The View From Penthouse B

Anthony’s Interests


HE MOVED IN thirty-six hours later with his laptop, backpack, duffel, weights, compact discs, and muffin tins. From our basement storage unit, now housing leftovers from my former life, he selected a futon, a rug, a quilt, a floor lamp, and a framed French movie poster of The Producers. He said his parents were relieved; they liked the sound of two mature ladies watching over him. Should they send a gift basket of fruit or products indigenous to Arizona? “I took the liberty of suggesting wine,” he said.

Neither Margot nor I have ever thought of ourselves as fascinating, but suddenly we were. Anthony approached our meals and conversations as if he’d scored an orchestra seat to a sold-out show. He is more communicative than almost all the men I’ve known. We think it’s his age—that he spent four years in coed dorms and after that shared cubicles and conference tables with women. His questions aren’t rude or overly personal; they all have a getting-to-know-you quality, and we are flattered at his unflagging attention. Not to be discounted: He is also a newcomer to our signature topics of fraud, extortion, and sudden death.

“Tell me when I’m prying,” he says. We haven’t yet. As polite women, we try to turn the tables conversationally. He’ll say, “You already know about my marriage and divorce. Nothing more to report there. Classic green-card arrangement. Happy childhood. Played T-ball, flag football, a little tennis, a lot of soccer. Never progressed beyond jayvee. College, Wall Street.”

“Siblings?”

“One sister, younger. For now an au pair.”

“Where?” we ask.

“Upper East Side. Fifth Avenue, in the nineties. Park view.”

“Here! New York City! When do we meet her?” Margot asked.

“I never see her. She’s a slave.”

“Nice children at least?” I ask.

“Two lawyers with one baby.”

“Boy or girl?” I ask.

Anthony says, “Umm. Girl? I forget. She has one of those androgynous names like Tyler or Taylor.”

We move in that direction every so often—our interviewing Anthony—but mostly we experience him as moderator. It’s part gregariousness and part something else, sociology or anthropology, as if he’s never had the chance to discuss the stages of life beyond his own. He is happy here. And he is easy to have around, both thoughtful and helpful. He’s freed us from stereotyping and hating men who have anything to do with Wall Street or wealth management. As far as being handy, he has exceeded our expectations. In the first twenty-four hours of his residency, he put batteries in our remote control, set our clocks ahead to daylight savings time, and gave new life to what we thought was an inoperative ice maker. He always has the right cable needed for various transfers of information that we didn’t even know we wanted. He can see and talk to his far-flung friends while sitting at his computer, and he is the king of uploading and downloading, of searches and hunts.

He likes his room, or at least its location on the other side of the kitchen, somewhat segregated. When he’s home, we often find him at the kitchen island, on a stool with his laptop and vitamin water. “Praying at the altar,” he says with a smile. He bakes a double batch of cupcakes every week, some for us, and the rest as offerings to his dates.

I’m not sure where he meets these young ladies, but he must, wherever he goes. His phone vibrates and barks fairly constantly. He is exceedingly polite in our presence. Whatever calls, e-mails, and texts pour in, Anthony doesn’t return them until dinner and conversation conclude.

He asked both of us, after weeks under our roof, if we dated. He hadn’t noticed too much traffic of that variety, coming or going. “None of my business, of course,” he added.

I don’t mind answering his questions, which would be awkward if he was a man my age instead of the kid in running shorts and flip-flops, eating leftover Chinese food straight from the refrigerator. His youth provides the comfort level. He is like a teaching assistant in a psych course called Spinsterhood. So I admit, “I might be a candidate for Chaste Dates myself. But less so now than a year ago.”

Margot yells to him from the dining room, “Now tell us who you were out with last night.”

“The lucky lady who got the pink cupcakes,” I add.

Anthony does a very sweet thing at this moment. He takes me by the hand and leads me into the dining room, where he says, “Please be seated.”

I do, but he continues to stand, Chinese food abandoned in the kitchen. He says solemnly, “I just realized, when Margot asked me who I went out with last night, that I’ve put you on the wrong track.”

“Which is what?” I ask.

“Let me put it this way: Young ladies don’t appreciate cupcakes. They’re all on diets. They dump them or regift them.” He pauses, smiles. “On the other hand, dudes scarf them down.”

Margot and I are still smiling expectantly, not realizing that his announcement is whole and complete, if not eloquent.

“Hmmm,” he says with a theatrically perplexed hand to his chin. “I see that I haven’t made my point.”

“You’re not going to be baking cupcakes anymore?” I ask.

