New York for Beginners (29 page)

That had obviously been a rhetorical question. The specter of the white funeral flowers still hung between them, and Madam Fiorino obviously wasn’t going to let it find peace in the afterlife. She also must have sensed how much care Zoe had put into her choice of clothing. Zoe felt as though Kitty had seen right through her within minutes. Before she had time to recover, two more “ladies who lunch” approached their table: a woman of Kitty’s age, who could have been Kitty’s clone, right down to her cashmere twin set; and a younger version, of maybe twenty-five, Zoe guessed. Both of them had faces that belonged in a wax museum, which could only have been attained through syringes full of poison. What lab had those two been bred in?

Kitty greeted each newcomer generously with a kiss on the cheek. People seemed to know each other here.

“May I introduce you? Binky Astor and her daughter Weezie from Newport, Rhode Island. And this is Zoe Schuhmacher. A family friend from Germany.”

The two Astor ladies with their strange names eyed Zoe suspiciously, as though she was from Mars and possibly about to explode—how very unappetizing. Zoe wondered since when she was a family friend and not Tom’s partner. And what were these two laboratory cultivations doing here, anyway? Kitty by herself was enough of a nightmare.

“Are you spending summer in the United States, my dear?” the older one said, deigning to make small talk.

“No,” Zoe answered simply. “I work here.”

“Ah, you poor thing.” The older wax-museum exhibit seemed to find work quite banal.

“The Astors are not professionally active,” Kitty explained, winking, and turned to face Binky. “Your mother Caroline felt the fortune had to cool down, did she not?”

“She thought it was best for three generations to be untainted by work,” Binky confirmed in all seriousness. “That’s the only way to make it socially acceptable.”

“I only want to work until I get married,” Weezie spoke up in a weak attempt at self-defense.

Kitty’s eyes lit up. “Weezie, darling, did you know my elder son Thomas has come back home from London? You haven’t seen each other in years. The last time was one summer in Beechwood, was it not?”

Then she glanced at Zoe, who was feeling quite stupid, because the entire conversation had to be interpreted for her. “Beechwood is the Astors’ cottage in Newport.” Zoe could imagine very well that the “cottage” probably had thirty-nine rooms, a ballroom, and god knows what other frills.

Slowly, she began to see through Kitty’s line of attack. Kitty had ordered her here to the Four Seasons to showcase her. To prove to herself in broad daylight and in the best of company that Zoe was what Kitty had told her she was: unpresentable. A mistake.

Zoe took a deep breath, turned to face Kitty, and concentrated on hating the old hag. “I’m so sorry, Kitty, but I have to leave now. I’m expected at a funeral,” she apologized sweetly. Then she left the Pool Room.

When Zoe arrived at the gallery to meet Mimi, she was still feeling distraught. She had known that Kitty would do everything in her power to separate her and Tom. Mimi immediately led her into to the gallery’s office, and Zoe related every little detail from lunch. Mimi got out a bottle of whiskey and poured two glasses.

“Don’t let yourself be bullied by her, Zoe,” Mimi advised, not seeming the least bit surprised by Kitty’s schemes. “Tom’s a grown man. He’ll have to decide between his mother and you. And if he decides in favor of Kitty, you can be glad you dodged a bullet.”

“Isn’t that a little too pragmatic?” Zoe sniffed. She had been hoping for more encouragement. “Are you sure I shouldn’t tell him what his mother dearest is getting up to?”

“He’ll decide in your favor, honey. All by himself. Don’t put him under pressure.”

29

The private jet, a Gulfstream G650 with porthole windows and a white-leather interior, reduced its speed, and the flaps on its wings extended noisily.

“We are now preparing for our descent. Please fasten your seat belts,” the pilot said over the intercom. “We’ll arrive on Columbus Island in ten minutes.”

“Columbus Island?” Zoe asked. She had been virtually kidnapped after the catastrophic lunch. Tom had picked her up from work, maneuvered her into his Town Car, and whisked her off to Teterboro Airport, where the most exclusive fleet of private planes between here and Aspen were parked. Tom had even packed a suitcase for her.

