“Charlie, you should come again. They loved you.” Frankie took Charlie’s arm, but he suddenly pulled away to hail a cab.

“I hope none of them knows Janet Jackson. She could sue the hell out of me.” Charlie waved his arm for a cab. “I’m going swimming at Asphalt Green. Can I drop you?”

“Sure.” Frankie was hoping they’d have a drink together and talk a little more.

When the cab stopped Charlie held the door for Frankie to get in. “Are you going home?” he asked her.

“Uh, no.” Frankie didn’t want him to know that she had absolutely no plans that night. “Actually I thought I’d stop in and visit my dad.”

“How’s he doing?” he asked.

“Not great.”

“He’s lucky to have you.” Charlie put his hand on her knee. “We’re all lucky to have you.”

“Charlie, I’m sorry. We haven’t really talked about you. Are you doing okay?” She couldn’t believe she’d said something so inane. For a minute she thought she didn’t know fuck all about men and what to say because she had gone to that goddamn girls’ school. But then she remembered that Samantha had gone to the same girls’ school and seemed to know exactly what to do.

“I’m doing okay. I read that I’m moving to Los Angeles and I’m dating a twenty-three-year-old for revenge. The truth is all I’m doing is swimming. You should see my butterfly.”

The taxi stopped at a red light at Eighty-ninth and Madison.

“I get off here.” Frankie picked up her purse.

“Is this where you grew up?” Charlie asked her.

“This is where I lived when I went to high school.”

“This is only two blocks from where Samantha grew up.”

“Yes, that’s right. She was at 1175 Fifth.”

“You remember.”

“She loomed large even then.”

“I gotta say I must have a thing for girls from this neighborhood.” He kissed Frankie on the lips this time. “I’ll call ya. Thanks for a great day.”

Frankie walked into her father’s building remembering the night a Collegiate boy kissed her on the lips after their first date seeing Jules and Jim at the Regency. She remembered distinctly the romantic anticipation surrounding “I’ll call ya” followed by a kiss on the lips.

Frankie rang the doorbell to Abraham’s apartment at least twenty times before she opened the door with her key. The doorman had told her that they were home and she should go right up.

“Helen? Helen? Are you here?” Frankie called, walking into the living room. “Helen?”

She walked from the kitchen into the library with visions of that late-night commercial of an old woman passed out on the floor and a voice-over saying “If only she could have contacted you.”