The View From Penthouse B

33





Bella Notte


BOTH MARGOT AND ANTHONY insisted on a little black dress, as long as it wasn’t the one I’d worn to Edwin’s funeral. The unanimous first choice was a V-necked jersey sheath, overnighted from Betsy’s closet with an accompanying note asking if I owned a push-up bra and please no wearing hose with sling-back shoes. Approved accessories: an heirloom locket I’d received for my high school graduation, a wide acrylic bangle in Granny Smith green, and no rings, which, they claimed, would make me look nostalgic and needy. Feet: black suede heels, peekaboo toes, nails painted maroon. Purse: a black snakeskin clutch of Margot’s.

My roommates’ send-off was too ceremonial—hugs, compliments, and a chorus of West Side Story’s “Tonight,” which I suspected they had rehearsed. Like a dissatisfied maestro, I signaled No, stop. Surely bad luck, I told them. Surely a jinx.

The weather cooperated. It was a warm night requiring no umbrella or wrap. I walked slowly to MacDougal Street, hoping to be a few casual minutes late. Nonetheless, I arrived first. The restaurant had three slate gray walls, a fourth of whitewashed brick, and undulating wooden floors, an homage to its factory roots. People half my age were at the bar drinking colorful potions in asymmetric martini glasses. “Table or seat at the bar until your party is complete?” asked the tall, ravishing, surely Ethiopian-American hostess.

“Table, please.”

Once seated, I accepted the handsome oblong linen-covered menus, then pondered whether it was better to check my lipstick and risk being caught preening, or just sit there idly.

What had I done, accepting an invitation so rashly? He could still be grief-stricken. He could be resentful of maternal matchmaking. He could be dull and humorless. He could be a drunk, an embezzler, a sex offender. Why hadn’t we had a screening phone call? He could have a toupee, a ponytail, a little triangle of facial hair under his bottom lip. He could have tattoos, body piercings, body odor. He could forget to show up. Trying not to look anxious should he spot me before I spotted him, I initiated what I hoped was a nonchalant perusal of the menu. So little time had passed—I’d only gotten halfway through insalate e minestre—when I sensed the hostess approaching and telling someone casually over her shoulder, “Your wife’s already here.”

I strained to hear how he’d correct her, how flustered or annoyed she had made him. But his smile was unperturbed. “Actually, a friend,” he said.

“Sorry about that! Enjoy!”

I believe what he answered, very quietly, was “Thank you. I intend to.”

He shook my hand before pulling out the chair opposite me. “Eli” was all he said.

“Gwen,” I answered.

Here is what he did not say or appear to be suppressing: Let’s get it over with. What choice did I have? I have to be somewhere else in one hour and you’re not coming with me.

What he actually said was “Hope you haven’t been waiting long.”

“One minute,” I said. “I only live a few blocks away.”

Handsome? Some, including me, would say yes. His once-brown hair was receding, and I liked that he wasn’t trying to hide that with tricks. His eyes were army-fatigue khaki green, matched by the floating leaves on his winsome tie. It was a nice face, a kind face. Was he slender? No. A few pounds in the direction of well fed, and he acknowledged the fact good-naturedly when he ordered the appetizer portion of spaghetti carbonara before his veal pizzaiola. He was not as tall as advertised. I’d pictured six feet, and now I knew him to be five-ten. (“Six feet Jewish” was his explanation of his mother’s prideful estimate.)

He asked if we should get a bottle of wine, and I of the usual one glass said, “Sure.”

“Red or white?”

“I might start with a glass of prosecco.”

“Brilliant. I will, too.”

Where did I venture conversationally? Did I ask about his marriage, his children, his job, his extracurricular activities, his passions, his last book read, and magazines subscribed to? No.

“How’s your mother?” I asked.

“My mother,” he said. “My mother is, no doubt, sitting by the telephone.”

I laughed. I said I had a team at home who would be waiting up, too.

“Kids? Have I asked you that?”

I said no. I lived with my sister who was divorced, and we had another boarder, Anthony, who was divorced, too—long story—and at twenty-nine was something of an honorary baby brother to Margot and me.

Next I elaborated on the subject of Anthony’s baking talents, his original cupcake recipes, and their clever nomenclature.

“Is he a professional?” Eli asked.

