I held the warm puppy close to my eyes, stifling my tears in his soft fur. “What makes you say that?”
“The way you talked about him,” Pops said. “Like you were trying to convince yourself he was the one.” He stuffed his trash into the Dunkin’ Donuts bag and then tossed the sack like a basketball to the can, missing. “I’m losing my touch.” He got up and threw it in the garbage. A cement truck roared by, sending up a cloud of dust.
“There’s my little Cookie Wookie,” said a gaunt man with lacquered red hair dressed in jeans and a blue work shirt as he ambled up to the stoop. He wore a massive gold Rolex watch. I recognized him as Phillip Shayne, the manager of Old Time Records around the corner.
Pops stood and placed the fluffy Maltese in his arms.
“How’d my little baby girl do?” the big guy asked as Cookie furiously licked his nose.
“She was lonely and cried for you,” Pops said. “So I let her sleep with me and gave her some extra TLC.”
“Thanks, man,” the guy said. He reached in his pocket and pulled out a ten. “Here you go, Pops. C’mon, Cookums.”
Pops went back inside and soon came out holding a black-haired shih tzu with a pink bow in her hair. “Meet Orangy,” he said.
“That’s her name? Orangy?” I said. “Even though she’s black?”
“It’s ironic,” Pops said, feeding her a chocolate Munchkin. “Her human is Fran Stevens, the rock singer. She’s on her way over.”
“Pops, I don’t think chocolate is good for dogs.”
“Really?” He seemed surprised. “Even with all the antioxidants? What about dark chocolate?”
“No chocolate, period,” I said. “It’s full of sugar and caffeine.”
Not a minute later, a petite dynamo with a squidged-up face bounded up the block. She had a turned-up nose, freckles, jet-black hair, and a remarkable resemblance to the dog she had come to claim. “Orangy, Mommy’s here,” she sang.
Pops put the ecstatic, trembling dog in the woman’s hands while the pup emitted high-pitched squeals of joy and leaked urine. “She really missed you,” he said. “But don’t worry. I let her sleep with me and gave her extra TLC.”
“Thanks, Pops.” She reached into her pocket and pulled out a twenty. “We appreciate the special treatment,” she said. “Don’t we, Orangy? Yes, we do.”
“That’s quite a hustle you got going there,” I said, after Orangy’s owner disappeared down the block.
“Isn’t it?” Pops said proudly. “I pick up an extra fifty a day making owners feel like I love their pets the most.”
“You think that’s okay?”
“I’m not lying. I treat ’em all the same—like royalty. And anyway, I need the money. Whole Foods wouldn’t hire me. Said I was too old.”
“They can’t say that. It’s against the law.”
“Oh, they didn’t use those words exactly,” Pops explained. “They said I was overqualified. That’s code for too old.”
“Aw, sorry,” I said, laying my head on his shoulder. “I didn’t get the job I expected, either.”
“Why not?” Pops asked.
“My boss said I wasn’t good enough…didn’t dress the part…couldn’t bring in big donations like the Sammie-come-lately she hired.”
Pops gave me a squeeze. “I’m awfully sorry about that, Holly. You had a rough day yesterday, didn’t you?”
“Truer words have never been spoken, Pops.”
Put Your Dreams Away
I WAS THE FIRST TO arrive at the office that day, except for Gus, of course, who had been minding the store all night. He was snoring and whistling, just like in a cartoon. I gently shook him awake. “Here, two vanilla-glazed doughnuts with sprinkles, the way you like ’em.”
Gus yawned and stretched his arms. “Thanks, Holly. You are the brightest star at this museum.”
“Awwww, shucks.” I giggled, blushing. Gus always lifted my spirits. “You’re too good to me.”
“I’d do anything for you.”
At least somebody appreciated me at work. Tanya’s door was closed. I stepped into my cubicle, switched on the computer, and checked my e-mail.
“Oh, lord,” I muttered, crumpling into my chair. Everyone I knew and scores I didn’t must have seen the papers. My in-box was crammed with messages: “Are you okay?” “What happened?” “Call me!!!” “That shithead!”
I checked Gawker and PerezHilton. Photos of Alessandro and me fleeing the police station, along with snarky stories, topped the sites. Perfect. There was no way Tanya hadn’t heard about it. I started to google Alessandro’s name to read more press, but I couldn’t bear it.
I pondered for a moment and then typed in newyorksocialdiary.com. If you want to read about the Manhattan blue bloods and observe them at play, this was a good place to start.
I entered Denis’ name and pages of photos came up with him posing at various fetes with the same woman, a sapling, really, on his arm. With a click of my mouse, I scrolled through the photos. The human bauble by his side was Sydney Bass (of the Oyster Bay Basses). She was a beautiful girl if you liked perfectly proportioned designer-clad blondes with long, sinewy legs, translucent skin, piercing blue eyes, and sultry lips. You know the type—they don’t burp, fart, poop, or take public transportation. I had read about her in the Style section of the Times, in an article about ambitious well-born daughters pursuing the new socialite game—the one in which they use their family names and contacts to become nationally recognized brands, like Aerin Lauder and Ivanka Trump. If you ask me, that was piggish. What, it’s not enough for them to be rich and gorgeous? They want meaningful lives too?
Sydney Bass played a leading role in her family’s real estate business. She had inherited twenty-five million square feet of office space on four continents from her father. While attending Harvard Business School, she along with her advisers parlayed her inheritance into the largest privately held portfolio in the city. The woman was smart, rich, beautiful, socially prominent, and twenty-six years old.
