Hot Property

by Michele Kleier

  Upset? Livid is the more appropriate word. But Isabel says nothing, and Alex goes on, “And you know what? Maybe this is all going to work out in the end anyway. I’ll buy an apartment through you—someone I can trust, someone who still has some integrity.”

  Oh, the irony of that comment, Isabel thinks, and says, “Thank you.” She begins to walk faster. She can’t wait to tell her mother and Kate about the Alex Fein development; she imagines Kate imitating Alex Fein’s whiny voice— “Poor Alex Fein!”

  When she arrives at the office, her sister and mother are there, sharing a Cobb salad and a turkey sandwich in Kate and Isabel’s office and a mint lemonade they picked up at Le Pain Quotidien. They always eat in there; they have an extra desk, where Elizabeth sits. Tom usually comes in and gets his food, but goes back to eat at his own desk. They share lunches every time they are in their office together, their favorite being from June to September—when their Carnegie Hill CSA food co-op begins. As members, they pick up every Tuesday afternoon at the church on 90th Street the freshest, most amazing fruits and vegetables trucked in from local farms, and Elizabeth and Cecilia make a huge salad with all the ingredients, a surprise each week—heirloom tomatoes, ten kinds of lettuce, bunches of radishes with the mud still clinging to them, yellow cucumbers. . . . “We ordered enough for you, too,” says Kate as she bites into a sour pickle now.

  Isabel puts her bag down and takes a plate and some salad. “So the apartment on 67th was really awful?”

  “Awful is an understatement” Kate exclaims. “They had ferrets!”

  “What’s a ferret?”

  “I don’t even know. Mom thinks they’re illegal in New York, actually—they look like little rats. There were lots of them, running all over, I didn’t want to walk in. Some of them used a filthy litter box, and the rest used the floor as their bathroom. It was the most vile thing I’ve ever seen—can you imagine showing that apartment?”

  “Ewww, I just shuddered!” Isabel says.

  “Oh, and there was no refrigerator—none! Apparently it had broken, and the owner never bothered to replace it. Said she ate out all the time anyway.”

  “I can see why,” Elizabeth says dryly, joining the conversation after a quick call about a board package.

  Kate says, “What kind of people live like that—I mean, the list of problems goes on and on. Do you mind if I finish this?” she asks, holding up half of the turkey sandwich. “I’m starved.”

  “Sure,” Isabel says. “I’m still nauseated from all the cigarette smoke in the apartment I just looked at.”

  “Too bad the ferrets didn’t kill my appetite!” Kate teases. “Where was there smoke?”

  Isabel tells them both about the 74th Street listing, and Kate reminds her of Ben Meier. “I know!” Isabel says. “I kept thinking of him—too bad he already bought—this apartment is for him!”

  Elizabeth is thrilled when Isabel finally shares the tale of Alex Fein. “Hah! She got what she deserved! I love the way you handled it.”

  “Mmm,” Isabel says with a mouthful, “I thought you two would get a kick out of that.”

  Their assistant Ben Boylan walks in to tell Elizabeth that Raizy Haas is on the phone about the Stanhope. Ben is a tall young man in his late twenties or early thirties, the kind of man whose age you cannot tell. He shaves his head, wears black-rimmed glasses, and is every bit as deadpan as the girls are bubbly. Ben looks like he should have been cast in John Hughes’s Breakfast Club, one of Kate and Isabel’s favorite movies.

  Raizy Haas is one of the most powerful women in the real estate development business. Number two at Extell, wears her hair in a stick-straight, shoulder-length bob with a row of bangs straight across her eyebrows like an exquisitely cut lawn. She has piercing blue eyes, china doll pale skin, and despite being quite thin, is in a constant battle with her weight. She once called Elizabeth at three in the morning Dubai time whispering, “The best thing about Dubai is that I’ve lost ten pounds!”

  “Where’s the call?” Elizabeth says. “My cell is in my hand.” She clutches her cell as if it were the hand of a two-year-old ready to make a run for it.

  “She said it went straight to voice mail, and Violeta has been paging you, you didn’t hear?”

