The View From Penthouse B (10 page)

As it was roasting and caramelizing aromatically, and as I peeled potatoes and Anthony simmered fresh cranberries, we acknowledged that the decent thing to do was to share our feast with its donor. Margot, not thrilled, grumbled, “As long as he doesn’t think that all he has to do is supply the main course and it’s instant guest of honor.”

“It’s okay with Margot?” Charles asked when I called downstairs. Before I could reply, he added, “I have a great pinot noir here. I’ll bring it. I’m sure my brother-in-law would want me to drink anything he left behind.”

Next time it was flounder, a gift from another paroled white-collar criminal, vacationing and apparently winter fishing off Shelter Island. His driver delivered a Styrofoam cooler, fish already filleted. “He was my cellmate for three months. Quite a decent guy,” Charles explained, “and obviously he remembered that one of the things I missed at Otisville was fresh fish.”

Margot turned that gift into what she called a poor man’s bouillabaisse, adding a handful of shrimp and calamari rings from Trader Joe’s freezer section. Again Anthony and I debated: How do we
not
invite the person who supplied the main ingredient?

“It’s easy,” said Margot, “when he’s your ex and you despise him. And what do you think he’s up to with these gifts and the expensive bottles of wine? His goal, I assure you, is to make us his restaurant.”

“But the food,” I said. “Don’t we love these gifts he gets that he can’t cook himself?”

“A suspicious amount of gifting going on in this world if you ask me,” said Margot.

Over bouillabaisse that night, napkin tucked into his collar, our grateful guest noted that what Margot had established was a twenty-first-century boarding house. Accordingly, would she ever,
ever,
consider another paying guest? Board only. He’d eat and run, and certainly not seven nights a week. And was it possible that she’d been to culinary school since the . . . legal unpleasantness?

A fruit basket arrived the following weekend, another regift, this one allegedly from a still-grateful and obviously clueless patient celebrating the eighteenth birthday of the child she never thought she’d bear. Besides the exotic fruit, the basket contained dark chocolate from Belgium, marzipan from Spain, and Margot’s favorite, macaroons.

We e-mailed Charles a set of rules: Arrival time, 6:25. Dinner at 6:30. He’d eat, clear his place, and leave promptly. No cocktail hour or
Nightly News
beforehand, and no Netflix after. Tuesday and Thursday nights were enough. And don’t expect an even number around the table because Margot herself would often be absent due to social obligations.

Why did we do this, aside from the twenty-five dollars per meal he paid that covered the cost of protein for four? None of us relished Charles’s company, but how often does one get to discuss crime and punishment with someone who has experienced both? Margot coped by retreating to her room whenever she felt the old hatred coming on. And on at least one of his scheduled nights she ventured out—for a walk, to a gallery, for coffee, to window-shop, to blog at the library, or to dine with a friend, finally accepting the invitations she’d been deferring as dutiful sister and chef.

The silver lining to Margot’s absences—at least from Anthony’s point of view—was the opportunity to quiz Charles in prosecutorial fashion. It surprised me how frank Charles was about the commission of his crimes. Anthony and I discussed this over breakfast after a particularly candid exchange the night before. Was it simply that a good guest doesn’t plead the Fifth at his hosts’ table? Or did he enjoy revisiting—under the guise of clarifying and edifying—his worst impulses?

Anthony broke the ice one Margot-less night with “Charles, do you mind if I ask whether the whaddyacallits, the inseminations, in your office were premeditated? I mean were they by appointment or just an urge?”

Charles looked at me. I said, “Go ahead. I’m glad someone has the nerve to ask.”

I should have taped the rest of the conversation in case Margot needed it for her blog or memoir or roman à clef. A reconstructed transcript would read approximately like this:

Charles: “I may have presented the situation as an emergency—that her first-choice donor didn’t show, so it was now or never; now or wait another month, based on the patient’s—to put it in layman’s terms—cycle. I’m not proud to say that that was how I framed it. Still, the majority of my work for years was A.I.”

Me: “A.I.?”

Charles: “Sorry. Artificial insemination.”