Anthony says, “Let me put it this way: Dear ladies, I’m gay. I thought you might have guessed that already, but apparently not.”

Margot says, “Well! I am a little stunned.” She puts her coffee cup down, hitches one nightgown strap back in place. “But not in a bad way.”

“Did the INS guess faster than we did?” I ask.

“Quite. Like immediately.”

I said, “I hope you know we are very, very pro-gay. I think I can speak for both of us.”

“She certainly can,” says Margot. “In fact, I can’t believe how lucky we are. We get a man under our roof, a man’s opinions and his mechanical ability, but without any sexual tension whatsoever. It’s almost too good to be true.”

“And vice versa,” he says.





Margot and I did not realize how fascinated a homosexual man would be with the details of a life lived under the banner of gynecology. Another thing we failed to anticipate was that anyone with even a modicum of intellectual curiosity would Google the family scandal that brought Margot—and consequently we her boarders—to this beautiful home.

Most of the Charles-centric conversations took place between Anthony and me when Margot was out or asleep. I was feeling a little guilty and disloyal discussing her traumas behind her back, but Anthony pointed out that the holes in my knowledge were rather astonishing. I had not attended the trial of my brother-in-law? Really?

I said that he and Margot were separated by then and she was virtually in hiding so I spent those days with her. Besides—

“I know,” he said—was it a little wearily?—“your own personal tragic loss.”

I said, managing to smile, “My footnote to everything, right?”

“Understandably.”

“And the basic facts were bad enough—the cheating and the fornicating. Did I really need all the details?”

As ever, he was at his laptop. He asked if I drank beer and I said yes, sure. Did he mean now? We had beer?

“We do, Miss Gwen. My treat.”

With refreshments served, he pulled the second kitchen stool closer to his laptop and said, “Sit. Shall we?”

The headlines he produced referenced Charles—not by name but by variations on “Jersey Sperm Doc” and “Fertility Chuck.”

Anthony said, “Based on what I’m seeing, it was huge. Hard not to know the details.”

I thought I had paid some attention at the time, but apparently I was deaf to many nuances. I had missed one of the biggest bombshells, which was the appearance, live on the witness stand, of women who’d paid five thousand dollars for unsterile fertility procedures conducted on a leather couch in the doctor’s private office. Yes, they admitted in cross-examination, it was consensual. Yes, they had been draped. No, there had been no kissing or fondling. And yes, they had been desperate to have a child and yes, maybe they had sobbed when told that the donor didn’t show up on the appointed day. And yes, both parties had agreed that they shouldn’t let the window of opportunity pass.

“What a jerk,” Anthony grumbled. “And where was his nurse?”

I angled his laptop toward me and began clicking the NEXT arrow at the bottom of the breathless stories. I sipped my beer straight from the bottle and said, “Maybe I should know more. I’m the one who accepts Charles’s calls from the pokey. Maybe I’ve been a little too nice.”

“There’s more.” Anthony took back possession of his keyboard and typed something into a search box.

A timeline and birth certificate were before me, and a photo of the son, probably in third or fourth grade—assuredly a school photo, its background a web of blue and pink laser beams.

This is the world now. This is how Anthony, within minutes, found a son spawned by Charles: He went on Facebook and “friended” him.





Notice


A YOUNG WOMAN WITH short, cowlicked blond hair and dark roots was asleep on our living-room couch, lavender spaghetti straps visible above an heirloom granny afghan we considered too dowdy to display. I might have yelped, but there was something about the way her shoes—red ballerina flats—were neatly, almost mathematically, lined up at the approximate spot where her feet would land upon rising that seemed trustworthy. Should I wake her? Or wake Margot or Anthony to fill in the blanks? It was not yet seven a.m., so I decided to grind some coffee beans and let that racket serve as the alarm clock. First, though, I tiptoed closer to the sleeping intruder for clues, at which point I solved the mystery myself. Next to her, having floated to the floor, was a Post-it note in a familiar hand. It said, “Meet Olivia, my sister. Will explain. xo A.”

I felt that the calm and mature thing to do was not to wake anyone but to carry on. I retreated to the kitchen and poured myself juice. Yesterday’s Daily News was on the island, open to a photograph meant for critical analysis: a shot of Mrs. Bernie Madoff furiously exiting a Burger Heaven on Lexington, take-out bag in hand. The headline, circled, read GOTTA BEEF, RUTHIE? Margot, who’d added devil’s horns to Ruthie’s baseball cap, would be blogging about that culinary comedown later, I was sure.

