The Right Address

by Carrie Karasyov

  “Cheers to you guys!” said Melanie, who had been so far gone in her reverie that she didn’t even realize she was interrupting Milo.

  Everyone at the table stopped and looked at Melanie.

  “Honey?” asked Arthur.

  “Sorry to interrupt. I just want to drink a toast to Milo and Roberta. You seem so happy . . . and, well, you’re nice people,” said Melanie with genuine warmth.

  Roberta and Milo seemed surprised but pleased. Arthur beamed. “Here, here,” he added, and smiled at his wife. Melanie was so classy, he thought. He was a lucky guy.

  chapter 23

  Joan Coddington had never walked faster in her life. Perspiration was dripping down her underarms and nesting in the nook of her cleavage. She was even panting a little. She could feel the blisters bursting on her heels. With every new step in her frenzied pace, her chunky gold necklace and bracelets clanked against her body with the same pulsing movements that they make on a rapper performing on stage, minus the Mercedes logo. It was never so urgent to get to Orsay on Seventy-fifth Street to meet Wendy. Never.

  Joan burst into the restaurant, practically throwing her camel-hair coat at the coat-check girl, and made a beeline for Wendy, who was innocently sipping Perrier at a front table.

  “OH! I’m dying! Do I have goodies for you!” said Joan, untangling her Hermès scarf and sitting down dramatically.

  Wendy at once gauged the situation’s urgency by the glint in Joan’s eye and immediately implored her friend to get down to business. “Don’t make me wait! Spill it!”

  “You’re going to die,” said Joan, nodding to the waiter, who poured her a glass of the Perrier. “I’d also like a glass of chardonnay, and please, I’d like a lemon with the mineral water, not a lime. If I have even a drop of lime on the rim of the glass, I will turn purple, so please, lemon.” She turned back to Wendy.

  “What is it?” asked Wendy, practically panting in anticipation.

  Joan, who had been waiting for this moment for seven blocks, when she would inform Wendy of the latest hot gossip, suddenly paused, realizing that once she told her captive audience this dish it would no longer be her secret. And secrets were like currency for Joan, valuable when fewer people had them. But, oh well, it wouldn’t be worth anything unless others knew you had it.

  “I almost want to savor this morsel . . .” said Joan, drawing it out.

  “Spit it out, Joan!”

  “So. Last night my daughter was out with some friends, including one of the Vance boys . . .”

  “Drew or John?”

  “Drew. They went to some faddish club downtown.”

  “I get nosebleeds if I go below Fifty-seventh Street.”

  “Who doesn’t? But they’re young . . .”

  “Continue.”

  “So, who does Whitney see sitting at the bar with some exotic woman?”

  “Ted Wingate?”

  “No.”

  “Gustave Strauss?”

  “No.”

  “That man from the Goodyears’ . . .”

  “Morgan Vance,” said Joan, sitting back in her chair with an air of benevolence, as if having endowed her best friend with something more important than a kidney.

  “NO!”

  “Yes. And they were obviously together.”

  “What did she do?”

  “Well, naturally Whitney is a pearl of discretion—she really is her mother’s daughter if I do say so myself. She herded the group off to the side so Drew wouldn’t see his father with some south-of-the-border slut. Can you imagine?”

  “I’m in shock,” said Wendy, mentally going through the list of people she could get to quickly in order to relay this information before Joan did.

  “Whitney. Always thinking.”

  “Thank god. Drew doesn’t know how lucky he is.”

  “My question is, what was Morgan thinking?”

  “He’s really lost it.”

  “Gallivanting around with some trollop . . .”

  “Do we know who the woman was?”

  “Very ethnic is all Whitney said. Dressed like a harlot.”

  “Interesting. I wonder who it could be.”

  “We have to find out, just to be prepared, of course.”

  “Of course. If we know her, we want to make it clear to her that we disapprove.”

  “It’s bad form.”

  “Nauseating.”

