Authors: Deborah Schwartz
We walked the streets in the 7th and 8th arrondissements for hours that day gorging on sinful pistachio, almond and chocolate macarons, and eclairs stuffed with a creamy coffee custard and a luscious chocolate icing. To warm up after hours in the freezing cold, we drank the richest hot chocolate that Paris had to offer. I spent my first night in Paris afraid to close my eyes, fearing to wake up in New York the next morning with the trip having only been a sweet dream. Len knew that another beau had offered me a weekend in Paris, and I had refused, hoping to go with Mr. Right.
In the morning we woke early since Len was on a mission for bargains on Art Deco antiques at the Parisian flea market at Clignancourt. The air felt freezing that morning and we wandered for hours up and down the stalls until my feet and hands went numb. Len was calling the shots for the weekend and he relented at last to take a break for some baguettes and café americains in a small café. But time in his mind did not stand still and we quickly moved on in search once more. Len finally purchased a green enamel liquor box for $3000 and seemed very pleased with his find.
After defrosting in a hot bath perfumed with lavender salts at our hotel, we headed to Le Caprice, a small French restaurant in Montmartre that was hosting a Valentine’s Day dinner. They garishly decorated the tables, the walls, even the menus, and provided female patrons with cupid picture frames and tiny teddy bears carrying hearts. We were eating in a Hallmark card store.
When the waiter translated the menu, Len and I laughed as we heard the choices: wild boar, venison, or rabbit.
“Guess I should have called ahead,” Len joked.
“Any fish or pasta?” I asked the waiter.
“Non.”
The waiter was all attitude, acting as if I had mistaken the place for McDonald’s.
Len managed a few words with the maitre d’, and the kitchen reluctantly agreed to rummage around and create something for me.
“They’re going to make something that wasn’t shot today,” he assured me.
The tables in the restaurant fit very close together. Valentine’s Day might be a shared experience that night.
“The French really know how to celebrate Valentine’s Day,” I said quietly.
Suddenly Len reached into his pocket, took out a huge diamond ring, placed it on the table in front of me and asked me to marry him.
He appeared nervous as hell. I glanced at him and then at the ring. The diamond looked enormous, four or five carats, in a very beautiful Tiffany setting. The ring felt a little tight as I tried to place it on my finger. Not terribly graceful, but I managed to get it on. Len didn’t slip it on my finger and he didn’t get down on his knees, although it would be hard to imagine him on his knees for anybody. I don’t even remember if I ever answered his question.
The awkwardness of the proposal made the ritual feel so contrived. And that was it. The moment I had waited years for passed and it felt no more touching, no more thrilling than if we had spent the evening watching reruns of “Friends” on TV. The couple at the next table witnessed the whole thing and smiled at us. Guess it looked authentic to them.
We returned to the hotel and I called Chloe in Barcelona.
“Guess what? Remember Len and I planned to go to Frankfurt? Well, we ended up in Paris, and tonight at dinner he asked me to marry him.”
“What about Daddy? What happens to him?” she said.
“Daddy? This has nothing to do with Daddy,” I replied concerned about what Chloe might be thinking.
Chloe’s unexpected reaction made the evening even more anti-climatic and sad. She harbored thoughts about her Daddy that she hadn’t shared.
I called Ben. My mother was staying with him for the weekend.
“Ben, Len asked me to marry him!”
“That’s great Mom. Hey, guess what?” he yelled to my mother.
“Len asked Mom to marry him!”
My mother was on the phone in no time.
“I’m so happy for you. So happy. Can I tell everyone?” she asked.
“Of course you can.”
We could barely make love that night, an awkward tension evident in our bodies felt like a sign that getting engaged may have been wrong. My second night in Paris I went to sleep dazzled by the rock on my finger but scared that our anti-climatic engagement might be more cubic zirconia than Tiffany diamond.
The next morning, after a delicious breakfast of Eggs Benedict at the Ritz, we set out for the Biennial Antiques Fair at the Grand Palais. The furniture would be beautiful and very expensive. Len was itching to buy something.
Time stood still that morning in Paris as he raced around the Fair, trying to figure out what to buy. We were surrounded by gorgeous objects, plotting how to spend more money than some people earn in a year. Len had already indulged me in a minor take of this extravagance in New York when he picked out an antique Regency style dresser for his bedroom that cost $12,000. This must be a Raskolnikov moment for Len.
After two hours of careful searching, he decided on an elegant mid-Nineteenth Century hand carved Italian rococo table for $20,000. The decision was based on a simple calculation of what Len could shell out, and that most of the other pieces were way beyond his means. Len was simply out of his league when desks were $500,000 and armoires a million.
We returned to New York and the following weekend my friend Ann threw a small engagement dinner for us. Everyone gathered in the private room of La Cote Basque and Thomas stood to make the first toast.
“Len, you’ve finally met your match!”
My brother held up a glass.
“Len, you must be nuts!” my brother cheered.
I watched Ben and he appeared thrilled with the evening. Len’s kids, even Jennifer, congratulated us with hugs. We laughed and drank and for the first time, it felt like we were celebrating the moment. Our engagement had become so much more for others than what Len and I experienced that night in Paris.
“Sarah, Len and I are engaged.” I relayed the news on the phone.
“Congratulations! Are you good with this?”
“What do you think?”
“Did Jake ever give you ‘permission’ as it is called?”
“No, he was so sad at the time. I think he just assumed I’d move on. We never discussed it. It would have been too painful,” I said.
