Hot Property

by Michele Kleier

  “Isabel, I’m going crazy!” Kimby says now. “The six of us are crammed on top of each other here, and I hate to use a cliché, but we’re like sardines! And one of the babies is a nightmare, so colicky, I can’t sleep. I’m losing my mind, and I can’t even hire a night nurse to take care of him because we have no room. The other brokers we’ve been dealing with have just been so difficult. And Lawrence”—here she lowers her voice, as if he might be in earshot—“is driving me nuts.” She says the word nuts like it goes on forever . . . nutsssssssss. Isabel imagines Kimby’s eyes fluttering as she says this. “He’s so picky!” she is whispering now. “I can’t take it anymore. I’ve lost my mind.” Kimby sighs.

  “Oh, Kimby,” Isabel says, trying not to laugh.

  “You have no idea.” In the background, a baby starts to shriek. “I stopped nursing so that I could medicate—and even that hasn’t helped!”

  “We’ll find an apartment for you very soon,” Isabel promises.

  Kimby says, “Call me the second you have something. My breasts are still leaking, it’s a nightmare—gotta run!”

  “The instant,” Isabel assures her, and hangs up.

  Kate is in the shower, doing a L’Occitane lemon verbena scrub, when Isabel’s phone rings again. “Isabellllllllllll, your cell!” she yells over the sound of running water.

  “Where is it?” Isabel says. “I can’t find it!”

  Kate opens the shower door and peers out. “Somewhere near me, I hear it so loudly.”

  Isabel finally sees it in a shoe. She’s missed the call, but she doesn’t bother to check who it was. Their mother is on her way upstairs, the boys are all sleeping after a late night out (they even took Jonathan, just four months legal) after the rehearsal dinner in the private room at Fresco by Scotto on 52nd, and no one else matters right now.

  For the next half hour, the apartment is in a frenzy—last-minute packing in the purple monogrammed T. Anthony wheelies the girls are bringing to the Metropolitan Club, shoes, undies, an iPod so they can listen to the Glee soundtrack over and over again as they get their hair and makeup done, a bag of sour lollipops and M&M’s (no pretzels; Mom will blow up).

  Their assistant Ben has given them each a list of all the wedding vendors’ cells, just in case they can’t find them anywhere. “Kate, where did you put it? It was right on the kitchen counter this morning!” Isabel yells. On the list are cell numbers for the photographer (Terry deRoy Gruber, whom they hired on two simple merits—he is from Pittsburgh, and he did the wedding of Catherine Zeta-Jones and Michael Douglas), videographer (Access Hollywood, thanks to Isabel’s good friend Christine Fahey), music (DJ Cassidy, the biggest DJ in New York, who does events for everyone from Beyoncé and Jay Z to Jennifer Lopez and President Obama’s inauguration ball), “set design” (the one and only Preston Bailey, who also did Donald and Melania and every Oprah event she throws), and the five-piece orchestra (Gail Curtis).

  The buzzer rings to announce that their car is downstairs. The girls will go to the Metropolitan Club first because they are getting ready there, and the car will go back to get Tom and Jonathan later.

  By the time they get outside, with Dixie, Daisy, and Lilly, in little pink raincoats, going for their own holiday at Elizabeth and Tom’s, the rain has stopped and the sun looks like it is frantically trying to peek out of the clouds.

  Kate tells the driver to swing around to her parents so they can drop off the dogs, and then they are off!

  The Metropolitan Club is located on the corner of 60th and Fifth Avenue. When you walk into its circular courtyard behind the large wrought-iron gate, it feels as though you’ve stepped right back into the late nineteenth century, the time it was built. Thomas, the club’s head of events, is there to greet them and take them to their suite, where he says that Valery Joseph and Kimara Ahnert are waiting to do their hair and makeup, that someone has sent over three enormous bouquets of lilacs (Scott and Michael), and that a reporter from the Post called to see if they would let any photographers in (absolutely not!). They will later appear in the wedding pages of Town and Country.

  Their suite faces the park, each bedroom with a king-size canopy bed and an enormous living room with a fully stocked bar and plates and plates of food Thomas has had sent up in case they are hungry. A few hours later Tom and Jonathan arrive, stunning in Ralph Lauren tuxedos, and they all nibble on club sandwiches and French fries, except for Elizabeth, who has one more pound to lose, she says, before the Vicky Tiel looks just perfect.

