The View From Penthouse B (22 page)

I looked down. I said, “I just met you.”

“I know! And I like what I see.”

“I meant take your hand off my leg.”

He did. His smile collapsed. “I thought you were enjoying my company!” he whined. “Am I wrong?”

So this was romance; this was how a missed connection worthy of publicizing on Craigslist rewired itself on a first date. Civility abandoned me. “Yes you are,” I said.

From DonJuan22 to MiddleSister: I’m a spiritual, sensitive, kind, thoughtful workaholic who lites up a room but doesn’t suck the air out of it. U sound nice. Write back?

28

Hopes Up

I
DIDN’T RETURN HOME
immediately, but went to an unfortunate, scenery-driven indie at the Angelika. Back in penthouse B, I found Margot watching television, sharing our mother’s afghan with Charles, long past his usual one-hour dinner allowance.

I averted their inquisition by saying that there were no particulars to share. The date was terrible. The chance of my ever seeing Mitchell again was zero.

Margot confessed that she’d gotten her hopes up.

“Because?”

“Am I the only one who noticed that Mitchell’s last name began with a D?”

“So?”

“The clairvoyant! About the next man in your life? I thought he was fulfilling her prophecy.”

“How scientific,” said Charles.

“Not this D,” I said. “Any leftovers?”

“I didn’t cook,” said Margot.

“Both of us had big lunches,” said Charles. “We watched a movie instead.”

The cable box said seven-forty-five. The Tuesday/Thursday visitor’s schedule was dinner at six-thirty sharp.

“Anthony?”

“Out.”

Were they looking a little rumpled? And had they just shimmied apart on the couch when they heard my key in the lock? I asked what movie they’d been watching. Margot looked to Charles. He said, “I forget the title, but it was one of those Tuscany ones. British woman goes abroad to find a lost love.”

“Was it good?”

“It was excellent,” he said. “Very evocative.”

I said, “Good. I’m starved. Are either of you interested in ordering a pizza?”

“As soon as you mentioned leftovers, I realized I was starved, too,” said Charles. “And you know what I have a sudden craving for? Lobster-salad sliders.”

I said, “Lobster salad . . . Wow. It’s been ages.”

“With a delicious Sancerre,” said Charles. “I have a beauty downstairs on ice.”

“You’d better have some lobster on ice, too,” said Margot, “because that is way above our pay grade.”

He rose from the couch, but not before he folded the afghan into a mathematically perfect rectangle. “May I propose that we all go out to the closest seafood restaurant, whether it’s for lobster rolls or whatever other cravings you ladies might be experiencing?”

“Give me ten minutes,” Margot said. “I’m going to put on a dress, too. Doesn’t she look nice? In the meantime, think of a place where we can get a table.”

“I already know exactly where to go,” said Charles. “It’s on MacDougal.” He patted two pockets until he found his phone, then typed something into it. Within seconds, he announced, “Got it! Mermaid Oyster Bar.”

As soon as Margot left the study, Charles sat back down. “Seriously, Gwen,” he began. “One shouldn’t judge a person too quickly. I learned that in prison. My time there was filled with surprises about people’s characters and IQs. What I’m trying to say is if this man asks you for a second date, I think you should go.”

“And you know where he wanted to go on our second date? To bed.”

“And that has no appeal?”

“Not with him.”

“No chemistry?” he asked, earning a groan from me. “Is that not a fair question?” he persisted.

I said, “I’m sick of chemistry. ‘Chemistry’ is code for ‘I did not find him or her attractive enough to want to touch or be touched by this person I’ve known for ten minutes.’”

That triggered his explanation about attraction being so very hard to understand or discern—how one man’s dream girl can be another man’s maiden aunt.

“You’ve already forgotten: He liked me. Every sentence had a sexual accent.”

“For example?”

“Okay, how about this. An example of his good parenting was not letting his live-in daughter find a scantily clad stranger at the breakfast table.”

When Charles looked perplexed, I asked, “You don’t think that’s inappropriate and unwarranted?”

Still not looking convinced, he asked, “What is your idea of an inoffensive or even welcome come-on?”

I said, “Okay. You want to hear a really nice, sincere compliment? Edwin said it on our first real date, or maybe our second. It was this, almost word for word: ‘You remind me of Teri Black.’ So, of course, I asked, ‘Who’s Teri Black?’ And he said, ‘This girl I had a big crush on in high school, but never had the nerve to ask out.’”

