The View From Penthouse B

19





December


SOMETHING 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.

“The machine didn’t pick up, either.”

“Oh, boo-hoo.”

“May I?” he asked, gesturing in her direction. “Preferably alone.”

Several minutes passed. Who knew what old times or current events he evoked, but when he returned to the foyer, he said, “She’ll come. I’ll wait in the parlor while you two get ready.”

“Me?”

“It was a condition of her saying yes. You and dinner later at the restaurant of her choice.”





We dressed better than usual, in leather boots, winter coats, and the scarves we thought would please the eyes of the fashion conscious. Charles, Margot, and I were descending in the Batavia’s beautiful brass-and-mahogany elevator when its doors opened at the eighth floor and a young woman squeezed her way on with a twin stroller. Ordinarily, one of us might have cooed, but the homeliness of both babies seemed to render us mute. The new passenger said, after the doors finally closed, “I’m Vanessa. I’m staying with my parents for a week while our floors are being refinished. In Westchester.”

And after a few more floors in silence, she asked, “Are you residents of the building?”

“We are,” Margot said, “but on different floors. She and I are sisters and he’s my ex.” After a pause she added, “It looks amicable, but it’s not.”

“And you can see why,” said Charles.

“She’s had a challenging weekend,” I said.

Luckily, we had reached the lobby. I said, “I hope you have a nice visit with your parents.”

Backing the stroller out expertly, Vanessa said, “I’ll try.”

“Can I help with that?” Charles asked.

“I’ve got it,” she said.

At the front door, I told Margot and Charles that I was thinking of sitting this one out. “You two go,” I said. “I’m already not enjoying myself.”

“We insist,” said Charles. “Someone’s got to apologize for your sister after each of her tactless remarks.”

“Shall we cab it?” Margot asked.

He led the way out the door, beyond our awning to the sidewalk. After a fleet of off-duty yellow taxis passed by, an empty one swerved to a stop. “Twenty-seventh between Seventh and Eighth,” Charles told the driver. “Fashion Institute of Technology, I’m pleased to say.”

“He doesn’t know why we’re going there,” said Margot, “so you don’t have to sound so tickled.”

“Seat belts,” I said.

“Am I going to hate this?” Margot asked.

“You love accessories,” I reminded her.

Charles jumped in to proclaim that it was a juried show and a high honor to have any design at all included, let alone two, let alone the work of a first-year student.

“What kid knows at eighteen that he wants to design hats for a living?” Margot grumbled.

Charles, now staring glumly out the window in the opposite direction of his fellow passengers, said, “Gwen? Please tell your sister that her peevishness is wearing thin.”

“It’s curious,” Margot said. “It’s like I took truth serum and I’m blurting out whatever comes to mind. No tact needed. It’s quite liberating.”

“It’s about Madoff’s son,” I told her. “You never know how a death will hit you, even a stranger’s.”

Our driver, who’d been chatting on his Bluetooth, asked, “Twenty-seventh Street where?”

Charles repeated, “Between Seventh and Eighth avenues. Do you need the exact number? It’s FIT.”

“Where his newly discovered son is in a show,” Margot offered.

“I have a new son myself,” said the driver. “Finally, after three girls!”

“Actually, he’s nineteen, and it’s an exhibition of his millinery work,” said Charles.

The man said, in an accent I guessed to be Jamaican, “I hear a proud daddy talking!”

“Of course he’s proud,” Margot offered. “A son in fashion who’s straight? He’s cock of the walk!”

I gave her a look that was half What’s wrong with you? and half Knock it off.

Our driver volunteered in the loveliest lilt that his grandmother used to wear hats to church, then switched to mantillas when Mrs. Jacqueline Kennedy was the First Lady of the United States, but that she had recently started wearing hats again, big ones, in every color of the rainbow.

Margot said, “I can picture that. I sometimes go to church in Harlem, and it’s largely for the ladies’ headgear.”

“You do?” I asked.

“Do? Did? What’s the difference? I went to a wedding up there once and then another time just for fun because of the choir.”

“Here we are!” announced our driver. Margot and I slid out as Charles studied the taxi’s credit-card machine.

Alone on the sidewalk, I said, “Truth serum or not, it’s wearing thin. It’s like I’m out with a stranger.”

“I can’t help it. He wants us to be pals. Everyone. Me and him. Me and Chaz. Me and the taxi driver.”

Charles called, “Do either of you have money? This good man prefers cash. I’ll pay you back.”

Margot yelled back, “He has to take your card. And, no, we don’t have any cash.”

After settling up, and with a gentlemanly hand on the small of both our backs, Charles guided us toward the front door. It reminded me of my spinster days, going out with my married sister and her still-gallant husband, who was good at pretending that both of us were his dates.





Chaz, more than I remembered from the first sight of him at our party or from his Facebook pictures, was so striking, so smooth of olive skin, so shiny of dark hair and straight of teeth that Margot and I were struck a little mute. He was wearing a white shirt that looked buccaneerish, as if it would billow in the wind. His jeans were black and his high-top sneakers lime green. “I’m so glad you came!” he told us. “Do you want to see my stuff? Do you want some cider? There are some totally sick cookies, too—frosted hats and purses.”

Charles asked, “Are any members of the millinery faculty here? Because I’d like to meet them.”

“As what?” Margot asked. “Don’t make him do that.”

The pleasant, hospitable expression on Chaz’s face faded. “Oh shit,” he said. “Excuse me. Gotta see someone.”

