One Fifth Avenue

  “Did Philip ask you to tell me this, or are you doing it on your own?”

  “I haven’t talked to Philip since this morning. I have, however, talked to quite a few other people who have informed me that you’re going to be in the papers tomorrow. Don’t look so surprised, dear,” Enid said. “I work for a newspaper. I have many, many contacts. That’s one of the advantages of being old. One collects lots of friends. Are you sure you don’t want to sit down?”

  Lola tried to beg for mercy. “Oh, Enid,” she cried out, and kneeling down, she buried her head in the couch in shame. “It wasn’t my fault. This girl came up to me, and I didn’t know what to say. She somehow got it out of me.”

  “There, there,” Enid said, patting Lola’s head. “It happens to everyone once. You were just like a snake about to be attacked by a mongoose.”

  “That’s right,” Lola said, although she had no idea what a mongoose was.

  “I can fix everything. I only need to know if you’re pregnant, dear.”

  Lola sat up and felt around for her drink. “I could be,” she said, becoming defiant.

  Enid crossed one aged leg over the other. “If you are carrying Philip’s child, I suggest you pour that glass of vodka down the sink. Immediately.”

  “I told you,” Lola said. “I don’t know if I’m pregnant or not.”

  “Why don’t we find out?” Enid said. She reached into a paper bag and took out a pregnancy test.

  “You can’t make me do that,” Lola shrieked, jumping back in horror.

  Enid held out the kit. When Lola shook her head, Enid placed it on the coffee table between them.

  “Where’s Philip?” Lola said. “If Philip knew what you were doing—”

  “Philip is a man, my dear. And, unfortunately, slightly weak. Especially in the face of female hysteria. Men just can’t bear it, you know? They tune it out.” Enid crossed her arms and, looking Lola up and down, said soothingly, “I only have your best interests at heart. If you are pregnant, you’ll need looking after. Of course, you will have the baby. It would be so lovely if Philip had a child. And we’ll make sure you’re taken care of for life. I have an extra bedroom, and you can live with me.” She paused. “On the other hand, if you do take the test and you’re not pregnant, I’ll make sure the story goes away quickly. With very little harm to you.” Enid gave Lola another terrifying smile. “But as you said, I can’t make you take the test. If you don’t take it, however, I’m going to assume you’re not pregnant. And if you’re not pregnant and you continue to lie about it, I’ll make your life a living hell.”

  “Don’t threaten me, Enid,” Lola said warningly. “No one threatens me and gets away with it.”

  Enid laughed. “Don’t be silly, my dear. Threats are only meaningful if you have the power to execute them. And you, my dear, do not.” She stood up. “I’ve tolerated your antics for quite a while. But today you’ve made me very, very angry.” She nodded at the coffee table. “Take the test.”

  Lola grabbed the box. Enid was old, but she was still the meanest mean girl Lola had ever encountered, and Lola was afraid of her. So afraid, in fact, that she actually peed on the plastic indicator and handed it over to Enid, who examined it with grim satisfaction. “Now, that’s lucky, my dear,” she said. “It seems you’re not pregnant after all. If you were, it might have been complicated. We wouldn’t have known who the father was. Not until the baby was born. It could have been Philip’s—or Thayer Core’s. And that’s no way to bring a child into the world, now, is it?”

  Lola had come up with a hundred responses—after the fact. In the actual moment, facing Enid, she wasn’t able to think of what to say.

  “Consider this an opportunity, dear,” Enid said. “You’re only twenty-two. You have a chance to start over. I had a long conversation with your mother this afternoon, and she’s on her way to pick you up and take you back to Atlanta. She’s a lovely woman, your mother. She should be here in an hour. I’ve booked a room for you at the Four Seasons hotel so you can enjoy your last night in New York in style.”

  “Oh no,” Lola said, finding her voice. She looked around in a panic, spotted her handbag next to the door, and grabbed it. “I’m not leaving New York.”

  “Be sensible, dear,” Enid said.

  “You can’t make me,” Lola shouted. She opened the door, knowing only that she had to get away. She frantically pressed the button for the elevator as Enid followed her into the hallway.

  “Where are you going? There’s no place to go, Lola.”

