Monkey Suits (11 page)

“I often think about getting out of the city,” Kevin said.

“This job ... ”

“Getting to you?”

“I dunno. I’ve lost track of anything else, any other skill.” They walked down to the exit together. He posed a question to his latest personal idol. “If you could do anything, stay in New York, or leave, but you couldn’t be rich, what would you do?”

“Something else,” Kevin said.

“What?”

“Anything. Go barn-building in Pennsylvania Dutch Country. Ride a Harley to Malibu. Ride horseback naked by the ocean.”

“I can’t do that.”

“Why not?” Kevin asked.

“I’m not like the people we serve. I’m trapped.”

“No. You can change anything in your life. You’re not the only one. They’re trapped, too.” He nodded up through the window to the looming townhouses. “They just have bigger cages.”

Lee flicked on a light and dropped his bag on the floor. He tossed the
Daily News
that he’d picked up on the train into the kitchen trashcan. More exultant articles praising the election of George Bush filled the pages, as if it were inevitable, as if the whole country were still standing on its feet, waving flags. They had read his lips and held up chubby babies ready for kissing, their consent slowly covering the map like a glacier of cement.

He walked back and forth in his small apartment a while, tired but too anxious to sleep. He thought of setting another elegant late night dinner of
nicoise en croute pour un,
but passed the point where his table technique cheered him enough to mask a tuna sandwich with a doily.

He craved green olives, wanted to suck the briny juice from their pimentoed centers. He’d spent Thanksgiving serving dinner to an Upper East Side party of sixteen, who were giddy over the election results.

Although he’d been fed a meal of turkey, handmade cranberry sauce, and all the holiday foods, he’d longed secretly for the middle class version; cranberry juice from a can, creamed vegetables heated lovingly from plastic pouches by his mother, and her specialty, green olives and cream cheese spread over celery sticks, the annual appetizer served amid the rumble of a football game on the TV. Although his stomach was full as he sat on a stool in the millionaire’s stark white kitchen with his coworkers, he’d felt a hunger for those olives, the taste of home.

11
Beyond the section of the Metropolitan Museum, the wing of
Renaissance chambers, each a complete replica of ornate dressing rooms, salons and bedrooms, became a makeshift dressing room. Several waiters, tired of being boxed into cramped spaces for changing without so much as a chair to sit on while they tied their shoelaces, had slipped through the partitions and into the bedroom exhibit. Delicate high canopy beds lay grandly gathering dust behind glass fences. Despite the red cords prohibiting it, one waiter rested on a Louis XIV chair to change his socks.

Marcos nodded to the exhibit as he pulled off his sweater. “Bet those sheets haven’t seen any action in a while.”

Another waiter, Russell, dropped his pants, revealing a pair of boxer shorts emblazoned with racing cars. He leered at Marcos. “Ya wanna give mine a ride?”

“Ooh, don’t tempt me, baby.”

“We should give out awards,” remarked Brian. Stripped down to his white shirt, underwear and black socks, he tugged playfully at Russell’s shorts. “Best underwear, best legs.”

“Sexiest colored underwear,” Ed boasted, as he pulled his pants off to reveal bright red briefs.

“Best bulge,” added Dennis, an actor.

“Best packaging,” Marcos corrected.

“I like women in men’s shorts,” offered Ritchie, as he pulled up his suspenders.

“That’s because it makes them look like men,” Brian glared coyly at Ritchie.

“Naw, it’s just a fashion thing, “ Ritchie defended.

“I like boxers,” Ed said as he sat on the floor changing his socks. He watched a silent and lanky fellow revealing a baggy pair of clean white Calvin Klein shorts. They glanced at each other approvingly.

Brian continued. “They’re so retro, so Best Friend’s Dad.”

“The game the whole family can play,” Dennis said. He stood very close to Ed as he buttoned his short with his pants off.

“Yes, boxers,” Brian declared, watching Ed receive the guy’s flirtations. He considered sharing him with Ed. A threesome seemed just the thing to spice up their less than thrilling sex life. But Ed, who had partaken of such wanton lust in his college days, had moved beyond such antics. “They let things hang free and easy.”

“Free and easy?” Marcos chirped. “Sounds like a douche.”

“Douche?” Brian replied, his remark echoing absurdly through the museum hall. “You should know, you douche queen, from cleanin’ out that hole o’ yours!”

“You bitch!” Marcos jumped after him, nearly slipping bare-socked on the marble floor. The two set off down the corridor. He caught up with Brian, grabbing him about the waist. They nearly toppled into two other waiters, Carl and George, who were both dancers and also half-dressed.

Ed watched their antics, particularly his boyfriend. He had tried to sit Brian down before leaving, but he was once again in a rush, ironing a soiled shirt, digging for a pair of black socks. Ed had wanted to talk, discuss where their relationship was going. Brian was good at avoiding such soul-baring conversations, choosing instead to simply make love or shrug it off. Talking seriously on the train was impossible.

To Ed, Brian’s perpetual bad boy attitude seemed a warning. Ed wanted to help, to change Brian, to assist him in maturing so the two could grow into the next phase of their love. He’d read the books on gay couples. They were supposed to be shifting to the next phase after limerence. He’d consulted with a few spiritual books, but most seemed to offer advice that had no bearing on the clumsy reality of being a boyfriend. Soon Brian would come around. He’d realize what love meant, that it was something to be grown and nurtured. It wasn’t just about sex.

