Chapter Thirty-Two #2
“My work was last shown in Bed-Stuy, hanging over a dance troupe’s performance benefiting PS 26 and Black Lives Matter.”
Jen looked even more titillated. “Oh, how wonderful. If you have any pieces left over, I’d love to get my hands on one or two! One for Spence’s fall auction, and our guest bedroom desperately needs some edge.” She touched her husband’s arm. “Pete, make sure you get his card before we go tonight.”
“I don’t have a—”
“I’ll put you in touch,” Iris chimed in.
Chef René came out amid a phalanx of servers and introduced the first course as it was set before them with perfect synchronicity: three fresh local oysters, each topped with a generous dollop of glossy black caviar and served with a scallion-and-rice-vinegar mignonette and champagne foam.
Iris and Gabe made eye contact and raised their shells to each other in a silent toast before taking the oysters into their mouths.
The taste was bright, saline, and refreshingly effervescent. Iris could’ve eaten a dozen more.
Peter pointed a shell at Gabe. “Bed-Stuy, you said? Your dancers probably performed in one of my buildings. Some of my best investments have been made in that neighborhood.”
Marilyn leaned in. “I believe it. I remember from my agenting days that the time to buy is when a neighborhood smells fifty-fifty of fried chicken and roasting coffee,” she quipped.
“That’s when I got in. Now, with all the NYU grads and their Bernadoos moving in, Von King Park’s looking more and more like Washington Square every year.”
“Bernedoodles,” Jen corrected him. “We’ve always had schnauzers.”
Art slurped his last oyster and turned to Jonathan. “Have you looked at the NYCHA properties over there? Room for redevelopment like what you’re doing in Chelsea.”
“Bed-Stuy has nine public housing locations,” Bill added. “Lot of potential.”
Jonathan nodded. “I’ve definitely looked into it, very similar struggles to Hendricks, and I think we could help. When people live in dilapidated environments, they don’t dream better for themselves.”
Jen clasped her hands. “That’s so true. I just redid my home office, and I feel so much more energized.”
“I like the margins, but I’m impatient,” Art said plainly.
“Once this Hendricks project gets under way and everyone sees what a boon it is to the community, and we show that private developers aren’t the enemy, I think there will be less resistance.”
Art gave a thumbs-up. “We’ll talk.”
Lindsay asked Iris to pass the carafe of water. When Iris reached for it, she sensed in her periphery Lindsay lean toward her, inhale, and softly hum.
“You smell good,” Lindsay purred. Iris thanked her.
Chef René was back with dish two: “The second course is a soft-shell crab tempura with miso rémoulade, fresh peaches, and lovage.”
“What’s lovage?” Jen asked.
“It’s what I have for you,” Peter replied.
Chef smiled. “It is an herb, like parsley. Only more zesty.”
Everyone ooh ed and mmm ed over first bites. The lovage lent a crisp top note of citrus and celery to the deep umami flavor of the miso and crunchy fried crab’s creamy inside, while the peaches picked up the sweetness.
Gabe unexpectedly chimed in. “My family lived in Brooklyn for generations, hardworking middle-class people. Now almost all of them are priced out, my mom’s about to move and she’s heartbroken. And when I grew up there, it was genuinely diverse. Now Williamsburg is just another West Village.”
Iris straightened, inwardly surprised to hear him invoke her neighborhood in a negative analogy. And she hadn’t known that about his mom.
Gabe continued, “Gentrification is dismantling nearly every long-standing community of color in Brooklyn. Bed-Stuy is the new Harlem. I think it’s sad.”
“?’Cause it was so great before?” Bill crunched through a spidery leg of crab.
Peter tented his fingers in thought. “Gentrification is very misunderstood. The problem isn’t one luxury tower going up in your neighborhood, it’s that there aren’t ten towers going up in mine.
There’s a dearth of available housing at every level of cost. Blocking new builds only exacerbates the crisis.
See, that’s something the progressives get wrong.
You lump developers together with landlords, when our interests couldn’t be more opposed.
Developers are trying to meet demand with increasing supply.
Landlords want to suppress supply to charge more.
Those who can’t afford it will be priced out.
That’s just the way the cookie crumbles. ”
The third course was halibut, a white brick of fish set on a heart-shaped shiso leaf, with bok choy sautéed in an aromatic broth of zingy ginger and warm garlic. Iris hoped the food could offer an opportunity for a topic change, but Gabe barely registered the dish that had been set in front of him.
“I think we won’t fully understand the cultural loss of uprooting these communities until it’s too late. It reminds me of what you said about this house, Jonathan, it’s the history and human stories that give a place its meaning. The people who made that history should have a say in its future.”
