Little Lady, Big Apple

by Hester Browne

  Steeling myself, I went over to the utility room door.

  ‘Braveheart!’ I cooed in my best cajoling tone. I didn’t want him running riot while he was in this frenzy. ‘Calm down. Calm down, and we’ll have some lovely breakfast!’

  In response, the yapping turned more outraged.

  ‘Please?’ I tried opening the door a notch, in case the fury was being caused by his imprisonment. I’d only edged the door open a tiny crack when the powerful force of a small dog shoved it, and me, out of the way.

  His centre of gravity was lower than mine, and my high heels slipped out from under me as he shot past. I landed squarely on my backside, so hard that the glasses rattled in the dishwasher. After years of hockey I was used to falling over, but, even so, I felt strangely embarrassed. As if Cindy herself had trained her dog to humiliate new girlfriends.

  When I turned round, Braveheart was sitting on the kitchen table, his tongue out, quite obviously laughing at me.

  ‘Fine,’ I said, in a cheerful, but firm tone. My mother used to say it was all about tone with dogs, not words. ‘If that’s the way you want to play it. I’m going to take you for a walk so long that you’ll be too exhausted to mess me around, you snotty little yap-dog. Let’s see whose got longer legs then, eh?’

  Braveheart panted, his pink tongue sticking out in a broader smirk.

  Walking him in this heat might finish me off, but I wasn’t going to let a dog that size get the better of me. I might be perspiring from places I didn’t even know had perspiration glands, but I still had my pride.

  A quick call to Mummy revealed the magic secret of food bribes and firm looks, a tactic she assured me could be used on small dogs, medium dogs, large dogs and all husbands.

  To my surprise, it worked. Once I’d lured Braveheart onto his lead, by shameless use of cold roast chicken breast, combined with a surprise attack-lunge learned from years of self-waxing, we set off down Jane Street.

  Even though it wasn’t yet nine, the air was already thick with heat and I was grateful for the shade offered by the trees that lined the street. Really, I thought, admiring all the pretty shutters and brownstone stoops, you’d hardly imagine you were in New York at all, walking around here. It felt more like Bloomsbury. There were even a couple of blue plaques.

  Braveheart, despite his twice-daily dogwalker sessions, wasn’t as submissive as I’d have liked on the lead, and it quickly turned into a battle of wills. Embarrassingly so, given how small he was. Every time we passed another dog and owner, he’d snarl and carry on as if he were some kind of Irish wolfhound.

  It quickly fell into a routine: we’d spot another dog in the distance, Braveheart would start growling, I’d wave gaily and carol, ‘What a splendid day!’ in a distractingly English accent, then haul him across to the other side of the road before any damage could be done. The owner, throughout this performance, would keep their shades on, and step up their walking. The other dog would remain baffled.

  We’d crossed the street about ten times before we reached Washington Square Park. Braveheart made it very clear to me that Washington Square Park was not the sort of park in which he was used to defecating. I’d never seen a dog relieve himself against a tree so disparagingly. Even the old men playing chess at the community boards around the square seemed to notice.

  I sat down on a bench in the shade of a tree, wrapping Braveheart’s lead firmly round my wrist and took my mobile phone out of my big handbag.

  It was two in the afternoon in London. If I called the office now, I could have a quick word with Gabi, put her mind at rest about any problems and settle my own worries at the same time.

  Jonathan need never know. I wouldn’t mention it.

  Guilt spread through me. I’d said I wouldn’t, and I didn’t want him to think I was putting work before him. I wasn’t! But I needed a business to go back to, and with Gabi and Allegra in charge . . .

  My fingers were dialling the office number before I could stop myself.

  As the phone rang at the other end, I got out my lovely leather-bound notebook, and let my eyes wander round the square. One professional dogwalker was exercising ten dogs at a time, on those leads with multiple dog attachments. As she sailed past, propelled by ten dog-power, she looked like a huskie driver who’d lost her sledge a few blocks back. I couldn’t tell if this was a problem for her or not, as her eyes were hidden behind Oakley shades.

  To my surprise, the answering machine cut in and I heard my own voice.

  ‘Hello.’ How posh did I sound? ‘You’ve reached the Little Lady Agency. I’m afraid we can’t take your call right now, but if you leave your number and a short message, we’ll call you straight back.’

