The View From Penthouse B

We’ll Never See Those Pearls Again


IT ISN’T JUST CHARLES who hovers and haunts from prison, but his mother, Lenore, who does so from Brandywine Senior Living in New Jersey. She declares in frequent phone calls that the money Margot lost was her son’s and therefore rightfully, morally, and every which way hers.

“Then what’s your point?” we hear Margot ask. “What part of zero would you like to collect?”

That is when her ex-mother-in-law changes the subject from bill collection to marriage vows. What, she demands, did Margot mean when she stood before God and said the words “for better or for worse” if not that she would swim alongside Charles when he found himself in hot water?

Margot was weary. She used to deliver a litany of her ex’s broken commandments, but now says only “C’mon, Lenore. You have to accept that your boy did some pretty unforgivable things.”

As Anthony and I eavesdrop, we can guess Lenore’s question because we hear Margot answering “Why is it against the law? Do you mean did he go to prison for personally inseminating patients? Not officially. But he was convicted of fraud and lying to a grand jury and”—she makes this up since Mrs. P’s legal knowledge is pitiful— “they got him on statutory medical rape.” She winks at me when she says this and I give her a thumb’s up. With a large dose of the entertainer in her, she is braver when her roommates are present.

We think Lenore is establishing a paper trail or perhaps is just bored because she writes weekly to Margot. Her letters maintain that Charles’s activities were not shenanigans but science. He was only trying to help desperate women get pregnant! If Margot had gone to the trial as she was supposed to, she’d understand that he had acted out of mercy. And surely Margot knows the pain of childlessness.

That is the cruelest cut of all. Anthony and I literally wrestle the phone from Margot’s hand to keep her from calling Lenore and escalating the battle. We pour her a drink and we agree: mean. So mean. An old woman distilled to her essence: cruel and stupid and immune to fact and reason.

And the latest! Lenore wants her pearls back, the long-ago engagement present she now says were family heirlooms merely on loan! The nerve! We know this is a lie. Margot went with her then-future mother-in-law to lunch, which was followed by a surprise errand in the diamond district. First Margot tries reason: “Lenore, do you remember our lunch? In the café at B. Altman? And then we walked over to your family jeweler and we picked them out? Brand-new ones?”

Lenore disagrees. Those were family pearls being restrung by that jeweler, a Jewish man on West 47th Street. If he was still alive, he’d back her up. They were merely picking them up or perhaps they were choosing a clasp. Margot says the worst and most frustrating part is that if Lenore was hooked up to a lie detector, she’d pass—so wholeheartedly does she believe that the pearls were in her family for generations and therefore subject to recall.

Margot might have stalled or dissembled with “They’re in a vault and I never can get to the bank when it’s open.” Or “Charles took them back when we got divorced. Didn’t he tell you?” But she was so stunned and so furious that she yelled the truth. “Well, guess what, Lenore? I sold them.” And for good, vitriolic measure she added, “And I had to sell my engagement ring, too. Was that your property as well?”

It has become, as we say around here, World War Three.

We don’t have to be psychologists to see what’s ailing Lenore. Her son the doctor is now her son the felon. Displacement has made Margot—rather than the judge, jury, prosecution, or DNA results—the enemy. She is not interested in the fine points of the divorce settlement. All she knows is this: Her boy went to medical school, worked around the clock, and was so run down during his internship, residency, and fellowship that he caught every cold and needed emergency surgery on what was perilously close to a burst appendix.

Have I mentioned that Lenore divorced Charles’s father for adultery on a grand scale? What we know is Charles’s version, which was alleged by his mother on his sixteenth birthday during intermission at Man of La Mancha, that Mr. Pierrepont supposedly forced himself on every secretary he ever hired and had a genius for recruiting the young and the willing. Eventually, he fell in love with the least wifely of the set, a woman named Juliet, of all things. He eloped to Florida, had two little girls—now in their twenties, if we haven’t lost count—and kept in touch with Charles and his sister only in the form of birthday cards, child support, and attendance at college graduations.

