Well Bred and Dead

by Catherine O'Connell

  “I hope not to bore you by speaking too long,” she began, “but as Pauline has asked me to speak on Ethan’s behalf, I would like to convey my feelings about him to all of you.

  “I first met Ethan when he was working on his book about Berthe Palmer, that icon of Chicago women who is in large part responsible for our great collection of the Impressionists at the Art Institute. She was the reason he first came to our great city, and I recall that he complained greatly about the cold here then, telling me that his years in Puerto Rico had thinned his blood and that as soon as he finished his research, he would be heading back to the south, to someplace with a more agreeable climate.

  “That never happened, as we all know. The moderate success of Berthe: A Woman Who Made an Impression, kept him headquartered here so to speak, and he became a fixture in our circles. We embraced him, he embraced us, and in so doing, Chicago became as warm for him as any tropical destination. His second book about Gloria Guinness served to foster our appreciation of him for his great observational skills in bringing to us stories of the elite. His quick wit and repartee made him in great demand in our literary circles and at our social events.

  “Now it’s no secret that there has recently been some attention, too much attention in my humble opinion, paid to what his real name was and whether he was born of well-to-do parents or came from humbler origins. Some people have even concerned themselves with this so much so as to make some sort of ill-targeted vendetta to sully his name and thereby his memory.”

  She raised her eyes from her notes and rested them for a three count on Connie Chan, whose blazing red suit stood out like a fire-plug in the Black Forest.

  Elsa continued. “What I would like to say on his behalf is that who Ethan was is reflected in the faces of everyone in this room. He was our friend, he made each of us feel unique, he emulated a time where people were gentler and more polite. Surely none of this is a crime. There was a civility to him that is sorely lacking in this day and age, and I say to Ethan, most surely in heaven above us, please set every one of us a place at your table, and we promise to arrive properly dressed. Goodbye and Godspeed to you.”

  Handkerchiefs were emerging from Kelly bags and breast pockets like doves at a magic show. Elsa retrieved her lace hanky from her sleeve and dabbed the moisture from her eyes. She gave a meek smile and stepped down to hushed whispers of “beautiful” and “well-said.” I applauded myself for asking her to speak. She was such a master of hyperbole that even my own faith in Ethan was renewed.

  The minister stepped up next and, since he’d never known Ethan, said the requisite words about life and death followed by a few prayers. Finally, the funeral director resumed his post and informed the assembled grievers that “this would conclude the services” and that “Mrs. Cook would like to invite the attendees to a late lunch at the Casino.”

  As I scanned the crowd, I hoped not all of them planned on joining me. The liquor bill alone would be paralyzing. Raoul and Bharrie escorted me out the door to the waiting limousine. I was just getting in when Mr. Fox, the funeral director, caught up with me.

  “Mrs. Cook, there’s the question of the bill here.” He flashed the itemized sheet in front of me. My eyes darted to the bottom line. I wasn’t sure if I was paying for a wedding or a funeral.

  “Of course, Mr. Fox. You have my address. Please send it to me,” I said, shutting the car door.

  The party afterward cost as much as the funeral. After all, I had to send Ethan out in style. I made the best of it, moving about from table to table, accepting condolences for the umpteenth time while my guests dined on tenderloin or fillet of sole. An unwelcome Connie Chan saw fit to join us, and though I begrudged her every bite, I was overly polite to her. One never knew what she might decide to write.

  Three hours later, I walked through my door and laid my black pashmina on the settee in the entrance. Despite all the money I had spent, I felt relieved it was finally over. I had gone on a wild goose chase that in the end had revealed a different Ethan than I had known. Nonetheless, I had fulfilled the obligations of a friendship, and had seen to the disposal of his remains, seen to it that good words were spoken over him, and even fed all his close and not so close friends.

  Ethan was now put to rest forever. Or so I thought.

