W
HAT FINAL LEAP
through what hoop must Thalia take to establish herself as attention-grabbing arm candy? Neither she nor her counsel is invited to the meeting at Estime where publicist Wendy Morelli and the West Coast brass on speakerphone contrive this: that Thalia will finally make some noise. She will publicly and loudly accuse a pretty girl—carefully screened, rehearsed, and paid—of blatantly flirting with Leif at the Box (strings pulled to secure admission). A fight will ensue. Slaps instigated by a jealous Thalia will be exchanged and Cosmopolitans pitched. Leif will break it up manfully, and Thalia will storm out. He will stay and try his thespian best to flirt with the interloper but after one round of drinks will tip the bartender a C-note and next be seen in the back seat of a limo kissing Thalia. Columnists will write about the catfight because Estime will promise serious gossip about celebrity clients whom the news outlets are actually interested in. Next day, the bribable paparazzi will cover a shopping trip to Tiffany & Co.
Wendy Morelli herself delivers the top-secret plan via e-mail. Thalia forwards the e-mail to Henry; a minute later, before he's responded to or even read it, she is knocking urgently on his bedroom door.
"You won't believe it! Are you decent?" she yells. "I e-mailed you. I printed it out. Are you alone?"
"Todd is here," Henry says. "What's wrong?"
"Are you
both
decent, then?"
"For God's sake, come in," Todd yells.
She half opens the door and peeks around. They are in bed, a sheet pulled up to their armpits. "Oh, big deal," she says.
Barefoot, she is wearing a Hunter College sweatshirt over pajama bottoms. "It's over," she says. "I'm free. Those assholes!" She brandishes the printout, belly-flops onto a free end of the bed, and reads the plan aloud, voice dripping with disdain.
"Astonishing," says Henry.
"No, it's not," says Todd. "It's the culture as we know it."
"First of all, an e-mail! Wouldn't you think I'd be the first person in on a meeting where it's decided I'm going to start a brawl?"
"With counsel," adds Henry.
"Like I'd do this? Like you can control a situation like this? Is anyone going to guarantee that I won't get jumped or pinned—"
"Or Tasered," says Todd.
Henry says, "I don't want to say I told you so, but this arrangement was never meant to be enjoyed or even endorsed. You signed on for an acting job. And now they're staging the finale."
"I thought you'd be wild," says Thalia. "I thought you'd want to get a restraining order!"
Henry laughs. "On what grounds?"
Thalia sputters, "For—I don't know—battery! Ludicrousness!"
"Has Leif weighed in on this?" Todd asks.
"I haven't heard from him, but you know Leif: He does what he's told."
Todd points out that Leif's role is hardly unattractive: two girls fighting over him. In his wildest dreams!
"Neither of you are as offended as I expected," says Thalia.
"We don't have to be offended if you're walking away," says Henry.
Thalia is staring at the e-mail. A different message seems to be appearing between the lines. She looks up. "I get it now," she says.
"What's to get?" says Todd. "It's all there, step by idiotic step."
"It's a fake plan! There's no cc to the lawyer or to Henry or to Leif. This is a trick. They came up with the most ridiculous idea anyone could think of so I'd walk."
Todd says, "I'm not so sure it's a fake. I think this is business as usual for a nobody trying to be a somebody."
"What's that look on your face?" Henry asks Thalia.
She sits up, points to her own cheekbone. "This look? As in,
Your mission, should you choose to accept it
...?"
"Uh-oh," says Todd.
Thalia writes back to Estime and cc's Henry, "Sounds fine. What would you like me to wear? And do you need to measure my finger for the engagement ring?" An e-mail silence follows. "They're stumped," Thalia tells Henry. "I wasn't supposed to cooperate."
"Coffee?" he asks. "Come up. I bought Sumatra yesterday."
They take their mugs to the library and sink in unison into the leather couch, feet on the coffee table. "Have you talked to Leif since the plan was hatched?" Henry asks.
She picks up her cell, waves it as if it's a product to be pitched on the Home Shopping Network. "Listen carefully and observe. I am going to call him now and tell him I am looking forward to our performance at the Box."
"Smoke him out, you mean?"
"Correct."
"Are you going to ask him if it's a trick to get you to jump ship?"