  “No, okay, I’m coming in.” Elizabeth is representing one of the most expensive and spectacular trophy properties in all the city—the $28.5 million last-remaining full-floor residence at the Stanhope hotel, converted to the highest-end luxury building and renamed “995 Fifth.” The apartment, which takes up the entire sixteenth floor of the building, spans 8,300 square feet, with seven bedrooms, even more baths, and sweeping views of the Reservoir, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Central Park, and all of the West Side from each major room—the living room, dining room, library, and sitting room, and even the kitchen.

  Elizabeth is waiting for the okay from Raizy to have it decorated; as ludicrous as it may sound, as an empty space, it’s almost too big for people to imagine. When she or the girls show it, buyers often stop and say, “Wait, what room is this?” Elizabeth and the girls agree that with a property like this, it’s worth it to spend the money to help buyers differentiate the rooms.

  Elizabeth wants to hire the hottest architect in the city, JP Forbes Jr., a 6’2” black-haired, blue-eyed “hunk” (as Kate and Isabel and all their friends call him) in his late thirties, who was just featured in a four-page spread in Town and Country at his home on Lower Fifth, with his beautiful young wife and twin three-year-old daughters. He looks like a cross between Jon Hamm and Clive Owen, two of the Chase girls’ favorite actors. Kate once met him at an event in the penthouse at the London hotel and, after spending hours talking to him and drinking Bellinis, was devastated to learn he was happily married, especially since he was the one and only other boy she got a flutter with in all the years since she met Scott.

  “I got the go-ahead,” Raizy says. When not in the mood for chitchat, Raizy cuts right to the point. “You better make this worth our while, Elizabeth.” Raizy and Elizabeth have gotten very close in the three or so years that Extell has been giving her so many of its “trophy” properties to sell. But she rules, as Elizabeth says, with a velvet glove.

  Before Elizabeth can respond, Raizy says, “Okay, Elizabeth, gotta run, my plane is boarding, I’ll be back in New York City tomorrow, we need to speak about something at 535 WEA,” and then click.

  Elizabeth walks back into the girls’ office and does a little dance. “We can hire JP Forbes for the Stanhope!” she says. “Which one of you is going to come with me to meet him?”

  “Fabulous,” both girls say together. And then, because they both have huge crushes on him, they say, “We’ll both come!”

  Elizabeth turns to leave. “I have to go show uptown, I’m going to be late,” she says, so Isabel follows her out to tell her that Michael got a small role in the Edward Albee play at the Cherry Lane.

  “And it was written about in Page Six today!” she says.

  “That’s fabulous,” Elizabeth says. And even though she secretly worries about his having chosen what she and Tom consider a rather unstable, albeit totally glamorous, career, she says, “Michael is going to do very, very well, I know. And his looks sure won’t hurt him either!”

  Isabel grins.

  Two days later, Isabel is walking along West 67th Street, on her way to the fifty-fourth-floor apartment she and her mother are going to show Delphine. The day, bright and without a cloud in the sky, is quite cold for mid-October (although there are always some days in October when the temperature is in the forties, the Chase ladies never prepare their closets in time, still clinging to their summer colors), so this morning Isabel had to rummage madly under her bed to find a Ralph Lauren cable cashmere sweater (purple—their favorite color!) and a pair of Ralph Lauren black wool pants. If only she didn’t store her coats at the cleaners, she thinks, but thankfully she finds a cream
cashmere Portolano wrap—the Chase ladies have them in every color, thanks to their relationship with Francesca, one of the owners of the company.

  Her mother is already at the apartment; she was showing at the El Dorado on Central Park West and went straight there. Isabel gets a call from her on the way over. “I’ll wait for Delphine in the lobby,” Isabel tells her. “We’ll meet you up there.” And just as soon as Isabel reaches the building, she sees the long white limo and then Delphine stepping gracefully from it, one highly shined cowboy boot placed down on the pavement before the other.

  “Isabel!” she calls. Iz-a-BELLE is how it sounds. Everything always sounds better with a French accent, Isabel thinks. Today, above the trademark black cowboy boots, the countess wears an ankle-grazing sable coat so exquisite she has never seen anything like it. She and Kate both have fun black mink bomber jackets, gifts from their mother, and Elizabeth has a collection of furs, but none of them have anything like this. Fur used to be reserved for the absolute coldest days when you felt too frigid to even stick a toe outside, but now New York women wear fur from October till May. Under the coat, worn open, Isabel sees a glimpse of something long and chiffon, in a chic geometric pattern of yellow, black, and cream. The countess’s long, flaxen hair has been done up in a loose topknot with appealing little tendrils escaping to frame her face, and delicate, diamond-studded gold hoops adorn her ears.

