“Katie, you need to go out, come out with me.”
“I know.”
“Don’t say ‘I know.’ Please commit to me, we’ll do something Thursday night, let’s go somewhere decadent and drink ourselves into oblivion. Or, I know, I’ll have a party at my apartment next week—you can come over early and we can put together the music and drinks.” Steven lives in a huge five-room postwar in the East 60s, on the nineteenth floor in an apartment with the most magnificent terraces the Chases have ever seen in a five-room apartment, or in most apartments, for that matter. The wraparound terrace is close to 1,500 square feet. Steven is currently a commercial real estate broker, very successful, following an equally successful stint in entertainment law, which was not as interesting as he’d hoped it would be, though he did get to take Katie to the Grammys a few times in L.A. Steven also comes from a great family—after Greenwich, they lived at 820 Park, and they own the magnificent Seamann Schepps, whose exquisite jewels the Chase ladies drool over and borrow for major events in their life. Elizabeth once sent Tom to pick up close to one million dollars’ worth of jewelry for the three of them to wear to an event—he had to get it at closing time at five on the dot and return it the next morning before they opened.
“Yes, let’s do that, I need a good night out,” she says.
Kate looks at Steven now, cropped black hair, an adorable, slightly devious smile (they always said a young John Cusack would play him in a movie, though his personality and sense of humor, they sometimes joke, veers more toward John Malkovich in Dangerous Liaisons). He has a power over people, girls in particular, and the whole city is in love with him. But Steven himself could take it or leave it. Kate sometimes thinks how easy things would be if they could just fall in love with each other, but it was not meant to be.
“So would you like to be my date for Sam Siegal’s wedding in March?” she asks him. “I’m one of the bridesmaids, obviously.” He and Kate and Sam have known each other since they were at Horace Mann together, and he’ll be at the wedding anyway, so she’d rather just go with him.
“Absolutely,” he says. “Now finish your salad, you barely ate a thing.”
Her cell rings; it’s her sister, wanting to know when she’ll be home.
“I’m leaving soon,” Kate tells her. “Everything okay?”
“Yes, tell Steven hello.”
While Steven pays (never once in their long friendship has he ever let her—or any other girl or group of girls, for that matter—pay), Kate thinks about K. K. Pearlbinder and her unpredictable choice of a boyfriend, and then wonders why she herself can’t give anyone else a chance.
Her BlackBerry vibrates now: it’s her brother, texting about his idea to take a leave of absence from school for a while to work on his series for HBO. What does she think? Though she suspects her parents will be horrified, the e-mail she sends Jonathan reads: Let’s talk about, sort of feel like yes! You only live once. Then she adds, I’m with Steven, will ask him, and have to tell him about HBO—he’ll be so proud of you! Jonathan worships Steven—they met, after all, when Jonathan was a toddler. On his bulletin board in his bedroom at the Chases’ he has a photograph of himself and Steven at freshman visiting week at Penn, Jonathan not even ten years old, leaning against Steven in a little sport coat and bow tie, playing some sort of thumb game. Kate realizes then that the one person she knows who would tell Jonathan to go ahead with that leave of absence from school would be Scott, whose fondness for risk-taking she knows all too well.
She and Isabel (and don’t forget Michael, she reminds herself) are going to have dinner with their parents tonight, as they so often do, but first Kate’s going to take a quick bubble bath, she decides after she kisses Steven good-bye on the corner of Lex and 62nd and climbs into a taxi for the ten-minute ride home, yelling “Vile!”—their favorite word—out the window.
Poised in the hallway outside her apartment, wishing that the hallways were air-conditioned—they get so hot—she searches her bag for her keys. It’s like going into a black hole, she thinks—candy wrappers, lipsticks that have fallen out of her makeup bag, business cards, a brush, a tiny umbrella her mom makes them carry “because you never know!” Then she hears Isabel’s voice and, a moment later, a deeper, male one—Michael is already there, she thinks, there goes my bath. She rings the bell, leaning against the pale blue striped wallpapered hallway as she waits for Isabel to open the door for her. Eyes closed, she imagines herself for a moment still living here, only alone, Isabel off with Michael, she herself completely and totally unattached, stepping into her thirties—high-heeled shoes and all—then forties . . . Then she snaps out of it and says to herself, Oh, you sound like When Harry Met Sally—you’re being ridiculous.
