Letty and Jack married in 1900, had three children, and lived in Riverdale in a mansion abutting my parents’. My father had given the couple the land as a wedding present. Another parcel was bought for me at the same time, despite my protestations that I never planned to marry. I wanted my career, and working women were expected to give up their jobs upon marrying. Of course, some fought the convention and won, but it was a battle I didn’t plan to undertake. My experiences with romance hadn’t been very successful, as I seemed to have a knack for choosing the wrong men. I’d also argued about the gift of the land because I would die rather than live so far from the heart of Manhattan. I hated the quiet of the suburbs and craved the noise and activity that only a city like New York could provide.
“I think if you are going to continue living here,” Jack was saying, “which was very much what your father hoped, then it’s much healthier to clear out his things and make the apartment yours. I don’t know why I didn’t think of helping sooner. You shouldn’t have to do it alone, Vera.”
And that brought tears. Once Jack saw them, he dropped what he was doing and gathered me up in a brotherly embrace.
“Now, now… I’m here to help, OK?”
Through the tears wetting his jacket, I nodded.
“I’ll come in every weekend if that’s what it takes—”
I pulled away. “Oh, no, I could never ask you to take time away from Letty and the boys.”
“I’m not giving up anything by helping you. Never think that. You’re the sister I never had,” Jack said. “And your father was closer to me than my own ever was. I want to do this. I know he’d want me to.”
Unspoken was the actuality that my sister and mother had all but abandoned me in this task. My mother insisted that it wasn’t my job and that I should just have her butler come and pack it all up. And my sister agreed with her. I wondered if the real reason was that she was actually too grief-stricken to help. Jack loved my sister so much he often ignored her faults. He was full of life and adventure, brave and creative and bursting with ideas about the future of retail and how things were changing. He was funny and irreverent and had a healthy skepticism about social mores and the ridiculous etiquette that my mother and sister lived by or the way they could distance themselves from situations they found uncomfortable or distasteful. A bit cowardly, one might say. And yet he looked at Letty with a supplicant’s eyes. He adored her. Cherished her. As if she were the delicate flower she was named after.
I’d never met the favorite aunt Father had named me after. But he always compared her to a bolt of lightning. “Striking and bold,” he said. “Vera commanded attention by making her own way.”
I’d heard all the stories about how she’d opened up her own millinery store in the Bronx and designed the most outlandish hats and married a poet who was suspected of bigamy. Regardless of his questionable marital status, Vera and Stuart hosted popular literary salons and then died, together, in a boating accident off the Montauk coast, before I was born.
Letty and I had wound up with the names we deserved. And she had gotten the man she deserved, as well.
I thanked Jack for his kindness, and we continued on through the morning going through my father’s things.
“Don’t put those in the pile. I can wear them,” I said, eyeing the soft gray and brown cashmere cardigans and vests that Jack was inspecting.
“But you shouldn’t wear his clothes. We need to do this thoroughly, Vera. Not to chase out his ghost but to return the penthouse to a hospitable apartment instead of a place of worship.”
We’d finished with the shoes, shirts, and casual wear and stopped to take a lunch break. After we ate the chicken sandwiches I’d had sent up from the Birdcage, we returned to the bedroom, and Jack started on my father’s suits, dutifully going through each jacket and pants pockets before I folded and boxed them.
There wasn’t much he found of note. Some coins. A business card. A cigar cutter. Nothing very interesting, until Jack fished out a key ring with a very small brass key on it. Examining it, he turned it over in his palm.
“Is that something to do with the store?” I asked.
“I don’t think so. It’s too small.” He frowned.
“What’s wrong?” I asked. “You look perplexed.”
“It looks familiar, but I’m not sure why.” Jack handed it to me. “Have you ever seen it before?”
I inspected it, then shook my head. “It must not be very important if he didn’t tell either of us about it.”
“Well, hold on to it… maybe we’ll come across whatever it opens.”
I slipped it into my pocket, and we went back to work.
SILK, SATIN & SCANDALS
In which your intrepid reporter fills you in on the most salacious and beautiful, glittering gossip in Gotham.
Continuing the saga of the last few months, namely the invasion of New York by Count Le Monte, I attended an event at the Waldorf-Astoria last weekend. It drew the most interesting fashions from Paris, along with the usual scoundrel or two. Dancing with more partners than this observer could count, Count Le Monte was dashing and daring with his entries and whispers. I was lucky enough to snag a dance of my own and quite taken with his fancy moves and oh so charming cologne. Vanilla, perhaps? But the real talk of the gala was Evalyn Walsh McLean, on the arm of her husband, sporting diamonds the size of eggs. Rumor has it that she has her eye on the Hope Diamond currently being seen by interested parties in Cartier’s delectable shop, which resembles the perfect petits fours served at the Waldorf.
No stranger to the world of jewels or high fashion, I’ve seen my share of pretty baubles, but Mrs. McLean’s outshone everyone’s there. The newest, a diamond sautoir, was a wedding gift from her husband purchased from Pierre Cartier, whose fourth-floor store on Fifth Avenue is a veritable Tower of Jewels.
So to the real gossip: the ongoing divorce trial of Mrs. Penny Oakdale. The troops were out, and the courtroom gallery was full. Count Le Monte sat in the second row, throughout the afternoon. His pearl-gray morning coat from Savile Row pressed and fresh. The crease in his pants could have cut bread.
He waits to be called, as do we all, wondering just how far the attorney will go and how ugly this will get. But to date we are still being subjected to boring character witnesses for Mr. Oakdale.
We did spot some jewels and fashions worth noting. Mrs. Van Rensselaer is sporting a large diamond solitaire on her ring finger that she recently inherited from her mother-in-law. The firm of Tiffany & Co. the supplier. Mrs. Smythson was wearing an afternoon frock of green satin and black trim from Worth in Paris. And Mrs. Alstead was wearing shoes with the most unusual heel—at least two inches high.
CHAPTER 5
On Monday morning, a note arrived from Fanny and Martha insisting I meet them for dinner. I agreed, reluctantly.
When I’d moved into my father’s apartment after the accident, I’d worried about how to conceal my Vera Garland identity from my friends, now that I had such an expensive address. I felt guilty about hiding the truth but at the same time was unwilling to jeopardize Vee Swann, as doing so would mean jeopardizing my career. My friends, of course, had no idea what I actually looked like or who I really was. They didn’t travel in the same circles, and I was careful not to be photographed in public, often hiding behind a fan when I was at the theater or opera.