Page 31

The best part about working at Bergdorf’s was all the wealthy men I met. I would stand behind the glass counters with all the other shopgirls and just wait for them to make a beeline right for me. I dated a lot at that time. Maybe that makes me a whore, but all I can say is that it’s easier to be moral once your bills are paid and you can only get on a high horse if you can afford one. My dates weren’t always good-looking or particularly young. But I had already tried handsome. Handsome knocked me up and left me high and dry. And New York is a different town when you’ve got money. New York is at its finest when you’re drunk on champagne, the whole city a blur of sparkles and light outside the cab window.
Dating became my second job, and I became adept at knowing what kind of woman my date wanted, both in and out of the bedroom. The sex didn’t bother me although I didn’t really enjoy it. I guess I’ve always seen sex as a transaction, but I was a lot happier when men were buying it as opposed to stealing it. And I was always on the lookout for money, whether it was in the form of gifts, meals, or even rent money if a man really wanted to help a damsel in distress.
But I never forgot that I was doing this for James, so that he didn’t grow up dirt poor like I did. After every date, I would come home and pick up my son from the neighbors, and we’d go off to bed. I loved it there, cuddled up with my boy as the cool air washed across my sweaty skin. That was when I could truly relax, when I could be silent and still with my sleeping child. In those moments, I knew that the world was against us, but it was also us against the world.
And then it happened. One day at the store, I met the rarest creature in New York: a rich man without a wife.
Geoffrey Van Rensselaer had the pallid, soft skin of a rich alcoholic, as if he was preserved in fluid. He was the kind of person who never really hit rock bottom because every time he busted through a safety net, another appeared, usually held by an old friend of his father’s. He was average height and had a slim build but there was a softness in his chin, the skin swelling beneath his jaw and drooping towards his collar. But he was still attractive. He had the fine-boned face and hearty swagger of New York’s Old Money.
As I got to know him, I learned that his life was somewhat tragic, at least as tragic as it could get with a trust fund and an apartment on the Upper East Side. Geoffrey was an only child from a wealthy family. His father was dead and his mother was locked up in the loony bin after one too many shopping trips in just a bra and rain boots. But these tragedies had happened in his early twenties, and he was bolstered by a childhood spent at elite private schools and Ivy League institutions. Geoffrey exuded danger without consequences, as if he was protected by the invisible angels of privilege.
I had to be careful with Geoffrey. He was rich and unmarried, just the kind of man who might change mine and my son’s lives. But I knew that there was competition. I could feel these other women, girls just like me: shopgirls, waitresses, aspiring actresses circling him like sharks, their shadows passing over my face. I let him see me out with other guys until one day, I found him hovering outside my work, twisting a newspaper. I could see ink stains on his forehead from where he’d wiped his sweat away.
“Jacqueline, baby, I can’t stand seeing you out with other men. Running into you with Terrence Havemeyer last night. . .it nearly killed me. I’m ready to commit; let’s go steady,” he pleaded. I felt disgusted by his self-pity. All his life, Geoffrey had been spoiled and I didn’t doubt that the fact that he couldn’t have me was causing him real pain. But it wasn’t because he loved me, I didn’t really matter, it was because he expected life to give him everything he wanted. But it didn’t matter. I had won.
The next couple of months were the most glorious of my life. Geoffrey whirled me through New York and the whole city rolled out the red carpet for me. There wasn’t a musician or comedian I didn’t see live, and it was rare when I didn’t end up drinking martinis or doing speed afterwards with them. He gave me an exorbitant allowance, one that let me quit the store and spend all my time with James, unless Geoffrey wanted a date. And the hotels. . .in those few months, we screwed in every five-star establishment New York had to offer and even a couple in the tri-state area as well.
And that’s when I got my second stroke of luck. I’ve had a lot of bad luck in my life but every now and then, fortune throws you a bone. One day, Geoffrey showed up to a date, rumpled and insisting we talk. We found a grimy bar, with flickering lights and a sticky floor. Geoffrey had wanted to find somewhere nicer, but I just wanted to get it over with. Whatever ‘it’ was: a secret wife and family, a gambling habit that left him without a pot to piss in, a desire to become a Catholic priest and stop all the sex. People never wanted to confess something pleasant to you.
“Look, kid, here’s the thing,” Geoffrey said. I waited, holding my purse, ready to storm out of there when he gave me a reason.
“I’ve been to the doctor’s, and. . .it’s not good. They say I’ve got cancer,” he said hesitantly. I had never seen Geoffrey like this, so shaken and clammy, and scared.
“Can they cure you?” I asked.
“Well, there’s some treatments they can try, but I’ve probably only got a year or two,” he choked out, tears welling up in his eyes. The man was thirty-seven years old; he probably thought he’d have another forty years of life. The way he drank, I would have given him twenty but having the zero knocked off must have smarted.
“I’m so sorry,” I said, meaning it. Geoffrey was a lush and soft as hell, but this whole ‘Geoffrey stays alive and throws money at me’ agreement had been a mutually beneficial arrangement.
“Jacqueline, I don’t want to be alone. I’ve got no family left, other than my mother who doesn’t recognize me. I’m going to fight like hell to get better but regardless I want to have a wife and kids, a family.” He took my hand. I was frozen, trying to figure out what he was talking about. Was this a proposal?
“You’re saying that you want to marry me?” I asked.
He nodded. “And I think we should have a baby. I want to be a father, to continue the family name, and to know that I didn’t waste my life on parties and booze.”
But you did, I thought. And it was such fun.
“But what would I do with a baby, if you know. . .the worst happened?” I asked.
Geoffrey wasn’t becoming a better man, he was just scared and selfish. It didn’t matter what was right for me or his child; Geoffrey wanted to know that he wouldn’t miss out, that he could still have a family and a legacy, that there was still time to have everything.
“I’d make sure you and our children would be comfortable even if I. . .wasn’t there,” he said. Children? Now he wanted more than one? How long was this dingbat planning to be terminally ill for?
“That’s a lot to ask of someone,” I said, still reeling.
“I know,” he said, his eyes pleading. “And I know most women would never marry a man and have children knowing they’d likely be a widow soon. But, Jacqueline, please, give me something to live for,” he begged.
He was right. Most women wouldn’t take a second look at him. And that gave me power. I could feel the delicious taste of leverage on my tongue.
“I. . .I want to be your wife and the mother of your children,” I began gently, getting a toothache from how syrupy it sounded. “But there’s something I have to tell you. My sister, she died in childbirth. And her husband was driven to drink by the grief. So, I adopted her little boy. He’s almost four years old.”
There was silence as my deceit hung in the air. Geoffrey narrowed his eyes. We both knew I was lying: at that time, every unmarried starlet in Hollywood pulled the same trick, ‘adopting’ a baby that looked just like them. Any other day he would have dropped me like a hot potato, an unwed, single-mother hot potato. But Geoffrey was desperate. Tomorrow he might feel stronger, but I had him today.
“What a noble thing to do,” he said finally, taking my hand. “How about this: you give me a baby, and I’ll adopt the boy. I’ll provide for him.”
“That’s very kind of you,” I said smoothly, as if we were negotiating a business arrangement. Which, I suppose, we were.
“I think we’ll be happy together, Geoffrey. And who’s to say you won’t beat this thing?” I said, already hoping he wouldn’t.