  22

  The Unpleasant Sting of Reality

  A month passed. My cat and I were the best of friends again, she trusting that I was not going to go off and desert her again as my travel schedule had eased off to nothing. The bills poured in from my previous trips, yet another tribute to Ethan’s memory, and I did my best to pretend they didn’t exist. I hadn’t heard a word from Terrance Sullivan, and had no way of reaching him. I was tempted to call Charmian in London under the guise of chatting and hope his name would come up. More than once I picked up the phone to initiate the probe and ended up putting the phone back in the cradle. In truth, I was afraid of what I might learn if I spoke with Charmian, that she had, after all, managed to entice him into her bed.

  However, this did not stop me from pouncing upon the phone, like Fleur would on catnip, every time it rang. My obsession got so bad that I started carrying my cordless phone around the house with me, even taking it into the powder room. I couldn’t risk missing a call from the elusive Irishman who refused to speak to answering machines. It even came down to me declining social invitations so I could remain home to take my calls.

  My phone rang incessantly, but it was always the wrong people. Eleanor McFardle called to ask if I intended to sit on the Library Board. Whitney called to ask me to dinner. Sunny called to extend an olive branch and see how I was doing. Jacquie Washington called to tell me she was dropping Sean from her client list for his erratic behavior. She hoped I didn’t mind since I was the one who referred him to her. I told her that I had absolutely no connection to him any longer, and, by all means, to do as she pleased.

  Sean called, and because I was picking up my calls instead of monitoring them, I was forced to speak with him. The conversation was short and to the point. I let him know in no uncertain terms that he was no longer in the picture, that I considered what he had done tantamount to rape and that he was lucky I hadn’t called the police. He apologized profusely for his actions of that evening. Then he told me that Jacquie had dropped him and asked if I could put in a good word for him. His physical violation I could almost forgive, after all I did take an active role in it, but the cruel insult he had delivered afterward—never. I pictured the calculated look on his face when he had called me an “old broad,” and I knew that was one sticky wicket that could never be unstuck. After telling him I was unable to help him, I requested he remove me from his telephone book permanently.

  A dear old friend, and I mean old in both senses of the word since Armand Peckles was eighty-nine, called to invite me to La Traviata at the Lyric. It had been Armand’s car waiting to take me to Tosca the night Ethan called to tell me about his swollen ankles. When Armand’s first wife died shortly after Henry, we had been a fixture at social events for a while. He had even hinted that our relationship could go further. Though he was flush with money, I declined his advances at the time because I was still mourning my husband and wasn’t yet in dire financial circumstances, not to mention he was nearly forty years older than I.

  Soon afterward, he married a woman sixty years younger than himself, and I didn’t hear from him for years. But last year he divorced her in one of the more spectacular and scandalous cases to hit the papers in recent history. It seemed the new Mrs. Peckles, entrusted with overseeing the staff of their Kenilworth mansion, had hired her longtime lover as a chauffeur and to help her while away the time in anticipation of the day her much older husband preceded her in death. I imagine she figured her ten or fifteen years in purgatory would pass far more agreeably with her boyfriend nearby.

  Unfortunately for her, she was naive enough to think a man who accumulates a fortune like Armand Peckles was lacking in gray matter. But he had slipped n
ot a whit. If anything, with business on his mind less and pleasure on it more, he had grown sharper. And more demanding. There were two things expected of his young wife—to look sensational and make him feel that way.

  When her absences in the house grew more protracted, and his suspicions were the only thing aroused, he hired an army of detectives to spy on her. Over the period of a year they swarmed the house under the guise of painting crews, landscapers and even window washers. The photos of Heather and her lover playing footsie just about everywhere on the estate came out during divorce proceedings, and Heather Peckles was sent packing without a sou.

  Which meant the fabulously wealthy Armand Peckles was available again.

