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he say?”
    “That he’s married to a forty-two-year-old woman in love with her newborn baby boy. I bet they tried and tried and tried, and Henry mistook this bonanza of sex for lust for him, and once she got what she wanted, wham-o, no more blow jobs to get him hard and afternoon quickies and hot couplings at the kitchen sink. He’s shunted aside, useless, the cast-off male….” She stopped, went off into some private reverie again. “I know, let’s make a bet. Let’s see who can fuck a biographer first.”
    Lila waved her away. “What are you going to cook for this second one?”
    Teddy cocked her eye at Lila. “No bet?”
    “No, no, I’ll just live vicariously through you,” said Lila, trying for light teasing, but dismayed by the edge in her voice.
    “You’re right,” said Teddy, not missing a beat. “The whole idea is ridiculous.”
    “Besides,” said Lila after a silent deep breath, “it doesn’t seem right, an old woman with a much younger man. Remember that movie
Harold and Maude
? That wrinkled crone with a teenage boy. I never understood why so many people loved it.”
    “Me, neither.” Teddy laughed. “But I wouldn’t mind seeing my old carcass in bed with a nubile forty-year-old body…. For him, no doubt, it would be terrifying and distasteful, but for me it would be glorious. All the men our age are so…old, aren’t they? They have ear hair, their teats droop, and they look cadaverous. Not for me, thanks. I’ll take a sapling.”
    “Speaking of which…” said Lila coyly.
    “Speaking of what? You’re simpering. Cough it up.”
    “I am not
simpering
! No one simpers anymore.”
    “Well what?”
    “I met a nice man…. There he was with his big black dog upon Manhattan Avenue, and I stopped to pet him, the dog, and we started talking, the man and I. His name is Rex. He lives way over on Devoe Street. He asked me to dinner.”
    Teddy said through a flash of something she hoped wasn’t envy, “When are you going?”
    “Tonight,” said Lila with apprehension.
    “And you’re just telling me this now?”
    “It didn’t seem as important as all these biographers.”
    “Rex…he’s Italian?”
    “No, he’s not any ethnicity I could guess. He’s a graphic artist.”
    “How old is he?”
    “I would guess early to mid-sixties,” said Lila.
    “A nubile young thing…”
    “He’s actually pretty youthful, come to think of it. I don’t know why he’s single. He has the look of a confirmed bachelor, though—you know what I mean, the collector type with stuff like boxes of valuable old blues records or a model train with a whole town built around it.”
    “Still,” said Teddy. “A nice, eligible, interesting younger man. So? Is he picking you up, or are you meeting him somewhere?”
    “He’s coming by to get me at seven…. I’m a little nervous. What will I wear? What will I do when he eventually catches sight of my fat old naked body? He won’t want me; he can’t possibly…”
    “Lila, you’re hyperventilating. It’ll be okay….”
    “I am not hyperventilating. God, you make me sound like a swooning old maid. I’ve had two husbands, Teddy. I know how to—”
    “Take a deep breath.”
    Lila sighed deeply, then asked, “Do you have spider veins on your thighs?”
    “Of course I have spider veins on my thighs; I’m seventy-four years old.”
    “But, Teddy…are you getting bald…down there?”
    “We all are. Stop obsessing. He won’t be looking at every detail; men never do. All they see are lips, boobs, and cunt. As long as there aren’t too many negatives, you’re fine.”
    “A balding snatch isn’t a negative?”
    “A balding snatch could be a fetish.”
    They both laughed.
    “Honestly, Teddy, tell me you wouldn’t be nervous, too.”
    “Have a couple of drinks before he picks you up. Two glasses of sherry and you’ll be relaxed and confident as a twenty-year-old.”
    “God, if only I still were.”
    “We were so incredibly beautiful,”