The Family Man (15 page)
D
ENISE, IN A BLACK PANTSUIT
and exceedingly high, pointy pumps, delivers a legal-size envelope the next morning. Henry doesn't explicitly invite her in, but because he is holding a mug of coffee she chirps, "Would love to, but I'm no longer a lady of leisure. Work starts in thirty-five minutes."
"It's a five-minute cab ride across the park," he points out.
She reaches into an outside pouch of her huge black pocket-book and flashes a MetroCard. "Bus," she says. "It goes straight across Seventy-second, if you get on the right one."
"The M seventy-two." He smiles. "You may want to write that down." He reaches for the envelope. "And this is for me? The pre-nup?"
"With a cover letter. I didn't know who it was going to, so I just wrote, 'Dear Attorney.'"
"George Quirke. I think you remember George. From the firm?"
Denise, who has started her descent, stops, looks up. "The Quirke who handled our divorce?"
"Correct. Good man. Knows everything there is to know about pre-nups."
"Is he the only divorce attorney in your old firm?"
"Yes," Henry lies.
"I didn't mean he was a bad lawyer. I just meant is he still mad at me for what I did to you?"
MetroCard in hand, a brown lunch bag visible from the purse he recognizes as a knockoff, Denise appears atypically sympathetic this morning. He says, "George is the consummate professional. He holds no grudges." Opening the door wider, he says, "How about if I give it a quick read now? You have time. I'll put you in a taxi."
She offers her hand as if they were partners at the edge of a dance floor. "I was telling my boss about your place," she says.
Two steps over the threshold, she looks up. "How would you describe your ceiling? Domed? Vaulted? And these—Did you know that sconces go with the property unless the seller specifies that they're not included? This chandelier, too."
He gestures toward the kitchen. "Coffee while I read?"
Denise checks her watch. "Is it one of those French press ordeals?"
"No. Ten seconds. I just push a button."
Denise follows him toward the back of the house, high heels clicking sharply enough to cause him concern for his parquet floor. At the kitchen door he freezes. Sitting on the counter, guarding the coffeemaker, in drawstring gym pants and a Coney Island Lager T-shirt, is Thalia.
He has not seen this Thalia before: the cold and contemptuous one. "How long have you been here?" he asks.
Pointing to her mug, she says, "When this was full. Three minutes ago? Four? And then I decided to stay and eavesdrop."
"It's nice to see you," says Denise. "Finally."
Thalia executes a slow, bovine blink, but says nothing.
"I can't stay long," says her mother. "I have a job. Part-time."
"Doing what?"
Denise opens her pocketbook and finds a silver case from which she extracts a business card. "Here. This is my boss."
"Real estate," Henry says. "Your mother calls herself a gal Friday."
Thalia takes the card. "Interesting. Girl Friday. Is that anything like my job?"
"Job?" says Denise. "Really? Henry didn't mention a word!"
"Gee, I could have sworn you were fully briefed. I'm a paid escort, remember? Streetwalker. Harlot. Call girl. Trollop. Isn't that what a mother deduces when her daughter's picture shows up in the
Daily News
wearing a party dress?"
Denise stares, first at Thalia, then at Henry. "I assume I have you to thank for passing along that little slip of the tongue?"
"Don't worry," Thalia says. "I'll use this, believe me. I can already see my friends laughing,
ha-hah!
"—an imaginary cigarette holder in play—"when I tell them my mother saw my picture in the paper and deduced—what else would a supportive mother deduce?—that I was turning tricks. I can't wait. Another Denise anecdote for my repertoire."
Denise swings her bulging pocketbook in Thalia's direction, a safe enough distance to miss, but close enough to make both Thalia and Henry duck. "I lost my husband!" Denise cries. "I can't be responsible for every little thing that slips out of my mouth. I didn't mean it. I was thinking out loud. In fact, I'd already forgotten it until you brought it up. I can't do or say anything right, can I?"
Thalia turns to Henry. "That would be a reference to Daddy's funeral. Would you like to hear about that?"
"I did hear some of it," he says.
"I told you all of it!" Denise cries.
"And then Todd filled me in."
Denise asks, "Todd was there? Did he sign the guest book?"
"Who cares if he signed the guest book?" says Thalia. "What does that have to do with anything?"
"I only meant—" Denise cuts herself off and asks primly, "May I have that cup of coffee to go? Black is fine." She adds, hitching her pocketbook into place, "I travel by bus now, and they run on a schedule."
"In that case," says Thalia, "bye."
"Bye?" Denise asks.
