Page 6 of Best Woman
“It’s only two million, can you believe?” Everett says, without a hint of irony.
“What a deal.”
The apartment is on the upper part of the Upper West Side, and Everett complained about how long it took to get here from Chelsea for the entire Uber ride.
“The floors will need to be replaced, and the ceiling too.” He sashays through the open space, a general surveying the battlefield.
“The exposed brick will have to go too. No one is doing exposed brick anymore. New appliances, new lighting. We’ll tear down that wall”—he points toward the living room—“and go for something open concept. So with renovations, maybe…three? That would barely cover the closing costs if I was buying downtown, can you imagine?”
I cannot. My rent is $1,200 a month, with two roommates, and we steal my neighbor’s wifi, which they should have thought about before hanging a photo of Susan Boyle on their door, naming the wifi after her, and making the password “IDreamedADream.”
“Can you start taking notes? I want to get as much of this down as I can while I’m in the moment and unfettered by the ugly financial details.”
I take notes on my phone as Everett moves through the brownstone he and his husband are buying, jotting down random phrases like “urban pastoral,” “sensory deprivation tank,” and “Stephen Sondheim’s sex dungeon.
” When I’m back at our office, I’ll attempt to translate all of this into a mood board and begin scouting pieces.
It’s usually fun to shop with rich people’s money, to fill their homes with lovely expensive things I will never be able to afford.
“There are two guest rooms, so you can spend the night whenever you want when we’re working late. I can’t imagine how long it would take you to get back to Chinatown from here!”
And he means it. If Everett had things his way, I would move in with him and his husband, an endless slumber party of billable hours. He loves to say I’m his friend first, protégé second, assistant third.
“ What is this ? Julia, I told you I wanted golden beets, not red ones.” Everett cracks open one of the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking Riverside Park and chucks the $17 juice I purchased for him into the trees. I’m pretty sure there’s a scream from the street below.
“My bad.” I’m ninety-eight percent positive the voice memo he sent me this morning specified red beets, but Everett doesn’t pay me to tell him he’s wrong.
He pays me—off the books—to drop off his dry cleaning, pick up upholstery samples for couches that cost more than a year of college tuition, and buy artisanal poppers for the sex parties he hosts every summer on Fire Island.
“I need to be alone in the space for a bit. Can you grab me an iced macadamia nut latte? And get yourself something, of course. It’s going to be a long day.”
“Sure, I’ll be back in twenty.” When I get back he’ll probably insist he asked for his latte hot and equal parts soy milk and half-and-half, but that’s a problem for future Julia—and whoever he drops that drink on.
Everett’s brownstone sits on a quiet, tree-lined street, the kind of street you can only afford to live on if your net worth is at least eight digits.
Everett’s would be even if he didn’t design the homes of the rich and famous—not the rich and famous anyone has heard of, of course.
We’re talking people with real money, the kind of money that makes it both possible and preferable to be mostly anonymous.
Everett has access to them because he’s one of them, a trust fund baby with good taste who fills the summer (and winter…
and spring…and fall) homes of the elite with vintage vases that probably belong in museums and oversees the contractors who soundproof their private screening rooms.
I met Everett through River. They went to the same prep school and bonded at alumni events over being the only queers who came out, despite most of their classmates having canoodled with them.
Everett is ten years older than me, though he and his dermatologist would disagree, and hired me after fifteen minutes of conversation and two vodka martinis.
“What interests you about interior design?” he’d asked.
At the time, the real answer had been “Eight hundred dollars a week.” But I didn’t say that.
“I like the idea of transforming a space, that the things you’ve decided to fill your home with say something about you.
” Bullshit, but bullshit I’ve come to believe.
I love walking into one of our clients’ homes when it’s raw and unfinished and seeing the possibility of what it could be.
In the year and a half that I’ve worked for Everett, he’s slowly handed me more and more responsibility.
He listens when I weigh in on cabinet finishes or paint colors and has even started sending me out to oversee installations when he’s busy snowboarding with Anderson Cooper.
A text from Everett: Can you grab some wet wipes at CVS? This place doesn’t even have a bidet :/ and pls start sourcing rose quartz countertops for the Thompsons’ meditation room.
Waiting in line at the coffee shop, I unlock my phone and scroll through my recent calls to find a contractor’s number. At the top of the list is Aiden’s call from the day before.
Kim Cameron. Kim Cameron. Kim Cameron.
In CVS I find the most expensive wet wipes possible and grab two packs, plus a moisturizer some beauty influencer convinced me to buy, charging it all to the company credit card Everett would rather literally die than check the statement for. And a pack of gum. And a phone charger.
Back at the brownstone, Everett accepts his latte. “I asked for almond milk, Julia, but it’s fine. Is everything OK with you today? You seem a bit off, babe.”
I hand Everett his wet wipes and smile beatifically. “Everything is fine.”