Ms America and the Brouhaha on Broadway

by Diana Dempsey

  “Okay,” Shanelle says, “the Belfer is a famous apartment building on Central Park West. It’s a co-op building.”

  I’ve heard of co-ops, not that we have many in Cleveland, at least to my knowledge. “So it sounds like the board of the Belfer was going to decide today whether to approve Lisette as an owner. Or as a renter, I guess.”

  “Not as a renter,” Shanelle says. “This article says the Belfer doesn’t allow owners to rent out their apartments. It’s very strict about renovations, too, and only last year did it start allowing pets.”

  “May I join you?” Tonya asks. She sits down beside me and leans over. “Want to hear the latest?”

  “We always want to hear the latest,” Trixie breathes.

  “Not only are we resuming previews Sunday,” Tonya whispers, “but Oliver may move opening night up to Wednesday.”

  Tonya appears astounded by that prospect, as am I. “Wednesday next week?” I say. “As in five days from today?”

  “You got it. And I heard that Lisette’s father is making Oliver put Lisette’s photo on the playbill’s cover. I’m not thrilled about that, if it’s true.”

  It must be rare for the book writer’s photo to land on the playbill’s cover. But I suppose that what Warren Longley wants, Warren Longley gets.

  We gossip about Dream Angel for a while before we return to the co-op topic. “You can probably answer this question, Tonya,” Trixie says. “What’s the famous co-op building here in Manhattan where John Lennon lived?”

  “Oh, that’s the Dakota.”

  “I was just reading an article about the Dakota,” Shanelle says. “They describe it as the most famous co-op in the world. Get this. The least expensive apartment available right now is a two-bedroom duplex priced at five point nine five million dollars.”

  “Wow,” Trixie and I say in unison.

  “Yoko Ono still lives in that building,” Shanelle says. “And I bet not in the least expensive apartment, either.”

  It’s hard to fathom sums of money that large. No wonder the lawyers thought my quarter-million-dollar titleholder prize was laughably small.

  “The Belfer’s not as expensive as that, is it?” Trixie asks.

  “Oh my God, the Belfer.” Tonya clutches my arm. “I would kill to live in the Belfer.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  “What’s so great about the Belfer?” Shanelle wants to know.

  “Where do I begin?” Tonya cries, then has to hush when people twist around to give her a dirty look. “First of all, it’s pre-war.”

  “Pre which war?” I ask.

  “World War Two. Those buildings are so fabulous, so gracious and elegant. They’re made of limestone and all the apartments have high ceilings, like nine or ten feet high, really thick walls so you never hear your neighbors, handcrafted moldings, massive layouts—”

  “I get the picture,” Shanelle says. “They’re not cookie-cutter boxes with no character.”

  Like my house in the Cleveland suburbs, but I keep that factoid private.

  “They have tons of character,” Tonya goes on. “They’re like the grandes dames of New York. They were built when construction was an art. And it’s so prestigious to be able to say that you live in the Dakota or the Belfer. Of course you have to be loaded.”

  “They must be in the best neighborhoods,” Trixie says.

  “The very best neighborhoods. Oh, they just have everything. Dramatic archways that frame a room, marble fireplaces, a huge number of windows, maybe a tin ceiling or herringbone wood floors—”

  “But you have to be approved to buy one?” I interrupt to ask. Hearing this litany of features, I feel like I’m watching Million Dollar Listing New York. “It’s not enough just to be able to afford it?”

  “If it’s a co-op, you definitely have to be approved,” Tonya says. “By the board of the building. That’s the difference between a condo and a co-op. A co-op doesn’t let just anybody in.”

  “So for the top buildings like the Dakota or the Belfer,” Shanelle says, “people must be competing like crazy to get in.”

  “People will go to insane lengths to live at a building like the Belfer,” Tonya says. A phone pings and it turns out to be hers. “I’m being summoned backstage,” she reports, and scuttles away.

  We sit in silence for a moment. Then: “Life has so many strange twists and turns,” Trixie murmurs. “Lisette died only one day before the board of the Belfer had to decide whether or not she got the apartment.”

