Heather Locklear thing going on. So hot.”

  Suddenly both stood up straight again, and the guileful whispers were eclipsed by proper, well-mannered greetings.

  “Miss Weston! Good evening. May I take your packages?”

  The elevator door was about to close when Arthur heard her enter. He recognized her step even before Eddie had breathed a word.

  “Miss Weston, we’ll hold the elevator for you,” said Tom, carrying her T. Anthony monogrammed weekend tote and groceries from E*A*T.

  “Thank you,” she replied quietly.

  The drop-dead gorgeous heiress was twenty-eight and already worth at least a hundred million dollars. The daughter of Russell and Eleanor Weston of Greenwich, Connecticut, and Fisher’s Island, and Prout’s Neck, Maine, Olivia Weston was a true beauty, with glowing skin that looked painted by Whistler and all the trappings of a true lady to the manner born. She was exactly the sort of mysterious creature that Arthur had imagined when he thought about New York society.

  She nodded hello to Arthur and then turned away to watch the elevator move up the floors. Arthur’s palms began to sweat the moment she entered the lift, standing to his left, slightly in front of him. The smell of her perfume permeated the space, and he looked at her neck, the elegance and beauty of which rivaled Audrey Hepburn’s.

  Now that’s class, Arthur thought to himself. He wondered how such a perfect creature could be so close to him—her shiny hair, her pearls, her skin: she was luminescence embodied. She seemed so pure, so untainted. He felt like such a fraud sharing an elevator with her.

  Suddenly, to his horror, his stomach growled, breaking the silence of their slow ascent.

  “Sorry,” he said, mortified. “Skipped lunch.”

  Olivia turned to him and gave a curt half smile before facing forward again. Arthur felt like a raging idiot. He knew she thought he was a world-class gormph. An old, second-rate goof. Skipped lunch. What the hell does she care?

  Olivia ran a perfect white hand through her hair. The small, casual gesture was enough to make Arthur swoon.

  “Beautiful day, wasn’t it?” he said, trying desperately to make up for the stomach noises and to camouflage any further gut grumblings.

  “Autumn in New York is magical,” she said.

  “Oh yeah, fall is my favorite season,” he said.

  “Mine too.”

  How strange. Arthur could not believe they had so much in common! They both lived in the same building, they both thought fall was the best—there was a connection here . . . what else to talk about?

  “So did you catch that Yankees—”

  “I don’t really follow sports,” she said with a helpless smile. The door opened to her floor. “Good night.” She smiled and exited into her hand-stenciled foyer.

  “Have a great night!” Arthur said, with way too much eagerness. He felt like a complete zero. The Yankees. Damn. Why did he have to bring up stupid sports? Of course she doesn’t care about baseball. It was knee-jerk panic. Why did he always do that? He knew he was lousy at small talk.

  The elevator door opened to a small, elegant foyer with an art deco table and an elegant bouquet from Renny. (It was an exact copy of the Vances’ foyer several floors above. When Melanie—desperate to please—had “accidentally” stopped on the Vances’ floor and spied their decor, she’d had her decorator replicate it down to the umbrella stand.) Arthur turned his key and entered his nine-thousand-square-foot duplex. He shouted a hello and made his way through the apartment to find his bride. Arthur interrupted her downward glance at a book in the lamplight.

  “Hi, honey,” he said, kissing her forehead. “Reading the Torah?”

  She smiled, putting down her Zagat guide.

  “I was trying to calm my nerves by browsing Zagat’s. I’m already at K and it’s not working.”

  “Your dad?” asked Arthur, immediately sympathetic.

  “I’ve been thinking about him, too, but it’s other stuff . . .”

  “What, someone steal your Amex card?”

  “Ha-ha, very funny. No, I was having a perfectly nice day—or I thought I was having a great day. I beat out Gayfryd for the last size thirty-two at YSL—the one on the cover of Town and Country—and then I got home to find this.”

