The View From Penthouse B

21





Is My Life Not My Own?


NEWS TRAVELS FAST. Two minutes after I’d left the deli, my sister Betsy texted me to say Congrats, necessitating a callback from me to ask “On what exactly?”

I was window-shopping at a cupcake boutique just off Sixth Avenue, staring not out of hunger but because I was thinking that Anthony’s wares were prettier than these standard-issue chocolates and vanillas with sprinkles. Betsy said, “I heard you’re working on a personal ad. Will you let me vet it before you send it in?”

“Margot called you already?”

“Of course! It’s big news. Overdue, I might add.”

I said thanks, but I could handle this myself. I reminded her that of the three sisters, I was the one who’d been the actual writer. Not a blogger like Margot, not a writer of corporate memos to fellow bankers, but someone who’d been a professional wordsmith, thank you very much.

“A wordsmith for utility companies, as I recall. This is different. This is an invitation. This is an advertisement. Margot said yours was too self-effacing. Besides, it’s fun for us, a vicarious thrill!”

“So I’ve heard. And editing my ad will give you that?”

“The results will! The answers, the e-mails, the potential dates. I hope to have a front-row seat.”

As I switched the phone to my other ear, I missed the beginning of a sentence that was now ending in “. . . but she didn’t go into detail.”

I seized the opportunity to insert a new vein of vicariousness. “Are we talking about Margot’s new paramour?” I asked.

Betsy didn’t allow herself a telltale gasp, but there was a distinct and abrupt pause. I knew her and her silences. Wasn’t she supposed to be Margot’s number one confidante when it came to matters involving romance?

“His name’s Roy,” I continued. “And I think he’s around forty. I can fill you in. I know a lot.”

“I was away,” said Betsy. “And I have a job that doesn’t allow for lingering over breakfast, lunch, and dinner.”

“Like us, you mean? Your slacker sisters?”

“I didn’t say that. I just meant you two are under the same roof so, of course, you’d have the inside track.”

“You’re jealous that I knew before you.”

“Just fill me in,” she said. “We’re not children.”

I said, “Okay. Here’s what I know: They met in the PoorHouse chat room, where he’s a regular.”

“I know all the regulars! What’s his username?”

“How do you know all the regulars?”

“Visitors are allowed. I sometimes log on late at night.”

“As a chaperone?”

“No! So she won’t be the only one in there. She has no idea it’s me.”

I said, “That’s actually very sweet of you.”

“Just tell me it’s not HardUp.”

I said, yes, sorry—though not sorry at all and quite enjoying my one-upmanship—it was indeed HardUp.

“I’m speechless. She’s actually met him and dated him?”

“More than that,” I said.

I hadn’t realized how long I must’ve been standing at the bakeshop window until a young woman, wearing a chef’s apron, her hair in braids, her hands in disposable gloves, came outside with a pink-on-pink cupcake cradled in a napkin. She said, “You were out here so long, and we saw you staring at the display. We don’t keep our stuff overnight. We thought you might like to take one home.”

Oh dear. I must have been looking like a hungry waif. I said, “I was talking to my sister. I didn’t realize I was looking needy.” And added as proof of my own solvency: “In fact, the sister I’m talking to is a banker.”

“Please. It’s what we do around this time every night. We close at six and give away what we don’t sell.”

I accepted the cupcake as Betsy was squawking my name. I thanked the baker and said into my phone, “This is a nice city, you know. I don’t get out enough to appreciate that. I just got a free cupcake.”

Betsy was giving directions—which corner of which intersection she wanted, presumably from the back seat of a taxi. Then to me, contradicting my Manhattan testimonial, “Give me a sec. I’m paying with a credit card and he’s arguing about the tip!” Then to him, “Buddy! Get real! It’s not up for negotiation!”

I waited. The pink, I decided, was only food coloring. It didn’t suggest the cotton-candiness of Anthony’s. From what must have been her lobby, Betsy returned to the subject of HardUp. What was Margot thinking—rewarding a blatant flirtation that all the world could see?

“She’s happy,” I said. “It gets her out of the house.” I stopped there because I couldn’t remember if we had told Betsy that Margot felt the need to escape because Charles was on a two-nights-a-week meal plan chez nous.

Betsy said, “You sound . . . I don’t know . . . different. Like you’re fine with this HardUp, like you don’t disapprove of her dating a penniless and possibly homeless predator.”

“It started off as coffee in broad daylight. And then only because he was selling Girl Scout cookies for his daughter and Margot ordered three boxes.”

“Are we sure he’s not married?”

I said, “You’re quizzing me because you two never pry into each other’s personal lives?”