I said no, but he could be. Gingerbread chocolate chunk! Peanut butter banana-raisin! His Scarlett O’Haras!

“Let me guess. Red velvet?”

“Exactly. With pink cream-cheese frosting. We always say that if we weren’t in a recession, he could open a boutique.”

“Would Anthony, by any chance, have recently baked to celebrate the passage of the Marriage Equality Act?” he asked in the kindest, most genial manner.

I said yes. Anthony was gay and single. Margot was divorced, with an ex-husband who lived in our building.

“Interesting,” he said. “Though probably awkward.”

“It’s getting more and more amiable,” I said, ending that topic there since the cataloging of Charles’s crimes and moral failings would have taken us into the realm of sex and insemination. Instead, I told him, due to its never-fail interest quotient, that my sister was able to buy the apartment with her divorce settlement, then lost every cent that was left over.

“Stock market?” he asked.

Just the question I was hoping to generate, never having met anyone who wasn’t titillated by meeting a real-life Ponzi victim or her next of kin. I said, “Believe it or not, all her money was invested with Bernie Madoff.”

Eli had been swirling spaghetti around his fork, which he now put down. “Ye gods. The sister you live with? Is she doing okay? I mean emotionally?”

I said, “She’s pretty great. I mean, very resilient. More than I would have been. More than I have been.”

“Your husband.”

“And your wife.”

“How long?”

“More than two years now.”

“What was his name?”

“Edwin. And your wife’s?”

“Joanne.”

We both said how sorry we were. How difficult it had been, but here we were now at this lovely restaurant on a beautiful night. Then two sentences apiece about how we’d both come out on the other side to the relief of those who worried about us.

He asked what happened.

I explained, “It was unexpected, his heart. He was alive and, we thought, healthy. And then one horrible morning, he woke up dead.”

I hadn’t meant that, exactly. It was a summary Margot had coined—the cynical, perked-up version that I’d never before used. Quickly I said, “That was a poor choice of words. I meant to say ‘He died in his sleep.’”

After what seemed to be a withdrawal devoted to private, dirgeful thoughts, he said, “I hope you won’t be offended if I say he was lucky. Joanne suffered terribly and was never the same . . . an inoperable brain tumor.”

I said, “How awful. And how could I be offended? It was extremely unlucky in every other way, but I like to think he didn’t suffer.”

It was here that most people asked me for Edwin’s medical history, the implication being No stress test? No pacemaker? No statins? No signs? No angioplasty? No insight? Instead, Eli asked, “What did Edwin do?”

“He was a New York City public school music teacher and he coached the marching band.”

“So, so admirable.”

Now came the dreaded choking up by the widow, who needed to be more charming and date-ready than her red eyes indicated. He reached over and touched my hand briefly. Not a clasp, but an apology. I said, “I’m fine. I was told to avoid this sort of thing on a first date.”

“Me, too,” he said. He lifted his glass. “To them.”

We clinked glasses. I asked what Joanne did.

“Raised the girls. Did a little acting, nothing big. A commercial now and then.” After a pause, he said, “It wasn’t perfect. But it worked. I think overall it was a good marriage. Two great kids.”

“We didn’t have children,” I said. “I married on the late side. Now I think we could have tried harder, seen a specialist . . . adopted. But who knew I’d be alone this early?”

He then pantomimed something I didn’t translate right away. It was Pick up your salad plate because, instead of dwelling on death, I want you to taste my carbonara.

I lifted my own plate and said, “Try a beet. And take some walnuts.”

He did, chewing and nodding thoughtfully. “Do you know how long it’s been since I’ve eaten a beet? I did it to impress you. No one wants to have dinner with a picky eater.”

Before I could assure him that a dislike of beets didn’t make one a picky eater—and besides, there are worse thing to be—his phone buzzed.

“So sorry. I meant to shut it off.” He checked its screen. “My older daughter, the ringleader. A text.”

“Everything okay?”

He smiled. “She has a question.”

I waited.

He turned the phone so I could see the green dialogue bubble, Hvg a gd time? it asked. Smiling still, he said, “Nosy child,” then, “Not literally a child. She’s twenty-four. Would you mind . . . ? I’ll be quick, one word.”

I didn’t watch, pretending that gold, orange, and magenta beets required my full attention.

“I hope I’m being accurate” I heard him say. Then, “Gwen?”

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.