  “Yes.” That realization hit me, too. “But in the end Lisette was out of the running by the time the board met. She was already dead.”

  “Her bad news turned out to be somebody else’s good news,” Shanelle observes. “I wonder who got the apartment Lisette was up for.”

  I do, too. I bet Wendy Jackson Rafferty knows.

  I would kill to live in the Belfer, Tonya said. Of course, that’s merely a figure of speech. What else did she say? People will go to insane lengths to live at a building like the Belfer.

  Another phone pings and this time it’s mine. The caller is Mario Suave. That causes a skip or two in the old heartbeat. “I’ll be right back,” I tell Shanelle and Trixie and hoof it to the theater lobby. I’m breathless by the time I get there and not because I’ve gotten lazy lately about my cardio.

  Since Mario is a gentleman, even though what he really wants to know is whether I spilled the beans to Mr. Cantwell’s lawyers about his F.B.I. sideline, he inquires first how I am.

  I reply honestly. “Not great. The lawyers weren’t thrilled with my character evidence. I am not looking forward to Mr. Cantwell’s reaction. But don’t you worry. I didn’t say a peep about you.”

  “I knew you wouldn’t, Happy. I trust you.”

  We share a moment of silence. I bask in those three little words. Then I force myself to say something. “You were sure in a tight spot.”

  “I felt really boxed in when Cantwell asked me to speak to his attorneys. But I had to do it.”

  “How did it go?”

  “I did a lot of dodging and weaving. And I kept it very general. I basically said I like the guy, which is true, but that it’s not up to him to decide what is and isn’t tax fraud.”

  “Do you think they’ll call you if there’s a trial?”

  “I hope not. Anyway, enough about Cantwell. How’s the rest of your life?”

  If I were being honest on all fronts, I’d give it the same assessment I gave my botched get-together with Mr. Cantwell’s lawyers. Not great. But instead I fib. “Oh, fine. Rachel is loving her senior year and my mom is, well, you can guess how my mom is.”

  He chuckles. “How about your dad? Still seeing Maggie?”

  “Unfortunately. But he’s fine.”

  That leaves only one family member we haven’t discussed. The one who, when it comes to Mario and me, looms largest. “And how is Jason?” Mario asks.

  “He’s doing great. It’s only early days with the new job, but he’s super excited about it. For the next few months until Rachel graduates, we’ll fly back and forth to see each other every three weeks or so.”

  Of course, I say nothing about the tension between my husband and me. I don’t touch the topic of how he and I are often awkward with each other now when we’re alone. I don’t breathe a word about how I sense my life changing, in ways I can’t predict and feel I can’t control.

  “I know we said we wouldn’t do this,” Mario says, “and it’s very short notice, but how about dinner? Of course with Shanelle and Trixie, too.”

  I lean against the theater lobby’s wall. “You don’t have plans?” Which is my way of asking whether Esperanza Esposito will be joining us.

  “It just so happens I don’t. And I hate to eat alone.”

  “Oh, I do, too.” Of course I wouldn’t be eating alone because Shanelle and Trixie are here in New York with me, not to mention my mom and Bennie. But in the excitement of the moment, I ignore all that. “So, yes. Let’s do it.”

>   We agree when and where to meet. I return to my fellow beauty queens to drop this dinner bombshell. They react predictably.

  Shanelle shakes her head. “Girl, you are not good at staying away from that man.”

  “I have to wonder if Mario is trying to stay away from her, too,” Trixie says. “And what about Esperanza?”

  “Apparently she’s out of the picture tonight,” I say. “Anyway, this is all completely proper. Just old friends getting together.”

  Shanelle rolls her eyes. “Keep telling yourself that.”

  “What about your mother?” Trixie wants to know.

  “She left a voicemail that Bennie is taking her to Tavern on the Green.” I envy my mom that because I’d love to go myself. The restaurant right in the middle of Central Park went bankrupt and closed but then reopened again and got even more famous. “Plus, there’s no way she can wait until nine o’clock to eat dinner.”

  “It is fashionably late,” Trixie says. “I hope we get out of here with enough time to change.”

