The Family Man by Elinor Lipman

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 resumé. If it weren't for one commercial and my union card, I'd be officially an actorwannabe." She opens a cupboard, finds a glass, 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 sex. 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
    N O, 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