When James was finally able to get down to his apartment, it was three-ten. He grabbed Skippy and hurried around the corner to the Mews.
Walking slowly on the tiny cobblestoned street, he didn’t see her at first. Then he heard his name called, and she stepped out from the shadows of a doorway covered with vines. For a second, James was startled by her appearance. After the funeral, she must have gone home and changed, for she now had on dirty jeans and an old red ski parka. But she wore the same sweet, fawning expression that always made him feel admired and protective of her. Skippy jumped on her leg and she laughed, leaning over to pet the little dog. “I’ve been wondering what happened to you,” James said. “Are you all right?”
“Oh, James,” she said. “I’m so happy to see you. I was afraid you wouldn’t come. Everyone’s taken Philip’s side, and I’ve lost all my friends.
I don’t even have a place to live.”
“You’re not sleeping on the street?” James asked, horrified, once again taking in her appearance.
“I’ve been sleeping on a friend’s couch,” she said. “But you know how it is. I can’t stay there forever. And I can’t go home to Atlanta. I don’t have a home to go back to even if I wanted to. My parents went bankrupt.”
“Good God,” James said. “How could Oakland do this to you?”
“He doesn’t care about me. He never did. He used me for sex, and when he’d had his fill, he went back to Schiffer Diamond. I’m really alone, James,” she said, grabbing on to his sleeve as if she were afraid he might try to get away. “I’m scared. I don’t know what to do.”
“The first thing you need to do is to get an apartment. Or a job. Or both,” James stated with authority, as if such things were easily accomplished. He shook his head in disbelief. “I still can’t believe Oakland kicked you out and didn’t at least give you some money.”
“He didn’t,” Lola said. She was lying; Philip had sent a check for ten thousand dollars to her parents’ condo, and Beetelle had FedExed it to her at Thayer’s address. But James didn’t need to know this. “Philip Oakland is not what people think he is,” she said.
“He’s exactly what I always thought he was,” James said.
Lola looked up at him and took a step closer, then glanced away, as if she were ashamed. “I know we hardly know each other,” she said in a small voice, “but I was hoping you might be able to help me. There’s no one else I can ask.”
“You poor thing,” James said, adding boldly, “tell me what I can do and I’ll do it.”
“Can I borrow twenty thousand dollars?”
James blanched at the sum. “That’s a lot of money,” he said carefully.
“I’m sorry.” She took a step backward. “I shouldn’t have bothered you.
I’ll figure something out. It was nice knowing you, James. You were the only person who was nice to me in One Fifth. Congratulations on all your success. I always knew you were a star.” And she began to walk away.
“Lola, stop,” James called.
She turned and, giving him a brave smile, shook her head. “I’ll be okay.
I’ll survive somehow.”
He caught up with her. “I do want to help you,” he said. “I’ll figure something out.” They arranged to meet up under the arch in Washington Park the next afternoon.
James then returned to the party, where he immediately bumped into the devil himself — Philip Oakland. “Excuse me,” James said.
“Heard your book is number one on the list,” Philip said. “Congratulations.”
“Thanks,” James said curtly. For once, he noted, Philip Oakland didn’t seem to be in a rush to move away. James decided to make Philip uncomfortable. Considering Lola’s situation it was the least he could do.
“I just saw your girlfriend,” he said accusingly.
“Really?” Philip looked confused. “Who?”
“Lola Fabrikant.”
Now Philip looked embarrassed. “We’re not together anymore,” he said. He took a sip of champagne. “I’m sorry — did I hear you correctly?
Did you say you’d just seen her?”
“That’s right. In the Mews,” James said. “She has no place to live.”
“She was supposed to be back in Atlanta. With her parents.”
“Well, she’s not,” James said. “She’s in New York.” He would have said more, but Schiffer Diamond came over and took Philip’s hand. “Hello, James,” she said, leaning forward to kiss him on the cheek as if they were old friends. Death, James supposed, made everyone old friends. “Did you know Billy, too?” he asked. He suddenly remembered that she had found the body, and immediately felt like an idiot. “I’m sorry,” he said.
