Hot Property

by Michele Kleier

  In the cab, she calls her mother, and they go over the showings for the day, as well as which sellers need to be called, which buyers they need to prepare for co-op board interviews, which listings need updating. Then she e-mails Mary Beth Flynn, a broker, to confirm a meeting later that week, to be followed by cucumber martinis at Jean Georges at the Mark. She loves Mary Beth, who is as much a friend as a broker she works with. As soon as she is finished, her phone rings, and she sees a text from Michael: Agent called—just landed Verizon commercial! Love ya. Isabel smiles at the message, as if it were Michael’s gorgeous face. Commercials, of course, are the first step in a young actor’s career; how many actors did commercials both before and after they became major stars? And a Verizon commercial would be huge—and noticed—which has to be good for Michael’s visibility. Fabulous! Isabel e-mails back. Love you.

  At the office, things are already popping. Her mother is deep in negotiations for a ten-room exclusive at 1120 Park; there’s a bidding war, and Elizabeth needs to advise her client, the seller, on how to maximize the interest without losing anyone. In the middle of one heated call she actually puts her hand over the phone and yells, “Isabel, get John Poirier on the phone, Dad’s BlackBerry isn’t working.” John is their IT consultant, who lives in Ohio and comes to the office once a month. He is gorgeous, sweet, and shy. In his early thirties, he looks like Michael Vartan in Never Been Kissed.

  Isabel is half listening now while she goes over her own day in her head. Her phone rings three times while she’s doing this, but she presses ignore—they can wait, at least for a few minutes, while she figures out her day.

  Fifteen minutes later, Elizabeth gets off the phone and walks into Isabel’s office. She loves Michael, and she and Isabel’s father were clearly thrilled when he asked her to marry him (though of course they already knew, because he’d asked their permission first).

  “Still floating?” Elizabeth asks. She seems to regard her younger daughter with her unique blend of fierce maternal love and objective, practical assessment.

  Isabel stretches her fingers, looks at her engagement ring, and then looks at her mother. “Floating, but I don’t know . . .” Neither she nor her mother mentions Kate’s name, nor the fact that Scott just seems to keep breaking up with her for no reason. Sometimes, Isabel thinks, she’d like to just strangle him. Her mind flashes back to Michael. Maybe his proposal will push Scott along? Maybe she’ll bring up the subject with Michael after all.

  “You know, Isabel, every one of us is thrilled for you,” she hears her mother say.

  “I know,” Isabel says, and nods. “So where’s Kate?” she asks. “She’s out?”

  “Early showing,” Elizabeth says. “Four East 70th Street. The garden apartment right across from the Frick.”

  “Mmm,” Isabel says, remembering the apartment with the French doors leading out into the garden.

  “And don’t even doubt for one second that she’s happy for you,” her mother says.

  “I know, but I still feel, I don’t know, guilty, and—”

  “Isabel, that’s ridiculous—Kate would be shocked to hear you say that,” Elizabeth says.

  Isabel looks at her mother. “I guess,” she says, and “Right.” Before she can say anything else, her cell phone buzzes, and she quickly reaches for it. She sees it’s the countess, with whom she has an appointment this morning; they made it before they went their separate ways on Friday.

  “Gut morning to you,” Delphine says. “I am running just a teensy, tinesy bit late today. Will that be all right?”

  Teensy, tinesy, teenzy, tinezy. Whatever.

  “Of course,” says Isabel, sitting up straighter in her chair. “What time do you think you’ll be here?”

  “Ten thirty,” says Delphine. “I’ll have my driver pick you up in front of your office.”

  “Ten thirty is fine,” says Isabel.

  “Perfect!” Delphine says, and then adds, “Ciao, ciao!” before she clicks off.

  “The countess?” asks Elizabeth. Isabel nods and pulls out her show sheet for today’s apartment. “By the way, where does she actually live?”

  “She’s been staying at the Dartley,” Isabel says. “She says it’s very elegant, of course! But sort of small, and so she doesn’t like to entertain guests.”

  Elizabeth nods, then gets up and gives her daughter a quick kiss on the cheek before hurrying back to her own office.