  At least Allegra hadn’t taken it upon herself to change the message, I told myself. But where were they? I’d told them they could do shopping appointments, as long as one of them stayed in to answer the phone.

  There were a couple of bleeps, then a worried-sounding man’s voice said, ‘Marks and Spencers have stopped making their Breathe-Easy socks. I can’t wear any other kind. This is Julian Hervey. Please call me back. Um, cheers.’

  I made a note.

  ‘Hello, Honey. It’s Arlo Donaldson here. Look, I’ll get to the point: I’ve been invited to a shoot up in Scotland, and the host’s new girlfriend is the woman I, er, had to jilt last year. You might remember – you phoned up as my mother and told her I’d taken religious orders? Daisy? With the nose? Um, well, thing is, it’s frightfully good shooting, and there’s a decent still up there too, so I rather want to go, so could you, er, advise? Thanks very much.’

  I shook my head in disbelief.

  ‘Hello. Melissa? It’s Roger. Listen, have you thought any more about this Hunt Ball? I won’t tell Remington. I’m . . . I’m . . . Look, I don’t mind paying you double.’ His voice sounded quite desperate, and I could hear music in the background. It sounded like Jeff Buckley. He must really be missing Nelson, I thought. ‘I’ve been getting calls from Celia and . . . Oh, just ring me, woman.’

  I sighed, and scribbled ‘Call Roger’ on my notebook. I’d have to get tough.

  The answering machine gave me the option to delete my messages and I paused, before leaving them on. Hadn’t the girls listened to the machine? What were they playing at? What if someone had had a frightful emergency and needed immediate advice?

  Before I could dwell too much on that, a sharp pain in my left calf dragged my attention back to the immediate set of problems. Braveheart had circled my leg with his lead, effectively tying me to the bench, and was hauling himself round and round until the blood supply to my foot was more or less cut off.

  He looked up at me with an expression of supreme devilment as pins and needles shot up my leg.

  I glared down at him.

  Braveheart started his laughing/panting thing and his boot-button eyes twinkled malevolently.

  While we were staring each other out, a passing dog-lover screeched to a halt on her rollerblades, bringing her spaniel to a neat emergency stop next to her. ‘Oh, my God! Your poor little baby!’ she wailed. ‘Is Mommy not looking after you?’ she added, with an accusing glance at me.

  Braveheart whimpered pathetically and choked himself a little more.

  ‘Oh, it’s just a game he plays,’ I said briskly. ‘I think his previous owner was . . . a little funny.’

  ‘He’s a rescue pup?’ said the lady, putting a hand to her chest in sympathy.

  ‘You could say that.’

  ‘Well, then, the very best of luck to you.’ And she skated off.

  I glared at Braveheart. This really wasn’t on. I was as sorry as the next animal-lover for pets who hadn’t been trained, but frankly he was milking it.

  ‘Right, you little bugger, if that’s the way you want to play it,’ I said, in my best nannying tone, and unclipped his lead, keeping a tight grip on his collar. He started to growl warningly, but I ignored him, as I unwound the rest of the lead with one hand, then unzipped my bag.

>   The growling intensified as I lifted him with two hands into the bag, and then swiftly zipped it up, leaving his big fluffy head sticking out at one end.

  A lady’s handbag can never be too big, that’s what I say.

  I wrapped the lead around my wrist, and got up, hitching my bag over my shoulder, so Braveheart was left snarling impotently under my arm. Good job I knew for a fact that his bladder was empty.

  ‘You and I are going to be great friends, but we’re going to have to work at it,’ I muttered to him, under my breath so none of the chess players would think I was one of those ridiculous women who carried their dogs around in bags and talked to them as if they were children.

  Braveheart growled, but didn’t struggle any more. And when I let him back on the lead, a few blocks further on, he almost walked to heel.

  At home, as per Cindy’s laminated instructions, I put Braveheart back in his vestibule with some food and MooMoo, a disgustingly slobbered toy cow, and walked up to Bloomingdales with Jonathan’s card burning a hole in my purse. It was a bit of a trek, but the ever-changing display of shops took my mind off the distance I was covering. Plus, every calorie counted when it came to the sort of clothes I knew I’d have to squeeze into.

