The View From Penthouse B - By Elinor Lipman Page 0,30
to be Great Ground-Beef Recipes, a Family Circle publication marked ninety-five cents. “Copyright nineteen sixty-five!” Margot exclaimed. “A treasure trove left behind by our predecessors. Presto: my entrées.”
I said, “You can’t use someone else’s recipes. They’re copyrighted.”
“I’ve already thought of that. I’ll throw in a line saying that many were inspired by concoctions from a simpler time, blah, blah, blah . . . Merci beaucoup, Family Circle.” She turned to her first bookmark, a strip of wax paper, and read, “Chapter one: What would we do without ground beef, exclamation point.” Smiling happily, she turned to another marked page. “Meat Balls—two words—Stroganoff . . . Meat Balls Veronique . . . Persian Spoonburgers . . . Meat-loaf—hyphenated—Reubens.”
Anthony sighed and announced that he was going to skip Bridget Jones the sequel and opt for a workout.
“Is it the ground beef that’s making you both so mopey, or is it the whole project?” Margot asked.
“I can’t speak for Gwen,” Anthony said, “but I don’t love the idea of recipes from the nineteen sixties.”
“You don’t think the message is ‘I’m no snob. I used to buy porterhouse, but I’m happy with hamburger now’?”
I said, “I suppose . . .”
“It’s role-modeling. It’s saying ‘Keep your chin up.’ And I think I’m good at that.”
“I think I’ll go to the gym,” said Anthony.
“What about yours?” she asked him.
“My what?”
“Your recipes! Just our favorites. The gingerbread chocolate chunk, the Scarlett O’Haras, the Mixed Marriage, the PB and Js . . . five or six of the showstoppers. You’d get your own chapter. ‘Anthony’s Famous Cupcakes.’” She winked at me. “Illustrated with photos of our pastry chef.”
“Do you have these recipes written down?” I asked him.
“Of course I do.”
“It could be my ticket,” Margot said.
“Or mine,” said Anthony.
2. Me
I didn’t fix Charles up with any of my female acquaintances. Follow-through wasn’t my strong suit, anyway, and Charles didn’t mention it again. Margot did, but only to scold Anthony for suggesting that Charles was even a remotely appropriate blind date for an unsuspecting woman. She insisted that he didn’t deserve companionship, especially if it led to sexual gratification. Could I promise her I was out of the matchmaking business, especially where it involved an ex-brother-in-law? I said, for about the fifth time, “Yes, I promise.”
Recently, I posted signs in our building’s laundry room, advertising my skills in grammar and punctuation, diagramming sentences, and tutoring in the above disciplines. I check every day to see if any of the vertical tear-off tabs bearing my phone number are missing, but so far all are intact.
3. Anthony
He didn’t get the job at Lewiston Capital, but the company’s HR department invited him to apply for the job vacated by the successful in-house candidate. Although it pays less, Junior Financial Analyst was described as a “foot-in-the-door opportunity providing direct access to upper management who will help facilitate professional growth.”
He said he’d be embarrassed if he doesn’t get this one since it’s entry-level and has been practically handed to him. Margot and I tell him to put our names down as references, and we will rave about every aspect of him that could conceivably pertain to employment.
Present that same evening, Charles asked Anthony if he had a police record. When I rushed in to take offense on his behalf, Anthony said calmly, “He means my green-card fiasco. And the answer is no; my lawyer got me off.”
“How did you know about that?” I asked Charles.
Charles smiled. “We have conversations while you’re in the kitchen putting the finishing touches on your delicious stand-in meals.” He meant the more and more frequent substituting I’d been doing for the often-absent Margot. I had to say thank you. That very night was one of mine: cabbage soup with meatballs with a crusty boule on the side. Who would believe that a day-old loaf of bread could cost five dollars?
4. Olivia
There is another Sarno under our roof temporarily, on the parlor couch. Olivia’s two-week notice has expired, and her boyfriend-boss hasn’t yet found the one-bedroom apartment where they’ll live after he extricates himself from his marital home. None of us have met Noel, but we offer to go along on their dates so it looks more like friendship than alienation of affection. Noel’s wife, Davida, is not a divorce attorney, but her firm has a famously litigious and unforgiving family law unit. Without Davida’s unlovability and frigidity factored in, the potential screaming headline—MAN FALLS FOR NANNY—has the entire division licking its chops.