“Sorry for the therapists hat being on, but have you thought that’s why you are ambivalent about all this engagement stuff?”
“I’ve had worse thoughts than that.”
“Uh oh. Tell me,” Sarah demanded.
“What if Len is my way of sabotaging any possibility of moving on past Jake? What if he’s just so wrong for me and then Jake stays in my life?”
“Oh baby. So Jake still occupies your heart? That’s a real problem if that’s true.”
• • •
Once a year several of the managing partners of Duke Heller, all close business associates of Len’s, held an intimate dinner. This year they decided on Le Bernardin, often cited as the best restaurant in the City. Terribly expensive, elegant with an incomparable menu, it made perfect sense that the dinner should be held there.
“This is my fiancé, Kate,” Len said to one partner as we walked in.
His words stunned me for some reason. The first time hearing them since our engagement.
Len walked away to chat with another couple.
“I don’t know how to say this other than you’ve done a great job on Len. He seems so relaxed and happy,” the partner said.
Who was this generous-hearted man?
“That’s so kind of you to say.”
“No. You’ve made life easier for all of us.”
I started to laugh since it was all about him.
“My pleasure.”
At dinner the men drank to their successful year while the women leaned back into their chairs. My two lives. As if I needed a passport to cross over the deep divide into the world of these women. Len was watching me, possibly to see how I’d behave. Straddling the chasm, I reached for my glass of wine. I’d need all the help I could get.
We sat in our cocoon of astonishing food, glistening jewelry, designer clothing, pleasantries, and an overwhelming air of confidence that filled the room. Why would one ever want to leave this bubble?
As the evening wore on however the endless pleasantries grew tiresome. The talk about money and deals by the men went on and on. The women didn’t discuss their work, if they did work, and I certainly didn’t get asked about mine. No talk about the latest play or movie, or even our children.
Like high school girls readying for the prom, we rambled on about where we had bought our dresses, had our hair and makeup done, and where to buy the best shoes. My friends and I could indulge in that girl talk for quite some time, but they would not have recognized me after two hours of it.
As we ordered dessert, I faded. I knew the bubble had burst.
• • •
“We should live together and see how it works,” Len said after we made love the following Saturday night.
“You mean get an apartment together, not live in my apartment?”
“Yes, I’ll have Susan Carpenter, my real estate agent, start looking. If I see something I really like, I can buy it and keep the house in New Jersey.”
My apartment, a small, nine hundred square foot, two bedroom apartment, was not a place Len would be settling for. The next week we began looking at apartments that cost millions on the Upper East Side. It was an out of body experience as we walked around these apartments with Susan. None of them appeared quite right for Len.
Each time we entered another apartment we walked around silently witnessing a stranger’s bedroom, closets, bathrooms. Some of the apartments looked pristine, while some owners must have rushed out in anticipation of our visit leaving a pile of dirty dishes in the sink. Behind the facade of elegant buildings at the right address were apartments with an enormous price tag and an attempt to make a home in a city of millions of people. Len and I just couldn’t see any of them as our home, not yet.
When Susan finally showed us a very large, four bedroom, Len actually confessed to me he didn’t have the money to pay that much. It was just what we had been looking for with an understated elegance on 79th Street close to Fifth Avenue.
“I’m growing impatient with this. We need a place and this is going to take a long time,” he said to Susan.
“Why don’t you rent in the meantime and we can keep looking for something to buy?” Susan replied.
So we decided to rent for the time being a twenty four hundred square foot, three bedroom on the twenty-second floor of a thirty-story building. An ordinary apartment with white walls, white tile bathrooms and a small kitchen, offered a view off the terrace that was breathtaking. The rent listed at $10,500 a month.
“You should pay forty percent of the rent,” Len said.
“Let’s think about what tiny percent of your income I earn and compare your assets and mine,” I responded.
“I didn’t ask for fifty percent. We need to be equally responsible for this. This is only till we’re married.”
“Fine. If that’s what you want. That’s fine,” I said.
“The lease must be in your name. There are tax implications for me in New York if it’s in my name. I’ll give you my share every month. And they’re going to want a large security deposit since the lease will be in your name,” he said.
Our first night in the apartment we lied in bed and looked out at the gorgeous view and the lights of the City.
“I can’t believe we’re living here. It’s beautiful,” I said.
Len took me in his arms.
“And I get to walk the streets of the City with this ring on my finger. People just stare at it, it’s so big,” I added.
“Are you still unhappy that I never got on my knees to ask you to marry me?” Len asked.
“Maybe.”
And with that, Len got out of bed, walked over to my side and got down on his knees.
“Will you marry me?” he asked.
“Yes.”
We made love that night slowly and passionately. It was unlike anything that I had experienced with Len. Our bodies could not get enough of each other, could not pleasure each other enough. When we were done, we lie there knowing that no matter what else happened, we had shared a moment of bliss together that seemed to make our troubled ride worthwhile.
SPRING 1989
CHAPTER 27
Late April
I
t was time to see if Jake would qualify for the next dose of the drug. When we arrived on our usual floor everything was the same - so familiar, our second home. Our friends had beach houses. We had the cancer hospital. There was even a cot set up in the room.
Jake’s calcium was very high, an indication that the tumor raged in his body.
“At this point some families would elect to go home and let the patient die,” Martin told me in the waiting room.
“We are not some families. Treat Jake with whatever you have.”
“You might be deluding yourselves,” Martin said.
“I don’t care. Right or wrong, we want a miracle. We will fight as long as there is life left in Jake’s body.”