The View From Penthouse B

22





What’s the Worst That Could Happen?


AFTER DUE DILIGENCE, and despite the pressure to go modern, I decided against Craigslist. Its personal ads were very much by and for the young, many of whose “pics” unabashedly exhibited not faces but erect penises. Anthony’s three-pronged argument (my ad would stand out; I had nothing to lose; look at all the youngsters advertising for older chicks) did not convince me.

Before taking another leap, I analyzed two weeks’ worth of classifieds in the Village Voice, in search of somewhat older gentlemen who weren’t blatantly seeking sex. Anthony sat at my elbow, urging me to click on ads that had a 40 or higher in parentheses, indicating the poster’s age. Exactly zero posts moved me to answer. Among those run by my contemporaries:





Wanna watch me with my stepdaughter??—47

Submissive guy at your service—45

Looking for Mother—50

Get paid to have breakfast with me Monday—46





By week’s end, I was doubting the whole enterprise and hating everyone who had composed an ad with any cheesy intention. Thus my ad ran in the New York Review of Books, word for word, the one I’d composed at the deli, with NERVOUS as my boldface headline. No photo needed, though I was prepared for that request. If there were any inquiries, I had a brand-new one of me, makeup by Margot, with my hair blowing in the wind above our rooftop terrace.

A day passed, then two, then a week. No one answered, and I knew why. The competition in that highbrow publication were women aiming for a man with books on his shelf, art on his walls, smoked salmon in his refrigerator, and tenure. I was at a distinct disadvantage, lost among ads posted by Ivy Leaguers with advanced degrees in Masculine Preferences. What man would ignore “Tall, sophisticated, stunning, affectionate, and irreverent. Easy laugh, warm heart. Smart as a whip. Just plain fun to be around.” Or below that: “Sparkles with natural charm, no games, positive approach to life. Curious/avid traveler, doesn’t complain when the AC is on full blast or the music is loud. Former runway model. Graceful, easygoing, cosmopolitan. Bakes her own bread.” Or, following the adjectives describing the next perfect woman’s beauteousness and svelteness: “Self-deprecating humor, adventurous streak. Will learn to fly plane but draws line at skiing when it’s 20 below. Tennis devotee. Loves ‘no agenda’ vacation days; well, maybe a little snorkeling & Jet Skiing. Loves red wine & rare red meat—give me a thick, juicy burger any day.”

See what I mean? Mine might as well have said, “Mouse seeks same for not much at all. Very ambivalent about this whole thing. References upon request. Hope you don’t want sex.”

To keep the in-house harassment to a minimum, I didn’t raise the topic of my advertising failures with my team, but, of course, they were following my nonadventures independently, quizzing me at every juncture. As more and more nothingness happened, Margot said that this was only one avenue. A person could get out, do things, mingle.

It was shortly afterward, on an afternoon of browsing in Soho, that she came up with a terrible idea that she viewed as brilliant. We were looking at silk-screened T-shirts displayed outdoors on Prince Street when she clutched my forearm. “Remember when you wanted a piano?” she asked.

“Yes. So?”

“And Mom was reading the classifieds, looking for a secondhand one?”

“Vaguely.”

“Well, someone else had placed a ‘piano wanted’ ad in the classifieds. Mom called and said that if he got more responses than needed, would he share the info. In which case, she’d be happy to split the cost of the ad!”

“And this relates to what?”

“That’s how she got our upright! Maybe you could e-mail these dames who post the come-hither ads, offer to contribute to the cost, and see if they have any guys to spare.”

I didn’t realize that this entire conversation was taking place with an audience, the artist whose T-shirts were before us. He looked about twenty-five, and was eating tabouli from a plastic container.

“Whoa,” he said.

I turned around.

“I’m getting the picture,” he said.

I asked what picture that would be.

“Love,” he answered. “As in looking for it.” He took two business cards from a small stack on his table. “My girlfriend is a psychic. She’s the real thing. She actually makes a living at it. I mean, it’s spooky. She told one woman to get an EKG, and a week later she needed a triple bypass. Her husband came back to thank Serena. She’s like five minutes from here, on Mott. Mention Adam, and she’ll give you a discount. All of her reviews on Yelp give her five stars.”

I could see that Margot took the cards with a little too much enthusiasm. “Mott Street,” she said to me. “C’mon.”

We thanked Adam, me insincerely because I had no intention of availing myself of Serena’s palm, tea-leaf, or tarot-card readings. I trotted after Margot, who was already hustling east. When she turned onto Mott, I stopped and called ahead, “No way.”

“You are a chicken. C’mon. Maybe I’ll get a vibe, too, and that’ll decide it.”