“It’s okay,” Schiffer said.
Philip jiggled her hand. “James said he just saw Lola Fabrikant. In the Mews.”
“She was at the funeral,” James said, trying to explain.
“I’m afraid we missed her.” Schiffer and Philip exchanged a glance.
“Excuse me,” Schiffer said, and moved away.
“Nice to see you,” Philip said to James, and followed her.
James took a fresh glass of champagne from a tray and stepped into the crowd. Schiffer and Philip were standing a few feet away, holding hands, nodding as they spoke to another couple. Apparently, Philip Oakland didn’t even feel guilty about what he’d done to Lola, James thought with disgust. He moved into the living room and sat down on a plushy love seat and scanned the room. It was filled with bold-faced names — the art folk and media types and socialites and fashionistas who comprised the chattering classes and had defined his and Mindy’s world in New York City for the last twenty years. Now, having been away for a month, he had a different perspective. How silly they all seemed. Half the people in the room had had some kind of “work” done, including the men. Billy’s death was just another excuse for a party, where they could drink champagne and eat caviar and talk about their latest projects.
Meanwhile, out on the street, homeless and probably hungry, was an innocent young woman — Lola Fabrikant — who’d been taken up by this crowd and summarily spit out when she didn’t meet the exact requirements.
A man and a woman passed behind him, whispering, “I heard the Rices have a Renoir.”
“It’s in the dining room. And it’s tiny.” There was a pause followed by high-pitched laughter. “And it cost ten million dollars. But it’s a Renoir.
So who cares?”
Perhaps he should ask Annalisa Rice for the twenty thousand dollars for Lola, James thought. She apparently had so much money, she didn’t know what to do with it.
But hold on, James thought. He had money now, too, and more than he’d expected. Two weeks ago, his agent had informed him that if the sales of his book continued at the same rate — and there was no reason to think they wouldn’t — he would earn at least two million dollars in royalties. Despite this astonishing news, when James returned to New York and his daily routine, he saw that his circumstances hadn’t changed at all. He still awoke every morning as James Gooch, married to Mindy Gooch, living his odd little life in his odd little apartment. The only difference being that right now, during this two-week break from his book tour, he had nothing to do.
James stood up and crossed the living room, stepping out onto the lowest of the Rices’ three terraces. He leaned over the edge, looking up and down Fifth Avenue. It, too, was exactly the same. He finished his champagne and, looking into the bottom of the glass, felt empty.
For once in his life, there was no sword of doom hanging over his head; he had nothing to complain about and nothing about which to hang his head. And yet he didn’t feel content. Stepping back through the French doors, he looked at the crowd and wished he were still in the Mews with Lola.
The next afternoon, James met Lola under the arch in Washington Park.
Determined to be a hero, James had spent the morning trying to find Lola an apartment. Mindy would have been shocked at his industrious-ness, he thought wryly,
but Mindy never needed his help, and Lola did.
After making several calls, Redmon Richardly’s assistant told him about an apartment that might be available in her building on Eighteenth Street and Tenth Avenue. The rent was fourteen hundred dollars a month for a studio, and after tracking down the owner, who had not only heard of his book but had read it and loved it, James made an arrangement to see the apartment at three. Then he’d gone to the bank and, feeling like a criminal, withdrew five thousand dollars in cash. Strolling toward the park, he found Lola already waiting. She had mascara under her eyes as if she’d been crying and hadn’t bothered to wash it away. “Are you all right?” he asked.
“What do you think?” she said bitterly. “I feel like a homeless person.
Everything I own is in storage — and it’s costing me a hundred and fifty a month. I have no place to sleep. And the bathroom in that place I’m staying is disgusting. I’m afraid to take a shower. Were you able to ... figure something out?”
