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borrowed black baby for extra effect! One of his coworkers, a fellow picketer, was there with her twins, so he took one. His signage didn’t hurt, either, in terms of catching my attention.” She demonstrated—exaggerated scrutiny, eyes bugging out.
    “What did it say?”
    “To most people, his slogan would have meant nothing. But it’s what stopped me cold. And when I tell you, you’ll understand what drew my eye.”
    “‘Will work for food?’” I asked.
    “No,” said Margot. “Much more . . . coincidental. And relevant. Believe it or not, the sign said NEXT STOP: THE POOR HOUSE ! You can imagine how that hit me! I had to ask him if he knew about my website, didn’t I?”
    “Did he?” I asked.
    “Absolutely not. Which made it all the more kismetish. I gave him my card so he could check out my blog,” she continued. “He did. Right on the spot! On his phone! By this time, I’d kind of joined the picket line, so I was filling in the personal and domestic blanks. These financial types are always good with their gadgets, so he’s reading and marching and talking and patting the baby’s back. Eventually I left, and there was an e-mail waiting for me when I got back here. ‘By any chance, do you have a room to let?’ I said no. He didn’t give up. He wrote back, ‘Even for a month or two? Even a sofa? Pretty please.’”
    “So you said yes?”
    “I said, ‘Come over for a drink and meet my sister.’”
    “How old?”
    “Young.”
    “ How young?”
    “Late twenties.”
    Decision obviously made, I asked, “Whose bathroom will he use?”
    “The powder room. He says he’ll shower at his gym.”
    “If he can afford gym membership—”
    “That’s all he can afford!”
    “But you haven’t made a firm commitment, correct?”
    “Gwen. Let’s be practical. Remember the stuff Daddy took care of? Wouldn’t it be nice to have someone who knew his way around a fuse box? And who could unscrew jar lids? How about transferring a turkey from oven to cutting board? Remember that fiasco?”
    When I didn’t respond, she added, “Besides finding a job, and selling my jewelry, what’s easier than bringing in an extra boarder for fifty dollars a night?”
    I did the math: at least $1,800 a month.
    “Negotiable,” she added.
    I asked if he could afford it and how long we could depend on that.
    “He pays more than that now for half of a barely two-bedroom. As for how long, we’ll see how we like him.”
    “Does he know about me?”
    “He knows I live with my sister.”
    “I meant does he know I was recently widowed?”
    Margot stared at me, a long, unhappy, corrective gaze. “‘Recently’? Is that accurate? Because when a person says, for example, ‘I was recently elected to Congress,’ and someone asks when, and the answer is ‘two years ago,’ it means he’s already running for reelection.”
    I recited what the literature liked me to believe, that everyone is different; everyone heals at a different rate, so to me, “recently” was accurate.
    “Let’s be open to this, and let’s look at it this way: Even though we don’t have much to spare, we’re being charitable in our own way.”
    “Charitable implies that you’re giving him a couch at no charge.”
    “Not true. He’s not broke. He just doesn’t want to pay for a hotel when he’s between jobs and apartments.”
    Bereft of arguments, I asked, “You really think we have room?”
    Margot gestured toward the far end of the long mahogany dining-room table, and I was obliged to follow her gaze to the six empty chairs and faraway bowl of wizened apples. “I’m expecting him at six tonight,” she said. “I’ll be roasting a chicken and I was hoping you’d make your corn bread and a green salad.”
    A whole roasted chicken and corn bread from scratch that would exhaust a half stick of butter. Anyone could read the welcome sign implied in that.
     
    Anthony did not have the hedge-fund personality I was expecting. To begin