“Why don’t you give up the apartment and move to the West Side,” Eleanor asked.
A month later, he put the apartment on the market. It sold in two months, with all its furnishings. He gave Eleanor the family silver. There were generations of it, including a huge set of Christofle Cluny, enough for four brides and a groom. Her father bought a two-bedroom, two-floor artist’s studio on West Sixty-Seventh, down the block from the Hotel des Artistes. He filled the bookshelves with books. He and Sam had a Philharmonic subscription. The boys all had keys and strict instructions to drop in anytime. “Anytime,” Poppa said. “Night or day.”
Sam took him at his word. A week after move-in day, he dropped by on his way home from school. He stayed five minutes.
“I saw Poppa today,” he said as he slid into his seat at dinner that evening. He spoke slowly in a hushed voice, leaving spaces between the words. Everyone looked at him, even Tom. “He has—” Sam trailed off and looked around the circle, making sure all eyes were on him. “—a girlfriend.” The boys squinted sideways at their mother. Granny had been dead less than six months. “How do you know?” Eleanor asked. She hadn’t known. “I have eyes,” Sam said, opening his own very wide, for punctuation.
“What did they see?” Eleanor said.
“I interrupted,” Sam said. Jack snickered.
“Do we have to beat this story out of you?” Harry said.
Exploiting the momentousness of his intelligence, Sam stood up. “I went into the apartment with my key. Poppa and this lady were sitting next to each other on the big sofa, very close, drinking Champagne. They were surprised to see me. Poppa burst out laughing. She looked cross.” Sam suppressed a laugh. “She said, ‘Who’s this intruder? Is he armed?’ She was trying to be funny.” Sam grinned like a maniacal clown. “Poppa got up and brought me over to meet her. He said, ‘This is my grandson Sam, number three, out of five. They all visit me. They have keys and can come whenever they want. Sam comes the most.’ Then he said, ‘Sam, this is my friend, Mrs. Cantwell. Mrs. Cantwell visits too.’ I told Poppa I just stopped by to say hello. I shook hands with the lady and left.” Sam made a bow. His brothers pounded the table. Jack reached under his chair for his trumpet and blasted the racetrack salute.
The next day, Mr. Phipps called Eleanor. “Sam met a friend of mine last evening,” he said.
“Yes, he told us all. Mrs. Cantwell.”
“She’s an old friend. We met again recently. She’s a widow,” Mr. Phipps said.
“You don’t owe me an explanation. Do you still want the boys coming and going whenever they want to? I think Sam was embarrassed. Also thrilled.”
“They must come anytime when they want to. They come first, I told Marina that. My family comes first. Any friends come second, third, ninety-ninth.”
“Maybe you want to have some kind of schedule. If the boys feel awkward, they won’t drop by,” Eleanor said.
“I’ll work it out,” he said. “You must meet her. Wonderful woman. Almost as beautiful as when she was young.”
Eleanor laughed. “No use warning you, I suppose, against beautiful women.”
“Touché, touché,” he said, laughing. “She’s beautiful and generous.”
“Good work,” Eleanor said.
“We’ll have dinner, the four of us, one day in the next few weeks.”
Two months later, Eleanor, Rupert, Eleanor’s father, and Mrs. Cantwell met for dinner at C?te Basque. It was a success of sorts. Everyone was courteous. Mrs. Cantwell’s daughter Louisa, a sophomore at Smith, joined them. A pale blonde with a snub nose and bow mouth, she was pretty, like Sandra Dee. She wore an expensive suit—bespoke, Eleanor thought—and elegant jewelry. Eleanor admired her necklace, an intricate gold chain. Louisa preened. “Isn’t it the loveliest necklace ever?” she said. “My boyfriend, Carter, gave it to me, for my twentieth birthday. Harry Winston.” She paused for a moment, then with more warmth added, “It’s amazing. I can wear it with everything, a swimsuit, blue jeans, a ball gown.” She gave Eleanor a wide smile. “I came out last year at the Waldorf. It was so much fun. You meet the best young men. Did you come out?” Eleanor thought back on her debutante years. “I liked the rough-and-tumble of weddings for meeting men,” she said. “You never knew who might have been invited.”
“My friends aren’t getting married. Only engaged. I hope to get married a year after I graduate. I want to work a year, to see what it’s like.”
“Do you like being at a woman’s college?” Eleanor said. “I went to Vassar, but that was in the ’50s. I don’t think I’d do it again.”
Louisa looked slyly at her mother, who smiled blandly at her. “My father died when I was nine. He wanted me to go there.”
“My mother went to Smith,” Eleanor said. “A rigorous education.”
For the rest of the evening the Cantwell women held the floor, occasionally talking over each other. Louisa talked gowns, parties, and jewelry. Mrs. Cantwell, in full throat, gossiped about people the Falkeses didn’t know. “Did you hear?” she’d ask. “Would you believe?” Mr. Phipps chuckled at everything she said. She smiled back flirtatiously, as though she was still the prettiest girl at the cotillion. The Falkeses tried to open up the conversation. Rupert brought up the Iran hostage crisis, Eleanor, Apocalypse Now. Mrs. Cantwell closed them down. “You’re both too clever for me,” she said. “I don’t understand those things.” She gave all her attention to Mr. Phipps. “I could listen to him all day,” she said. She gazed at him with Nancy Reagan eyes.
“I don’t think mother and daughter have much to say for themselves,” Rupert said to Eleanor as they crossed the park in a cab. He stopped, remembering his late mother-in-law. “It’s good for your father. Mrs. Cantwell is so very fond of him. The way she looks at him must give him happiness.”