And then, in the doorway, taller than she’d looked horizontally, taller than her brother, was our unexpected guest, red plaid boxer shorts below a lavender camisole, pink-encased smartphone in one hand. She introduced herself: Olivia Sarno, sister of Anthony. I said, “I know. Your brother left a note on you. I’m Gwen.”

She asked what time it was. I pointed to the digital clock on the microwave—7:05—which caused Olivia to mumble, “Oh, shit.”

“Too early?” I asked. “Or too late?”

“Late. But, you know—so what? I gave my notice yesterday.” Then, with a grin and a slide onto the nearest kitchen stool, she said, “F*ck ’em, don’t you think? How about a little comp time for once?” She pulled the newspaper closer, pointed, and said, “Oh, right. Anthony told me that one of you lost all of your money to this Madoff guy.”

“Margot. Still asleep. And you’re the au pair sister?”

“Not for long,” she said. “Two more weeks.”

I asked if she’d like coffee, which made her jump off the stool and say, “I’ll get it! Here? Filters are where?”

I said, “Sit down. You’re a guest.” I pointed to the cell phone in her hand. “Do you want to call your employer and tell her you’ll be late?”

“Tell him. She’s out the door already. Her hours are insane.”

She volunteered that the baby’s mother took a mere two weeks off for maternity leave. “Noel was the one who took family leave, six weeks. Until I got hired,” she said.

“Noel is the husband?”

“Noel . . . would be the husband.”

From what he liked to call his “wing,” from the chin-up bar he’d installed over the pantry door, Anthony called, “That’s right. The husband. And paramour.”

Ten athletic grunts later, he was in the kitchen, barefoot and wearing only sweatpants. He crossed to the refrigerator, opened it, and took out butter and a carton of eggs. Olivia and I watched him crack too many eggs into a bowl and beat them rather mercilessly. “Hers,” he finally stated, pointing. “My sister’s paramour.”

The eggs met the melted butter with a sizzle. “Want me to tell Gwen what’s going on, or would you prefer your own spin?” he asked.

Olivia said, “Go ahead, Anthony. Knock yourself out.” She asked me which bathroom she should use and could she borrow a towel. I led her toward mine, and when I returned to the kitchen, I said, “She seems pretty much . . . together.”

“You are correct,” said Anthony. “Oh, is she ever together. I see it, too. Miss In Charge. Miss What Goes Around Comes Around. She doesn’t understand the damage she can do.”

“She can do? Even though her employer made sexual advances? I’m missing something here.”

“I didn’t say sexual predator. I said paramour. My stupid sister is in love with him! They were welcome sexual advances! Very! And she’s enjoying it because she hates the wife!” With a dishtowel around the skillet handle, he bumped the pan to an unlit burner and muttered, “Why did I start this now? They’ll be cold by the time she’s dressed.”

“I’ll have some,” I said.

He opened the dishwasher and began emptying it with too much clanging.

“Leave it. Tell me the rest. What is Olivia’s version?”

“She took the job because of him—hot, according to her—and because she felt sorry for the baby, having a mother who held her like she was holding out her arms for a stack of clean towels. Classic!”

I asked how old Olivia was and how long she’d been working for this couple.

“Twenty-four. And on the job for six months, seven? Something like that. She knew right away. She told me—confessed after a half pitcher of sangria one night—that she had a crush on the dad. And you know what I said? I said, ‘Well, that makes the job a little more interesting, doesn’t it?’ Like I’d say to a kid in high school who had a crush on her math teacher. Who knew it was mutual? Who knew that the guy who married a ballbuster attorney in Armani was going to fall for a scruffy little college dropout?”

“You’ve met these people?”

“No, he has not,” said Olivia. She was back, now in jeans, a parka patched with duct tape, and a fluffy pink scarf framing a face that was—though scrubbed and unadorned—beautiful. Employment agencies might take cautionary notice, I thought. Bad idea to have early-morning, unaffected beauty so evident in a live-in nanny.

She turned to me. “Did he tell you that I’m in a very sticky situation? That my boss confessed he was in love with me?”

Anthony said, “Which I’m not buying.”

Olivia said, “Noel told me that he couldn’t deny it any longer, that he knew I felt the same way, that he and his wife hardly ever had sex since Skyler was born. And not because Davida was working 24-7, or because she had no sex drive after the baby was born—all true, by the way. And now, because of me”—a squeak of a sob escaped—“and he was in agony.”

Anthony snickered.

