The Proposal (17 page)

Inside, the Frick was sumptuous. Beautiful wooden floors, long drapes with stiff pelmets and floor-to-ceiling panelling, all created specifically to house Frick’s collection of art. Amy tried to imagine it as a private house, with maids and butlers buzzing around tending to their master.

‘It must have been magical to live here,’ she said.

‘I’m sure it was. Considering.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Considering Frick claimed that he only built it to make Carnegie’s house look like a miner’s shack.’

‘Rich people are competitive, aren’t they?’ said Amy, struggling to imagine what it would be like to be so rich.

Georgia nodded.

‘I suppose that’s why they are rich.’

Amy wandered over to pick up a headset for a commentary on the collection, but Georgia held up a hand, taking a guidebook instead. Once again Amy felt she had made a mistake; the feeling obviously showed on her face, because Georgia touched her arm.

‘Force of habit,’ she said. ‘I’ve spent a lifetime around books, so I always go there first.’

Amy nodded, put on her headphones, and began to listen to the commentary about the museum. As she took in the history of the great house, she realised how little she knew not just about art but about New York’s heritage. She’d passed the enormous buildings along Museum Mile a million times but she’d had little idea that most of them had once been the private houses of the city’s greatest industrialists. Her lack of knowledge embarrassed her but did not surprise her. Dancing had always been the priority in her life. From the age of four when her mom had first taken her to Miss Josephine’s dance academy, nothing more than a room above a laundromat, Amy had chanelled any spare time she had into dancing, training and dancing some more. It wasn’t that she was stupid – in fact she had graduated from Kelsey High with a 2.1 grade point average. Not terrible considering that she had spent most of her school life in ballet shoes. But she was self-aware enough to know that there were holes in her learning. Holes that had been particularly exposed when she had been out for dinner with Daniel and his Oxbridge friends and they had started talking about politics, literature or world events.

She pulled off her earphones and walked over to Georgia, who was standing in front of a portrait of a man in a spotty fur coat.

‘Quite a collection of Old Masters, isn’t it?’ said Georgia, glancing at Amy before returning her gaze to the picture.

Amy eyed it dubiously. To her, it looked just like a rather dark painting of a gay nobleman long dead, but she wasn’t about to say so. She looked at the label. ‘Titian,
c.
1488–1576.’
Should I have heard of him?
she wondered.

‘So when does a New Master become an Old Master?’ she asked, deciding that she needed to enter into the spirit of things.

Georgia smiled.

‘Officially, an Old Master is a European painter who worked before 1800 – Vermeer, Fragonard, Albrecht Dürer. After that, it’s considered the modern era. Henry Frick was by all accounts a difficult individual, but at least he should be congratulated on his taste and his vision. This collection is quite splendid.’

She looked at Amy, who had fallen quiet.

‘You don’t agree?’

‘It’s not really my taste,’ she said diplomatically. ‘It’s a bit old-fashioned.’

Georgia nodded and touched her arm.

‘Come this way,’ she said, walking across to another painting, this time of a rather grumpy-looking man with a big chain around his neck.

‘Hans Holbein’s portrait of Sir Thomas More. Now ignore all the velvet for a moment,’ she said. ‘Just look at the face and the hands.’

Amy peered closer. She couldn’t deny that it was an amazing bit of painting. The skin seemed to glow with life; the man even seemed to have stubble.

‘Now imagine he’s wearing a suit and tie. Or a baseball cap if you prefer. Can you picture him as an actor or a folk singer, someone you might see on TV?’

‘Yes, I mean, it’s like a photograph really,’ said Amy. ‘Only more real, somehow.’

‘This painting is almost five hundred years old, but even so, you somehow get the feel of the man.’

‘Yeah, he looks really ticked off,’ laughed Amy.

‘Funny that you should say that: he was executed by Henry VIII shortly afterwards.’

‘Executed?’

‘Beheaded at the Tower of London, I’m afraid to say.’

‘I know the place.’ Amy grimaced.

Her eyes searched the painting once again, and instead of dwelling on that last night with Daniel, she found herself transported back in time, back to the days of Thomas More and Henry VIII, and although she knew very little about that period of history, it suddenly came alive in front of her.