“Columbus Island is in the Bahamas.” Tom smiled his charming, lopsided smile and seemed happy about his successful surprise. “My godfather has a house there, and it’s all ours for the weekend. He’s staying on Martha’s Vineyard this summer. Actually, he owns the entire island.”

Up until now, Zoe had answered nothing but “fine” when questioned about lunch with Kitty. “I told you so,” Tom had said.

A rustic wooden sign attached to a little yellow building next to the runway told them it was a five-minute walk from the International Airport to the villa. Instead of having their luggage brought to the main house, with its atrium living room and the patio that opened out onto the infinity pool, Tom had it brought to the guest house next door.

“It’s comfier there. And we’ll be farther away from the staff, who live in the main building.”

The path to the cottage led them through a palm grove and past hibiscus bushes covered in raspberry-colored flowers. Three broad wooden steps led up to a porch with two rocking chairs on it. A hammock was strung between one of the porch beams and a rickety-looking palm tree. The guest cottage had “only” two bedrooms and one living room. The bathroom was connected to the house on the side and was made up of an outdoor shower and a beautiful old claw-foot bathtub. It was surrounded by bamboo screens and had no roof. The only sounds in this paradise were the chirp of the crickets and the rush of the sea.

Zoe leapt at Tom in wild excitement, wrapping her arms around his neck and linking her feet behind his back. He whirled her around.

“It’s gorgeous here! This is paradise! I can’t believe old Columbus kept traveling because he thought he’d find something nicer than this.”

She began kissing him, and he moved in the general direction of the bedroom, happily carrying a good 110 pounds of Zoe.

Saturday morning in paradise began appropriately with breakfast under the palm trees.

“New York bagels? In the Bahamas? Isn’t that just a little over the top?” Zoe asked after one of the staff members had set down a completely overloaded breakfast platter on their porch table.

“My uncle is a little strange about how his fridges are filled. Whether it’s in the city, here, on Martha’s Vineyard, or in Aspen, there’s a list of foods that the staff always has to have ready in case he decides to appear there spontaneously.”

“So what else is on the list?”

“McVitie’s Digestive Biscuits and salt-and-vinegar crisps from the UK. French cornichons from Fallot. That kind of thing.”

“I didn’t know your uncle was a food snob. Last night, the kitchen looked like it’s never been cooked in.” Had the kitchen in the main building been a cafeteria, it would have easily been able to feed the employees of a medium-sized company, with its extra-wide double gas ovens, twelve gas burners, and huge, double-door fridge.

“It probably hasn’t. The kitchen you saw is just for show. In the staff wing, there’s a real one where they actually prepare food.”

That kind of extra information didn’t throw Zoe off as much anymore. She’d gotten used to the fact that her partner was
different.
And not just because he had a few extra zeroes at the end of his account balance. He seemed to have come from some distant world that was as strange to her as the quirks of the
Downton Abbey
clan were to Matthew Crawley. Zoe always wandered around Tom’s world a little amazed, but with the curiosity of an anthropologist trying to fathom the strange customs of a hitherto-unknown culture. The really amazing thing was, though, that Tom made his way around both this world and the real world excellently. He handled his heritage modestly and almost self-deprecatingly. As a prominent member of the “lucky sperm club,” as financial mogul Warren Buffett called the children of rich parents, he was fully aware of his unwarranted luck. And it was for that reason, above all, that Zoe loved him.

After breakfast, Tom and Zoe went snorkeling. Tom’s Quiksilver trunks sat alluringly low on his hips. He dove headfirst into the turquoise water and then started doing the crawl toward the reef. Zoe felt kind of like she was in a
Blue Lagoon
for adults. Under water, the scenery looked like an aquarium. In the middle of a school of clown fish, a sea turtle glided above the coral, seeming light as a feather. A fat lobster stuck out its antennae from beneath a rock.

“We’ll definitely get to see dolphins this week,” Tom promised.

Back at the beach, they collected a few coconuts to be broken open later. Zoe rinsed off in the outdoor shower and settled down in the hammock, where she drifted off. It was like a dream. So beautiful. So peaceful.

She was awakened by intense, quiet arguing. “I think ‘mistake’ is a pretty harsh way to put it.”

A pause.

She heard a few impatient footsteps in the living room that made the floorboards creak. Zoe had to concentrate hard to hear what Tom was saying on the phone.

