The View From Penthouse B (14 page)

It was still early, but I knew this night was not going to widen my social circle or yield new friends. It was then that I decided I would venture outside the building. Maybe such outreach would prove fruitful; maybe in this vast city of allegedly lonely people there was someone waiting for the Gwen-Laura I used to be.

18

My Devoted and Monogamous Self

I
TOLD ANTHONY, JUST
him alone at breakfast, that I had had something like an epiphany. No, “epiphany” was too strong; what I’d experienced was an attitude adjustment.

“I don’t even know what you’re going to say, but I bet my response is going to be ‘It’s about time.’”

I explained: “I looked around last night and thought to myself,
The world is coupled
. When I take Edwin out of the equation, I’m an outsider. Maybe the other half of me could move into the future and not just live in the past.”

Anthony said, “Sweetie? Edwin hasn’t been in the equation for quite a while. You do realize that, right?”

I said that what I’d meant by “not in the equation” was a sense that dating now would not violate the customs, the mores, the widow’s code of behavior; that you were allowed to be unfaithful once the person had been dead for a decent interval.

“Unfaithful? Seriously? You’ve been a nun!”

I said—automatically and falsely—“Not true.”

“Well, what do I know? Maybe you had lovers before I moved in. Maybe you’ve always had lovers on the side.”

Luckily, he said that with a smile and a nudge, saving me from delivering a testimonial to my devoted and monogamous self.

He asked if I’d told Margot yet about last night’s near epiphany.

I told him no. I’d tell her today. She’d be happy and she’d have some ideas.

“So what can
I
do to advance the cause?” he asked.

“Nothing right now. Last night in bed I was thinking,
What would help prepare me and possibly inspire me
? And I thought,
I know: a marathon of romantic comedies.”

He said—and this is why we loved having Anthony around—“I’ll watch with you! Where do we start? With the classics?
Dirty Dancing
?
Moonstruck
?”

“I was thinking of something quiet. Maybe about two shy people, one or both widowed, who meet at a dance. Or on a bridge.”

“I saw that one. He works at a post office in Australia. She takes care of her elderly father. Next!”

“Maybe
Sleepless in Seattle
?”

“No. I don’t mean next in our Netflix queue. I meant in real life—a move that takes you out of the house and into the streets of New York. A date with a proper stranger? Maybe an early dinner in a well-lit restaurant?”

I said, “I know everyone thinks I’m socially retarded. But I think I’m normal for a woman my age who’s suffered the irreversible loss of a husband.”

Unfortunately, this statement flew into the ear of Margot, who was entering the kitchen, red kimono sliding this way and that. I motioned
Close that up before your breasts fall out.

“Normal?” she repeated. “I don’t even know in what context you’re using that word, but if it’s the widow thing, I’ll have to disagree.”

Anthony said, “You’re wrong! A new day has dawned.”

Yawning, Margot poured herself coffee, black, and didn’t ask for elaboration.

“Gwen has decided she’s ready to go out on a date,” he continued.

“Now you’re talking,” said Margot. “Do we have a candidate?”

“It’s only in the theoretical stages right now,” I said. I held up my hands for her inspection.

She squinted in my direction. “What are you pantomiming? ‘I surrender?’ To what?”

I said, “No. I switched my wedding and engagement rings to my right hand. That’s an announcement. And a metaphor.”

“Some people might take them off altogether,” she said.

Anthony said, “One thing at a time. It’s a step in the right direction.”

“A baby step,” said Margot. “And before you get mad at me, let me say that I’m not judging you. I’m employing tough love.”

Did I overreact? Maybe. I said, “Tough love? Because I’m breaking laws? Harming myself and others? Wreaking havoc on the household? Or has it been just me staying home and getting used to Edwin being dead? What about you? You’re always trying to whip me into shape, but I don’t see you taking too many steps forward.”

She was at the open refrigerator, excavating shreds of ham from last night’s main course and collecting them on a paper towel. “What do you think I do on Tuesdays and Thursdays besides avoiding Charles? I go out! With men. I’ve done it on the QT so no one feels left behind.”

“You go out with men plural?” I asked. “Or a man?”