  I explained to the charming personal shopper, through the door of the enormous changing room, that I needed some underwear that would reshape my body in the manner of plastic surgery and yet remain invisible beneath sheer clothing. Instead of laughing in my face and suggesting Pilates, Hanna (we were on very friendly terms immediately) nodded seriously, went off, and came back with an armful of what looked like skin graft. Then another armful of slinky cocktail dresses, and, every five minutes, another three pairs of shoes.

  Amazingly, within an hour, I had not only a whole new outfit, but a whole new body underneath.

  I looked at myself in the flattering mirror. Even if I was jittery on the inside, on the outside I looked like I’d bought a confident new personality along with the skyscraper sandals.

  Plus, I wasn’t going to argue with a shop assistant like Hanna. She definitely knew best.

  ‘I’ll take it all,’ I said, and handed over Jonathan’s charge card.

  Kurt and Bonnie lived in an apartment on the Upper East Side. It wasn’t like London, where the street names gave you a clue to an area’s flavour; the more upmarket the Manhattan address, I was discovering, the more discreetly numerical it was.

  Technically, in London terms, I suppose it was within walking distance, but Jonathan took one look at my heels and hailed a cab. Not that I was complaining. I’d spent longer getting ready for this party than I’d done for any event since Allegra’s twenty-first birthday party, where we all had to dress up as eighteenth-century aristocrats with powdered wigs.

  Jonathan, of course, was looking effortlessly chic in a fresh shirt and linen summer suit. He had the kind of expensive style that transcended meteorological intervention, and a wardrobe filled with proper suit bags.

  ‘You really didn’t need to go to this much effort, sweetie,’ he said, for about the billionth time.

  ‘Oh, I didn’t!’ I insisted, shifting nervously in my seat so as not to wrinkle my dress. According to my new best friend Hanna, it was a ‘never fail Lilly Pulitzer’, whatever that meant. ‘Tell me again who’ll be there.’

  ‘Bonnie and Kurt, whom you know already,’ he replied patiently, ‘Paige, who was at college with Cindy, David and Peter, who are realtors, Bradley, who’s a friend from Princeton—’

  ‘House!’ I said excitedly.

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘House! Isn’t that where House is set? Princeton?’

  ‘Are all your cultural references TV-based?’ Jonathan’s mouth screwed up wryly. ‘Well, yes. It’s also one of the finest universities in the United States.’

  ‘Oh, yes, yes, absolutely,’ I said, but, to be honest, since I saw the Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital on a more regular basis than my own NHS clinic, this fact was more significant.

  ‘I went to Princeton,’ Jonathan reminded me, since I’d forgotten to comment. ‘And so did Bradley and Kurt, and a few others whom I think Bonnie will have asked. But don’t mention any of that to anyone else there, because I think Bonnie went to Harvard, and it’s rude to rub her nose in it.’

  I made yet another mental note.

  When we arrived, a liveried doorman opened the door of our cab for us, and directed us under the long canopy into the apartments. Jonathan announced us at the desk to another doorman, then we were allowed up in the stately elevator to the Hegels’ apartment, where, finally, the door was opened by a butler.

  I was seriously impressed by that. The smallest house I’d encountered a butler in had seven bedrooms and a paddock.

  Bonnie and Kurt were standing just inside the door, chatting animatedly while jazz music burbled in the background. Since they both waved their hands around to illustrate their points it looked as if they were simul-taneously signing the conversation for the deaf.

  ‘Bonnie, Kurt,’ said Jonathan, shaking Kurt’s hand, and leaning forward to deposit a kiss on Bonnie’s cheek.

  ‘Hello!’ shrieked Bonnie, throwing her hands in the air, then clasping me to her bony bosom. My upper chest was pressed up hard against a splendid blown glass necklace. ‘So good to see you! But look at you! You dyed your beautiful hair!’

  Kurt peered at me, his bald spot glinting in the soft lights. ‘You dyed your hair. Why did you do that, Honey? It was exquisite. Wasn’t it exquisite, Bonnie? Didn’t we say that you really did look exactly like a young Brigitte Bardot with that beautiful hair?’

  I looked anxiously at Jonathan, who simply smiled and put his hand round my waist.

