Nevertheless, hide dollar bills they did. Mom made them absolutely swear, on her grave, may they rot in hell if they disobeyed, to always have their own money. No woman should be so dependent that she can’t buy a loaf of bread, a bottle of milk, or go to the beauty parlor without a man’s goodwill.
Phoebe hoarded a bit of cash as she’d promised, but irritation at her mother’s attitude toward Jake kept her from admitting it.
“I’ve told you this a hundred times. The future is shrouded. Nobody can lift that veil. Look, your father is an angel. Truly, sometimes I don’t know how he puts up with me. Who needs to hide money less than me, right? But my mother told me to make a knippel, and so I did. Thank you, God, in the end, I used the knippel to surprise your father with a cruise to Jamaica, and not a divorce lawyer like some woman after her husband beat her half to death.”
“We can afford ten cruises, and Jake would never hurt me. So we’re okay on all fronts.” Phoebe crossed her arms and rolled her eyes.
Katie began crying, but Lola blocked Phoebe from rushing to her. “I’ll go. You wait here for your wonderful husband. Who, no, I don’t think will beat you. He’s not the type. But marriage means watching out for all sorts of troubles. Sure, you think he’s the greatest thing since sliced bread, but trust me, he’s the sneaky kind. When I turn out to be totally off the mark, a blessing on your head.”
• • •
A shocking ring of color circled the dance floor. Bright yellow linens decorated with psychedelic orange daisies concealed the wooden tabletops. Fuchsia glass jars of deceptively simple zinnias—from the most expensive florist in town—served as centerpieces. The staid fund-raising committee had chosen the Broadway show Hair as the theme, honoring the wildly popular musical as it worked overtime to attract a younger crowd.
Perhaps in reaction to feeling ancient at twenty-eight in this Age of Aquarius, perhaps wanting to catch Jake’s eye, Phoebe wore a stoplight-red halter dress slit almost to her waist, in direct contrast with most other women in the room, who chose flowing faux-hippie fashions. The slash up the side along with staggeringly uncomfortable high heels showed off her shapely legs.
“Don’t forget to talk to Joan Frankel.” Jake lifted a light-colored bourbon and water from the gleaming bar. After finishing the drink, he locked fingers with her. “And by the way, I’d love to take you to bed right this minute. That’s just how steamy you look. Anyway, Joan’s husband’s loaded, but he won’t do a thing without her. He owns a chain of tire stores.”
She didn’t want to let go of his hand. “So I look okay?”
Jake eyed her from top to bottom, backing away and crossing his arms as though taking in the entire view. “Like I said: sexy as all hell. Red’s a good color for you. The dress is almost perfect, but it’s cut a little low. Not for me. I love provocative. Money likes conservative.”
“Are you in charge of making the next Mr. Blackwell list for best dressed? How about I dress like Queen Elizabeth? Should I carry a little white handbag and wear pink lipstick?”
“Phoebe. You’re more beautiful than any woman here. Which would be fantastic if you were working on the men, but it’s the wives you’re after tonight. But make sure you wear that dress next time we go dancing.”
“When’s the last time we went out dancing?” she asked.
He raised his eyebrows and held out a hand. Sometimes Phoebe forgot just how sexy he could be. “How about right now?”
Phoebe looked at the dance floor where a few brave couples were already twirling around. The band had just begun a song she loved. The vocalist almost sounded like Dionne Warwick as she trilled the first notes of “This Girl’s in Love with You.”
She could feel eyes on them, felt the power of being a steamy young couple. He placed his hands on her lower back as they swayed together, then he led her with a strong hand, spinning her out and then back as though he were Gene Kelly.
“We still got it, eh?” He nibbled at her neck.
“Jake!”
“Let them all eat their hearts out. Every guy here wishes he were me.”
When the music segued into Sly and the Family Stone’s “I Want to Take You Higher,” an impossible rhythm for slow dancing, they walked off the dance floor hand in hand.
“Okay. It’s Harry Frankel I want to work with us,” Jake said. “Ollie asked his wife to make sure we were sitting with the Frankels. Get the seat next to her.”
