The View From Penthouse B

29





Gotta Start Somewhere


LESS 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.”

“Maybe,” said Anthony, clearly meaning No way. “But what about Miss Margot? Remind me what you did in your working life.”

This was more than a sore subject. “What did I do?” she asked. “You know the answer. I was a deaf and blind part-time receptionist, filling in for my husband’s office staff on their sick days. So what should my résumé say? ‘Hostess? Homemaker? Clueless Frau Doktor’?”

I winced. Anthony, however, said, “Okay. I get it. But isn’t there something to mine there? Office skills? You probably had to deal with Medicare and insurance and all that, right? And answer the phones and—what else?—call people to remind them they had upcoming appointments.”

“So?”

“I’m saying this: I think you’d be a dynamite receptionist in the right kind of office.”

“And for sure Charles would give you a glowing reference,” I said.

Anthony said, “I’m getting my laptop. Don’t go away.”

For the ninety seconds Anthony was out of the room, Margot tossed questions at me, all in the same vein. How many receptionists have a degree in art history? How many are my age and haven’t held a full-time job since The Mitch and Mike Show?

Anthony was back with his laptop, already open and almost humming. “Okay! I’m on Craigslist and I’m clicking on, here we go—admin slash office jobs.” He slid onto the empty stool, skimming, evaluating, mumbling. “Nope, nope, nope, lame, intern, intern, audition—ha, good luck with that . . . Here’s one.”

“For whom?” Margot asked.

“You tell me. The headline says PLASTIC SURGERY RECEPTIONIST, MIDTOWN EAST. And the description reads ‘A prominent plastic surgeon has an opening for a well-spoken and poised front-office person. This is a high-profile position. The successful candidate should be well-presented with good phone skills and excellent interpersonal skills.’”

“Not interested,” Margot said.

“Why?” I asked.

“The patients.”

“Because they’d all be women?” I asked.

“Vain women! They’ll be impossible—matrons wanting their faces peeled and their wrinkles Botoxed. Women with enough money to have their breasts enlarged and their belly fat sucked out. You think they’re going to be nice to the woman answering the phone? And what kind of horse’s ass calls himself a prominent plastic surgeon?”

I said some of those procedures were done in a dermatologist’s office, and besides, didn’t she care about her appearance? Didn’t she give herself facials—?

“With tomatoes! And rotten papayas! That’s hardly the same thing. If it sounds so great, you go work there.”

Anthony said, “Ladies, please. I once got very good advice from my dad, which was ‘Never turn down a job before you’ve been offered it.’”

I said, “And how do you know this isn’t a practice where the partners are reconstructing faces of disfigured children in Africa and Latin America?”

“East Side of New York,” she said. “That’s how.”

Anthony said, “We are sending them a CV and an unbelievably convincing if not charming cover letter, are we not?”

“Gotta start somewhere,” I said.

Margot poured the rest of the inferior wine into her glass, along with a crumb of cork she didn’t seem to notice. And then, quietly from behind her glass: “Besides, things are happening. Charles can practice again in three months.”

“Practice medicine?” I asked. “I thought they took his license away.”

“It was only a suspension. And he can’t do infertility work, or fertility, as the case may be. He’ll find a clinic. Or set one up. Only for OB and gynecology. If a patient can’t get pregnant, she’ll get sent to another doctor.”

“Wow,” said Anthony. “I had no idea.”

I said, “I’m surprised they’re letting him practice down there at all—”

“And by ‘down there’ she doesn’t mean Tribeca,” said Anthony.

“Of course, there’s a ton of work to do—office space, furnishing, staffing, permits. It could be months before he hangs out the proverbial shingle.”

I could tell that there was another layer of news, another admission we hadn’t dislodged. “Has Charles asked you to help him in some way? Has he promised you a job?” I asked.

“In a manner of speaking. But I’ve turned him down.”

The oven timer buzzed. Anthony, as usual, didn’t have to test for doneness, but brought forth two dozen beautiful red cupcakes, distracting Margot but not me. “He better not think you’re going to be his receptionist! That’ll be the day. Imagine having to tell Betsy that you were going to help Charles in his new office, filling in for his ‘girl’ on her sick days and vacations . . .”

Anthony said, “I bet that’s not the position he’s offering. I’d put money on it.”

Margot said, “I haven’t accepted. And I probably never will.”

“Should I leave a few unfrosted?” he asked.

“No,” said Margot.

“What position did he offer?” I asked.

“I think we can both guess,” said Anthony.

Was I deaf or blind or addle-brained or all three? “I don’t care what he’s offering,” I railed. “I don’t care about salary or benefits or hours—”

Anthony was opening a new package of cream cheese as he informed me that I was on the wrong track. “Think romantic, not professional. Take a stab at it. What would be the offer on the table?”

Was I in denial? Was the idea of romantic forward motion for my partner in singlehood so alien that I couldn’t summon the obvious?

Margot said, “You know he never wanted the divorce. Is it so unthinkable that Charles would propose?”

I tried to look as if such a thing were extremely thinkable and on the tip of my tongue.

“You don’t have to look so glum. I turned him down. I mean, why would I say yes?”

Anthony said, “Not so fast. Frau Doktors can have very nice lifestyles. And it could trickle down. We could afford protein at every meal. We might even get rib eye and sushi-grade tuna on occasion.”

“No, we wouldn’t!” I cried. “If she married him, he’d move in and we’d have to move out.”

There. I’d said it. Margot was protesting that she’d never be happy without her posse, but I couldn’t hear a word. It wasn’t Charles per se. It was our nuclear family. It was Margot and Anthony and I in penthouse B, with Olivia occasionally on the couch. As of that day, it was the only portrait I could paint of the widow Gwen-Laura Schmidt where she was neither lonely nor alone.





From StanByMe to MiddleSister: I’m a high educated. My friends say Im sincere, cheerful with good sense of humor & friendly. Women consider myself handsome. I like to do things such as sport, specially swim, listen good music, give & get affection, eat out, read tech journals. I look younger then u think.