Me (and now I’m angry): “When did the ‘artificial’ part stop? One day you’re using a turkey baster and the next day it’s your dick? And has anyone brought up the fact that you could’ve given Margot a sexually transmitted disease, or worse!”

Charles: “I can assure you that Margot did.”

Anthony (I’m now in the kitchen, recovering, and theoretically out of earshot): “But no bullshit, dude—who got picked to join you on the couch? Only the hot ones?”

Charles (loud enough so his ex-sister-in-law
could
hear): “I refuse to dignify that with an answer.”

When I returned, Charles said, “Gwen? I forget. Were you present for any of my testimony on the witness stand?”

I said no. I didn’t attend the trial. Couldn’t.

“Of course,” he said. “Forgive me—Edwin.”

“And she didn’t want her presence to be seen as moral support, I believe,” Anthony said.

“I went to prison for fraud. Not for my personal failings.” Charles leaned back, tipping his chair away from the table in an overconfident, swashbuckling fashion. “What do you do again?” he asked Anthony. “For work. Remind me.”

Anthony said, “I was in finance.”

“Every day he sends out résumés and tries to get appointments with headhunters and checks every job site,” I testified.

“Since?”

“Since what?” Anthony asked.

“I meant how long have you been out of work?”

“Since my company went under.”

“
Your
company? As in you
owned
it?”

“Hardly. It was Lehman Brothers.”

Charles raised his eyebrows. “Wasn’t Lehman Brothers saved at the brink?”

“You’re misinformed,” said Anthony.

“Still, that was a long time ago. Any prospects now that the recession has been officially declared over?” Charles asked.

“I’d rather not discuss it. I don’t want to jinx anything.”

That answer was uncharacteristically tight-lipped for Anthony. He stood up and asked, rather pointedly, “Gwen? Tea?”

“Anyone else want that last slice of pot roast?” asked Charles, as I began to clear the meat platter and gravy boat.

Originally, dessert was going to be a selection of three flavors of ice cream, but Anthony came back with only vanilla—to shorten the dessert course, I guessed. He looked at his watch and widened his eyes in what I recognized as theatrical disbelief. “Seven twenty-five already! Hope it’s not too late to send out more résumés and network with my employed friends.”

Charles said, “I didn’t mean to sound judgmental.”

“Good,” said Anthony. “Because I haven’t noticed you out there in the world of work, either.”

“Presumably you don’t have to explain two prejudicial and fatal words in the course of an interview.”

“Okay,” said Anthony. “Hit me.”

“They are, as you might guess: On. Parole.”

“Bummer,” said Anthony.

I walked Charles halfway to the front door, an approximation of hostess etiquette. Returning to the kitchen, I found Anthony loading the dishwasher. “Do you think he notices that he’s eating off his own wedding china?” he asked.

“What is it that you don’t want to jinx?” I asked in return.

“Let’s have tea. Earl Grey or green?”

“Is there a big announcement coming?”

“Not yet.”

“Do you have a job?”

“I have an
interview.
On Monday. With a hedge fund, as a research associate. I made the first cut.”

“Does Margot know?”

“There’s nothing to know unless I get it.”

I realized then, utterly unexpectedly, that despite his clutter—of weights, dumbbells, and muffin tins—despite the near tic of his constant chinning up in the kitchen doorway and his often-unsolicited professional and wardrobe advice, I didn’t want Anthony to abandon us.

“Are you upset?” he asked.

I thought it was enough to say “If you got this job, I guess you’d be able to swing your own place.”

“One thing at a time.”

“Does it pay a lot?”

“What’s a lot?”

I didn’t want to admit what was “a lot” to me, the freelancer without assignments, collecting a public school teacher’s pension. I said, “High five figures?”

“At least . . . I know that amount is obnoxious and crazy when the word ‘associate’ is part of the title,” Anthony said.

“It’s not crazy if you can get it. And it’s not crazy compared to the millions of dollars you hear about. The bonuses. Even now.”

He smiled. “But haven’t you heard? The recession is officially over.” He opened the refrigerator to get milk for our tea, and even that caused a little pinch in my heart. Would there soon be no battalion of jewel-colored vitamin waters lining our door?

“I suppose you’d like to live with people your own age,” I said.