“Not that kind of agony. He meant emotional agony. Psychic agony.”

Anthony turned to me. “Would you believe it? A lawyer? Of the do-good variety? In this day and age? What an a*shole!”

“What would you have done if you were in love with him?” Olivia demanded. “Push him away? Say, ‘Take a hike’?”

“Yes! For legal reasons! For—I don’t know—for Nanny Cam reasons! You should’ve said, for the record, ‘If you ever do that again; if you ever suggest what I think you’re suggesting, I quit.’”

Olivia said, “Yes, Anthony. I know how pissed off you get when a hot guy comes on to you. Puh-lease.”

Anthony said, “I gave your eggs to Gwen. That’s your juice on the island. And you can take a cupcake—over there, in the Tupperware. Then get going, though I forget why I’m sending you back there, especially if what’s-her-name—”

“Davida.”

“If Davida’s left for the office and her poor, misunderstood, horny, middle-aged husband is waiting for you under their designer duvet.”

“He’s middle-aged?” I asked.

“He’s thirty-four!” said Olivia. “They were only married like a week when Davida got pregnant. Big mistake! She was all nice until they marched down the aisle. She spent the entire honeymoon on the phone with her associates and paralegals—some big federal case that was going to trial.”

“So now what?” Anthony demanded. “He’s going to admit to the world, ‘I’m a walking cliché. I’m divorcing my mean wife and I’m in lust with my nanny.’”

Olivia turned to me. “Did my brother tell you about his own personal, ridiculous wedding? How he married someone he didn’t love and never could? So you’ll excuse me if I don’t take your advice, Tony Baloney. Sometimes this happens: Two people fall in love, for real, even if one of them is the help. Some people, some sympathetic people, might even view it as fate, that of all the applicants the agency could’ve sent, of all the potential au pairs, why me? What force in the universe put my résumé at the top of the pile?”

I admit: I liked that. I didn’t want to say it aloud, but I was starting to see the miserably married, love-starved, paternity-leave-taking, and pro-bono-inclined Noel as sincere. I also didn’t want to admit how I was factoring in Edwin. What if he had already had a wife when I first saw him at the Steinway grand? What if he’d played an Irving Berlin love song that was a metaphor for a future together and later, over our first innocent coffee, had confessed his marital misery? Would I have rebuffed him? I put an unfrosted carrot cupcake in a Baggie for her. Some biologically based need to pair things up made me pack a second one. Olivia thanked me. “Anthony’s been telling me how great you and your sister have been.”

I detected a signal between brother and sister, a prompt involving some point of etiquette. I saw her squint in a failure to understand, and then clarity dawned.

“Um . . .” she began. “I didn’t have a chance yet to say I’m sorry for your loss. Anthony told me last night about your husband.”

I said, “Thank you. It’s never too late to hear that.”

“Call me, Liv,” said Anthony. “And don’t do anything more lunatic than you already have.”

“It’ll be fine. Noel texted me. The baby’s still asleep. He’ll go to the office when I get to the apartment.”

And just when I thought he’d regained his composure, Anthony said, “Give him my congratulations. At long last, he gets a vagina that doesn’t leave for the office at dawn.”

“Isn’t that nice?” Olivia threw back. “Just what a dickhead says to his sister.”

“Someone’s gotta speak the truth,” he said. “Someone’s gotta say, ‘This can’t have a happy ending, no matter what your pheromones are telling you.’”

Olivia, already at the front door, returned. “Oh, really? Well, how about this, Mister Marriage Counselor: Noel’s father took him aside and said, man to man, ‘Does Davida make you happy?’ And when Noel just stared back all red-eyed, his father said, ‘Do what you have to do. Do it while the baby is too young to understand what a divorce is. And don’t tell your mother I said this.’”

Anthony said, “Even with my bullshit, doomed, bogus, illegal marriage, Dad said something like ‘Son, even if your heart’s not in it—and I’m not saying I want you to be a heterosexual—but I’m thinking of your vows. For better and for worse, under God, and all that . . .”

I didn’t have a brother, and even with all our sisterly fights growing up and our recent turns for the tragic, we weren’t a dramatic family. At 7:25 a.m. I was transfixed.

“Dad said that? Dad wanted you to stay married to that crazy Ecuadorian?”

“In effect . . .”

“Such a liar you are,” said Olivia, and with a kiss to each of her brother’s cheeks, she rushed away.





Professional Standards


ANTHONY WAS EXPLAINING to me why a service called Chaste Dates, screaming “abstinence,” was doomed out of the starting gate. What normal man, gay or straight, is going to agree to an evening at which any form of sexual activity is precluded from the get-go, he asked.