Isabel answers the door, looking terribly excited. “We’ve got company,” she whispers into Kate’s ear. There, sitting on the living room sofa next to Michael, a bottle of Poland Spring in his hand, sitting up straighter than she’s ever seen him and bouncing his left knee, is Scott. Kate feels her cheeks turn bright red, and her heart starts to beat in what feels like all of her chest and even her stomach. As Scott gets up and slowly comes toward her, that familiar feeling that can only be defined as, well, the deepest sort of desire she’s ever experienced, she thinks, Oh, if only I could be hard-to-get, and stand here staring at him coldly, and say “What are you doing here?” but she knows he never intends to hurt her, she believes in him, she believes in her heart that he is in love with her, that has always been why she keeps giving him one more chance. So now, as he stands staring at her intensely, running one hand over her hair and down the back of her head, sending chills everywhere, and then wrapping his long, strong arms around her in the middle of her living room, well instead of standing like an ice cube, Kate finds herself completely bewitched all over again. The smell of his shampoo, the sandpapery black stubble around his jaw, the sweetness and intensity of his dark gray eyes. She thinks, for a moment, if only I had stopped to get a blow-dry . . .
“I just needed to get it together,” Scott’s whispering in her ear. “Will you forgive me, again?” he nearly begs.
And as quickly and as easily as that, Kate and Scott are back together. A few hours later, they sit at Elios on Second and 84th (her parents and Isabel and Michael have their date without her), an heirloom tomato salad for her—though she can barely eat, she is so excited—mozzarella and prosciutto for Scott, followed by boneless white-meat chicken scarpariello, always well done, for Kate, spaghetti bolognese for him, and Elio’s perfectly buttered string beans. Normally Kate loves to see all the boldface names who eat here, so she can report back to her family and sometimes to Page Six as a sighting, but tonight she barely glances at Gwyneth Paltrow, there with her brother and mother at a front table by the bar, and Woody Allen and Soon Yi, there with another couple. All she can think is “Make this time be it, make this time be it,” as though she is Dorothy at the end of her favorite movie, The Wizard of Oz, clicking her red shoes and saying again and again, “There’s no place like home.”
Kate and Scott and Isabel and Michael are at an early movie a few nights later—Up in the Air, which stars George Clooney, one of Kate and Isabel’s favorite actors ever since his days as Jo’s boyfriend on The Facts of Life (in fact, their godmother, Claire Callaway, played Jo’s mother!). As the four of them settle into their seats toward the back of the theater, an enormous tub of buttered popcorn nestled in Kate’s lap, she thinks about how happy she is; how just totally right it feels to be there with Isabel and Michael, how many movies they’ve seen together over the years, how many dinners out or ordering in Chinese at the girls’ apartment, weekends at the Chases’ summer house in Atlantic Beach where they rode bicycles, sat on the beach, and barbecued and drank frozen margaritas. Kate is just so incredibly happy; she flutters every time she even hears Scott’s name.
On the movie screen now, George Clooney, as a corporate assassin, is as dreamy as ever. (
Kate’s good friend Sherri Zeegen from Penn, in fact, who works in Hollywood for the company that produced the TV show ER, once called her to report that George Clooney had just phoned her desk—and they shrieked excitedly, like schoolgirls, over what it was like to hear George Clooney’s voice coming through Sherri’s telephone! Even his voice is enough to make her melt!)
Her phone vibrated in the darkness of the movie theater now, and Kate holds it up to see that it’s her client Danielle Liston; she and her husband own a small but very successful manufacturing company. Kate knows why Danielle is calling, and she doesn’t want to speak to her, not now. She knows all about Danielle’s beloved Dandie Dinmont terrier, who, though smart, loving, and gentle as can be, weighs twenty-three pounds, three pounds over the twenty-pound limit imposed by the co-op board of the Park Avenue building where Danielle and her husband want to buy a nine. Snuggling up to Scott, resting her head on his shoulder and savoring the feel of his fingers threading through her hair, Kate tries to focus on George Clooney packing his suitcase on the screen and not Danielle’s slightly overweight dog. And when the movie is over, and she and Scott and Isabel and Michael walk to the Shake Shack on 86th Street for burgers and fries, she returns Danielle’s call and listens to her voice get higher and higher.
