Carriage Trade (68 page)

“Was it pretty bad?”

“It was worse! No, it was better! I told him everything you said to tell him, and a few more things of my own!”

“Thank God we've got the box of records. If we didn't, they'd be in the incinerator by now.”

“I can do it!” she says. “I know I can do it. Up till now, I've been whistling in the dark and
hoping
I could do it. But now I
know
I can do it, Peter! I've never felt so sure of anything in my life. I can run it!
I can run the store!”

“Of course you can do it,” he says. “I've always known you could.”

“But I should say
we
can do it, shouldn't I? Because we're going to do it together, my darling, aren't we? We're going to do it together, you and I.”

“What did you say?”

“I said I should say
we
. Because we're going to do it together.”

“Funny. I thought I heard you call me ‘my darling.'”

“Did I?” She laughs. “Yes, I guess I did. Yes, I did, my darling. Yes, my darling. Yes, my love. Yes, yes, yes.”

He kisses her, and his kiss is so sudden that some of the sip of wine she has just taken spills into his mouth, and now they are both laughing, laughing at nothing at all, laughing at everything in the world, wine dribbling down their chins.

“We'll have to learn to do that better, won't we?” she says, laughing and sputtering. “We'll learn to do that next. So many things to do next … and next … and next …”

He scoops his hand around her waist and pulls her to her feet.

“Why is that couple dancing?” someone murmurs from the bar. “There isn't any music.”

Epilogue

From
The New York Times
, March 11, 1992:

GROUND BROKEN FOR FLYING HORSE ESTATES

Old Westbury, N.Y.—One of the last great estates on Long Island's North Shore disappeared today as the Allen B. Sirkin Company of Manhattan broke ground for an ambitious new development. The estate, known as Flying Horse Farm, belonged to the late Silas R. Tarkington, the retailing tycoon. The Sirkin development will divide the 82-acre property into building lots of up to one acre each, where some 75 “personalized” luxury homes will be built to sell in the $1 million to $1.5 million range. The development will be known as Flying Horse Estates.

The Tarkington estate had included a small manmade lake. In the process of draining and filling this lake, an amusing relic of Silas Tarkington's era was discovered by workmen. It is a television set affixed with a brass plaque reading
For Silas Tarkington, a great merchant, with warmest thanks from President and Mrs. Gerald R. Ford, 1976
. “We have no idea what the TV set was doing at the bottom of the lake,” Mr. Sirkin said. “But since it has some historic significance, it will be preserved and displayed in our new clubhouse, though the set is obviously no longer in working order.”

Rumors Denied

Meanwhile, members of the Tarkington family denied rumors to the effect that Flying Horse Farm had been sold in an effort to raise cash for Tarkington's, the fashionable Fifth Avenue specialty store that has been reported troubled with management uncertainties since the founder's sudden death last August. “The farm was simply too much for my mother to handle,” said Miranda Tarkington, 25, the store's new president and the daughter of the founder. “Also, it harbored unhappy memories for her,” Ms. Tarkington added, “since my father died there.” Silas Tarkington's widow, now Mrs. Jacob Kohlberg, is in the process of selling other of the former couple's properties, Ms. Tarkington confirmed. “My mother has a new husband and a whole new life now,” Ms. Tarkington said. “That keeps her very busy.”

Ms. Tarkington also denied rumors that the store has experienced fiscal upheavals since her father's death, noting that the store had a “better than average” Christmas season and that this year's first-quarter figures are expected to surpass last year's. She also stressed the store's “new and more youthful” management team, in which Peter Turner, 29, an M.B.A. graduate of Harvard and a former journalist, serves as the store's executive vice president and general manager. Turner replaced Thomas E. Bonham III, 45, who retired in October of last year and who had been serving as the store's interim chief executive.

Ms. Tarkington preferred not to comment on whether Mr. Bonham's retirement had been forced or voluntary. “You really should ask him that question,” she said. Mr. Bonham could not be reached for comment, however, and
The Times
was told he was on his honeymoon. Bonham recently married the former Harriet Minskoff, the widow of the mysterious financier who, just days before his still-unsolved murder last fall, took out a $10 million accident-insurance policy on his life. The newlyweds, accompanied by a manservant, were said to be cruising aboard the Minskoff yacht, somewhere in the Philippine Sea.

Acknowledgments

My own career in retailing was youthful and brief, but memorable nonetheless. During the course of it I was able to meet, and get to know, a number of the great merchandising giants of their day, including Bernard F. Gimbel, Bruce Gimbel, Adam and Sophie Gimbel, Andrew and Nena Goodman, Jack Straus, Mildred Custin, Dorothy Shaver, Jo Hughes, and of course my boss, the late, legendary Bernice FitzGibbon. These people, and the perfumed jungle of department and specialty stores they inhabited were in no small part the inspiration—if that's not too pompous a word—for this novel, and I have even given a few of them small cameo (and fictional) roles in the story. I'd like to thank each of them now for this privilege.

More recently, I am also indebted to Mr. and Mrs. Fred Lazarus III, of the Federated Department Stores family, both of whom took time off from a busy schedule to read this book in manuscript, and to point out details where I hadn't got it quite right. Thank you both, Fred and Irma. Similarly, Mrs. Phyllis Sewell of Cincinnati, a former Federated executive, read the manuscript with a keen and finicky eye, and made many helpful suggestions. Even before a word of this book was written, Mrs. Sewell gave me an invaluable “update” course on retailing in the 1980's and 90's. Thank you, Phyllis.

My favorite editor, Genevieve Young, was, as always, endlessly helpful and supportive of the project, as well as endlessly demanding and hard to please. But who would want an editor who was any other way? My friend, Dr. Edward Lahniers, who understands more about the workings of the human mind than most people, read the novel chapter by chapter as it emerged from my typewriter, and offered acute and valuable psychological observations about my characters' motivations and behaviors. “Now why would she react like that?” was his favorite question, and he was usually right. She just
wouldn't
react like that.

I'd also like to thank my friend and agent, Carl D. Brandt, for his cool, smooth, and professional guidance of this project from the beginning.

And, last but not least, I'd like to thank the woman to whom this book is dedicated and who, in ways she may not realize, became this novel's heroine.

Stephen Birmingham

About the Author

Stephen Birmingham is an American author of more than thirty books. Born in Hartford, Connecticut, in 1932, he graduated from Williams College in 1953 and taught writing at the University of Cincinnati. Birmingham's work focuses on the upper class in America. He's written about the African American elite in
Certain People
and prominent Jewish society in
Our Crowd: The Great Jewish Families of New York
,
The Grandees: The Story of America's Sephardic Elite
, and
The Rest of Us: The Rise of America's Eastern European Jews.
His work also encompasses several novels including
The Auerbach Will, The LeBaron Secret, Shades of Fortune
, and
The Rothman Scandal
, and other nonfiction titles such as
California Rich, The Grandes Dames
, and
Life at the Dakota: New York's Most Unusual Address
. Birmingham lives in southwest Ohio.

All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 1993 by Stephen Birmingham

Cover design by Angela Goddard

ISBN: 978-1-5040-2633-8

This edition published in 2015 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.

345 Hudson Street

New York, NY 10014

www.openroadmedia.com

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