Did he not think there were normal men who—because of various personal setbacks or performance anxieties or extra pounds—could’ve reordered their social priorities?

Margot walked into the room at that exact moment and asked, “Like the chief executive herself?”

I said, “We’ve been over this, Margot. I’m not you and I’m not in the market.”

She made a grand sweeping gesture, a half curtsy, in my direction as she asked Anthony, “Have you met my sister, Queen Victoria?”

Her attention shifted abruptly with a ping from the sideboard, her laptop signaling that someone had entered the PoorHouse’s chat room.

“I’ll be right back,” she said, laptop under one arm, as she circled back for her wine glass on the way out.

Anthony next did what he often did during a lapse in the conversation—dropped to the floor to do push-ups. He was tireless about his athletic activities. His props were everywhere: a jump rope, hand weights, ankle weights, dumbbells. From the floor, he exhaled one word as if it were a whole depressed sentence: “Women.”

“What about women?”

Between breaths he asked, “May I be honest?”

I waited.

“Your sister has a website that gets one hit a week. And you have an imaginary dating service.”

“So?”

“I’m only speaking for myself, for what I might do.”

“Which is . . . ?”

“Shake something up! Get a loan! Advertise! Margot could get a publicist. Or blog on a site that would pay her and that had readers. Or get a book deal. Or—hate to say it—work outside the home.”

Did we not feel professionally inadequate enough without his holding a mirror up to our limited entrepreneurial skills? Was Mr. Advice himself employed? I managed to say “Tea?” to escape further discussion of anything. After a hundred push-ups, he was panting and sweating. I knew he’d say no to a hot drink.





I joined Margot in her bedroom to read over her shoulder. The latest entry, by someone with the screen name HardUp, was Let him eat shit!!!!

“What’s that about?” I asked.

“Someone heard the lifer is getting special meals in prison. So, of course, we’re all guessing—kosher? Low fat? Atkins? Or just fancier than what’s on the menu. Also, Ruth is commuting between Manhattan and Boca, where she’s delivering meals to the housebound.” Margot consulted an open page of the New York Post next to her laptop and read aloud, “With frequent pit stops in North Carolina to visit her jailbird hubby.”

“How many chatting tonight?” I asked.

“So far, three of us.”

I asked if she wanted me to log on and join the discussion. And should I recruit Anthony?

“You’re enough. Are you registered?”

I said of course I was. Give me two minutes and I’d jump in.

By the time I logged on from my room, the chat had gone silent. Margot yelled from down the hall, “Write something!”

I typed Maybe he’s bribing the guards for better food!

HardUp wrote w $$ he stol & hid!

I could see that no one proofread what he wrote and there was a shorthand I should learn. A visitor named SadDad added a string of symbols that I took to be epithets, then exited, signaled by a cute little sound effect of a door hinge squeaking.

Margot yelled, “You can leave now!”

I typed, in the spirit and letter of the culture, have 2 go. But I didn’t leave. I kept reading.

Alone @ last wrote HardUp.

Anyone w/ u? Margot wrote back.

Jess asleep was his answer.

What about Thur? Margot wrote.

Can’t wait HardUp wrote back.

Who was HardUp, who was Jess, and who was Thur? I couldn’t ask Margot because she’d know I was spying and eavesdropping. But this much I could deduce on my own: HardUp and Margot met alone in cyberspace more often than I or any other chatter knew.





Inevitable, I suppose, given the way romance germinates in this century, that Margot would attract admirers among her following. Luckily, she introduced the subject by asking the next evening, over turkey meatloaf, mashed potatoes, and carrot coins, if we thought it was a bad precedent to have coffee with a person she’d met in a chat room.

“Depends on which chat room,” said Anthony.

“Mine. Where else would I be?”

“Man or woman?” he asked.

“Man. At least I think so.”

“Which screen name?” I asked.

“HardUp.”

“No clue there,” said Anthony, with a wink for me.

“Does he have a real name?” I asked.

“Roy.”

“He asked you out for coffee in front of everyone else?”

“He did ask, but in a private box. That thing that Anthony helped me set up.”

“IM,” Anthony explained.

“He could be a serial killer,” I said.

“Thank you, Grandma,” Margot said.

Anthony said, “You and I could go with her and sit at the next table like undercover agents.” He smiled. “Or we can sit in the squad car, and Margot can wear a wire.”

