The Penthouse Reading
The Fifth Avenue penthouse sailed over Central Park like a glass ship. Richard bought it before her, she remade it after.
Books banished. Angles everywhere. Seating that punished the idea of sinking in.
The kind of place you hire people to live in for you.
I rode the private elevator up with Palmer and a pair of board members wearing identical navy suits and identical expressions of solemn networking.
My sensible black dress and thrift-store coat looked like they had cleared security by mistake.
The doors opened to the soft clink of glassware and the murmur of people who weren’t sure whether to whisper or pitch.
Fashion friends, board members, glossy strangers drifted through as if this were a launch party instead of a wake.
Caterers moved like choreography. The skyline wrapped the room in windows, Manhattan glittering behind the gathered mourners like a jealous understudy.
“Eleanor, darling.” Amanda offered an air-kiss that landed safely a breath from my cheek.
Her perfume smelled like something you had to sign for.
“So glad you could make it. You look… strong.”
“I’m here,” I said. That was all I could promise.
“No wine?” A crystal stem blinked in her hand.
“No wine,” I said. “Thank you.” I didn’t trust myself not to throw it.
She pivoted to a tall man in an Italian suit stationed near the windows.
“Julian, you came.” Her hand fell to his knee as she sat beside him on the low, brutalist sofa and stayed there.
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