Twelve Rooms with a View

by Theresa Rebeck

  “Didn’t you? I thought you did.”

  “Could we get back to this horny Westmoreland character who lives on my floor?”

  “Horny? Why do you say that?”

  “She was coming on to Drinan big-time. She kept trying to get him to come into her apartment and have tea.”

  “You’re up in my apartment having cappuccino, do you think I have designs on you?”

  “No, you have designs on making sure nobody bothers your moss.”

  “Well, along those same lines, allow me to inform you that Delia Westmoreland does not lust after young Mr. Drinan. She lusts, but not after human flesh.”

  “She said she was mad that Bill didn’t offer her all the stuff in the apartment when he started selling everything off,” I remembered. “But now it’s all gone. You’ve been in the place, there’s nothing left for her to want, is there?”

  “That’s not what she’s after,” he told me, eating one of the cheese twists. “No, darling, she wants the same thing everyone else in New York is pining for: square footage. If she could get her hands on the Livingston Mansion Apartment, she would own the entire eighth floor. Minor renovation, and she’s sitting on one of the most spectacular apartments in the city. She’s been trying to buy that place for years—she literally hounded Bill about it.”

  “She wants to own the whole eighth floor?”

  “Of course she does.”

  “I thought, I mean, she kind of—doesn’t she live alone over there?”

  “There’s the occasional visit from estranged children, but yes, for the most part she lives alone.”

  “Well, how much room does she need?”

  “It’s never about need when it comes to real estate.” To a girl who last lived in a mobile home in a trailer park, this did not completely make sense, but he was dead serious.

  “So if she bought it, she’d have like—how big an apartment would that be?”

  “Twelve thousand square feet.”

  “That’s a lot.”

  “With park views and walk-in closets? All those freaks over in 10021 would commit collective suicide out of sheer envy if Delia managed to pull off that coup. A place like that would be worth forty million in any market.”

  “So she’s like mega-loaded.”

  “Not particularly, no.”

  “Come on, she’s got to have some money, she lives here.”

  “She inherited. Her husband’s parents bought the apartment she lives in back in the twenties for something ridiculous like thirty-five thousand. They died—that was in the late eighties, just before the market tanked and I managed to grab the roof here, which is a whole different story—anyway, that’s how she got in. He was in finance, but he was never a major player, so in some ways they were just scraping by. I think she’s got twelve or fifteen million on a good day in the market, apart from the apartment.”

  “So she’s worth, like, twenty-five million. And that’s not loaded?”

  “Well, it’s certainly not enough to make a grab on 8A unless she leverages her place, which may be her thinking. If she puts up two, let’s say, she should be able to find a bank to lend her the rest. Another million goes into the renovation and voilà, for the up-front price of three million dollars, she owns an apartment worth forty. But my suspicion is, she hopes to lay her hands on that place for nothing at all.”

  “How’s that supposed to work?”

  “Well, I’m not saying it will work. But if she can convince a developer to put down the money up front in exchange for right of first refusal to buy the place from her estate when she dies, that might be of interest to any number of speculators.”

  “People do that?”

  “That’s actually a fairly tame and sensible scenario. For instance, it doesn’t involve homicide, although if Delia made it into her nineties I am sure there would be some discussion of poison. Even in the most catastrophic of markets, a twelve-thousand-square-foot apartment with park views on the Upper West Side will never depreciate. It’s win win win win win for everyone. Oh yes, I’m sure all of these options have been considered by now. And not merely by her.”

  “Who else?”

  “It’s an old and elegant building, Tina. People have lived here a long time.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means it’s an old and elegant building and people have lived here a long time,” he repeated mysteriously.

  “Well, if any of these ‘people’ want to buy our apartment they should call Sotheby’s. Why is this woman sucking up to Pete Drinan in the middle of the night if what she really wants is to buy the stupid apartment?” I was getting a little peevish. I turned back to the cappuccino machine, thinking I’d make another round, even though I was so caffeinated I thought my head was going to explode.

