chapter      11

Melanie was floating in a despondent fog. She had seven women coming over in five hours and the place looked like a bomb had gone off, total Iraq. Arthur’s socks were strewn everywhere, objets d’art were askew on the coffee table, and every pillow needed an aggressive fluffing, pronto. As Juanita dusted and vacuumed in a frenzied Tazmanian Devil whirlwind, Melanie stood in her slip, no outfit chosen, wanting to tear her hair out. Plus, to add insult to injury, the caterers from RSVP had yet to arrive to start their chopping and dolloping or whatever the hell they did to prepare. It was her first decorating committee meeting for the Save Venice Masquerade Gala, and as the hostess she felt poised on the brink of utter disaster.

As Melanie loitered, Mr. Guffey passed by with a slow-growing Hitchcockian shadow projected against her toile-covered dressing room wall. In some ways, he was like a fairy godfather watching out for her. In other ways, she was spooked by his omniscience and all-knowing gloat.

“Oh, Mr. Guffey!” she squealed in her best damsel-in-distress cry.

“Yes, madam.”

“I’m just a mess. I don’t know what to do—nothing feels ready for this group today, and I don’t know what to wear and I don’t have the right food to serve. God knows where the caterers are. They always seem to show up late!”

“Calm down, madam,” he said soothingly. “We will get it sorted.”

“Phew,” she sighed. “I just get this pre-party panic. Thank you for helping me . . . get it sorted.”

“Pleasure. Although . . .” His words trailed off.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“What is it? Tell me!”

“Well . . .” He looked away.

Melanie held her breath and looked at him wide-eyed, like a Best Actress nominee waiting for the envelope to open.

Mr. Guffey finally continued, “It’s just, there’s only so much one can do.”

“In terms of what?”

“No, nothing, just that . . . well, you see, we can clean it up and we can get the best caterers, but it’s not quite the same as having the proper decor from the start, or a top in-house chef. Then everything would fall into place naturally and you’d never have to worry.”

Melanie was about to protest, but then she paused and really pondered what he had said.

“Actually,” she began, “I have been thinking of doing a spruce-up around here. I mean, I know I gutted and rebuilt only eighteen months ago, but I think a face-lift couldn’t hurt. Right? The trends change so often.”

“May I venture to offer that timeless is always better than the trend du jour?”

“Definitely, forget trends! I want something timeless. Classic . . .” Melanie drifted off into a blurry, tartan-kissed heaven, picturing her new Ralph Lauren abode swathed in equestrian chic. The she snapped out of her club chair– and cashmere throw–dotted reverie and focused back on the task at hand. “Do you have any suggestions? You know, for, uh, decorators?”

“I can set up appointments with several highly recommended people.”

“Great, great. Do you think they can work fast? ’Cause Arty and I really want to entertain.”

“We’ll just have to see what they can do.”

“Good,” said Melanie, glancing around the room. “Yeah, I guess this style is a little trendy.”

“Yes, madam,” said Mr. Guffey, scanning Melanie’s wardrobe for an outfit. “I knew you would regret ripping out all the moldings and lowering the ceiling.”

“Lowering the ceiling? Well, we wanted central air,” said Melanie defensively. “What do other people do when the building cranks up the radiator so high because some little old lady on the sixth floor is freezing? The whole building has to suffer? It felt like we were in Africa.”

“Yes, I suppose that’s true.”

“But I mean, seriously. Do you think the other tenants just sweat it out?”

“Perhaps a little perspiration doesn’t bother them if they have their beautiful moldings,” said Mr. Guffey, pulling out crisply pressed light tweed Stella McCartney trousers and a printed chiffon blouse.

Melanie thought about it. That seemed weird. Suffer for the sake of . . . beauty? She supposed if you put it that way, it made sense.

“What do you think about the furniture?” she asked timidly.

“You have some beautiful pieces,” said Mr. Guffey, flicking a piece of lint off his pants.

“Yes, yes, we do. We paid a fortune at Sotheby’s, Doyle, and Frothingham’s,” said Melanie with pride.

“Yes,” said Mr. Guffey. “Although nothing really seems to hold together.”

“What do you mean?”

“Oh, it’s really not my place, madam.”

“No, please! Mr. Guffey, don’t hold out on me,” said Melanie, using a teasing tone to downplay her urgency.

“Well, you have just a hodgepodge of things, and nothing really goes together. For example, in your library, you have French provincial mixed with art nouveau and some horrid twentieth-century pieces with contemporary lighting and pop art. It’s like a bloody time capsule, if you’ll forgive me,” said Mr. Guffey. He should have restrained himself, but the thought of it worked him up into a lather. He had been biting his tongue for too long, and he was bursting. “And the dining room has old masters mixed with folk art and rococo, the bedroom has Bavarian mixed with wicker—wicker in Manhattan! And with that garish oil painting that you bought in Venice . . .”

