The View From Penthouse B

35





Sister Night


NEXT STOP: DISARMING BETSY. We considered a family dinner in-house with newly integrated member Charles at his most useful and hospitable, displayed when the main course required carving or deboning. Instead, we chose an upcoming Betsy-takes-her-less-fortunate-sisters-to-dinner night.

We were back at Elephant & Castle, midway through our entrées, when Margot gave me the brisk nod signaling I’m going to tell her now.

“Bets?” she began. “Gwen and I thought you should know something that’s slowly crept from the back burner to the front. It’s been bubbling for a while and when I tell you what and whom it involves, you’ll understand why I waited this long to tell you.”

“Charles, obviously,” said Betsy.

“Wait. Not so fast.” Margot paused to push a chunk of bread through the gravy surrounding her meatloaf. “Don’t say anything until I’ve finished, okay?”

I knew she had a speech prepared, and Betsy’s bull’s-eye guess was undercutting points one through three. Margot started over with “If anyone had told me three years ago what I’m about to confide, I’d say, ‘Never! No way! Out of the question.’”

Betsy said again, “Charles, obviously.”

“It could be about a lot of things. I could have eloped or come out of the closet or adopted a kid from a Romanian orphanage.”

Betsy said, “Here’s what I think happened. Charles became your downstairs neighbor and before too long—What? A couple of weeks?—he came upstairs with a bottle of wine and within days had ingratiated himself back into your little family. And God knows Gwen wasn’t going to say boo.”

“I resent that,” I said. “I’m older than you are and I say boo all the time.”

“And here we have a good example of how people change,” Margot said. “Gwen isn’t our most assertive sister, but she’s coming way out of her shell. People change. Maybe even a person can go into prison and come out a different man.”

There it was: the whole story, unembroidered. Margot hadn’t needed to name names to evoke the look of revulsion on Betsy’s face.

Margot said, “Couples break up. Marriages dissolve. Men and women both lie and cheat and get divorced. Then time goes by—”

“Not like this! What he did was a lot worse than your garden-variety adultery! He—you’ll excuse me—f*cked his patients! You think his character and ethics and morals and bad judgment got fixed in prison?”

Margot sat back in her chair, crossed her arms, and stared in a way I knew meant Counterpoint ahead. “Betsy? Do you think Andrew is perfect?”

She and I both knew Betsy did not think that. Our ambitious sister wished her teacher-husband was applying his math skills on Wall Street instead of in a public school classroom in Crown Heights.

“Oh, no, you don’t,” said Betsy. “That isn’t fair. If I’ve groused to you about things I find annoying in Andrew—and who isn’t annoying after eighteen years of marriage and two children and a PhD that’s taking an eternity—every one of those things is minor! You can’t even compare!”

Margot turned to me. “Gwen, tell Betsy why I brought this up tonight and what I’ve learned in the last three years. I think she knows you’ll be objective.”

I motioned to the waiter, Yes, I will have that second glass of wine after all, then plunged ahead. “For the sake of argument,” I began, “let’s say that a person didn’t change all that much. But can’t the bad stuff be water under the bridge? If a divorced woman wanted to spend time with her ex, would he necessarily have to be a model citizen? It’s not like he’s dangerous. He’s not a violent criminal. Couldn’t it be about a warm, hard body that happens to be an elevator ride away?”

I looked to Margot. All she said was “Don’t let your food get cold.”

I ate a French fry and picked up my turkey burger. Margot said, “I didn’t mean you shouldn’t continue.”

So I did. “As I was saying, the ex-husband becomes a neighbor. A friendly one. He brings her and her roommates things he can’t use due to having no stove to speak of—”

“A huge tom turkey, a name-brand ham, and what was that fish?” Margot asked me. “The one I put into a bouillabaisse? Red snapper?”

“Flounder,” I said. “Also expensive wines left and right.”

“So he brings you things?” Betsy asked. “That’s supposed to impress me—that he’s good at bribery?”

Margot said, “Gwen? Tell your sister what else Charles and I have been exploring.”

I asked for a hint, and Margot whispered, “Therapy.”

“Right. They’ve been seeing a therapist, and I think what they discovered is . . . good stuff.” All I knew of their therapy was Margot’s initial reluctance to participate, then her liking the megaphone it gave her, and especially the discovery that Chaz’s mother was newly engaged to an old high school prom date.

Betsy asked, “Where would a couples therapist even begin? I mean, who would even want to take on a husband who did what he did to his wife? Screwing around with patients! Breaking her heart and calling it artificial insemination! You two might consider that water under the bridge, but I don’t! Then, hello—his arrest, the headlines, the grand jury, the trial. Was this therapist amazed that you agreed to be in the same room with him?”

Margot said, “You don’t think a couples therapist has clients who beat each other up and need restraining orders? He’s seen it all! We’re a piece of cake compared to most people. That’s what he said. Piece. Of. Cake. He also said that all of that stuff, the trauma, the arrest, put me into shock. In fact, he thinks I suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder!”

Because I’d pledged to help win Betsy over and to appear supportive without too much lying or fudging, I said, “It’s very possible it was PTSD. Their marriage ended with a big bang after all. With anger! Fury! Headlines! Embarrassment! Humiliation! A marriage that was never on the rocks was suddenly in a thousand little pieces. Maybe all of us are suffering from PTSD.”