  “Is something wrong?” asked Len.

  “All these rich people make me nervous. She has a zillion rooms herself, and she wants our place too? But she doesn’t want to pay for it? That’s just incredible. Plus you should have heard her going on about how horrible it all was, we’re horrible, Mom was horrible, like we’re just crazy skanks from Jersey or something—and meanwhile she wants to take over our apartment just because she’s lived on the same floor for a bunch of years. That’s classic, it really is.”

  “It wasn’t your place at all, I might remind you, until three days ago.”

  “It was my mom’s. When she died, the deed was in her name, was it not? Was it not?”

  “So I’m told,” said Len.

  “So I’m told too. By lawyers. My mom lived there, oh and by the way, she died there too. That doesn’t give us rights?”

  “I don’t imagine that Delia Westmoreland thinks so, no. I don’t believe the Drinan brothers think so either. And I have a suspicion that the co-op board will not feel that it gives you rights.”

  “Well, they don’t get to say, do they? The law says. The LAW says we own, it’s ours by law.”

  “That’s not going to do you any good if you can’t sell it, Tina. And if you can’t sell, how will you pay the inheritance tax? Have you asked yourselves any of these questions?”

  “We are going to sell it.”

  “Not if the co-op board can stop you.”

  I truly didn’t know what he was talking about, but it had that peculiar sound of a true thing. “Okay,” I said, trying not to get too worked up. “Okay, so tell me what the problem is with the co-op board. I don’t even know what a co-op board is.”

  “They are the twelve residents of this building who will inform you and your sisters—repeatedly, I am afraid—that even if the courts decide that you do own the apartment and that you very much have the right to sell it, in fact they will not permit you to sell it.”

  “They can’t do that.”

  “Alarmingly, yes they can.”

  “Why would they do that?”

  “Because they don’t know you. You’re an outsider. Your mother was an outsider. It’s an offense to everyone here that you and your sisters think you can just come in and take over that beautiful old apartment. You and your sisters can talk to Sotheby’s all you want; every offer they put on the table will be rejected out of hand until someone, or more than one person, in the building has been permitted to make an offer.”

  “They can’t do that. They said, that lawyer said, there isn’t a cloud on the title. It means, that legally means—”

  “I know what it means, Tina, and I’m afraid there is very much a cloud on the title, whether it is a legal cloud or not.”

  “I have to call Lucy,” I said, digging into my pocket for my cell phone.

  “She knows all about this, Tina, I’m sure.”

  “No, she doesn’t, she didn’t yesterday—”

  “Does she tell you everything?” he asked me pointedly. I looked at him. He was considering me like I was some kind of interesting plant that was growing in odd directions, or my leaves were drooping and gray, and he couldn’t quite understand why.

 
; “Why—why are you telling me all this?” I finally asked. Truly, none of this was good news, but it wasn’t like he was trying to scare me off. If he had had a watering can, I was pretty sure he would have been pouring it over my head.

  “Well,” said Len, looking around. “You did fix the cappuccino machine. Besides which, I had pneumonia last year, and I ended up in the hospital for two weeks, and your mother took good care of my moss. There aren’t many people who would have bothered.”

  “You’re nice to me because my mom saved your moss?”

  “There are worse reasons, Tina Finn. She was a nice woman. She was a caretaker at heart. I’m sorry you didn’t know that about her.”

  “I did know it,” I said.

  “Well, then you should have visited her more,” he replied, turning away and putting our dishes in the tiny sink. The air from the greenhouse drifted through the kitchen, a little chill now, and he looked up as if someone had spoken. “Oh, the rain-drip mechanism is off again in the deciduous room, I’m sorry, you’ll have to go,” he told me.

  “But—”

  “I have a lot of work this afternoon. Thank you for coming up and telling me about the spring bolt; when I need to come down, I’ll be sure to check with you first, so I don’t startle you.”

