Melanie gave a big sigh of relief. Maybe, just maybe, she was making a breakthrough with the society gang. “Well, you just never know, do you?”
“Peter had said it was very exclusive,” said Arthur, raising his eyebrows.
“Oh, I’m sure.”
“But, hon, how the hell are we going to fill up three tables?”
“Don’t worry, sweets. It’s not hard to find people to go to this sort of affair. Everyone wants in.”
Arthur was excited because he knew how much this invitation pleased Melanie. He was so happy to see her recognized for all of her efforts and hoped that this would relax her a little. If it meant he had to purchase some tables from a stiff like Phillip—who should surely spend eternity in a sarcophagus etched with carvings of men in kilts and family crests—so be it.
“Good job, honey,” said Arthur, touching her hand. “You’ve really bounced us to the top of the list.”
“I feel great,” said Melanie, in a show of vulnerability that she would only ever reveal to Arthur. “You know, I just—I want to show them. It’s like they’re the cool kids in school, the richies, and I’m still the gas station attendant’s daughter who had to wait on line at a charity home to get our Butterball turkey for Thanksgiving. I don’t want to be the outsider anymore. I want to be in.”
The challenge that faced Melanie was an uphill battle. She had gleaned only recently that society cannot exist without a certain amount of hypocrisy, particularly high society, and New York’s was no exception. Whereas the Yorkville crowd was more than willing to embrace a self-made millionaire with open arms if he was male, a female millionaire—even billionaire—was a different story. New York relished a male Pygmalion, as long as he had the cash to back it up. Who cares where he was raised, the means by which he attained the money, whether or not he attended college, or if his manners were a little coarse? Tidy him up, send him to a good tailor, teach him where to spend his money, and he was the beau of the ball. Doors would be open to him in all of New York’s drawing rooms, any eligible debutante was his for the asking, and he could reside in some of the choicest co-ops in town.
But a woman who came from no background to speak of, whose pedigree was less than acceptable, had a much harder time gaining access to that world, even if she had married well. She’d either be struck down like Martha Stewart or branded an upstart, a charlatan, a trophy wife, or, worst of all, a social climber. It was unfair to Melanie. There was a tacit understanding that at the very least she had to have gone to the right schools. Had she grown up subsisting on food stamps and living in a crack den in Harlem but attending Chapin, she would be in, no questions asked. (The heads of admissions of New York’s elite single-sex schools were given an inordinate amount of discretion to admit someone into a jeweled world, endowments so powerful that they reverberated for generations to come.) But had she come from a Florida recreational vehicle park, like Melanie, she just didn’t have a chance. Melanie had culled this but refused to accept it.
Arthur was touched by Melanie’s revelation. “We’ll go to that Scottish ball with kilts on! We’ll show this town that the Korns are a force to be reckoned with!”
Melanie smiled at her husband, her little teddy bear. He really understood her. “Thanks, honey,” she murmured, moved by his encouragement. Joan may have the Social Register and all that, but she had to sleep with a creep like Phillip, whereas Melanie had her little Arthur to cuddle with.
“I love you,” said Melanie leaning over and kissing her man.
chapter 14
“Look, Maria, I was with you and . . . Schuyler . . . What? Of course I know her name. Jesus Christ, you don’t make it easy. I was with you and Schuyler last night. I can’t come right now—I have a job to do, remember?” Morgan was hunkered down at his desk in his Brown Brothers corner office, pleading with his mistress to no avail. The wall of windows displayed a periwinkle blue sky, jagged skyscrapers, and the noisy, congested New York streets twenty-five floors below. The street lamps’ glow and the shimmering pavement looked so inviting right now that Morgan wanted to hurl himself out the window. He stared off into other faceless office buildings, zeroing in on a random secretary xeroxing, a man on the phone, another eating a sandwich by the light of a PC.
Less than a few miles away, Maria was ensconced on the white leather couch in her two-bedroom apartment while a maid vacuumed the ivory-white wall-to-wall carpeting and her newborn slept in a white Baby Guess? bassinet.
“Then you’ll come tonight. I’m sick of this shit! I can’t do this alone. I won’t! My mother was a single mother . . .”
Here we go again, thought Morgan.