“Let’s not jump the gun. I don’t know how many candidates were called back. My chances could be way lower than fifty-fifty.”

What was wrong with me that I was getting choked up about an unrelated, unemployed, overequipped roommate moving out? I knew what a shrink would say, what anyone who’d ever met me would say.
Gwen hates separations. The scar tissue has not yet grown over her previous major loss
. Some might adopt the other popular psychoanalytic theory:
Son substitute. Son surrogate. Son period
.

13

Professional Updates

1. Margot

Having Googled the phrase “what publishers want,” Margot reports the answer is “a platform,” and she has one, big-time: the thirteen thousand Madoff victims plus millions of regular Americans living below the poverty line. Wouldn’t every one of them be a potential buyer for her memoir/guidebook?

“Have you written any of it yet?” Anthony asked. We were waiting for the popcorn to pop before we started our ladies’-choice DVD night, which was to say
Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason.
Margot said that all she had so far were a few notes, but this much she knew: The book should be small and adorable to catch people’s eye at the cash register; it had to be cheap because her target audience was broke; it would give tips on surviving hard times, cutting corners, finding free everything—openings, museums, readings, concerts, hors d’oeuvres at happy hours. There would be chapters called “Grow Your Own,” “Bake Your Own,” and “Shop Your Closet,” and lots of recipes throughout using cheap cuts of meat and beans in bulk. Most of all, it needed an irresistible title that would work in several languages.

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” said Anthony.

“It’s going to take a lot of work and research,” I said.

Without prompting or apparent rumination, Margot recited, “Tip number one: Sell your car so you aren’t paying for a garage, gas, insurance, inspections, detailing, tune-ups, tolls, you name it. If you’re leaving the city, rent a car—or stay home. Two: Do your own manicures and pedicures. Three: Get your hair colored at a cheap salon or at a beauty school instead of by someone famous. Four: Buy all cosmetics, creams, makeup, et cetera at Duane Reade or CVS. Five: Go to the library. Six: Buy a whole chicken and cut it up yourself and learn to love thighs.”

After a short, diplomatic pause, Anthony asked, “You’re kidding, right?”

“About which one?”

“About all of them!”

Margot said, “In that list alone, a person could save hundreds a month.”

I said, “The problem is, people on budgets already know these tips.”

“Not to mention, they’re totally New York–centric,” said Anthony. “Do small towns even
have
different tiers of hair colorists?”

“And, no offense,” I said, “but advising someone to go to the library instead of buying books has pretty much been a well-known custom for hundreds of years.”

“Penny-pinching one-o-one,” Anthony grumbled.

“Not a bad title,” Margot said. “Penny-pinching à la Ponzi.”

“Don’t you dare,” said Anthony.

Margot, ever unflappable, said, “Hold your fire. I’ll get the popcorn. And my secret weapon.”

We could hear the opening and closing of kitchen drawers that were not associated with bowls, salt, or napkins. When she rejoined us, she was waving a yellowed magazine, which on inspection turned out to be
Great Ground-Beef Recipes
, a Family Circle publication marked ninety-five cents. “Copyright nineteen sixty-five!” Margot exclaimed. “A treasure trove left behind by our predecessors. Presto: my entrées.”

I said, “You can’t use someone else’s recipes. They’re copyrighted.”

“I’ve already thought of that. I’ll throw in a line saying that many were inspired by concoctions from a simpler time, blah, blah, blah . . .
Merci beaucoup
,
Family Circle.”
She turned to her first bookmark, a strip of wax paper, and read, “Chapter one: What
would
we do without ground beef, exclamation point.” Smiling happily, she turned to another marked page. “Meat Balls—two words—Stroganoff . . . Meat Balls Veronique . . . Persian Spoonburgers . . . Meat-loaf—hyphenated—Reubens.”

Anthony sighed and announced that he was going to skip
Bridget Jones
the sequel and opt for a workout.

“Is it the ground beef that’s making you both so mopey, or is it the whole project?” Margot asked.

“I can’t speak for Gwen,” Anthony said, “but I don’t love the idea of recipes from the nineteen sixties.”

“You don’t think the message is ‘I’m no snob. I used to buy porterhouse, but I’m happy with hamburger now’?”