“Tell me,” she says, because she just has to know.
“Tell you what?”
“Tell me what made you decide to take the law boards, to even think of going back to school, to law school in particular. I mean, you’ve been out of school for ten years now. Away from all that studying, taking notes, writing papers—”
“You’re saying it’s going to be hard.”
“No, I’m not saying that at all—you can do anything, I know—that Phi Beta Kappa key I found in your sock drawer still impresses me, even though I know it doesn’t impress you,” Kate says.
“You’re right—I don’t care about that,” Scott says, smiling.
Kate runs her finger between his heavy, dark brows, tracing a scar whose origins he doesn’t recall, only that it was sometime during the several summers he worked as a lifeguard at Brant Lake Camp in the Adirondacks, where her brother Jonathan went years later.
“Scott, I’m serious, why did you decide to take the law boards now?”
“I don’t know, Kate, I just think it was time for me to grow up, I guess,” he tells her.
She smiles, and says, “One more question.”
He starts to pull her inside. “You mean the inquisition is ending?!” he teases.
“Yes, last one! With LSAT scores like that, why didn’t you apply to Harvard and Yale? Or Stanford?”
“Because I know a certain girl who doesn’t like to leave home,” he says. “Now let’s go inside, you’re shivering.”
Kate smiles.
“Entertainment law,” he whispers seductively into her ear now. “Or maybe intellectual property.”
“Keep talking, funny boy,” she tells him as they get in the elevator.
It’s Allison Silverman-Cole who wakes her up early the next morning, calling to report the good news that she and her cheating husband, Chip—boyfriend of Honey Baer—are now officially divorced. “Yay for me!” she says. “And I’m in a buying mood, that’s for sure.”
“Wonderful!” Kate says, reaching over a sleeping Scott for a sip of water and to look at the clock on the night table, which reads 7:32. Thank goodness Allison woke her, Kate thinks. And she realizes, too, how utterly excited and hopeful she feels this morning.
“So let’s go apartment-shopping,” Allison says, “the sooner the better.”
Kate hasn’t heard from Allison for at least two months, despite the follow-up e-mails and phone messages she’s left for her. The last few showings Kate took her to hadn’t gone well at all. This was no fault of Kate’s; she just left them feeling Allison had perhaps too much going on to focus on real estate. At one, Allison refused to remove her shoes before entering the apartment as requested by the seller because, Allison whispered to Kate, she hadn’t had a pedicure in three weeks and was mortified at the thought of showing her tootsies in public; at another, a large apartment she seemed to love, she was turned off by the co-op rules that relegated dogs, as well as tenants in wheelchairs, to the service elevator. Kate agreed—and it wasn’t even an A-list building! Sometimes in New York, the less impressive a building, the snobbier it is.
“I’m so happy you called,” Kate tells Allison now. “I promise to send you some listings later today—there are some good things on the market for you.” And please please please don’t bring Jessica Prettyman this time, unless she is now, in fact, your lesbian lover!
“Oh, and BTW, you won’t have to call ahead to see if the seller had any avocados,” Allison reports.
“Really?” Kate says as Scott opens his eyes and smiles at her. “How come?”
“I’ve been seeing this fantastic acupuncture doctor in midtown, and my allergies have disappeared.”
Smiling back at Scott, Kate says, “Really? But haven’t you been allergic for years?”
“The guy’s an MD, and he’s in practice with all these other MDs in a holistic wellness center.”
“Oh, Allison, that’s so amazing, such a relief for you.” Scott kisses her throat, then makes his way down to her belly button. “You’re tickling me!” she whispers.
“What?” says Allison.
“This three-bedroom on Central Park West,” Kate says. “I know you prefer the Upper East Side, but I think you’re going to love it, trust me!”
“Trust me, Kate,” Scott whispers in her ear. “You can, this time, I promise.”
And despite the past, all those years of on-again, off-again, back-again, every instinct she has at this moment tells her to trust him completely.