  I tried my best to drum up some enthusiasm about this while I waited for his car to pick me up. I had dressed with special care, wearing an off-the-shoulder rose Valentino gown and a borrowed diamond necklace from Bulgari since I had already sold off my best pieces of jewelry. Though there wasn’t a dry eye in the house by the time Violetta succumbed to death, I found myself completely unable to enjoy the opera. My only thought was I might be missing a call from Terrance. Eager to get home, I declined Armand’s offer of champagne and dessert at the Chicago Club afterward. It was then I realized I had to take some kind of action or remain permanently holed-up in my apartment. After all my complaints about cell phone users, I finally joined the club, signing up for a discounted six-month trial package. From that point on I was free, forwarding all the calls from my home phone to my new cell phone.

  There was a certain downside to this forwarding arrangement, however. One afternoon I was in Diabolique trying on a pair of gabardine slacks and boucle top when the phone began ringing. I frantically forced the slacks over my hips so I could get to my cell phone in my purse and ended up tearing the zipper in the process. My quite affable hello was greeted by an even more affable voice asking if I was Mrs. Pauline Cook. Upon identifying myself, the caller informed me that he was employed by an agency whose purpose was to collect on unpaid bills. Not waiting to hear on whose behalf he was calling, I snapped the phone shut.

  I was shaking with vitriolic anger as I dressed. The sheer audacity of…whoever. I decided to buy the top, but passed on the pants, not wanting them with a broken zipper. My face must have been crimson with rage because Lucinda, the sweet salesgirl who always takes care of me, asked if I would like a glass of water. I shook my head no and handed her my credit card. She ran it through a computerized device, and then her face turned crimson also. She apologetically told me that my card had been declined.

  “Impossible,” I said. “Try it again.” I was fairly certain I had credit left on this card.

  She performed the same exercise, and the card was refused once again. The murderous expression on my face must have frightened the poor girl, because she looked as though she wanted to crawl under the counter.

  “This is absurd,” I declared.

  “There must be something wrong with the computers, Mrs. Cook. Would you like me to just bill you directly?”

  “That would be lovely, Lucinda,” I said, taking my purchase and storming from the store.

  The moment I got home I called my attorney.

  “Ed, what I tell you is privileged, is it not?”

  “Of course, Pauline. Think of me as a priest.”

  It was hard to think of Edward Cohen as a priest, not when it came to his transplanted hair, rolled-up cuffs, exaggerated waistline, and three ex-wives. But I was secure that what I was going to tell him was in confidence. And more importantly gratis. He had been a good friend of Henry’s and usually made himself available to me without running the clock.

  “It seems I have some collection agency after me. Do they have the right to call me at home?”

  “It all depends, Pauline. Do you owe money to the creditor they are collecting for?”

  “I wouldn’t know. I hung up before the cretin got that far.”

  “Well, if you do owe money, and the agency is trying to collect on a legitimate debt, yes—they can use reasonable means to contact you. There are limits, however. They can’t call you in the middle of the night or leave threatening messages. But they can take legal action against you.”

  “Oh, that’s delightful.” I stewed over the situation. “What should I do?”

  “That’s easy, Pauline. Find out who it is and pay them.”

  Easy for him to say.

  My next call was to my broker. Thomas Slattery was both ambitious and honest as far as I knew, unlikely bedfellows, to be sure. I inherited him when Henry’s original broker had retired. I must credit him with trying his best to steer me clear of the derivatives debacle, but I hadn’t wanted to listen to him at the time. So I had stayed with him and his firm despite my losses. After all, my own hubris wasn’t his fault. Thomas had a receded hairline which he most likely got from rubbing the top of his head when he was on the phone, as I pictured him doing right now.

  “Thomas, I need to raise some cash. I’m going to have to sell some things.”

  “Mrs. Cook, I don’t know how to tell you this, but you have nothing left to sell. Remember you had me cash in the last of your muni bonds last month?”

  “That was the last of them? I thought I had a couple left.”

  “I’m afraid not.”

  “Well, how much do I have in the account, then?”