“Of course I respect your advice, Kitty.”

Zoe’s name hadn’t been mentioned, but she was certain that this tense discussion could only be about her.

“So she’s different.”

Different? What’s that supposed to mean? Different, as in: So she’s a jungle girl who still needs to be civilized?

“That’s what prenups are for.”

What were prenups for? For gold diggers who went for rich guys? Zoe thought it was time for Tom to finally choose a side. And the right one, please!

“Kitty, I don’t think that’s something you should be getting involved with.”

OK.

“End of story.”

Even better.

“I love her.”

There, that wasn’t so hard.

She heard the receiver slam down on an old-fashioned cradle, followed by some expletives. Zoe could have sworn she heard Tom say something like “crazy old cow,” but a man with his upbringing would never have said that about his own mother. She heard steps approaching the patio and quickly turned over to feign sleep.

Tom lay down next to her. “Are you awake, darling?”

“Now I am. What’s up? Are the French cornichons being served?”

“I just wanted to know if I woke you.”

“You did,” Zoe lied. Tom didn’t see it in her face because she had her back turned.

She turned over slowly and looked into his eyes steadily. “If you’re just playing with me this time, too . . .”

Tom looked at her in surprise. “I’m not. You know that perfectly well!”

“. . . then I’ll kill you, Fiorino.”

“Honestly. I’ve never been so serious about anything in my life.”

“And I’ll chew you up . . .”

“I
promise
.”

“. . . and sell you to a British dog-food manufacturer . . .”

“I love you, Zoe.”

“. . . who will feed the stuff to the Queen’s Corgis.”

“Shut up and kiss me!”

On Sunday morning, Zoe woke up to the sound of clinking dishes.

“Happy birthday, darling.” Tom gave her a kiss and set down the breakfast tray on the bed. Then he brought in a big box with an even bigger red bow on it and placed it by her feet.

Zoe was excited, although she was still convinced that thirty-five was the beginning of the end of her life. She wriggled out from under the breakfast tray and out of the bed, walked over to her present and began ripping off the paper, impatient as a four-year-old who thought she was getting a Barbie princess. But then she stopped as though she’d been hit. Tom had given her a KitchenAid blender for her birthday. “For your new kitchen,” he said, beaming.

Zoe had no idea what to say. A blender! What had happened to his sense of taste? She hadn’t really been expecting a diamond necklace or a vintage Dior evening gown or anything—well, maybe only secretly. But a blender? That was like getting a tie and a pair of socks for Christmas. Why not an ironing board, for that matter? Zoe was almost at the point where she would have looked around for hidden cameras.

Tom seemed to sense her disappointment. “Don’t you like your new blender?” he asked her, clearly worried, which seemed even more suspicious to Zoe. Had Tom been planning this little stunt?

“Is it the wrong color?” Tom asked, upping the ante in the same tone. “We can still get a refund! I kept the bill.”

Zoe shook her head. What was going on here?

Tom laughed. Then he got serious. “I have another little thing for you,” he said, pushing a small turquoise box toward her. Then he got down on one knee. “Zoe Schuhmacher, you make me the happiest man alive. Will you marry me?”

Before Zoe Schuhmacher finally answered yes, she threw a pillow at his face.

Getting Married, or: A Guide to American Weddings

Currently, more than 40 percent of all American men and women between ages fifteen and forty-two are married. Nine percent have an open marriage. One in two white women in that age group is married, compared to one in four black women. Fully 63 percent of all American women with a university degree are married, while only 40 percent of women without a diploma decide to marry.

This means that, statistically speaking, marriage in the US is predominantly a construct of the white upper class.

The ring: Just like Santa Claus, the legend of how much a man should pay for an engagement ring finds its roots in the free-market economy. In the 1930s, the De Beers catalog proclaimed that the perfect husband should invest at least a month’s salary in a proper engagement ring. Later, De Beers extended that piece of “advice” to two months’ salary. It has currently come to rest at three months’ salary, minimum.

(For those wondering what Santa Claus has to do with all this: Coca-Cola did not invent him, but the company made him truly popular in the US with their commercials in the thirties.)

(
New York for Beginners
, p. 77)