Margot brought her coffee and shredded ham to the table. “My life, as you have seen with your own two eyes, is complicated. Very. I have an ex-husband virtually under the same roof, who fainted on my dining-room floor so I could start worrying about him. Which I hate.”

“Worrying about what, specifically?” I asked.

Margot did a full-body shift in her chair so she was facing me with intervention intensity. “Gwen? Are you a robot? Didn’t we both think for a few seconds that Charles was dead?”

I said, “Sorry. Yes, but ten seconds later he was sitting up and talking.”

“It was visceral on my part. It
is
visceral. And here’s why. I didn’t hate him when I was married to him, so making the hate retroactive is not as easy as you’d think. Some part of my brain is nagging me to nag
him
to go to the doctor and get whatever you get after you faint. A CAT scan? An EKG?”

Anthony had left the table and was rummaging around the shelves of his flour/sugar/ baking powder/spice cupboard. Margot asked what he was looking for, and he said, “I had some pancake mix back here. Maybe I used it all. By the way?” He cocked his head toward his room and his bed. “Douglas stayed over. Do we have a serving tray and a little pitcher for the syrup?”

Margot said, “The ever-growing population of penthouse B. Why don’t you make him French toast with last night’s bread?”

I don’t know what made me ask, maybe my new social activism; maybe I felt that Margot was patronizing me by hiding her dating life. I was suddenly wondering aloud, “We’re not going to hear that Charles stayed over, too, are we?”

“Puh-lease! He is not now, nor will he ever be, staying over here unless he faints and we leave him where he fell. I can’t believe you’d think that! Trust me, I have not gone soft on Charles.”

Anthony weighed in with “Sometimes we can have a little fling of the meaningless variety. No love or romance involved.”

“You boys are famous for that. Women are different,” Margot said. She looked down at her chest and pulled her kimono tighter. “Women want love and romance. And I’m not saying that I’ve found that, but I have been seeing someone. Which I can now announce since my sister has gone to lavender.”

Anthony and I both said, “Huh? Lavender?”

“You don’t remember Mom saying that about Rita Collins next door? It meant she stopped wearing black after the first year of widowhood.”

Anthony said, “Very
Masterpiece Theatre
of you, Margot. I love it.”

I said, “I didn’t wear black after the first month.”

“And we’re off topic,” said Anthony. “Gwen and I need to know who your paramour is.”

“Guess,” said Margot.

I said, “It has to be the guy from your website, the one selling the Girl Scout cookies.”

“Bingo.”

“Do we know his name?” asked Anthony.

“Roy.”

“What was his screen name that we all liked so much?”

“I forget.”

“No, you don’t. It had a sexual connotation, as I recall,” said Anthony.

“It did not! It happens to be HardUp, which is purely financial.”

Anthony said, “Ha! I’m sure.”

I asked how often she saw him.

“Once or twice a week.”

“His joint-custody, night-off kind of thing?” Anthony asked.

Margot said, “More like a Charles’s-nights-here kind of thing.”

“How old is he?” I asked.

“Young.”

Anthony said, “Young like a boy toy or just younger than you?”

“Ten years younger than the age I told him I was.”

“Love it,” said Anthony.

“What do you do on these dates?” I asked.

Margot said, “I’m worried that you’re asking that prescriptively, as in ‘What do a man and a woman do on a date?’”

“No! I meant what can two people who met in the PoorHouse chat room afford to do on a date?”

“Fair question,” said Anthony.

“Okay, then: We talk. We go to free nights at museums and free events—his bible is
Time Out New York
—or to readings or poetry slams in clubs without covers, and before or after, we get some ethnic food.” She smiled, cupped both hands around her coffee mug, and leaned forward as if testifying outrageously before a congressional panel. “Then, typically, we go to his place.”

Was I obliged to ask for details? Luckily, Anthony said, “We got off track. A new day has dawned. Gwen is ready for some social outreach. Let’s toast new things and new friends.”

I lifted my mug. “To new friends. Whatever that means.”

“It means real dates,” said Anthony, “as opposed to chaste ones.”