  “You don’t startle me,” I said, a little confused at the change in him. “I just—”

  “I’m sorry, but I really do have work to do—is there something else you need?” He was seriously impatient with me now. I had no idea what had happened. We had been doing so well.

  “Why are you mad at me?” I said.

  “I’m not angry—I have no feelings at all,” he said, like that was going to make it better. “Are you crying?”

  “I just don’t know what to do,” I said, and the fact is, I had most definitely teared up. It was really mortifying. “If everybody hates me just because I’m here, what do I do?”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake. Get a grip,” he said. “If nobody likes you, the thing you need to do is make friends.”

  8

  THE WHITES’ APARTMENT WAS ON THE NINTH FLOOR, DIRECTLY above me. Like mine, it had way more hallways and rooms than you could figure out or follow, but unlike mine there were people in all of them. There was Mrs. White, who wore really cute jackets and skirts and panty hose and short heels, so she looked great while she ran around like a lunatic, shouting at everyone and carrying books and piles of laundry and stuffed animals and spoons and forks and empty juice boxes everywhere. Then there was a cook—actually two cooks, who came on different days—and a Polish woman named Anna, who was always doing laundry, and a Hispanic woman, Magda, who seemed to clean the bathrooms constantly, and there were lots and lots of girls, little girls and big girls, mostly wearing pleated plaid skirts and dark green cardigans. The Whites had six kids, all girls. It took me more than a few days to learn all of their names: Louise, Jennifer, Gail, Mary Ellen, Katherine, and a two-year-old named Barbie. They actually called the kid Barbie, which I thought was a mistake, but I figured she would grow up and tell them to cut it out, and that would be the end of that.

  A week after Len gave me my instructions, when I went up to 9A to introduce myself to the chaotic Whites, I had no idea what I might find there. After he had kicked me out, I went back to my apartment and poked around the kitchen and the laundry without knowing what I was looking for. I put a call in to Lucy, but her assistant told me she was in meetings all afternoon and would not be able to return calls until the next day. I thought about arguing with her and telling her there was an emergency at the apartment, but I was pretty sure Lucy would not consider my musings about the devious co-op board and the greedy Mrs. Westmoreland an emergency, so I said thanks and hung up. I thought about calling Alison, but that didn’t seem likely to calm me down, and then I picked up the clicker for the television and thought about channel flipping for a while. In previous times I had spent entire days aimlessly trolling basic cable for traces of common sense or answers that never appeared. Then I considered throwing the fucking clicker against the wall but decided just to set it down on the coffee table, which is where I found the card for Stuart Long, Esq. And when I got up the nerve to call a couple days later, he actually got on the phone as soon as his receptionist told him I was on the line.

  “Hello, Tina, how are you?” he asked, all kind and concerned. “Are you still in the apartment?”

  “Where else would I be?”

  “Well, I heard from the Drinans that they’d prefer for you to stay elsewhere, because they are planning to litigate,” he observed sagely, as if this were big news.

  “Listen, Mr. Long, I actually called about a slightly different question. The co-op board over here, they could make it difficult for a sale to go through when we try to sell this place, is that right?”

  “They will have to approve the sale if or when it gets to that point, of course. I don’t think it’s anything you need to worry about now, though. You have a lot of hoops to jump through before that.”

  “That’s not what Lucy thinks. She’s already had real estate agents coming through here, she thinks we’re good to go.”

  “Your sister is clearly someone who likes to move quickly; I noticed that when we met,” Long agreed. “Nevertheless, I’m sure she doesn’t expect this situation to resolve itself overnight. Probating even a simple will takes months, and this is far from simple. The courts have not yet probated Mr. Drinan’s estate, and the deposition of that will bear directly on your situation.”

  What he said made almost no sense to me, so I stuck with the subject at hand. “Yeah, well, what about the co-op board?” I asked.

  “Have they contacted you?”

  “Is that what happens next?”

  He paused for a moment, with that kindly concern. “Tina—your sister indicated to me that you are employing other counsel. Are you aware of that?”