"Or take a seat. Tell Henry what happened at the funeral. He's fair and righteous. Maybe I'm wrong, and what you did wasn't so evil. Maybe Henry will set me straight, in which case I'll apologize for marginalizing my grieving mother."
Denise turns to ask rather elegantly, "Henry? Are you busy? Would you like to walk me to work?"
"You're wearing stilettos," he says.
"Tell him," Thalia persists. "Or I will."
Denise heads for the coffee machine. "I'll do it myself. Which button do I push?"
Thalia reaches around her and hits the button that starts the grinding of the beans. Henry slips a mug under the spout. Denise slumps, both hands bracing herself against the edge of the counter.
"Are you all right?" Henry asks.
She turns around. "Was this a trap?"
Henry says, "I didn't even know you were dropping by, Denise. Nor did I know Thalia was in the kitchen. That's hardly how one sets a trap."
"So she just lets herself in and makes herself at home?"
Thalia says, "That's correct. I walk in like I own the place." She points to the kitchen door. "That's our secret passageway. We dug it ourselves through solid rock. I come up—what would you say, Henry? Four, five, six, ten times a day?"
"She doesn't have a coffeemaker," says Henry.
"His is excellent," says Thalia.
Denise points to the refrigerator. "Do you have half-and-half?"
"Denise," Henry tries. "I think it would be very good if we cleared the air. Maybe there's been a misunderstanding. Maybe Thalia's upset about something that you said in jest. Or that just slipped out, like the escort service."
"Ha!" says Thalia. "Not this time. This isn't some passing thought. This was the full Denise, center stage, foot in mouth. Tell him. Tell him about the uninvited guest who essentially took over the whole event."
"There's nothing to tell." She turns to Henry. "I thought it would look very peculiar if Eddie wasn't one of the pallbearers. I thought
that
would raise suspicion. I had no idea everybody knew."
"Knew what?" Henry asks. "And who's Eddie?"
"Glenn's first business partner."
"Eddie Pelletier, asshole. Her not-so-secret paramour."
"That is so unfair! He and Glenn were in sales together at 3M," Denise explains. "Then they set up their own business. All very amicable. So much so that when the partnership broke up, and they left the lawyer's office after signing the papers, they went out for a steak."
"Can you
not
tell a linear story?" Thalia asks.
Denise repeats, "My crime was asking Eddie to be a pallbearer. He also got up to speak."
"We all knew!" says Thalia. "I did, and the boys did. And you can bet my father knew—"
"All your father knew was that Eddie started calling me when he was going through his own divorce."
Thalia harrumphs.
"For advice!"
"Like every two minutes, at top volume. He's an idiot. And it was still going on when Dad dropped dead of—quite possibly—a broken heart."
"Your father—" Denise begins. She bites her lip. "Your father died of a massive heart attack, Thalia. And since not one word was ever spoken between the two of us that would lead me to believe that he suspected anything, I have to disagree with you."
"Did you really ask your boyfriend to be a pallbearer?" Henry asks.
"And a speaker!" Thalia cries. "You should have heard him. Not just singing Dad's praises, but weeping. 'Glenn and I this. Glenn and I that.' I would have thrown a rotten tomato if I'd had one."
Denise says, "I repeat: To have left him out would be like holding up a sign that said,
Your suspicions are confirmed.
And why, if everyone knew, didn't someone come forward when Glenn was still alive and say, 'We know what's going on. Cut it out. We're all on to you'?"
Thalia turns to Henry. "I did."
"But that was before anything happened! It was just a warning—we see what's going on—but all it was then was a mental and emotional fling."
"Yet you plunged in?" Henry asks.
Denise raises her chin an inch higher. "No, we did not."
"Oh, please," says Thalia. "You did, too. You think that the names of hotels don't come up on caller ID?"
Henry asks, "How long did this fling last?"
"What difference does that make?" Denise asks.
"I'm curious. I ask as someone whose marriage ended after one dinner-party flirtation: If Glenn had lived, were you going to leave him?"
"Moot point, obviously," Denise snaps.
"Why the hell is that moot?" Thalia asks.
"Why? Because I'm a widow. If I were going to leave Glenn for Eddie, I'd be with him now, wouldn't I?"
"You probably
are
with him. But now it's secret until—what would Denise Wales Archer Krouch consider a proper waiting period? Six months? Six days?"
"Eddie Pelletier was a mistake. Okay? I'm paying for it now. I think he was harboring some deep-down resentment about how well the corrugated box side of the business did—he took the twine and label divisions—and he was using me to hurt Glenn. Or his wife, who took him back, I should add."
"Lucky her," mutters Thalia.
