The View From Penthouse B (18 page)

“We broke up,” she said.

Margot said, “It seems to me that only a nice guy, and maybe someone still carrying a torch, would be promoting his ex-girlfriend’s business.”

Serena said, “I didn’t break up with him. His referrals? They’re guilt.”

“Was it another woman?” Margot asked.

“You probably met her, at his side, selling her pot holders.”

Margot said, “Tell me he didn’t leave you for someone who makes pot holders.”

“They’re only pot holders in the ironic sense. She means them to be quote-unquote kitchen art.”

I asked, “Are you still honoring his discounts?”

“I can do five dollars off the psychic consultation. One dollar off everything else.”

“How about forty?” Margot countered. And to me, “I’ll go halvsies.”

Serena closed her eyes. I sensed it was forbearance mixed with math. “Forty-eight,” she said. “Final offer. And please don’t tell anyone I gave you that price.”

“We promise,” said Margot.

Serena instructed Margot to please wait in her kitchen, through that door. She and I would be in her reading center.

Margot asked if she could observe.

Serena and I said no. She pointed to the kitchen door. “Make yourself at home. There are magazines on top of the microwave.”

I followed Serena into what must have once been a closet, with a fringed overhead ceiling fixture and two chairs facing each other. As soon as we sat, she took my left hand in her right and stared down at it, frowning.

“I opted for the psychic consultation,” I reminded her.

“Just a quick look,” she said. “On the house. Every hand I study increases my—for lack of a better term—database. It’s an ongoing learning process.”

She returned my hand to my lap. With her eyes half shut, she said, “I sense a sadness beneath your smile.”

“Do you want me to confirm or deny each statement?” I asked.

She shook her head. “You think you put on a brave front,” she continued, “but actually you don’t. You like people to know that something bad happened. You like putting that forward. It’s your calling card.”

From the open kitchen door, Margot called out, “Bingo!”

“No running commentary,” I yelled back.

Serena left our little room to close the kitchen door, then returned. “Someone very close to you died,” she said. “A man.”

“Did she tell you that?”

“Of course not!”

I waited.

“A loved one. A lover.”

“My husband,” I said.

Serena seemed to go smaller and grayer and she slumped in her chair. “I need a minute,” she managed to say. “Please forgive me.”

When she recovered, she asked if that was my wedding ring and could she hold it. I said, yes, sure, here it is. And my engagement ring, too.

Squeezing both in a closed fist, she asked, “Cancer?”

“No, it was his heart.”

“Sudden! Before his time. No one knew.”

I said I certainly hoped it
was
sudden because I’d slept through it. A hole in his heart that no one knew about.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “The shock is still with you. It was only last year, wasn’t it?”

Oh dear. Instead of correcting that impression, I asked, “How am I doing?”

“Your friends aren’t letting you grieve. They’re impatient.” She closed her eyes and opened them quickly. “I see a circle of women. Many women. Is it a book group?”

“A support group, so-called. I’ve stopped going. It wasn’t any help. I hated our leader. She didn’t like us looking back. Only forward. Do you think that’s how a widows’ support group should be led?”

Serena said, “No, I do not. And why don’t I see any men in that circle?”

I said, “It was supposed to be coed, but no widowers signed up.”

Squinting into the air a few inches above my head, she asked after a long pause, “Who’s the man with the dark hair and dark eyes? Not too tall. Young.”

“Anthony? Our roommate?”

“He’s smiling,” she said. “He brings sunshine into your home. He’s very fond of you.”

I knew she was thinking “fond” in a meaningful, optimistic way, so I said, “He is fond of me, but he’s not even thirty. And he’s gay.”

“I knew that,” she said.

I didn’t want to appear inappropriately and prematurely boy crazy, but I finally whispered, “Do you see any other men?”

With a slow, meaningful nod, she said, “This is important. I wanted to build up to this. There’s a man standing behind you. He’s been there the whole time. He’s saying, ‘You think I’m very far away, but I’m not.’”

I asked what he looked like and what he was wearing because Edwin wore button-down shirts and ties bearing musical instruments to work, and that tended to be the snapshot I called up.

Serena said, “He’s a little chubby. But not in an unattractive way.”

I didn’t correct her; didn’t announce that Edwin had never been chubby except in his baby pictures, that he had thinned down without trying in ninth grade.