“Where do we start?” I asked. I meant with candidates and venues, but Margot did not. She reached over and repositioned one lock of my hair from its usual resting place to what was, presumably, a more flattering one. Eyebrows arched, she consulted Anthony, whose lips twisted unhappily to one side.

“I haven’t even combed it today,” I protested. “If I’d known you were going to judge me by this”—I pointed to my hair, my naked face, and my stained bathrobe with the pajama cuffs protruding from its sleeves—“I’d have come all gussied up—”

“In lavender,” said Anthony. “I am not letting that image go.”

Margot said, “Stop worrying. You have an excellent team behind you. And you know what? I think Edwin would be cheering us on.”

I shouldn’t have winced, but I did.

“What? What did I say?”

From the sideboard, whisk in hand, Anthony supplied, “I’m not sure waving that particular flag helps Gwen move forward.”

Margot raised her eyes to the ceiling. “Edwin? Are you there? Do you mind if I pull your widow off your funeral pyre? She’s made her point. Enough is enough.”

Anthony laughed.

“He loves my metaphors,” Margot said.

19

December

S
OMETHING HAPPENED IN
the outside world, something terrible enough to change the tenor inside penthouse B and expose a layer of previously unimaginable sympathy for our Public Enemy Number One.

The day after Madoff’s elder son committed suicide, Charles came calling, ostensibly to inform us that our phones were out of order.

“They’re not,” I told him at our front door, having thrown a raincoat over my nightgown. “We let the machine pick up.”

“Is your sister home?”

“Yes, but she’s busy. As you can imagine, there’s been a ton of traffic on her website.”

“Are you going to stand guard or may I come in?”

I told him I was just about to take a nap—

“At one in the afternoon? That’s not a good sign.”

Because he was wearing some version of a motorcycle jacket over a black turtleneck sweater, I asked where he was going dressed so fashionably.

He smiled. “Fashion! Precisely! I’m here with an invitation.”

I waited.

“I thought Margot might enjoy a student-faculty exhibition at FIT.”

I said no on her behalf. She was still in her bathrobe and hadn’t eaten all day. She’d have to shower, fix her hair, get dressed . . . all too much.

“I don’t mind waiting. The opening is from two to five. I sense depression has fallen on the population here. Where’s Anthony?”

“Still sleeping.”

“Someone has to play activities director.”

Margot must have heard every word because she yelled that she was busy, too busy. Her chat room, for the first time in months, had a quorum.

“Madoff’s son,” I told Charles. “I’m sure you heard. He hanged himself while his baby was asleep in the next room. She’s been online since she got the news yesterday.”

“That’s why I came up. I
know
her. I knew this news would cause some recalibration and possibly some soul-searching.”

I didn’t like that. Charles had lost any right, marital or diagnostic, to use the term “soul-searching,” especially when applied to the paragon of empathy that was his ex-wife.

He lowered his voice. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but I wondered if the Madoff family tragedy might in some way soften Margot’s attitude toward Chaz.”

I asked him how he’d made that particular leap.

“It’s not a leap. The sons weren’t speaking to the parents, and look how it ended, estrangement and heartbreak everywhere. Irretrievable!”

This was the new Charles speaking, the one who tried to be insightful in a way that Margot, Anthony, and I enjoyed ridiculing after he left on meal nights, the postprison Charles who spoke from a psychosensitivity phrasebook. “Do you think it’s fair that you’re making the final decision about a possible outing?” he continued.

I said I’d ask. Margot did like fashion trends and fashionistas. This wasn’t just about hats, was it?

He patted a few jacket pockets until he brought forth a pink postcard. “The show is called ‘Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes.’ So I’d say definitely more than hats. Also refreshments. Admission: free.” He handed it to me and added, “It’s the first piece of mail I’ve ever received from him.”

I motioned
Come inside.
And once over the threshold,
Stay there
. I didn’t tell him that Margot was at her laptop only a few yards away, probably listening to everything we were saying. Proof came with her yelling, “What’s he doing here on a Sunday?”

Charles said, “Margot, for chrissake! I came as a Good Samaritan. I called several times and no one picked up. You could have all been dead in your beds.”

“Lame!” she shot back.