Mourning Glory by Warren Adler

to pay their respects to
the three grieving people, who acknowledged them by a nod, a touch or a
handshake. It was obvious that they were in a kind of mourning trance, barely
able to be communicative. People spoke in whispers, offering condolences in the
time-honored ritual.
    Grace stood in a corner trying to appear equally concerned
and respectful, while peripherally focusing her attention on Sam Goodwin. She
did not want to stay too long or appear conspicuous. At one point the man's
eyes rose and scanned the room. His gaze fell upon her briefly and she imagined
he nodded in her direction, then passed on to others.
    "Will you sign the book, Mrs.... ?" a tall man
said. He was standing behind her, near a lectern on which was a visitors' book.
    "Sorentino," she said. "I was a
friend..." Her voice trailed off. The man had started a conversation with
another person.
    Grace signed the book and noted the various names on the
list above her. She vaguely recognized some of them as names she had seen in
the social pages of the Palm Beach Post. The name Goodwin seemed
familiar. She noted, too, that the names in the book were not only Jewish
names, but seemed to cover a broader spectrum. Also, the people in the room
seemed more anglicized than those she had seen clustered together in other
Jewish funerals.
    To Grace, who had learned something about the social makeup
of Palm Beach from her Saks experience, this meant that the man had crossed the
rigid lines of social status and was equally acceptable to gentiles in the
various social enclaves of the wealthy where money, at times, could cover a
multitude of prejudices, at least partially.
    A man she recognized as a former senator from Florida came in and immediately sought out the grieving trio, who rose in tandem. The man
embraced the widower, who towered above him, and then embraced the children in
turn.
    "I'm so sorry, Sam," the former senator said. Sam
Goodwin nodded and dabbed his eyes with a handkerchief.
    She took one last look around the room, impressed by the
people in attendance, the atmosphere and especially with the grieving man, who
was distinguished-looking and definitely in the age range that she had set for
herself. Unfortunately, she felt unworthy and remote, far below the man in
social status and sophistication, definitely a class or two apart.
    Contemplating her inferiority depressed her and made her
feel clumsy and undeserving. She was ashamed of this cynical caper borne out of
desperation and, probably, naïveté. Was she any better than Jason, chasing
rainbows and impossible dreams? Where did she get the idea that she could
simply snap her fingers and insinuate herself into the life of such a man, even
in his present vulnerable state? She slinked out of the room feeling defeated
and remote, woefully inadequate to the mad task she had assigned herself.
    But as she drove farther from the funeral home, she made a
valiant attempt to retrieve her courage. She did have assets, she insisted to
herself. All right, she was not very educated or sophisticated, had not
traveled in the same circles and was definitely not the traditionally glitzy
trophy-wife type. Nevertheless, she was certainly ready and willing to fulfill
all the obligations of being an exemplary, dedicated, sexy, loyal and
supportive wife. She was a catch, she told herself, feeling slightly giddy.
    But then she began to project herself into reality. This
handsome widower would be a magnet for battalions of single, attractive ladies
with extraordinary trophy-wife potential, divisions of accomplished and
athletic widows who would fling themselves in his path, women from his own
class who knew him and did not have to contrive subterfuges to meet him, who
would park their shoes under his bed at the lift of his eyebrow. How could she
possibly compete against them?
    Her courage dwindled further as she got closer to her
apartment. It wouldn't take him five minutes to discover what she really was, a
lowly,