Dropped Names (25 page)

BROOKE ASTOR

N
o question about it. Brooke Astor had pheromones.

One evening her daughter-in-law, Charlene, rang to ask if I might like to have dinner with her and her husband, Tony Marshall. “His mother will be joining us,” she said. “I'm sure you know it's Brooke Astor.” I did not. I was then cohabitating with a woman at 151 East 79th Street, who traveled as much as I did and was away at the time. The Marshalls occupied the second floor. We met in the elevator and exchanged numbers. Also in the building lived Dede Brooks, then the head of Sotheby's. Both Dede and Tony would later be involved in infamous scandals. She accused of price fixing, he of trying to steal his mother's fortune. But this was 1998 or thereabouts and both were, as yet, pillars of society, valued dinner guests, and innocent until proven . . . !

The Marshalls, Mrs. Astor, and I gathered in a local restaurant and in less time than you could say, “Show me the money,” this doyenne of New York society was vamping me and inviting herself up to my apartment, which was some dozen floors above the Marshalls'. I opened a bottle of champagne and she asked for some music. “Something we can dance to,” she said.

And dance we did—on the floor of my black and white marble foyer. Graceful and light on her feet, she let me lead, moving with the confidence of a woman fifty years younger. Then she departed with Tony and Charlene in tow. The next morning her chauffeur delivered a small bouquet of violets with a note written in a bold, firm hand that ended with the charming phrase “I'm looking forward to a long friendship.”

A
n invitation for dinner at her Park Avenue apartment arrived soon after and I accepted.

At most dinner parties, the host or hostess is there to greet you whether you are the first or last to arrive. At a dinner given by Brooke, as she asked to be called at our first meeting, it was the reverse. She did not make an appearance until everyone invited had gathered. The servants were dressed in white jackets for the men and traditional black and white French maid uniforms for the women. They were discreet, soft-spoken, and invisible. And the guest list was an interesting mix of people: Joan Ganz Cooney, creator of
Sesame Street
; David Rockefeller; Philippe de Montebello, director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art; Kofi Annan, then secretary-general of the United Nations; and other such luminaries.

After the supporting cast was gathered, Brooke's butler would quietly announce that Mrs. Astor was about to arrive and we took our places in the foyer. Down the hall she sauntered, swinging a newspaper clipping, her diminutive figure beautifully gowned, hair elegantly coiffed, jewelry expensive and tasteful. Ninety-five and totally with it. A small woman with big style. She engaged with each of us, asked a personal question, then handed the clipping over to someone. “I thought this was interesting,” she said. It was then passed around among us.

We milled about the living room, being served drinks and canapés. If you were a man, at some point you found yourself at Brooke's side and the absolute center of her attention. When dinner was announced Brooke put her arm in the guest of honor's, on this evening it being the secretary-general. He led the way to a beautifully lit and exquisitely appointed dining room. The conversation was lively and spirited and the food delicious. At dessert, Brooke tapped her glass and the subject of the night was raised.

This particular evening was a few days after George W. Bush's first inauguration.

“I'd like to hear what everyone thinks of the new man.”

And round the table we went, some sixteen people, offering their opinions of how they thought the President might do. This was pre-9/11 and the comments were, for the most part, pro or guardedly cautious. When it came my turn, I said:

“I didn't vote for him, but he's my President and I'll keep an open mind. I did hear though that the day after his inauguration he came into his first cabinet meeting with a large, irregular reddish purple mark painted on his forehead and when asked what it was, he said:

“ ‘I had a meeting with Gorbachev last night and I asked him what it would take to be a great leader. “Well, Mr. President,” Gorbie said, pointing to his forehead, “first you have to have something up here.” ' ”

It was the first Bush joke I'd heard and it received a mild and indulgent reception from the gathered, mostly Republican guests. Brooke then asked the secretary-general to speak and he stood and delivered a beautiful tribute to her and his hopes for the future of the United Nations. After dinner we gathered in her library: the walls painted a deep red lacquer. Over the mantel hung the infamous painting,
Flags Fifth Avenue
, by the Impressionist Childe Hassam, which Tony had later reportedly sold and from which he was reputed to have kept a large commission. Coffee was served and we were out the door no later than 10:30 p.m.