  Lola turned her back and pressed the button again. Where was the elevator? “You haven’t any money,” Enid said. “You don’t have an apartment. Or a job. You have no choice.”

  Lola turned. “I don’t care.” The elevator came at last, and she stepped in.

  “You’ll be sorry,” Enid said. As the doors were closing, Enid made one last attempt to dissuade her. “You’ll see,” she called out, adding fiercely, “You don’t belong in New York.”

  Now, in the church, Lola remembered with glee how Enid’s plan had backfired. Her admonishment that Lola didn’t belong in New York had only made her more determined. In the past two weeks, she’d put up with quite a bit of hardship, returning home with her mother—who had begged Lola to stay in Windsor Pines and even tried to fix her up with the son of one of her friends who was getting a business degree—but Lola wouldn’t hear of it. She sold several pairs of shoes and two handbags on eBay, scraping together enough money to return to New York. She forced Thayer to take her in, and for the time being, she was living with Thayer and Josh in their little hellhole, sharing Thayer’s tiny bed. On the third day there, she’d broken down and actually cleaned the bathroom and the kitchen sink. And then that disgusting Josh, thinking she was free bait, had tried to kiss her, and she’d had to fight him off. She couldn’t bunk with Thayer much longer. She had to find her own place—but how?

  She tried to peer around the many heads in front of her, looking for Philip and Enid. She spotted the back of Enid’s coiffed head first. What would Enid do when she found out she was back in New York? Sitting next to Enid was Philip. Seeing the back of his head, with that too familiar longish dark hair, brought back all the fresh hurts and indignities she’d suffered at his hands as well.

  After rushing out of his apartment on what would turn out to be her final evening in One Fifth, she’d wandered around the West Village, weighing her options. But after two hours, her feet began to throb, and she’d realized Enid was right—she had no money and no place to go. She’d returned to One Fifth to find her mother and Philip and Enid waiting. They were calm, treating her with kid gloves as if she were a mental patient who’d had a breakdown, and Lola realized she had no choice but to comply with their plan. Then she’d had to endure the disgrace of allowing her mother to help her pack up her things. Philip was disturbingly distant throughout the process, as if he had become a completely different person. He’d behaved as if he hardly knew her and they hadn’t had sex a hundred times—and this, to Lola, was the most unfathomable of all. How could a man who had put his head between your legs and his penis inside your vagina and mouth, and kissed you and held you and tickled your stomach, suddenly act as if none of it had happened? Riding uptown in the taxi with her mother, she had burst into tears and cried and cried and cried. “Philip Oakland is a fool,” Beetelle declared fiercely. “And his aunt is even worse. I’ve never met such an awful woman.” She put her arms around Lola’s head and stroked her hair. “It’s a good thing you got away from those terrible people,” she said, but this only made Lola cry harder.

  Beetelle’s heart broke for her daughter, reminding her of her own heartbreaking incident in New York with the doctor. She would have been about Lola’s age then. Pulling her daughter closer, Beetelle felt helpless in the face of Lola’s distress. It was the first time, she realized, that Lola was discovering the terrible truth about life: It wasn’t what it seemed, and fairy tales did not necessarily come true. Nor could
men be relied upon to love you.

  The next morning, Philip came to the hotel to see Lola. For a moment, she’d held out hope that he would tell her it was all a mistake, and he loved her after all. But when she opened the door, his expression revealed that he hadn’t changed his mind; indeed, as if to make a point, under his arm were the Post and the Daily News. They went downstairs to the restaurant, and Philip put the papers on the table. “Do you want to see them?” he asked. She did, of course, but didn’t want to give him more ammunition. “No,” she replied haughtily, as if she were above such things.

  “Listen, Lola,” he began.

  “Why are you here?” she asked.

  “I owe you an apology.”

  “I don’t want to hear it.”

  “I made a mistake with you. And I’m sorry. You’re young, and I should have known better. I never should have allowed our relationship to continue. I should have ended it before Christmas.”

  Lola’s stomach dropped. The waiter brought her food—eggs Benedict—and Lola looked at her plate, wondering if she’d ever be able to eat again. Had her whole relationship with Philip been a lie? Then she understood. “You used me,” she accused him.