  “Poor Cordelia.”

  “Yes, poor Cordelia.”

  Not that either lady could have cared.

  Morgan had been forced to go to great lengths to deceive Cordelia last night, as Maria had staged a first-class temper tantrum, forcing him to cancel with the Powells at the very last minute, pleading a work crisis. When Morgan finally acquiesced to Maria’s demand to go out, he insisted on finding some obscure place listed in the Village Voice that no one he knew would frequent. Maria was jovial and victorious as he led her into the bar, only elevating Morgan’s wrath.

  “This is my first night out dancing since the baby. All she does is cry. She’s a real pain in the neck. I get no sleep!” Maria had whined.

  “Well, you’re the one who wanted her,” said Morgan, downing two drinks in a row.

  “I’m a Catholic! What did you want me to do?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I so sick of your complaining—you think you did me a favor! You are lucky to have me! You get all the sex you want!”

  Morgan tuned her out and glanced around the bar. It was dark and dank and seemed like the type of place where rats would set up camp. There was a scraggly band putting up their instruments on a small, sticky stage and some punky-looking twenty-somethings swigging beers. The whole place stank of a fraternity basement and kitty litter. In fact, come to think of it, the band was called Kitty Litter. Morgan couldn’t wait to bolt. It was at that moment that all the color drained from his face. Of all the places in the world! It was his son Drew, with the Coddington girl and two other kids who looked familiar.

  “Oh my lord, Maria, we’ve got to get out of here,” said Morgan, slamming down his drink on the bar and grabbing Maria’s elbow in an effort to push her toward the door. Maria jerked free from his clutch.

  “We just got here! I’m not going anywhere!”

  “Maria,” said Morgan leaning in with urgency. “I see people I know. We have to go.”

  “If you see people you know, you have to introduce me. You introduce your wife. I’m just as important as her—I have your child!”

  Morgan’s palms were getting sweaty. He looked over at Drew, who was lodged now in a grimy, ripped red leather booth, doing shots with his friends. Morgan pulled Maria behind a pillar.

  “Maria, please. Let’s go. I’ll take you to Peter Luger instead,” begged Morgan.

  Maria was enjoying making Morgan squirm. She folded her arms. “I won’t go. Introduce me!”

  “Maria, I’ll get you that diamond bracelet you want.”

  “If you don’t tell people the truth soon I will send a birth announcement to everyone you know!” Maria turned on her heel and stormed into the bathroom. Morgan took a deep breath, glanced back at Drew, who was totally engrossed in the band, and took a seat on a bar stool in the corner behind the pillar. As Morgan sat down, he noticed a man with a slight smile sitting two stools down, who had obviously heard the whole interaction between him and Maria. How embarrassing. Discretion had always been one of Morgan’s mantras, and Maria was slowly tearing that apart. The man, who was about forty-five, with greased-back hair and a black leather jacket, looked over at Morgan and nodded. Morgan nodded back as he took a shot that the bartender placed in front of him. Morgan looked around again to make sure Drew didn’t see him.

  “I see you’re having a little problem,” said the guy, lighting a cigarette.

  “It’s okay.”

  “Doesn’t look okay to me,” said the guy, leaning back in his stool. “Looks pretty bad.”

  Normally Morgan would have avoided any form of conv
ersation with a stranger in which he would reveal anything about his emotional state, but for some reason—maybe because Maria had worn him down—he decided to open up.

  “It is.”

  “You know, a guy like me can help a guy like you in a situation like this.”

  “That sounds very cryptic,” said Morgan, taking another sip of his drink. He wanted to drink the whole bar and cloud away his nightmarish errors.

  The man slid across the bar stool between him and Morgan and sat down next to him. He had very large hands, Morgan noticed, and a big blue and gold signet pinkie ring.

  “It’s not cryptic. I’m a problem solver, you see. You’ve got a problem; I can help you.”

  “What are you implying?”

