|
"Don't go exaggerating about Danny Moss," Paul sneers at Morley Safer.
Gretchen laughs gruffly and goes to the ample kitchen, which features
wall-to-wall marble counter tops, to throw her Diet Coke can in the
recycling bin with an expert toss. "He doesn't know what he's talking
about," she confides. "Danny's in bad shape. It is a terrible, terrible
shame."
Both Gretchen and Paul are from Johnstown, Pennsylvania, where they met in
high school. Gretchen says her taste for size and scale developed in
reaction to the cramped quarters where she grew up, in the hills of a horribly polluted mining town. "They'd turn those boilers on at the
steel mills, and these huge clouds of black soot would come rolling out, and
if you were playing outside, you'd get covered in black dust. Paul was the
first in his family to go to college."
Gretchen smiles wickedly and straightens out the green gingham curtains in
the kitchen. "He was a Marxist, back before he hit it big on Wall
Street. A Marxist." She strolls into an adjacent room filled with porcelain
figures and a case full of trophies. Gretchen's the county champion at
table tennis.
Stepping out to the back patio to examine her petunia beds, Gretchen
appears suddenly bewildered, as if remembering a better time, and one
wonders if this old couple will ever find happiness in Westchester County.
"Of course, Marxists aren't so good at stock trading, I'd imagine." She
titters self-consciously and slips off her flip-flop to dip her toe into
the bug-ridden pool. "We raised some nice kids, and they're not in rehab like
Danny, thank God. Poor Danny. That's the way life is, I guess."
"Oh, quit waxing whatever, and fix us some dinner," Paul barks at Andy Rooney.
 |
![[Previous Page]](/daily/97/10/13/previous.gif)
![[Fresh Fish]](/daily/images/fresh_fish3.gif)