They walked slowly through the rooms, Amy looking at the art in a wholly different light, wondering who all these people were, frozen in time, what their stories were and how they came to be immortalised on the walls of this amazing house built on greed and spite.

‘This is pretty amazing,’ she said, wandering around, wanting to reach out and touch it. ‘It must be worth a fortune.’

‘The money of the Gilded Age.’

‘Georgia, can I ask you something?’

‘Of course.’

‘How do you know so much about art? Well, not just art, but all sorts of things.’

Georgia stopped and looked at the slim gold watch on her wrist.

‘Well, I think that’s a question best answered over lunch.’

Amy looked at her own watch. Damn, was that the time? They’d been in the Frick for hours.

‘Actually, I have a confession to make. I booked us in somewhere.’

Georgia looked surprised.

‘Yeah, I know it’s your trip and all, so feel free to say no, but I thought that as I’m kind of your guide to the city, I could show you a little slice of my New York. It’s not far away.’

She bit her lip. When she had made the booking, she had imagined it being a wonderful surprise where she could impress the naïve old lady with her insider knowledge, but now she just felt presumptuous.

‘Sorry, I really shouldn’t have . . .’

‘No, no,’ said Georgia, taking her arm and turning towards the exit. ‘I’d love to see a little of the real New York while I’m here.’

Amy pulled a face.

‘I’m not sure it quite counts as the real New York, but it means a lot to me.’

‘Then that’s good enough reason,’ smiled the old lady.

Amy’s misgivings increased as Alfonse pulled up outside the restaurant. There was an enormous queue snaking from the entrance down the street.

‘Serendipity 3?’ said Georgia, reading the sign on the black shop frontage as they stepped out of the car. ‘Is this the place?’

‘Don’t worry, we have reservations, we don’t have to queue,’ said Amy as she led the way through the narrow entrance, past racks of aprons, New York paraphernalia, cookbooks and brightly coloured confectionery that looked as if it came straight out of Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory. No wonder Serendipity was a New York institution, the dining equivalent of Disneyland, the sort of place kids pestered their parents about for a birthday treat. Or at least that was how it had been for Amy. Growing up in Queens, a trip to Serendipity with her mom was like a visit to the circus and the fairground all rolled into one, sitting under the giant stained-glass lampshades and eating banana splits until she thought she would burst, or coming here for ice cream before the annual trip to see Santa Claus at Macy’s. As they walked up the stairs, all those happy memories came flooding back, and she couldn’t help smiling, despite the noise – inevitably, most tables were crowded with eight-year-old kids out of their minds with excitement and sugar. Georgia looked absolutely bewildered.

The waitress showed them to a table for two and handed them the enormous black and white menus. Georgia put on her reading glasses and seemed to be examining hers in forensic detail.

‘Foot-long hot dogs,’ she read, and then looked at Amy over the top of her half-moon lenses. ‘Now tell me, what exactly is a chilli dog? One hears of these things in movies and so forth, but I have always wondered.’

Amy giggled.

‘It’s a hot dog with chilli on the top.’

‘Together? I mean, spooned on top of the bun thing?’

‘Exactly.’

Georgia turned back to the menu.

‘My goodness!’ she exclaimed. ‘There’s a pudding here for a thousand dollars.’

‘The Golden Opulence,’ said Amy. ‘I never tried it, but I think you get gold leaf sprinkles and flavoured caviar and a golden spoon to eat it with.’

‘Hmm, my mother used to have a phrase: “more money than sense”,’ said Georgia.

‘Well, my mom used to bring me here on my birthday and she had a saying too: “you don’t come here for a salad”. You’ve gotta splurge. Seeing as it’s a special occasion.’

‘Speaking of which, when are you planning on seeing your parents?’

‘That’s up to you . . .’

‘You should go tomorrow night, of course. Christmas Eve. You should certainly wake up in your own bed on Christmas morning.’

What Georgia was suggesting was far more generous than Amy had been expecting.

‘But what about you?’

Georgia waved one thin, crepey hand.

‘Don’t worry about me. I intend to have a quiet night with a good glass of wine. Now, let’s order. How about a pot-pie and this thing called frozen hot chocolate?’

Amy giggled.

‘You’ve read my mind.’