  “You know what I’m implying.”

  There was a pause. Morgan wasn’t sure that this guy could possibly be talking about what he thought he was. Perhaps the liquor was getting to his head. Either that or he was having a full-on Tony Soprano moment.

  The man looked Morgan up and down. Expensive pinstriped suit, sterling silver monogrammed cufflinks, horn-rimmed glasses, steel gray full head of hair. This guy had probably never stepped foot in a joint like this. He realized that he would have to spell it out for him. “Difficult mistress, twisting your nuts. Wants it all. I can tell you’re a successful guy. You don’t need this shit.”

  “What ‘shit’ are you referring to?”

  “Come on, don’t insult me. I wasn’t born yesterday. But let me tell you, don’t beat yourself up. I’ve seen a lot of guys like you—feeling old, not getting any, some tramp comes along and wags her pussy in your face and you can’t resist. Next thing you know, you’re roped in. She’s got you by the balls.”

  Morgan chuckled. “Isn’t everybody roped in?”

  The guy glanced toward the bathroom and saw Maria bang open the swinging door. He stood up.

  “They don’t have to be,” he said, handing Morgan a card. “Here’s my business card. Give me a call, and I’ll make your life a whole lot easier.”

  He walked off.

  Maria came up and tugged on Morgan’s suit. “Well, let’s go if we’re going to go! Those bathrooms were dirty. What kind of a place did you bring me to? Take me to the Pierre. I want caviar.”

  “You wouldn’t even like caviar if it wasn’t expensive.”

  “What?” said Maria, straightening out the sides of her satin skirt. “Did you say something nasty? You better not have!”

  “You know what, darling?” said Morgan, leading her by the arm. “I’ve had enough of you. We’re going home.”

  chapter 24

  “So, Mr. Guffey. Did, uh, Diandra have a Kelly or a Birkin?” asked Melanie with feigned casualness. She didn’t even look up from her correspondence.

  “Neither, madam,” said Guffey, pulling a dying branch out of the flower arrangement on the hall table.

  “Really?” asked Melanie, surprised.

  “Well, actually, if memory serves, she did have a crocodile Kelly in a couple of shades, but they just collected dust, really.”

  “Oh,” said Melanie, licking a stamp with dramatic nonchalance. “So what kind of purse did she carry?”

  “Mr. Della-Valle would make her a one-of-a-kind handbag for every season.”

  “Oh.”

  It had been going on for weeks but was only getting worse. Melanie was constantly hinting and alluding to All Things Diandra, trying to gauge how she behaved, what she bought, and who did things for her, somehow wishing for a handbook on how to do things properly. Mr. Guffey indulged her—he genuinely did want to help and improve Melanie—but it was getting out of hand with all this detail-scavenging. Finally he dropped his shoulders and turned to his mistress, evaluating whether or not he could be so brazen. When he met her eager face, he decided that he could be.

  “Mrs. Korn, may I be frank with you?”

  “Yes, of course,” said Melanie nervously. She couldn’t handle any more insults today. She had already seen Meredith Beringer roll her eyes at Joan Coddington when she entered the Lowell for tea.

  “I’ve noticed that you’ve inquired about the first Mrs. Korn quite often of late—”

  “Well, I . . .”

  “And I beg your pardon, but I understand. She was a very . . . correct woman. And it is only understandable that you inquire about her in matters of society’s whims. But I could also be of less subliminal service if you allowed.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Ten minutes later they were in Melanie’s office. Guffey was pacing back and forth, brainstorming, while Melanie was taking copious notes in a leather-bound pad.

  “All right. A few things.”

  “Ready,” said Melanie.

  “You must stop saying ‘I’m going to the Hamptons.’ Say ‘I’m going to the country.’ If they press you, say Southampton. Always specify. This is not a time-share house with crashing kids dancing on tables. And you don’t want anyone to think that you’re off to Westhampton. God forbid.”