Ollie’s wife moved the women of Greenwich around her social chessboard as though they were pawns to her slightest and largest desires. How Poppy Howard managed the rare feat of being a second wife with first-wife clout was the Nancy Drew mystery of Greenwich, though being a former model and a graduate of Rosemary Hall and Radcliffe didn’t hurt. Nor did being the daughter of a top Hollywood producer. Even old wealth swooned in front of movie money. If she wanted Phoebe and Jake at the Frankel table, that’s where they’d be cutting their sirloins.
“Your wish, my command.” Phoebe headed to the table by the band, enjoying the satiny feel of her dress brushing her skin.
Joan Frankel held a caramel-colored drink. A backup waited on the flowered tablecloth. From the deep color of the liquid, she took her drinks neat.
“Joan?” Phoebe leaned to kiss the woman’s powdery cheek. “What a pleasure to be sitting with you. We don’t have a minute to speak at exercise class.”
Despite being twenty years older than Phoebe, Joan’s leather miniskirt barely covered her overly tanned thighs and, ignoring the heat outside, she wore a short blue-dyed fox jacket over a satiny top. Bumps of gold and diamonds hung from and wrapped her.
“I didn’t realize you were sitting here.” Meaning the Pierces’ place in Greenwich’s pecking order wasn’t particularly high. “Your husband’s quite a dancer.”
“Ah, you know men,” Phoebe said. “Every now and then we can drag them out on the floor, right? I’ll probably be waiting another five years.”
Joan laughed. “I know exactly what you mean.”
“Men. Anyway, you look terrific, Joan. Blue fur—how incredible!”
In fact, Joan appeared to have dipped her money in glitter and hung it on random body parts.
A faint smile materialized, highlighting the woman’s spectral bleach-lightened mustache. “Harry surprised me with this last week. I couldn’t wait to wear it.”
“Of course! My God, it’s fabulous.” Especially perfect if Joan took up stripping. “Are you living at the gym? I can’t bear being next to you.” Phoebe patted her imperceptible tummy bulge before settling beside Joan. “I feel enormous next to you.”
“Darling, you have a little one at home. I never left the house when mine were tiny. You’re adorable.”
Phoebe stroked the hideous fur jacket. “Oh, this is gorgeous! Did Harry pick it out himself?”
Joan laughed. “What an idea! Of course not. This beauty came through the art of the question-hint.”
“Question-hint?”
“You young girls always need schooling. Listen. If I’m reading a magazine or newspaper and see something I like—I found this in a Bergdorf ad—I point and tip my head a bit.” Joan aimed her viciously long red fingernail at a napkin in demonstration. “Then I say, ‘Harry, do you think I can carry this off? Am I too old?’ Do this enough, and he’s bound to pick up on a few things.”
Phoebe feigned a sad expression. “Jake spends every second at work. By the time I’ve washed the supper dishes, he’s half asleep. We don’t talk enough for me to hint about anything.”
“He’s at his burning-ambition stage. I remember it all too well.” She patted Phoebe’s hand.
“Sometimes I think my husband cares more about making fortunes for clients than making me happy.” Phoebe sighed.
The other women at the table turned toward them.
Phoebe pulled up a gravelly imitation of Jake’s voice, infusing her words with irony. “ ‘Bottom line, Phoebe, my job is working for the clients—growing their funds steady and upward.�
�� I swear, if his accounts dip one day out of the month, he’s impossible to live with. Thank God that’s a rare occasion.”
“What does he do, your husband? If you don’t mind my asking.” The woman on the other side of the table spoke with a sugary Southern drawl. “I’m, by the way, Suzy Ramsland.”
The name pinged.
Ramsland Insurance.
Suzy’s breasts spilled out from her Saks-version peasant blouse.
A female-only table until the meal began wasn’t unusual. Greenwich dinner-dance culture put the men at the bar drinking and fetching cocktails for the wives while the women held court at the table, complaining about husbands and comparing their children’s accomplishments.