“I brought you some money,” James said. “And something else — something that should really make you happy.” He paused for effect, then said proudly, “I think I may have found you an apartment.”
“Oh, James,” she exclaimed.
“It’s only fourteen hundred a month. If you like it, we can use the cash to pay your first month’s rent and a deposit.”
“Where is it?” she asked cautiously. When he told her, she looked disappointed. “It’s so far west,” she said. “It’s practically on the river.”
“It’s within walking distance of One Fifth,” James assured her. “So we can visit each other all the time.”
Nevertheless, Lola insisted on taking a taxi. The cab pulled up to a small redbrick building that James suspected, given the location, had probably once been a flophouse. On the street level was an Irish bar. He and Lola walked up a narrow staircase to a short hallway with a linoleum floor. The apartment was 3C, and after trying the handle, James found the door open and he and Lola went in. It was a tiny space, no bigger than three hundred square feet — a room, really, in a normal person’s house — with a tiny closet, a tiny bathroom with a shower, and two cupboard doors that opened to reveal a minuscule kitchen. But it was clean and bright and located on a corner, so it had two windows.
“Not bad,” James said.
Lola’s heart sank. Had she really fallen so low in the short nine months she’d been in New York?
The landlady was a salt-of-the-earth type with a pile of bleached hair and a New York accent. Her family had owned the building for a hundred years; her biggest requirement, after an ability to pay, was “nice” people. Was Lola perhaps James’s daughter? No, James explained, she was a friend who’d had a rough time with an ex-boyfriend who’d dumped her.
The perfidy of men was one of the landlady’s favorite topics; she was always happy to help out a fellow female sufferer. James proclaimed the arrangement a done deal. The apartment, he declared, reminded him of his first apartment in Manhattan and how thrilled he’d been to have his own space and to be making his way in New York. “The good old days,” he said to the landlady, peeling off three thousand dollars in hundreds.
The extra two hundred would be used to cover Lola’s utilities.
“Now all you need is a bed,” James said when the deal was completed.
“Why don’t we get you a foldout couch? There’s a Door Store on Sixth Avenue.” Walking east, James noticed her glum expression. “What’s the matter?” he asked. “You don’t look happy. Aren’t you relieved to have your own apartment?”
Lola was in a panic. She hadn’t planned on getting an apartment at all, and especially such a shabby, depressing little place. She’d meant to take the money from Philip and James — thirty thousand in total — and install herself in Soho House, from where she would relaunch herself into New York society in style. How had her plan gone awry so quickly?
And now three thousand dollars were gone. “I didn’t expect it to happen this suddenly,” she said.
“Ah,” James said, holding up a finger. “That’s New York real estate. If we hadn’t taken the apartment, it would have been gone in an hour.
You’ve got to act fast.” At the Door Store, James purchased a couch with a queen-size foldout bed in a sensible navy blue fabric that wouldn’t show stains, the feel of which made Lola shudder. It was the floor model, James exclaimed, saying it was a great deal. And another fifteen hundred dollars was gone.
James finally escorted her back to the empty apartment, where she was to wait for the bed to be delivered. “I don’t know how you managed to do all this,” Lola said weakly. “Thank you.” She kissed James on the cheek.
“I’ll come by tomorrow and see how you’re settling in,” he said.
“I can’t wait,” Lola said. There was still the remainder of the fifteen thousand dollars James might give her, but she didn’t dare ask for it now.
She would have to talk to him about it tomorrow, though.
When James left, she immediately went to Thayer Core’s apartment.
“I got my own place,” she said.
“How’d you manage that?” Thayer said, looking up from his computer.
“James Gooch found it,” Lola said, taking off her coat. “He paid for it, too.”
“He’s an idiot.”
“He’s in love with me.” Lola was suddenly thrilled to be getting out of Thayer and Josh’s apartment. Thayer was becoming unreasonable, asking her for oral sex and pouting when he didn’t get it, saying he had something on her and would use it if he had to. “What?” she’d scoff. “You’ll see,” he’d say vaguely.