  “Right.” Melanie sketched a tiny devil next to the word Westhampton.

  “Also, never say ‘Meet me at the Union Club’ or ‘I’m off to the Ladies’ Club.’ Just say you’re going to the club, and if they don’t know which one, then they don’t deserve to.”

  “Are you sure? There are so many!”

  “Trust me, madam. Have I ever led you astray?”

  “No,” said Melanie with complete faith.

  “A funny aside: the Ladies’ Club is the ultimate bastion of WASPdom and mannered propriety. And those ladies are so far gone that they completely miss the irony of the giant beaver on their flag,” said Guffey, raising his eyebrows.

  Melanie was so busy taking her notes that she almost missed Guffey’s small attempt at humor. She looked up and laughed. He was immediately back to business.

  “Now this is important: if you want to be photographed when making an entrance at a ball, don’t shout out to the photographers. Especially not Bill Cunningham, who prefers not to engage in chitchat when he is on the job.”

  “But what am I supposed to do? They totally ignore me!”

  “The preferential decorum is for one to casually stop by the throng of the photographers to catch up with a friend or acquaintance. You admire her dress. She will admire yours. Then you pull out your dress a little when you say thank you, and perhaps even smooth it down. The photographers will notice. Let them approach you.”

  “I don’t know why they’re not up our asses by now. Arty and I throw money at these events. The least they could do is recognize us for it.”

  “Well, that is another point, madam,” said Guffey, pausing. “If you want to be renowned for your philanthropy, then make large donations to public charities under the name ‘Anonymous.’ You’ll get more attention than if you splatter your name all over everything. And, trust me, you won’t be anonymous for long.”

  “Really?”

  “For certain. Everyone tries to find out the secret, and no one can keep a lid on it.”

  Melanie thought about that and finally agreed.

  “And continuing in that vein, I must add that discretion is paramount,” said Guffey with grave seriousness. “Don’t say ‘Do you want a ride in my Bentley?’ ” said Guffey, shuddering. “That is considered gauche. Rich people don’t advertise. Let me rephrase that: people with class don’t advertise. ‘May I offer you a ride in my car?’ is most proper.”

  “Oh, this is good, Guff,” said Melanie, furiously writing. “This is real, real good. Hit me again.”

  Guffey spoke briskly in his clipped British tones while Melanie’s hand started to hurt from writing so fast.

  “Take down that hideous portrait of you in the library,” he commanded.

  “But Arthur loves it!”

  Guffey exhaled in frustration. Some people just don’t know art. How should he phrase this?

  “Madam.” He cleared his throat. “It belongs in a pizzeria. Never hang a portrait or commission unless
Francesco Clemente is a dear friend and presents one to you unsolicited.”

  “What else?”

  “Write thousands of thank-you notes. For every occasion.”

  “Everything?”

  “There’s the obvious—if you attend a party or an event at someone’s house. But also if someone donates to your charity, refers you to an excellent tailor, or even vomits on your carpet! Write them and thank them.”

  “Okay. That’s good to know. What else?”

  “Let’s see . . . clothes. Yes, you do need some advice there.”

  “Why?”

  “You break the cardinal rule.”

  “What’s that?”

  “You should wear only one easily identifiable designer article of clothing. That includes accessories. You are not paid to advertise those brands; you are not a human billboard. There is no reason you should have four million LVs running around your person. If you are carrying a Chanel bag, that’s enough. If your purse says ‘Prada,’ which it never would—leave that to the Euro trash—then that is enough. Don’t get carried away with the logos. You’ll look like a Spice Girl.”

  “What about outfits? I overheard someone once saying my hemlines are too short.”

  “Disaster, madam!” said Guffey, giddy be so forthright.

  “That bad? But I’ve got the legs! Why hide them with these granny hems?”

  “May I suggest an excursion, madam?”

  Twenty minutes later they were driving along Madison, Guffey pointing to the various fashion boutiques and barking out instructions.