The Wrong Kind of Money (18 page)

All at once Carol is lost. “I'm sorry, Georgette,” she says. “I don't think I quite understand. You're talking about a party?”

“Of course. A coming-out party for Linda and Anne. In June. A drop-dead party to end all coming-out parties, and we've only got six months to get it all together.”

“For Linda,” Carol repeats numbly. “And Anne.” She feels her cheeks grow red.

“Coming-out parties were all the rage in the fifties. Then they went out of fashion in the sixties. Then they started to come back in the seventies and eighties, and then they went out again. Now we're going to bring them back again for the nineties—you and I. That's what I meant about fashions, how they swing back and forth, back and forth. But we're going to set the trend for the nineties. We're going to be right out there on the cutting edge.”

“A coming-out party,” Carol says.

“Won't it be fun?”

Their waiter appears. “Your usual lunch, Mrs. Van Degan?”

“Yes, Felix. Two four-minute eggs and half a slice of dry whole wheat toast.”

Carol stares blankly at the menu, which she has not even studied, and where she sees no mention of four-minute eggs. So that's how she stays so thin, she thinks. Her eyes alight on the Maryland crabs, though somehow she has lost her appetite. “I guess I'll have the crabs,” she says, putting the menu down.

“The first thing we've got to do is pick a date,” Georgette continues without missing a beat. “Somewhere between when school gets out and the Fourth, when everyone goes away. It's got to be a night when nobody else is doing anything, when there'll be no competition, and when we can get Peter Duchin, because we want Peter him
self,
of course, not just one of his orchestras. Then we've got to think of a theme and get the invitations ordered. For engraving Cartier wants at least a month. Each girl would invite her own list of friends, and as for the boys, there's a formula. You want at least two and a half boys for each girl, so there'll be lots of competition for the girls and no wallflowers. There's an agency that will supply lists of suitable boys from the various schools and colleges. What do you think of making it white tie instead of plain old black tie? That would make it so much more of an
occasion,
don't you think—a really grand ball? The point is to do the really surprising thing. You have to keep surprising people if you want to stay on top—in this town, at least. If you don't, you're dead in the water. We want to get lots and lots of press, of course, because we want this to be the most important debutante party
ever,
for Linda and Sally.”

“Anne,” Carol says.

“And I'm so thrilled you're as excited about this as I am, and I can't believe you guessed that this was what I had in mind. You're obviously a woman of many facets, darling—getting William Luckman to your house for dinner ahead of everyone else. What a coup! And what is it they say about great minds?” She throws Carol a quick look. “You
are
excited about this, aren't you, darling?”

“Well,” Carol says, “to be honest with you, I'm a little disappointed, Georgette.”

“Disap
pointed?
Why?”

“Frankly, I thought you'd asked me to lunch to discuss giving your collection to the museum. I mean, I couldn't think of any other reason.”

“Collection? What collection?”

“Your Chinese porcelains.”

“Oh, that,” Georgette says with a wave of her hand. “You'd have to talk to Truck about that. It's really his collection. His grandfather started it. But frankly, darling, I can assure you that Truck has no interest in donating any of that.”

“But could we talk about that for a minute?” Carol says. “You see, under the new tax laws there are certain advantages in making such an important gift now. In fact, I've put together a few facts and figures for you, and listed various ways in which the gift could be made. You might want to take this home and discuss it with your—” She starts to reach for the envelope in her briefcase.

“Forget it,” Georgette says. “No way, darling.”

“—husband.”

“If you want to talk taxes, I don't see why our party couldn't be deductible,” Georgette continues. “After all, it would get lots of publicity for Van Degan Glass, and for the Ingraham Corporation. Truck and I have the most marvelous accountant. He's just a little bit crooked, and his motto is, ‘When in doubt, deduct it.' They can't put you in jail for deductions. But we don't have a minute to lose, darling—June is only six months away. And as for the costs, you and I will split them right down the middle—for the catering, the flowers, the orchestra. I'm thinking of perhaps two orchestras—one for regular dancing and then a rock group, perhaps in a separate tent. And it's wonderful that your husband's company will supply the liquor. That will save us—oh, at least ten thousand dollars. Maybe more.”

