Dear Money

by Martha McPhee

  Theodor, handsome in his tuxedo, appeared at my side with Sally and Darwin Deals. Sally wore a cream lace dress that hugged her neck yet hung loosely everywhere else, trying (unsuccessfully) to hide the bulk of her body. Deals wore a tuxedo that was too big, the way he seemed to like his suits, as if the larger size were a promise of what he could become. Introductions all around, hellos and kisses on the cheek. Will too joined the cluster. He wore a red plaid bow tie with a matching cummerbund. He kissed me and thanked me for the call and e-mail about his novel. "It's terrific," I said. I could have been jealous, but the truth of Will's talent took the sting out.

  "You think it will sell, then?"

  "No question," I said.

  "So you're no longer mad at me for leaving Wall Street?"

  "I still think you're a fool."

  "I'm glad you're consistent."

  "He's written a fantastic novel," I said boisterously to Sally and Deals, and then explained how crazy he'd been, leaving his job. I was a little giddy and overly familiar with Will because of the champagne. Just looking at Deals I thought about the fiasco with China and the coffee contract, but Deals didn't dare mention it, or corn or soy or any other commodity. He carried on about the bond market and mortgages, engaging Will in the topic, with Sally chiming in here and there. Coffee had tanked, of course, because luck does not fall from the sky, and corn was just a maneuver to make the loss of coffee more palatable.

  Canapés all around, and the music began. Emma's news burst forth again—smiles and toasts—and then the conversation divided and subdivided, like a large group of birds into separate flocks, soaring and darting and weaving together, then splitting—private schools, public schools, doormen, supers, plays opening, plays closing, the cost of babysitting, neighborhood bakeries, the virtues of having a mini-tractor in the country. When you are part of the repartee it is impossible to see that your voice—the flight of your conversation, the particular direction you take, the strange dives and offbeat vectors you deploy to assert your point of view—is still governed and sustained in some measure by the air through which you move—together. You are part of a group of birds—pigeons, say—each one flying separately but together. In the end, the whole dazzling lot is swirling around an apartment building. Real estate, again. Special subcategory: Manhattan, a market universally acknowledged to be unique, a story unto itself, a story that could logically go in only one direction, up.

  Just so: one found oneself saying "$2.2 million" or "$3.5 million," the asking price for apartments no bigger than our own rental, and one found oneself at realtors' open houses, walking through buildings in Harlem, with other earnest buyers strolling the place, inspecting the stoves and the views, and one found oneself deploying a calculus under one's breath by which one could arrive at a smaller monthly figure, which would be the hypothetical maintenance fee, and one saw that this number was not insurmountably higher than the going rate for rental apartments (never mind that Theodor and I paid a quarter of the market rate for rentals). And of course there were the stories of people getting in a little earlier, say ten years ago, people who bought apartments for what seemed at the time a preposterous price, $800,000, which were now worth more than $2.5 million.

  These were people you knew, parents of the friends of your children, sober, responsible, welcome dinner guests, people who were in charge of large corporations, who knew firsthand the ways of the world and who looked you in the eye when asked what they thought about the asking price of a townhouse in Harlem: "One-point-nine is a steal for that part of town." Real estate in Manhattan was the exception to every law in the universe. That was the way it was, and only a bumpkin thought otherwise.

  Emma held forth with her plans for renovating Pond Point, modernizing the appliances, retiling, re-laying the pine floors. How many kitchens were there across America in stainless and chrome—the deep wells of Wolf and Viking and Sub-Zero. Five, ten thousand dollars a pop. Chump change! Others offer their views of the Viking: the oven and burners run too hot but they're fabulous; the gorgeous Wolf, with the red knobs, just too expensive. Deep into the granular specifics of kitchen appointments, Emma and her new friend Sally bonded over their too hot but wonderful high-performance kitchen stoves (which they never used). Sally was the sort of woman who latches on at a party because she's too shy to circulate. She had Emma's ear and interest and she would not let it go, and Emma, who was well cultivated in the skills of circulation, delighted by this conversation about Viking stoves there by the Temple of Dendur.