"I'd like to say one thing in his defense vis-à-vis the memorial service, and I say this as someone who hates him, too. People walked out in protest while I was giving my remarks. Eddie was not on the program, but then he saw the mass exodus and didn't want the funeral to end on such a hostile note. He and only he walked up to the podium, led me down the steps, then went back up there to deliver the closing remarks."
Thalia says, "If you really believe that Eddie Pelletier wasn't making a fool of Daddy and himself and you and all of us, then there's nothing more to say." She crosses to the sink and sloshes first her mug, then Henry's breakfast dishes, in soapy water.
"Ever?" her mother asks. "Thalia?"
Thalia shuts off the water but doesn't turn around.
Henry opens a drawer, removes a dishtowel—a favorite, blue and white, French jacquard—and drapes it over Thalia's left shoulder. "I'll see your mother out," he says, patting it into place.
Dutifully, he faxes the pre-nup to George, along with Denise's cover letter, which states, "Dear Attorney: This is not the original document. That one was burned in our fireplace on our first (paper) anniversary and I have Polaroids to prove it. Shortly after my husband's death, his two sons dropped the bomb that the pre-nup was still in effect because the burning was only a symbolic gesture, alcohol-induced. They claimed that it was the same as if the document had been lost in a house fire. In other words, no dice. A fire doesn't make it null and void if three other copies are still floating around, one for each lawyer and one in the safe at work (Krouch & Sons Cartons, Inc.) where their father was constantly reminding them he kept his personal papers in case anything happened to him. We were married for 23 years and 10 months at the time of my husband's sudden death on a Stair-master at 70 years of age."
Within minutes, and too soon for him to have read beyond the cover letter, George calls to announce, "This has the makings of a wonderful lawsuit."
A
T LAST, PAPARAZZI!
Two men with long professional lenses are waiting outside Thalia's apartment. Henry, on lookout, would like to know where they're from and the degree, if any, to which this is genuine reporting. It's too late to call Estime in New York, and perhaps too much of a nonevent to call the parent company's answering service to ask, "Are they yours?"
What is protocol here? Thalia is out with Leif. Tonight's date is a late dinner at a restaurant behind an unmarked door in the Meatpacking District. After that, clubbing. Leif's driver has a list of hot spots, admission guaranteed. No, they won't be going to Philip's club, Thalia told him, then asked with an airy smile, "Would I do such a thing?"
One photographer spots Henry looking out the window and aims his lens at him, with a grin that says,
Only kidding; not interested in you, old man.
Henry would like to point out that they're violating his privacy, but he's quite sure that their presence has been bought and paid for by Estime. He calls Todd's cell and gets his voice mail. "Paparazzi, here," he announces.
Todd calls back, can't talk. "You're bored. Ignore them. Go see a movie."
"I'm not bored."
"How ironic," says Todd. "Because
I
am, and I'm at work."
"Should I tell them that she won't be home for hours?"
"And bake them a cake, too, while you're at it. Listen, hon—keep your distance. If you have to go out, brush right past them, unseeing, like you're under a gag order. Like you work in the West Wing."
"I think not," says Henry.
Todd has teased him: Get a stethoscope, why don't you, and listen at Thalia's door. Or why not just go all the way and bug the maisonette? He always answers that it isn't nosiness that keeps him attuned to the basement, but acute hearing. Where there used to be the silence of an empty three rooms, there is now his preternaturally socially active twenty-nine-year-old daughter. At 11:35
P.M.,
when he snaps off the news and goes down to the kitchen for a frozen yogurt bar, he hears music, loud music, rock 'n' roll music, much too early for Thalia to have returned from formal date number two with Leif. Listening at the door, he hears another sound: the clothes dryer, located in the unfinished, communal part of the basement. An opportunity! He won't pretend he's throwing in a wash—she knows Lidia does that—but he'll say, "I heard the dryer going. I wondered why you were home so early. How did it go?"
But it is not Thalia thumping out a beat on his appliances. It is a bare-chested young man in crossword-puzzle boxer shorts—not Philip; not anyone Henry has ever met. He's heard of this, the Goldilocks syndrome of breaking and entering, whereby the intruder raids the refrigerator or tries on clothes. It is too late for Henry to retreat unseen. "May I ask who you are and what you're doing here?" he asks, not as sternly as the situation might warrant if the young man were fully clothed, or looked less like a prep school lacrosse player.
The stranger, to Henry's relief, startles as if
Henry
were the trespasser. "I'm Alex—Thalia's friend. Sorry! I'm doing laundry."
"I can see that."
"I'm her roommate. Or was. At her last place."
"What address?"