Due to the budgetary necessity of eliminating sessions with her therapist, Margot is encouraged by me to obsess aloud about Mrs. Pierrepont. I contribute because I know and resent Lenore myself. She came to my wedding, and we had Thanksgiving dinners together at Margot’s table for twenty-plus years, but she neither attended Edwin’s funeral nor sent condolences in any form.

We are quite sure that Lenore’s companion, Teddy, who is estranged from his own children due to their alleged financial wrong turns, eggs her on. Margot says Lenore was always obsessed with money, perhaps the fault of her living through the Great Depression, and our own recession is bringing it back into focus. Some of what I’ve learned in my widows’ group applies to Margot and her ex-mother-in-law—that daughters-in-law are not to be trusted. Daughters-in-law are suspect. Money earned inside a marriage belongs to the son alone, no matter his crimes or who did the breadwinning.

Discussing Margot’s mother-in-law problems leads me to posthumous appreciation of my own in-laws, Edwin’s lovely parents, who died before I could meet them. They married late, had Edwin in their forties to their great delight. He was adored but not spoiled; they gave him not just piano lessons but also pipe organ lessons and daily chores to promote responsibility and neatness. They let him have a succession of canaries, a dog, and two cats despite their own allergies. Their wedding portrait had a place of honor on our bureau throughout our marriage, and only recently did I replace it with our own.

Betsy is a great ally on the topic of Lenore at our semimonthly dinners—tonight around the corner at Elephant & Castle, where the three of us share two entrées (sliced steak and salmon en papillote) and each of us orders a wedge of iceberg with blue cheese and bacon, which Margot and I pledge to make at home.

Our banker baby sister is unsentimental and unsympathetic to exactly the right degree in dispensing advice re Lenore. “Hang up on her,” Betsy instructs Margot. “Or, better yet, don’t answer.”

“Then she writes letters,” I say.

“Threaten to sue her for harassment, or whatever would get her to stop.”

“I could,” Margot muses. “I throw made-up legal terms at her all the time. I don’t think she’d run any threat by a lawyer, because she’d have to pay him.”

“Do we think she’s fronting for Charles?” Betsy asks. “I mean is he the one who wants the pearls and the money?”

Margot says, “He has plenty of money. You’ll remember I only got half. And he can’t spend a cent of it at Otisville.”

“Maybe it’s not the money,” I say. “Maybe it’s the pearls themselves. Maybe he has a girlfriend he wants to propose to. Men in prison, especially the famous ones, always attract girlfriends. I think there are even websites for women who want to meet the incarcerated.”

“All a moot point,” says Margot. “I’ll never see those pearls again.”

Betsy asks how much Margot got for them.

“I don’t even know. It was a lump sum for what he called the lot—three pins, some bracelets, an old locket, and my engagement ring.”

“I hope you got a second opinion,” said Betsy.

When Margot only sips her martini, Betsy asks again, “Did you shop the stuff around?”

“I didn’t. The guy seemed honest and his ad said ‘No higher prices paid.’”

I could read Betsy’s expression. It was saying I wish you’d come to us. I’d have bought them. You’d know where they were and you could even buy them back as if I were your own private pawnbroker.

I change the subject because I know that the pearls are a symbol for all that has gone wrong financially and romantically for Margot. I wish I too had stepped in to save them, had figured out in some nineteenth-century way—Marry a robber baron? Sell my hair?—to have been the safety net beneath Margot’s jewelry box.

I bring up one of our favorite topics, our own parents, and we three smile wistfully. In contrast to every Pierrepont, our own father was of the faithful, even romantic breed of husband. It took our own entries into adulthood to interpret the gestures and glances passing between our parents, which had meant nothing to three little girls. Not that there were flamboyant public displays, but now we smile at the excuses that took them early to bed, and the noise we were told in the morning was Daddy tickling Mommy. We love reminding one another that while our mother was always polite, always careful around Margot on the subject of Lenore, there were never two greater polar opposites on the scale of maternal reasonableness.