Smiling, she presses one number, waits, then nods to Henry. "Leif! It's Thalia. Just wondering if you heard about the plan?"
She listens, then says, "In an e-mail from your publicist. So here's my main concern: Think we'll get into the Box?"
Her smile is fading. She says, "Okay ... yup. I should have figured that."
Henry whispers, "Ask him how he feels about it."
Thalia asks rather soberly, "How do you feel about doing this?" The rest of her responses are all brief and terse: No. I see. Today? What time?
She claps her phone shut and says, "He wants to talk to me in person. Alone."
Later she will act out, complete with baritone impersonations of Leif, what she characterizes as their watershed heart-to-heart. Side by side on her living room futon, he confided that it could have been worse; that ideas were batted around which he absolutely could never have agreed to and would have meant the end of Caitlin.
"Such as?"
"I'd rather not say."
"You wouldn't mention Caitlin if they didn't involve sex." He had looked away, nodded at the radiator on the far wall. "Intercourse?"
He'd said, eyes still averted, "On videotape."
When Thalia laughed, Leif had asked what was funny about that.
"It can't be on the level. It's in my contract, no sex, let alone sex on tape."
He'd turned his doleful gaze back toward Thalia. "They weren't planning to show you in the video. Just me."
"Meaning they'd hire a body double for me?"
"No. Not necessary."
"What's left then?"
"Close-ups. Wendy thinks they'd be good for my image."
"Meaning they'd only be showing Leif Dumont having sex? How is that good for your image? All that says is 'I videotaped myself having sex like you other perverts out there.'"
"Wendy thinks it would get people talking."
"Then she's an idiot! How much are you paying her to come up with ridiculous ideas like
make a sex tape?
"
"I'm very tall," he'd finally allowed.
"We know that."
"And sometimes, when a guy is tall..."
"Are we talking about the length of your penis?"
Leif had nodded gravely.
"And Wendy Morelli knows this how?"
"She asked me! Point-blank. She must have figured this could be a possibility in someone who is six feet four."
"And you, I'm sure, said it was none of her damn business."
"No," Leif had told her. "I figured it
was
business. She works for me. I wasn't bragging. I told her I had a nickname when I was in high school, back when guys showered together after gym."
"I'd love to know," Thalia had prompted.
He had clamped his lips together and shaken his head sorrowfully.
"Nightstick? Pogo Stick? Long Dong Silver?"
"Just Hose," he'd whispered.
When debriefed, Henry and Todd exclaim, "And that's it? You didn't ask for specifics?"
"How does a guy answer a question like that? Are you supposed to know your own stats, in feet and inches?"
"A follow-up question was absolutely imperative!" says Todd. "And since when are you a shrinking violet?"
"And weren't you raised by a mother who specializes in inappropriate conversation?" Henry asks.
"I did go as far as asking if Estime International got to see the goods as part of their intake procedure."
"Why would she ask to see the goods if he's vetoing her idea?" asks Henry.
"Maybe just curious. Maybe she was taking advantage because he's got that autistic thing going and it would be like asking the slow boy in the schoolyard to pull his pants down."
"For science. Like a nurse," says Todd. "Like a urologist."
"Like I did," says Thalia breezily.
They are clustered on the sidewalk outside their respective doors, but now Todd says, "Shall we take this inside?"
"No. I have an appointment—nails—so I'll be quick."
"Tell me you didn't ask him to pull his pants down," says Henry.
"Guys, please. I've seen plenty of penises. I was looking only for quick and clinical. I wasn't going to touch it. I asked like I was being shown a dessert cart." She points to Todd's zipper. "
Comme ça,
very coolly: 'So? Can I see it?'"
"Thalia!" says Henry.
"Did he oblige?" Todd asks.
"Of course not. I told him I was only kidding."
"Good," says Henry.
"What a prude," says Todd.
"Can we get back to the subject at hand?" says Henry.
"Todd and I have lost track of what that was," says Thalia.
"Is Leif endorsing the big bar scuffle?"
She is backing away, pointing to her watch. "Gotta run. I'm thinking it over. I'm thinking: performance art. I'm an actress. If a director asks me to slap someone and throw a drink in her face, I'd do it, wouldn't I? In fact, I'd consider it a juicy role."
"That's different," says Henry. "If that gets your picture into a newspaper, it's a still from the movie. And then there's the whole other follow-up plan, if you cooperate: The world will think you're engaged."
