The View From Penthouse B (26 page)

I looked up. The screen was illuminated and there was an answer below the green bubble. Under
Hvg a gd time?
Eli’s succinct answer—for the record and to my shock—was
VERY.

Commodore61 to MiddleSister: “Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.” It could be a child’s smile, a sunrise or sunset, a walk on the beach, your favorite dessert or card game, an enticing kiss . . . you get the picture.

34

All Ears

N
OT ONLY WERE
Margot and Anthony both at home, but Charles was visiting, sitting hip to thigh with Margot on the couch, and all three were feigning looks of unsolicitude when I got back from my date. “It’s Saturday night,” I said to Anthony. “Why aren’t you out?”

“It’s barely ten o’clock,” he said. “To some of us, the night’s still young.”

Charles said, “We’re watching
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
—”

“
They
are,” said Anthony, phone in hand, thumbs texting.

“I’m catching up on stuff that came out when I was away,” said Charles. “I did read the books, though . . . multiple copies in the prison library. This is quite a good adaptation.”

I said, hoping to sound blasé, “Well, you guys enjoy. I want to get out of Betsy’s dress and into my lounging clothes.” I hoped Margot would follow as I made my way down the hall, unclasping earrings, conscious of being a woman in a black dress, shoes in hand as if I’d danced too many tangos at the Copacabana.

I left my door ajar, and within seconds Margot was in the room. Planting myself in front of her, I lifted my hair off my neck—body language for
Unzip me, please
.

“Tell me everything,” she said, and shut the door behind us.

I slept well. It took me a few seconds upon waking to put a caption under the sensation that something positive had occurred the night before. Eli Offenberg’s face floated into view, followed immediately by the worry that I’d done too much debriefing with Margot before bedtime. I shouldn’t get her hopes up. Or mine. Besides, I hadn’t thanked him. Perhaps there was an overnight e-mail?

Not exactly.

Dear Ms. Schmidt,

Just in case my son doesn’t write you on his own, I wanted to let you know that he not only enjoyed your company, but the food and the atmosphere as well.

Yours truly,

Myra (Offenberg)

I forwarded Mrs. O’s communication to Margot and Anthony, then printed out a copy in case they wouldn’t have checked their e-mail before breakfast. And I’m sure it would have been the morning’s hot topic if it weren’t for the fact that a barefoot Charles was in the kitchen in a short seersucker bathrobe, a half carton of jumbo eggs at the ready.

My options: Pretend this was business as usual, or ask why he was opening and closing our cupboards as if he owned the place. “Can I help you?” I asked.

Without interrupting his search, he said, “A
very
good morning, and a very good night, too. At least that’s what Margot told me.”

So smarmy, so horrible, so uncalled for . . . until I realized he was talking about
my
date and not his time spent disrobed in our apartment.

He tried again. “I understand you had a successful date last night.”

This is what I heard in his voice:
You, Gwen-Laura Schmidt, whose bearing and affect do not suggest good times or successful dates, have accomplished exactly that.

I said, “Would you like to rephrase that so it doesn’t sound as if a miracle occurred?”

Now he was beating the eggs, showing off with the whisk and making a racket loud enough to wake up Anthony, one undersized room away.

“I only know what your confidante told me,” he said. “You’ll forgive me if I take her report down a notch because she can be overly excitable.”

Those two words carried a double meaning when the speaker is in his bathrobe, chest hairs on display. I had no desire to confide in him. I didn’t like his being here or his helping himself to our provisions. I asked, “Are you making enough for everyone? Because that’s what we do around here: communal dining. All for one and one for all.”

He looked at the half-empty egg carton and back at me, which is when Anthony’s door opened. After a few quick chin-ups and a dismount, he asked, “To what do we owe this honor . . . ?”

Charles smiled—unctuously, I thought—causing Anthony to say, “On second thought, I’d rather not know.”

Charles asked where we kept the sauté pans, “Preferably one that’s eight or nine inches.”

Now at the coffee machine, Anthony turned around so we could exchange looks. Clearly his asked,
Did he just get subliminal with those inches?

“Bottom cupboard, next to the stove,” I told Charles, averting my glance so I wouldn’t have to witness his bending over.

