C’mon. Maybe I got it wrong. Maybe I misunderstood. Maybe he said chardonnay.”
I said to Margot, “It doesn’t have to mean we’re making friends with him if we have a glass of his champagne, you know. You love champagne.”
Anthony asked, “How long has it been?”
“Since what?” Margot asked.
“Since you were in the same room with him?”
“At least two and a half—no, almost three years.”
“Two years,” I corrected.
“It’ll be three years in May when he was arrested—”
To my surprise, my voice faltered as I said, “It was, no question, two years. He came to Edwin’s funeral. Which couldn’t have been easy for him under the circumstances, which is to say, while on trial.”
Something changed in Margot’s expression. It wasn’t a tempering of marital fury and it surely wasn’t forgiveness or clemency. What I was seeing was sisterly devotion: Margot awarding points to Charles based on the single criterion by which I measured friendship since Edwin’s death.
I rinsed out four dusty champagne flutes and found cocktail napkins from the previous occupants’ Christmas parties. We discussed nothing substantive, not his crimes, nor prison, nor money, nor his mother, nor his bastard child. We sat in the living room, under paintings and on loveseats that once decorated their marital home. During an awkward silence, Anthony volunteered that Margot and I had taken him in and adopted him.
“Literally?” Charles asked.
“Why, yes,” Margot cut in, with a new, broad smile. “Quite literally. In court! And he’s now the beneficiary on all my wills, trusts, bank accounts, stocks, bonds, and, of course, my various real estate holdings. I don’t think I ever told you that I had a son out of wedlock before I met you, and we were reunited through the Internet.”
“Facebook to be specific,” said Anthony. “Isn’t it amazing?”
“It’s not technically adoption,” Margot said. “More like we’re his guardians.”
Charles refilled his glass, lips pursed. Finally, he said, raising his flute, etched with an intertwined M and C, “Touché.”
“Touché? Why the hell ‘touché’?” Margot sputtered.
“You’re right. ‘Touché’ doesn’t apply. I take that back. What I should have said was ‘Is it possible that bankruptcy has given you a sense of the ridiculous?’”
“Margot didn’t declare bankruptcy,” I said.
Charles said, “Ah, Gwen. I see you haven’t changed.” And to Anthony. “I’ve always known Gwen to be . . . quite precise.”
Anthony said, “A household needs precise. She’s like the big sister I never had.”
“So this”—Charles waved his hand around our circle—“is all very . . . fraternal?”
Margot said, “Don’t be a douche bag, Charles. He’s half our age.”
“And queer, thank you,” said Anthony.
Margot, the new Margot, the champagned Margot, said, “And you, Doc, could use some etiquette lessons. Someone with your track record shouldn’t be seeing sex in every situation.”
Charles said, “This is good. I need this. I know you’re right and I’m going to try harder. I want to start over. I need to be seen as normal and healthy. I have to go slow, glacier slow. I made that promise to myself and to my social worker at Otisville in my exit interview. Everything that happened, everything, was all about my father! I know that now. I’m determined to start so fucking slow that if I’m lucky enough to ever have a woman in my life, I’ll be like a church boy on a first date.”
“Words,” said Margot. “Nothing but words.”
Anthony said, “Dude, I’m not so sure you can tell the difference between appropriate and inappropriate. I mean, give me a break—turning our living situation into a ménage à trois?”
“A feeble attempt . . . ” Charles began. He reached into his jeans pocket, fished out an oversize handkerchief, and wiped his eyes, which were suddenly and genuinely wet. “I swear,” he began again. “I swear . . . I know you’d expect me to say prison changed me. But I changed me. I was showing off a minute ago. I’m nervous. It took all my courage to knock on your door. I hope I can prove myself by . . . I don’t know . . . would ‘walking the straight and narrow’ be the proper characterization? ‘Acting my age’? ‘Giving back’? ‘Starting over’? ‘Settling down’? All in hopes of reversing my . . . misfortune.”
“Misfortune!” Margot yelped. “Ha!”
“What do you mean by settling down?” I asked.
“With a woman. A mature woman. And when I find her, I intend to court her like a gentleman from another century.”
All three of us visibly sat up straighter. I wouldn’t have said it. I wouldn’t have opened the