One Dangerous Lady

by Jane Stanton Hitchcock

  He didn’t laugh. Not that I expected him to. Hadley who had precious little humor, was known for having once seriously proposed a WASP Day Parade in honor of New York’s newest minority.

  “All the other groups have parades,” he sniffed. “At least we’d keep the lines down Fifth Avenue white.”

  When Betty heard about this, she shrieked with laughter, saying that they ought to hold it on April fifteenth—income tax day—“the day that really lives in infamy for the WASPs,” she said. “And let Hadley be king of the Trust Fund Float, which starts out big and shrinks to nothing as the day goes on!” Betty added with glee.

  I hung up the phone with Hadley, feeling some trepidation. If Carla did know about my blackmailer, it was just conceivable that she also knew what I was being blackmailed for. That would be an inconvenience, to say the least. However, I didn’t want her to think I was writing that letter to the board because I was frightened of her. I’m not one to let myself be pushed around by anyone. That went for Carla, as well as my friend June. I decided to call Betty to ask for her advice, leaving out, of course, the salient detail that Carla Cole might have something unpleasant on me. Betty picked up the phone, sounding agitated. When I told her Hadley Grimes had just called me, she started a tirade.

  “Well, I just got off the phone with Marcy Ludinghausen, who’s having a conniption fit!” Betty said. “She asked me if I would write a letter on behalf of the Coles and by God, I’m going to do it! I love our friend June, but talk about a brat! Marcy said June threatened her! If you ask me, June is making a big stink over nothing. I know the reason why—and so does Marcy.”

  “Because she’s great friends with Lulu,” I said.

  “That, too. But if you ask me, that’s not it.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Listen, if I know June, the real reason she’s doing this is because she’s worried about not being invited to Carla’s parties—of which there will be many, I assure you.”

  It was true that if June Kahn had ever formed a concrete conception of hell in her mind, it would have been to live in a building where, night after night, all her friends and other glamorous people were going to a lavish party from which she was permanently excluded. I thought back to what Carla had said at lunch about June wanting to come to her wedding and I knew that Betty was right.

  “I hate to say it, but you have a point,” I said.

  “Oh, I know that’s it! June’s loyalty to Lulu is less important than her desire to get to every party there is. She goes to the opening of an envelope, as we all know. Plus, we’ve got to think of poor old Russell. What if he turns up? He has no boat, no apartment . . . fuck it! I’m writing a letter for them. I don’t care. You can do what you want. June is so damn imperious. I just think it’s time she was taught a lesson, that’s all. She can’t have absolutely everything her way all the time!”

  There was something more in Betty’s voice, however, some deeper hurt that seemed to be gnawing at her. She paused for a moment. Then she said, “And I really think that as one of my oldest friends, June could have made the effort to come to Missy’s wedding, even if she wasn’t invited to the bridal dinner. Instead she fakes that ridiculous injury! She goes to every party in the world except my daughter’s wedding? That’s nice. And I hear from everyone she’s been going all around town saying what a nightmare it was when she wasn’t even there! Frankly, Jo, I’m really pissed at her.”

  We both loved June, despite the fact that she had grown more obsessive about social life over the years. June was one of those friends I cherished primarily on account of a shared history and long acquaintance. Her foolishness was always tempered by my abiding fondness for her, even when she was being her most unreasonable. But I sensed that Betty’s irritation with our old pal was about something more profound than simply teaching her a lesson. It always amazes me how both consequential and inconsequential social life is. You never know what will make people take offense. I never imagined that Betty was so hurt that June hadn’t come to Missy’s wedding. She’d never said a word. But she clearly was. And even if she didn’t fully realize it herself, helping Carla was her revenge.

  “Be careful, Betts. June’ll have a fit if she finds out you’re on Carla’s side.”

  “I’m on Russell’s side, not Carla’s.”

  “Somehow I doubt June will see it that way.”

  “I don’t care,” Betty said. “I’m writing them a letter.”