I enjoyed a few more evenings at Brooke's apartment. The guests were always stimulating, intelligent, incredibly successful and gifted people. As for the newspaper clippings always proffered, my favorite was one Brooke had spotted for a shoe sale in New York the next day. “It looks very good,” she said. “I'm planning to go.”

M
y relationship ended and I was in the process of selling 151 East 79th Street when an invitation to Cove End, Brooke's beautiful house in Maine, arrived. There were several guest houses on the property and I was invited by the Marshalls to stay in one of them. The house is unpretentious, beautifully cared for, and very comfortable—if you are no taller than five feet. All the furniture is scaled to Brooke's size and I would find myself sitting in the living room or at dinner on chairs that would have challenged Alice at the Tea Party.

One Friday in late May, I drove up and stopped at the main house to be greeted by a lovely woman who told me that Mrs. Astor would like me to stay there for the weekend rather than in a guest house. I was ushered into a small ground-floor bedroom off a hallway leading to a large reception room. The living and dining rooms were just off the main entrance, with a door leading out to a patio facing the road and the water beyond. It had been Brooke's residence for some forty years or more, purchased for her by Vincent Astor after their marriage.

“Mrs. Astor is having a walk, but would like you to make yourself comfortable,” said the woman.

I unpacked, fixed myself a tonic water from the tiny bar by the patio door, and wandered the downstairs. Beautifully appointed, elegantly simple, and utterly safe in design: low ceilings, Lilliputian furniture, pale yellow flowered prints. Animals depicted everywhere in paintings, porcelains, pillows, rugs—mostly dogs and horses. Many evocations of her two dachshunds. In the hallway there was a small sketch in watercolor. On it, it said “Brooke's Boulder, August Moon 74—Truex.” There was a painting over the mantel in the living room of five boys, two on bikes watching a baseball game. And another of five pigs, the last one being the fattest, with a caption reading, “Last But Not Least.”

The house, the furniture, the art, all said: “we practice safe sexlessness.”

Into the door came Brooke with a glint in her eye and a spring in her step. Dressed all in beige: straw hat, exquisite cardigan, open white blouse, tan skirt and shoes. Around her neck a string of pearls. And over it all a long brown coat. Pulling off her gloves, she proffered her cheek.

“Are you comfortable? Is your room all right?”

The maid appeared with a pair of slippers, kneeled at Brooke's feet, removed her shoes, and slipped them on for her.

“Don't forget to tell the girl in New York to FedEx that dress special delivery. I want you to have it,” Brooke said.

“I will Mrs. Astor. Thank you,” she said, gathering up the coat, gloves, and hat as she left.

“I think I'll have a nap,” Brooke said. “No, I'll stay and have some tea with you. Would you like some cookies?”

We sat on the patio. Everything about her was ultrafeminine and alluring—a not-beautiful woman in her late nineties, legs crossed, her hand flirtatiously up under her chin, totally there and full of life. Her manners were impeccable. Curious or not, she wanted to know all about me—my work, my drive up, future plans, etc. A man's woman.

“I'll see you down here for dinner,” she said. “It will be just the four of us. Tony, Charlene, you, and me. I didn't want to inflict anyone new on you for your first night.” She mentioned a couple coming by for drinks the next day.

“You'll like them. They're amusing.”

D
own she came at 7 p.m. in a fitted jacket with a leopard collar and cuffs over a pleated black and white skirt and high heels. The buttons on the jacket were replicas of little white dogs.

We sat around a small table in the dining room on tiny cane-back chairs, then moved to the living room for coffee. Charlene whispered to me:

“Would you mind sitting with Brooke awhile? Tony's exhausted and we've had her every night this week. Don't worry. She'll go up early.”