  Melanie thrust a copy of the new 10021 magazine in his face. The magazine, given gratis to top buildings, featured Olivia Weston on its cover, with the headline THE NEXT MIMI HALSEY. Bedecked in a sweeping Lacroix ball skirt, Ralph Lauren cashmere twinset, and her grandmother’s jewels, she stared coolly off the page, pure elegance and unfettered grace. She even looked a little like a young Diandra.

  “That’s . . . Olivia Weston.”

  “They’re calling her the next Mimi Halsey, who was the next Brooke Astor ten years ago.”

  “So?”

  “So it bothers me. I feel like I can’t ever compete with these women, like I’ll always be swimming upstream. I mean, that little drugstore heiress was born with a silver thermometer up her butt. She hasn’t worked a day in her life, let alone done a stitch of volunteer work. She doesn’t know what real life is like, and she’s the next Mimi Halsey, vaulted above everyone else.”

  “Why do you care? They just give silly titles like that to sell magazines,” Arthur offered, patting Melanie’s head.

  “Arthur, they don’t sell this magazine. It’s free to everyone in our zip code. I just don’t get it, Arty. It’s like, I try and try and try: I raise money, I volunteer my time, I pull four million strings to get celebrities like Gary Coleman and Joan Lunden to chair our events, and no one ever seems to recognize my efforts.”

  “It will come, sweetie. And, besides, maybe Olivia has been doing this for longer.”

  “Doing what?” sighed Melanie. “I know for a fact that her work is done after the invitations go out. She just lets them use her name and doesn’t even show up at half the meetings.”

  “Why is this upsetting you so much?”

  “Because I want to know what I’m doing wrong,” said Melanie, with palpable distress. “I just don’t get it. I always thought I was a quick study, but I’m at a loss. I mean, we do so much more than people like Olivia, and I’m still an outsider and she’s the crown jewel. We’ve given millions to Memorial Sloan-Kettering, to the New York City Ballet, to the Museum of the City of New York, the Henry Street Settlement—”

  “Honey
. . .”

  “I’ve personally chaired countless benefits and gotten ads for all the programs. And she does nothing, but somehow she’s the hero and I’m the chump. So she wrote a little ninety-seven-page ‘autobiographical novel’ about her summers in Fisher’s Island, big deal.”

  “She did?”

  “I’ve done everything, and I’m not even in a party picture this issue.”

  “Please explain why you care about those crappy party pictures. They’re the size of a postage stamp, anyway.”

  Melanie paused. She knew damn well why she cared.

  “Mr. Guffey said Diandra was in at least every other month.”

  Diandra. Is that what this was about? Arthur wished Melanie wouldn’t think twice about her, but he knew that she kept some sort of internal scorecard. Arthur stroked her hair. “It’s meaningless, kiddo. No one cares about this stuff.”

  He saw his wife’s face fall in frustration. God, she wanted to be loved so badly. “Don’t worry.” Arthur tried to mollify her frazzled nerves with a hug and kiss. But when she was in a state she couldn’t be stopped.

  “Even Cordelia Vance, that snobby, giant Valium tablet with a face, is mentioned as being among the city’s most charitable set,” she continued. “She’s never friendly to me and I’m always so nice! She’s so frigid. No wonder I hear Morgan rolls in other beds.”

  “Melanie, calm down. You never know what goes on behind closed doors.”

  “Arthur, memo to you: where there’s smoke, there’s fire,” said Melanie, violently sliding her Asscher-cut ten-carat diamond engagement ring up and down her finger. It had become a habit for Melanie to play with her ring when she was enraged, a habit she had cultivated, eager to draw as much attention as possible to her expensive bauble so that people would be impressed.

  “Well, I can’t be bothered with that,” said Arthur, tossing down his briefcase. “What I want is dinner. I’m starving,” he said, walking toward the dining room.

  Melanie realized she had gone on too long, so she decided to drop the subject presently. She grabbed Arthur’s arm and walked with him down the hall.

