One Fifth Avenue Read Free Page B

of pursuing the American dream, of aspirations and university educations and hard, hard work, all you got for your efforts these days were servants’ quarters in Manhattan. And being told you were lucky to have them. While upstairs, one of the grandest apartments in Manhattan was empty, waiting to be O N E F I F T H AV E N U E
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    filled by some wealthy banker type, probably a young man who cared only about money and nothing about the good of the country or its people, who would live like a little king. In an apartment that morally should have been hers and James’s.
    In a tiny room at the edge of the apartment, her husband, James, with his sweet balding head and messy blond comb-over, was pecking away mercilessly at his computer, working on his book, distracted and believing, as always, that he was on the edge of failure. Of all his feelings, this edge-of-failure feeling was the most prominent. It dwarfed all other feelings, crowding them out and pushing them to the edge of his consciousness, where they squatted like old packages in the corner of a room. Perhaps there were good things in those packages, useful things, but James hadn’t the time to unwrap them.
    James heard the soft thud of the door in the other part of the apartment as Mindy came in. Or perhaps he only sensed her presence. He’d been around Mindy for so long, he could feel the vibrations she set off in the air. They weren’t particularly soothing vibrations, but they were familiar.
    Mindy appeared before him, paused, then sat down in his old leather club chair, purchased at the fire sale in the Plaza when the venerable hotel was sold for condos for even more rich people. “James,” she said.
    “Yes,” James said, barely looking up from his computer.
    “Mrs. Houghton’s dead.”
    James stared at her blankly.
    “Did you know that?” Mindy asked.
    “It was all over the Internet this morning.”
    “Why didn’t you tell me?”
    “I thought you knew.”
    “I’m the head of the board, and you didn’t tell me,” Mindy said. “I just ran into Billy Litchfield. He told me. It was embarrassing.”
    “Don’t you have better things to worry about?” James asked.
    “Yes, I do. And now I’ve got to worry about that apartment. And who’s going to move into it. And what kind of people they’re going to be. Why don’t we live in that apartment?”
    “Because it’s worth about twenty million dollars, and we don’t happen to have twenty million dollars lying around?” James said.

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    Candace Bushnell
    “And whose fault is that?” Mindy said.
    “Mindy, please,” James said. He scratched his head. “We’ve discussed this a million times. There is nothing wrong with our apartment.”
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    On the thirteenth floor, the floor below the three grand floors that had been Mrs. Houghton’s apartment, Enid Merle stood on her terrace, thinking about Louise. The top of the building was tiered like a wedding cake, so the upper terraces were visible to those below. How shocking that only three days ago, she’d been standing in this very spot, convers-ing with Louise, her face shaded in that ubiquitous straw hat. Louise had never allowed the sun to touch her skin, and she’d rarely moved her face, believing that facial expressions caused wrinkles. She’d had at least two face-lifts, but nevertheless, even on the day of the storm, Enid remembered noting that Louise’s skin had been astoundingly smooth. Enid was a different story. Even as a little girl, she’d hated all that female fussi-ness and overbearing attention to one’s appearance. Nevertheless, due to the fact that she was a public persona, Enid had eventually succumbed to a face-lift by the famous Dr. Baker, whose society patients were known as “Baker’s Girls.” At eighty-two, Enid had the face of a sixty-five-year-old, although the rest of her was not only creased but as pleasantly speck-led as a chicken.
    For those who knew the history of the building and its occupants, Enid Merle