She checked her watch. It wasn’t like Renzo to be late. Then again, it wasn’t like Renzo to ask to meet in the most touristy spot on the Upper West Side. Usually, they wandered around the park’s reservoir, comparing demanding clients and tenants. His advice was invaluable and he’d even stopped by her latest project a few times to offer a second opinion when the electrician or plumber came in with a bid that seemed high.
Together, Renzo and Bailey had restored the Dakota apartment to its original grandeur: Gone were the bamboo poles and sponge-painted walls, and in their place stood the original architectural details, down to the cast-iron washbasins and solid brass hardware. She’d held an open house for the other tenants once the work was done, spurring requests for her expertise. In a year, she’d become the go-to interior designer for the restoration of town houses, penthouses, and prewar apartments around Manhattan, a niche that separated her from the pack of postmodernists like Tristan. The fact that she’d repaid Tristan in full for her time at Silver Hill had helped ease her reentry in the design community considerably.
Theodore Camden would have been pleased, she hoped. Sara Smythe as well. Fred had dug further into the family’s records and discovered that Minnie died suddenly of the flu in 1900. Which explained why Christopher never got the letter or the annuity.
Sara, meanwhile, had passed away in prison from some kind of cancer, a few years after being sentenced. Bailey was glad she and Jack finally knew some concrete details about their family’s past, no matter how lurid. Knowing that Minnie Camden had attempted to take care of Christopher financially had gone a long way to ease her father’s mind. Once the trust money was transferred over, Jack scooped up the lot next door and doubled the size of his auto repair shop, and bought a boat of his own. “Simple pleasures,” he’d said one day, after taking her and Renzo out for a cruise.
So many unknowns, though. But, as Fred had said, some things were simply lost to history.
Renzo appeared on the far side of the plaza. He smiled at her and gave a little wave. She waved back, then her mouth dropped open. By his side was a puppy with a fluffy apricot-colored coat and big brown eyes. It mouthed the leash as it walked along beside Renzo, before a rose lying in the mosaic caught the dog’s eye and it scooped it up, holding it in its jaws like a Spanish tango dancer. The dog trotted up to Bailey with the relaxed, happy expression of an animal to whom everything was either a plaything or a treat.
She reached down and gently extricated the rose.
“This is the surprise?” She patted its head and laughed as the puppy tried to gum her hand.
“Yes. I’d like to introduce you to my new best friend, Eleanor Rigby. Who will go by Rigby, as Eleanor is a little too nineteenth century for my taste.”
“I wholeheartedly agree.” Bailey reached down and scooped her up and placed her on her lap. “She’s adorable.”
“Hopefully, she’ll settle down and won’t chew up the baseboards.”
“You have your work cut out for you. How fitting that this is where I learn that I’ll be displaced as your best buddy. Very kind of you to break it to me in this peaceful environment.”
“Right.” He sat on the bench beside her. Rigby stopped squirming and lay down on Bailey’s knees, entranced by a group applauding the musicians. “I was thinking about that.”
“You were?”
“I figured that maybe you were due a promotion from best friend. After all, it’s been a year since you’ve been sober, hasn’t it?”
Renzo knew well and good that it had been a year. He’d been at the meeting last night, beaming with pride, when she’d shared her story. In fact, the last few months had been a sublime agony, the two of them not even holding hands in a concerted effort to wait the year out in its entirety.
“It certainly has. What kind of promotion were you thinking? Bestest friend, perhaps?”
She couldn’t help but tease. Because she knew what was coming as well as he did. They’d been friends and confidants for longer than each had believed possible, and the time had come. Thank God, because she didn’t think she’d be able to wait much longer.
He leaned in and kissed her softly on the mouth.
It felt right, perfect, and sweet.
Until another tongue broke in. Rigby attempting to join in the action.
They broke apart, laughing, wiping their mouths, as the guitarists broke into the chorus of “In My Life.”
As if hypnotized by the music, the puppy settled down and Renzo sang along quietly, softly, in Bailey’s ear to the very end.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
The Address is a blend of historical fact and fiction, and I took a couple of liberties that Gilded Age enthusiasts will surely catch. The Statue of Liberty arrived in New York in the summer of 1885, not the fall, and Nellie Bly went undercover at Blackwell’s Island Insane Asylum in 1887. The Rutherfords’ mansion is loosely based on William and Alva Vanderbilt’s, and Theo’s speech is drawn from Edward Clark’s 1879 speech to the West End Association.
Several books provided inspiration, including Stephen Birmingham’s Life at the Dakota; Andrew Alpern’s The Dakota: A History of the World’s Best-Known Apartment Building; Elizabeth Hawes’s New York, New York: How the Apartment House Transformed the Life of the City (1869–1930); Nellie Bly’s Ten Days in a Mad-House; and Tessa Boase’s The Housekeeper’s Tale: The Women Who Really Ran the English Country House.
Thanks to all the experts who helped flesh out my research; any errors are my own.