"Sell?" Henry repeats.
Leif doesn"t wait for an answer. He"s moved on to Henry"s wall of shelves and is gyrating his favorite snow globe. "You have good taste," he says. "And I like the way you intersperse antiques between the books."
"Leif just moved into a new apartment," Thalia explains.
"Here in New York?"
"In Tribeca, a sublet: three thousand square feet with city views and a screening room."
Henry winks at Thalia and says, "Where are my manners? Can I get either of you a gla.s.s of wine? Coffee? Tea?"
"Single-malt Scotch?" Leif asks.
"I"ll check. On the rocks?"
"Neat," says Leif.
Thalia announces she"s going to find the powder room but instead follows Henry into the kitchen.
"Who is this man?" Henry whispers.
"I"m kicking him out after one drink. Can I tell you then?"
Henry, at the open refrigerator, asks, "White okay? Sancerre? Or I can run downstairs for a nice red."
"White"s good," says Thalia. She motions to the hall outside the kitchen. "Let me go flush a toilet so it doesn"t look like we were back here talking about him."
"First door on the right, under the stairs. Tell your friend I"ll be out with his Scotch in a minute."
"Hope he"s not stealing anything," she says.
Leif"s tour has taken him to the library, where Henry finds his guests seated side by side on his tufted leather sofa. "So how do you two know each other?" he asks.
"We had the same acting teacher," Thalia says. "About five years apart."
"Six," says Leif. He asks Henry how he came into possession of coasters that say A Raisin in the Sun, and are they suede?
"At auction. A fundraiser for Broadway Cares. Originally the sets were cast gifts on opening night."
"I love that play," Thalia says.
"Take them," says Henry. "Really. I"d love you to have them."
"Absolutely not. I"ll visit them here. Besides, I don"t have a coffee table to put them on." She takes her gla.s.s and Leif"s from the tray Henry has set down. "And don"t give me that look."
"Which look?"
"The one that says, "I"ll wrap them up and surprise you for your next birthday. And a coffee table to go under them.""
"Making up for lost time," Henry says.
"Are you looking to get rid of them?" asks Leif.
"No, he is not," Thalia answers. "He"s being generous and, if I may be so bold, paternal."
"I used to be married to Thalia"s mother," Henry explains. "For a short time, a very long time ago. Denise was a widow with a child when we married. Thalia"s biological father died in a climbing accident."
"He was dashing and brilliant, I understand," says Thalia. "I, of course, take after him in every possible way."
"How do you know that?" Leif asks.
Thalia puts down her gla.s.s, closes her eyes, and moves her hands in circles over the coffee table. "We talk. When he doesn"t show, I try the Ouija board."
Henry smiles. "She"s very entertaining, my ex-stepdaughter, don"t you think?"
"I don"t know yet," says Leif. "We just met today."
There is a prolonged silence as all three sip their drinks. Finally Henry asks, "Would I have seen any of your work, Leif?"
"Land of Louie, probably," says Leif. "Unfortunately, I was typecast by that role."
"It was a sitcom," Thalia says. "He wasn"t Louie. He played the creepy upstairs neighbor-"
"Boo Trumbley. For the entire run: five seasons. I a.s.sume you have cable?"
Henry nods.
"It"s in syndication on TVLand. Channel eighty-five here."
"I"ll be sure to catch an episode," says Henry. "Or many."
"You won"t like it," says Leif. "Not that I"m disowning it. Every door I"ve pa.s.sed through since then was opened by Boo Trumbley."
Leif is looking more and more to Henry like an undesirable upstairs neighbor. His forehead is high and bony, and he doesn"t appear to blink.
"Leif now produces and stars in horror films," explains Thalia.
Henry raises his gla.s.s. "What fun," he says.
"They"re not fun," says Leif. "They"re terrifying-which I say proudly."
"I love Hitchc.o.c.k," says Henry. "I once rented a car when I was in California and drove to Bodega Bay just to see where The Birds was filmed. The schoolhouse is still there. I turned one of my photos into my Christmas card."
Leif says, "Hitchc.o.c.k didn"t make horror films. He made thrillers."
"Of course," says Henry. "And I"m sure you"re sick of every person waxing lyrical about Hitchc.o.c.k as soon as you state your genre."
Leif"s professional annoyance has made him down his Scotch in a few gulps. Henry asks if he"d like a refill, an offer Thalia thwarts with, "Leif has meetings in the morning. You and I should probably get started on that legal stuff you were going to help me with""
Leif stands up to his full gangly height. Henry shakes the enormous hand and manages to say that it was very nice of him to drop by.
"Thalia will fill you in," Leif says.
Henry makes her a perfect cheese omelet, which he serves at his rose granite kitchen island. "I"ll back up," she says. "Last week I was approached by the former teacher of mine-"
"Teacher when you were how old?" he asks sharply.
"No, no. Not that. No restraining order needed. This was after college. An improv workshop, Sally Eames-Harlan-"
"From the acting Harlans?" he asks.
"Married into them, now hyphenated. You listening?"
"Sorry. Go on."
"She called me about another ex-student of hers, one of her more ill.u.s.trious alums." Thalia pauses. "Who turned out to be Leif. So far, not bad, right?"
"We"ll see," says Henry.