“I know what you’re thinking, that I got that wrong. But it’s not your husband. I’m not sure if you’ve even met him yet.”

“Did he answer my personal ad?” I asked.

“It’s possible. His name begins with . . . a D. Daniel or David. Maybe Donald. Or Dennis.”

I said, “Anthony’s boyfriend is Douglas. That’s not causing any interference, is it?”

“No,” she said. “You’ll find out soon enough. Derrick? Diego? I definitely see a D.”

“What else?”

She returned to my hand. “See the shape? It’s oval. You’re empathic. But”—and now she was tracing some horizontal line—“cautious. You tend to overanalyze people rather than trusting your instincts.” She added, “This? Your head line? It shows me that you’re a late bloomer.” Serena looked up. “Which fits, don’t you think?”

Something in my expression must have launched a whole new psychic subspecialty. “May I say something personal?” she asked.

“Of course.”

“Your sister—that was your sister, correct?—may have been the prom queen or voted Most Popular or had the lead in
Grease.
I can tell. She has that confidence and gives off that energy. You give off a reverse energy. It says: I’m the lesser sister.”

I told her I was the studious one. The middle sister. The shy one. But I’d been secretary-treasurer of the photography club and a soloist in my high school chorus, and I’d gone to the senior prom with a handsome tenor.

“Did your mother or your father or your sisters ever tell you that you were pretty, too? Because, believe me, that family stuff can do a job on you. We’re all given labels in the family—the pretty one, the smart one, the wild one—and it sticks!”

“I had a happy childhood. There were three of us, and my parents didn’t play favorites.”

“I’ll tell you why I’m saying this,” Serena continued. “Because I don’t think you’re aware, fully aware, that you’re a very pretty woman. Maybe you weren’t a pretty child so that’s how you still see yourself. If this seems outside my job description, I say ‘Screw that
.
’ I want people to leave my center feeling better about themselves. Sometimes it’s coming from another dimension. But sometimes it’s factual and in this world. Like the face in front of me.”

I tried to arrange my features into a tranquil, pleasant expression infused with a little sexual oomph that lived up to her characterization. She leaned closer and said, “So I’m giving you homework. I want you to carry yourself like the desirable and attractive woman that you are.”

I said, “Okay. I’ll try. Is our time up?”

“It is. But I hope you’ll come back. We still have work to do.”

“I know. I hear that every day.”

“Your sister loves you,” she said. “It’s so clear. I can feel it from here.” She gestured around the closet, then patted a breast. “And from here.”

I thanked her and offered my hand. She reminded me: the fee? Did I have cash? I said I did. I added a tip. Margot’s footsteps sounded outside our little compartment as if she’d been summoned, as if she’d heard every word.

“All good?” she called to us.

I wasn’t sure if I should sum up my hidden and future life so succinctly, but Serena did. Tucking my bills into the top of her sari, she answered, “
Very
all good.”

I knew her by now, my new shrink and life coach. Her reply hadn’t been a reflex or a nicety. It was an order.

23

The Way of the World

D
UE TO THE BUST
that was my print ad, and because every wedding anyone attended in this century celebrated the union of people who met in cyberspace, I was finally persuaded to sign up for a three-hour seminar titled Fine, I’ll Go Online.

Might I have paid better attention to the course description? It advised those of us who were “online-dating virgins” to hold off until our workshop, and those who were already “initiated” to bring copies of their profiles. Laptops mandatory. Digital photos encouraged, ready for uploading.

I was pleasantly surprised to find that the course had been limited to twelve and that our leader, Franny Bagby, had been married for the first time at the age of forty-seven to a divorced man she’d met on Match.com. Also helpful: her southern accent, which promoted fraternization, and her memorizing our names within the first ten minutes. “I know y’all are slightly embarrassed to be here, right? I would’ve been, too, before this”—and up on her PowerPoint screen appeared the smiling face of her first example, presumably a
no,
a pot-bellied man whose bolo tie and handlebar moustache could not have been the lures he had hoped them to be.

“See?” she said. “Not much, am I right?” And then the arrow danced over to what she called the candidate’s “turnoffs.” There were more than I had noticed at first glance. The pine paneling behind him indicating an ugly rec room. The digital camera at his navel indicating this was a self-photo in a mirror. “Like he didn’t have a single friend he could call on to take a decent pitcha,” Franny said.