  Isabel’s wedding dress is a princess-style Badgley Mischka with a tight beaded top and a huge tulle skirt worthy of Cinderella. Kate wears a strapless sweetheart Vicky Tiel in the palest pink lace with a skintight corset top and slight A-line skirt. She and Scott have decided to marry as well that evening, in the first double wedding the Metropolitan Club has ever hosted.

  At just about seven o ’clock, Thomas comes up to give the family a final rundown of the evening. The wedding ceremony will take place on the first floor—the wedding party will descend the enormous Gone with the Wind red velvet staircase and walk down the aisle, a white satin runner with rows of cherry blossom trees enveloping it like a secret garden. The bridesmaids—there are seven—will wear pale pink strapless gowns to match the cherry blossoms, and the flower girl, Kayla (Christine Fahey’s daughter), wears a baby pink princess dress and a tiara of flowers in her hair.

  After the ceremony, guests will go up the staircase to the third floor for cocktail hour. Then dinner and dancing back downstairs in the rich red ballroom, all overlooking Central Park. Classic New York.

  Soon they hear the delicate sounds of Gail Curtis’s harp. There’s a light tap on Isabel’s shoulder now; it’s Thomas, signaling that the bridesmaids and groomsmen are down the aisle, along with the flower girl. Tom, Isabel, Kate, and Elizabeth, in that order, descend the magnificent staircase, giggling, as notes of “Moon River” from Breakfast at Tiffany’s quiet the crowd, and as they step off the stairs to begin down the aisle, the old-fashioned bridal march begins. The crowd of just under two hundred is a blur of smiles, waves, and tears, and the family looks up to see Isabel and Kate’s baby brother Jonathan, the best man, of course, with a shy, excited smile they haven’t seen on his face since he was five.

  Scott and Michael step down to hug Tom and Elizabeth, who then give one last squeeze to their daughters before handing them to their future husbands.

  The ceremony is fast. Rabbi Posner from Temple Emanu-El says the prayers, the four say their vows, the glass is broken. They kiss quickly before turning their gazes—Kate and Isabel so giddy they both have their hands over their mouths—toward their guests, who all stand and clap wildly as the family walks back down the aisle.

  The wedding is a fairy tale. The couples walk out to Billy Joel’s “Uptown Girl,” followed by a first dance to Frankie Valli’s “You’re Just Too Good to Be True.” Terry deRoy Gruber, on a ladder to capture an aerial shot, takes the most exquisite black-and-white photograph (which months later will adorn the walls of Bergdorf’s bridal salon) of Isabel and Michael twirling on the dance floor; Jonathan, with his girlfriend Jen leaning against his chest, a glass of champagne seemingly slipping from his hand; Scott holding Kate up to reach his lips in a kiss; and in the background, blurry enough that only the family will know who they are, stand Tom and Elizabeth, holding hands.

  Thomas has arranged a sampling of every item served that evening to be sent up to the family’s rooms after the wedding, from each of the hand-chosen buffet stations: sushi, caviar, Peking duck, dumplings, steak frites, shellfish, and homemade pasta, followed by dessert, a parade of minis that will be passed around like cocktails to the dance floor—ice cream cones, brownie sundaes, crème brûlée spoons, milkshakes, coconut snowballs, s’mores . . . “After all,” Elizabeth had confided to Thomas, “I’ve starved myself for months—I’m treating myself the moment I unzip my dress!”

  The
Sylvia Weinstock cake makes its own entrance toward the end of the evening, in the shape of, appropriately, a Park Avenue prewar co-op, complete with the “wedding cake” layers of terraces at the top; tiny windows, moldings, and a white-gloved doorman standing at the lobby entrance, all molded from white fondant and spun sugar. After the cake cutting, Kate takes Isabel’s hand and orders the boys to go sit down. As all their bridesmaids gather around them on the dance floor like the Supremes’ backup dancers, DJ Cassidy plays the first chords of Cher singing “The Shoop Shoop Song (It’s in His Kiss),” and Kate and Isabel serenade their husbands —in one of the sexiest and most adorable wedding dances ever, the guests all say.

  The last song of the evening is Frank Sinatra’s “New York, New York.” Jonathan and Jen and Tom and Elizabeth are still on the dance floor, singing, arms around each other, and Isabel and Kate are sitting on Michael and Scott’s laps. As they finish their glasses of champagne and get ready to go upstairs for the family’s private after-party, they hear a woman’s voice say, “Those Chase girls are too, too much! Don’t you think they should be on TV or something?”

