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I’m on the move again, winding up the stairs to the bedroom window where both George and my laptop sit. I flip it open and Google Marjorie’s name. Dozens of results appear.
I click on the most recent article, dated a week ago.
CHAIRWOMAN RETURNS TO GUGGENHEIM GALA
The article itself is pure society-page fluff. A museum fund-raiser held last week in which businessmen and their trophy wives spent more per plate than what most people make in a year. The only item of note is a mention that the event’s longtime coordinator was back after serious health issues forced her to miss last year’s gala.
It includes a photo of a seventy-something woman wearing a black gown and a proud, patrician smile. The caption below the picture gives her name.
Marjorie Milton.
I check the article’s date again, making sure it is indeed from last week.
It is.
Which means only one thing.
Marjorie Milton, the woman whose death opened a spot in the Bartholomew for at least two apartment sitters, is alive.
38
I look at my watch and sigh.
Seven minutes past two.
I’ve entered the third hour of sitting on the same bench just outside Central Park. I’m hungry, tired, and in dire need of a bathroom. Yet sitting here is preferable to being back at the Bartholomew. At this point, anything is.
The park itself is behind me. In front of me, directly across the street, is the apartment building where Marjorie Milton currently resides.
Like much of what I know about Mrs. Milton, I found her address online. It turns out that in Manhattan even the filthy rich are sometimes listed in the White Pages.
Other things I’ve learned: That her friends call her Margie. That she’s the daughter of an oil executive and the widow of a venture capitalist. That she has two sons who, no surprise, grew up to become an oil executive and a venture capitalist. That she has a Yorkie named Princess Diana. That in addition to chairing pricey museum fund-raisers, she also gives generously to children’s hospitals, animal welfare groups, and the New-York Historical Society.
The biggest thing I learned, though, is that Marjorie Milton is alive and well and has been since 1943.
Some of this information, such as where she lives, was discovered before I left the Bartholomew. But most was gleaned while I was onthe bench, the hours ticking by as I searched the internet from my phone.
I’m here in the hope that Marjorie will eventually come outside to take Princess Diana for a walk. According to aVanity Fairpiece about her that ran three years ago, it’s one of her favorite things to do.
Once she does, I’ll be able to ask not only why she left the Bartholomew, located a mere ten blocks south of her current address, but why the people still living there claim that she’s dead.
While I wait, I continually check my phone for responses from Chloe and Dylan that have yet to arrive. Finally, at half past two, a wisp of a woman in brown slacks and a teal jacket emerges with a leashed Yorkie by her side.
Marjorie.
I’ve now seen enough photos of her to know.
I leap from the bench and hurry across the street, approaching Mrs. Milton as soon as Princess Diana stops to pee in the topiary by the neighboring building’s front door. When I get a few steps behind her, I say, “Excuse me.”
She turns my way. “Yes?”
“You’re Marjorie Milton, right?”
“I am,” she says as Princess Diana tugs at the leash, eager to mark the next topiary. “Do we know each other?”
“No, but I live at the Bartholomew.”
Marjorie looks me up and down, clearly pegging me as an apartment sitter and not a permanent resident. My clothes are the same ones I’ve been wearing since yesterday, and it shows. I haven’t showered. I haven’t put on makeup. Before leaving to stake out her building, I did the bare minimum. Comb through my hair, brush across my teeth.