"Mott Street! Four B. I'm still there. My place is getting exterminated, so she said I could stay here." The washing machine bleats. Alex says, "I'm done except for maybe one more dryer cycle. You live upstairs?"
"Correct. I own the building."
Alex extends his hand but Henry doesn't shake it. "I think you should get dressed," he says.
"All my stuff's in there. Sorry. I didn't expect to be running into anyone. Thalia said she was the only one who used these machines. You're the dad, right?"
Henry does not think it's proper for him to be carrying on a conversation with yet another handsome young man in Thalia's circle, especially such a well-toned one wearing threadbare boxers. He says, "I came down to investigate because I heard the dryer and I knew it couldn't be Thalia."
"We're just friends. I didn't take my clothes off until she left"' Alex lifts the lid of the washer and stares into it. After a pause he says, "She sees me more as a little brother. I'm okay with that. I'll take platonic over nothing."
If he didn't know Thalia's crowded dance card, Henry might cite May-December romances in the headlines and in the works of George Bernard Shaw, but he knows there is no room for encouragement. He asks, "So will you be leaving once your clothes are dry?"
Alex repeats in remedial fashion, "My place is being exterminated. It's toxic. It's not safe to breathe the air."
"I understand that. I meant, 'Will you be going out?' Which I ask because there are photographers outside. They're here because the man Thalia is dating is a producer, director, and movie star."
"Thalia told me. I had to look him up. Leif somebody, right? Used to be on a sitcom?"
"Leif Dumont. They're bound to ask you who you are and where Thalia is and what time she's coming home."
He grins. "Cool."
"What I meant is, they might think you live here. With Thalia."
"Can't I just tell them the truth? I'm crashing here because my place is being exterminated and we used to be roommates?"
"I don't know. This isn't my forte. The culture of gossip columns has escaped me completely until now."
Alex opens the dryer, feels its contents, frowns, pulls out a pair of jeans—still damp, judging by his expression—and explains as he pulls them on, "Here's how it works: D-list celebs want scandal. They act bad on purpose so it gets into the gossip columns and the blogs."
"Your point being?"
"My point being: I walk out of her apartment. I look a little—sorry, man—happy, satisfied, but deer in the headlights. I run. They put two and two together. They snap my picture. She becomes a blind item. Bingo: more interest in Thalia because she's cheating on her boyfriend!"
"If you really think you have to go out at this hour—"
"It's like, what? Midnight? There's nothing to do here. She doesn't even have cable. If they stop me, I can just tell the truth. I'm a friend. My place is toxic. She's got a futon. It is what it is."
"Do you have a shirt to wear?"
Alex opens the dryer door. He takes out a black T-shirt, feels it, puts it back. "Ten more minutes," he says.
"And Thalia definitely knows you're here?"
"Honest. She let me in. I saw her before she went out."
Henry can't help himself. He asks what she was wearing. Alex appears stumped. "Jeans, definitely." Then he pantomimes: things on top. "A blouse? Maybe two together. Like a see-through thing over a black thing?"
"Layers?" Henry asks.
"Yeah, layers. She looked pretty." He pushes a button on the dryer. "Mind if I do the whites when I come back?"
"From where?"
"Pizza? Beer? Know a place around here where they sell it by the slice?"
"This is New York. Pizza comes to you. No need to leave the house."
Alex grins. "That's what
my
dad would say: 'You're in New York City. Why go out and risk your life when everything's delivered? And what about homework, Alexander? Don't you have papers to write?' He wouldn't care that I had my last final two weeks ago."
"We're all pretty much alike," Henry agrees.
More excitement of the variety he doesn't need. He wakes to find Thalia and a fully clothed Alex eating cereal in his kitchen just after 8:00
A.M.
Thalia is dressed in what must be last night's jeans and gauzy layers, and her hair is up in a slipshod ponytail.
"I have news to report, plus I didn't have any milk," she explains. "You met Alex last night, right?"
Alex wags a finger from the hand that is shaking more Cheerios into his bowl.
Henry says, "I would've thought you'd be asleep at this hour."
"Didn't go to bed."
"What's the news?"
"You might want to sit down," says Thalia.
Henry tilts his head in the direction of Alex.
Thalia says meaningfully, "Alex knows I'm dating Leif, and that we're in sort of a discovery phase, but it might be serious." She widens her eyes:
How was that for delivery and discretion?
Henry musters his best faux father-of-the-bride inflection. "Are you about to tell me that Leif popped the question last night?"
"Not even close," Alex answers.
Thalia says, "I regret to say that Leif was arrested last night." Henry feels a surge of grapevine adrenaline. "For what?"
"Are you ready? Fare evasion."