  “TV?” a man answers. “Those girls should have their own show!”

  And that, the girls can’t help thinking, is a fabulous idea!

  Acknowledgments

  The real joy in writing this book was going back in time, to a world where all was innocence and pure happiness. Above all else, this is a novel about love for the divine power of the Family, with a capital F. “There Is No Place Like Home.”

  To our Family, who is all that matters; all the men who put up with us as we wrote draft after draft, always promising “this is the last edit” as we were on deadline at 3 a.m. again and again. Ian, the man behind us all, whose fascinating life and love of old films inspires so much of our lives and these stories, and to our favorite of all your many edits—“No one in New York calls it a. . . .” To JP and Rob, who allow the three of us to speak fifty times a night after spending all day together—you are both saints, even if we don’t ever tell you that! To our purest loves, our little boys, Chase and Cooper, whose innocence, laughter, and happiness light up our lives every second with love. To Muffin and all our girls past and present, Fluffy, Daisy, Lilly, Lola, Roxy, Dolly, and Dixie. And to our guardian angel, Jonathan, to whom this book is dedicated. “You’re in My Heart, You’re in My Soul. You’ll be my breath should I grow old.” Love You.

  To our incredible agent at WME, Dorian Karchmar, who never gave up on us as the years passed with no manuscript . . . for her endless support, brilliance, wisdom, and love—we could never ever have done this book without you. To our HarperCollins Dream Team: the divine Claire Wachtel, our amazing, inspiring, brilliant soul sister editor, who along with her Wizard of Oz, Jonathan Burnham, bought us after a whirlwind meeting one afternoon in 2005. Thank you for understanding that “we never met a deadline we couldn’t change!” To our other favorite girls at Harper—Kathy Schneider for her support and fabulous-ness; Elizabeth Perrella, for each little edit after edit; Leah Wasielewski; Leslie Cohen; and Tina Andreadis.

  To our best friend and partner in crime, Steven Bauer, whose wicked sense of humor and love for our family has helped keep us standing. To Valerie Feigen and Steven Eisman—you have been with us through it all and will never let us sink—we love you. To our bulldog in Prada, Danielle Anderman—from this core greatness grows. And last, but never least, to the mighty Horace Mann and our favorite English teacher, Dr. David Schiller, who gave Samantha her first and last C plus on an English paper, and thus inspired an English major: for all the great books you taught us that inspired our own voices and for your wise and heartbreaking answer to why we can’t be HM students again, “You can never go back.”

  About the Authors

  MICHELE KLEIER is the president and chairman of Gumley Haft Kleier, one of Manhattan’s premier real estate brokerages. The mother of three children—Samantha, Sabrina, and Jonathan—she lives on Park Avenue with her husband and business partner, Ian, and their three Maltese, Lola, Roxy, and Dolly.

  Before entering real estate, SAMANTHA KLEIER was the youngest vice president in the history of the entertainment public relations firm Susan Blond Inc. She lives around the corner from her mother, with her husband, JP, and their children, Chase and Caroline.

  SABRINA KLEIER began her career at NBC’s Access Hollywood, where she created and produced “Hot Spots,” a segment covering what’s hot in New York. She lives a couple of blocks away from her mother and sister, with her husband, Robert; their son, Cooper; and their shih tzu, Dixie. Samantha and Sabrina—now executive vice presidents at GHK—are both graduates of the Horace Mann School and the University of Pennsylvania. The Kleiers are costars of HGTV’s hit reality series Selling New York.

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  Credits

  Cover design by Richard Ljoenes

  Cover photograph © Matthias Sanne

  Copyright

  This novel is a work of fiction. Any references to real people, events, establishments, organizations, or locales are intended only to give the fiction a sense of reality and authenticity, and are used fictitiously. All other names, characters, and places and all dialogue and incidents portrayed in this book are the product of the authors’ imagination.

  HOT PROPERTY. Copyright © 2011 by DaisyGirl LLC. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

  FIRST EDITION

  Lyrics from “You’re in My Heart,” words and music by Rod Stewart, are © 1977 (Renewed 2005) Rod Stewart. All rights controlled and administered by EMI April Music Inc. All rights reserved. International copyright secured. Reprinted by permission of the Hal Leonard Corporation.

  EPub Edition SEPTEMBER 2011 ISBN: 9780062092670

  ISBN: 978-0-06-112766-3

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