“It’s history that’s so costly to maintain.
” Peter seemed increasingly energized by the debate, to Iris’s dismay.
“You’ll find most of the allies to your anti-gentrification arguments are rich NIMBYs, ‘not-in-my-backyard’ liberals who profess progressive goals but refuse to sacrifice to attain them.
They’re the real roadblock to affordable housing.
They scapegoat so-called greedy developers, because we’re an easy villain.
I invite you to attend one of your local community board meetings, try telling them you support razing an alleyway garden with a bench and some tomato plants in favor of building a tower of affordable units for elderly New Yorkers.
Heck, try asking for a homeless shelter.
See how they respond. I think you’ll find the price of a charming cherry tomato is worth more to them than putting a roof over people’s heads. ”
Iris thought about Rapacine. “Is rent stabilization a solution?”
Jonathan tilted his head. “Rent stabilization is nice for the few who can get it. But their good fortune only drives up the price on everyone else. It doesn’t address the cause of the problem, which is housing scarcity.”
Iris noticed Gabe had accepted a refill every time the wine server made rounds. She made eye contact with him when he took a first sip of his third glass, not counting the cocktail by the pool, but he didn’t seem to read her silent admonishment.
Instead, Gabe continued to battle with Peter. “I’m not talking about the SoHo garden. Historically minority neighborhoods…”
Iris could feel herself beginning to stew. Why was Gabe picking fights with these people he’d never have to see again? It was her ass on the line, not his. Even if she agreed with much of what he was saying, he was putting his ego above supporting her in this new job.
Just then, Lindsay bent over to retrieve something she had dropped, and Iris felt her trail her knuckles up Iris’s calf. Iris stiffened in surprise. But Lindsay lifted her head with a little hair flip and replaced the napkin over her lap.
Iris needed a break and excused herself, standing for only a moment before a member of the waitstaff anticipated her question and directed her to the washroom.
—
Iris was shimmying her skirt back down her legs when someone outside turned the doorknob. “Just a minute!” She put her hand out to block the door’s swing.
But the glazed-doughnut nails that wrapped around the wooden door were undeterred.
“It’s Lindsay,” she whispered, like that explained something, and pushed the door wide enough to slip inside.
They were almost nose to nose; Lindsay met Iris’s bewildered gaze with an incredulous one.
“What? Girls never go to the bathroom alone.”
Iris chuckled, feeling awkward. “I have to wash my hands, then it’s all yours.”
“Oh, I don’t really have to go. I just got so bored.”
“With the shop talk?”
“With Bill.” Lindsay stood behind her and began to preen in the mirror.
Iris met her eye in the mirror’s reflection. “How did you two meet?”
“My job,” Lindsay replied without elaboration. She paused to reapply her lipstick, a mauvy nude that made her full lips look even plumper. “But he treats me like a princess. The hot ones don’t pay your rent.”
Iris dried her hands. “I guess that’s true.”
“I think my lipstick would look so pretty on you. Come here.” Lindsay placed her fingers lightly, her index finger directing Iris’s jaw, her ring finger and pinky resting lightly on her neck. “Open your mouth.”
Iris obeyed, and Lindsay dabbed the rosy bullet on the center of her mouth and swept it gently from side to side.
Her lashes and sparkly eyeshadow made a pretty canopy over her eyes as they remained trained on Iris’s mouth.
“There.” Her gaze flashed upward to meet Iris’s, though she kept her finger pressed ever so slightly into her neck, making the spot feel hot. “Your pulse is racing.”
Iris gave a nervous breath of a laugh. “I don’t know why.”
In a motion too sensual to be surprising, Lindsay kissed her. Her pillowy lips were soft but insistent, parting Iris’s with her tongue in a languid caress before releasing Iris’s mouth with a light, glossy smack.
“Sorry, I’m not…” Iris suddenly felt so conventional.
“I know. But I wanted to.” Lindsay smiled. “And I didn’t even mess up the lipstick.”
Iris reached for her purse. “Should we head back?”
“I need a bump. You want one?”
And Iris hadn’t thought she could feel more square.
She said no thanks and averted her eyes while Lindsay retrieved the cocaine from her bag and snorted it.
It was the handbag that made her look again—a cherry-blossom-pink Hermès mini-Kelly with icy silver hardware.
Iris had only seen its kind on her Instagram Explore page, keeper of all her shallowest desires.
“That bag is major,” Iris said, the clumsy slang making her feel old again.