  “I ordered your favorite!”

  “Corned beef?” asked Arthur, surprised.

  “No, silly, filet mignon,” said Melanie. That was what she thought should be Arthur’s favorite.

  “Oh, great.”

  Just before they reached the dining room door, Melanie stopped dead in her tracks.

  “Darling,” she said seriously.

  “Yes?” asked Arthur, concerned.

  “I know now what I have to do.”

  “What?”

  “I have to get on the board of the Metropolitan Museum.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  Melanie put her hand to her chest. “Mr. Guffey explained that the only way people will realize what a powerhouse I am—we are—is if I get on that board.”

  “You think that will help?”

  “Of course it will. Remember, sweetie, what I’ve told you a zillion times: in New York, money is the great democratizer, and as we both know, anyone possessing large amounts of it can buy themselves into the upper echelons of society. But to be truly accepted and revered, one needs to be on the board of an important philanthropic endeavor.”

  “Are you sure that’s true in this day and age?”

  “Poz. Unlike London, where it’s all about land and titles, in New York, it’s all about boards. And I have to get my ass on one—the most important. The Met.”

  “Here we go—more millions to another museum,” groaned Arthur.

  “Oh, really, sweetie. You sound like it’s such a big hardship. People die every day. You just have to work harder at getting more bodies into a Korn Kasket.”

  “You’re on a rampage tonight,” Arthur said, amused.

  “I know, I know. I’m being bitchy.”

  “You always fly off the handle when you feel challenged; it’s your feisty fighter side rearing its little head.”

  “You said you loved the fighter in me!” said Melanie, teasing.

  “Melanie, you’re too much,” said Arthur, with both pride and bewilderment. “Now come on—let’s eat. I’m starving.”

  chapter 6

  After a lazy morning flipping through the New York Post, Women’s Wear Daily, the National Enquirer, and Star, Melanie finally got motivated to make it out of the house.

  “Off to a dinner party?” asked Mr. Guffey.

  Melanie stopped short in the front hall. “No . . .”

  “Oh,” said Mr. Guffey, in his clipped British tone. He raised his eyebrows and gave Melanie the once-over.

  “Why do you ask? I mean, it’s lunchtime . . .” said Melanie, faltering.

  “No reason, madam,” said Mr. Guffey, frowning at the water ring Melanie’s Pellegrino glass had left on the ebony side table. He disapprovingly placed a coaster underneath the sweating glass, making sure that his employer saw exactly how he felt about the oversight.

  Melanie was now totally conflicted. She had a lunch date with two society doyennes that had taken her weeks to finagle, but after one reproving comment from Mr. Guffey she knew immediately that she didn’t look the part.

  “You think this is too dressy?” asked Melanie, opening up her fur coat as wide as a flasher would his trench. She revealed a flowery Ungaro dress, with leafy colors that Melanie thought perfectly matched the crisp day, and her new ruby necklace from Verdura that she had been dying to debut.

  “You know best, madam,” said Mr. Guffey, realigning the art books and Jackie Collins novels strewn all over the coffee table into a giant fan.

  Melanie took a deep breath. “Please, Mr. Guffey. It’s a very important lunch, and I have to be perfect. It’s with Pat and Blaine,” added Melanie with pride. She knew this would impress Mr. Guffey. It was like saying she was off to lunch with Gwyneth and Uma, only better.

  “I see,” said Mr. Guffey.

  Melanie waited while Mr. Guffey stared at her.

  “I’d rethink the jewelry,” he finally uttered.

  Rethink the jewelry? She could do that. Sigourney Weaver told Melanie Griffith the same thing in Working Girl, and at the end of the movie, Sigourney was out of a job and Melanie had gotten not only a corner office but Harrison Ford as well.

  “Phew! I can just take off the necklace—that’s easy,” said Melanie, quickly unclasping the precious stones. She placed them with a clank in the silver dish on the hall table and was about to turn and leave when Mr. Guffey continued.