  Fate smiles upon us—or at least Oliver does—and we’re able to race back to the apartment when we’re sprung from the theater. I slip on a Little Black Dress made of corded lace with sheer chiffon veiling the bodice. I step into my black patent leather T-strap pumps with pyramid studs, dramatize my makeup, and am good to go. Shanelle is styling in a fit-and-flare minidress made of thin strips of jungle-print silk. And Trixie stuns us in a white swingy minidress with beads and crystals embellishing the halter neckline.

  We bundle ourselves in our coats and take a cab to the Nolita neighborhood of Manhattan, so named because it’s just north of Little Italy. It’s very trendy, with one boutique after another mixed in among tiny bars and cafés and restaurants of every type imaginable. We pass an Albanian butcher and a Chinese grocery with boxes of exotic greens and iced fish for sale right on the sidewalk. The streets are tree-lined and narrow, almost impossible to drive through because of the cars parked on both sides. And talk about apartment buildings with character: rising above the storefront level are brick structures of five or six stories, many with elaborate fire escapes of beautifully wrought iron.

  Mario is waiting for us at the appointed location, dashing in the luxurious camel-colored overcoat I remember from Winona. Fashionable people crowd the sidewalks, but to my eye no man is more handsome. He hugs us one by one and ushers us inside a dimly lit Italian restaurant that looks old school, with white lace curtains at the front window and the tin ceiling Tonya so covets.

  “Follow me,” he instructs, and leads us all the way through the packed restaurant to the rear. And beyond. I bite back a protest when without hesitation he pushes open a metal door boasting a sign that reads: DO NOT ENTER / EMPLOYEES ONLY. Then he continues to move at the same assured pace through the slender kitchen. To my amazement, no objections rise from the harried cooks. We reach a black door that looks as if it will spit us out into an alley.

  But instead it opens onto a small room lit softly from above by a mesh of white fairy lights. A handful of tables draped with white cloth are arrayed beneath, most occupied by diners but one four-top empty and waiting.

  “For us,” Mario says with a smile, and sweeps us to our seats.

  The door closes behind us, erasing the din of the kitchen and indeed of the entire metropolis. It may be urban life at its most hectic beyond these brick walls, but here it’s as if we’ve been transported to a serene, unhurried world.

  “It’s a restaurant behind a restaurant,” Trixie murmurs. Clearly she’s as awestruck as I am.

  Even unflappable Shanelle seems undone. “I had no idea this sort of thing existed.”

  I look at Mario. “Trust you to find this place. It’s magical. Thank you for bringing us here.”

  He helps me into my seat and bends to whisper into my ear. It’s warm and cozy in this hideaway, but still I shiver. “I wanted to show you something special, Happy. That will never change.”

  I lay my napkin in my lap. Part of me wishes Mario would stop being so amazing. I guess I might as well hope for the stars to quit the sky.

  “Do the people out front know about this in the back?” Trixie asks as Mario sits down. Now that all of us have shed our coats, I see he’s wearing black trousers and a slim-cut dress shirt in a warm teal.

  He shakes his head. “You have to be a little bit in the know. That’s one of the incredible things about New York. There are so many secret places.” His eyes return to mine. “You could spend a lifetime getting to know them all.”

  Gazing into Mario’s eyes, I can’t think what to say. Fortunately Shanelle can. “I always think London must be like that,” she says. “Someday I want to find out.”

  Trixie giggles. “But for now, let’s stay put and eat!”

  We laugh as Mario gestures to a chalkboard on the wall on which the evening’s specialties are printed in a careful hand. “It’s a chef’s choice menu back here. I hope you don’t mind.”

  As if any of us would. A few minutes later we’re toasting with a lovely red cocktail I’ve never heard of.

  “A Bicicletta,” Mario explains. “Campari and white wine with club soda.” Served over ice with a lemon twist. “Named for the older Italian men who swerve home on their bicycles after indulging in one too many. Salute!”

  The meal proves to be a feast. Prosciutto and fig bruschetta. Bowtie pasta with sausage and leek sauce. Scallops baked in their shells, topped with herbs and bread crumbs. For dessert, Amaretti pudding. And throughout, wonderful wine, one red and one white.