After we reminisce, we grow solemn. One of us always says, “Why couldn’t Mom and Dad have lived to a ripe old age instead of Lenore?” We wish we’d had them longer, that they’d have lived to see Betsy’s boys grow up. “It’s probably better that they didn’t live to see me become a widow or what Charles did to Margot,” I’ll usually say.

“Not to mention what Madoff did to Margot,” Betsy adds.

In truth, we know our parents would have survived our catastrophes exceptionally well. They would have been stalwarts and rocks in these times. We stir our coffee and perpetuate the lie, nodding sadly. Yes, it’s a good thing for them and their huge hearts that they didn’t live to see our troubles.





10





Delicado


HOW HAD MARGOT neglected to share the startling news that Dr. Charles W. Pierrepont, released absurdly early for good behavior, was living at the Batavia? Not in our apartment, naturally, but in one of the dark ground-floor studios off a back hallway, which was once the domain of nannies, cooks, and maids. This staggering intelligence came to light when bills addressed to Charles showed up in our mailbox. Margot’s reaction was not “Forward them to Otisville,” but a brusque “Give them to the doorman.”

Handing the waylaid bills to Rafael, Anthony asked if he had the doctor’s, um, current address.

“One D,” said Rafael, pointing toward the archway between the elevators. “I’ll make sure he gets them.”

Two hours later, at dinner, Anthony said—in a tone that implied inculpatory evidence withheld—“Maybe I missed this in previous conversations, but I just learned that your ex-husband is out of the Big House and living in the Batavia.”

“Do you mean Charles?” Margot asked.

“Indeed Charles. He seems to be living downstairs.”

“What do you mean—‘living in the Batavia?’” I asked.

“One D. The servants’ quarters,” said Anthony.

We both looked at Margot, who only said, “No one’s eating the applesauce. I used up those McIntoshes that were going bad.”

I asked, “Of all the apartment houses in all the world, is it possible that he moved into ours?”

“It’s not a coincidence,” she said. “His room—you could hardly call it a studio—used to be his sister and brother-in-law’s, the one who works at the UN—their pied-à-terre. It’s like four hundred square feet! We stayed there a number of times instead of driving home after a show. It’s the reason I bought here—that little space gave me a taste for more of the Batavia.”

I said, “I’m stunned. I can’t believe you didn’t tell us.”

“Is this suddenly an amicable divorce?” Anthony asked.

“It’s nothing,” said Margot. “I couldn’t very well tell him not to move into his brother-in-law’s apartment, could I? I avoid him and he has to avoid me because he has an ankle bracelet. I didn’t bring it up before because I was too embarrassed to tell you.”

“Does it have a kitchen?” Anthony asked.

“We are not, N-O-T, inviting him to dinner,” Margot said.

“It’s not that. I was just wondering, real-estate-wise. How come I didn’t know there were studios on the first floor?” he asked.

I said, “I thought he had another six months on his sentence.”

“People like him get released early,” Margot said. “All of a sudden two guards appeared out of nowhere and said, ‘Get your things, Doc, you’re going home.’”

“I thought you haven’t talked to him since he got out,” I said.

“He called me from his mother’s house his first night home to ask if I’d freak out if he moved onto West Tenth. Collect! I refused to take the call. He called back on his mother’s dime.”

“I hope you said, yes, you certainly would freak out,” I said.

“I surprised myself. I found myself thinking it was a good sign.”

“Of what?”

“Alimony payments! Some song and dance about how his accountant couldn’t write the checks after his office was closed because of mold contamination. Anyway, he’s at least three months behind. He threw in that he’d be catching up as soon as he moved out of his mother’s house. And if he lived here, he wouldn’t even need a stamp.”

“Who’s paying maintenance on the studio?” Anthony asked.

“He is! Charles isn’t broke. He’s got the other half of what I let go up in smoke.”

“If he has plenty of money, why is he living in four hundred square feet?” I asked. “Why doesn’t he get a real apartment?”

“Ahem,” said Anthony. “Perhaps the answer is sitting across the table from us.”

“You don’t think I accused him of that? ‘You’re not moving here because you’re holding out some kind of ridiculous hope that I’ll take you back?’ Of course, he said no. It was all convenience, the brother-in-law’s pied-à-terre, instantly available.”