  “My mother’s already upstairs,” Isabel says, after the two women perform the quick, double cheek-kiss that is as much Delphine’s signature as her cowboy boots. “We’ll meet her there.”

  Linking arms with Isabel, the countess sails regally past the pair of doormen—both of whom, it seems, can’t help staring at the willowy, fur-clad blond—and toward the elevator. As they step inside, Delphine says, “I can tell you are wearing the perfume,” and leans over toward Isabel’s neck. “It is enchanting on you. But then, what wouldn’t be?”

  “Mom and Kate loooove it —Mom put it on the other day when she was at my apartment, and it smelled divine on her,” Isabel says.

  Delphine says, “I am very much looking forward to meeting her.”

  “Oh, she is looking forward to meeting you, too,” Isabel says as the elevator makes its swift ascent to the fifty-fourth floor. The elevator arrives, and there is her mother, smiling.

  “So good to meet you, finally,” Elizabeth says.

  “And you,” says Delphine, taking Elizabeth’s hand and clasping it with both of her own. “I’ve read about you in the Times, and I can’t help but admire women like you who are so successful. I only wish I were more ambitious. And you’re even more beautiful in person than you are in the photographs.”

  Elizabeth smiles, saying, “Thank you!”

  “I’m sure you know by now how much I think of your daughter. She’s a jewel. But of course you don’t need me to tell you that.”

  “Well, I must thank you again!” Elizabeth says, flashing Isabel a smile. “The truth is, I have three amazing children.”

  “And I hope to meet the others, too,” says Delphine. She lets go of Elizabeth’s hand and shrugs off her sable coat. “Here,” Elizabeth says, “let me put that down for you.”

  The views of the apartment are simply breathtaking—west across the Hudson, which today sparkles like glass; south at the Statue of Liberty; north and east at the park. The place is flooded with so much light that Elizabeth, who compulsively turns on every light and lamp in all her listings and has taught the girls the same, has left them all off here. It is one of the few apartments where extra light would be completely unnecessary. The floors have been done in a glossy brown lacquer, so dark it is nearly black. The kitchen has a stainless steel industrial-looking center island that Delphine coos over, a Viking range, two Sub-Zeros and dishwashers—everything one could want in a kitchen. “The owner was a serious chef,” Elizabeth says.

  “Fritzie loves to cook! He’s an amateur, of course,” Delphine says with a charming giggle. “But what an amateur! I could get very, very fat if I did not remain vigilant!” She pats her washboard-flat stomach lightly with her manicured hand.

  “I’d love to meet your husband sometime,” Elizabeth says. Her voice is casual, but Isabel knows from experience that her comment is anything but. “He sounds like such an interesting man. And of course it would be so useful to get his reactions to the showings as well. After all, you’re both going to be living wherever it is that you end up buying.”

  “Oh, I would love that as well!” Delphine says, with what sounds like utter sincerity. “But he’s just so busy! Right now, he’s in Dubai. Very high-level project, you know.”

  “And just what is it that he does?” Elizabeth asks.

  “Well, Fritzie does a little bit of everything—banking, finance, light industry, global marketing. He’s a true Renaissance man.” Just then Delphine’s cell phone rings, and she begins talking, very animatedly, in German.

  “Ja, ja,” she says, nodding her head enthusiastically, though of course the person at the other end can’t see her. “Jawohl!” she adds, with emphasis. She is quiet for a moment, and then the voluble torrent of words resumes. Isabel, who took a couple of excruciating semesters of German in college, can make out a word or two here and there—flugzeug, which she remembers is airplane, and autobahn, which is the superhighway—but mostly the conversation passes right over her head.

  Delphine snaps her phone shut, and they continue the showing; Elizabeth’s question remains unanswered. They view the three bedrooms and baths: the master suite, with its full-size dressing room that features leather-lined closets extending from floor to ceiling, and an exquisite spa bath with the requisite double vanity, separate shower (this one a double rain head), and oversize deep soaking infinity tub surrounded by a huge window. The countess loves it all.