And still more red flags appeared in the parade of his photos: his arm around two young women in matching dresses. “Why?” Franny pleaded with this image. “Is this to signal that you got yourself a date? Captions, please!” Next photo: him nuzzling a large Persian cat. Next: him toasting the camera with a giant Teutonic beer stein. Next: him, sweaty, at a finish line, arms raised in a most unappetizing fashion. The last of his five photos: him wearing an Elvis T-shirt and fanny pack in front of what was surely Graceland.

Just as we’re feeling squeamish about exploiting this embarrassing profile, Franny squealed, “Ahm not as mean as y’all think! This is the doll-baby ah married!”

What could one say? A smattering of applause helped fill the void.

Smiling fondly, she continued. “This is to demonstrate two thangs: Y’all have to dig deeper. And y’all have to go beyond the goofy words, the bad pictures, and the bad taste. The motorcycle? Borrowed! The two slutty-lookin’ bridesmaids? His daughters! Yup, y’all know what ahm sayin’! Y’all are nodding. Y’all get it. It’s a process. Y’all have to kiss some frogs!”

I looked around. We were ten women and two men, one of whom was hunched over his keyboard, head down, typing nonstop. And just when I was feeling relieved that we didn’t have to tell our life stories or confess what relationship failures had brought us to this moment, Franny passed out paper and pencils, and asked for our ten favorite foods.

“Not sayin’ why, yet,” she said. “Y’all are just going to have to trust me.”

There was a lot of staring off into space and pursing of lips, but not by me. I wrote quickly. “Chicken, olives, artichokes, capers, chocolate, raspberries, cauliflower, coffee, clam chowder, salmon.” Then, as a fallback, I added hazelnut gelato in case beverages didn’t count. With time to spare and in Anthony’s honor, I added, “Red velvet cupcakes.”

I assumed the assignment had to do with likes and dislikes—that which would be attractive to the similarly inclined. But that wasn’t our objective. Franny wanted us to appeal to the senses. Food as usernames sent a subliminal message of comfort and deliciousness. And not to brag, but her username had been—the next slide went up—DeepDishApplePie—with her own photo, hair color, and style different than today’s. “Notice,” she said, arrow circling her face, “A close-up. No group shots. Not me a mile away, posing in front of the Taj Mahal or Fort Sumter. Ahm smiling. Ah look open and welcome if ah say so myself. Now can we discuss why DeepDishApplePie worked?”

When no one volunteered, she asked, “Are y’all thinkin’
No way!
‘Apple pie’ says ‘date your mama’? Because that’s not always the worst association for some guys . . . the lonely ones . . . boys who loved their mamas and on some level want to crawl back into their laps. And ‘dish’? Don’t make me say why that got some friendly inquiries.”

Another classmate asked if Franny’s husband chose her because of her food name. And, by the way, what was his?

“Ahm glad y’all asked because his was
awful.
Gentlemen take note! It was LuvMeTender69—and y’all know where he got
that.
Ah do not recommend y’all use your username to suggest you’re lookin’ for sex. A Franny Bagby no-no.”

This was the juncture at which I started to worry that our entire curriculum was based on the star-crossed profiles of LuvMeTender and DeepDish.

“Food favorites?” she persisted. “William?” This classmate was wearing a crisp Izod shirt in tangerine, collar upturned, hair jelled, jeans pressed. I guessed midthirties. Without prompting, he recited, “Nutella, spanakopita, Cobb salad, mangoes, smoothies, arctic char, bacon, champagne, osso bucco, goat cheese.”

“Easy!” crowed Franny. Then to us: “What if y’all went online and saw this handsome fella and his username was ChampagneAndMangoes!” Would you ladies not e-mail him on that alone? And you know why? Because the champagne says
I can afford it,
and the mangoes say
Ripe, juicy, and sweet.
”

William said, “Um, sorry, ladies, but not looking on your side of the aisle.”

That seemed momentarily to confuse Franny. She recovered quickly and said, “Then we’re still talkin’ about appealing to men! We are on the same page! Ah
love
your side of the aisle! And ahm stickin’ with ChampagneAndMangoes!”