The View From Penthouse B Read Free Page A

surgical personality. He may have been a little robotic and selfish . . .
    This sounded new. Apparently, at his particular prison, where alpha-male white-collar criminals of the CEO variety served time, many group therapy sessions turned to wives, girlfriends, mistresses, conjugal visits—what went wrong and how did felons woo when reintegrated into society?
    “So you’re saying that your being robotic and surgical was the cause of your patient hanky-panky?” I asked him.
    “You two are close,” he continued. “So I’m assuming you know that during the time that the unfortunate conception took place, Margot and I were separated.”
    I said, “I would’ve known if you two were separated!”
    “No one knew. I was sleeping on my office couch. It wasn’t that we were unhappy. I think it was just that Margot had bouts of romantic ambition, with those two deejays forwarding her fan letters for years; love letters from her commuter-suitors, real or imagined. I think any little argument we had, any little dry spell, made her wonder what if . . . ?”
    I said, “We discuss you a lot. I’d have known about a separation, especially if it exiled you to a couch in your office—”
    “You discuss me a lot?” he repeated, sounding pleased.
    “That can’t surprise you! You get married and you feel secure and you think it’s forever, then suddenly your husband’s in prison! Gone. You’re alone. Of course we talk about you.”
    Someone, presumably a guard, was telling Charles that his time was up. “Thirty seconds,” he negotiated. “This is important.” And then to me: “I don’t have time to be anything but blunt, so here goes: Aren’t you talking about yourself? About you and Edwin? Because if you substitute ‘in the ground’ for ‘in prison,’ you’re describing your own situation. He’s gone and you’re alone—”
    I hung up without answering. I didn’t want bluntness or insight or analysis. And the news of a long-ago separation was confusing. Charles was one of our top two villains. If there had been mitigating emotional circumstances, I’d have to realign everything.
     
    I had moved into the Batavia three months after Edwin died, as I was pondering whether to renew my lease. The teaming up was our sister Betsy’s idea, who asked calmly while she was treating us to our semimonthly dinner in her Upper East Side neighborhood, “Have either of you discussed the possibility of joining forces?”
    I asked what she meant.
    “Gwen moving into the Batavia.”
    Margot asked, “Do you mean buy? ”
    I knew, embedded in that question, was her hope that Betsy the banker knew something she did not—that Edwin had left me previously undetected funds.
    I said, “Oh, sure. I’d be just the one to spend a million or two on a one-bedroom.”
    “I meant,” Betsy said, “ obviously, beyond obviously, that Gwen could move into your outsized apartment.”
    I said, “I think Margot would have asked me by now if that idea appealed.”
    Margot was writing on the edge of her paper place mat featuring the Chinese Zodiac. “What are you scribbling over there?” Betsy asked.
    “Math,” said Margot.
    I said, “I know the second bedroom is your study . . .”
    Betsy said, “What does she need a whole study for? One blog entry a week? She can move her laptop to the dining-room table.”
    Margot looked up finally. She asked, “Can you afford . . . ?” and named a figure that was thirty dollars below my current rent.
    I said yes, I could.
    Betsy asked what percentage of the common charges and utilities did that figure represent. Half?
    Margot said firmly, “It represents what I’m comfortable asking my widowed sister to put into the coffer.” She asked again if I could manage the figure she’d named.
    “I can.”
    “And do you want to?”
    My first, unspoken answer was no. How could I abandon the apartment that still had Edwin’s voice on the answering machine and his DNA on the piano keys? But