The owner of the Central Park West co-op insists that brokers observe her children’s “napping hours,” as she calls them, so show times are Monday through Friday from 9:30 to 11:30 (so the children can be fed a proper lunch before their nap) and then from 3:00 to 4:00 (so potential buyers can be long gone before dinner and bath). And so Kate and Allison Silverman-Cole arrive at 3:40 and learn from the co-broker, Stacy Crocker from Douglas Elliman, that they have just twenty minutes until bathtime. While Jessica Prettyman is not present for today’s showing, Allison has instead brought along her cousin, an imperious woman in her late forties named June to whom Kate takes an immediate disliking. These clients! No one can make a decision anymore without a committee!
Stacy Crocker, who looks to be no more than twenty-five, opens the door and says, “Hi, I’m incredibly busy, can you show yourselves around? I need to make some calls.” She takes out her phone like she is taking out an emery board to file her nails, and sits on a bench in the entrance gallery, dialing away.
Kate wonders, How do brokers like this get listings like this?
Cousin June leads the way into the kitchen first, which irritates Kate, because Elizabeth taught the girls to always start a showing with the living room.
“I have to say the kitchen is a major disappointment,” Cousin June observes sourly.
“Really?” Kate says. “I think it’s a great kitchen.” She points out all the top appliances, the custom white wood cabinets with gorgeous chrome hardware, the backsplash of subway tile behind the Viking. All new, made to look old, Kate’s favorite.
“What this kitchen doesn’t have is a window with a decent view,” Cousin June says. “Honestly, who wants an eat-in kitchen that overlooks a courtyard?”
“Actually,” says Kate sweetly, “the kitchens—and often the dining rooms, for that matter—face courtyards in most prewar buildings. When the architects designed them in the 1900s, only the servants used the kitchen, and the dining rooms were only used in the evenings, when beautiful curtains were drawn and no one cared about the light.”
Allison runs her hand along the marble counters. “I do love this marble,” she says. “The new me wants all clean and white. And I really don’t care that much about the view from this one room.”
“Suit yourself,” Cousin June says. “But don’t blame me when you wake up one morning and realize you’ve made a big mistake.”
“All right, let’s go to the bedroom wing, totally private off the entertaining space, as it should be. A very classic layout,” Kate says. When they get to the first bedroom, they find the seller’s three-year-old marching around naked except for a ski hat with long black cotton braids hanging down on either side.
“Hello, there,” Kate says, smiling at him. That’s a Marc Jacobs hat, she realizes.
“Little boys aren’t supposed to be greeting strangers without their clothes on,” Cousin June notes. “Where are your pajamas, young man?”
Taking Kate aside, Allison whispers, “June’s daughter was kicked out of Andover last week for not only smoking pot but passing it around to all the sophomores as well. Hence, the mood.”
Each bedroom has enormous walk-in closets, and two of the bedrooms (the master and a second) overlook Central Park. When they enter the one bedroom that doesn’t, Cousin June puts her hands on her wide hips and says, “Oh, this will never do. Look ove
r there—you can see the housekeeper’s reading a book as she irons. Talk about depressing!” From the third bedroom, you can indeed look into an apartment in the building across the street.
Kate sighs and says, “June, if Allison wants to see no one at all, she’s going to have to move out of the city—sometimes, in some rooms, you do see into other buildings! And this is one of the best buildings on Central Park West.” And then she adds, because she knows Allison is obsessed with Us Weekly, “Guess who lives here? Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones, John Lithgow, and—”
“Who cares?” Cousin June says. “The view out this bedroom window is not acceptable.”
There is no point in further discussing the matter with Cousin June.
“I don’t know,” Allison is saying, “if you’re paying, what, how much is this?”
“Asking $7.3 million.”
“Well, for 7.3 the views should all be spectacular, shouldn’t they?”
Nothing is perfect, no matter the budget, Kate thinks. If clients are spending $7 million, they moan, Oh, if only I could afford eight, eight would get me the apartment of my dreams. And then at $8 million, there are more items that just “won’t do”—spacious postwar apartments ruined by eight-foot ceilings; apartments where you must walk through a dining room to get to the kitchen, or past a maid’s room to get to the kitchen, or where one bedroom is off the entrance gallery as opposed to being in the bedroom wing. Kitchens that can’t be opened up on to maid’s rooms. The list goes on. There have been apartments that clients of Kate’s have adored, and then on a third showing at 2:45 in the afternoon, when they are about to make an offer, they hear an explosion of little voices shrieking and they peer out the window of the master bedroom to see that the $4 million condo they’ve fallen in love with faces the school yard of P.S. 6.