“. . . who raised me and my brother all alone. She moved us from Mexico to give us the better life and worked two jobs! I promised myself that wouldn’t be me! Never! Did I tell you my brother is a boxer?”
“Yes, you did.”
“He was in the navy, and he knows karate moves. He will kick your ass if you don’t make an honest woman of me! He’s strong!”
“Maria, the level of our conversation is once again deteriorating.”
“Don’t you talk to me about that deteriorating shit! I have your baby!”
That she did, and she had Morgan in a corner. He took a deep breath.
“Maria, what do you want?”
“I want to go out! I want to go to Peter Luger tonight! I want steak and wine and those little shrimp cocktails with the red sauce!”
“Maria, I have a benefit tonight. I simply cannot see you every night. I have a family.”
“THIS is your family too! And you better not forget it!” she screamed. “You think you, Mr. Rich Man, can just fuck me and pop me up and then leave me? You loco, mister. I have a brother who knows karate!”
Morgan sighed. “Maria, I think we have already established that you have a brother who is prone to violence and skilled in the ancient Japanese martial arts.”
“What, you makin’ fun of me? Don’t fuck with me! I’ll tell everyone!” Maria turned to her maid as Morgan sank deeper into his leather chair. “Turn that fucking thing off, Mercedes! I have a headache!”
“Qué?” asked the maid. Schuyler started to cry.
“Fuck, you woke the baby! My head is splitting. This spoiled brat cries all the time.”
“Maria, I have to go.”
“You better come tonight and take me out. I want a big juicy steak. I want people to see me with you.”
“I’m not sure that’s possible.” He loosened his tie anxiously.
“One phone call, Mr. Man, and you done for. I call wifey and you’re in BIG trouble! You come tonight or I call.”
“Maria, your tired, idle threats will not work with me. I don’t have time for your petty temper tantrums either. I’ll see you when I can see you. I’m doing my best.” Morgan slammed down the phone.
Morgan put his head in his hands. The problem was, Maria’s idle threats would work with him. The last thing he wanted was for Maria to tell Cordelia. She would be crushed; he couldn’t even imagine the devastation. Maria had him by the balls.
And it had all started so innocently. Well, sort of. It was last fall, early October, Morgan recalled, because he was working on the Simonson buyout. He had been asked to mediate because there was big money involved, and although senior partners very rarely had to pull all-nighters at that stage of their career, the market was bad and this was a huge deal. It was very late and his eyes were glazed from staring at his computer screen for so long when Maria, a sweet Mexican cleaning lady whom he had barely noticed before, came banging through his door with the vacuum and her bucket of rags and cleansers. She was startled by him.
“Oh, sorry, Mr. Vance, I thought you gone for the day,” said Maria, embarrassed. “I come back.”
Morgan was looking for any excuse for a break and hadn’t spoken to another human in several hours. “That’s okay—I need a rest.” He looked at her name tag. “Maria. That’s a pretty name.”
“Gracias.”
“Where are you from?”
“Mexico.”
“I was in Mexico last year. La Palmilla in Cabo San Lucas. Beautiful place, great golf,” said Morgan, leaning back in his chair and folding his hands behind his head.
“Sí, I’ve never been there. I’m from more central, near Mexico City.”
“Oh. Well, you should try to visit. It’s gorgeous.”
“Okay.”
Morgan stared at Maria for a second, focusing on her but lost in his reverie, thinking about his trip to Mexico. The sandy beaches, the blue ocean, the margaritas. It was a romantic place. It seemed a lifetime away.
“I come back?” said Maria, twisting the handle of her vacuum nervously.
“No, no. Don’t mind me, just carry on.”
“I no bother you?”
“No.”
Morgan turned back to his screen as Maria bent down to plug in the vacuum. He caught a glimpse of her out of the corner of his eye and was strangely turned on by the way her gray maid’s uniform tightly clung to her buttocks. He chuckled to himself. This is absurd.
Maria started vacuuming, and Morgan stared hard at the screen. He kept glancing at Maria and smiling, and she returned the smile. It was always a little awkward having people clean up for you in front of you, Morgan thought. He never liked to be around when his maids did their work at his own home.