“Can he work now?” Anthony asked.

“Not as a doctor. Not till he gets his license back,” I told him.

“Gwen knows more than I do,” said Margot.

“Except for the news that he moved in downstairs!” I yelped.

“Is this so bad?” Anthony asked. “I mean you were happily married to him for how many years?”

“Not so happily! We had our moments. Maybe I threw him out a few times.”

Anthony asked me if I knew this. I said, “Um, Charles recently filled me in on a few nights spent on his—I hate to say it—office couch.”

“Poor him,” said Margot. “Poor, unloved perv.”

“Just when I was going to say that he paid his debt to society, I think I won’t. I’m buttoning my lip,” said Anthony.

“It’s very simple,” said Margot. “I hate him for what he did: illegal, immoral, unethical, creepy, whatever you want to call it. It doesn’t matter. He can make speeches and pay his debt to society until the cows come home, but to me, to a wife”—her voice rose—“to a devoted wife who sometimes sat in the outer office, deaf and blind, filling in for his receptionist! It’s unforgivable.”

Was Margot crying? Her voice got thick on the last two words so I stepped in. “If Charles had been a politician, Margot would not have been standing next to him at the press conference where he announced that he was taking full responsibility for his own actions.”

“We hate that!” Margot cried. “He wanted me to do something along those lines: go to court, sit behind him, look sympathetic in a matronly suit. I refused! His lawyer begged me. His mother and sister begged me. The politest answer I gave was ‘Yeah, you’ll see me in court, all right! Divorce court!’”

Anthony said, “So I, who am the resident expert on the trial of Charles W. Pierrepont, MD, won’t get to meet or lay eyes on him, despite his living twelve floors away from his ex-wife and ex-favorite-sister-in-law?”

“Go knock on his door for all I care,” said Margot. “Bring a notebook. Bring him cupcakes. Ghostwrite his autobiography. Just don’t give him our regards.”

It may not have been that exact night when the intercom buzzed, but it was soon enough, and in the middle of another discussion re Charles as unfortunate neighbor. I answered and heard our night doorman saying, “Dr. P asking me if Miz Considine home.”

“Why?” I asked.

“To visit, I think.”

Without consulting Margot—I surely knew what her answer would be—I said, “Absolutely not.”

“She’s out?” asked he who knew all our comings and goings.

“Actually, no. But she doesn’t want to see him.”

“He live here. He free to get on elevator.”

I heard in the background, unmistakably Charles, “Is she home?”

I told Rafael it was an awkward situation. Delicado.

Margot called from the table, “What’s the big discussion out there?”

“It’s Rafael asking if Charles can come up.”

“Maybe he has the first alimony check,” said Anthony.

I asked Rafael if Charles was holding an envelope. He was not. I said, “Please tell him that he should e-mail Margot and tell her what this is about.”

After another brief exchange, Rafael said, “He no has computer.”

Anthony said, “Oh, let him up. It’ll be interesting.”

“What about the ankle bracelet?” I asked. “He can’t just wander around the building.”

“I made that up,” said Margot.

Anthony was now on his feet and stacking our dirty plates. “Aren’t you dying to know what he looks like after how many months in prison? Ten, twelve, fifteen? He probably worked out in the prison gym.”

“Or maybe you’re dying to get a look at him,” said Margot.

And suddenly it was Charles’s voice on the intercom. “Margot?”

I flinched, backed away, then came back to say, “No. It’s Gwen.”

“Look. Let’s be adults here. I have something for her. It isn’t a social visit.”

I covered the receiver and whispered “I think he has a check” as loudly as I dared.

Margot said, “Tell him he can come up, but not inside. I’ll be in my room. Yell when he’s gone. And don’t feed him.”

“You look fine,” I told her.

“You think I’m worried how I look to this piece of criminal shit? Because I could not care less! I’m hiding because I don’t want to see or talk to him—not because I have to refresh my lipstick.”

I said, “Rafael, tell Dr. Pierrepont he can come up.”

“He probably there already,” he said.