The Manny

‘I, uh, came for lunch?’

‘Avec?’

‘I’m getting wet here. Susannah, she’s …’

‘Qui?’

‘Susannah Briarcliff, surely you …’

The door opened. Jean-François Perrier looked right through me. I pointed out to him that I was with my friend Susannah over there, smiled foolishly and stared plaintively into his deep blue eyes. He waved his hands to motion for the busboy to take me there. No-contact rule in play. Francesca the check girl sized me up and concluded that I wasn’t really one of them. So she decided to sip her Diet Coke at the bar rather than bother with my raincoat. I shook the raindrops off my umbrella in disgust.

La Pierre Noire has no sign on the awning, no published phone number. It is the executive watering hole of one of the world’s most peculiar tribes: a breed of very rich humans inhabiting a specific grid that stretches from Manhattan’s 70th to 79th Streets to the north and south, bordered by Park Avenue and Fifth Avenue to the east and west.

Pity the poor West Sider who strolls by and mistakenly believes this is a restaurant operating by normal procedures, one that actually caters to the public. None too soon will they learn that they are not welcome, even though many tables are free. From the window, one can see rich tangerine velvet banquettes that surround the small, café-style mahogany tables. Handsome thirty-something French waiters dressed in blue jeans and starched, yellow Oxford cloth shirts squeeze between the tight tables.

My closest girlfriends don’t have lunch for a living like Susannah Briarcliff. Most of them have actual jobs, but Susannah is one of the few inhabitants of the Grid whom I go out of my way to see. It’s easy to forget that beneath Susannah’s fabulous wealth and stunning genes, there’s a fun girl that lurks inside. You can basically look for her in any column with party pictures – Harper’s Bazaar, Vogue, the New York Times Style section – and it’s kind of like finding Waldo. Susannah has two kids, three dogs, seven on staff and one of the largest apartments in the city. All this courtesy of her family ties to one of America’s great real-estate dynasties. She’s five feet ten, has a thin athletic build and a shortish blonde Meg Ryan haircut. She is also married to a top editor for the New York Times, which sets her apart from most of the East Side socialites married to dead-wood bankers. Although she doesn’t reach the best-friend category – Kathryn from downtown and Abby and Charles from work all hold that title – she’s a close second.

I slipped into the plush banquette beside her. ‘Jamie. You look good. Really good.’

‘I’m not sure I’m properly dressed …’

‘Stop.’

Twelve of the fifteen tables were taken, filled with New York’s young socialites in fur-collared sweaters and their gay party planners, most of them charlatans who charge three hundred and fifty dollars an hour to pick out just the right fuchsia water goblet to go with a kasbah-themed dinner for twelve. Or just the right cheetah-print heel for a plain black suit. If any of these women purchase a recognizable piece of a certain season, they have to burn it before the following year. And once a blouse or shirt appears in Vogue, it’s already passé for them. I studied my khaki trousers, white blouse and plain black silk sweater. When I’d tell my mother about these women around me – and how sometimes I felt that I didn’t measure up – she’d chastise me for getting sucked into their nonsense. ‘How do you expect to get where you want to go if you’re rubbernecking at everyone else along the way? Don’t focus on what you wrongly perceive as your shortcomings.’

Ingrid Harris blasted through the door with her nanny and four-year-old daughter Vanessa. Jean-François stumbled on his thick French loafers as he ran to greet her. ‘Chérie!’ Kiss kiss.

He snapped his fingers and Francesca eagerly swept the tan shawl off Ingrid’s shoulders. She then unbuckled the fireman hooks from Vanessa’s rain jacket, revealing a pink tutu underneath. The nanny stood back, and held her own coat, used to this drill.

Ingrid looked perfectly gorgeous: she had far-apart brown doe eyes and long layered hair pulled back with a Jackie O-sized pair of black sunglasses. Better than anyone, Ingrid knew that serious style is all about attitude. She was wearing ratty jeans and a four-thousand-dollar lime-green Chanel jacket, as if she just grabbed it off the closet floor. It’s not what you’re wearing, it’s how you wear it; you can’t act like you’re all excited about an expensive fancy new jacket. You wouldn’t be ‘one of them’ if you did that.