  When Delphine asks to “make a pee-pee in zee little girls’ room?” Elizabeth whispers, “Very charming, but there is definitely something off.”

  “You think so?” Isabel says.

  “She is very elusive.”

  “Yes, I guess so.”

  Then Delphine reappears from the bathroom. “Ta ta,” she sings, grabbing her sable. “Isabel come, let’s go, I must run. Elizabeth, what a pleasure,” and in a flurry of kisses and perfume she is gone.

  Neither her mother nor Kate is at the office when Isabel gets in (Elizabeth stayed at West 67th; she had back-to-back showings there, and Isabel doesn’t know where Kate is), but she has plenty to do. There’s a message from Kimby Bennett—that was quick!—and another from Alyssa Ostrow (the owner of the smoke-filled 74th Street mess), both of which she needs to answer. And she has an apartment in mind for Alex Fein, but wants to discuss it with her mom before she calls Alex.

  A few hours later, Isabel hears the tinkling of her mother’s charm bracelets as she walks into the office. She puts her charcoal Carolina Herrera jacket and matching colored python bag on her chair before calling out, “Isabel! Did you order lunch?”

  “Not yet—Mangia for a change?”

  “Yes, I don’t care what, I’ll just have some of what you get, and get Dad a tuna, I guess.”

  “Should I order for Kate, too?” Isabel yells.

  “No, she’s out.”

  “Client?” asks Isabel, who is about to phone the restaurant for their lunch.

  “Yes, new ones. A couple just moved here from Texas. They both have big jobs in finance. I think they were referred by her friend Kevin from Penn.”

  “So, let’s talk about Delphine,” Isabel says later, as she and her mother sit across from each other at Elizabeth’s desk, sharing a broccoli quiche and a grilled chicken wrap. Tom’s tuna is sitting on his desk; he’s at the bank.

  “Well, she’s evasive. But thoroughly charming about it,” Elizabeth says. “It’s hard to say, really. She could be politely liking everything but hasn’t yet found what she really wants, or, as I�
�ve said, she could be just extravagantly wasting your time.”

  “I know.” Isabel sips from a plastic cup of iced tea, with the extra wedges of lemon they always get floating like ice cubes.

  “But the truth is, you’re getting to see magnificent properties that you might otherwise not see, and she’s certainly fun to be with.”

  “And the presents!”

  “Things could be worse. I would certainly play it out,” Elizabeth says, as she takes a bite of quiche. “The husband, I can’t figure. ‘A little bit of this and that’ usually means a lot of nothing.”

  “I know, and I’m showing her some of the toughest buildings in the city—”

  “Well, with her I think you should stick to condos and town houses. Or you could just make a joke, like, ‘If you do decide to buy a co-op, Fritzie will have to do full disclosure on all his finances, and of course show up for a board meeting!’ I just honestly think even if they have all that money, you’re never going to get their cooperation to show it to a board.”

  “You’re right.”

  Her mother continues, “She may not understand how things work in this country.”

  “I’ll try and talk to her,” says Isabel, but then she’s distracted by the high-pitched barking of what sounds like a small dog. Dixie? she thinks hopefully, although Dixie is of course at her mother’s, where the girls drop her every day to play with Lola, Roxy, and Dolly so that she’s not alone. As she gets up to see—for any dog would be a treat to see—she nearly bumps into Violeta, and a messenger with a dog carrier behind her.

  “Isabel?” Violeta says. “This guy says he has a delivery. For you.” Her expression is one of utter bafflement.

  “For me?” Leaning down to peer inside the carrier, Isabel discovers that it’s not one but two shih tzu puppies! “OMG!!” she squeals. “Mom!!”

  “It’s from a Countess Ho-man von heren—,” the messenger says, stumbling over the name.

  “That’s all right,” Isabel says, addressing both the messenger and Violeta. “I know the sender.” She just left the countess’s company; when and how did she manage to find these puppies, and arrange for them to be delivered to the office? Unless the countess really does possess some sort of magic. At this moment, Isabel half believes that she does.