One Fifth Avenue - Candace Bushnell [75]
“Someone’s coming up,” Annalisa said. “I think it’s Billy Litchfield. Do you mind answering the door?”
She went back to the bedroom and into the large walk-in closet. The beginnings of the closet were not the closet itself but its contents. According to Billy, she was to have an array of shoes, bags, belts, jeans, white shirts, suits for luncheons, cocktail dresses, evening gowns, resort clothes for both mountain and island, and any sport in which one might be called upon to participate: golf, tennis, horseback riding, parasailing, rappelling, white-water rafting, and even hockey. To help her get her wardrobe together, Billy had hired a famous stylist named Norine Norton, who would pick out clothing and bring it to her apartment. Norine was famously busy and wasn’t able to schedule their first appointment for two weeks, but Billy was thrilled. “Norine is like the best plastic surgeons. It can take six months to get an appointment with her—and that’s only for a consultation.”
In the meantime, one of Norine’s six assistants had begun the task of dressing Annalisa, and on a low shelf were arranged several shoe boxes with a photograph of the shoe pasted on the front of the box. Annalisa selected a pair of black pumps with a four-inch heel. She hated wearing high heels during the day, but Billy had said it was necessary. “People expect to see Annalisa Rice, so you must give them Annalisa Rice.”
“But who is Annalisa Rice?” she’d asked jokingly.
“That, my dear, is what we’re going to find out. Isn’t this fun?”
Right now the visitor was not Billy Litchfield but the man coming to see about Paul’s aquarium. Annalisa led him upstairs to the ballroom and glanced regretfully at the ceiling, painted in the whimsical Italian view of heaven, with puffy clouds in a halo of pink on which sat fat cherubs. Sometimes, when she had a moment, Annalisa would come up here for a brief rest, lying on the floor in a patch of sunlight, utterly contented, but Paul had declared the ballroom his private space and planned to turn it into “command central,” from where, Annalisa teased him, he could take over the world. The French windows were to be reglazed with a new electrical compound to render them completely opaque with the touch of a button—thus thwarting any attempts to photograph the room or the actions of its occupant by the employment of a long-lens camera from a helicopter—while a three-dimensional screen would be installed above the fireplace. On the roof, a special antenna would scramble cell and satellite transmissions. There would be a state-of-the-art aquarium, twenty feet long and seven feet wide, which would allow Paul to pursue his new hobby of collecting rare and expensive fish. It was a shame to destroy the room, but Paul wouldn’t consider any arguments to the contrary. “You can do what you like with the rest of the apartment,” he’d said. “But this room’s mine.”
The aquarium man began taking measurements, asking Annalisa about voltage and the possible construction of a subfloor to support the weight of the aquarium. Annalisa did her best to answer his questions but then gave up and fled downstairs.
Billy Litchfield had arrived, and five minutes later, they were sitting in the back of a crisp new Town Car heading downtown.
“I have a welcome surprise for you, my dear,” he said. “After all that furniture, I thought you might like a break. Today we’re looking at art. Last night I had a brilliant idea.” He took a breath. “I’m thinking, for you, feminist art.”
“I see.”
“Are you a feminist?”
“Of course,” Annalisa said.
“Either way, it doesn’t matter. For instance, I doubt you’re a cubist, either. But think how much cubist art is worth now. It’s unaffordable.”
“Not for Paul,” Annalisa said.
“Even for Paul,” Billy said. “It’s only for the multibillionaire, and you and Paul are still working your way into the multimillionaire category. Cubist art isn’t chic, anyway. Not for a young couple. But feminist art—that’s the future. It’s just about to break, and most of the really great work is still available. Today we’re going to look