The Widow's Guide to Sex and Dating (6 page)

Alberto Giacometti had, ironically, made an appearance in
Thinker’s Hope
. It was the name that Schopenhauer had picked for his goat.
My Gia-co-metti
. Charlie couldn’t stand sculptors; it was no accident he’d made him the goat. He thought sculptors coarse, as artists went. Pretentious, melodramatic, overrated. Though, truth be told, Charlie was bound to think this of anyone—writer, painter, poet, chef—who’d had the fortune of stumbling upon critical praise, himself excepted.

As fate had it, though, it was Charlie—not yet canonized—who got the bit part in the bigger story. He became a footnote to Giacometti. A line about Charles Byrne was added to Alberto Giacometti’s Wikipedia entry less than fifteen minutes after his death, under “Trivia.”

The first days postmortem are a grab bag of surprises. Stories swirl. They ravel and unravel all around us, mostly beyond our control, and often at a frightening pace.

6

Claire woke up the next afternoon out of sorts, feeling like she’d slept through something important. Ten years of her life felt like one long Freudian dream, for which she lacked interpretation.

RULE #2
: You can fake an orgasm, but you can’t fake a Giacometti.

There was a voice mail from Sasha.

“Honey?” Pause. “Did you see the
Post
?”

The Giacometti, it turned out, was a fake.

A fake! It had come from a father-and-son con team who’d been running a scam for fifteen years. The father handled sales. The son, a talented artist, made the copies. They picked a different artist every year, reproduced the least known pieces, sold them, and skipped town. They’d gotten greedy, though, with
Man Walking
. It was one of the art world’s most famous works. They were busted outside of Brussels.

“It was counterfeit. What does this mean?” Claire asked Lowenstein. Judith Lowenstein was Claire’s shrink. It was their first session since Charlie’s death. “If it’s a fake, then was the whole death a fake? Is Charlie a fake, was our marriage a fake, is sex a fake, is love? Is this the world’s least subtle metaphor?” Lowenstein scribbled down a number of things on her tablet, but by the end of the hour she still did not seem to have answers for Claire. Suddenly, the unexpected, surreal beauty of the particulars of Charlie’s demise—the movement and swirling and
Man Walking
fluttering down from the blue sky like a wounded bird—felt like cheap vaudeville shtick. Charlie’s grandeur, the extravagant service with tributes, Sasha’s cream-colored dress, and the presence of Ben Hawthorne all seemed poorly contrived.

There was obvious distress at the White home at this news. Walter was out a lot of money, Evelyn was out reparation, and the yogi—we might as well name her at this point: Sande—was dealing with way too much shit. The scandal was costing her business. Evelyn White’s pinochle group and extended friends were the yogi’s steadiest source of income and they turned on her fast. Sande’s classes were deserted. Paparazzi milled at the door of her building, her co-tenants scowled. What had begun as a harmless little venture for her—there’d been extravagant gifts, short luxury trips—had morphed into a New York City–style lynching. In Sande’s mind, Walt had fallen far short. No dinners since the dropped bronze, no money, no jewelry after that initial Cartier box. She was behind on her rent and still had to keep up appearances for the photos that were running in all the papers. “This, Walter … all of … this,” she said in one of many frustrated rants to his voice mail, “is fucking
bullshit
! I didn’t sign up for
this
!”

The scandal cast a shameful pall on what began as at least an interesting sort of death. For the next couple of weeks, Claire lay low. Wadded up in bed, she kept the television on mute and the stereo on soft. She watched the same handful of DVDs over and over:
Now, Voyager
;
The Philadelphia Story
;
North by Northwest
. She watched
The Odd Couple Complete Series
. Jack Klugman’s gravelly voice drifted in and out of her dreams. She relished Oscar Madison’s encapsulated New York, a little dirtier, a little grittier than her own, and his petty anguish: the problem of deadlines, small gambling debts, and a roommate who made him pick up his socks. Her languor was cut short.

Sasha should have been on the Vineyard, it was well into June, but there she stood in Claire’s doorway, unannounced, with a box of green garbage sacks and a thermos of Stoli for martinis.

“Don’t get up, sweetie.”

“Oh God,” Claire groaned.

“Relax,” Sasha said. “The sacks are for you, the vodka’s is for me.”