  Half an hour later, Isabel is slipping into the white limo next to Delphine (Isabel has a giggle to herself every time she gets into Delphine’s limo—no one in New York uses a limo anymore, it is all about the Escalade or Navigator or even chauffeured Benzes). Today the countess wears a long silk Chloe paisley skirt. The jewel-like colors of the fabric—red, blue, green, gold—swirl gracefully around her ankles, which are in what Isabel quickly realizes are her signature black lizard cowboy boots. Over the skirt, Delphine is wearing an exquisitely tailored short black jacket; a thick, braided gold collar encircles her delicate neck. Once again, her flaxen hair is worn long, loose, and straight; her fingers and ears sparkle with enormous diamonds.

  “Today we are going downtown, ja?” she asks. Although Delphine had said she “adored” the town house, she wants to see a number of different properties in different neighborhoods before she commits.

  “We are,” Isabel says. “And I think you’re going to love it.” She leans back as the limo makes it down to Tribeca, where there is a sumptuous, completely renovated loft that she is showing Delphine. Even though this apartment has nothing in common with the Upper East Side town house Isabel showed her last week, she knows that the countess is looking for something distinctive and exceptional, and Isabel is determined to prove that she can find her the best, the most desirable, one-of-a-kind properties.

  “Wait until you see this,” she tells Delphine when they’re in the elevator heading up.

  The loft in the Zinc Condominium at 475 Greenwich Street, which belongs to a very important Hollywood mogul who uses it only when he’s in town, occupies the entire tenth floor of the building. It’s flooded with the most incredible morning light. The effect is magnified by the twelve-foot ceilings and the enormous wall of floor-to-ceiling windows. There are four bedrooms and three full baths, plus a powder room. There’s a separate laundry room (a huge luxury in New York) with a big sink and a brand-new Miele washer and dryer, and, on the north side of the apartment, an enormous terrace that offers an expansive view of the city. Although Isabel has told her client about all of this, she hasn’t disclosed the most exceptional—jaw-dropping, really—feature of the apartment. And Nickie Monroe from Sotheby’s, the exclusive’s broker—an elegant redhead with distinctive turquoise-framed glasses—has kept her secret. Isabel waits, and when she hears Delphine say, “Mon Dieu!” she’s sure that her quasi-royal client has found it. “It” is a 700-gallon aquarium with, Isabel knows, a six-figure price tag, custom designed by one of the city’s premier experts and filled with a dazzling assortment of catfish, tangs, pink damsels, and, tucked in a far corner underneath some coral rock, a two-foot eel. To some, this would be beautiful but ridiculous—another “built-in” to have to get rid of. But Isabel knows Delphine will love it with a capital L.

  “Incroyable!” Delphine says as she circles the tank, drawing her elegant hands up to her chin. “I have never, ever, seen such a thing in a private home!” She brings her face right up to the glass, clearly transfixed.

  Her last words are more than a little gratifying to Isabel, who knows that the aquarium elevates the loft to a new level of luxury. Never mind the thousand-dollar monthly maintenance fees for the aquarium alone; the countess and her “independently wealthy” (as she’d described him) husband can more than afford them, she has made clear.

  Together, Isabel, Delphine, and Nickie tour the kitchen—very modern and minimalist, all brushed steel with a black-and-gray terrazzo floor—and
the bedrooms, which have enormous walk-in closets. But they keep returning to the fish, whose metallic beauty seems to mesmerize Delphine. “I have to tell Fritzie!” Delphine says, and then whips out her iPhone to text him.

  She gushes jubilantly about the apartment on the way down in the elevator. “Are there many more apartments like this for sale?” she asks innocently.

  Isabel smiles. “No, this is completely and totally unique, a one-of-a-kind, as Mom would say.”

  “Ah, your mother,” the countess says. “I’ve seen her photo in the New York Times. She’s a very beautiful woman, a classically beautiful woman, really.” She turns to Isabel. “Of course you are also beautiful as well. You’ve inherited your mother’s looks. I must say, she seems remarkable.”

  “Thank you so much! Kate and I are lucky enough to look like her, only I’m blond, of course.”

  “What is her apartment like?” Delphine asks.

