Todd sputters, "What's a girl supposed to be wearing with red chiffon? Spectator pumps? Did Fashion Plate Krouch say anything about the dress? Because it could not have been a better choice. And where did she get 'old guy'? Did you tell her that Leif Dumont is young enough to be her son?"

How lovely to have a thin-skinned champion in his corner. "I shall immediately," Henry says.

24. I Can't Stay Long.

DENISE, 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 b.u.t.ton."

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 a.s.sume I have you to thank for pa.s.sing 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 b.u.t.ton do I push?"

Thalia reaches around her and hits the b.u.t.ton 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 pa.s.sageway. 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 pa.s.sing 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, a.s.shole. 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 ma.s.sive 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 h.e.l.l 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-a-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 ma.s.s 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 doc.u.ment. 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 doc.u.ment 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."