  “Oh, Lola.” Philip sighed. “We used each other.”

  “I loved you,” Lola said fiercely.

  “No, you didn’t,” Philip said. “You loved the idea of me. There’s a big difference.”

  Lola threw her napkin onto her plate of eggs. “Let me tell you one thing, Philip Oakland. I hate you. And I will always hate you. For the rest of my life. Don’t you come near me, ever again.”

  Holding her head high, she got up and walked out of the restaurant, leaving Philip sitting there, embarrassed.

  A little later, leaving the hotel with her mother, Lola wondered how she would ever recover. When they got to the airport, however, she bought the papers; and seeing her photograph on the third page of the Post, and reading the brief story about how Philip had dumped her for Schiffer Diamond, she began to feel better. She wasn’t some little nobody. She was Lola Fabrikant, and someday she would show Philip and Enid what a mistake they’d made in underestimating her.

  Now, scanning the pew containing Philip and Enid, she saw Schiffer Diamond sitting next to Philip, followed by auburn-haired Annalisa Rice. A few pews behind them was that awful Mindy Gooch, with her rigid blond bob, and next to her was James Gooch, with that familiar sweet bald spot on the top of his head. Ah, James Gooch, Lola thought. She’d forgotten about James, who was apparently back from his book tour. Now he sat before her, like Providence. She took out her iPhone. “I’m behind you in the church,” she texted.

  It took a minute for her text to reach him. Hearing the bleat, he turned his head slightly and felt in his pocket for his phone. Mindy glared at him. James gave a guilty shrug, took out his phone, and surreptitiously checked the message. The skin on the back of his neck reddened, and he turned the phone off.

  “I miss you,” Lola had texted. “Meet me in the Mews at three o’clock.”

  An hour later, James Gooch stood in a corner of the overcrowded living room in the Rices’ apartment and, looking around to make sure Mindy wasn’t somewhere in the room watching him, reread Lola’s text, his stomach thumping with excitement and curiosity. Leaving the church, he’d looked for her, but she was already outside, posing for the photographers. He considered speaking to her, but Mindy quickly pulled him away. Now, checking his watch, he saw that it was nearly three. Weaving through the crowd, he scanned the room for Mindy. A waiter passed by with a tray of caviar piled on top of tiny blintzes, and James popped two into his mouth. Another waiter freshened his glass of champagne with a bottle of Dom Perignon. Annalisa Rice had gone all out in Billy’s honor, inviting at least two hundred people back to her apartment to further mourn his loss. Billy’s sudden death had shocked James, and coming back on the plane from Houston, he had even read Mindy’s blog about it; for once, he had to agree that she was right. The death of a friend did make you realize that life was finite, and there was only so much time left in which to be young—or youngish, anyway.

  But Billy’s death was only one in a bizarre series of events that had plagued One Fifth while he’d been away. There was the Internet Debacle, and the discovery of the Cross of Bloody Mary, which people postulated had been hidden in Mrs. Houghton’s apartment. Then Billy’s overdose. And Lola’s assertion that she was pregnant by Philip Oakland, who had dumped her for Schiffer Diamond. This was to be followed—according to Mindy—by an impending announcement that Philip Oakland and Schiffer Diamond were to be married after an appropriate period of mourning. It was all slightly outrageous, James thought—and what about poor Lola Fabrikant? Did anyone care what had happened to her? He wondered but he didn’t dare ask.

  Now he would find out. Discovering Mindy in the dining room talking to Enid—they were friends again, it seemed, and appeared to be in a deep discussion about their favorite topic, One Fifth—he nodded at her, trying to catch her attention. “Yes?” she said curtly.

  “I’m going to walk Skippy,” he said over the noise of the chattering crowd.

  “Why?” she said.

  “Because he needs to go out.”

  “Whatever.” She rolled her eyes and went back to her conversation. James tried to slip out the door but was waylaid by Redmon Richardly, who was talking to Diane Sawyer. Redmon grasped him by the shoulder. “Do you know James Gooch?” he said. “His book’s been number one on The New York Times best-seller list for five weeks now.” James nodded and moved away but was stopped by the editor in chief of Vanity Fair, who wanted to talk to him about writing a piece about Billy’s death. 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.