"Anyone who"s ever taken a cla.s.s with Sally has heard about Larry Dumont, who wasn"t-to put it mildly-just another pretty face in Hollywood. So we"re on the phone and she"s going on and on, and I was tuning her out because I was at work, and I thought it was just the Leif report. And then I hear, "This is where you come in." I said, "Me?" Sally says, "His people would like to meet with you." I immediately think, audition. "For what part?" I ask. Sally says, "Serious girlfriend." "But in what?" "Life," she says. "He needs a serious relationship that can go public. I thought of you immediately." Now I"m paying attention. I ask, "Don"t you mean, Would I like to go out on a date with Leif?" And she says no. This is a campaign designed by a publicist to repackage him as someone who"s attractive enough to be a regular character actor and not a monster-"
"She said that?"
"Not in so many words."
"Because," Henry says, "there"s only one reason a successful actor needs a publicist to manufacture a romance-"
"Nope, not gay. It was the first thing I asked Sally, who got a little huffy about how she"d never help a gay man find a beard, blah blah blah-followed by her first-person testimony to his straightness." Thalia takes her first bite of the omelet and p.r.o.nounces it delicious.
"Why doesn"t this Sally sign on? Wouldn"t that be a better story-acting teacher takes up with her irresistible star pupil?"
"Nope, wrong profile: She"s twice his age and married. They"re looking for someone he can propose to within a matter of weeks."
Henry says, "Are we actually having a conversation about your becoming engaged to a total stranger?"
"A fake engagement! An acting job! If he doesn"t announce that extra step, it"s just Boo Trumbley dating a n.o.body. The thinking is that an engagement gets you into "Milestones" at the back of People. Besides, you"ve met him. It would take an actor of great skill such as moi to carry this off."
Henry says, "Eat. It"s getting cold." Then: "It strikes me as very sad-that this is what acting has come to. And it also strikes me as very sad that a man has to buy his way into a woman"s affections."
"It strikes you as very sad as in "Don"t do it," or it strikes you as very sad as in "Yes, do help the poor fellow out"?"
Henry says as calmly as he can, "Whichever answer makes you say no."
Thalia taps the tines of her fork lightly on his hand. "You"re being a purist. Wouldn"t you get even a little thrill out of opening your newspaper and seeing a blind item that said, "What human gargoyle and his girlfriend were seen photo-op shopping at the diamond ring counter of a famous jewelry store on Fifth Avenue?""
Henry says, "They don"t have blind items in the New York Times."
Thalia slips off the stool, helps herself to a handsome transparent peppermill, returns. "I"m going to say yes because it could be very good for me. I"d get a salary, a housing allowance, and an entire year of health insurance. Sally claims there are hidden depths and appeal there, or some such. All I have to do is be seen at clubs with Leif and pretend to be in love. Which I consider a professional challenge."
"And if your public finds out that you"re taking money to be romanced, and it"s all a hoax? Doesn"t that make you a punch line? Not to mention a paid escort?"
"I need to do this," she says quietly. "It"s not the money. It"s the exposure. You don"t put "stand-in" on your resume. If it weren"t for one commercial and my union card, I"d be officially an actorwannabe." She opens a cupboard, finds a gla.s.s, fills it with water, and returns to her chair. "It seems to me a win-win situation: I get to play a leading lady. I get a platinum American Express card to beef up my wardrobe. No s.e.x. We"ll put that in writing. After six months, he dumps me. I keep the ring. I sell it and donate the proceeds rather conspicuously to Oprah"s school for poor girls in South Africa, no doubt earning myself a guest spot on her show."
Henry doesn"t mean to smile or be intrigued, but he is thinking of Celeste, who lived for gossip and blind items, who unapologetically devoured the supermarket tabloids he brought to the ICU. "Is any of this on paper yet?" he asks.
"Not yet. I say yes, and then his people talk to my people. Or as the case may be, my person."
She is smiling at him with such an impishly angelic grin that some primal Sunday school impulse makes him think, Celeste arranged all of this. Immediately he shakes that off; he is not given to beliefs about dead friends or deities watching over him. But he does settle on another notion, halfway between reason and magic: This is why I have been restored to fatherhood.
8. The Guest Room.
NO, THALIA DOES NOT think her mother needs to be consulted. Would she care if Denise learned from a newspaper that Thalia Krouch is being seen around town with horror luminary Leif Dumont? Have she and her mother ever seen eye to eye on the topic of men anyway? Why invite another fight?
"She didn"t approve of certain boyfriends?" Henry asks. "No, that was me doing the disapproving. But never mind. Long, ugly story that I"ll tell you someday when I can stomach it." Thalia may be a little drunk on several refills of Sancerre, but who could blame her? It is delicious, chilled to perfection in a green marble ice bucket at her elbow. She gestures expansively around the kitchen. "Did I live here when you were married to my mom?"
Henry says, "Not when we were married. But you visited here. Afterward."
"Denise visited after running out on you? Should I read something into that?"
"Such as?"
"That it wasn"t as clean a break as everyone thought?"
Henry says, "It was a very clean break. An amputation. Denise wasn"t the visitor. You were. For a while, anyway, every other weekend..."
"Like a custody arrangement?"
"Like a custody arrangement. Until Glenn adopted you."
"Did I have sleepovers?"
"Unsuccessfully. The first few times you cried for so long that your mother had to come get you. After that, your nanny came along."
"Which nanny?"
"The horrible British one. I have her name somewhere. I hope she"s out of business."
"I think Dad fired her when I entered kindergarten."
"Good! She was too strict, too British. I even remember her hands-big and red and chapped. I hated watching her give you a bath-she scrubbed your poor little scalp as if she were delousing you-and then dumped a pitcher of water over your head! When I said anything critical, she"d pluck you out of the water and walk away in a huff. Thank goodness you don"t remember."
"Did my mother have an opinion about any of this?"