  Oddly enough, I hung up the phone feeling more uneasy than ever. If I did write a letter, it might send a signal to Carla that I could be coerced into doing anything she wanted. On the other hand, if I didn’t write the letter, June would think she could boss me around. I decided to sit down and write the damn thing, stick it in an envelope, and think about it overnight.

  It was dark when I finally hauled myself up and walked over to the desk that faced one of the large picture windows overlooking Fifth Avenue and Central Park. I sat down and took out a sheet of stationery and a fountain pen from the top drawer. I gazed down at the darkening cloak of trees aglitter with pinpricks of lamplight stretching to the horizon. I thought I would take a stab at composing the damn letter to Hadley Grimes on Carla’s behalf just to see what it felt like. On the thin, pale blue paper embossed with my name in white, I began my letter to the board.

  Dear Ladies and Gentlemen,

  I understand that Carla and Russell Cole wish to purchase an apartment in your building . . .

  Just as I was finishing up the damn thing, the phone rang again. I picked it up without thinking and said a curt, “Hello.”

  “May I speak with Mrs. Slater, please?”

  It was Max.

  “Max?”

  “Jo . . . am I interrupting you?”

  “No, no. I was just, uh, sorting out the mail, that’s all.”

  “Lovely seeing you at lunch today.”

  “Yes, lovely seeing you, too. Where are you staying?” I asked him.

  “The Carlyle.”

  “And how long are you here for?”

  “Just a few days . . . I wonder, what’s your view of the opera?”

  Opera was not exactly my thing, although I occasionally went with Ethan Monk because he was so knowledgeable.

  I decided to hedge my bet: “Well, I’m not the greatest opera fan. But I like it sometimes.”

  Max laughed. “I applaud your honesty. You wouldn’t put aside your prejudice and come with me to the opening of Tosca tomorrow night, would you? If we hate it, we’ll leave. I promise.”

  I accepted Max’s invitation not because I wanted to see the opera, but because I wanted to see Max and find out once and for all if there was some spark between us. He said he would pick me up at seven and take me to supper afterward. I hung up the phone feeling cautiously elated.

  Chapter 11

  The following morning at ten o’clock, Caspar drove me up to the Municipal Museum for a meeting of the acquisitions committee. I sat in the back of my black Mercedes, staring at the letter I had written for the Coles like it was a bomb, thinking that if Carla did get into June’s building it would become a social hot spot that made the Middle East look like an oasis of calm by comparison. We pulled up in front of the Muni, a magisterial limestone museum complex on Fifth Avenue, and Caspar got out of the car, trotting around to open the door for me. I was about to hand him the letter to deliver to Hadley Grimes, but I put it back into my purse instead. I wanted to think about it some more.

  It was with a conflicted heart that I walked up the wide stone steps to the entrance of the building. Once inside its cool stone precincts, however, I felt better. I loved walking through the vast halls, hearing my footsteps echo on the venerable old marble floors of the institution I had dedicated all my philanthropic efforts to for nearly a quarter of a century. I took the elevator up to the fourth floor where the acquisitions committee met in the
large conference room adjoining the patrons’ lounge. The meeting was just getting started and everyone was settling in.

  I said hello to my fellow committee members, who were, with a couple of exceptions, bright, attractive, philanthropists who shared a passion for collecting and for our great museum. One exception was Robert Mueller, a socially ambitious, titanically rich man who had bailed the museum out of its terrible financial woes in the nineties. He had been so instrumental in helping us that we couldn’t very well turn down his request that he be elected to the board. Then he wanted to be on the acquisitions committee, and no one felt they could refuse him that, either. Alas, it was a disaster. Mueller had strong opinions on a variety of subjects, particularly one about which he knew absolutely nothing: art.

  I took my usual place next to Edmond Norbeau, the cultivated and attractive director of the Muni. Edmond greeted me warmly. A reserved and extremely correct man by nature, he never actually came out and said he was happy to have me back on the board after that humiliating period in my life where I’d been gently forced to resign, but I sensed he was thrilled.

