tighter. “Women want love and romance. And I’m not saying that I’ve found that, but I have been seeing someone. Which I can now announce since my sister has gone to lavender.”
Anthony and I both said, “Huh? Lavender?”
“You don’t remember Mom saying that about Rita Collins next door? It meant she stopped wearing black after the first year of widowhood.”
Anthony said, “Very Masterpiece Theatre of you, Margot. I love it.”
I said, “I didn’t wear black after the first month.”
“And we’re off topic,” said Anthony. “Gwen and I need to know who your paramour is.”
“Guess,” said Margot.
I said, “It has to be the guy from your website, the one selling the Girl Scout cookies.”
“Bingo.”
“Do we know his name?” asked Anthony.
“Roy.”
“What was his screen name that we all liked so much?”
“I forget.”
“No, you don’t. It had a sexual connotation, as I recall,” said Anthony.
“It did not! It happens to be HardUp, which is purely financial.”
Anthony said, “Ha! I’m sure.”
I asked how often she saw him.
“Once or twice a week.”
“His joint-custody, night-off kind of thing?” Anthony asked.
Margot said, “More like a Charles’s-nights-here kind of thing.”
“How old is he?” I asked.
“Young.”
Anthony said, “Young like a boy toy or just younger than you?”
“Ten years younger than the age I told him I was.”
“Love it,” said Anthony.
“What do you do on these dates?” I asked.
Margot said, “I’m worried that you’re asking that prescriptively, as in ‘What do a man and a woman do on a date?’”
“No! I meant what can two people who met in the PoorHouse chat room afford to do on a date?”
“Fair question,” said Anthony.
“Okay, then: We talk. We go to free nights at museums and free events—his bible is Time Out New York—or to readings or poetry slams in clubs without covers, and before or after, we get some ethnic food.” She smiled, cupped both hands around her coffee mug, and leaned forward as if testifying outrageously before a congressional panel. “Then, typically, we go to his place.”
Was I obliged to ask for details? Luckily, Anthony said, “We got off track. A new day has dawned. Gwen is ready for some social outreach. Let’s toast new things and new friends.”
I lifted my mug. “To new friends. Whatever that means.”
“It means real dates,” said Anthony, “as opposed to chaste ones.”
“Where do we start?” I asked. I meant with candidates and venues, but Margot did not. She reached over and repositioned one lock of my hair from its usual resting place to what was, presumably, a more flattering one. Eyebrows arched, she consulted Anthony, whose lips twisted unhappily to one side.
“I haven’t even combed it today,” I protested. “If I’d known you were going to judge me by this”—I pointed to my hair, my naked face, and my stained bathrobe with the pajama cuffs protruding from its sleeves—“I’d have come all gussied up—”
“In lavender,” said Anthony. “I am not letting that image go.”
Margot said, “Stop worrying. You have an excellent team behind you. And you know what? I think Edwin would be cheering us on.”
I shouldn’t have winced, but I did.
“What? What did I say?”
From the sideboard, whisk in hand, Anthony supplied, “I’m not sure waving that particular flag helps Gwen move forward.”
Margot raised her eyes to the ceiling. “Edwin? Are you there? Do you mind if I pull your widow off your funeral pyre? She’s made her point. Enough is enough.”
Anthony laughed.
“He loves my metaphors,” Margot said.
19
December
SOMETHING HAPPENED IN the outside world, something terrible enough to change the tenor inside penthouse B and expose a layer of previously unimaginable sympathy for our Public Enemy Number One.
The day after Madoff’s elder son committed suicide, Charles came calling, ostensibly to inform us that our phones were out of order.
“They’re not,” I told him at our front door, having thrown a raincoat over my nightgown. “We let the machine pick up.”
“Is your sister home?”
“Yes, but she’s busy. As you can imagine, there’s been a ton of traffic on her website.”
“Are you going to stand guard or may I come in?”
I told him I was just about to take a nap—
“At one in the afternoon? That’s not a good sign.”
Because he was wearing some version of a motorcycle jacket over a black turtleneck sweater, I asked where he was going dressed so fashionably.
He smiled. “Fashion! Precisely! I’m here with an invitation.”
I waited.
“I thought Margot might enjoy a student-faculty exhibition at FIT.”
I said no on her behalf. She was still in her bathrobe and hadn’t eaten all day. She’d have to shower, fix her hair, get dressed .