“Shut up, Thayer. You’re a douchebag,” she reminded him now.
“I thought you were trying to get back into One Fifth. I need information.”
“I’ll get it from James.”
“What if he requires sex in exchange?”
“I have sex with you, so what’s the difference?” Lola replied. “At least he doesn’t have diseases.”
“How do you know?”
“I know,” she said. “He’s only been with one woman for the past twenty years. His wife.”
“Maybe he sleeps with hookers on the side.”
Lola rolled her eyes. “Not every man is like you, Thayer. Decent men do exist.”
“Uh-huh,” Thayer said, nodding. “Like James Gooch. A man who’s an inch away from cheating on his wife. Although if I were married to Mindy Gooch, I’d cheat, too.”
The next day, knocking on the door of her new apartment, James found Lola sitting on the bare mattress of the foldout couch, crying.
“What’s wrong now?” James said, edging next to her.
“Look around,” Lola said. “I don’t even have a pillow.”
“I’ll bring you one from home. My wife won’t notice.”
“I don’t want some old pillow from your house,” Lola said, wondering how she’d managed to pick the cheapest man in Manhattan as her savior. “Do you think you could give me some money? Maybe the fifteen thousand dollars?”
“I can’t give it to you all at once,” James said. “My wife will get suspicious.” Having given the matter a great deal of thought, James had settled on a plan to pay Lola’s rent for six months while giving her two thousand dollars a month in spending money. “And when you get a job,” he said,
“you’ll be fine. You’ll have much more money than I did at your age.”
From then on, James went by the apartment every afternoon, often taking Lola to lunch at the Irish pub downstairs — to make sure she had one decent meal a day, he said — and then hung around her apartment afterward. He liked the uncluttered space and the afternoon sunlight that poured through the windows, noting that Lola’s apartment got more light than his own. “James,” she said. “I need a TV.”
“You have your computer,” James said. “Can’t you watch TV shows on that? Isn’t that what everybody does these days?”
“Everybody has a computer. And a TV.”
“You could read a book,” James said. “Have you read Anna Karenina? Or Madame Bovary?”
“I have, and they’re boring. Besides, I don’t have room for books,” she complained, gesturing at the tiny space.
James bought her a TV — a sixteen-inch Panasonic — that they placed on the windowsill.
On the day before James was to go back out on book tour, he turned up at her apartment earlier than usual. It was eleven o’clock, but she was still sleeping, her head resting on the down pillow she’d bought from ABC Carpet, along with a down comforter that James suspected cost over a thousand dollars. When he questioned her about it, however, she said she’d bought it on sale for a hundred. He didn’t expect her to sleep without covers, did he? No, he did not, he agreed, and let it go.
“What time is it?” she asked now, rolling over in her bed.
“It’s almost noon,” he said. He found the fact that she was still in bed slightly annoying, and wondered what she’d been up to the night before that would cause her to sleep till midday. Or perhaps she was depressed.
“I’m leaving tomorrow morning. First thing,” he explained. “I wanted to say goodbye. And to make sure you were okay.”
“When will I see you again?” She stretched, extending her arms up to the ceiling. She was wearing an orange tank top with nothing underneath.
“Not for a month.”
“Where are you going?” she asked in alarm.
“England, Scotland, Ireland, Paris, Germany, Australia, and New Zealand.”
“That’s terrible.”
“Terrible for us but good for the book,” James said.
She threw back the comforter and patted the mattress. “Snuggle me,” she said. “I’m going to miss you.”
“I don’t think ...” James said cautiously, despite his beating heart.
“It’s only a hug, James,” she pointed out. “No one can object to that.”
He got into bed next to her, awkwardly arranging his long body so several inches of space remained between them. She turned to face him, curling up her knees into his groin. Her breath was pungent with the lingering smell of vodka and cigarettes, and he wondered once again where she’d been the night before. Had she had sex with someone?
One Fifth Avenue Page 43