“I'll have to discuss all this with Noah,” Carol says. “And with Anne, of course. But frankly I'm not sure—”

“They'll be thrilled. And I'll call the Duchin office the minute I get home, to make sure we get Peter him
self
. My dear, we're going to have the party of the
decade
! Of the century!” Suddenly she lifts her mirrored lorgnette. “Don't turn around,” she whispers. “But look who the cat dragged in. Dina
Merrill.
Oh, good. Jacques has given her a really lousy table. One of yesterday's people. You have to be so careful in this town, don't you? If you're not, everybody will simply forget who you are, and you're dead in the water. Since your daughter Sally knows him so well—”

“Anne. My daughter's name is Anne.”

“That's what I
said.
Since she knows him so well, we should invite William Luckman to our party. That would draw the press, too. Unless he's turned into one of yesterday's people by June, which could easily happen. Celebrities have such a short shelf life these days, don't they? Tell me, do you get back to Kansas often, darling?”

“Kansas?”

“Isn't that where you're originally from, darling?”

“I was born and raised in New Hampshire,” Carol says.

Their lunches arrive, Georgette's soft-boiled eggs in a silver bowl with two points of toast perched on the rim like the wings of a bird.

“Oh, yum-yum-yum,” Georgette says to the eggs.

In another part of town, two other women are also having lunch. They are Hannah Liebling and Bathsheba Sachs. They lunch at least once a month, and Hannah has chosen the Café des Artistes out of consideration for Bathy. The restaurant serves excellent food at reasonable prices; the two women split the check, and Bathy's budget is limited. Both have ordered, as always, martinis on the stem with Ingraham's gin.

“I just realized what day this is,” Hannah says. “It's Jules's birthday.”

“My goodness, you're right.”

“If he were alive, he wouldn't let us forget it, would he? Let's see,” she says, counting on her fingers. “If he were alive, he'd be a hundred and one!” She raises her glass. “Well, here's to the old s.o.b.,” she says with a wink.

“Yes,” Bathy says, smiling and lowering her eyes. They touch glasses.

Bathy, Hannah thinks, has somehow managed to keep both her looks and her figure, though Hannah, by her own admission, has thickened somewhat in the hips and middle. Bathy still has that slender blond loveliness, though she has let the blond hair go to gray—pulled back, behind her neck, in a trim chignon that shows off her wide, pale, smooth forehead, her best feature, because set in that forehead are the same merry blue eyes, the Sachs eyes. All Sachses have them.

Hannah says, “Do you remember that time in Harry's bar in Venice when he kicked up such a godawful fuss because the bartender didn't have any Ingraham brands in stock? Oh, there was going to be hell to pay for that poor Italian bartender. I thought that bartender was going to burst into tears—didn't you?”

“He just couldn't understand why any bar in the world wouldn't stock his labels. And then if they did, he always made the bartenders rearrange their shelves so that the Ingraham brands would be displayed front and center, with their front labels facing the customer. Do you remember who that Italian bartender turned out to be?”

“Harry Cipriani himself!”

“Right, and he raised such hell about the stock being displayed that most bartenders were afraid to change it back again. He might come back and raise even more hell.”

“Of course, I usually slipped the bartender fifty dollars when Jules wasn't looking,” Hannah says.

“Of course! So would I.”

“Under-the-counter payoffs. It still goes on, except nobody talks about it.”

“Except you and I.”

“Except you and I.” The two women exchange smiles.

“If your husband could have had his way, Ingraham bottles would have been one solid label. He hated that government regulation that no more than thirty percent of a bottle's surface can be covered with labels.”

“Hated it. He said it was worse than Communist Russia.”

“Oh, my. What you and I went through with that man.”

“But what fun we had. Sometimes.”