She took in Claire’s mismatched pajamas at two fifteen in the afternoon. “Honey, look at you. You’ll be crumpled up here for months if we don’t keep you moving. You can’t let this place turn into a museum.” Sasha walked past Claire into the kitchen; she was making a point about being in action. She pulled a jar of olives from her handbag, dropped one into the bottom of a glass, and grabbed a jar of vermouth from the cabinet above her.

“Fine, but a little notice is nice,” Claire said. “I mean … this?” Claire motioned to the bags.

“Forget it, honey, I’ll do it. You get back to your malaise,” Sasha said. She started pulling books off a shelf. “You don’t need any of this cooking crap, that’s for sure.”

Claire surveyed the room. Sasha was right. Since Charlie had died she’d been treating the apartment like a crime scene, as if everything he’d ever touched was now evidence. She’d steered clear of the kitchen, clear of his Mauviel cookware and his Wusthof knives, and of the large wine rack of bottles she knew nothing about. Avoiding Charlie’s things meant avoiding what he had done with them—and what she had done, all of their habits. She was avoiding the memory of his Sunday tennis game, of his homemade consommé, of the
chop chop chop
of his knife whittling onions and carrots into a studied mirepoix. She was avoiding any reference to his noises, his movements, his smells. Had you asked Claire, the week before Charlie died, she might have admitted she found some of their life dull—the problem is, though, she put a lot of stock in routine. Without it, she floundered.

Sasha, standing behind Claire suddenly, startled her. “Oh my God, don’t do that. Make noise!” Sasha smiled and held out a bag. “Start with clothes, sweetie. They’re easiest.”

“What do you know about it?”

“Margorie Dermott. She threw Alfred’s clothes out before the death certificate was even signed and she slept like a baby.”

Walking from room to room, images skipped through Claire’s head like a slide show. She and Charlie dancing at a wedding. Charlie making omelets. A close-up of both of them smiling, then Charlie kissing Claire’s cheek. A candid glimpse at Sasha’s for Christmas, everyone drinking pink champagne. In this one Charlie’s feet are perched solidly on the ottoman and his free hand is circling the air. Then, unexpectedly, Walter White popped into her head—the photo from the papers. He was balding.

Charlie’s toiletries cluttered the bathroom, a towel he’d used still hung wrinkled on a hook. Claire was no Margorie Dermott. She left the bathroom as it was, walked into their bedroom, and began filling a garbage bag with her husband’s shoes and shirts. When the bag was full, she carried it out to a chute at the other end of her floor. Her singular small sounds overwhelmed the quiet hall. Claire’s heavy apartment door creaked open, then closed, the latch clicked; her rubber soles narrated her march to the chute. When she heard the thump as each bag landed three floors down, she felt a surprising sense of relief.

Claire didn’t dispose of everything. She saved Charlie’s robe. She kept a carton of letters from strangers who liked his work and a box of notes he’d written to her the year she moved in. She kept his belts. She buckled them at the well-worn notches, conjuring up the exact circumference of Charlie’s waist. A physical memory shivered through her; was there anything as intimate as unbuckling a man’s belt? She left one coat to hang in the hall and one pair of tennis shoes beneath his side of the bed. There was unopened mail; mail had continued to arrive, and she left it stacked on his unused desk. Ethan could deal with that. She left Charlie’s office untouched.

“That’s better,” Sasha said, scanning the apartment with approval. “But we’re not done. We need food. I’m starved. And then, I hate to do this to you, honey, but photos. Let’s walk through.”

The high, narrow dresser in the bedroom housed a number of awkward decisions, which Sasha insisted they address. There was their wedding photo, for one, the picture Richard took just after they were pronounced Byrne and wife. Charlie looked uncomfortable; the city hall ceremony had been rushed. It had been late August, unbearably hot, and the air-conditioning was out.

“Yes? No?” Sasha asked.

It was not a good picture. It didn’t flatter Claire at all; the lighting was poor. Claire shook her head. Sasha put it in a drawer.

There was a double frame with a photo from a trip to Peru and an ill-lit pose in Paris. Sasha held them up one at a time.

Claire nodded yes to Peru, no to Paris. “I feel like I’m two different people,” Claire said.

Sasha put three more frames in the drawer.

“I’m this new person I didn’t ask to be, a widow with all the trappings, whether I want them or not. But then I’m this other thing, too—a hermit crab groping around, blind, for a new shell.”

