Do I?
No, even after all the hours in the sun, tennis in the sun, lying in the sun, she was five-four, weighed exactly one hundred and five and looked ten years younger than her age. Or maybe thirty-eight or -nine; right in there somewhere. With sort of classic good looks: dark hair, blue eyes, nice nose; facial lines that gave her a somewhat drawn look but, Karen told herself, showed character or wisdom or experience. She wore simple but expensive clothes, dressed more often, in the past year, without a bra and looked outstanding, tan and lean, in any of several faded bikinis. God, no, she didn’t look like those widows with their gaudy prints and queen-size asses.
Okay, but then what was she doing sitting home alone? Why did the few interesting, eligible men she had met since Frank’s death show up once or twice and then seem to vanish?
IN MAY, five months a widow-exactly a year from the time of the double-standard disagreement, the argument with Frank, the ultimatum-Karen was seated in Ed Grossi’s private office on the thirty-ninth floor of the Biscayne Tower.
The sign on the double-door entrance to the suite said DORADO MANAGEMENT CORPORATION.
Karen could ask Ed Grossi what Dorado Management managed and he would tell her, oh, apartment buildings, condominiums; that much would probably be true. She could ask him who all the men were, waiting in the lobby, and Grossi would say, oh, suppliers, job applicants, you know. His tone patient. Ask anything. What do you want to know?
But if she were to probe, keep asking questions, she knew from experience the explanation that began simply would become complicated, involved, the words never describing a clear picture.
They sat with glossy-black ceramic coffee mugs on his clean desk, and Karen listened as Grossi said, “Well, it looks like you’re worth approximately four million.”