Perhaps encouraged by his smiles, Maria started a conversation. “You work late tonight, Mr. Vance.”
“Yes, lots to do.”
“Big project?” she said, vacuuming around his chinoiserie coffee table.
“Yes, very big, Maria. Extremely important.”
“Sí. You very important man here, I know. Big man.”
Morgan liked the sound of that. He looked closely at Maria. She had a curvy figure, with firm buttocks and enormous breasts strapped into her uniform. Her dark hair was wavy and fell just below her shoulders, her black eyelashes were long and curled, her pouty lips juicy and red. She was an exotic beauty. And, maybe because it had been so long since he and Cordelia had had sex, when Maria called him “big man,” he got hard.
“Sorry, I bother you,” said Maria hastily.
“No, you’re not bothering me at all.”
Morgan looked back at his screen as Maria resumed her vacuuming. She made her way past the armchairs and got closer to his desk. All that was left finally was the patch of rug underneath his chair. Maria smiled at Morgan, who smiled back.
“Sorry—this is the tricky part,” said Maria. She leaned across him and pushed the vacuum back and forth.
“No problem.”
Her arm moved back and forth, and ever so slightly brushed against his crotch. They both kept smiling at each other.
In retrospect, it was hard to say who made the first move. Did Morgan push her into his lap, or did she bend her head into it first? He couldn’t recall. But the next thing he knew, Maria had taken him in her mouth and he was experiencing such phantasmagoric pleasure that he couldn’t even fathom that this was actually happening. It had been years and years since Cordelia had given him a blow job. They had experienced a brief period in the middle of their marriage where she was a very willing partner, but it had somehow tapered off, and it was as if Cordelia had deemed certain things too deviant for her mouth (penises and food, primarily). Maria had brought him back to life, and he was exploding with passion and, later, gratitude.
Their late-night office couplings lasted through the Simonson deal and then were moved to the Empire Hotel on Broadway when Morgan no longer had to work late. Finally, paranoid but infatuated, Morgan rented an apartment for Maria close to the office. At first it was like striking a rapturous bonanza. Maria was game for everything—no position was too demeaning, or physically strenuous, for that matter—no sex toy too offensive, no profanities uttered in the throes of passion off-limits. Morgan felt as if he was on a sex tour. He was reawakened. He’d scour the lingerie shops in remote areas of the city, purchasing whatever lascivious outfit caught his fancy. He’d rent videos that he had only dreamed of and watch them with his eager companion. And Maria had no qualms about wearing her cleaning uniform and calling him “Mr. Big Man” in the dark of their bedroom. He was on Fantasy Island.
He had thought Maria was so sweet and pretty. His inexperience in the land of infidelity had allowed him to misinterpret her silence for naivete and shyness. It was only now that he realized what a tricky creature he was dealing with. He was excited, taking her to fancy places and exposing her to nice things. She had taken notes, learned to like the high life, and decided early on that Morgan was her ticket out of her low life. As soon as she got knocked up, she changed. To this day, Morgan wasn’t sure how it happened; he half believed she punched holes in his condoms or, worse, transferred their contents into a turkey baster. In any case, after that she became a shrew—a scheming, demanding, shrill nag who was threatening to ruin his life and quite possibly could. And to think that he’d once thought her attractive! He had not looked past the long lashes to see bags under her eyes so dark that a thick layer of Cover Girl base did little to conceal them. In fact, all of the makeup that she wore—and she wore a lot—did little to enhance her beauty and only cheapened her even more. Those lips that he had found so endearing were usually contorted into a demanding dark hole that spewed insults and barked orders at everyone who came into contact with her. She had been such a mistake.
And now he was stuck with her—and their baby. He didn’t know what to do or think about little Schuyler. He had never had a daughter and actually always sort of wanted one, but what would she become with a mother like that? If only he could get rid of Maria, it would all be okay. Morgan sighed. If only . . .
chapter 15
In the midtown floor-to-ceiling glass offices of the venerable PR firm Hunt & Greenberg, Melanie sat in the sleek waiting room, reading an advance copy of Vogue. She came across a party picture of Rosemary Peniston dressed in costume as a gypsy and Lila Meyer as a witch, but her eyes narrowed upon spotting Olivia Weston dressed as Virginia Woolf. Just as she was about to read the accompanying text, Steven Hunt’s black turtleneck–clad, skeletal assistant came to fetch her for their five o’clock meeting.
