Hot Property

by Michele Kleier

  Elizabeth considers herself and Tom lucky to have graciously weathered the economic downturn. Yes, the lower-priced apartments (under $2 million) have seen a noticeable dip in sales, but the properties at $3 million and above have managed to keep moving.

  She starts to think about Teddy again—Teddy, who, with his palatial apartment in the Majestic on Central Park West, seems to silently run a very important part of Chase Residential’s clientele: the show business players, who apparently like him because he is seemingly unimpressed by them, although Elizabeth knows he secretly loves their star wattage. He’s very friendly with boldface names like André Balazs, Tom Brady, Gisele Bündchen, and Sarah Jessica Parker (the Chase girls’ favorite). Teddy has also dated multiple models and has become obsessed with fashion—he always looks as though he has stepped off the pages of GQ. His annual earnings from commissions—over $1 million—allow him to dress incredibly well, and that is without the rather large inheritance he came into just after he turned forty.

  But the most memorable trait of Teddy’s is that he is truly a shameless womanizer. He goes through girlfriends like disposable pairs of contact lenses, and Elizabeth teases him about it all the time.

  Vain womanizer that he is, however, Teddy is also a typical New York City workaholic. His days are divided between courting sellers for their listings, ingratiating himself with other brokers, and squiring clients around in his chauffeur-driven silver Mercedes. It’s difficult for Elizabeth to admit this, but Teddy is the only broker in the office who’s powerful enough in his own right to make her tiptoe around him. While she loves what he does for business, there is something slightly unnerving about it. Especially because things don’t always add up about him: there’s his knack for mysteriously winning over other brokers’ listings and clients. Sure, selling New York real estate can be a cutthroat occupation, and yet Teddy always seems to be one step ahead of even the most artful bloodletters.

  An hour and a half later, with the walk-through of the three-bedroom, two-and-a-half-bath, $3.45 million co-op finished, Elizabeth is sitting in another taxi, crossing Central Park, loving the daffodils and incandescent yellow forsythia. Teddy is still unreachable, and despite the fact that it’s a lovely spring day, Elizabeth’s feeling uneasy about the prospect of going to his apartment. She thinks for a moment that perhaps he has horrendous food poisoning, or a terrible hangover, but then why wouldn’t he have made arrangements for someone to cover for him? As she sits in the park halfway between the east and west sides in bumper-to-bumper midday traffic, she thinks of how proximity to Central Park, even a sliver glimpse of its green from a 600-square-foot one-bedroom apartment, can vault a purchase price by six figures. A full view of the park, and the price rises by millions.

  Elizabeth, meanwhile, loves her own apartment on Park Avenue and cares not a whit whether or not she has a Fifth Avenue address with a view. She much prefers Park Avenue—it’s more convenient, less windy, and the islands in the center of it are her favorite part of the city—whether it’s cherry blossoms and tulips in the spring, impatiens in the summer, or Christmas trees wrapped in lights in the winter. Central Park West, where she’s headed now, has its own allure, especially to movie people who love the history and ceiling heights in the San Remo (and the fact that half the celebrities in New York have lived there), the magnificent rooms of the Beresford, where Jerry Seinfeld lives with his family, and, of course, the infamy of the Gothic Dakota, immortalized in Rosemary’s Baby and of course as the home of John Lennon and Yoko Ono.

  Her phone has continued to ring throughout the short ride, and she fields calls while nibbling a chocolate bar from the stash of candy in her purse, since she hasn’t had even a moment for lunch. There’s Kate, wanting to know how the walk-through went, Isabel, checking to see if there’s any way at all Elizabeth could spare even a half hour for the brokers’ lunch, because the ever mysterious writer Joey Arak from Curbed.com has arrived and may be interested in doing a piece on Chase Residential’s $23.5 million palatial penthouse listing in the legendary Clocktower in Dumbo (the first time the Chases have ever ventured outside of Manhattan!). “Oh, too bad, wish I could, but I just can’t,” Elizabeth tells Isabel. Then there’s the daily phone call from Bart Schneider, a very wealthy forty-year-old art dealer whose shrewdness for spotting talent has been praised by the New York Times but who insists that he needs to check in with Elizabeth every day, just to talk. He’s considering several triple-mint apartments but can’t decide which one he wants. Elizabeth isn’t pushing him to make a decision, but the upshot is . . .