I checked Serena’s business card. No fee mentioned. “It could cost a hundred dollars, for all you know.”

Margot stopped, faced me, and said as if she were mustering all her patience for the upcoming life lesson: “We’ll ask her fee, Gwen. Then I’ll make a counteroffer, and after we’ve agreed on a price, I’ll mention our discount, courtesy of Adam.”

We walked up two more blocks of shops and restaurants before we spotted a blue neon sign flashing in an upstairs window: CLAIRVOYANT and in red, OPEN.

“If I have to drag you there, I will,” said Margot. “We have to be more spontaneous.”

Up two flights and down a dark hallway, Margot stopped at a heavy door, its dark brown paint reptilian after many coats. The knocker was a brass mermaid. The nameplate read SONDRA APPLEBAUM. We checked the business card again, matched its 3 -G with the symbols on the door. We knocked. A voice called, “Who is it?”

Margot asked, “Are you Serena?”

“Just a moment, please,” the voice sang out.

It was a whole minute before the door opened onto one room, painted a nervy sapphire blue. Serena was wearing a red and gold sari, not the colors I’d have chosen with her orange hair. “Have you come for a consultation?” she asked.

Margot said yes and pointed to me. Suddenly I wished I’d worn my good camel coat instead of my parka, my chocolate beret instead of my earmuffs. Serena asked what service we needed her to render. She pointed to a cardboard sign, painted in the same hand as Adam’s T-shirt slogans.





Quick Palm Read . . . $10

Full Palm Read . . . $20

Tarot-Card Reading . . . $25

Psychic Consultation . . . $60

Tea-Leaf Reading . . . $12 (includes tea)





Margot and I stepped away and conferred. I said, “I wouldn’t mind the psychic consultation, but, yikes, sixty dollars. Forget it.”

Margot asked Serena, “Do you look for what’s ahead, or would you say it’s more about the past and the present?”

Serena said, “It varies from person to person. If I see something, I say it, and sometimes it’s already happened and very often it’s still ahead. What my mind’s eye produces doesn’t have a timeline.”

Margot handed her the business card. “We were referred by Adam. He said we’d get a discount.”

Serena frowned.

“Not good?” I asked.

“We broke up,” she said.

Margot said, “It seems to me that only a nice guy, and maybe someone still carrying a torch, would be promoting his ex-girlfriend’s business.”

Serena said, “I didn’t break up with him. His referrals? They’re guilt.”

“Was it another woman?” Margot asked.

“You probably met her, at his side, selling her pot holders.”

Margot said, “Tell me he didn’t leave you for someone who makes pot holders.”

“They’re only pot holders in the ironic sense. She means them to be quote-unquote kitchen art.”

I asked, “Are you still honoring his discounts?”

“I can do five dollars off the psychic consultation. One dollar off everything else.”

“How about forty?” Margot countered. And to me, “I’ll go halvsies.”

Serena closed her eyes. I sensed it was forbearance mixed with math. “Forty-eight,” she said. “Final offer. And please don’t tell anyone I gave you that price.”

“We promise,” said Margot.

Serena instructed Margot to please wait in her kitchen, through that door. She and I would be in her reading center.

Margot asked if she could observe.

Serena and I said no. She pointed to the kitchen door. “Make yourself at home. There are magazines on top of the microwave.”

I followed Serena into what must have once been a closet, with a fringed overhead ceiling fixture and two chairs facing each other. As soon as we sat, she took my left hand in her right and stared down at it, frowning.

“I opted for the psychic consultation,” I reminded her.

“Just a quick look,” she said. “On the house. Every hand I study increases my—for lack of a better term—database. It’s an ongoing learning process.”

She returned my hand to my lap. With her eyes half shut, she said, “I sense a sadness beneath your smile.”

“Do you want me to confirm or deny each statement?” I asked.

She shook her head. “You think you put on a brave front,” she continued, “but actually you don’t. You like people to know that something bad happened. You like putting that forward. It’s your calling card.”

From the open kitchen door, Margot called out, “Bingo!”

“No running commentary,” I yelled back.

Serena left our little room to close the kitchen door, then returned. “Someone very close to you died,” she said. “A man.”

“Did she tell you that?”

“Of course not!”

I waited.

“A loved one. A lover.”

“My husband,” I said.

Serena seemed to go smaller and grayer and she slumped in her chair. “I need a minute,” she managed to say. “Please forgive me.”

When she recovered, she asked if that was my wedding ring and could she hold it. I said, yes, sure, here it is. And my engagement ring, too.

Squeezing both in a closed fist, she asked, “Cancer?”

“No, it was his heart.”

“Sudden! Before his time. No one knew.”

