It sits far back from the road, down a driveway shaded by old white birches and banked with irises and hostas. A stately old stone house built in the 1920s, with French doors and high ceilings and pretty moldings, it started out as your basic beautiful, classic home. But with the help of Howard the Mogul’s money and Holly’s chicken-nugget royalties, she and Joe are making it even more spectacular by the day. Trucks rumble in and out of the driveway all the time, filled with topiary boxwoods, French sofas, Lucite tables, and toilets with heated seats. I never feel jealous of Holly, though, because she’s just lucky that way. Style, money, and cool things pop up around her as a matter of course. If she gasses up her car at the Sunoco station, she’s the millionth customer and wins free unleaded fuel for a year. If she stops into Saks for a new bathing suit, she wanders into a Calvin Klein trunk show, and Francisco Costa pronounces her fabulous and invites her to his beach house in Brazil.