“That worked?”

I said yes, obviously.

Charles asked if he could come across as such a guy—as sincere and harmless with unrequited crushes.

“Maybe. With a little practice.”

“Isn’t it a matter of taste, though? You’d like a sweet, modest guy. Dare I say another Edwin? Your sister, on the other hand . . . Wasn’t she the girl in high school who sneaked out at night and had a fake ID?”

This required my admitting that yes, different overtures appealed to different women.

“And tonight’s deal breaker was . . . ?”

“Bedroom this, bedroom that, do you have roommates? Do you have privacy? On and on.”

Charles said, “That’s not a come-on. That’s a real estate inquiry.”

“Not this time.”

Margot called from down the hall, “Get your shoes on. I’m ready . . . Just looking for my keys. And shut off the lights behind you.”

I said to him, “You two go alone. I’ll make myself an omelet and get some work done. Besides, I think I interrupted something.”

I noticed a slightly more complicated expression than I was used to seeing on Charles’s face, possibly a layer of compassion and delicacy over his usual unwavering confidence. “We may, Margot and I, have reached a new—how do I say this?—understanding.”

“Are you back together?”

“Unfortunately not.”

“But something’s changed.”

“Certain things have, shall we say, fallen into place . . .” He patted my knee in a brotherly fashion. “I’ll let Margot explain. And until she does, you’re not to worry.”

Were we New Yorkers unusually alert to real-estate nuances? Suddenly I was worried where I would go if Charles and Margot reconciled. My first thought was perhaps Anthony and I could be roommates elsewhere, until I remembered what a two-bedroom apartment without our friends-and-family discount would cost. I’d have to return to my own place, sublet for so many months that I’d almost forgotten its zip code.

Charles said, “Gwen? I lost you there. Where’d you go?”

I said, “Nowhere.” A lie. I’d just been to West End Avenue and had watched myself entering my old apartment. And despite the reality of a possessive sublettor and belongings in storage, I was walking through the rooms alone, past our furniture, our bed, our books, our paintings, our dishes; seeing Edwin’s Quaker Oats in the cupboard and his Chunky Monkey in the freezer.

Margot called, “C’mon! I’m starved.”

I pointed the remote at the TV and said, “Really. You two go.”

Charles asked, “Can we bring you back a slider?”

Margot, now in the doorway, dancing into her high heels, said, “No, because she’s coming with us. I haven’t heard word one about this alleged flop of a date. We’ve got work to do.”

I promised we would go over everything at breakfast. Until then, I told her, I’d use my time wisely, studying the classifieds, online and on paper. I didn’t say which kind.

From HugUkissU to MiddleSister: i would like a partner who is Inteligent, self-confident, romantic, affectionate, kind, athletic. i want a person to love me for whats on the in-side.. i like to travel, will love to meet a woman who will join me in sensual intimacy and a real disire to be communicative. i like going to exercise on weekends, and also i love playing golf. i’m self Employed.

29

Gotta Start Somewhere

L
ESS THAN TWO
months into what looked like a relationship, Douglas dropped out of their spinning class and stopped answering Anthony’s text messages. We learned that he had not been as pleasant as he first appeared; what’s more, he was an elitist, hinting that most of his boyfriends, even the one-nighters, had professional degrees in this or that. Anthony was offended and annoyed, but not heartbroken. Because we were a little in love with Anthony ourselves (Margot’s theory), we were indignant, already having sensed Douglas’s disapproval of both Anthony’s domestic arrangement and his joblessness. “Houseboy” was the word Douglas had used to describe the baking and multitasking we so appreciated.

Unsolicited, he had advised Anthony to explore the field of personal assisting. “It’s practically what you do now, minus the celebrity employer,” he’d observed.

True. But what nerve.

As Margot and I sat in the kitchen watching Anthony fill his muffin tins, ingeniously using an ice cream scoop, we discussed how demeaning the term “houseboy” was. But after the oven door was closed, the timer set, the wine poured, I remarked that “personal assistant” could be something Anthony was stunningly suited for.

Margot said, “He
is
like a manager, an organizer, a live-in personal trainer, technical consultant, and pastry chef all rolled into one.”