Kate’s phone rings. It’s her sister, all excited, calling to tell her that she’s figured out the song she wants played as she walks down the aisle at her wedding.
“What is it?” Kate says.
“ ‘Uptown Girl,’ ” Isabel says. “Hasn’t it always been one of our favorite Billy Joel songs? Jonathan suggested it!”
“It’s the perfect song!” Kate says approvingly. “I’m in the middle of a showing, love it, call you later.”
Although, disappointingly but not surprisingly, Allison Silverman-Cole has no interest in pursuing the three-bedroom on the Upper West Side, Kate will receive an excellent piece of news soon enough. After a quick early-morning call to Andy Candel, her friend who was high on Ativan at his board meeting, she learns that after the expensive wine she and Elizabeth had okayed him to send to the board, along with an apology they encouraged him to write (“Sorry, should never mix politics with pleasure!”), Andy passed the board. They will never know if it was the $750 bottle of Chateau Mouton Rothschild or the fact that the SoHo board either had a sense of humor or were all Democrats!
Sarabeth’s on the Upper East Side has always been Kate’s favorite place for brunch. She either gets the blueberry pancakes or designs her own omelet with tomato, mushroom, and Gruyère, and devours the scones and hot biscuits that come on the side with their melty butter. Today she is sitting at the big square table at the front of the restaurant that feels like a private booth, with Scott’s parents, Michele and Ian Lansill. It’s the first time she’s seen them in a very long while. The four of them have had a few dinners together over the years, always at Michele’s request; oddly, in the past, Scott seemed not to want Kate to spend much time with his family and, more often than not, turned down invitations to have dinner with the Chases, causing Kate a little heartache each time. (Kate and Isabel have agreed that this must have been a reflection of Scott’s fear that his parents or the Chases might mistakenly think that he and Kate were actually serious about each other.) And so Kate was both startled and thrilled when, earlier in the week, Scott asked if she’d like to have brunch with Michele and Ian.
Her mother bought her a beautiful pink V-neck Ralph Lauren cashmere sweater at Bergdorf’s just for the occasion; and just a moment ago, Michele happened to compliment her on it.
“Unlike me,” Scott tells his parents now, “Kate puts a lot of thought into what she wears—in fact, she and her mother and sister make shopping a second career. You wouldn’t believe the size of her bedroom closet or how many pairs of shoes she has!” Lifting her hand gently from the table, he momentarily raises it to his lips—right there in front of his parents—and Kate is astonished. She almost wonders who she is sitting next to!
“If everyone cared about their wardrobe as little as you do,” his mother teases, pointing downward to his scuffed-up suede Nikes, “the fashion industry would be in huge trouble, not because you don’t always look adorable, but because you never buy anything new!” Michele met Scott’s father in the 1970s while she was at medical school and he was a trader at Bear Stearns. She is a very attractive woman, small, with dirty blond shoulder-length hair, a perfect nose, and Scott’s gray eyes. She wears very little makeup and is dressed simply but elegantly in a gray cashmere sweater, charcoal gray pants, and a Hermès scarf tied around her neck. Kate doesn’t know all that much about her, as Scott doesn’t talk about his parents all that much, but she does know that Michele is “always counting calories.” For as long as he can remember, Scott said, she’s had a calorie book in their kitchen that she consults before every meal. During one particularly drastic diet, she even took to weighing her food on a mini scale! Luckily for Michele, she has three sons; Kate can only imagine what eating issues a daughter of Michele’s would have. And she can’t figure out why she’s always dieting—she must be no more than a size six—but perhaps, Kate reconsiders, that’s because of her diligence!