"You'll get presents," says Todd. "First you'll have to write fake thank-you notes, and eventually you'll have to shlep everything over to Mail Boxes Etc. to send them back."
"I'm hating this more by the minute," pleads Henry. "I say we stop it now. If we have to buy our way out of the contract, so be it."
Thalia says, "I still think it's a trick. And I'm also thinking 'Fair is foul and foul is fair...'"
"
Macbeth
" says Henry.
"I know," says Todd.
"Stay tuned," says Thalia.
H
ENRY IS ON
an escalator with Thalia, descending into Whole Foods, when his caller ID alerts him to a male Krouch on the line.
"I'd better take this," he tells her.
"Meet me in Salsa," she says. "Or Chips. Or page me. Is everything okay?"
"Could be good news," he says.
In the lobby, he is not happy to discover it is the less sympathetic Glenn Junior calling. Sorry, no, says Glenn; no second thoughts about wills and trusts. "No one can reach Denise," he grumbles. "The listing broker needs to get into the apartment, but all she gets is an outrageous outgoing message."
"Outrageous in what way?" Henry asks.
"It's a speech! No matter what time of the day or night you call, you get her diatribe. Have you heard it?"
"I have not. And you're calling because you think I have some sway over her outgoing messages?"
"Could you try?"
"No" says Henry.
"Call her landline," says Glenn. "
Then
talk to me."
From halfway down the escalator he spots Thalia, discussing avocados with a grizzled produce man. He thinks,
I don't do her justice, worrying about her open and possibly promiscuous arms. She talks to everyone. That's all it is: good old-fashioned charm. She should run for something.
When he reaches her side she says, "This is Omar. He used to work in the Chelsea store, but his commute is shorter to this one. And his fiancée is a cashier, at number nineteen today. Omar, Henry."
"How do you do," says Henry.
He listens in his kitchen with a pencil poised over a scratch pad. "You've reached the home of Denise Krouch," he hears. "Thank you for calling. I'm probably at work now, or, if it's a weekend morning, at the cemetery. If this is in relation to the alleged sale of my apartment, please know that I am in no way a party to that. Any such viewings or open houses are being scheduled without my consent. I repeat: I am opposed to the sale of this apartment by Glenn Krouch Junior and Thomas Krouch, especially while legal matters are still pending. Proceed at your own risk, knowing that possession is ninety-nine percent of the law. No visitors outside the immediate family will be let up..." A pause follows; Henry senses that Denise is wondering,
What immediate family?
Her tone softens to merely businesslike. "If you're calling about anything else, I'll get back to you as soon as possible. Ciao. Thanks. And thank you for respecting my privacy."
What's all the fuss about?
Henry wonders. He rather enjoyed the oration. Would Thalia find this decidedly Denisean rant at all entertaining? Probably not. He phones George at the firm and asks, "Would you mind? It's only a minute long. If you think she's going to get into more trouble for this, give me a call." He tells Todd's voice mail: "You won't believe your ears."
He decides to make her office his destination and will tell her he was motivated by those marinated artichokes he once purchased on Lex. He walks by the office, once, twice, then pretends to study the photos of properties in the window. Neither Denise nor Albert Einstein is visible inside. He hesitates to inquire, knowing from decades of office etiquette that part-time receptionists should not be receiving visitors. Finally a woman with an intelligent face behind her fashionably narrow glasses opens the door to ask, "Do you have any questions?"
Henry says, "Actually, I'm not in the market. I was looking for Denise Krouch."
The woman's face registers what Henry reads as perplexity over the identity of a part-time nobody. He adds, "She brings her dog, a greyhound, to work? I think she's here mornings."
"Please come in," says the woman. "You are...?"
"Henry Archer. A friend. I haven't been able to reach her and I was getting worried."
She invites him to sit in one of the chairs opposite the reception desk. "Denise," she begins carefully, "did not come to work yesterday. Nor did she call in."
Henry nods, waits.
"We called her cell and then the apartment to no avail. Ordinarily we'd have left it at that, but her message sounded a little odd. Enough so that her boss went over."