  Mario could not be more gracious. Over the appetizer, he wants to know how we like Nolita. “It’s where Martin Scorsese grew up. And Francis Ford Coppola shot scenes from two of the Godfather movies around here. On your way in, did you pass Old St. Patrick’s Cathedral on Mulberry Street?”

  “Is it some relation to St. Patrick’s Cathedral on Fifth Avenue?” I ask.

  “It was the seat of the archdiocese before the new cathedral was built,” he tells us, which makes me think my mother would like to tour the church here, too.

  Over the pasta and fish courses, we discuss Lisette Longley and Dream Angel. And eventually arrive at the topic of the Belfer Building.

  “I could find out who landed the apartment Lisette wanted,” Mario says. “A while back I looked into buying a pied-à-terre here. I’m still in touch with the agent I used.” He turns his dark gaze on me. “I don’t have to ask why you want to know.”

  “As usual,” Shanelle says, “she suspects homicide.”

  “You know what she’s like,” Trixie adds.

  “In my own defense,” I say, “I have been right about these things in the past.”

  I’m acutely conscious of Mario’s eyes on my face and of the smile that curves his lips just the tiniest bit. Yes, he does know what I’m like, especially when it comes to corpses. But that doesn’t seem to put him off. Though over dessert I do sense a new distance between us, when we four are the only diners left in the quiet room.

  “I was on the set of Todos Los Días,” he begins, before abruptly shutting up.

  We suffer a moment of awkward silence before I clear my throat. “We know you’ve been seeing Esperanza Esposito, Mario.” I force myself to go on. “She’s lovely. I hope she makes you happy.”

  He seems to have to search for what to say. What he finally comes up with is a trifle noncommittal. “It’s been fun getting to know her.” He’s been staring at me all evening, but now his eyes won’t meet mine.

  “It’s too bad we didn’t get a chance to meet her tonight,” Trixie says.

  “She’s having dinner with some Univision people,” Mario says. “You know, the Spanish-language media company.”

  It doesn’t surprise me that Esperanza is meeting with media bigwigs. To hear the tabloids tell it, she’s an up-and-coming Eva Longoria. Of course, I think with a sniff, Eva began as a beauty queen, from Texas no less, where the competition is stiff. Señorita Esperanza can boast no such credential on her r
ésumé.

  “What I’d love to hear about,” Shanelle says, “is what’s going on with Mariela and Consuela.”

  Mario’s 16-year-old daughter and her tempestuous pole-dancing mother. This chapter of Mario’s history, with Consuela’s teenage pregnancy, echoes my own. The difference is that Mario and Consuela didn’t marry.

  “They’re both fine,” he reports. “Mariela is still seeing Theo”—he grimaces at the mention of the boyfriend with whom his daughter nearly made a sex tape—“and she’s been cast as Maria in her high school production of West Side Story.”

  “I didn’t realize she has a strong singing voice,” I say.

  “It’s not good enough for Broadway, but it’s good enough for high school. And it’s improved with voice lessons. Mariela actually agreed she could use some, which to me is progress.” He produces a Proud Papa smile, which fades with his next remark. “And Consuela is still dating Manny del Rio.”

  “The Miami developer,” Trixie recalls. “Those two were pretty hot and heavy last I heard.”

  “Still are. Mariela doesn’t like him, though, and I’m not crazy about him, either. Not that what we say has much effect on Consuela. So we had some drama over the holidays. We never get through without at least a little.”

  “I don’t know a family that does,” Shanelle says.

  In short order we’re forced to abandon our hideaway for Manhattan’s hectic Friday night. On a still bustling street, I hug Mario goodbye and thank him for hosting our glorious dinner. I try not to wonder when I’ll see him again. I know I shouldn’t hope for it, but I do all the same.

  “I’ll call you after I hear from my real-estate agent,” he murmurs before putting us in a cab. If Shanelle and Trixie weren’t with me, I’d turn around to watch him through the rear window until he disappeared from view.

  It’s only once we’re returned to our apartment and in our pajamas with our faces cleansed and moisturized that thoughts of Mario flee my mind. With her hair tied back in her white jersey head wrap, Shanelle settles onto the bed and gestures for Trixie and me to join her.