"I'm not going to give you a lease because I—" she seemed to be smiling behind her smoked glasses—"I might not like you." I virtually kissed her hand as we left. At that moment I was ready to buff her nails every night and with my own feet pump the iron lung she must sleep in. I convinced myself we had tons in common and would be best friends. A week later I never gave her another thought. Tom and Tom invited us to a cocktail party a week after we moved in. Fifteen men in coats and ties sat around in a sitting room with hunting prints on the chocolate-brown walls and ate hot prunes wrapped in bacon and drank Beefeater martinis while listening to a cast album of Matne. Daniella was the only woman there. She was wearing a silk robe her father had brought back from China in the 1930s and all her white-haired, cap-toothed boys were oohing and aahing over the craftsmanship, the beadwork, the cut! Tom L. drew me aside and said, nodding toward Kevin, "You really robbed the cradle this time.