  ‘I think she looks exquisite however she wears her hair. And, ah, guys, I’d prefer it if you introduced Melissa as Melissa this evening, not Honey?’

  Bonnie tipped her head. ‘Don’t tell me. Honey is your special name, right?’

  ‘Exactly,’ I said, not wanting Jonathan to do all the talking for me. ‘I won’t tell you what I call Jonathan.’

  Bonnie let out a cascade of tinkly laughter. ‘Oh, you are so funny! Let me get you a drink.’

  She waved at a waitress who was circulating with a loaded tray and handed Jonathan a glass of white wine. ‘Sancerre for Jonathan, as always, but what about you, Melissa?’

  I looked sideways at Jonathan, who was already being dragged off in conversation with two other men, both clapping him enthusiastically on the back. ‘Welcome back!’ one roared. ‘How’re your teeth after a year in London, fella? Still there?’

  ‘I’ll have a sparkling water, please,’ I said firmly. I needed to concentrate hard if I was going to make the right impression.

  ‘Ah, now, can’t I get you some champagne? Go on. Just to celebrate Jonathan coming home – and you coming back with him, of course,’ she added quickly.

  I took a flute from the tray. Demurring too much always looks bad, and I didn’t have to drink it all, did I?

  ‘Now, let me find you some people to chat to.’ Bonnie scanned the room. There must have been about thirty or forty people, a number which barely touched the walls of the huge reception room. Like Jonathan’s old apartment, it was all wood panelling and chandeliers, although in a more minimalist style. ‘We’re all old friends here,’ she went on. ‘With some new faces, just to mix things up. But don’t let that put you off!’

  Yet another small waitress appeared at her elbow and murmured something in her ear.

  ‘What do you mean they’ve flopped?’ she demanded. ‘They’re canapés!’ She turned back to me, flashing a brilliantly white smile that didn’t disguise the sudden strings of tension in her neck. ‘Tiny problem with the themed canapés. A surprise for you and Jonathan. Would you excuse me a moment?’

  And she shimmered off in a gust of Chanel.

  Fortunately, I’m not the sort of person who lurks in corners at parties, so I looked round for someone to talk to. I find if you smile in at least one direct
ion, someone will come over without you having to crash a conversation.

  Before I could engage anyone in seasonal weather pleasantries, though, my attention was drawn to a conversation happening just behind me, in the corner.

  I say conversation. It was more a desperate attempt by one woman to extract more than two words from a remarkably sullen man.

  He was wearing head-to-toe black, accessorised with dark shades, despite the fact that we were indoors, and an absolutely foul scowl. While the poor woman was trying to chat, he was shoving mini Cumberland sausage rings into his mouth as if he were in a timed eating competition, then using the cocktail sticks to pick gristle from between his teeth. From where I was standing, it was like watching a human cement mixer.

  ‘So you’re British!’ she was saying.

  The man grunted.

  ‘Wow!’ she said desperately. ‘I’d love to spend time there. Such a great country!’

  ‘You reckon?’

  ‘Oh, yeah . . . I mean, Tony Blair! I’m a big supporter of . . . his fair trade commitments!’

  Crikey, I thought. She must really be scraping the bottom of the conversational barrel if she’s on to Tony Blair already.

  The man paused in his systematic consumption of the eats table. ‘He’s an effing idiot.’

  The lady took a step back. ‘Oh really? You think so?’

  I narrowed my eyes. I might be very, very wrong, but this beast seemed oddly familiar. Something about the ‘effing’ – it bespoke a certain type of Englishness: one I came into contact with pretty much every day.

  And there was something else. Something I recognised from somewhere . . . My mental Rolodex flipped wildly. Was he an old client? Someone I was at school with?

  ‘And that gobby hag of a wife!’ Even with his shades on, I could tell he was rolling his eyes.

  ‘Cherie? Oh, but she’s a great role model for professional women! Don’t you—?’

  ‘Are you insane? Do you not have eyes?’ he interrupted her. ‘What is wrong with this country?’

  Now, I was no big fan of Cherie Blair, but if this was meant to be a Welcome to New York party for me as well as Jonathan, I simply couldn’t stand by and let this buffoon do such an appalling ambassadorial job for the motherland.