Before I could think of a comeback that demonstrated I was less of a wet blanket and perpetual Victorian widow than I was being portrayed as, Anthony added, “It’s not too different from Match.com or Nerve or OkCupid, sending perfect strangers out into the world.”

I said there were professional standards to consider. If the others found out Margot was dating one of their own, they’d think she was playing favorites. There might be some hurt feelings.

“What dating and what others?” she asked.

I reached back and came up with “SadDad.”

“Hmmm. Let me see. HardUp versus SadDad?” said Anthony. “No contest.”

Margot said, “I can see that no matter how many times I say ‘Roy,’ you two are going to enjoy calling him by his screen name.”

“Which says a lot about a person,” I argued.

“Have you ever laid eyes on this guy?” Anthony asked.

“He e-mailed me a photo so I’d recognize him at Starbucks,” she said.

“And?” asked Anthony.

“And what?”

“Good-looking?”

“I didn’t form an opinion.”

Anthony said, “Translation: butt ugly.”

“I’m sorry I brought this up,” said Margot.

“Did you ever talk to him?” I asked. “I mean live. On the phone?”

“Once.”

“Who called whom?”

“He called me. But it wasn’t a personal call. He asked—sort of joking—if anyone in the five boroughs wanted to buy Girl Scout cookies, and if so, send an e-mail to thus and such address. I wrote him to say that I fully supported Girl Scouts and sold their cookies myself throughout my childhood, but it would be best not to use the website for commercial gain. He felt bad about violating the rule, so he called. I mean, I’m listed. You don’t need a gumshoe to find me.”

“Why is he selling Girl Scout cookies?” Anthony asked.

“His daughter is, so he’s helping. Nowadays, parents get involved. You know this phenomenon, right? Helicopter parents? Hovering over every little activity and every piece of homework?”

“Is he married?” I asked.

“That I don’t know.”

“Still, you’re having coffee with him,” I said.

“Did you ever know such a babe in the woods?” Margot asked Anthony. She tapped me on the wrist. “It’s coffee. Even if it was more than coffee, even if we were going out for a drink, for martinis, for mojitos, for—God forgive me—dinner, there are people around! I’m not going down any dark alleys. We are cohorts, fellow soldiers, victims. I think I can be friends with a man who’s married. Who knows? He might bring his wife along. Or his boyfriend! What do I know?”

Anthony said, “My money’s on him being divorced or separated, with joint custody of the kid, and the website makes him feel as if you’re friends and he’s ready for the next step.” I noticed a charitable tilt of his head in my direction, which Margot wasn’t interpreting.

“What?” she asked. “Just say it.”

He said, “Have you ever heard of those parties where single women invite their nonstarter ex-boyfriends so they can meet all the single friends? Like a rejects party?”

“No,” I said.

“I have,” said Margot.

“So what I was thinking was if you don’t feel any chemistry and this Roy is, in fact, available . . .” He now points at me, all subtlety abandoned.

I said—and how many times was I required to announce this?—that I was not looking for a boyfriend.

Anthony said, “Not a boyfriend.” He smiled. “Just a good time.”

“He’s actually right,” said Margot. “Your circle of friends seems to have shrunk to nobody.”

I asked, “Why would I be looking to make friends with an angry, penniless blogger?”

“A good time has nothing to do with friendship,” said Margot. “Jesus! A good time means—you tell her.”

Anthony said, “Recreational sex.”

I declared, in an effort to improve my image, “I can find my own recreational sex partners, thank you.”

“Some day we’ll tell Roy about this conversation,” said Anthony. “How we hemmed and hawed and practically took a vote on whether Margot should meet him in broad daylight for a cup of coffee.”

“This is New York City,” I said. “This isn’t Grover’s Corners. People leave their homes and are never seen again.”

“That’s a no vote,” said Anthony.

“What choice do I have,” Margot asked, “if I want my two boxes of Thin Mints and two of Do-si-dos?”

“My money says he’s already got a crush on you from your très charmant blog entries and that very nice headshot on your home page,” said Anthony.

Margot yelped, “Really? That was taken when I was, like, forty!”

I said, “I don’t think you’ve changed.”

“Me, neither,” said Anthony. “In fact, I think you look younger in person.”

Margot laughed, giving me permission to follow suit.

Anthony said, “Some great guy is going to come along and sweep you off your feet. You’ll see. You, too, Gwen. Both sets of feet. And neither one is going to be an adulterer or a penniless blogger or a serial killer.”

That was so Anthony, our optimist. Margot and I said we wished the same for him.