  “Well, it’s actually the apartment I grew up in,” Isabel explains. “I love it—all antiques, big, and very classic, on Park Avenue.”

  “I’m sure in impeccably good taste.”

  When Isabel says good-bye to the countess a half hour later, she isn’t altogether surprised to be handed yet another little package. “You didn’t have to do this,” she protests; she’s really falling in love with this unusual European woman, who is now looking at her with the beaming trust of a small child.

  “Just open it,” the countess instructs.

  Isabel finds, inside the peach-colored tissue paper and sky-blue ribbon, a box filled with an assortment of sugar cookies, each shaped and decorated like the most fanciful of hats, complete with bows, feathers, and lace. She thanks the countess, already imagining how crazy Kate and her mother will be about these little cookies when they see them; sugar cookies are her mother’s and sister’s favorite. They’re obsessed with them! Isabel thinks, smiling to herself. Her mother in particular can’t control herself around them; her love for those sugar cookies is, unfortunately, at odds with her constant dieting. She can go up and down five pounds in a week, or even after one salty Nobu dinner. Whereas for Isabel, self-control comes more naturally. Kate and her mom always tease Isabel that she can eat just one M&M—while they would eat the whole bag.

  “It’s nothing,” Delphine says. “A little trifle, really.” Her smile widens. “Enjoy! I look forward to our next meeting. A bientôt, oui?”

  “A bientôt,” Isabel echoes, remembering the phrase for “see you soon” from her French classes in middle school. She waits as the limo swings into the stream of traffic before getting her own taxi back to the office.

  When she walks in, her mother is there, but still no sign of Kate. Isabel tells her all about Delphine, with details of all her clothes and jewelry.

  “She seems to love you, Mom,” Isabel says. “She’s seen and read about you in the Times.”

  “That reminds me, I have to give Diane Cardwell a call. She wants a quote from me for the Times.” Then her eyes fall on Isabel’s ring. “And I need to look at this ring again.” Elizabeth gently grabs her daughter’s hand. “One more look before I get back to work. Maybe I should reset mine? I love pavé,” she says. Elizabeth has a classic pear-shaped diamond with two exquisite baguettes on the side, but the Chase family loves sparkle, and nothing is more sparkly than pavé.

  Isabel holds out her hand. The ring sits regally on her finger, she thinks.

  John Mehigan, a broker in their office, walks in at that moment. He is dashing, about five foot nine, salt-and-pepper hair, piercing blue eyes, and an Irish accent the girls adore. “Eeeeee-lizabeth,” he says, “can I borrow you for a moment?” He smells of cigars, minty gum, and Purell. “I’m having a problem with a bloody board package.” Bloody is John’s favorite word.

  Elizabeth laughs. “Are you here for a little bit? I’ll come in in about ten minutes.”

  “Okay, Eeee-lizabeth,” he says. “I’ll be bloody waiting.” John scurries out, flashing a glimpse of his signature hot pink socks as he goes.

  “Hi, girls.”

  Looking up, Isabel sees Kate. “Hi,” she says to her sister, and looks at her lovely, smoky eyes. Kate and their mother love makeup; Isabel wears only mascara and lipstick, a more natural look. Years ago, with Isabel looking on in fascination, Kate used to study and practice on the sketched face from Boyd’s makeup emporium on Madison Avenue that Elizabeth kept taped to the mirror. But despite her makeup and her adorable pink-and-turquoise floral Rachel Riley dress, Kate looks a little wilted and sad.

  “How was the showing?” Elizabeth asks.

  “Terrific. They’re making an offer,” Kate says. “They” are Don and Justine Prince, an exceedingly difficult couple who seem to agree on just about nothing. If Justine thinks an apartment is charming, Don finds it suffocatingly small; if she loves the views, he hates the layout. “I’d rather drink paint,” he’s said on more than one occasion, “than live in this apartment.” On and on it goes. They have been looking for how long—a year? Or is it longer? So for them to make an offer is a miracle.

  “Fabulous!” Isabel says.

  “Well, let’s see what happens—they could change their minds.”

  “Isabel’s right, though, Kate,” Elizabeth points out. “Just getting those two to make an offer is no small thing.”