  “No, she didn’t mention that either. Sorry, Mr. Long, I didn’t know, I’m so—uh, look, could you just tell me who’s on the co-op board, and I’ll take it from there?”

  “Well, that information is included in the documentation about the apartment, which I gave to your sister.”

  “So you don’t have it anymore?”

  “Of course I have it. I represented Bill Drinan for thirty years, I have everything on file.”

  “Could you give me those names?”

  “You don’t want to ask your sister for them?”

  “Well, since I have you on the phone I thought it made more sense just to get them from you.” I did not want to get into a discussion of my problematic sister with this nice man, especially if he wasn’t going to represent me anyway.

  There was a little silence on the end of the line, and then he sighed. “Let’s see what we have. Here we are. There are twelve people on the board. It’s a rotating board, of course, but this slate was elected last spring, so it should be current. Alice White, apartment 9A. Roger Masterson, 11B …”

  Twelve people to suck up to and make friends with. One of them was Len, which I did think he might have mentioned when he brought the subject up in the first place. I found that to be a worrisome oversight on his part, but I couldn’t dismiss the commonsense idea that I should try to present a good face to the people in this fancy building and start pretending to the neighbors that I really did belong there. I thanked Stuart Long and hung up.

  A couple days later I had a plan. I decided to start with the Whites because they were the closest, just one floor away.

  “Hi, I’m looking for Mrs. White,” I told the edgy teenager who answered the door. Her plaid skirt and green cardigan looked terrible on her, as it would on any reasonably attractive person.

  “Mooooom!” she yelled. “There’s some lady here!”

  “Louise, don’t shout, please,” shouted Mrs. White from two or three rooms away. Louise shrugged and walked away; I had no choice but to let myself in and watch her pass her mother in the hallway. Mrs. White was carrying a baby, and had a
crying child glued to her leg. But she was wearing a really cute pink suit that looked terrific on her.

  “Who is it?” she asked Louise, looking toward the other end of the apartment, as if I might be back there. I think she was confused for a moment about where the front door was.

  “I don’t know her name. I think it’s that lady who moved in downstairs,” said curt Louise, not even bothering to pause as she answered the question.

  “Oh, that’s ridiculous,” said Mrs. White. “You didn’t ask her name?”

  “It’s Tina Finn!” I called, trying to be all friendly. “My mother was married to Bill? My mother was Olivia? Did you know my mom?”

  Mrs. White was too startled to answer this at first. She just stared at me. I took a step in and held up the bottle of wine, like a trophy. “I wanted to come introduce myself and say hello. I’ll be staying downstairs for now, so I wanted to say hello.” I was hoping this didn’t come off as ridiculous and dopey as it sounded in my head. If it did, Mrs. White’s manners were really just too good to let me know.

  “Of course!” she said, trying to unpeel the kid from her shin and take a few steps toward me in the foyer. “Yes, I did see you the other day, didn’t I? Downstairs in the lobby, I think—sweetie, let go of my leg, Mommy needs to say hello to the lady.”

  “Tina,” I repeated.

  “Yes, Tina, it is—lovely—to meet you,” she agreed, reaching a bit to shake my hand. I took the last few steps in to make it easier for her, at which point the kid on the floor lost her footing and started to go down.

  “Katherine, be careful—Katherine—oh, thank you, thanks,” Mrs. White said, as I scooped the child up.

  “Wow. That’s your name, Katherine?” I asked the kid. “You’re so pretty.” At which point the baby started to wail.

  “Now, now, Katherine, don’t bother the lady,” Mrs. White instructed the kid, who was now glued to me. “Thank you for the wine.”

  “She’s not bothering me,” I offered, ignoring her not so subtle hint that I should leave. I had made it through the door, which was farther than I ever thought I’d get, and I wasn’t going to give ground so quickly. As the baby got going, wailing and writhing with that peculiar rage that comes out of nowhere to really little kids, Mrs. White was suddenly helpless.