“He runs JPE. Jake Pierce Equity.” Phoebe gave a self-deprecating laugh. “Actually, he owns it. Jake would kill me for talking. He thinks I’m bragging when I do, and, God, he hates attention.”
Joan waved away Phoebe’s concerns with a flash of gold. “Don’t worry. Nobody’s here but us chickens! If we listened to every little thing our husbands said, we’d probably all be home scrubbing toilets, and they’d be here with twenty-year-old hookers.”
“Smoking cigars,” added Suzy. She snorted and added, “Or having their cigars smoked.”
Suzy’s caustic observations soothed Phoebe. If they accepted Suzy, maybe Phoebe could become a member of this not-so-old-money group. She should let go of her unease at talking up the Club. Obviously these women enjoyed the spoils of wealth, and if Jake did nothing else, he made people rich.
“Spill,” Joan said.
“Mostly JPE is a garden-variety brokerage.” Phoebe gave an exaggerated yawn to show just how boring she found the conversation. “But he has a quiet little investment club on the side.”
“A mutual fund?” Suzy’s inflated breasts belied a sharp brain. Eyes gave away smarts every time.
“Not really. It isn’t open to the public. It’s almost like he considers the Club his hobby.” She leaned in and whispered, “Jake has come up with some sort of investing recipe. He jokes about his secret sauce. I couldn’t explain the method if you tortured me. It doesn’t bring those once-in-a-lifetime insane returns, but he always brings in a steady up. Always. I don’t know how he manages.”
“What kind of ‘steady up’?” Suzy asked.
Phoebe shook her head and held out her hands. “I know I’ll get this wrong. That’s probably why I shouldn’t say anything about this. Jake barely accepts new clients. He doesn’t want aggravation. He likes beating the system with smart caution, loves getting profit for people, but he despises them trying to pick his brain.”
“I don’t care how he makes the money.” Joan lifted her glass toward her husband, looking the very picture of cognitive dissonance to Phoebe, this man she usually saw at club dinners wearing the most conservative of suits. Now Joan’s husband, shaved to the pink, and rotund, stood at the gleaming bar wearing bell-bottoms and a tie-dyed headband. “I just care about the profits. So what are we talking about?”
“Promise me you won’t repeat this, or I’m screwed.” Phoebe spun her heavy-bottomed glass in circles. “It probably won’t even sound like a big deal to you. Ugh. I built this up too much.”
“Enough!” The fourth woman at the table, shaped like a mouse with similar coloring, surprised Phoebe with her deep, throaty voice. “We’ll be the judges.”
Phoebe gave a cautioning glance around the table. “He says the last few years have never been lower than ten percent. And never higher than twenty. This is no get-rich scheme. For goodness’ sake, I don’t even know how I began talking about this. Shhh! The guys are coming.”
Joan put her head close to Phoebe’s. “Do you play bridge?”
Part 3
* * *
Living the Dream
CHAPTER 12
Phoebe
June 1980
The black Town Car glided down Sixth Avenue with the slickness of money. Each week, Phoebe debated taking the train—her stated preference—versus arguing with Jake who insisted on sending a car as though she were made of sugar and angel wings. Debating with him left her so limp that by the time she arrived at Mira House she needed a strong cup of coffee before leading her Cooking for English session.
In truth, the train drained her, though she’d never admit it to Jake. The subway improved marginally after Edward I. Koch had become mayor two years ago but she remembered her mother nagging her to turn around her rings so that the stones didn’t show, and besides, dragging in supplies by the commuter rail and then subway was a lot of work to prove she hadn’t lost her edge. She liked to think of herself as retaining the girl who rode the subway from Brooklyn to Harlem, traveling up to City College every day. The girl who caught the eye of the coolest professor on campus.
Older and wiser, Phoebe could now appreciate what a liar and louse Rob Gardiner had been, while also smiling at the bit of rebelliousness she’d shown by sleeping with him. She didn’t, however, welcome the other signs of aging. Faint lines around her eyes signaled she was five years from forty. The fifty sit-ups and leg lifts she’d added to her morning run at six o’clock barely kept gravity in check. One of the many reasons she’d returned to work was her desire to wake up her mind along with her muscles—both of which had slackened since having children.