‘Jamie, nice to see you. Hello, Susannah.’ Susannah mustered a smile but didn’t speak or even look up. She concentrated on dipping bread into her rosemary-scented olive oil and twisting a straw in her San Pellegrino.

An uncomfortable silence ensued. I broke in. ‘Ingrid, I still can’t believe you had a baby just a month ago. Your body – you look fabulous!’

Ingrid threw back her silky caramel mane. ‘Well, I told them what path to take to get me back to normal quickly, and I was right, even though they all objected.’

Susannah chortled. ‘What you did wasn’t normal. I’m sorry but most doctors would object.’

Ingrid, not at all intimidated, put her hands on her hips. ‘It may have sounded abnormal to you with your two perfect children delivered naturally. But I don’t come from the same Pilgrim stock as you do. My people don’t believe in voluntary discomfort.’

‘That doesn’t mean …’

‘And that means nothing was going to make me push. I said that to my doctor the second he told me I was pregnant. I said, “Dr Shecter, that’s wonderful news but just so you know: I don’t push.”’

I thought Susannah was going to kill her.

‘Too sweaty. Told him my motto: “If I can’t do it in heels, I’m not interested.” I just told him I wouldn’t do it. And I wanted a C-section.’

‘And what did he say?’ asked Susannah.

‘He said, “Sweetheart, I got news for you. Your body’s gonna push whether you like it or not.” And I said, “No, buddy, I got news for you which you are clearly not understanding: I do not push.”’

‘So what did you do?’

‘I went to another doctor who understood that I meant what I said, so he basically agreed to the C-section and told me we’d do it in the thirty-ninth week.’

Susannah rolled her eyes.

‘But then that doctor wouldn’t promise to give me general anaesthesia.’ Ingrid tapped her boot and crossed her arms impatiently. ‘Well, I told them at East Side Presbyterian that they were bringing it back for me!’

‘And they agreed?’ Susannah asked incredulously. ‘Without a medical reason?’

‘Well, my dear, they sure didn’t want to, but I made Henry give the Chief of Obstetrics a membership at the Atlantic Golf Club, so they really had no choice.’

Susannah coughed into her napkin like she might throw up. Despite Ingrid’s crazy behaviour, I admired her for always getting what she wanted and never being scared to ask.

‘Which is why I came over here, Jamie,’ Ingrid continued. ‘Did you get my email about the auction?’

‘I did.’

‘This year they aren’t holding it in that hideous gallery space in the West Village. I told them if they did, I wouldn’t chair the event. I said to the organizing committee, “Hello?!! Look at the crowd that is coming. Rich people don’t like to leave the Upper East Side! We also don’t like to pretend we’re poor and hip. OK? Because we’re not.” So they’re doing it at Doubles. Nice and close for you.’

‘I’m not sure I can come.’

‘Even if you can’t, we want your anchor to let us auction off a visit to a taping of Newsnight with Joe Goodman. You’re close to him, right? I mean you’ve worked at his show for as long as I’ve known you.’

‘Well, he is my boss – I, I, I’m not sure I really feel comfortable …’

‘Oh, puh-lease, Jamie. What’s more important to you, a few awkward moments with your boss or a cure for Alzheimer’s? So I can count on you?’

‘Well, I, I have to check with his …’

‘Tell you what. How ‘bout I just send him a nice note on my personal stationery saying you and I are the dearest of friends and couldn’t he please …’

‘Ingrid, I don’t think he’d respond well to that, I think I should ask him.’

‘OK, fine, that’s what I said in the first place. You ask him.’ She had outfoxed me and she knew it. I had to smile.

‘And, by the way,’ she whispered as she raised her newly waxed eyebrows and glared down at my feet.

I looked down at my strappy black sandals, thinking I had stepped in something on the sidewalk.

‘Those shoes,’ she instructed with grave concern. ‘Soooo night-time. It’s noon, for God’s sakes.’

As the main courses arrived, chicken paillard with braised endives for Susannah and tricolore salad with grilled shrimp for me, I broached the one topic that had been on the forefront of my mind.

‘I’m worried about Dylan. He kind of lost it at a basketball game.’