Henry now understands where this is going and how bad it is: The boss found Denise, who never woke up—
"No! Sorry! I didn't realize how this was sounding. She was there, alive. The dog, too. In fact she yelled, 'Come in, the door's open.'" The woman pauses, then states as if the news couldn't be more disturbing, "Even from the hallway, Sheila knew it was paint."
"Pain?" he asks.
"Paint. She was painting the apartment."
"And that explains why she's not here today?"
"She was painting the walls black. Angrily, like a woman possessed. A flat finish."
"You fired her because of that?"
"She didn't show up for work, she didn't call, and she seemed, frankly, out of touch with reality."
Here I go again, Henry thinks, the default advocate and mediator. "I'm sure you know that she lost her husband a few short months ago and that her stepsons are putting the apartment on the market—"
"With Corcoran," the woman snaps.
"Walls can be repainted," he says. "Besides, how far could she have gotten with one brush and no ladder?"
"There's more: She told Sheila that she'd lost track of time and thought it was Sunday morning."
"Instead of Monday? And you think that constitutes cause? Because I don't see, as a lawyer, how painting her apartment matte black is an employer's concern."
The woman says, "Mr. Arthur, is it? Denise is not a licensed broker—not even close—but she does represent this office. More and more we'd be sending her out to turn on lights or arrange flowers or close a blind so that a property shows well. In other words, to exercise some aesthetic judgment. But let me say for the record, Denise was fired for nonperformance of duties. She failed to show up for work. You're right: Whatever color she chooses to deface the walls of her apartment with is none of our business." She stands, so he does, too. "I'm sorry. We liked having her around. Perhaps we can revisit this at some time in the future."
Henry says, "And that's your policy? One strike and you're out? You
should
be sorry." He spots a place mat with a doggy motif, a brown cartoon bone on white plastic, halfway under the front desk. Without asking, he seizes it.
The doorman says, "She doesn't want any visitors."
"I'm her lawyer," Henry tries. "Can't help you."
"Can you tell her Henry's downstairs?"
When the doorman appears to be considering his request, Henry muses, "If anything happened to her, if she's fallen or if she's ill and unable to call for help, I wouldn't want to be representing the management of this building."
"She said no exceptions. And she's not dead, so I'm not buyin' that. She walked her dog this morning."
Henry slips two fingers into his shirt pocket and produces a strategically folded twenty-dollar bill. "I'm quite sure she'll answer the intercom," he says. "Also, I neglected to say that I'm Thalia's stepfather. Were you working here when she was living at home?"
"Name again?" the doorman asks, punching numbers from memory. Then: "Henry Archer here to see you, Mrs. Krouch." He listens, then says without eye contact, "Elevator to your right."
With the door between them, she asks if he's alone.
"Open up, Denise. Of course I am. Who else would I be with?"
"Glenn!"
"Glenn? Your late husband?" he asks delicately.
"No, not my husband! I haven't lost my marbles. Glenn his son! He's been calling here."
"And why would I have teamed up with Glenn Junior?"
"Don't bullshit me, Henry. I know you went to Long Island City."
"To
help
you. Not to team up with the sons. Just the opposite. Please open the door."
She does. She is wearing a flannel nightgown, an apparent veteran of too many permanent-press cycles. Her hair is flyaway and she wears no makeup, no lipstick, no foundation garments. Albert Einstein cowers at her feet, smears of black paint along his flanks.
"Are you all right?" he asks.
"They listed my home," she says. "I had to do something."
"May I come in?"
She takes a step back. The floor is covered with newspapers. "You won't like it," she warns.
He crosses the threshold and views the foyer. It isn't black, but darkest purple, a hideous sight. In better light Albert Einstein has purple streaks as well. "What made you think of this?" he asks as neutrally as if pointing to a paint chip under consideration.
"What else could I do? I wasn't going to take a pickax to the walls."
Henry walks up to a wall for closer inspection. He says, "You know, you did quite a good job."
"I know it! I was going to make a horrible mess of it on purpose and ruin the floors, too, but once I got going I had pride of workmanship. I've never painted a room before. You use a roller for the walls and they have this blue tape that keeps you from getting paint where you don't want it. Would you believe Home Depot opens at seven
A.M.
in this city?"
He peeks into the kitchen, still its original off-white. "Are you leaving some rooms as they are, or just haven't gotten to them yet?"
