The Family Man Read Online Free PDF Page A

showmanship in the young Denise? He doesn't think so. Certainly there were good looks, a flattering gaze, and small talk that bordered on the charming. He asks, "Were you this entertaining in the past?"
    Denise grins. "I must have been. Because you know who inherited my sense of humor?"
    He does know but doesn't answer.
    "Thalia. She's funny in the way I'm funny: not joke telling, but just—what would you call it?—putting a story across."
    This would be the time to ask if Thalia is putting that ability to good use, but he is saved by the sudden appearance of particularly big and beautiful artichoke hearts attached to their stems marinating in a café window. Denise gasps. "I must have one of those," she says. "That'll be my dinner, with a cold glass of something crisp and white."
    "That's not enough for dinner," says Henry.
    "Then my lunch," says Denise, "which I'll eat the minute I get home."
    He follows her inside and overrides her when she tells the man behind the takeout counter, "One of those artichokes in the window."
    "We'll take six," says Henry. "Four for her and two for me." His billfold is already in his hand. Denise is protesting but not strenuously.
    "He feels sorry for me," she tells the man behind the counter. "My husband died and took all the money with him."
    The man smiles uncertainly. After all, who would say such a thing if it weren't a joke?
    "I'm the ex," Henry volunteers, then wonders what's gotten into him.

4. Bygones
    B ECAUSE HE'S BEEN seeing Sheri Abrams, PhD, for decades, the reference to Denise Krouch requires no biographical footnote. Henry's divorce was the very catapult that landed him in this black Eames chair twenty-four years before, opposite the then newly minted clinical psychologist, chosen purely on the basis of Upper West Side geography. Her leafy office is untended and book lined, radiator clanging, tribal kilims on two walls, a four-minute walk from West 75th Street. He brings lattes for himself and Sheri—first-name basis from the beginning—and a gourmet peanut butter biscuit for her standard poodle, the third identical dusty black dog in his tenure. Their sessions have evolved into conversational sparring between opinionated friends. Sheri—and this is why he'd never consider psychoanalysis—talks back, advises, and editorializes. They discuss movies, plays, op-ed pieces, and the openings and closings of restaurants on the West Side. She discharges Henry every few seasons, pronouncing him over the hump and better adjusted than he knows. Yes, she always replies wearily; yes, we could meet for coffee or lunch, but after that, naturally, I'd have to refer you to another therapist. Accordingly, he is careful not to chat when they find themselves waiting in the same lines at Zabar's. After a few months, with or without a setback, he feels that something is missing. Most recently, it was Celeste's diagnosis, and now, on the heels of that loss, this: His longtime nemesis is filling his voice mail with messages. And her lovely, bighearted daughter! Could he even explain to Sheri without embarrassing himself what one lunch has meant to him?
    "When did you and Denise start talking again?" Sheri asks, frowning.
    "About six weeks ago. I sent her a note of condolence when her husband died."
    "Which husband? I've lost count."
    "Her third."
    "Magnanimous of you."
    "I wrote a note, nothing profound, the usual sorry for your loss. She wrote back sounding a little desperate. So I called."
    She says evenly, "I see. You picked up the phone and called your ex-wife."
    "Yes, I did." He pops the plastic lid off his latte and says quietly, "I was curious."
    "Curiosity is good," she says with so little conviction that he laughs.
    She asks what is so amusing, and he mimics her "curiosity is good" with a more pronounced strangulation of the syllables.
    "So we're letting bygones be bygones? Or is this some kind of Trojan horse that gets you across the border into the enemy land?"
    "I thought you'd