Four Hours on the Upper East Side

Sometimes a man just gives you cash and buys 100 books

A few newsletters ago I mentioned that at a bar in Athens an American ordered 60 copies of my book. I also noted that this was not the first time someone has ordered my novel in bulk after meeting me for a limited amount of minutes. Here is the story of the first time that happened.

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Most of my trepidation about living in New York is that I turn into a monster. Also, whenever I’m in town, things happen too much to me. Whether its the combination of my personality, being at a certain place at a certain hour, or how it is just true that “fate keeps on happening,” as Anita Loos wrote. One winter night a few years ago, my friend Brandon and I had reservations at Dowling’s, the restaurant in the Carlyle. The air is always a little different on the Upper East Side, something about the avenues being wide enough to really breathe. During the holidays, the Upper East Side feels like a capsule of the New York that appears in romantic comedies of decades ago. It’s the New York of Serendipity (2001) or Falling in Love (1984) or You’ve Got Mail (1998).

The dinner was nice enough, we ordered all the things you order when you’re out having a fancy meal. The shrimp, the tartare, a steak. We were sat next to a couple, who were married professors living in Connecticut. They told us they come into the city every so often as a treat. Whenever I excused myself to the loo, I passed by the gift shop where I would look through the windows to see the clerk showing jewels to a little boy wearing a suit and tie. After dinner we went to the shop and I asked who the most raucous guests of The Carlyle were. The clerk said, “Roald Dahl’s granddaughters.”

The wait for Bemelman’s was too long, and the journey downtown too much to consider after a few drinks. We settled on having a martini around the corner at The Mark Hotel’s bar. Waiting for a drink, I recognized the man standing next to us as also having had dinner at Dowling’s. I struck up a conversation and asked what he’d ordered, and if he’d enjoyed his dinner. He was in his fifties and wearing a Loro Piana blazer, which before “quiet luxury” was coined really was the Rich Man’s brand of choice.

Now that I am a novelist, rich people often regard me as a fun curiosity. Someone to share their artistic aspirations with. This can be a positive, because it shuffles me away from being a romantic aim. It creates a platonic buffer which suits me perfectly. Within the first five minutes, under circumstances I simply cannot recall, the man handed me and Brandon a couple hundred dollar bills. Brandon, being a good-hearted business owner, tried to hand the bills back. Of course, not before I intercepted his half for myself. He was above taking money from a rich man, but I certainly was/am not.