  “Hi, Bart, I’m on my way through the park,” she tells him.

  “Oh, God, I’m just so stressed,” he says.

  “Why is that, Bart?” she dutifully asks, already anticipating his answer.

  “I . . . you know, I need to say hi, that’s all. It’s just that I’m stressed about a lot of different things, and talking to you always seems to calm me down.”

  Is he the one person in New York City besides the Chases who doesn’t have a therapist? she wonders.

  As if reading her mind, Bart says, “You’re better than a psychiatrist, Elizabeth. You’re really good at calming me down. So tell me, how come you’re so calm?”

  Elizabeth laughs. “I’m not that calm, Bart.”

  “Well, you could’ve fooled me,” Bart says. “Anyway, I know I’m obsessing about real estate when instead I should be paying attention to work, but do you think I’ll ever be able to settle on one of those apartments? I mean, I just keep going back and forth, and back and forth, and—”

  “Bart,” Elizabeth says, “stop! You’re going to drive yourself crazy, and me too. Why don’t you come to the office one day next week, and we’ll talk some more about the apartments. In the meantime, think about that duplex at 875 Fifth Avenue that I just know would be a fabulous home for you.”

  “You think so?”

  “Yes, I do. But I really have to go, okay? One of my brokers is missing, and I’m on my way over to his apartment.”

  “Well, I won’t keep you . . . ,” Bart says reluctantly.

  Elizabeth says, “Go online and look at the pictures of the apartments you’re considering. And if there’s any one of them you want to see again, just let me know.”

  “Okay, I guess I’ll be in touch.”

  “Oh, I know you will,” Elizabeth says, smiling to herself.

  When the taxi pulls up in front of the Majestic, Elizabeth gets out, tilts her head back, and carefully counts up to the twenty-second floor, fixing her attention on Teddy Wingo’s terrace, lined with cypress trees that he shuttles indoors and out depending on the season.

  There’s no sign of him.

  She walks into the lobby. “How are you, Sergei?” she greets the doorman. “I’m here to see Teddy Wingo.”

  Sergei shakes his head. “Miss Elizabeth, I call him several times today. I have packages, dry cleaning. But he doesn’t answer.”

  “How long have you been on duty?” Elizabeth asks him.

  “Since seven this morning.”

  “Try him now, please, would you?”

  Elizabeth waits while Sergei unsuccessfully buzzes Teddy on the intercom. Finally he puts down the phone and shakes his head again.

  “Maybe he spent the evening out. Can you get hold of the night doorman?”

  “He goes to sleep and turns his phone off,” Sergei explains.

  Elizabeth can’t help but feel very concerned about Teddy. “I’m going to have to go up there,” she tells Sergei.

  “Do you have a key?” he asks her.

  “No, but don’t you?” she asks with a big smile.

  The doorman stares at her for a moment, nods, and then begins looking up the key code in a worn grade-school notebook whose pages are filled with carefully written penciled entries. While he’s busy, Elizabeth calls Kate. “Where are you?” she says when her daughter picks
up.

  “On my way back from a showing at 120 East End.”

  “I’m at the Majestic. Teddy’s still missing. Can you come right over to his apartment now?”

  “I had an appointment at two o’clock, but I’ll make it later. It was just with Sol Howard to go over the board package for 45 East 72nd.”

  “Okay. I’m here waiting in the lobby.”

  “I’m in a taxi on Madison and, let’s see, 70th Street, so I just need to get through the park,” Kate says. “Let me call Sol and reschedule.”