They ordered from the waitress and Amy smiled at the sight of a table of noisy kids laughing and making a glorious mess. As she slurped her frozen hot chocolate, she glanced up and saw Georgia looking at her.

‘You didn’t feel very comfortable in the restaurant last night, did you?’

Amy shrugged.

‘The food and the wine were great, but it just reminded me of a night I had in London a couple of weeks ago. The night when me and my boyfriend kind of finished.’

Georgia prodded gently, and Amy found herself unburdening the story of the Foreign Office dinner.

‘I never thought it mattered which glass or knife you used, not really. But apparently it does to some people.’

‘It sounds as if your boyfriend’s parents set you up to fail, deliberately. I find unkindness more of a cardinal sin than any lapse in table manners.’

‘I think Daniel was just too influenced by his family, by his background.’

‘Are you making excuses for him?’

‘No,’ she said. ‘I’m just sad. Sad that there are still people out there who want to make you feel bad about yourself just because of where you come from.’

‘I believe it was Eleanor Roosevelt who said that no one can make you feel inferior without your consent.’

‘So now it’s my fault?’ she queried.

‘Not at all. I just think you should stop thinking you’re not good enough and remind yourself precisely how wonderful you are.’

‘Easier said than done,’ Amy said, twisting her spoon around her empty glass. ‘I live in a tiny studio apartment, I have some great friend at the Forge, but we all know it’s just paying the rent. My career is going nowhere. My life is going nowhere . . .’

‘Then make it go somewhere.’

‘It’s easy for you to say.’

‘Because I have money?’

Amy nodded.

‘I never used to.’

‘I’m sure you had a classical education; that can take you places.’

Georgia looked thoughtful.

‘Indeed, education can be the key that opens many doors. But in my day, university wasn’t considered a serious option for well-brought-up young ladies.’

‘So did you go?’

‘I went to Cambridge.’

‘There you are.’

Georgia laughed softly.

‘I worked very hard to get there, with very little encouragement. Well, with the exception of someone . . . someone I met at the Season. Someone I cared for very deeply. He encouraged me to value education, curiosity, wherever it could be found. So when it came to it, I thought I should try and get into the best place I could, seeing as everyone was rooting for me to fail.’

‘Why the hell didn’t people want you to succeed?’

‘Certain people.’ The old woman’s face was inscrutable. ‘So I worked very hard to show them what I was made of,’ she continued as if she did not want to dwell too much on the details. ‘I graduated, joined a publishing house. I always had rather lofty ideas about being a writer, but as it turned out, I was better at shaping other people’s words and ideas. I got married to someone I met in the industry, got divorced, had a little money and decided to start my own company.’

‘Make money for yourself rather than for other people,’ smiled Amy.

‘I was certainly focused. But it was more about the love of books and being able to publish those books my way that drove me.’

‘You make it sound so easy,’ said Amy, putting her elbows on the table and resting her chin in her palms.

‘It was easier building up a company without a family and children to distract me.’

‘Exactly. Who needs men?’ said Amy defiantly as Georgia asked for the bill. She had felt wretched at Annie’s, when all her dreams of a future with Daniel had seemed to be in tatters. But talking to Georgia made her realise that there were new dreams out there to chase and catch hold of, like running after dandelion clocks in a summer field.

‘Will you help me?’ she said softly.

‘Help you with what, dear?’ asked Georgia, tapping her pin number into the credit card machine the cheerful waitress had brought over.

‘Help me make a fresh start, change my life, improve it . . .’

‘I’m not sure how I can help . . . I could certainly point you in the direction of some interesting authors, give you some books . . .’

‘Teach me to stop being such a klutz. Teach me to be elegant. Teach me to be a lady.’

Georgia was chuckling softly. Not unkindly.

‘I thought we were talking about being a modern woman, not some old-school deb whose life revolves around a man.’

‘Please,’ said Amy, remembering how stupid and uneducated she had felt at Daniel’s dinner parties. ‘Please teach me stuff.’

‘Amy darling, much of what I learnt at finishing school is outdated now. I’m sure your ballet training means you can do a better curtsey than I can. Things change, move on. Besides, you shouldn’t be motivated by the way Daniel and his family treated you. They don’t matter.’