We watched him meet a new arrival, a dark-haired, pretty woman, maybe late forties, dressed in a black velvet coat suitable for opera-going. Neither Margot nor Charles nor I had to state aloud who the visitor was. Her stunning hat, worthy of a noir film star, might as well have been a neon sign that said MOTHER OF CHAZ ADAM HICKS.

“Oh, Jesus,” Charles muttered. “Why didn’t he tell me?”

We watched Chaz plant the kind of kiss that looked obligatory, then lead his guest into an alcove where, presumably, his creations were on display.

Margot said, “Who’s coming with me?”

I said, “We can’t leave without seeing his work—”

“Or signing his guestbook,” said Charles.

“Who said anything about leaving?” Margot asked, heading not toward the exit but toward Chaz.

I hung back with Charles, unwilling to witness whatever scene was going to unfold. “Why didn’t it occur to me that he’d invite his own mother!” he moaned. “Oh, God. Do you think it was a trap? Do you think she crashed? I should have my head examined! Of course, he’d invite every friend and relative. What was I thinking?”

I said, “Stay here. I’ll get us something to drink” with a dual goal of cider and spying. At the refreshment table, I had a full view into the alcove where two colorful hats were perched on the limbs of a shiny papier-mâché cactus. Though Margot’s back was to me, I knew her musculature well enough to know she was not in a fight. Chaz, standing between the two women, was pointing to a vinyl beanie, tracing a seam with one finger and looking pained. I returned to Charles and reported that from my vantage point all looked strangely peaceful. Here’s your cider, and hold mine. I’d be right back.

A cluster of young women had moved in on Chaz. One by one they were trying on both the beanie and the other creation, whose description read A PLAYFUL VERSION OF A BIRETTA, A SQUARE CAP WITH THREE OR FOUR PEAKS WORN BY ROMAN CATHOLIC AND SOME ANGLICAN AND LUTHERAN CLERGY. Margot noted my arrival with a quick but neutral glance. I widened my eyes, silently inquiring as to what the hell this sudden armistice was all about.

“Nice to be a guy at FIT, obviously” was all Margot said. Chaz’s mother turned to me and said, “I’m the proud mom.”

“Kathleen Hicks,” Margot supplied.

We shook hands. Kathleen wondered aloud if we’d ever met before.

I asked, “Where would I have ever met you?”

“At the office?”

Margot said, “She means at Charles’s practice. Mrs. Hicks remembered that I sometimes filled in for the receptionist. And since we were a mom-and-pop operation, a sister-in-law might have helped out, too. Or came by for lunch.”

What? This degree of civility seemed inconceivable. All I could manage was “No, I didn’t help out. Maybe I should have.”

Kathleen next offered the opinion that working in an obstetrical office, helping doctors bring babies into the world, must be a most rewarding mission.

“Charles didn’t deliver babies,” Margot said. “His specialty was helping women conceive them.” Then I knew. She was acting. For whatever reason—and I hoped it was for Chaz—she was playing the grudgeless ex-wife. Further proof: the slight, ironic tilt of her head when she said, “Let’s get Charles. I know he wants to see Chaz’s work. And I assume you two haven’t seen each other since you took the witness stand.”

Kathleen said, “I saw him after that. I visited him up at Ossining.”

“Otisville,” said Margot. “That was nice of you.”

“I needed to explain my reasons for testifying,” she said. “Also I wanted to tell him more about our son.”

Our. Son. There were two words that a home-wrecking witness for the prosecution probably shouldn’t use to describe her love child.

Margot said, “My understanding is that your husband’s name is on your son’s birth certificate. Wouldn’t that make him the father?”

Kathleen said, “Legally.”

“Are you still married to him?” Margot asked.

“We’re divorced. It was final in October.”

“And you were married how long?”

“A long time by today’s standards. Five and a half years before Chaz was born.”

“Then what?” I asked.

Kathleen said, “I think we all know that answer. When Chaz was sixteen, I read in the newspaper that Dr. Pierrepont had been arrested for fraud. Of course, I had to find out about my own child’s paternity.”

Margot asked, “Really? You had no inkling before that?”

“Not a clue,” said Kathleen.

I said, “I’m sorry, but our other sister was at the trial every day. I believe you testified that the transfer of DNA was accomplished”—I looked around, lowered my voice—“directly. Person to person.”

What were we expecting? A confession? An apology? What we heard instead was “Are you and Dr. Pierrepont reunited? Because Chazzy seems to have that impression.”

Margot said, “Dr. Pierrepont and I live in the same building. We can’t help running into each other, and since we’re both civilized people, we occasionally eat at the same table.”

“That’s what I’m asking. Is it an amicable divorce or is it dating?”

I blurted out, “Amicable or not, it’s obvious to everyone that Charles will always be in love with my sister!”

Kathleen jumped back as if I’d taken a swing at her. And Margot? She touched my arm, sovereign to subject. “Really, Gwen,” she scolded. “That was uncalled for.” And then, grandly, to Kathleen. “Charles and I are not dating. The coast is clear. Or should I say the couch is?”

Then Chaz was calling. “Mom? Wanna meet Sophie? She made the chenille cloche.”

Quite politely, considering the climate and the united sister front, Kathleen said, “You ladies will excuse me. Sophie, I believe, is the new girlfriend. And for your information, I’m seeing someone, and I’m quite certain that we have an understanding.”

“Still, I’m sure you want to say hello to your former doctor. He’s here. On parole. Should I send him over?” Margot asked.

All was well. My sister was back. I found a bench, a handsome one made of brambles and stuffed birds that might have been part of the exhibition, and sat down. Unlike Margot, I was exhausted.