Excellent, Margot mouthed.

“So?” asked Betsy.

“So . . . she may be coming out of it. And if she can move on, why should we keep reliving the battles and the combat and the . . . IEDs?”

I was making it all up for no other reason than it was fun to sound more like Margot than myself. I wasn’t sold on Charles, not even Charles as one-night stand. After dispensing an approving pat to my hand, Margot took over the narrative. “See?” she said. “Gwen understands. It’s all about you-know-what, isn’t it?”

Not certain, and not wanting to guess wrong, I waited for amplification.

“Loneliness?” Betsy asked.

“Forgiveness!” Margot yelled, startling the couple at the next table.

Betsy took a small forkful of her Cornish game hen, chewed unhappily, put her cutlery down, and said, “So you’re willing to forgive the lying, the cheating, the humiliation, the sick things he did in the name of science. I heard that! I’m the one who used vacation days to sit through the trial. Science? How do you forgive all of that? Is he the last man left on earth or something?”

Margot’s glance in my direction felt like a favorite-sister conspiracy. Maybe we won’t tell Betsy quite yet about the overnights and the intercourse.

I said, “He fainted at our apartment once, and Margot thought he’d dropped dead. That puts things in perspective.”

“How so?”

“It was that night, after he didn’t actually die, that we noticed a thawing.”

Returning to her main theme, Margot asked, “Do you think people can change, Bets?”

“In Charles’s case, I’d say no. You actually think that a guy, a doctor, who f*cked his patients is going to come out of prison, after all that time consorting with criminals, a more ethical man? Puh-leeze!”

“It was minimum security,” I pointed out.

Margot said very quietly into her wineglass, “He’s sorry. As sorry as someone can be without slitting his wrists.”

“Charles? Ha! Do sociopaths slit their wrists?”

Margot said to me, “She’s impossible—worse than I thought she’d be.”

I asked her if Betsy knew about Chaz.

“Chaz?” Betsy repeated.

“Well, now she does,” said Margot.

“Chaz? Is that Charles’s new nickname? His new identity? He’s reinventing himself?”

I checked with Margot. “You might as well finish what you started,” she said.

With what I thought was great dignity, I announced, “Chaz is Charles’s bastard son.”

“Gwen!” Margot said.

“What? I’ve heard Chaz describe himself that way.” And to Betsy: “He’s eighteen and goes to the Fashion Institute of Technology. And even though we were all suspicious of his motives at first, we’ve grown quite fond of him.”

“Was he one of the ones the prosecution did a DNA test on?”

Margot said, “How the hell do I know?”

I said, “You do know. Anthony knew from the trial transcripts. Or maybe from Facebook. And the answer is yes. His mother testified.”

Betsy said, “I knew this would happen!”

Margot and I waited.

“With Charles moving into the Batavia! He’d come around with a song and dance about being sorry, repentant, a changed man. Right? Because a guy who manages to seduce dozens of patients is not a guy without charm.”

Margot said, “Not dozens of patients . . .”

“As if anyone knows what the exact number was! Sometimes I think he wanted to get caught so people would know what a big playboy he is. And I’m not the only one who thinks that.”

“Who else?” Margot asked.

“Andrew, of course.”

“Andrew, of course,” Margot mimicked.

“Bets? Do you think Margot likes being reminded of her husband’s infidelities? You’ve been doing that all night—pressing the black-and- blue spot.”

“Well, I’m certainly not going to roll over like you two.”

I said, “Why not? It’s her life. What if Charles is making her happy? Or not even happy but less lonely?”

“With a houseful of people? How lonely can she be?”

“I live in that houseful of people, too. I think I can answer that question for both of us.”

Margot said, “I’m sorry I told you. You’d think you’d give me more credit and him the benefit of the doubt. Or a fraction of a benefit. You haven’t spent one minute with him—”

“I went to every minute of the trial! Even that was all ego. Why didn’t he plead guilty instead of putting everyone through that and himself into the headlines?”

I said, “What if Margot didn’t care about his character? What if she just needed a f*ck buddy?”

Margot executed the bug-eyed, overblown double take I was hoping for.

“Who taught her ‘f*ck buddy’?” Betsy asked.

“I learned it out in the wide world,” I said.

“MiddleSister hasn’t been herself lately,” said Margot.

“You’re not going to marry him, are you?” Betsy asked Margot. “Because I wouldn’t be able to stand up for you. Andrew and I couldn’t even, in good conscience, bring the boys to the wedding.”

Margot said, “Fine! You don’t ever have to see Charles again. Or meet the adorable Chaz, who is already making a name for himself in the hat world. And you won’t have to worry about standing up for me at our nonexistent wedding because I’ve said no very emphatically every time he’s proposed.”

“I’m speechless,” said Betsy.

I said, “It’s hard to keep up with your single sisters, isn’t it? Maybe we should do this more often.” I finished the last drop of wine and asked if anyone wanted to share a dessert.

“Maybe,” said Margot.

“Depends,” said Betsy, reaching for the menu.

“I met someone,” I said.