And then they were gone.

Brooke and I sat in two chairs by the fireplace. She perfectly in scale. I with my knees to my chest. After an extended silence I decided there would be no point in making any further attempts at polite conversation.

So I said:

“Tell me how you lost your virginity!”

Her expression did not change, nor did her physical comfort. She sipped her drink, took a moment, and we began a conversation that went on for over three hours. This still vital, still available woman seemed desperate to share herself with a man, desperate to be desired.

“I was seventeen,” she said. “His name was Dryden and he couldn't do the business on our honeymoon. He spent every evening downstairs getting drunk. I couldn't join him because my maid had forgotten to pack my evening gowns. He came upstairs drunk and thought he'd done it, but he hadn't. When I got home, I ran to my mother in tears and said:

“ ‘Mother, why didn't you tell me?'

“ ‘I couldn't, dear,' she said.

“She took me to a doctor and he did it. Then I got pregnant with Tony and that was the end of Dryden. I married a man called Charles Marshall. Not much better, but he gave Tony his name. We had a house in Portofino and I took an Italian lover. One day Buddy (Charles's nickname) said, ‘I'm going to clean my gun.' After a while, I went to find him. And I thought he was passed out. I called for help and when the local doctor came, he said, ‘How long has this man been dead?'

“I got hysterical. He wrote a letter saying he couldn't leave me anything. I had to sell the house. Became an editor at
Town and Country
.”

There were memories of her childhood from ages seven to twelve in China, where her father worked—then afterward in Haiti. “Father ran that country,” she said.

She told me she was a “gray lady” in the war. She worked as a volunteer and remembered a man lying on his stomach in a canvas sling, his face suspended through a hole as she sat on the floor feeding him.

“When I met Vincent, everything changed. He walked through this house once and bought it for me. After he died, the greatest joy of my life has been my foundation. I love going to Harlem. I love the blacks. Never given me one bit of trouble. I dress up for them. My most expensive clothes, good jewelry. Want them to see me as I am—not pretending to be someone else. You know I wasn't raised to seek out people with money, but people with character. ‘Who
are
they?' my grandmother would say to me.”

B
rooke's physical and mental decline began soon after that time and I was never to spend another evening alone with her. On the occasions I visited or went out with her and the Marshalls, it was more and more disheartening to watch her fade away into a vegetative state, become a recluse, and be abandoned by most everyone except her two dearest friends, David Rockefeller and Annette de la Renta.

I will remember the spirited woman I knew for a few years, walking into town at Cove End, alone, in her nineties, to “look for a new dress,” dancing in my foyer, embracing a man her own age in the village in Maine, smiling at him like a sixteen-year-old. Until she mentally left us, she was an exquisite example of good breeding, perfect manners, and committed citizenship. But she was not without a strong and profound bitter anger.

One weekend Tony, Charlene, she, and I flew back to New York on her private plane. Two cars were waiting on the runway. As Tony and Charlene, who had been very solicitous of her all weekend, were loading their car, I walked Brooke over to hers and thanked her for the visit. Before she got in she turned to me and said in an impatient tone I had never heard before: “Did you notice? She didn't say a word to me all weekend. That woman is a horror. What does Tony see in her?” A life raft, I thought.

I sold the apartment, resisted Charlene's efforts to have me speak with Tony's lawyers about testifying on his behalf, and thereafter they stopped speaking to me. I had enjoyed the private time I spent with Brooke Astor, but I certainly wouldn't have wanted her as a mother. She was a totally self-involved, nonmaternal narcissist who had very little time for her one and only child. Tony told me one evening that his mother had lunch and dinner dates every day of her life for as long as he could remember. And that it was necessary for him, when he wanted to see her, to make an appointment with her secretary. Watching him enter and leave the courtroom during the scandalous trial over her fortune, I felt enormous compassion for a man who wanted a mother to recognize her son as not just a name in her appointment book.