  I could hear the sound of his busy fingers tapping something into his computer. “A little over three hundred dollars. In fact, if you don’t make a deposit soon, you don’t even qualify for an account here anymore.”

  “Thomas, how much did you make in commissions while I was buying all those derivatives?”

  He was silent.

  “My account will remain open at John Meeker and Sons.”

  My final call was to my accountant. Before I could say a word, he was asking me if I had sent in my income tax check.

  “Not yet, Ivan. That’s what I would like to speak with you about, among other things. I’m in a difficult situation—it seems I don’t have any money to pay my bills. I was wondering if you might have some ingenious solution for me, a refinance on the co-op perhaps?”

  “Pauline, you’re already carrying two mortgages on the place and you’ve tapped into your equity. There’s nothing for you to borrow, even if you could qualify for a loan.”

  It was at that moment the extreme gravity of my situation became crystal clear. Up until then it had lurked somewhere toward the back of my mind, there but unseen, like an undiscovered body in a South Carolina swamp. It was time to take some action.

  “Ivan, I have bill collectors hounding me and I don’t know what to do.”

  “Do you have anything of value you can sell? Art, jewelry, cars?”

  I thought of my safety box. Its contents were down to my engagement ring and the strand of Mikimoto pearls Henry had given me after our third date. My emotional attachment was far too great to ever part with them. The other jewelry was already gone. I had the Pissarro hanging in my living room, but the world would have to be in the path of a meteor before I would part with it. Which left the car. At least if that went, I wouldn’t have to pay the astronomical insurance bill that was now stuffed into my desk drawer with the other bills.

  “There’s the Jaguar.”

  “Then I suggest you sell it.”

  “Can’t you think of anything else I could do?” I asked in desperation.

  “Pauline, the way I see it, you have three other options. Borrow money from a friend—which I don’t recommend—always ends in disaster, marry someone with money, or sell the co-op. No wait, there is a fourth option.”

  “What is that?” I was hoping for a lifeline.

  “You could get a job.”

  I hung up on Ivan without saying good-bye, not in the least amused at his sense of humor. A job, indeed. Where? At one of the boutiques I had been patronizing for so long? Chanel? Max Mara? Ultimo? Wait on people like me? Indeed! I phoned The Chicago Tribune and asked for the classified
ads department.

  The man I spoke with was very nice and offered to help me price the car by looking it up in something called a blue book. I was astounded when he came back and told me that the price advised for sale was $12,000. The car had cost Henry far more than that when he bought it. I should have thought it would be a collector’s item worth more. Certainly more than $12,000. That wasn’t enough to cover the upcoming month’s bills, much less make a dent in what I already owed.

  I placed the ad and set the price at $25,000.

  That resolved I was pushing the day’s mail into my drawer when I noticed a shiny envelope that said ‘Pay no interest for 6 months’ on the outside. I opened it and found a pre-approved credit card inside. All I had to do was call the 800 number to activate it. Five minutes later, there was a temporary Band-Aid on my gaping wound.

  23

  The Circle

  Elsa invited me to lunch “just to chat.” She was fishing for gossip of course—Ethan’s demise left a large gap in her column. While she demolished a serving of calves’ liver with buttered noodles, I mentioned that Whitney had helped me clean out Ethan’s apartment. Elsa’s eyes actually left her plate for a moment to look into mine.

  “Since when are you and Whitney Armstrong so close? She’s so terribly common.”

  “She’s refreshing,” I said, picking at my sea bass.

  “Lake Michigan is refreshing, but that doesn’t mean I’d recommend anyone swim in it,” she said from under the turned-up brim of a yellow fedora sporting a peacock feather. Using her dinner roll to sop up the remaining sauce on her plate, bringing the china to a near polish, she added, “You can dress a pig in expensive clothes and jewels, but it’s still a pig.”

  “That’s very uncharitable of you, Elsa. Besides, these days it’s not where you’re bred, it’s where you’re fed more so than ever.”