“Remember the time he threw the telephone out the window?”

“Someone had phoned him with bad news. Thank goodness it landed on the street and not on someone's head.”

“I can't remember what the bad news was, can you?”

“Neither can I. Something from the state liquor commissioner, I imagine. That was usually what it was.”

“Incidentally,” Bathy says, “I was touched to see that you ran my Christmas ad again this year.”

“We'll always run it, as long as I have anything to say about it. It was one of the best ideas you ever had, Bathy dear.”

Were you aware that Bathsheba Sachs was for many years the advertising director for Ingraham? She started with Hannah's husband's company after graduating from the Fieldston/Ethical Culture School and after what was then the mandatory year's grand tour of Europe. At first she was little more than a messenger, delivering mail and memos to the various offices in the building, but soon the company was letting her try her hand at writing advertising copy. She turned out to be a clever writer, and in 1960 Jules Liebling named her as his director of advertising. She was only thirty-two and, at the time, she was the youngest person, and the only woman, in the distilling industry to occupy such a position. With her unusual name and her even more unusual beauty, she soon became something of a legend in the business. In 1965
Advertising Age
named her its Woman of the Year, and devoted its cover story to her. Alas, this is a business that forgets its legends very quickly.

The so-called Christmas ad has appeared in mid-December every year since 1960. Those years—the 1960s—were not good ones for the liquor business. Public tastes seemed to be changing. Up to then vodkas seemed to dominate distillers' sales charts, the theory being that consumers believed that vodka left no telltale breath. This was not really true, but the industry had been delighted to encourage the notion that by drinking vodka, a man or woman could be a secret drinker. Ingraham's had capitalized on this misconception, too, with ads for Ingraham's Vodka that employed the slogan, “It Has the Secret!” And a competitive brand claimed, “It Leaves You Breathless!” But in the 1960s vodka sales began to go soft. Younger people, it seemed, preferred to get their highs from other chemical substances, while the more traditional market seemed to be turning from distilled spirits to wines, wine spritzers, light beers, soft drinks, and bottled spring or mineral waters. Distillers panicked.

Ingraham had tried to get into the bottled-water business by buying a brand called Yukon Spring Water, but despite heavy advertising Yukon Spring failed to take off. The “designer waters,” Evian and Perrier, continued to dominate. Bathy's idea, then, for the 1962 Christmas ad had been an unusually subtle means of appealing to the changing public attitudes toward drinking. It was an all-type ad, and appeared as a full page in national news-magazines, as well as in major newspapers across the country, headlined:
A HOLIDAY MESSAGE FROM THE H & W INGRAHAM COMPANY
. “The holidays are a time for joy and high spirits everywhere,” the copy began. But the copy then went on to warn drinkers not to take the term “high spirits” literally. “As distillers, we know only too well the tragic results of overindulgence in spirits at this time of year,” the copy said, and it cautioned drinkers to approach liquor with respect, especially when they intended to be behind the wheels of motor vehicles or any other piece of machinery. There were other commonsense tips and suggestions about alcohol, its effects on the brain and central nervous system, and readers were urged to refuse to have “one for the road.” “As distillers,” the copy concluded, “we have always believed that spirits should be approached with moderation and respect, and that the safest place to drink is in the home.”

At first Jules Liebling had been almost violently opposed to the Christmas ad.
“What?”
he screamed. “In our biggest selling season you want us to run an ad telling people not to
drink?
This is crazy!”

“Not
not
to drink, Jules,” Bathy said. “Just telling people not to drink too much, to be careful how and where they drink. Not to drink if they're going to be handling a car, in particular.”

“You're telling them to drink at home! My bar business is seventy percent of sales! How do they get to the bars if they don't drive there in a car?”

“I'm just urging them not to drink too much.”

“You are crazy, Bathy! What will my competition think? They'll laugh at me. They'll think I've gone meshugge!”

“Just try it, Jules,” Bathy persisted. “In terms of public relations, I think this could pay off in the millions.”