“Newman is the sweetest dog there is,” she starts, “it is LUDICROUS to put him on a diet just to satisfy the co-op board’s ridiculous rules. He’s afraid of his own tail, what difference is three pounds going to make? Maybe I’ll just say he is bloated at the board interview.”
Kate laughs. “But we have to do whatever it takes—you won’t be hurting Newman, can’t you just stop feeding him table food for a bit, or let him run around more?” Kate says. “No one is more obsessed with dogs than I am, but you certainly aren’t giving up Newman, and I know you are dying for this apartment, so shut his mouth!”
“I guess I can tell Yola no more sausage and potatoes for Newman for breakfast. Oh, he is going to be so mad at me,” Danielle says. “I know, I will order him the Nectar Cafe egg whites I eat every day—with turkey bacon. Atkins it is!”
Crossing 86th Street, holding hands with Scott while her other hand holds her phone up, Kate says, “Perfect—what’s not to love?!” And a moment later she hears Danielle’s sigh of surrender.
“Done,” Danielle says.
“And off you will go to your nine!” Kate says.
“We better.”
“Absolutely,” Kate says, and hangs up.
“Who the hell is Newman?” Scott says, laughing, opening the door to Shake Shack. “Don’t you ever stop working?”
“Only occasionally,” Kate teases him, as he kisses her lips. They wait in a long line that stretches, as usual, all the way out the door and onto 86th Street. Thinking only of how starving she is, Kate is happily surprised when Scott tucks her hair behind one ear and whispers, “I love you.” He’s not outwardly sentimental, and although he is incredibly passionate and affectionate, he saves that for very private moments. It took him a year to say “I love you” to her, and he did it very matter of factly, which she loved, because she knew how much he really meant it.
“Me too,” she whispers now. Me too me too me too.
Chapter Eleven
Isabel
Sky High Condo
Lincoln Center area/60s west. 8 rooms, 4 bedrooms, 3 baths. 54th floor in luxury condo has panoramic city views and top amenities. $7.225 million—negotiable.
“Hi, Dad,” says Isabel, throwing her arms around her father. “You look wonderful, as usual.” And he does. Today he wears a pair of trim, pressed khakis and a pale blue button-down (always Ralph Lauren; their favorite place to shop is the magical Rhinelander mansion on Madison and 72nd Street); his distinguished silver hair has been freshly cut, and he smells of peppermint mouthwash. She thinks suddenly of her father smelling the same way as he tucked her into bed when she must have been no more than four years old, saying good-bye before he went out to a cocktail party with their mother. Elizabeth, before she went out, always smelled of Chanel No. 5, and this, of course, became both daughters’ favorite, and signature, scent.
“You too, sweetheart,” her father says. “You and Michael are the first to get here. Let’s go sit in the library.”
They are all having brunch at the Chases’, and Michael is making Elizabeth’s favorite omelet; he and Isabel bought the ingredients—tomatoes, peppers, feta cheese—at Eli’s on Third Avenue on their way over, and in the vegetable aisle, Michael said, “I should consider myself pretty damn lucky to be getting your family. You know, coming from the family that I do . . .”
“What do you mean?” Isabel said. She’s never actually met Michael’s family in Oklahoma, though she’s spoken to them over the phone a number of times, and they’ve always sounded perfectly friendly, and of course they’ll be at the wedding. It’s odd, though, she’s thought, that they’ve never come to New York to meet her, nor have she and Michael flown out to Oklahoma, but Michael has explained that this is simply the way he and his family are with each other; a once-a-year visit at Christmastime is what they’ve all grown used to and are comfortable with. And actually she’s thrilled with that—her mother would always tell her daughters, “Marry a man whose family lives in another country, or better yet, marry an orphan.” And she meant it.