“That’s lofty, honey. And melodramatic, don’t you think?” Sasha grabbed her purse and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. “You’re rich and gorgeous and you get to start over again, do whatever the hell you want. It’s not like divorce, where you’re fighting over sconces and he’s screwing cocktail waitresses to be an ass.”

“What are you doing?” Claire asked. “Since when do you smoke?”

Sasha shrugged. She was holding a burnished gold lighter and a long herringbone cigarette holder with the cigarette attached at the end. She struggled with the light.

“They’re menthols,” Sasha said by way of explanation, teeth clenched around the long stick. “I’m just saying. Embrace your life or you’ll miss it.”

“I didn’t expect this life.”

“Warren Beatty didn’t expect to be a wealthy tycoon in
Heaven Can Wait
. He wanted to play football.”

“And?”

“And … well, I guess he died, but you’re missing the point. Don’t you get it? Widows are the new virgins, Claire. Men are licking their chops for you right now. They’re all going to want to pop your widow cherry. You have power, and no guilt. Enjoy it! And believe me, you’ll want to keep that shell—or body, whatever—the one you’ve got.”

Claire’s phone rang. She didn’t recognize the number. They both studied it and then Sasha picked it up. “Hello, this is Claire.”

“Hello. Mrs. Byrne? This is Carter. Carter Hinckley, from Wanamaker and Sons. I hope I’m not bothering you.”

Oh my God
, Sasha whispered.
It’s the funeral guy.

“No, of course not, Carter. How are you?”

“This is just a courtesy call, Mrs. Byrne. I wanted to remind you we are still holding Mr. Byrne’s remains, divided as you requested. If you’re unable to collect them here, we can deliver them to you and to Grace Byrne, as it says in the instructions.”

Sasha covered the phone and whispered to Claire, again.
You haven’t picked up the ashes?

“Yes, actually, Carter, that would be great. Please deliver them. To myself and to Mrs. Byrne as well. I’d appreciate it very much.”

Sasha hung up the phone. “Honey, are you serious? Who would take care of these things if I didn’t come around? You can’t just abandon the
remains
. Jesus. Does Grace know they’re sitting there in the morgue for all the world to see?”

“The whole world isn’t seeing anything. And no, she doesn’t. I was going to pick them up.”

“And lug them downtown on the subway? No wonder you’ve been odd. That’s karmic suicide, honey. Anyway, they’re coming tomorrow.”

Sasha poured the last of the vodka into two shot glasses. “Here,” she said, handing one to Claire. “It’s infused with bacon. It tastes like breakfast.” Sasha poured herself a second as Claire struggled to choke down her first.

“Honey, don’t get bogged down in this. You have a chance to do whatever you want now. Don’t screw it up. You could have been in a sexless marriage for the next twenty years and wound up hating him. Charlie was a story in your life, but he’s not the story. You’ve got a lot more to do.”

RULE #3
: Life is long. Pace yourself.

Sasha put her sunglasses on and gave Claire one last look. “You don’t look so well, sweetie. You shouldn’t drink on an empty stomach.”

*   *   *

A
FTER
S
ASHA LEFT
, Claire went for a walk. She zigzagged a familiar route and kept her earphones in for distraction. There were piles of newspapers on every corner—the
Post
, the
Daily News
, the
Times
. The circumstances of Charlie’s death, even three weeks out, percolated through all of them. His death was still a mild sensation. Sande the yogi was very photogenic. Charlie’s morning-of-death conquest had chosen to speak out, too. “I Was with Him Before He Died” was the headline that, unfortunately, caught Claire’s eye. She stopped and picked up one of the papers. Below the headline, next to a photo of a twenty-ish blonde (well-endowed enough not to care about hips or waist), was the subhead “Paramour Reveals Details of Charles Byrne’s New Book.”

As far as Claire knew, Charlie hadn’t written a word of a new book. For the first time, it crossed her mind that there was an advance she might have to pay back. The execution of Charlie’s will had been delayed.

She returned the paper to the stack without buying it, dialed Richard and left a message at his office, then turned the corner and threw up her bacon-flavored vodka onto the curb.

7

“This is some fucking situation!” Claire and Ethan were in her apartment. Richard was on the phone; they had him on speaker. It was rare to hear him curse. “I have to read about my client’s book in the
Post
? Jesus, Ethan, you must have known what he was working on.”