  “Of course, no one really wears evening gowns to lunch dates, but perhaps in Florida things are different.”

  Melanie stopped again. “You think this is an evening gown?” she asked, crestfallen. “The salesgirl said I could absolutely wear it to casual events,” said Melanie defensively. “Day into night.”

  “Of course,” said Mr. Guffey, neatly arranging the television remotes. “If the salesgirl said it.”

  Melanie felt stupid. She was running out of time, and she needed help. Where was Emme and her Fashion Emergency team when she needed them?

  “Please, Mr. Guffey. Help me pick something out. I don’t have much time.”

  Minutes later they were in the sixteen-by-eighteen bedroom that housed Melanie’s clothes. Melanie was standing impatiently, desperate to urge Mr. Guffey to hurry but scared that he would refuse to be of any help if she yelled. She silently bit her lip.

  After tsk-ing through most of Melanie’s wardrobe, Mr. Guffey finally pulled out a sea-grass YSL suit, Sergio Rossi heels, and a delicate gold bracelet from Harry Winston.

  “This is perfect, Mr. Guffey. Thank you,” said Melanie, spinning around her room in front of the 180-degree mirror.

  Mr. Guffey followed her out to the front hall, where she grabbed her fur coat and began to swaddle herself.

  “Madam, you might want to rethink the fur.”

  “Oh, no, Mr. Guffey. Here’s where I know you’re wrong,” said Melanie confidently, happy that she knew a thi
ng or two after all. “You can never go wrong in fur. I learned that long ago when I was working in the hotel business. Someone sees a fur and they know that person is a force to be reckoned with. But thanks for all your help,” said Melanie, fluffing her hair over her enormous coat and opening the front door.

  Mr. Guffey handed Melanie her cream-colored quilted purse and closed the door after her. Then he returned to the kitchen, shaking his head. He couldn’t believe a tart like that was his actual employer. Boy, would the old gang at his finishing school in Mayfair have a laugh. He had originally worked for the first Mrs. Korn, when she was Mrs. Notbridge of 951 Park Avenue and still married to her first husband, the investment banker from a reasonably good family. He had stayed with her when she moved to 772 Park Avenue with Mr. Paulson, her second husband, who worked in import-export and was from an okay family. And he was with her right through to Mr. Korn, who was from the type of family you’d want to flush down the toilet. Mr. Guffey had been prepared to continue on with Diandra and Mr. Diaz, her latest husband, until she informed him that she was moving to Florida. That was that. The balmy weather did not agree with Mr. Guffey’s complexion or lifestyle, so he had agreed to stay on with Mr. Korn. And as it turned out, Mr. Guffey had actually been quite pleased with the arrangement. As the first Mrs. Korn had absconded with most of the furniture, there had been little housekeeping to oversee. Mr. Korn rarely entertained, and when he did, it was the corn nuts–and–Jack Daniels crowd from his past, who were easy to delight as long as hors d’oeuvres came in frozen-food packaging and the ratio of alcohol to soda in their drinks was four to one.

  But then, one day, out of the blue, Melanie arrived. Mr. Guffey thought that Mr. Korn was taking the piss out of him (as the British say) by introducing her as the next Mrs. Korn. But when he realized that he was serious, that this slag drenched in Glow by J.Lo was there to stay, he immediately gave notice and started to look for another placement. He searched halfheartedly for several months while the Korns were on their European honeymoon. Upon their return, he increased his efforts. The woman drove him mad: the way she spritzed the rooms with CK One, the way she pronounced the s in hors d’oeuvres, her pathetic little attempts to build a social life. But Melanie, for some reason, was so dazzled by Mr. Guffey—perhaps because of the British accent, perhaps because he spoke the Queen’s English, or perhaps because she knew he was the most pedigreed person she had ever met in the flesh—that she had Arthur beg him to stay. At first he refused. He had a reputation to maintain. But when they offered first to double, then triple his salary, he acquiesced.