  All of us soaked up in a private evening at the Metropolitan, in the heart of New York. Nile lilies, bread stacked in pyramids in the center of the cloth-covered tables, the female wait staff with Cleopatra wigs and kohl-encircled eyes offering Egyptian delights: canapés of goat cheese and barberries, and saffron-infused chicken with pine nuts, and platters of dill to be dipped in hummus, and walnuts glazed with honey. Sally and Emma were absorbed in the specifics of how best to vent the Viking range. And I, on the periphery, stood with a novelist's eye and a pauper's purse, dazzled before the spectacle of it all.

  "Have you seen Win?" Emma asked. "He was to have brought his new girl, Beatrix, but she's sick." I flinched, a prick of jealousy. Beatrix, what an unlikely name. I pictured the woman behind the name; somehow it didn't add up to Win. "Apparently she's a knockout, but his girls always are." And she drifted off to something else. Of course he'd have a girl. Hadn't Emma described him as a notorious Casanova? I looked around the room but didn't see him.

  The room thickened with arriving guests. Photographers snapped pictures, a flurry of lights—famous personages here to celebrate and preserve the arts. Amid the swirl of party chaos, Kathy Park, in a black lace gown and a strand of South Sea pearls, took me in her arms. "How wonderful to see you," she said. A kiss and a pat on the arm and the crowd absorbed Kathy, spitting out a mother from Ruby's class, Mila Ferragamo (no relation), the one who took me to Sarah Jessica Parker's reflexologist and who bought the $250 mummy-dust-enhanced face cream with its ancient recipe for preservation. "I saw your book, darling. Sexy cover." Her big black eyes flashed with mischief, and she went on to talk about herself: her husband had a job offer in Singapore, "and we're thinking seriously about taking it. Singapore's the new Upper East Side. No different, really. All the women dress the same."

  Our constellation was still active, a dividing cell. Theodor discussed his chalice commission with Deals. Will swooped away to greet friends and soon came back, holding court with his old colleagues. More flashes, a sudden frenzy of them that drew all eyes to the entrance, cameras madly working. The subject: Carlyle P. Smedes, with his Prada clothes, looking charming—all the accoutrements of his style and position adding to his already significant height. A warm smile on his contented face. On his arm was the Dashing Cavelli (ascot at his neck, offering a stream of comments to the eager press). He'd been my publisher once. I thought wistfully of what could have been. Then I had to look twice, clear my eyes and look again. Lily Starr entered, ravishing and slender (though she had not been a slender girl a few months before) in a sage gown, a single but significant diamond around her neck—how sudden and complete the transformation from no one to someone can be! The triad, Cavelli with his two successes, both authors on the bestseller list, literary rock stars. The goddess Sakhmet, four repetitions of her in stone, served as their backdrop—goddess of war, violent storms and pestilence—as they briefly posed for the paparazzi, triumphing, it seemed, if we were to read the visual cues, over Sakhmet. How easily Lily wore fame, walking, slowing, smiling, aloof. Trailing behind her in black velvet, star of her own show, was Lily's new agent, agent to Smedes too, the fair-skinned and lightly freckled auburn beauty Sig Blankman. Lithe and swan-like she drifted into the room.

  I turned away. Here was the brick wall that I had been speeding toward. I looked for an exit, but the escape I longed for was of a different sort.

  We could have done things differently. We could have packed up, moved out, headed to the
Vermont that Deals imagined as our answer, sent the kids to a good public school, bought ourselves a $300,000 house, watched the equity grow over time, continued writing, sculpting, affording our life on Theodor's commissions, on magazine assignments, on the occasional sale of a novel. We could have chosen simplicity, had a yard with a swing set, perhaps a garden we'd plant in the spring, harvest in the fall. We could have eliminated the high overhead: tuition, babysitters, housecleaners, offices, the ludicrous price tags for all the lessons, contributions, birthdays, the basic expense of trying to keep up in the city. There was an alternative. But being here, looking out over this sea of people, admiring the votives and the string quartet and the Egyptian motif, stepping lightly in the empty corridors of the Met, passing the mummies and their divine offerings, I understood unequivocally that I could not leave New York. I had been here for fifteen years. I would not be forced out. To leave now, to scale back, to compromise would be to live within a shadow of regret, of second-guessing, of exile.