“Never mind. I got sidetracked. I’m about to get into the elevator. E-mail me your ad before you run it. I’ll have Andrew look at it, too.”

I couldn’t say “But Andrew isn’t the guy I’m looking for,” so I said instead: “It’ll be its own test. If I only hear from creeps or no one, I’ll revise.”

“Gotta run. Where’s the ad going?”

“To be determined. I started out thinking the Village Voice, but—”

“Why not everywhere? Why not a blitz? Why not cast the widest net? In print, online, a matchmaker? I was thinking of giving you one of those private matchmaker consultations for your next birthday.”

I had turned onto West Tenth and I was sick of the topic. I caused my own voice to produce a faux cell-phone skip. “Bets . . . have to . . . a quart of . . .” Then I added for good measure: “You’re break—” I snapped my phone shut and slowed down to a leisurely stroll. It was warm for March. And it was fun eating a cupcake on the streets of New York. People smiled at me for that reason. If I was ruining my appetite for dinner, who would care?





We weren’t supposed to be feeding Charles on a Wednesday, but Margot had been more flexible and indulgent since his fainting spell. I found them in the kitchen, Margot making a salad and Charles watching. Because they went silent when I arrived, I guessed she had told him about our afternoon’s project. “Where’s Anthony?” I asked.

“Gym. Then out with Douglas.”

“So this isn’t just a series of one-nighters,” Charles observed.

To avoid the inevitable sarcastic remark by Margot about Charles’s being the documented expert on meaningless sex, I asked him, “How’s Chaz?”

Charles’s face manifested instant paternal pride. “He’s great, isn’t he?” he enthused. “I was petrified. And wary! And then this solid young man walks into my life and asks for nothing except a meeting, a handshake, an interview about my family tree and medical history. I don’t deserve it. I’m a little overwhelmed, obviously.”

Though Margot was across the room, vigorously chopping garlic with her sharpest knife, I knew she was listening intently.

I asked when he was seeing Chaz again, but before he could answer, Margot threw out, “Before you get too attached, maybe you should have a DNA test.”

Charles turned slowly, a theatrical pivot in her direction. “I think you forget that during the trial you couldn’t bring yourself to attend—you who once pledged ‘for better or for worse’—the question of paternity was resolved on the basis of DNA testing of anyone suspected to be my issue. And as you occasionally need reminding, I was punished in ways matrimonial, financial, professional, and every which way. The government and most of my friends think I paid my debt to society.”

She was now chopping so fiercely that the garlic had gone from minced to macerated. “To society,” she muttered. “Society! Whatever that means. Total strangers and taxpayers who weren’t hurt by any of your crimes against humanity.”

I said, “Please. Let’s stipulate that Chaz is Charles’s true son. Okay? No need to discuss further.”

“Thank you, Gwen,” said Charles. “Maybe we can switch to a much more pleasant topic.”

I waited. I took three plates from a cupboard and three napkins from a drawer.

Charles continued, with a broad, condescending smile, “I heard something quite intriguing today.”

Before I could ask what, he said, “I hear you’re dipping your toe into classified waters. Brava!”

If Margot weren’t already grumbling to herself, I might have pleaded, “Is my life not my own? Is there anything I do or say that is off the record?”

Charles said, “Not to worry. Your sister told me in confidence. I won’t tell a soul.”

Margot said, “I did not tell you in confidence. The point was to get the word out. Direct your loyal, forgiving, noncriminal friends—maybe some fellow doctors or one of your legions of lawyers—to Gwen’s upcoming ad.”

“Which I’d love to see in advance,” he added.

I said, “You and every person I’ve ever met. For the hundredth time: No, thank you. If nobody answers, I’ll start over.”

Charles said, “No, no. You misunderstand. I peruse the personal ads myself. I wouldn’t want to answer your entreaty by mistake.”

Was he kidding? I thought so. But Margot slapped the knife down with a bang. “Do you have no boundaries? Is there anything you wouldn’t say in front of your ex-wife! What’s next? ‘Oh, did I tell you that I answered an ad for an ovulating woman looking for a sperm donor shooting blanks? She didn’t get pregnant, but it was fun just the same.’”

“Margot—” he began. “Honey—”

“I wanted babies! I never didn’t want them. But who had the last word? Mister Zero Population Growth. Mister It Would Cramp Our Style.” Her voice lowered to a mocking impression of his. “‘You and I don’t need children to be happy, darling. Marriages fall apart because of children!’ How ironic was that little argument? How evil and untrue? And who’s the proud, happy papa now?”

I didn’t expect to see what happened next: Charles strode across the kitchen and put his arms around Margot.

More surprising—she let him.