Today, though, Michele is indulging in a big cheesy frittata. What Kate does know is that Michele is one of the most popular clinical instructors in psychiatry at Bellevue Hospital, where she’s taught for twenty years. Kate has no trouble believing this. From the moment they sat down at the table together, Michele has been as warm and friendly as can be to her. As has Ian, who, hugging her enthusiastically, whispered how happy he was that she and Scott were together again. At that, Kate actually blushed with hope.
Chapter Fourteen
Isabel
The Comeback
Walking along Fifth Avenue in December is like stumbling onto a magical kingdom of sorts, Isabel thinks to herself. New York is just sparkling with Christmas—the enormous, dazzling tree at Rockefeller Center (Isabel and Kate have been watching the tree lighting ceremony on TV since they were little); the spectacular light show that washes over Saks Fifth Avenue; the Cartier Building, wrapped like a red present and topped by a giant red ribbon; the windows at Tiffany—miniature marvels, studded with jaw-dropping jewels—and then the Christmas windows at Bergdorf’s, Barneys, and Lord & Taylor.
Isabel, her mother, and her sister have always been in love with Christmas. She thinks back now to their family holiday traditions, the horse and carriage ride through Central Park she still remembers, she probably no more than seven years old, with Kate and Jonathan and their godparents, Tom and Claire Callaway, who came in every Christmas like Santa Claus. Their father showed Miracle on 34th Street every year on Christmas Eve in their living room on the big screen—an actual ten-by-twelve-foot movie screen, framed by electrically operated curtains, upon which a real movie projector would play the film. Kate always tells Jonathan that she remembers being seven years old, lying on her mother on the sofa watching the movie, her mother eight months pregnant with Jonathan, and she felt him kick inside her stomach and screamed with excitement, “Isabel, Isabel, come quick, the baby likes the movie!” and Isabel, who was arranging the butter cookies around the cup of tea they always left for Santa in case he got hungry and thirsty during his travels, came bounding over to feel Jonathan move, both girls so excited for the baby they had been begging their mother for, for years.
And th
is year she takes special delight in the season—so many good things are happening. She and Michael are engaged; Michael’s play is opening soon; Kate and Scott are back together. They love having Jonathan home—the original five, they always call themselves. He has been writing incredible material for the series that he hopes will be developed by HBO (they know because he prints out rewrite after rewrite for them daily, each one saying “from New York, December 13 edit, 3:32 a.m.,” and then, “December 13 edit, 4:47 p.m.”) and he calls them frantically, asking, “Did you read the one from last night yet?” “No, I was showing all day, will read tonight,” Isabel may say, and he says quickly, excitedly, “Good, good, throw that one away, I changed it, it’s much better, I’ll e-mail you the new one.”
It’s been such a busy season, too: this week alone, Isabel has had four straight days of back-to-back showings, two open houses, and an elaborate handholding and prep session with a wealthy client and her girlfriend for their upcoming interview with a prospective co-op board. (The Park Avenue building in question is notoriously stuffy and straitlaced; Isabel is a bit concerned about how the prospect of a gay couple is going to appear to them.) Plus there is Alyssa Ostrow, who has miraculously decided to renovate—sometimes you are surprised by a client—and who phones Isabel daily with a progress report. (Isabel has actually been consulting on this and has been able to recommend the Chases’ hunky painter George Trapierakis and their amazing contractor Brendan Flanagan.)
Alex Fein is active again as well, and she has been reduced to the mousiest of clients, meekly agreeing to see whatever apartments Isabel can arrange to show her. As her pregnancy advances, her irritating perfectionism seems in decline; or perhaps, Kate points out, it is simply a matter of desperation. She made an offer on a lovely four-bedroom condo at 47 East 91st Street. While it’s not as over-the-top as some of the properties Alex had coveted in the past, it does have an uncommonly large master suite consisting of a bedroom, adjoining sitting room, and a bath with a deep soaking tub. The floors are white oak herringbone, the moldings custom-carved. It’s a lovely, serene space, and best of all, the eighteenth-century furniture that Alex so can’t live without will fit just perfectly (she knows, because she brought in her designer to measure every piece against every inch of the apartment!). Now Alex and Brad are just waiting for their closing date.
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