  That day, my darling Ethan Monk, now the head curator of Old Master paintings, was proposing that we acquire a haunting work entitled Judas and the Thirty Pieces of Silver, attributed to Étienne de La Tour. However, Ethan strongly believed the picture was actually by Étienne’s father, the great seventeenth-century master Georges de La Tour, which, if true, would make it a major find. Robert Mueller disagreed with Ethan’s assessment, of course, which only confirmed Ethan’s educated hunch in the eyes of the other committee members. The picture was being deaccessioned by the Foster collection, a small museum in Virginia which was closing due to lack of funds. They were asking a million dollars—a real bargain if it did indeed turn out to be by Étienne’s more celebrated father. The problem was we didn’t have a million to spend on a speculative painting, no matter how convinced Ethan was of its true creator.

  As I examined a large color transparency of the work—a study of the arch traitor Judas Iscariot, his tormented face illuminated by the light from a single candle flame as he stares at the silver coins shimmering on the table in front of him—I understood exactly how he felt, being on the brink of betraying my own best friend for a self-serving piece of silence, if not silver.

  The committee agreed that the picture would be a fine addition to the museum and it was now just a matter of finding the funds to buy it. I knew that Ethan had his heart set on it, so I pledged half a million dollars specifically toward its purchase. That half million was over and above the two million I gave annually to the museum as a matter of course. However, that still left another five hundred thousand to be raised to buy the painting. There was some discussion about where the remaining funds might be located. But for the moment, the question was left unresolved.

  After the meeting, I asked Ethan to ride down with me to the main floor.

  “I’m going to the opening of Tosca tonight,” I said, certain he was, too.

  “Me, too. Who are you going with?”

  “Max Vermilion.”

  “Well, well, well,” Ethan said with an approving smile. “I’m impressed.”

  “I told him I wasn’t a big opera fan.”

  “That’s putting it mildly. You only like it when I tell you who’s sleeping with who in the cast.”

  Ethan, a rabid opera lover, once confided to me that he forced potential boyfriends to sit through the entire Ring Cycle—all seventeen hours of it—before he would get involved with them. “It’s a good way to tell whether or not they’re serious about the relationship,” Ethan said earnestly, then added. “Of course these days seventeen hours is a relationship.”

  “Anyway, I’ll see you there,” I said.

  “I doubt it. I’m sitting in Lulu Cole’s box.”

  “God, I forgot. Of course, Lulu will be there. She’s the chairman. Well, I won’t see you, then.”

  “Maybe at intermission. Listen, Jo, I want you to become Lady Vermilion so I can come and live with you at Taunton Hall. Imagine waking up to all that beauty every morning.”

  “Just let me get through Tosca first, okay?”

  Even Ethan was trying to fix me up with Max.

  Caspar was waiting for me outside the Muni. I got in the car and we headed down Fifth to the Pierre Hotel, where Trish Bromire was giving a benefit luncheon. Poor Trish needed all the support she could get right now. Her husband, Dick Bromire, was about to go on trial for tax evasion and other money-related crimes. There was a real possibility he might go to jail. It was the job of Trish’s girlfriends to support her in her hour of need. Though I didn’t much feel like going to the luncheon, I couldn’t very well let her down.

  Before I took my compact out of my purse to freshen up, I extracted the letter I had written for Carla Cole. As we rolled along the avenue, I stared at it for a long moment. I had considered dropping it off on my way to Trish’s luncheon. However, that portrait of Judas Iscariot had hit home. I didn’t feel like seeing Judas staring back at me in the compact mirror. Betty could teach June a lesson if she wanted to, but I was not about to betray one of my best friends, whether Carla Cole had something on me or not. I ripped it up.