With a “Shall you and I set the table?” Anthony and I left the kitchen for the dining room where we exchanged more shrugs and head tilts in the direction of our overnight guest. Finally locating a topic we could discuss aloud, Anthony said, “I heard through the grapevine that you liked your blind date.”

I said that was true. I did like him. He was very nice—

“But?”

“No
but,
” I said.

The mention of Eli, not even by name, triggered something I wouldn’t have expected in Anthony. He said, “I was going to ask what this guy looked like, but suddenly I remembered that I don’t know what Edwin looked like! It suddenly seems so strange to me. I’ve never seen a photo of him. How is that possible?”

“You’ve never been in my
bedroom?
”—which, of course, was the exact moment Margot joined us, coiffed and dressed in capri pants and a crisp white shirt tied bolero-style.

“What am I walking in on?” she asked.

Anthony said, “Well, miss. Your sister and I could ask you the same thing.”

Margot said, “Let me get some coffee. You guys all set?”

She was gone longer than it took someone to fill a mug and add her half-and-half. Nor was there conversation coming through the swinging door.

“They must be kissing,” I said.

“He’s in his bathrobe. Rather unencumbered is my guess.”

We left it at that till Margot returned, wearing a little less lipstick. “Everyone having scrambles?” she asked.

We understood: Inquiries not welcome.

I said, “Scrambled is fine.”

“
Moi aussi,
” said Anthony.

Returning to the previous non-Charles topic, I told Anthony I would show him the program from Edwin’s funeral, which was the most recent photo of him.

“No, you won’t,” Margot said. “Show him your wedding portrait. He looks so happy. You both do.”

“I’d like that,” said Anthony.

“Edwin was perfectly pleasant-looking,” Margot continued. “Not a movie star, but appealing in many ways. Besides, a person’s looks can grow on you. I can give a first-person account of that phenomenon.”

“You mean the good doctor?” Anthony said. “Do we have ourselves a reconciliation?”

Margot said, “Hardly.”

“He seems to have slept over,” I said.

Frowning and checking the kitchen door, Margot whispered, “Nothing more than—if you must put a name on it—both of us in the right mood.”

“Completely understandable,” said Anthony.

Instead of launching the topic that would begin with “But you hate him,” I asked, “What’s taking so long in there?”

“He’s trying to stretch the eggs with onions and peppers. And he found some ham in the freezer. It’s going to be a western scramble, so act excited when he serves it.”

After a beat, Anthony said, “I’m noticing more affection than we’re used to in your voice when talking about you-know-who.”

“Just being a good hostess.”

Anthony said, “Okay, I’ll try to act excited when the western scramble appears.” He turned to me and grinned. “In the meantime, I’m way behind on your date. Description, please!”

I said, “Very nice. Intelligent. Interesting. We talked about how our spouses died, but then we moved on. He was tallish. And balding, but had a nice-shaped head. I’m pretty sure his eyes were hazel, though the lighting wasn’t great. Not skinny, but not paunchy, either.”

“Wearing?” Margot asked.

“A suit and tie, which I thought was a really nice gesture.”

From the kitchen: “Anyone besides me like their eggs wet?”

We all said, “No.”

Unsolicited, Margot murmured, “I know you’re thinking I’ve forgiven him, but I haven’t.”

Our answers, simultaneously, were my “Are you sure?” and Anthony’s “Coulda fooled me.”

Margot put an index finger to her lips, then switched to a smile as Charles came through the swinging door, eggs on a platter and an abundant stack of toast on a plate.

“This is nice, isn’t it?” Margot asked, as Charles hovered at her elbow, serving her with a professional scissors grip on two serving spoons. When he was seated and eating, he picked up the printout of my e-mail.

“Myra Offenberg?” he asked.

I said, “It’s nothing. A little inside joke.”

Obviously unimpressed, he put it down without comment.

“Lemme see,” said Margot.

Instead of complying, Charles asked if the ham he found was the Smithfield he’d brought to our party some time back.

“If it was in the freezer, in little packets . . .” said Anthony.

“Definitely your ham, no question,” said Margot.