She was offered a beverage and led into a state-of-the-art media/conference room, where she immediately made herself at home on the brown leather couch and began flipping through a fax of tomorrow’s Variety that lay on the coffee table. Her nose twitched at the odor of the treated leather, which bore an unfortunate similarity to the smell of horse manure. It was the same smell those cheap cars had. That’s why she would never get a Volvo. They just stank. Finally, Steven, the publicist to the stars, arrived and greeted her, his normal cool composure giving way to uncharacteristic frazzlement, for which he profusely apologized. (“Julianne Moore’s water just broke—I’m crazed!”) They exchanged small talk until Melanie amped up the conversation by getting to the bottom line of why she was there, taking fifteen minutes of his extremely precious time.
“So. You’re the best in the world, and I work with only the best. So what do you say?”
“I understand, Mrs. Korn, but as I said on the phone, I work only with Hollywood celebrities . . .”
“That’s okay—you’ll enjoy working with me. It’ll be a nice change working with a philanthropist,” she said, putting a manicured paw through her blond hair.
Hunt’s face was a mixture of confusion (Does she not understand?) and curiosity (What balls!). This one was a real character, with the ring and the fur and the hair. Why was she so desperate for a publicist?
“My clients are usually promoting a film or an album. I mean, what would your hook be?” he asked.
Melanie reached into her Gucci handbag, pulled out a large wad of cash, and slid it across the shellacked table.
“I’m such a big fish, I don’t need a hook,” she said.
By the end of the day, the confidential client list had a new name among its red-carpet ranks. Julianne. Charlize
. Melanie.
Across town, Melanie’s husband was doing some fishing of his own. Arthur’s driver pulled up to the green awning of 741 Park just as Olivia Weston happened to be walking out. She was stunning in her camel coat and chocolate brown leather boots, and she burgled the breath right out of his lungs. As the wind blew her hair, she bundled a cashmere scarf around her neck for warmth. Arthur would kill to be that scarf. His eyes widened as he traced her sauntering, doelike steps around the corner. As the Bentley moved near the curb, he bolted out, quickly thanking his chauffeur, Charles, and bidding him good night. Tom the doorman rushed out to greet him, but just as Arthur was about to enter his building he paused and reconsidered.
“I forgot something,” he mumbled to Tom, who stood holding the door for him. “I’ll be back soon,” he said, as if Tom needed an explanation.
“Yes, Mr. Korn.”
Arthur turned down the block and followed his pristine neighbor around the corner. As they walked along Seventieth Street, he stayed behind for ten paces, his heart speeding to a NASCAR pace. The bounce of her shiny hair and her delicate gait were hypnotic.
There was something about Olivia that was magnetic, that just drew Arthur to her. He would be embarrassed if anyone knew that he was following her, but it was like an addiction—he wanted to gulp her in and drink until he was sated, but he could not quench the thirst. So instead he would just see where she was going and what she was doing. For someone so constantly exposed in the press, she seemed so secretive. But the cozy world in which she lived was achingly appealing.
She turned the corner onto Madison, with Arthur hot in pursuit. They walked by the fancy clothing boutiques, designer florists, children’s stores, and the entire time Arthur was guessing which one was her final destination. Eventually she abruptly turned and walked into Three Guys Diner. Arthur was unprepared for this stop, so he turned and stared at the mailbox, pretending he was sending some letters, but kept his eye on Olivia through the window. He watched as she sat down in a booth with a downtownish, artsy-looking guy who had scraggly hair and a bony face and wore a vintage leather jacket. Arthur kept glancing at them, and, finally, in an audacious move that shocked even him, he entered the diner. What the hell? It’s a free country, he thought as the waitress motioned him to a table. He walked toward Olivia’s booth, but her back was to him and all he could see was her luminous head of hair. He slid into the booth next to that of Olivia and her . . . friend? Boyfriend? Brother, hopefully. He took a deep breath, knowing that he was back to back with the goddess herself.
The Right Address Page 9