  The sinew of life is made of dreams, passion, hope—ethereal and misty as a veil, a scrim, the Milky Way, but strong threads all the same. Without that quality I'd have led a quiet, cautious life, a humble suburban life. Would I have dared to be a novelist? Would I have dared to defy my father? No, I would not be exiled. That was not the stuff that I was made of. A famous lecturer with pancreatic cancer said to his audience in the last speech he gave before his death that life's brick walls are there to show you just how ferocious your desire is to get what you want. I scanned the room for Win. I had come for Win and I wanted him now.

  And then he was before me, smoking jacket and pale pink cravat, leaning in to greet me. "Ah, my protégée," he said and kissed my forehead. His embrace was solid and reassuring. He was just as I remembered: not one bit attractive but beguiling all the same, with his big brown eyes and confidence. He turned me around slowly in a proprietary way. "Smashing," he said. Beatrix became irrelevant, blotted from my mind. "I have missed you." An isolated moment, when the crowd faded away and it was just the two of us, just before my fall, if you could call it that. What is it that Socrates says to Adeimantus? There seem to be two causes for the deterioration of the arts—wealth and poverty. I felt finished, and the sensation dazzled me. I could change my life; I could become someone else. The pool simulating the Nile, surrounding the temple, sparkled with wishers' coins.

  "Thank you for all the messages, the flowers," I said. I apologized for standing him up. I felt like a girl on a first date, uncertain what to say, awkward in that way, looking to Theodor, who was caught up with Emma and Deals.

  "Have I won?" he asked.

  I said nothing. He knew he had. There was nothing to say.

  "It's your best," he said.

  I looked at him blankly. He was talking about something that had fallen as if from a great height. I had watched it vanish and now, in this hall of echoes, I could no longer remember what it was that I had finally, gratefully let go of.

  He regarded me for a moment. He understood everything. A man like Win didn't dwell or linger in emotional terrain. "I want you to meet the Radalpienos, Ralph and Pretty, my boss and his wife, our hosts," he said. Without bothering to wait for my reply, he linked his arm in mine and led me to the Radalpienos. She was quite simple actually, not especially pretty, in her sixties I guessed, a kind demeanor. Her arms glittered in serpentine spangles. Some ten years before, she had changed Win's life because she liked his smile, his banter. She had loved her power, feeling its strength. Ralph was about the same age, large, portly, thin silver hair. His tuxedo was one from fitter days. It seemed he had stuffed himself into it, or perhaps he'd just been hopeful.

  "Ah, Ms. Palmer, we've heard about you," Ralph said, offering me his hand. No small talk, direct, but he offered no more. What had he heard? What had Win said?

  "You're just as I pictured, given Win's description," Pretty said, looking me over. "He says you're a novelist. How brave."

  "How do you make a living?" Ralph asked.

  "He cuts to the chase," Pretty said. We were standing near the windows, snow coming down now, falling softly, gently into the glass. How I envied women like Pretty, for whom questions like the one Ralph asked were mere sport, of absolutely no significance or consequence.

  "On her writing," Win answered and explained no more. Ralph too looked me over, as if I were a painting or a work of art, evaluating its worth.

  "Oh, for the life of an artist!" Pretty said.

  "A pleasure," Ralph said, excusing themselves, as dinner had been announced.

  I offered them my hand. "How kind of you to let me come," I said slowly, enunciating each word.

  "Clever," Win said when they were gone.

  "I was being appraised," I said.

  "I saw you earlier. You're tired."

  "Spying on me?"

  A tap on the shoulder. Big kisses on either cheek. Lily Starr, alone, without her entourage and snapping paparazzi, in front of me, interrupted, "You're in a very serious conversation. Excuse me." She thrust her hand into Win's and introduced herself. "I'm Lily Starr," she said, showing all her nicely aligned teeth. "It's so amazing to see you here, India." She splayed her arm to take in the two of us.