  The luncheon at the Pierre was being held in the Cotillion Room, a large, light, and airy space with three picture windows facing Fifth Avenue. Trish was involved in so many charities, it was difficult to keep track of them all, but this was one of her less fashionable causes, the Bromire Center for the Aged. I applauded Trish for using her social clout to support “people” institutions as opposed to “arts” institutions, which were distinctly more sought after on account of their ability to springboard big supporters to social prominence. It was disconcerting the number of rich people in New York who eagerly shelled out millions of dollars for a seat on the board of the great old institutions like the Municipal Museum or the Metropolitan Opera, but who balked at spending fifty dollars for a more needy but less stellar cause.

  Everyone knew that if Trish Bromire’s name was on an invitation, the event would be filled with prominent socialites and photo opportunities, if you liked that sort of thing (I don’t). Understanding she attracted a chic crowd and flashy coverage in Nous magazine, Trish used her power wisely—spreading it around to include minority scholarship programs, small dance and theater companies, cancer hospices, and other obscure but worthy organizations that never got any attention.

  A couple of photographers, lying in wait for the lunching ladies, snapped my picture in the lobby. I climbed the long flight of steps to the second floor to the Regency Room, a cocktail area in front of the Cotillion Room, where drinks were being served. I greeted many old pals along the way. As bad luck would have it, June was standing near the entrance in a fussy, pale blue luncheon suit with bows on the sleeves and ruffles at the neck. I imagined what I might have felt like seeing her now had I delivered that letter, and I was happily reaffirmed in my decision to rip it up. She was engrossed in conversation with a woman I didn’t know and they didn’t look as though they wanted to be interrupted. I tried to sneak by, but June caught sight of me and motioned me over to say hello. She gave me a kiss. So did the other woman, whose warm greeting I returned, pretending to know her, even though I hadn’t the slightest idea who she was. The two of them obviously wanted to resume their talk, so I excused myself and walked away.

  I grabbed a glass of wine from a waiter carrying a tray with glasses of wine, orange juice, and water. Betty marched up to me wearing a white suit made of some sort of rolled material that made her look like the Michelin Man or a padded cell, depending on the angle. I could tell by her blotchy complexion and watery eyes that the champagne flute she was holding wasn’t her first.

  “So whaddya think of Marcy Ludinghausen?” Betty asked, slightly sloshed.

  “Marcy’s here?” I said, looking around the room.

  “You just said hello to her. She’s over
there talking to June—about the apartment, I’m sure. Wait’ll June finds out I wrote a letter for Carla. Oy!”

  I whirled around and stared at the stranger who had greeted me at the door, trying to divine any traces of the Marcy Ludinghausen I had once known.

  “My God, that’s Marcy? I didn’t recognize her! What the hell happened to her?”

  “Aggressive face-lift,” Betty said, matter-of-factly. “Youth may be wasted on the young, but it looks ridiculous on the old.”

  Marcy Ludinghausen was the artistic heiress to a mouthwash fortune whose avocation in life was marrying and divorcing. People had lost count of all her husbands by now, including Marcy. Betty once asked her what her definition of “safe sex” was, to which Marcy blithely replied, “An inner tube zipped all the way above my head.” Marcy flitted in and out of New York social life, depending on whom she was married to at the time. Each time she got rid of a husband, she sold the abode in which the two of them had lived together. I’d always liked Marcy because she was quirky and lots of fun.

  I stared at the new Marcy, thinking of the old Marcy. The old Marcy had been an exotic beauty with an alluring depth to her striking looks. In contrast, the new Marcy’s face was flat and characterless, like an old blouse that had been too zealously starched and ironed.

  Thinking what a pity this was, I remarked, “If I have a face-lift—and God knows it’s getting to that point—I just want to look refreshed.”

  “Only refreshed? Not me, kiddo!” Betty pointed her index finger at her face like a gun. “Hey, if I’m gonna spend thirty thousand bucks and a lot of downtime overhauling this kisser, I wanna look more than fucking refreshed. I want to look sensational! But there’s a big difference between looking fabulous for your age and looking like an episode of Star Trek.”

  “She must be husband hunting again,” I said.

  “I hear tell she has her eye on Lord Vermilion. Just think, if they got married, they’d have, like, fifteen spouses between them. They could have reunions in Yankee Stadium.”