One Fifth Avenue - Candace Bushnell [141]
Lola gave her a dirty look, deciding the woman was jealous because her own daughter had only married a local boy who ran a landscaping business. “He’s forty-five,” Lola said. “And he knows movie stars.”
“Everyone knows actresses are secretly whores,” the woman remarked. “That’s always what my mother said, anyway.”
“Lola is very sophisticated,” Beetelle jumped in. “She was always more advanced than the other girls.” Then they all started talking about their little investments in the stock market and the falling prices of their homes. This was both depressing and boring. Glaring at the woman who’d made the remark about Philip, Lola realized that they were all just petty and narrow-minded. How had she ever lived here?
Later, lying in her bed in her barren room, Lola realized she would never have to sleep in this bed, in this room, in this house, ever again. And looking around the nearly empty space, she decided she wouldn’t miss it one bit.
15
Connie Brewer promised Billy never to wear the Cross of Bloodym Mary. She kept her promise, but as Billy hadn’t said anything about framing it and putting it on the wall, two weeks after Sandy purchased it for her, she took the cross to a renowned framer on Madison Avenue. He was an elderly man of at least eighty, still elegant with slicked-back gray hair and a yellow cravat at his neck. He examined the cross in its soft suede wrapping and looked at her curiously. “Where did you get this?” he asked.
“It was a gift,” Connie said. “From my husband.”
“Where did he get it?”
“I have no idea,” she said firmly. She wondered if she’d made a mistake by taking the cross out of the apartment, but then the framer said nothing more, and Connie forgot about it. The framer, however, didn’t. He told a dealer, and the dealer told a client, and soon a rumor began to circulate in the art world that the Brewers now possessed the Cross of Bloody Mary.
Being a generous girl, Connie naturally wanted to share her treasure with her friends. On an afternoon in late February after a lunch at La Goulue, she invited Annalisa back to her apartment. The Brewers lived on Park Avenue in an apartment in which two classic-six units were combined into one sprawling apartment with five bedrooms, two nannies’ rooms, and an enormous living room where the Brewers hosted a Christmas party every year, with Sandy dressed up as Santa and Connie as one of his elves, in a red velvet jumpsuit with white mink cuffs.
“I have to show you something, but you can’t tell anyone,” Connie said, leading Annalisa through the apartment to her sitting room, located off the master bedroom. In consideration of Billy Litchfield’s insistence that the cross remain a secret, she had hung the framed artifact in this room, accessible only through the master bedroom, making it the most private room in the apartment. No one was allowed in except the maids. The room was Connie’s fantasy, done up in pink and light blue silks, with gilt mirrors and a Venetian chaise, a window seat filled with pillows, and wallpaper with hand-painted butterflies. Annalisa had been in this room twice, and she could never decide if it was beautiful or hideous.
“Sandy bought it for me,” Connie whispered, indicating the cross. Annalisa took a step closer, politely examining the piece, which was displayed against dark blue velvet. She didn’t have Connie’s interest in or appreciation for jewelry, but she said kindly, “It’s gorgeous. What is it?”
“It belonged to Queen Mary. A gift from the pope for keeping England Catholic. It’s invaluable.”
“If it’s real, it probably belongs in a museum.”
“Well, it does,” Connie admitted. “But so many antiquities are owned by private individuals these days. And I don’t think it