There she is, puffing

There she is, puffing on her cigarette as I enter her Madison Avenue apartment. Spic and span, everything in its place. She shows me the four-pedestal dining table that she wants restored, pointing at the same time to the area where her husband always sits, saying, “He’s such a SLOB.” She loves telling me the story about Andy Warhol who lived next door in his townhouse. One afternoon her window washer was out back cleaning her dining room windows. At one point he lost control of the squeegee and it went flying into the air. It landed right on Andy Warhol’s terrace just as he was about to glue on his wig. She said, “ Oh my God!” puffing away. “I’ll have to go down to retrieve it.” When she got to her lobby, there was Andy Warhol with the squeegee, and a copy of his magazine, Interview. She invited him up, which lead to many visits. He loved her collection of Van Gogh’s. She said he loved to sit in her study and talk for hours, nibbling on carrots and Greek olives marinated in lemon. She told me he did six paintings of her brother, putting her cigarette to the side of her blue jacket with large gold buttons. “Do you know what those paintings are worth today?” I said, “He should have painted you.” She said, “ He was going to, but we were in Spain, that’s when he died. I’m going to San Francisco next week, and God, don’t let me near Neiman Marcus. I’ll buy everything…..and where will I put it? You can’t get anything more in this penthouse,” standing next to her hand painted wallpaper from China which took months and months to arrive. “Oh, before you leave I have to show you upstairs, the bed, where my husband sleeps, where his head greases the headboard…such a SLOB!”