“Hardly—”

“Where do we start?” I asked.

He gave me a look that said,
After all these months .
 . 
. after my coaching, after I added memory to your computer and found a shout-out to you in Missed Connections, you have to ask where one searches for opportunities?

Craigslist
, I mouthed. “I know.”

Margot declared that our pinot grigio had been too long in the refrigerator and had been lousy to start with.

Anthony said, “We could always call Charles and invite him up for a glass of excellent pinot noir. BYOB.”

“No, thank you,” said Margot. “Tuesday’s soon enough.”

Anthony said, “I thought you were getting along very well. In fact, I thought you were unofficially back together.”

“Who told you that?”

“No one,” I said.

“A surveillance camera caught you two cupcakin’ it under the same afghan,” he said.

“Is that really a verb?” I asked.

“Is that what you surmised, too?” Margot asked me.

“More or less. If not back together, at least no longer enemies.”

Margot said, “That much is correct. We are no longer enemies.”

“So no big announcement?” Anthony asked.

“Not in that department.” She took a sip from her glass. “Remind me not to buy this one again.” She paused. “But I do have something to tell you. And this might be the right time.”

What she then announced, her tone outsized for what followed, was “Gwen. Anthony. The time has come for me to close down the PoorHouse.”

What I heard, or what I perceived, was Margot wanting to live alone. “PoorHouse
,
” in something like an auditory panic, struck me as “penthouse
.
” I processed her announcement as a request for us to leave.

“I don’t make a red cent,” she continued, “and for sure it hasn’t attracted any publishers. When I don’t blog, I feel guilty. And since the death of the Madoff boy, I just don’t have the same fire in my belly. It’s so discouraging to find my chat room empty all the time, except for the occasional sister.”

I couldn’t speak for Anthony, but I had long ago relegated her PoorHouse.com to the inactive file. I said, “I think you’re making the right decision. Time is money. And what about job satisfaction? You fired up the blog when you were aggravated.”

Anthony said, “I’m going to say something harsh now. Maybe not harsh. Maybe just candid. But here goes: We have to get jobs. Real ones. We’re too comfortable sitting at our laptops, pretending it’s work, scraping by on lentils and ground chuck and cheap wine.”

I said, “That’s not harsh. It’s true. I need a job. What’s been stopping me from looking?”

He pointed. “You, life insurance, and probably savings, and maybe Edwin’s pension. Me, unemployment compensation and savings . . . Margot, alimony and boarders. We’re getting by and we’re getting used to it.”

Margot said, “Maybe I need to go back to school.”

“In what?” I asked.

“In whatever gets a person a job. And wherever they give scholarships.”

Anthony said, “Maybe you could work the Ponzi angle into your financial aid applications.”

Margot said, “I’m taking a look at my divorce settlement. I think there’s something in there about Charles paying for graduate school.”

Anthony asked me, “You used to do—what was it?—advertising copy?”

“Freelance writer. Usually for utility companies.”

Margot and he exchanged looks.

I said, “I know it sounds dull, but sometimes I got to write about employee heroics.”

“Such as?”

“Such as the engineer who pulled a customer out of a swimming pool and gave her CPR when for all intents and purposes she had drowned! And another about an employee in a call center who talked a customer through childbirth.”

“Do you have clips?” Anthony asked. “A portfolio?”

I said that my reporting didn’t make for much of a portfolio since it appeared on bill inserts and in-house newsletters.

“I don’t want you at the computer all day,” said Margot. “We’ve had enough of the stationary life. I’d like to see you out in the world, in an office, in a skyscraper along with thousands of people, making friends in the cafeteria—that very thing you said you were ready for.”

“I wouldn’t mind that, either,” said Anthony. “Out in the world again, which is another reason why personal assistant is a nonstarter, unless you’re a twenty-two-year-old girl.”

“Not so fast,” said Margot. “You could design a job yourself, some kind of hybrid. Does Craigslist have position-wanted ads? Because Gwen and I could write it for you.” She drummed her fingers on the kitchen island and stared out over his shoulder. “Okay. Like this: ‘Do you need someone fabulous to run your life? We have the ideal candidate—smart and talented, energetic and personable . . .’ You’d write it, of course. But it would be in the third person, from our point of view, so we can rave.”