Spoken through a mouthful of Blueberry Morning, those syllables don't add up to an offense that Henry recognizes. He asks her to repeat the charge.
"Fare evasion! He jumped a turnstile. If they catch you, they arrest you—like immediately."
"Are we talking about a
subway
turnstile?"
"Do you believe it? In Times Square, no less. Cops everywhere."
"What an idiot," says Alex.
"Why the hell did he jump the turnstile and what was he doing on the subway in the first place?"
Thalia says, "I believe there is a twofold answer: He wasn't carrying any money, and he was trying to impress me. In flip-flops, no less. Alex, give Henry your seat, please."
"He did this in front of police officers?"
"MTA guys, but the police were there in ten seconds. And it doesn't help when you miss the train and you're standing around waiting for the next one like a shmuck."
"What the hell were you doing on the subway in the first place?"
"Leif sent Rico, the driver, home at midnight. He has a new baby. Which was actually very sweet of him. And he thought that taking the subway was kind of a date-y, young-and-in-love thing to do. He didn't have any money, but I said it was fine because I had my MetroCard—"
"You know what that is, when you wait around after you break the law? Suicide by cop," says Alex.
"They killed him?"
Thalia says, "Not that I know of; last seen being led away and arguing. I did not accompany the perp."
"What an asshole," says Alex, who is now sitting on a counter and peeling a banana.
"Would you mind if I had a moment or two alone with Thalia?" Henry asks.
Alex says sure, no problem. Okay to take an apple, too?
Henry waits until he hears Thalia's kitchen door closing. "Do you think the arrest was staged?" he asks.
"If it was, he's a better actor than I've been giving him credit for."
"Did he call a lawyer?"
"We'll find out!" she says cheerfully. She reaches into her back pocket and brings forth her cell. "Let's see ... nope, haven't heard from him. Maybe he's still in the slammer."
"Doubt it. He was probably put in a holding cell, then night court. Lots of waiting in between."
"Too early to call," she says.
"I couldn't care less if he's asleep! He gets arrested on your second date! I'm checking the contract to see if there's any language covering this situation."
Thalia thumbs two buttons and puts the phone to her ear. Her expression changes, and she puts down her spoon. "My stepfather wants to talk to you," she begins.
Henry motions,
No, no, not yet. Didn't mean that.
Thalia says to Leif, "He's furious. He's thinking deal breaker." She listens, rolls her eyes, puts him on speakerphone. Henry hears, "I suggested community service, but when they saw I had no other warrants, I was released on my own recognizance."
"But now you have a rap sheet, right?" Thalia scolds. "For the rest of your life you're going to have to tell HR people that you were arrested for jumping a turnstile like a juvenile delinquent, except you were thirty-nine going on forty."
There is no response, until they hear a forlorn, "I had to walk home."
Thalia claps her phone shut and asks, "Was I awful?"
"I'm calling his lawyer this morning. I have her card somewhere. Michele somebody."
"She's on maternity leave."
"Someone has to be covering. I guarantee he made a call, and some lawyer got to night court in time to plead 'showing off for his girlfriend.'"
Thalia says, "Let me know what the lawyer says. I'm going to kick Alex out and get some sleep."
Henry asks, "What time did all of this go down, as they say?"
"A little after midnight."
"And then?"
She smiles. "Meaning, was I out gallivanting? Not really. I was invited out for a drink by some people who saw Leif led away in cuffs."
"Men people?"
"Tourists. Very nice. From Amsterdam. Two brothers. Spoke excellent English." She pats Henry's hand. "Now give Toddy a call and entertain him with the latest
scandale.
He'll be so happy."
"He'll be outraged. He's very devoted to you," Henry says.
Thalia reaches across the island to pinch Henry's cheek. "Translation: He's very devoted to
you.
"
"He brought me home to meet his mother. Now she wants to meet you."
"His mother! How adorable. Did she love you?"
Henry's face reddens. "She's only met me once. I'm thinking of getting everyone together for a brunch on Sunday."
"Is he her only child?"
"Correct."
"So I could be something like a surrogate granddaughter-in-law. I can do that." She twists her wrist in the air. "I'm very versatile, wouldn't you agree?"
Unbelievably versatile,
he thinks.
And popular: My daughter the crowd pleaser.
"Were the photographers still here when you got back?" he asks.
Thalia does
deep deliberation,
lips pursed and eyes narrowed. "Why, yes. I believe those two gentlemen I had sex with on the stoop were photographers. I made sure they got my name this time, and my best side." She fakes a yawn that grows into a stage-worthy stretch. "Ciao, darling. Must get my beauty rest now."
"In other words?"
"Stop your worrying," she says.