  Elizabeth calls Isabel next, knowing she should still be at the brokers’ lunch. Her daughter answers with lots of restaurant noise in the background. “I need you to meet me at the Majestic,” Elizabeth says.

  “What’s up?”

  “Well, Teddy’s still missing. He hasn’t answered the doorman all day. And he hasn’t gone out. So I’ve got to go up to his apartment, and I don’t want to do it by myself. I’d really like you and Kate to be here with me, okay?”

  There’s a brief pause. “Sure, Mom. I’ll get there as soon as I can.”

  When Elizabeth gets off the phone, Sergei is holding out the key tentatively. The man’s eyes are a startling deep blue, his face angular and very appealing in that Eastern European way. There is something about him that, oddly, reminds her of the actor Viggo Mortensen, who had been one of Teddy’s clients for a second, though Teddy couldn’t find anything to suit his reputedly eclectic taste.

  “Well, I decided to wait for my daughters before going up,” Elizabeth says.

  “I will have to send somebody up with you,” Sergei tells her. “One of the porters.”

  “Of course,” Elizabeth says, and sits down in one of the faux Queen Anne chairs in the lobby. “Thank you so much again, Sergei.” Her phone continues to ring. And ring: first it’s Jolly, the groomer of her three Maltese, saying she can’t come for their usual Monday-at-two appointment (can it be Tuesday instead?), then a client canceling an appointment for a showing because, after carefully looking at the floor plans on the Internet, he feels that at $19 million, it’s absurd to have to walk past the maid’s room to get to the kitchen. And here’s the irritating Bart Schneider yet again, calling to apologize for using her as his shrink. And then, finally, Tom, reminding her that they have dinner reservations at Centrolire with friends who are thinking about putting their nine-room on the market. Elizabeth will talk on the phone a thousand times a day, if necessary, but she refuses to e-mail, a skill she has no interest in learning.

  She takes and makes business calls until her daughters arrive within five minutes of each other, looking lovely and perfect—a summery Ralph Lauren skirt for Isabel, a gorgeously tailored short navy Escada dress with a ruffled bottom for Kate, who, she realizes, isn’t her usual sparkly self. (There is no time to ask her why now, she will remember to later.) Elizabeth remains sitting while the girls gather around her. If Teddy is there and just not answering the door, she figures, the sight of the three of them will definitely tone down what she can already predict will be his exasperated response to her “meddling.”

  “You think he’s passed out?” Kate says.

  Elizabeth shrugs. “I honestly don’t know,” she says, and then allows herself to remember the awkward moment of her arrival at the walk-through, the heavy, stony silence, both Teddy’s buyers and the seller’s broker clearly frustrated and annoyed at Teddy’s absence. “I’m so sorry,” she’d said. “Teddy is stuck in the elevator of a new construction on Laight Street, literally—the elevator has been stuck for an hour—it’s a disaster,” Elizabeth said, making her entrance. Everyone laughed, and continued on the walk-through with her.

  “Maybe Teddy’s up there with a few of his girlfriends,” Isabel says cynically now.

  Elizabeth turns to Sergei. “Okay, we’re ready. Do you want to get the porter?”

  The porter turns out to be the super’s son, a kid of around eighteen with a long, sensitive face and steel-rimmed glasses. He looks nervous, and he clutches the spare key as though it’s a delicate instrument.

  “Well, thank goodness you’re both here,” Elizabeth says. By the time they reach the twenty-second floor, she feels less tense and more resolved to delve into the mystery of why this broker of hers has gone missing.