“That was a honeymoon gift,” said Melanie softly. “Arthur paid fifty Gs for it.”

“Well, he was robbed!” said Mr. Guffey.

Melanie was silent.

“I’m sorry, madam.”

“No, no. Go on.”

“The point is, madam, while you do have a knack for selecting some exquisite pieces, I believe that you need a little guidance in pulling them together.”

“You’re right.”

“But don’t worry, madam. Like I said, we’ll get it sorted.”

Her mind turned to the other missing piece of the equation. “And you think we should get another chef besides Wayne?”

“Well, madam . . . Wayne is not a chef.”

What? Was he insane? He was a fantastic chef! She was sure of that. Maybe this idiot didn’t know good eats when he had them, the damn Brit. I mean, since when do they know good food, anyway? When was the last time you heard someone say, “Hey, let’s go out for English”? Wayne was a star in the kitchen.

“Yes he is too a chef,” Melanie protested in a fevered pitch. “Whenever we need him he comes and cooks for us. I mean, he’s on a fat retainer. He’s our chef!”

“No, he is not.”

“Yes, he is!”

“Wayne is a cook. Not a chef.”

“What do you mean? We got him from the top, most reputable agency. He’s the brother of the Mellons’ chef.”

Mr. Guffey sighed the sigh of one trying to explain civil rights to a swastika-tattooed skinhead.

“The Mellons do not have a chef. They have a cook. There is a difference. The cook walks their dog, Halston. A chef would never walk the dog. They tend exclusively to haute cuisine, not pooper scoopers.”

“Oh . . . I see. A chef just cooks. A cook . . . does some other stuff?”

“Essentially.”

“So Wayne isn’t, like, what one would consider a top chef?”

“I would say not.”

“But Arthur loves the food so much. It’s so tasty—we always fully stuff ourselves.”

“It’s not about their ability to fill your fuel tanks. It’s about their studies. With whom and where did they apprentice? In what Chateaux did they do a stage? How many Michelin stars was the kitchen awarded?”

“Michelin, like the tires?”

“Yes. But not.”

“So I should get a four-star guy from France or something?”

“Three stars.”

“Mr. Guffey, has it escaped your attention that we’ve got a ton of dough? We can afford the best, so we should get a four-star guy. I mean, what the hell? Do you think I can’t tell the difference or something—I don’t have the palate? Because, trust me, I know good food.”

Poor Melanie, thought Mr. Guffey as he bent down to pick up some discarded outfits off the floor and put them on hangers. He knew her defensive mode. She switched it on like a chameleon abruptly changing hues to avoid becoming chomped prey on a greater beast’s molars. Sometimes he felt like he was watching an episode of National Geographic Explorer when he watched her quake, then rage—as if a stern, solemn voiceover would accompany her actions. Here we have a native in her local habitat. Watch as she flits about trying to avoid humiliation and scorn. Her eye twitches as tension mounts, and she preens in the mirror to reinforce her fading sense of territorial safety . . .

“Madam. Michelin has only three stars. That’s the highest.”

“Oh. Right.”

“I shall go check on the caterers’ arrival then, and see to Juanita’s straightening up.”

“Thanks . . .”

Melanie sat listlessly at her vanity and took a sterling silver hairbrush to her head, combing out the snarls more and more violently while really trying to comb out the snarls of her life. There was so much out of her control, spinning away at Mach speeds: people she couldn’t win over, pedigrees she couldn’t buy, vocabularies she couldn’t match. She wished life offered a version of John Frieda Frizz Ease that she could apply to all the coarse elements of the world and smooth out all her journey’s kinks. Or if only the universe was like The Matrix and she could download all useful information in nanoseconds and be instantly shielded from derision. Then she’d be safe. But the only armor her new milieu offered was by association. Sitting on the right boards, having the right friends and the right taste, belonging to the right clubs, being invited to the right parties. Each entrée was a score for her suit of armor—a gauntlet here, a breastplate there—and she fortified herself with every new rung she attained. But just when she felt she was encased and bulletproof, something or someone would come along and undermine her and her carefully amassed coats of protection would vanish into the urban air.

Melanie felt like she was playing catch-up. If only she had consulted Mr. Guffey sooner! He seemed to know everything—how to dress, behave, entertain. She had been too scared of him at first to even dare ask his advice. Because, really, who would have thought that she, Melanie Sartomsky, would have a real British butler in her house! (When she wrote her cousin Dotty Hix—the only person in her past with whom she kept in touch—that she had an actual manservant from England with an accent like that guy from My Best Friend’s Wedding waiting on her, well . . . Dotty freaked.) But now was her opportunity to exploit Mr. Guffey. He had to lead her in the right direction so she could turn a new page and get the respect she deserved.