Marcos clutched Ed. “Come, dear. Let us dance.” They whirled about in a comic waltz.

“No, no. Like this.” George cut in, taking Marcos in his arms.

He set a tempo and turned about while Ed giggled and took arms with the other young man who’d flirted. His tux pants on but the fly open, he snapped his suspenders on over his bare chest. “Shall we?” He bowed to Ed, who giggled and took him in his arms.

The quartet whirled delicately about the hall. Ritchie began humming a Strauss waltz.

While the rest watched, amused by the display, the men danced in circles a few minutes more, their white shirts open and flowing. Occasionally their socked feet slipped, but they held on, smiling at the absurd joyous moment, as if the ghosts of the Renaissance royalty, whose formally pilfered furniture sat stiffly by, looked on in charmed amusement.

Down the hall, a hundred yards away on the small dance floor in the rotunda of the Met, a few elderly couples made a semblance of a modest samba. They held each other close, not really dancing, but simply clinging to each other while the band’s music echoed through the front hall. It was rare that music was played at Met parties, but the hosts, Bernard and Cornelia Berngratt, were determined to break with the usual decorum.

“It’s so
declassé
,” Trish Fuller grinned at Madame Caroline Bucha, a Belgian heiress, “but amusing.”

The ladies glanced at the few couples shuffling lightly before the band. Trish Fuller’s last remark satisfied Madame Bucha, whose tastes consistently evolved around those who spoke first. She agreed. “So often we don’t get a chance to do a leetle samba.” She took another sip of her drink, careful not to actually finish it. Gulping down a drink to its end was inappropriate. Merely discard and get another. She held her half empty glass to a passing waiter, who, despite the fact that his tray was for canapés, took it.

“Cornelia always likes to be a bit forward with her parties,” Trish said.

“It’s nice to be a bit different,” the heiress agreed. “Dahling, you told me at luncheon last week that you were wearing the Chanel.”

Madame Bucha glanced adoringly at Trish’s Bruno de la Selle gown, a simple black and cream creation which sold for $15,000. But since Trish mentioned how she was determined to wear it at the more photogenic parties, Bruno, a dear old friend since the early Lincoln Center days, agreed to give it to her at half off. Trish fondled her egg-shaped purse, a glittering cluster of beads, attempting to control herself from lighting another cigarette.

“I changed my mind,” Trish said casually. “Especially when my secretary found out that Bruno was on the guest list.”

“A wise move, dear.”

“Thank you. You look radiant. Did I tell you?”

“Yes.”

Trish changed the topic. “So, I do hope you can be on the committee for my benefit in June.”

“Oh, yes of course, the one for the playground?”

“No, the AIDS benefit. It’ll be here at the Met.”

Madame Bucha’s face froze a moment. She hesitated. “I think we’re off to Ibiza by mid-June. Do call me though, I’ll check my calendar.”

“Certainly, dear.” Trish forced a wan smile. “Well, if you’ll excuse me, I must check on Winnie. He just cornered the senator and I mustn’t let him drone on.”

“Ta,” Madame patted her hand lightly on Trish’s arm.

“Ta.” They drew apart and were quickly greeted by other poised and proper guests.

We’ll have to cross her off the list,
Trish Fuller thought.
Just say the word and they run.

12
The East 73rd Street office and kitchen of Fabulous Food
was
originally a town house built by a second cousin of the Vanderman empire. The family of Eugene Bolt, who wisely married into the clan, enjoyed two generations of life in the house until the crash of 1929. They left the city and lived in Europe, where they made millions in the black market as Nazi sympathizers. Meanwhile they rented the Manhattan town house to less wealthy friends of the family, who lived in it until 1972, when the Bolt relatives all but died off or moved to other town houses.

Fenton Gill, a restaurant manager recently in business with Philipe Berget, a noted Belgian chef, offered to buy the space to house their growing catering company. The building was secured with a loan from a German investor, who was also a business partner with the Bolt family and a huge fan of Berget’s recipes. Gill and Berget bought the place.

After ripping the first floor to the core and hiring carpenters and plumbers to completely redo the fixtures, they bought an array of kitchen equipment, stocking the lower floor with every modern stove and refrigerating unit available. The upstairs rooms were converted to offices, and a small lounge for intimate tasting parties.

The company was a huge success, partially from the array of wealthy clients pulled from Gill’s restaurant contacts and Berget’s fans. But most of all, no other company treated the fretting society women so well. They all wanted to throw the best parties. Through the years, Fabulous Food, once the radical newcomers of the uptown special events crowd, became simply
the
company to hire. It became simply
outré
not to hire Fabulous.

Berget moved to staff development, the kitchen work having become too exhausting. They brought Claude Corot from Paris, who revamped the menu and brought simple European cuisine with delicate sauces and desserts to the trend-seeking palettes of the Upper East Side. The ranks of the company doubled. Where once a staff of fifty was hired for a large event, now a hundred fifty were called. There were a lot more rich mouths to feed.