column, then call me with tips. "This Astor broad has one helluva past,"
he told me one time. "Maybe we should do a little digging in that
direction." Eventually, even Mom acknowledged that I'd done all right.
"No one expected you to amount to much," she told me. "Lori was the
smart one, Maureen the pretty one, and Brian the brave one. You never
had much going for you except that you always worked hard."
I loved my new job even more than I loved my Park Avenue address. I
was invited to dozens of parties a week: art-gallery openings, benefit
balls, movie premieres, book parties, and private dinners in marble-
floored dining rooms. I met real estate developers, agents, heiresses,
fund managers, lawyers, clothing designers, professional basketball
players, photographers, movie producers, and television correspondents.
I met people who owned entire collections of houses and spent more on
one restaurant meal than my family had paid for 93 Little Hobart Street.
True or not, I was convinced that if all these people found out about
Mom and Dad and who I really was, it would be impossible for me to
keep my job. So I avoided discussing my parents. When that was
impossible, I lied.
A year after I started the column, I was in a small, overstuffed restaurant
across the table from an aging, elegant woman in a silk turban who
oversaw the International Best Dressed List.
"So, where are you from, Jeannette?"
"West Virginia."
"Where?"
"Welch."
"How lovely. What's the main industry in Welch?"