twelve
Hannah
This year, December 2
The next afternoon, Theo leads me through the designer women’s wear floor at Saks, navigating us around displays of sequin-encrusted evening gowns. Behind a selection of pointy-shoulder blazers that remind me of “Vogue”-era Madonna, he rings a doorbell next to a plain wooden door.
After he invited me on this last-minute shopping trip, my next call was to Priya, ostensibly to invite her to join, but I also wanted her opinion on the ring. She knew David the best out of my friends. Even though David lived alone when we started dating and we easily could have holed up in his apartment, he made it a point to spend time at mine, too.
One rainy Sunday early in our relationship, Priya made chana masala—another of her mother’s specialties—as we watched back-to-back showings of Ocean’s 11, 12, and 13 on cable. After licking his bowl clean, David insisted she teach him how to make the dish. For months, our minuscule kitchen became an off-license cooking school as the two held weekly Sunday cooking lessons. They only stopped when we reached the dog days of summer and the apartment was too stuffy to justify using the stove. Priya taught David to make saag paneer and malai kofta—the latter requiring a few FaceTimes with Priya’s mom to perfect. I was happy to be the designated taste tester, and even happier to see David win Priya’s enthusiastic stamp of approval.
But when I called her this morning, she brushed me off with vague excuses about work even though it’s Sunday. “Maybe I can meet you later?”
“Also, I found a ring in David’s sock drawer,” I told her before she could hustle me off the phone.
“That’s great, Hannah. Congratulations!” She sounded distracted and I could hear a man’s voice in the background. I wondered where she was and who she was with. “But I gotta go. Let’s plan drinks next week, okay? And I’ll try to make it later if I can.” Before I could protest that I wasn’t sure this could wait until next week, she’d hung up.
As I waited for the E train to take me uptown to Theo, I couldn’t shake the feeling of distance growing between me and Priya. I wondered if there was something going on, and if so, why she didn’t want to talk about it with me. So it’s just me and Theo on today’s shopping trip, since Finn is apartment hunting in LA.
A woman with a blondish-gray bob opens the hidden-in-plain-sight door, and a cloud of Chanel N°5 wafts out along with her. I’d recognize the scent anywhere, the same one my mother wore.
“Miriam!” Theo exclaims, leaning in for a double cheek kiss.
“Theo!” she coos back at him in a similarly posh British accent. If we weren’t in a department store, I might be fooled into thinking she’s his mother by the affection in her voice.
“And who do we have here?” she asks, looking over his shoulder at me.
“This is Hannah.” He shoves me in front of him so Miriam can kiss my cheeks, too.
“A pleasure to meet you,” she says. “Come in, we have everything set up.”
She leads us back to a sitting room with tall windows overlooking Fifth Avenue framed by gauzy white curtains that billow down to the floor. I feel like I’m in a Celine Dion music video.
Trays upon trays of printed silk scarves, statement earrings, and delicate gold watches are set up on the glass coffee table. On a console table off to the side are at least a dozen purses. Everything is beige or gold, including the furniture. It’s like I’m in an I Spy book trying to spot the thing that doesn’t belong in the sea of ecru, cream, and gold. Except the thing that doesn’t belong is obviously me in my scuffed Doc Martens and eight-year-old jeans with a hole in the knee.
“Champagne?” Miriam asks. Even the beverage adheres to the color scheme.
Theo turns to me, deferring the decision, so I say, “Yes, please.”
Miriam goes to fetch the champagne, leaving us alone with what I imagine is hundreds of thousands of dollars of merchandise. We have two missions today: the first is to find Christmas gifts for Theo’s two mother figures, and the second is to figure out what we should do for Finn’s last Christmas. I’m equally overwhelmed by both tasks, but it feels good to have a distraction from the ring.
Annabelle, Theo’s actual mother, married Theo’s father at twenty-two and divorced him at the height of his net worth, of which she took a substantial chunk. Now she splits her time between a townhouse in London, a penthouse in Paris, and a spread in the South of France. We’ve never met her, but she sounds more like a fun aunt than a mother, nipping into town once a year and plying Theo with cocktails and shopping sprees.
“By the time I came along, they hated each other, but the divorce took a good decade because dear old dad knew it was going to be expensive,” Theo explained once. He spent most of his childhood in an empty townhouse with Lourdes, his beloved governess, whom we’re also shopping for today.
“So, what does your mother like?” I ask.
“Spending my father’s money and almost nothing else.” He holds up a pair of diamond earrings so they catch the light and refract rainbows on the walls around us.
Miriam returns with two flutes of champagne on a silver tray. “Miriam,” Theo asks, “What’s the most expensive thing in here?”
She picks up a clipboard from the console table and runs her index finger down the list. “That would be the Cartier tennis bracelet.” She crosses the room to show him her list and spare us the embarrassment of hearing the price spoken aloud.
Theo nods. “That’s sorted. Can you have it wrapped and sent to the London address?”
“Of course.” Miriam remains cool even though she’s likely earned an eye-watering commission. “If you’ll allow me a moment, I can have the room switched over so you can select the other gift.”
An army of shopgirls descend on the room with such speed it makes me wonder if Miriam is hiding a panic button up her sleeve to summon them. The women whisk away the trays of white scarves and diamond jewelry.
Miriam, looking like the world’s chicest stewardess in her black pantsuit and pointy heels with a jaunty red scarf tied around her neck, wheels in a cart of new trays, except instead of mini cans of Diet Coke and ginger ale, the trays are filled with strands of gumball-sized pearls and candy-colored gemstone earrings. There are scarves as well, in electric blue and Barbie pink and orange. One of Miriam’s helpers brings in an armful of handbags, all in bold colors. Another wheels in a rack of furs.
“Now this is the fun part,” Theo says. “Lourdes likes things flashy.”
He moves from the sofa to the console table to run his fingers over a fire-engine-red crocodile purse. It’s certainly flashy. “That’s limited edition. Five in the world,” Miriam tells him.
He offers it to me to hold. When I take it from him, I almost drop it. It’s so heavy it may come with its own gold bricks included.
“What do you think?” he asks me.
“I mean, I’m not the best judge.” I have one black purse that I’ve had for years. “It’s heavy?” I offer, unsure if that’s good or bad. Theo smiles at my reply, he knows I’m clueless but wants to include me anyway.