"I'm only doing what I need for maximum impact. I'm figuring a purple foyer and then a midnight blue hallway with black trim—what's worse than black and blue? I can barely stand it myself—and then I did the one viewable wall in the living room."
He peers down the hall. That one wall is a yellowish green that contributes to the hematoma theme. "You're right," he says. "It's disconcerting, to say the least. But let me play devil's advocate: Wouldn't a broker simply say to a potential buyer, 'Before we go inside, I have to warn you. The owner was acting out. Look past the paint, the colors, the bad taste. Just take in the bones of the apartment.' And doesn't a broker have the right to send a crew in here and make everything white or buff or greige or whatever's the new neutral?"
Denise says, "Only if my extremely loyal doormen let them in. They're on my side. And Christmas is only six months away. Want a drink?"
"Can we sit? Maybe in the kitchen."
Denise leads the way, hem raised daintily, newspaper sticking to her bare feet every few steps. "Do you think it's okay to use turpentine on Albert Einstein?" she asks. "I don't want the greyhound adoption people on my case."
"Did you use oil-based paint?"
"I don't know. I asked for whatever stuff would smell the least."
Henry goes to the sink, wets a sponge with warm water and a squirt of soap, and calls the dog, who shoots an anxious look at his mistress. "Try Kill Bill," says Denise. "Or Billy. I've been slipping back to that because he doesn't answer to Albert unless the topic is food."
Henry grips Albert by the collar and slides him across the linoleum to the sink. The yellow sponge takes on an inky tinge. "Latex," says Henry.
"I love you," says Denise.
"So tell me why you're here," Sheri Abrams, PhD, asks, clipboard on her lap, gaze neutral.
"He thinks I'm losing my mind," says Denise. "And he could be right."
"Why do you think Denise is losing her mind?" Sheri asks Henry.
"I never said that. What I said was, 'I think you're depressed.' When someone doesn't show up for work and paints her apartment black, blue, purple, and chartreuse—in her nightgown—it could be a cry for help."
The doctor asks Denise how she feels about Henry's characterization.
"It's wrong! It wasn't a cry for help. It was a battle plan. It was one thing I could do to make the apartment a total turnoff. I wasn't going to blow it up like the crazy guy on East Sixty-second—remember him? Between Madison and Park?—to punish his ex because their divorce was forcing him to put his townhouse on the market."
"Go on," says Sheri.
"Henry only found out by accident because he went to my office and they told him I was fired."
"And not in great shape," Henry says quietly.
"Wait. Back up. Were you fired without cause?" Sheri asks.
"Totally! I was late and because I didn't answer my phone—"
"Tell her what your outgoing message said," Henry prompts.
"I don't remember word for word, but it was along the lines of 'This apartment is not for sale so if you're calling about that, take a hike.'"
"Potential buyers would be calling you? Isn't it in the hands of a broker?" asks Sheri.
"Two brokers!"
"Not an exclusive?" asks Sheri.
Henry slides lower in his chair.
Denise turns to him. "What? Why are you grimacing?"
Henry says, "The issue isn't whether the apartment has a broker, or the broker has an exclusive." He sends Sheri a look. "But it's not my job to keep us on track, is it?"
"First," says Denise, "we need to explain that when my third husband, Glenn, died, his children got everything. And guess how two boys divide a multimillion-dollar apartment straight down the middle? They sell it."
"I'm very sorry for your loss," says Sheri.
"So am I," says Denise. "And still in shock."
"How many months has it been?" asks the doctor.
"February. What's that? Four months. It feels like four
days.
Are you married?"
Henry says, "We don't ask our shrinks personal questions. You know that."
Sheri says, "I'd like to ask about your support system."
Denise says, "That's easy: my dog, who goes with me everywhere. He's new since Glenn died. I'd have brought him today, except..." And she gestures with what Henry knows is contemptuous acknowledgment of the ancient and unhandsome poodle at the doctor's feet. "He's so smart, and his EQ is so high that I named him Albert Einstein."
Sheri smiles, but not with the irony he thinks Denise's digression deserves. "I named my dog for the same reasons," Sheri tells Denise, reaching down to stroke the poodle's ears. "She's Simone, after Simone de Beauvoir."
Henry checks his watch. Only ten minutes have passed.
Sheri continues. "What about humans? Who among them do you turn to for support?"