“Isn’t it?” Lindsay’s big blue eyes flashed. “She’s my new baby.”
“This might be rude to ask but…is it real?”
“The boobs are fake, but the Kelly is real. Daddy got it for me.”
“Wow. Can I touch it?”
“The boobs or the bag?” Lindsay handed her the bag with a smirk.
Iris laughed nervously and tried the tiny bag on. It was utterly impractical, but Iris did think it made her look fabulous—and rich. “It’s to die for.”
“Did you smell the leather?” Lindsay slipped her fingers in the tiny bag’s opening and buried her nose inside, exhaling with a carnal moan. “Fuck.”
Iris realized that for Lindsay, the only aphrodisiac greater than her perfume was Hermès. “They’re like super expensive, right?”
“It’d be around ten if we got it straight from Hermès, but then you can’t pick the color, and I’m a pink girlie. So we went secondary market—I mean, it was brand-new, in box”—Lindsay paused for dramatic effect—“thirty-five thousand dollars.”
“Shut up.” Iris quickly took the purse off and shoved it back in her direction. “You weren’t kidding about Bill! He must be crazy about you.”
She giggled. “It’s that building deal that went through for him.”
“The NYCHA plan? That just got approved a few weeks ago. They won’t even start building for a year. No one’s seeing profit from that for a while.”
“Something else, then. I told you, it’s boring, Bill knows not to bother explaining it to me. All he said was ‘My ship came in.’ Such a cute old man expression. But he definitely got paid. And don’t think he didn’t treat himself too. He bought a Maserati.”
—
When Iris returned to her seat at the table, where dessert, a deconstructed key lime pie, had been served, she was dismayed to hear Gabe and Peter still debating.
Peter was saying, “Let me tell you a story of how woke do-gooders perpetuate the problem. I’ve been trying for years to build a major residential development complex on a flailing commercial lot in Harlem.
One hundred and fifty affordable units, six hundred more for folks who don’t qualify for assistance but still need a place to live.
It would’ve included a community and cultural center and a civil rights museum.
It was even gonna be green energy compliant, Jonathan will be happy to hear.
” He took a swig of his wine. “Two months ago, a single city councilwoman, elected by a handful of votes in an election nobody gives a shit about, vetoed the plan.”
Marilyn gasped. “No.”
“Years of time, money— pfft— up in smoke,” Jen added.
“Why?” Diane asked.
“There’s no pleasing these people. She wanted three-quarters of the apartments to be below market rate, something impossible. Nothing is good enough for activists looking to make a name for themselves out-woke-ing the wokest.”
“What are you going to do?” Jonathan asked.
“Let me guess, cue Michael Corleone.” Art smoothed his hair back. “?‘My offer is…nothing.’?”
Peter raised his glass. “I converted the lot to a big, beautiful truck depot.”
“I believe that’s called fuck around and find out!” Art bellowed.
“I may recoup some investment by building a luxury condo building, small enough to bypass council approval. But for now, I’m enjoying letting these truckers pump exhaust into the bitch’s face. Small price for the money she cost me.”
“How much we talking?” Marilyn asked.
Peter pursed his lips. “Seven hundred million.”
Jonathan winced.
Gabe interjected, “So the truck thing is like…a revenge prank? You know what the asthma rates are in Harlem?”
Peter chuckled. “Kids can stay home. They’re safer inside anyway. Wouldn’t want any stray gentrification to hit them while they’re walking to school.”
“My father always said, perfect is the enemy of good.” Jen waved a fork in the air. “And comparison is the thief of joy!”
“Or, profit is the enemy of progress,” Gabe said sharply.
Jen gasped, looking stricken. Iris briefly thought she was shocked by Gabe’s tone until Jen said, “Lindsay, your nose! ”
Every head turned toward Lindsay. Bright crimson blood trailed out of her left nostril and dotted her décolleté. She seemed as surprised to see it as everyone else.
“Jesus,” Bill hissed. “Get a tissue.”
Lindsay covered her nose with one hand and fumbled with the other.
“I think I have—” She bent forward to fumble for her fallen napkin and her bag slipped off her chair just in time for gravity to pull a mini gush of blood down her front, dot-dot-dotting the purse’s blush-colored leather in vermilion.
“My Kelly!” She picked it up like an injured child.
Bill scowled. “I got you that a month ago and you already ruinedit.”
Iris handed Lindsay a napkin to wipe it with, but that only smeared the blood. Lindsay sprang up from the table and fled in the direction of the restroom.
“Another bathroom trip is the last thing she needs,” Marilyn muttered to Jen, who tittered in reply.