Jake and the kids were wary of the energy Phoebe gave to Mira House, her closeness to the staff—basically everything that removed her from the center of their lives. She’d spent since forever fully concentrating on the kids, him, and socializing for the sake of the business, but this year, with Katie going into seventh grade and Noah entering fourth in September, Phoebe’s choices were leave the house or choke. In September, despite Jake’s grumbling, she’d revived her Cooking for English classes.
Katie and Noah didn’t want to relate to her in that constant way of little kids anymore—but they wanted her there and available at all times. Like a lamp. Perhaps you didn’t need to turn it on every minute, but you sure as hell wanted to know that the moment it got dark, you could. Maybe Phoebe was fooling herself, but teaching children how to fend for themselves every now and then seemed part of the parenting job.
She didn’t worry that much about Katie. Her daughter retained the same stubborn self-concern she’d always had, though thankfully, as Katie grew older, Phoebe had managed to build up her empathic side. After registering her in a horseback-riding academy that mainstreamed special-ed students into their programs, Katie’s view of the world widened. Both she and Noah attended a session of day camp at Mira House each summer to offset their idea that all children vacationed at oceanfront resorts. More important, they discovered a world where popularity and worth were measured using scales other than money and blondness.
Noah’s problem had never been a lack of empathy for others. If anything, he soaked up the world too readily, feeling the pain of everyone he met. Phoebe hoped that his not having her immediately accessible all the time might build up Noah’s resilience.
Jake wanted her to somehow be at the ready for him every moment while still being interesting and relevant to his potential clients. One day he’d be praising her commitment to what he called “the halt and the lame,” as though she were Jane Addams, and the next day pout if she couldn’t go to the movies with him. She’d thought that after being married for so many years, he wouldn’t be so needy of her company. Instead, it often felt as though it was only when he was alone with her that he could relax.
Last week, during their Phoebe-taking-the-train-versus-being-driven argument, Jake joked, “Maybe you should be teaching social studies on Long Island, like your sister. At least I wouldn’t have to worry about you being on the subway.”
At the moment, teaching sounded heavenly. Years ago, Phoebe had tired of enticing people into the Club. Sumptuous houses, designer clothes, and precious jewelry were still just houses, clothes, and jewelry. Jake’s work talk brought on near comas of boredom. Within two sentences of listening, she zoned out. The words�
�the split, the spread—floated like threads of DNA, another topic beyond her visualization.
Phoebe liked subjects she could visualize, such as the sociology Rob had taught her years ago. Class differences continued to fascinate Phoebe. For instance, her beige linen pants—so simple against the limousine upholstery. Nobody at Mira House would guess what she’d paid for the pants she’d bought at Saks. Just the idea of spending that much constituted a leap up the hierarchy of earning potential. They wouldn’t suspect that her striped bateau-neck shirt represented a day’s salary for a typical Mira House employee.
Mira House kept her connected to the girl in love with Rob: the Rob she’d thought he’d been. She mostly kept her memories of him hidden, unwrapping them on nights she couldn’t sleep. When she saw the 1973 film The Way We Were, with Robert Redford and Barbra Streisand as two star-crossed lovers, she realized Rob had been her short-lived Hubbell Gardiner. Sometimes she wondered what became of him. Mostly she was grateful that she hadn’t married him. Hindsight said he would have treated her like crap.
The car pulled in front of the settlement house. “I’ll be about three hours,” she said, leaning forward.
“Of course, Mrs. Pierce. I’ll be here.” Leon, Jake’s driver, patted the Daily News on the passenger seat beside him.
“Please. Don’t wait for me.” She checked her watch. “Just be back at around one.”
Sympathy tinged Leon’s smile. “I don’t think so. Mr. Pierce would go wild if I just left you here.”
“It’s not like you’re dropping me off to wander in the desert for forty years.” She knew Leon would win, but she still tried to gain her freedom. “I’ve been coming here since I was twenty. I know my way around.”
Again, Leon smiled. “Right,” he said.
The Widow of Wall Street Page 11