An hour later the doorbell rang. Mr. Guffey answered it and led the first arrivals, Joan Coddington and Wendy Marshall, into the Korns’ living room. Earlier Mr. Guffey had hastily removed most of the offensive furniture with the help of the doormen, shoving it all into the library and locking the door. In order to compensate for seating, he had pleaded with the Aldriches’ butler to allow the Korns to surreptitiously borrow some of the Aldriches’ beautiful gold-leaf ballroom chairs from their bin in the basement. It took some coaxing and bribing, but the old stiff had finally relented and the chairs were now understudying for the rest of the Korns’ furniture.

In order to avoid any scandals, Mr. Guffey strongly advised that Melanie refuse all requests for a house tour by pronouncing the apartment “under construction” and promising a future unveiling at a later date.

Melanie rose from her seat in the barely furnished room to greet her guests.

“Melanie! How exciting to be here,” said Joan enthusiastically. She was genuinely thrilled and couldn’t wait for a tour. She and Wendy had been salivating for weeks at the thought of getting a glimpse of Casa Korn. They had been joking the entire elevator ride up about what the place would look like. Wendy had even kidded that they should both be wearing Depends in case they peed in their pants.

“Yes, Melanie—we’d love a tour,” said Wendy eagerly. Her eyes darted across the room, taking inventory of every single nook and cranny. Unfortunately, there was only a pair of sofas in toile—yawn—and several ballroom chairs and a low coffee table. Nothing disastrously offensive for them to catalog. Damn.

“Oh, I’m sorry, ladies, but the house is under construction. I’m actually between decorators, so we’re starting from scratch.”

“Oh,” said Wendy, disappointed. She glanced over at Joan. “But couldn’t we just see the progress? We’d love to give you our thoughts.”

“Yes, Wendy actually took a decorating class, so she knows a thing or two.”

“After my divorce I thought I might dabble. But, really, who wants to wait on indecisive housewives? No, thanks.”

“So, come on,” said Joan, gently touching Melanie’s arm to lead her into the hall.

Melanie was about to concede, but suddenly Mr. Guffey appeared with a tray of Pellegrinos.

“I apologize, madam, but the contractor has insisted that no one move about the apartment. It’s simply too precarious with all of the scaffolding and beams about,” said Mr. Guffey, handing each lady her drink. “He assures me, though, that in a few months’ time all will be ready for display.”

“Well, that’s that, then. Sorry, ladies,” Melanie sighed with relief.

“Just a peek?” asked Wendy one more time. She’d be furious if they left without a visual.

“Yes, Melanie. You must give us a tour, or we’ll think you have something to hide,” added Joan harshly. There was no fucking way she was leaving without a glimpse.

“You heard the man,” said Melanie, shrugging her shoulders.

After all the ladies had arrived (Pamela Baldwin, Meredith Beringer, Fernanda Wingate, LeeLee Powell, and, of course, Mimi) and formal tea sandwiches had been set out, the meeting commenced. It actually all went quite smoothly, thanks in great part to Mr. Guffey, who somehow managed to appear from nowhere whenever Melanie was at a loss for the appropriate thing to say.

At quarter past four, after every detail had been dissected, the final guests—Joan and Wendy—were ushered out. Melanie, ecstatic that she had been able to pull off the meeting, retired to her room with a big bowl of Orville Redenbacher and the latest Danielle Steel. Joan and Wendy, meanwhile, were in a huff.

“What the hell was that all about?” fumed Wendy.

Joan looked out the window of their cab. “I don’t know. I’m stunned.”

“Didn’t you think we’d get the tour?” asked Wendy.

“It’s some sort of freaky game she’s playing.”

“You think she did it on purpose?” asked Wendy, wide-eyed.

Joan turned to her friend and gave her an I cannot believe you are so retarded look. “Wendy, it’s a snub.”

“No!”

“Of course it is. That little Floridian bitch has something against us. It’s maddening. We’ve never been anything but nice to her . . .”

“We’re literally Mother Teresa to talk to her at parties.”

“I know. She’s just got a vendetta or something. I knew she was evil.”

“Evil,” murmured Wendy.

They both shook their heads.

“Well, what can you do?” asked Joan, with faux resignation.

“You’re right. Plus, who cares?” feigned Wendy.

But the ire and venom that bubbled under their nipped-and-tucked skin was sizzling to the surface. That’s it, they both thought in unison. Revenge.