Shades of Fortune (70 page)

I asked her what she meant by that.

“The limitations that limited that woman are gone,” she said. “That other, that terribly limited other woman, was a woman who couldn't face the truth, couldn't face reality. I can face reality now, and knowing that I can face reality—any reality, even the reality of this—makes me even stronger, more sure of myself. Because the reality is that I was
not
to blame. I was not to blame for any of it. I am without guilt. Part of the blame lies with Adolph and Flo, for the way they treated Henry and the way they treated me. But that was only part of it. The real villain was alcohol. It wasn't me driving the car that afternoon, it was alcohol. So you see, if that case is ever opened up again, I have my iron-clad defense. Not guilty, Your Honor! I even have witnesses. Dr. Bergler, my therapist, has told me that I'm guilty of nothing—no crime, no felony, not even the tiniest little misdemeanor. The members of the support group that I go to—they'll all take the stand and swear that I did nothing wrong, that the criminal was not even me. It was alcohol. And if you put that in your story, and I hope and pray you will, maybe it will help Mimi realize who the real criminal was, and help her understand me a little better, and appreciate me a little more, because Mimi has never really appreciated me. The real me.”

And of course I did not write my story for
Fortune
. Or, to be more honest and exact, I did not write the story their editors wanted. They wanted a story about corporate muscle, about fiscal derring-do in a glamour industry; a story that told of how old Adolph Myerson launched each new nail polish and lipstick shade by turning the Miray offices into the equivalent of the War Room in the Pentagon, in contrast with Mimi's more limber and upbeat and personal style. I see that, instead, what I have written is a love story, about different kinds of love: of Adolph's love for Flo and, in his fashion, his children; of Granny's love for Henry, and her long line of Itty-Bittys; of Henry's love for Alice; of Nonie's love of money and power; of Edwee's love for Goya's Duchess of Osuna; of Mimi's love for Brad and Badger, and her love for Michael, and Michael's love for her. And if there is one connective theme uniting all these different kinds of love, it is that if life is a tree, as someone else has said, then love is the power that holds the leaf to the stem.

There is a favorite bar I sometimes drop in at, on Columbus Avenue just north of 72nd Street. My father used to say, “All bars are alike, but it's the personality of the bartender that makes the difference.” That's what I like about this particular bar. The bartender's name is Alejandro, but everybody calls him Al, a fat, jovial Hispanic whose belly bounces when he laughs. I dropped in there the other day and was sitting at the bar, sipping a Scotch and swapping stories with Al, and I said, “Let me ask you something, Al. Booze is your livelihood. Are the distillers of America to blame for alcoholics?”

He laughed. “I tell you some-sing,” he said. “Ze alcoholics is ze biggest liars in ze world.” He placed his large palms flat on the bar. “And I tell you some-sing else,” he said. “When zey are a-sober, zey are ze even bigger liars.”

We both laughed.

Al's bar, mind you, is not the sort of bar, nor is Al the sort of bartender, that anyone would associate with anything remotely connected with the Myersons. But as I sat there, I became aware of two older people seated at a table in the far corner of the room. They were holding hands and looking deeply into each other's eyes, and at first, I thought that these were two elderly lovers meeting for a secret tryst, and the scene was not without its certain charm and poignancy. One is never too old to fall in love, I thought, and I said the same to Al, who'd also noticed them. Then, as my eyes grew more accustomed to the certain gloom of the place, I realized that what I had mistaken for elderly lovers were, in fact, Nonie Myerson and her brother Edwee. I stepped over to their table to speak to them.

What had happened, I learned, and what accounted for the expressions of rapture on both their faces, was that Nonie had just given Edwee her Goya. She had never been interested in art, she explained, and had never really cared for eighteenth-century
anything
. The eighteenth century hardly went well with her hard-edge, high-tech, contemporary decor. She had not even hung Osuna but had kept her, with her face to the wall, in the back of her refrigerated cedar closet where she stored her winter furs. Furthermore, now that her Pine Street firm was prospering so nicely, Nonie no longer felt any need for the kind of insurance her mother had intended the painting to be. Now it was his, and she felt much better about the whole thing.

I was so surprised by Nonie's news that I never did find out why she had chosen a place like Al's bar to announce her decision. But, considering everything Edwee had put her through, I could only conclude that it was a gesture on her part that was—well, magnificent.

About the Author

Stephen Birmingham is an American author of more than thirty books. Born in Hartford, Connecticut, in 1932, he graduated from Williams College in 1953 and taught writing at the University of Cincinnati. Birmingham's work focuses on the upper class in America. He's written about the African American elite in
Certain People
and prominent Jewish society in
Our Crowd: The Great Jewish Families of New York
,
The Grandees: The Story of America's Sephardic Elite
, and
The Rest of Us: The Rise of America's Eastern European Jews
. His work also encompasses several novels including
The Auerbach Will
,
The LeBaron Secret
,
Shades of Fortune
, and
The Rothman Scandal
, and other nonfiction titles such as
California Rich
,
The Grandes Dames
, and
Life at the Dakota: New York's Most Unusual Address
. Birmingham lives in southwest Ohio.

All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 1989 by Stephen Birmingham

Cover design by Angela Goddard

ISBN: 978-1-5040-2636-9

This edition published in 2015 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.

345 Hudson Street

New York, NY 10014

www.openroadmedia.com

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