Edition: U.S. / Global

Alter Egos Who Put the 'R' in R.S.V.P.

Published: December 5, 1999

SEATED at her mahogany desk on the fifth floor of a town house on Sutton Square, surrounded by prints of thoroughbred horses, Meredith Palin juggled the details of a busy life spent between homes in Manhattan, Southampton and Lyford Cay, in the Bahamas. Not her life, her employer's.

First, the Southampton housekeeper called to say the Christmas lights might need to be replaced before she and the handyman came to the city to decorate the Manhattan house for the holidays. Then there was a large box sitting on the desk that someone on the household staff had wrapped without noting who it was for. And the four phone lines were ringing with people R.S.V.P.-ing to one of two Christmas parties.

''It's tricky,'' said Ms. Palin, pulling out two lists from a desk drawer. ''I have to make sure I put everyone on the right one.''

Five days a week, eight hours a day, Ms. Palin works as a social secretary to Sandra McConnell, the lady of the house, whose late husband, Neil A. McConnell, was an heir to the Avon fortune. Mrs. McConnell is well known in Park Avenue circles for giving dinner parties, traveling the world, raising money for charity and just being, well, social.

As the uptown black-tie calendar opens to the busiest week of the year, Mrs. McConnell depends on Ms. Palin to make sure she hasn't responded to too many parties (three a night is her limit), to buy Christmas cards and gifts, to pay household bills, to return unwanted purchases and to make sure anyone she invites to lunch is reminded of the date in writing.

''I couldn't live the way I do without Meredith,'' said Mrs. McConnell, who this week plans to attend a Christie's auction for the Kips Bay Boys and Girls Club, several private cocktail parties, a lunch at Harry Cipriani and a tree-lighting party at Brick Church.

She is not alone. As the lives of the ladies on the lunch circuit become ever busier, thanks to a booming economy and an abounding number of successful husbands who encourage their wives to circulate socially, the social secretary has returned from the musty Edith Wharton past to become a downright trendy staff member in the houses of the hugely rich.

Ricky Lauren has a social secretary. So do Nina Griscom, Audrey Gruss, Cathy Hilton, Carol Mack and Alison Stern. Ronald O. Perelman was one of the few men to have one, recalled the woman who once had the job, which at one point entailed visiting St. Barts ahead of Mr. Perelman to make sure he was on the guest lists for all the hot parties and would be seated at the No. 1 tables at restaurants. She asked not to be named, citing a confidentiality agreement. Mr. Perelman declined to comment.

''It's like having a wife,'' said Stephanie Stokes, a longtime decorator on the Upper East Side, who does not have a social secretary but has noticed that more of her friends do. ''I think it's the only way that some of my friends could accomplish what they accomplish, by having a social secretary who books everything for them, their children and their husband,'' she said. Now, almost all lunch and dinner dates are made by social secretaries, she said, so she never talks to friends until she sees them in person. ''No one wants to spend 10 minutes chatting just to arrange a lunch,'' she added.

Ann Rapp, an art consultant who divides her time between New York and Paris, said: ''It's the 'in' thing now more than ever. For many of the newer set, it's about status and image. In many cases, it's imagined self-importance.''

Maitres d'hotel at restaurants on the East Side report women use social secretaries the way their husbands use executive secretaries in their offices, to make reservations so they don't have to call themselves. Peter Geraghty, the manager of Swifty's, said the secretaries just mention their own first names and the number in the party. The same at La Goulue, said Sylvia Teisseire, a hostess there. It's confusing when they say '' 'It's Audrey, for three,' '' she said, adding, ''I can't always remember who Audrey works for.''

Marjane Kaswan, the owner of the 10-year-old Bouvier Agency, whose sole business is placing social secretaries, said, ''I've never been busier.'' (The agency is named after a breed of dog Ms. Kaswan once owned.)

Similarly, Clifford Greenhouse, an owner of the Pavillion Agency, which places high-end household help, said that ''there was an explosion of requests'' in the last year for social secretaries.

''Men are sick of their wives asking their own personal assistants to address Christmas cards or hire a maid,'' he said. The assistants ''find it demeaning and threaten to quit, so the husbands ask me to get their wives a social secretary.''

Social secretaries are not to be confused with personal assistants or executive secretaries, who work in the business world. Social secretaries work from their employers' homes, generally for a woman who doesn't hold a full-time job (or any job, for that matter, other than socializing), and while they must be willing to write invitations and shop, their most important skill is the tact and decorum needed in the oh-so-perilous shoals of social life -- a skill their employers are sometimes lacking in.