I said I certainly hoped it was sudden because I’d slept through it. A hole in his heart that no one knew about.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “The shock is still with you. It was only last year, wasn’t it?”

Oh dear. Instead of correcting that impression, I asked, “How am I doing?”

“Your friends aren’t letting you grieve. They’re impatient.” She closed her eyes and opened them quickly. “I see a circle of women. Many women. Is it a book group?”

“A support group, so-called. I’ve stopped going. It wasn’t any help. I hated our leader. She didn’t like us looking back. Only forward. Do you think that’s how a widows’ support group should be led?”

Serena said, “No, I do not. And why don’t I see any men in that circle?”

I said, “It was supposed to be coed, but no widowers signed up.”

Squinting into the air a few inches above my head, she asked after a long pause, “Who’s the man with the dark hair and dark eyes? Not too tall. Young.”

“Anthony? Our roommate?”

“He’s smiling,” she said. “He brings sunshine into your home. He’s very fond of you.”

I knew she was thinking “fond” in a meaningful, optimistic way, so I said, “He is fond of me, but he’s not even thirty. And he’s gay.”

“I knew that,” she said.

I didn’t want to appear inappropriately and prematurely boy crazy, but I finally whispered, “Do you see any other men?”

With a slow, meaningful nod, she said, “This is important. I wanted to build up to this. There’s a man standing behind you. He’s been there the whole time. He’s saying, ‘You think I’m very far away, but I’m not.’”

I asked what he looked like and what he was wearing because Edwin wore button-down shirts and ties bearing musical instruments to work, and that tended to be the snapshot I called up.

Serena said, “He’s a little chubby. But not in an unattractive way.”

I didn’t correct her; didn’t announce that Edwin had never been chubby except in his baby pictures, that he had thinned down without trying in ninth grade.

“I know what you’re thinking, that I got that wrong. But it’s not your husband. I’m not sure if you’ve even met him yet.”

“Did he answer my personal ad?” I asked.

“It’s possible. His name begins with . . . a D. Daniel or David. Maybe Donald. Or Dennis.”

I said, “Anthony’s boyfriend is Douglas. That’s not causing any interference, is it?”

“No,” she said. “You’ll find out soon enough. Derrick? Diego? I definitely see a D.”

“What else?”

She returned to my hand. “See the shape? It’s oval. You’re empathic. But”—and now she was tracing some horizontal line—“cautious. You tend to overanalyze people rather than trusting your instincts.” She added, “This? Your head line? It shows me that you’re a late bloomer.” Serena looked up. “Which fits, don’t you think?”

Something in my expression must have launched a whole new psychic subspecialty. “May I say something personal?” she asked.

“Of course.”

“Your sister—that was your sister, correct?—may have been the prom queen or voted Most Popular or had the lead in Grease. I can tell. She has that confidence and gives off that energy. You give off a reverse energy. It says: I’m the lesser sister.”

I told her I was the studious one. The middle sister. The shy one. But I’d been secretary-treasurer of the photography club and a soloist in my high school chorus, and I’d gone to the senior prom with a handsome tenor.

“Did your mother or your father or your sisters ever tell you that you were pretty, too? Because, believe me, that family stuff can do a job on you. We’re all given labels in the family—the pretty one, the smart one, the wild one—and it sticks!”

“I had a happy childhood. There were three of us, and my parents didn’t play favorites.”

“I’ll tell you why I’m saying this,” Serena continued. “Because I don’t think you’re aware, fully aware, that you’re a very pretty woman. Maybe you weren’t a pretty child so that’s how you still see yourself. If this seems outside my job description, I say ‘Screw that.’ I want people to leave my center feeling better about themselves. Sometimes it’s coming from another dimension. But sometimes it’s factual and in this world. Like the face in front of me.”

I tried to arrange my features into a tranquil, pleasant expression infused with a little sexual oomph that lived up to her characterization. She leaned closer and said, “So I’m giving you homework. I want you to carry yourself like the desirable and attractive woman that you are.”

I said, “Okay. I’ll try. Is our time up?”

“It is. But I hope you’ll come back. We still have work to do.”

“I know. I hear that every day.”

“Your sister loves you,” she said. “It’s so clear. I can feel it from here.” She gestured around the closet, then patted a breast. “And from here.”

I thanked her and offered my hand. She reminded me: the fee? Did I have cash? I said I did. I added a tip. Margot’s footsteps sounded outside our little compartment as if she’d been summoned, as if she’d heard every word.

“All good?” she called to us.

I wasn’t sure if I should sum up my hidden and future life so succinctly, but Serena did. Tucking my bills into the top of her sari, she answered, “Very all good.”

I knew her by now, my new shrink and life coach. Her reply hadn’t been a reflex or a nicety. It was an order.