  "She's my date," Win said protectively.

  "Intriguing," Lily said and offered me a private wink. "Well, have fun then. I'm here for work, alas. But you know how it is!" She waved her arms as if to shovel coal into a furnace. "Throw the artists in with the high rollers!" She fiddled with her curls, adjusted her dress at the chest. She was high on champagne, or her own good fortune. "Ah, if these were the only hazards! Wish me luck."

  "Enjoy it," I said.

  "I've got to," she said over her shoulder. "You know how it is," and she fluttered off. The room by now was packed, the temple looming above us all.

  "Call me in the morning," Win said, and then he too was swallowed up by the crowd.

  At our table, I sat between Emma and Will. Theodor sat across from me, next to Win, and the two men were between the Radalpienos. We settled into dinner and the ensuing auction. The auctioneer, a stub of a man with a belly and suspenders and the requisite handlebar mustache, stood before a movie screen that displayed in Technicolor the goods he offered. In the droll, cajoling manner of his trade he built a tower of figures, a Babel of another sort, conducted by so many bejeweled arms waving paddles. A chorus really. A finale to the evening. Gstaad, going, going, gone. Aspen. A private island in the Tuamotu archipelago. A tour of the Valley of the Kings. The world for sale before our wondrous eyes, followed by its treasures. A Kelly bag. Rejuvenating treatments at Exhale. A Harry Winston diamond. A Mikimoto pearl. A portrait by Sasha McDermott. All of it going, going, gone. "Thank you very much, sir!" More wine poured. The MC, tall, thin, the auctioneer's counterpart, encouraging all to drink, the MC, curator of the evening, lord of the fundraiser: "Drink and be reckless and forgive yourselves in the morning. This is all for a good cause. For the sake of art."

  I became finished with art—the giving of one's flesh to try to make something live, to achieve the truth, of having it follow me around like a shadow, to lunch, to dinner, to the food I'm chewing—not food but an idea, an idea that I might polish and revise as much as I like, but that in the end I would always despise because it would be untrue to the original conceit, the one I had pictured perfectly before beginning, the one that mimicked life unflinchingly. All these lovely people, with their present concerns of new homes and stoves and auctions, were free of that, of the sovereignty of art.

  Outside, the late November snow draped the city in white and it was very cold. Theodor and I walked home through the midnight park, stopping now and again to admire the formations the snow made in the branches of the trees, the beauty in the design. He examined it closely for patterns. The snow came down heavily, wrapping us in a cocoon, alone, the park ours. A little drunk, flushed. I was eager, hungry. I loved that the park was ours, that it was white and clean and fresh, the blank slate.

  Th
eodor held a branch for me and I peered at the miniature drifts of snow on it, snow making art of the barren branch. On the question of art, I thought, he does not fight with himself about the pursuit. That was the difference between us: I struggled while he did not.

  "What a bunch of jokers this evening," I tried.

  "You didn't have fun either?" Theodor asked, relief palpable on his handsome face. My nose pricked, my throat felt tight.

  "Oh, please," I said. "They pronounced the G in Gstaad." I lied quite easily, my first betrayal. Guilt would come later.

  Theodor let the branch go and it sprang up, throwing off the snow. And in the suddenness of the gesture, it was as though I too were set free.

  "Let's agree not to go to one of those again," he said.

  "Never," I concurred.

  In the morning, I called Win.

  Intermezzo

  Instant Messages

  TO RALPH: Got a minute?

  TO WIN: All the time in the world. I'm just sitting up here twiddling my thumbs. Do YOU have a minute? That's the question. The answer should be NO. Or did you knock back one too many last night with that lovely married woman with the exotic name? A belly dancer perhaps? Remind me where you found her.

  TO RALPH: I see you do have time to spare. Thought you'd like her. Actually, I'm writing to notify: we're moving forward with Pygmalion Ltd.