met Grace Knowles.
More than thirty years Lenny Brookstein’s junior, Grace Knowles was the youngest of the famous Knowles sisters, New York socialite daughters of the late Cooper Knowles. Cooper Knowles had been a real estate guy, worth a couple of hundred million in his heyday. Never as big as ‘the Donald,’ Cooper was always far better liked. Even business rivals invariably described him as ‘charming,’ ‘a gentleman,’ ‘old-school.’ Like her elder sisters, Constance and Honor, Grace adored her father. She was eleven years old when Cooper died, and his death left a void in her life that nothing could fill.
Grace’s mother remarried – three times in total – and moved permanently to East Hampton, where the girls’ lives continued much as they had before. School, shopping, parties, vacations, more shopping. Connie and Honor were both pretty and much sought after by New York’s eligible young bachelors. It was generally accepted, however, that Grace was the most beautiful of the Knowles sisters. When she took up gymnastics competitively at thirteen in an attempt to distract herself from her ongoing grief for her father, her elder sisters were secretly relieved. Gymnastics meant training, and traveling out of state, a lot. Once they were safely married off, it would be fine to have Grace come to parties with them again. But until then, Connie and Honor heartily encouraged their baby sister’s love affair with the parallel bars.
By the time she was eighteen, Grace’s days as a competition-level gymnast were over. But that was okay. By then Connie had married a movie-star-handsome investment banker named Michael Gray, a real up-and-comer at Lehman Brothers. And Honor had hit the marital jackpot by landing Jack Warner, the Republican congressman for New York’s 20th Congressional District. Jack was already being hotly touted as a candidate for the Senate, and perhaps even one day for the presidency. The Warners’ wedding was all over Page 6, and photographs of the honeymoon appeared in a number of national tabloids. As the new Caroline Kennedy, Honor could afford to be gracious to her little sister. It was Honor who invited Grace to the garden party where she first met Lenny Brookstein.
In later years, both Lenny and Grace would describe that first meeting as the proverbial thunderbolt. Grace was eighteen, a child, with no experience of the world outside her cosseted, pampered East Hampton existence. Even her friends from gymnastics were wealthy. And yet there was something wonderfully unspoiled about her. Lenny Brookstein had grown used to what his mother would have called ‘fast’ women. Every girl he’d ever slept with wanted something from him. Jewels, money…something. Grace Knowles was the opposite. She had a quality that Lenny himself had never had and wanted badly. Something so precious and elusive, he had almost given up believing it existed: innocence. Lenny Brookstein wanted to capture Grace Knowles. To hold that innocence in his hands. To own it.
For Grace, the attraction was even simpler. She needed a father. Someone who would protect her and love her for herself, the way that Cooper Knowles had loved her when she was a little girl. The truth was, Grace Knowles wanted to go back to being a little girl. To go back to a time when she was totally, blissfully happy. Lenny Brookstein offered her that chance. Grace grabbed it with both hands.
They married on Nantucket six weeks later, in front of six hundred of Lenny Brookstein’s closest friends. John Merrivale was best man. His wife, Caroline, and Grace’s sisters were the matrons of honor. On their honeymoon in Mustique, Lenny turned to Grace nervously one night and asked: ‘What about children? We never discussed it. I suppose you’ll want to be a mother at some stage?’
Grace gazed pensively out across the ocean. Soft, gray moonlight danced upon the waves. At last, she said: ‘Not really. Of course, if you want children, I’ll gladly give them to you. But I’m so happy as we are. There’s nothing missing, Lenny. Do you know what I mean?’
Lenny Brookstein knew what she meant.
It was one of the happiest moments of his life.
‘Do you know what you’re wearing yet?’ Lenny pulled some papers out of his briefcase and put on his reading glasses before climbing into bed.
‘I do,’ said Grace. ‘But it’s a secret. I want to surprise you.’
Earlier that afternoon Grace had spent three happy hours in Valentino with her elder sister Honor. Honor had always had an amazing sense of style and the sisters loved to shop together. The manager had closed the store especially so that they could peruse the gowns in peace.
‘I feel quite the rebel.’ Grace giggled. ‘Leaving it to the last minute like this.’
‘I know! We’re kicking over the traces, Gracie.’
The Quorum Ball was the society event of the season. Always held in early June, it marked the start of summer for Manhattan’s privileged elite, who decamped en masse to East Hampton the following week. Most of the women attending tomorrow night at The Plaza would have begun planning their outfits like generals before a military campaign months ago, ordering in silks from Paris and diamonds from Israel, starving themselves for weeks in order to look their flat-stomached best.
Of course, this year there would be some belt tightening. Everyone was talking about the economy and how dire it was. People in Detroit were rioting, apparently. In California, thousands of homeless people had pitched tents along the banks of the American River. The headlines were dreadful. For Grace Brookstein and her friends, nothing compared to the shock they’d felt the day they heard that Lehman Brothers had gone bankrupt. Lehman’s collapse was a tragedy far closer to home. Grace’s own brother-in-law Michael Gray had seen his net worth decimated overnight. Poor Connie. It really was too awful.
Lenny told Grace, ‘We have to strike a different tone this year, Gracie. The Quorum Ball must go ahead. People need the money that charities like ours provide now more than ever.’
‘Of course they do, darling.’
‘But it’s important we aren’t too ostentatious. Compassion. Compassion and restraint. Those must be our watchwords.’
With Honor’s help, Grace had picked out a very restrained black silk shift from Valentino, with almost no beading whatsoever. As for her Louboutin pumps? Simplicity itself. She couldn’t wait for Lenny to see her in them.
Slipping into bed beside him, Grace turned off her bedside lamp.
‘Just a second, sweetie.’ Lenny reached over and turned it on again. ‘I need you to sign something for me. Where is it now?’ He fumbled through the sheets of paper littering his side of the bed. ‘Ah. Here we are.’
He handed Grace the document. She took Lenny’s pen and was about to sign it.
‘Whoa there!’ Lenny laughed. ‘Aren’t you going to read it first?’
‘No. Why would I?’
‘Because you don’t know what you’re signing, Gracie. That’s why. Didn’t your father ever tell you not to sign anything you haven’t read?’
Grace leaned over and kissed him. ‘Yes, my darling. But you’ve read it, haven’t you? I trust you with my life, Lenny, you know that.’
Lenny Brookstein smiled. Grace was right. He did know it. And he thanked God for it every day.
On the corner of Fifth Avenue and Central Park South, a battalion of media had gathered in front of The Plaza’s iconic Beaux