  “I guess,” Kate says vaguely. She sets her white Chanel surf bag down on Isabel’s desk. The bag is identical to the one that both Isabel and Elizabeth carry.

  Isabel suddenly gives Kate a hug.

  Kate hugs her back, though not very enthusiastically, and says, “You don’t have to do that, Isabel. Honestly, I’m perfectly fine.”

  Stung, Isabel stares at her sister. “I’m sorry,” she says at last. But Kate is already reaching for her purse and walking away. Isabel is teary-eyed as she watches her go. To think that what should be the happiest time of her life might be marred even in the slightest by her sister’s distress is just too much.

  Leaving her office, she walks briskly toward the ladies’ room. There, with the door tightly closed and the faucet turned on and running at full blast, Isabel cries.

  But she doesn’t even have the luxury of a good long cry because she has to pull herself together—she and Kate have to be at the NBC studio at 30 Rock in midtown for a satellite shoot for Access Hollywood; they do segments on celebrity real estate from time to time, and today just happens to be one of those times. Damn! Isabel loves doing these segments, as does Kate, but she wishes it were not today of all days. Still, she knows what she has to do, and so she blots her tears, quickly brushes her hair, and splashes cold water on her face—good thing she and Kate will be getting their hair and makeup done at the Valery Joseph salon on Madison before the shoot. Then she walks out of the bathroom in search of her sister.

  “Oh, there you are!” Kate calls out to her. “The car’s downstairs already. We’ve got to go.” They say good-bye to their mother and get into the elevator; outside, they get in the black Escalade. “Christine’s called me twice,” Isabel says once they’re on their way. “She wants to know where we are. The producers are getting anxious.” Christine Fahey, a senior producer for the show whom the Chases first met when they were handling a fading musician’s town house (a musician who successfully begged them to try to get Access Hollywood to do a tour of it in hopes that this would help generate interest); since then, Christine calls them whenever the show needs a real estate expert, and they have become close family friends.

  “We’re not even late yet,” Kate says.

  Isabel agrees.

  They make a quick stop for hair and makeup, and then it’s on to NBC, where Christine is awaiting their arrival. “Hurry!” she urges, kissing them each hello and telling them how gorgeous they look. “You haven’t got much time.” Isabel and Kate scramble to get ready; they’re there to talk about which New York City neighborhoods are hot for cel
ebrities these days, as well as what amenities the stars are seeking. And they dish a little by sharing who’s buying, who’s selling, and most importantly—why.

  After they’re finished, they’re back in the SUV once more, collapsing into giggles about how the producers were screaming for their presence on the set while Kate was touching up her petal-pink Chanel lipstick in the ladies’ room.

  They’re still laughing when Elizabeth calls to find out how the shoot went. “Fabulous!” Isabel says, and proceeds to fill her mother in. “Billy Bush said we’re hotter than the Manhattan real estate market!” Then she clicks off and smiles at her sister happily. She feels so lucky to work with her family. They are all so lucky, she thinks.

  Chapter Six

  Elizabeth

  Modern Apartment in the Sky

  3 bedroom, 2 bath cathedral of steel and glass, gourmet EIK, cloud-gazing skylights. $2.95 million.

  Elizabeth, along with her friend Monique Lazard and Kate and Isabel, are lunching at Sette Mezzo at a front table by the window. The Chases are frequent and favored customers of the clubby Upper East Side eatery, and are always greeted with hugs and double kisses by Oriente, one of the owners. He seats them at this coveted table so they can view the fabulous clientele, which today happens to include Catherine Zeta-Jones and Michael Douglas. Monique, a first cousin of the Lazards, as in Lazard Frères, met Elizabeth when they were both MSWs working in social services, Monique trying to escape the wealthy clutches of her family, whose only ambition was for her to marry well, and Elizabeth pursuing a fleetingly youthful notion that social work was her true calling. Monique had been married briefly in the late 1980s to a rich diplomat from Spain, and she left the marriage with nothing except her original apartment at 1010 Fifth and a Judith Leiber pineapple clutch. (Monique, who simply loves hot weather, collected pineapples, as they reminded her of romantic nights on faraway islands.)