Did I not have a right to their attention on such a day? True, I’d been aiming for serene and secretive last night, but now no one seemed interested enough to pursue the topic of Eli’s mother’s documentation of a successful date. I reached for the printout and said, “It was very sweet of her, don’t you think?”

“If it was my mother, I’d kill her,” said Anthony.

“How did it end?” asked Charles.

“It didn’t end.”

“No, I meant—how did you two leave it?”

“We made a date for Thursday.”

“Well, well, well,” said Charles.

“‘Well, well, well’ as in ‘How amazing’?” I asked.

“Would that be so off the mark?”

Margot spoke before I could manage an answer. “I don’t think Charles meant ‘How amazing’ in terms of a successful follow-up date. Am I right, Charles? Weren’t you referring to the high odds against a blind date being decent?”

“Of course,” he said. “What other possible connotation could there be?”

“Okay then,” I said. “Let’s start over. On Thursday I’m meeting Eli after work.”

“For a walk on the High Line, weather permitting, and then dinner,” Margot supplied. “At least that was the plan as of last night.”

Charles said, “I’m happy to hear that. Long overdue, if you don’t mind my saying so.”

I
did
mind, but he wasn’t finished.

“A widower is a hot commodity at our age. My God—the ratio! Is he dating online? These guys move on if there isn’t instant chemistry. We feel like kids in a candy store.”

“
We?
You’re still doing that?” Margot asked.

“Of course I’m not! Why would I?”

And Anthony, in not the friendliest tone, said, “I would think these dating services do background checks before they let a person sign up.”

Charles said, “I think the tone of this conversation has become less than cordial.”

Margot said, “Not true. But let me point out that Gwen doesn’t need you to rain on her parade after a lovely date and in advance of what I’m sure will be her
second
lovely date.”

Anthony said, “Once again, I haven’t gotten my details! I mean Armani, Zegna, Barneys, Sears? Lips? Teeth? Eyes? Eyeglass frames? Musculature?”

Margot asked me, “How much do we love Anthony’s consistency?”

“Who paid?” Charles asked.

I said, “Eli did. I made an insincere gesture in the direction of the check, but he slipped it to his side of the table and said, ‘No. I don’t believe in that.’”

“I like that,” said Margot. “Both the impulse and the answer.”

“Did you feel any chemistry?” asked Charles.

“You and your chemistry,” Margot said.

“It’s important,” he argued. “It’s the number one question. It’s the hundred-thousand-dollar question. Let me put it another way: Did you want to kiss him?”

“Kissing a near stranger?” asked Margot. “Gwen’s not the dreamy kind who thinks in sexual terms on a first date. She’s a little guarded about those things.”

I said, “I think I could be the dreamy kind.”

“It’s actually not a bad question,” said Anthony. “I once met someone at a bar and we were having a nice conversation, not even flirtatious, just friendly, when I asked, ‘Anyone here you’d like to kiss?’ and he said very sweetly, ‘Only you.’”

Of course, that led us off track once again because Margot embarked on a new line of questioning, namely: Who was that guy, and did that start something, and were he and Anthony still in touch?

I picked up my printed e-mail. “Since I only made one copy, I’ll read it aloud.” I did, causing Charles to revisit, “His mother’s involved?
That
I don’t like.”

I said I was getting more coffee. Charles held up his empty cup, but I ignored it. In the kitchen, I considered leaving via the service exit, slipping back around to the front door and down the hall into my room. I patted my pockets. No front door key. So I refilled my cup and returned to the Council on Social Dissection. I sensed that there had been a whispered conference, led by Margot and setting a ground rule as Miss Housebound stood on the threshold of a possible attachment.
Let’s back off, guys. She thinks she has an admirer. Could we all just play along?

DancinMan to MiddleSister: COMMUNICATION and CARING are the foundation for forever i want to hear of your day and CARE and know you are of the same mindset. Am a romantic, i have plenty for both of us!!!

35

Sister Night

N
EXT STOP: DISARMING BETSY
. We considered a family dinner in-house with newly integrated member Charles at his most useful and hospitable, displayed when the main course required carving or deboning. Instead, we chose an upcoming Betsy-takes-her-less-fortunate-sisters-to-dinner night.