  As they exit the elevator, she notices a tall celadon vase that Teddy, after securing permission from the other resident on his floor, has positioned on a stand next to the elevator. She’s remembering the day, several years ago, when he bought the vase. They picked it up at an antiques dealer near Union Square and went to lunch with a group of brokers at Il Cantinori, then attended an open house at a twenty-one-foot-wide town house on West 10th. And now a particular conversation she and Teddy had that day comes back to her. They’d been in a cab, crossing the park in the other direction, heading toward the east side. It was one of those gorgeous April days like today, and she remembers savoring the spectacular sight of the cherry blossoms (her favorite week of the year, when they bloom as a giant kiss to the city, she always thinks. Every year during that week, she and the girls would take a horse and buggy through the park, and afterward, skip in their pale pink crocodile Manolos—always their season debut in honor of the cherry blossoms—to the Plaza Hotel, where they drank tea and champagne and nibbled on scones at the Palm Court). On this day, as they went through the park, she and Teddy discussed their lunch.

  “That lunch was great fun. I almost fell off my chair when you told the Lance Roberts story,” Teddy said.

  “I didn’t think everybody would find it so funny,” Elizabeth said. “You, especially.”

  Teddy looked bewildered. “Why, because I’m the one who punched Roberts?”

  “I think ‘decked’ is the word here.”

  “Well, that jerk deserved it.”

  “I know he deserved it,” Elizabeth said.

  Teddy fell curiously quiet for a moment. “Well,” he said at last, “I needed to pull him off that buyer. I was afraid Roberts was going to strangle him.”

  “Yes, you had to,” Elizabeth said. “There was no other choice.”

  Again there was a strange silence, and at last Teddy said, “But there was something else . . .” His voice trailed off.

  “What?” Elizabeth pressed him.

  Teddy grimaced, and his momentary lopsided expression lent a goofiness to his handsome face. He said, “I also didn’t like the way Lance Roberts was looking at you.”

  “Oh, come on!” Elizabeth said. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

  “He was ogling you.”

  Flattery was nice, no doubt about it, but she distrusted it. “Oh, please, Teddy.”

  “You’re a beautiful woman,” he said.

  There was an uncomfortable silence, and Elizabeth thought to herself that Teddy couldn’t possibly be making a pass at her. The idea of it made her slightly uneasy, though she never minded a little flirting.

  “A lot of guys act like animals. I don’t know why women put up with it,” he said.

  “It’s the way some men are, Teddy,” Elizabeth said pointedly. “You of all people should know that.”

  He nodded but apparently chose to ignore her inference. “The stories that some of the women I’ve dated have told me about what some of these guys do . . .”

  “Come on, Teddy, you’ve screwed plenty of women, both literally and emotionally,” Elizabeth reminded him, starting to feel annoyed at his blindness to his own failings.

  “Yeah, I’ve left women, but that doesn’t mean I treated them badly.”

  “Oh, pleeease,” she said. “Leaving them is treating them badly.”

  “Well,” he said, and had to pause. “I just keep getting to the same point with every woman I date, and . . . I just can’t go any further. Whether or not you believe it, I do treat them incredibly well. At least in the beginning. I buy them gifts, I take them to the opera,
the theater, out to dinner, and it all seems so promising . . . and then something in me, well . . . it just freezes.”

  Oh, Teddy, you are so screwed up, Elizabeth wanted to say, but obviously she could not. They were passing the northern extremity of the Metropolitan Museum, and the glass enclosure of the Temple of Dendur and its reminder of thousands of years of antiquity. She watched Teddy gazing at the temple, his face slack and forlorn. “I still love Vanessa,” he admitted at last. “And it isn’t because she was my wife and is the mother of my kids. I just still love her and . . . what I did, it was the only time in my life I behaved really badly. And it was the only time in my life when behaving well really counted.”

  Elizabeth looked down at the tips of her Manolos and said absolutely nothing, knowing that Teddy was probably well aware that she’d always sympathized with the ex-wife he’d been unfaithful to.

  She turns now to the super’s son, who suddenly strikes her as barely pubescent, and hears herself say, “Do me a favor, please, and just give me the key. And do you mind leaving us?” The boy obeys. She waits until she sees the elevator doors opening and engulfing him, and as soon as they close, she turns to Isabel and Kate. “Are we ready?”