“You know what I’ve told you about my parents. They’re good people, but they’re . . . how should I say this without sounding mean . . . they’re detached, somehow. Kind of emotionally distant. I don’t think they can help it,” Michael said.
“Well, you couldn’t be more different, so I don’t care a bit,” Isabel said, and squeezed his hand.
By this time they had paid and were walking back uptown on Park. And even though the streets were crowded with families on their way to brunch or the park, Michael leaned in and kissed her like they were on their first date.
“Want some coffee?” her father is asking now.
“I’d love some,” Michael says. He turns to Isabel, “You?”
“I’ll wait,” Isabel says. “I’m dying for a bagel, though. Isn’t Kate supposed to bring them?”
“Kate’s not coming,” announces her mother as she enters the room and enfolds Isabel in a hug. She’s wearing slim-fitting black pants and, to offset the slight chill of the October morning, a cashmere V-neck in a gorgeous shade of burnt orange, with a Susan Wexler necklace cascading down her neck in an explosion of burnt orange crystals. Susan Wexler is a longtime friend of Elizabeth’s who sold her ten-room at 1010 Fifth and moved to Palm Beach after her divorce, and Elizabeth took a huge portion of her commission in jewels for her and the girls. Of course, she neglected to tell Tom what she was up to, so when the apartment closed and she handed him the check, he couldn’t figure out why the commission was so small.
“She’s not coming? Why not?” Michael says.
Her mother says nothing but shoots Isabel a look. “What?” asks Michael, looking back and forth from Elizabeth’s face to Isabel’s. “Did I miss something?”
“No, no,” Isabel says. “Mom and I were just thinking about Scott and Kate. . . .”
“Yeah, it’s so great that they’re back together again, right?” Michael says.
“Well, let’s just hope it lasts,” says Elizabeth.
“Why do you think it won’t?” But before her mother can respond, Isabel’s father walks back into the room with a steaming American flag mug that he hands to Michael.
In a little while they all move into the kitchen, where Michael starts making the omelets. Then her father takes Isabel aside and back to the library; he wants to show her the opening of one of his favorite Hitchcock films, Notorious, a newly reissued Blu-ray of which he’s just purchased. Tom’s obsession with new carries over of course to movies—he now has triplicates, sometimes quadruplicates, of every great movie ever made—tapes, then DVDs, then newly remastered DVDs, no
w Blu-rays. “Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman in a love story that’s also a thriller, you can’t beat that,” he tells Isabel.
“Can I borrow it so Michael and I can watch the whole thing?”
“Take this one,” he says. “It’s the DVD. Michael should really see it, especially because he’s an actor. You should really show him all the old films, they don’t make them like they used to.”
“He’ll love it!” she says, taking the DVD. Her father smiles and sits down to read the Arts and Leisure section of the New York Times, his favorite, and Isabel goes into the kitchen to continue the conversation with her mother and set the table.
“So what did Kate say?” Isabel asks her.
“Just that they were exhausted and wanted to stay home,” Elizabeth says.
“That’s weird, isn’t it? Kate never likes to miss a family brunch.”
“I don’t care what they do, as long as he doesn’t leave her again.”
“I know,” Isabel says, and takes a pile of placemats from her mother.
“Anyway, how’s it going with the countess?” Elizabeth asks, obviously wanting to redirect the conversation. She arranges silverware on the four placemats, then pulls out a chair for herself.
“Well, it’s a little odd, I guess . . .”
Elizabeth, ever-alert for nuances that concern the business, is immediately interested. “Odd like what?”
Sitting down at the table, Isabel says, “Everything I show her, she likes. No, not likes. Loves! Adores! She gushes, she swoons. She whips out her phone to call Fritzie—that’s the count,” she says, in response to her mother’s questioning look. “And then she gushes to him, too. But nothing ever seems to come of it.”
“Hmm,” is all her mother says, but it’s clear she’s carefully considering all of this. “No comebacks?”
“Nope. And the places she wants to see are all over the map—literally,” continues Isabel. “Uptown and down, east side and west. Old and dripping with charm, new and dripping with sophistication. She wants it all.”
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