“There they are.” Charlie pointed up Beacon Street and I could the small figures coming toward us, their feet pounding the pavement in rapid succession. Nothing good could come of this.
“Have you ever thought about running the marathon?” I asked, moving back to the railing.
“Sure. Except there’s the small matter of running twenty six miles.” Charlie joined me at the railing. “I don’t think I have it in me.”
“You know, I never understood why people run marathons. It seems kind of useless to train for so long, run the race, and then it’s over.”
The first runners passed us quickly, and we watched as the stream of racers flowed in behind them until the street was completely covered with brightly colored nylon shorts and skin glistening with sweat under the searing rays of the midday sun.
“I think it’s more about pushing yourself, proving you can do it. Even the last person to cross the finish line knows that he met the challenge.”
Meeting the challenge. Isn’t that what I’d set out to do with Charlie? To prove that Charlie would change his mind. To prove I wasn’t the type of woman who’d practice writing Mrs. Charlie Banks on paper, wondering what baby names sounded best with his last name. Now the challenge was going after what I wanted.
Charlie reached for my hand, but I pulled away. “I’ve got to go.”
“Now? You’ll hit tons of traffic.”
“There are some things at the boutique I need to take care of,” I explained quickly. “Thanks for inviting me. I had a great time.”
I rushed past Charlie and ran out of the apartment, biting my lip the whole way, taking one last taste of him.
Chapter 25
If I was going to be honest I had to admit I was like that woman in the bookstore, that I wanted the culmination, or at least the promise of it. I was swallowing my pride. I’d been proud that I didn’t need the wedding, confident that I was unlike the women I met at the boutique who seemed so wrapped up in the idea of becoming half of a newly formed whole. And what did that make me? I wasn’t so sure any more. Because if you want it you’re weak. If you need it you’re desperate. But if you go along like none of it matters you’re strong and self-possessed. In control. Given the choice, which would you choose to be?
I couldn’t see Charlie any more. And even if she wasn’t the biggest fan of holy matrimony, I knew there was one person I could count on to take the side of a woman in need.
I took the T to the Arlington Street stop and walked the three blocks to the hotel, past lingering marathon watchers and street vendors selling souvenirs, until I reached the doorman busy assisting visitors under bright red awnings. He greeted me with a tip of his hat and held the door open. Inside the elaborate lobby of the Park Plaza shallow chandeliers hung from the ceiling like crystal flying saucers. A piano player sat at the baby grand in the open aired entryway to the Swan’s Court performing a tune I recognized as an old Nat King Cole song, and a few stragglers were still seated at tables in front of the Court’s mirrored wall, lingering over half eaten scones with strawberry jam and clotted cream as the formal afternoon tea winded down. I made my way around the obscenely large floral arrangement squatting on a table in the center of the room, and went to check the meeting board. I traced my finger down the list until I found Woman In Action, and then started up the stairs toward the White Hill room.
There was still another twenty minutes left in the program, so I snuck in the door and waited at the back of the room. I looked around to see who would fork over $750 to spend a day learning how to get over a broken heart. Women of all shapes and sizes sat taking notes in the standard-issue metal and vinyl hotel chairs. The audience seemed to be either twenty-something girls, undoubtedly there to try to get over the guy they thought they’d marry, or forty-ish women, undoubtedly there to get over the guy they did marry.
Robin didn’t usually speak at the seminars, her program managers were responsible for handling the events, but every once in a while she liked to get back up on stage to watch the body language of attendees as they listened to the program. She’d told me that lots of nodding heads were a good sign. People absentmindedly doodling on the free notepad was not.
I listened to the last minutes of the seminar, wondering if this is where I would have ended up if I kept seeing Charlie – seated between a housewife in elastic jeans and a girl in a belly-baring shirt with a barbell through her tongue, all three of us trying to figure out why we’d wasted months, maybe years, on a man who couldn’t give us what we wanted.
At six o’clock I waited by the double doors as the attendees shuffled up the aisle and spilled into the hallway.
When Robin emerged it was as if a celebrity had walked into the room. A swarm of women descended on Robin, patting her on the back and trying to shake her hand - even a few sticking pens in her face hoping to get an autograph on the seminar program guide.
“Robin.” I reached out and tapped her on the shoulder. She turned around and a look of surprise crossed her face.
“Hey, what are you doing here?” she asked, before a teary eyed attendee wrapped her in an embrace.
“I wanted to talk with you about Charlie.”
“Okay, but I’ve got to run and talk with my program manager, and then I have to stop back at the office to drop off some materials. Why don’t you meet me in the lobby in fifteen minutes and you can trail along?”
Robin left her adoring crowd to huddle with the program manager and I headed to the lobby to wait.
An hour later I was seated in Robin’s office at Women In Action.
Robin’s offices were right out of Architectural Digest, tastefully appointed by her personal interior designer. Oversized Georgia O’Keefe prints hung in the waiting room, sensuous flowers that suggested both strength and femininity. With its tumbled travertine floors and oversized, cocoa-colored leather sofas and chairs illuminated by small pendant lighting strung from exposed steel wires, it wasn’t exactly homey. But it definitely sent the message that Robin and her company of women were all business. The only splash of whimsy hung on Robin’s office wall, an abstract print aptly titled “Ordered Chaos.”
“So, what’s up with the book? Is Vivian treating you right?” Robin leaned back in her desk chair and kicked her heels up on the desk. She popped open a can of Diet Coke and quickly put her mouth over the top to keep the caramel-colored foam from spilling onto her buff suede pants.
“Everything’s great. The staff and Maria are baking like crazy for tomorrow’s photo shoot, but that’s not why I’m here. I’ve been thinking about Charlie and Neil and I decided - ” But before I could get to the punch line the door to Robin’s office swung open and Jeremy marched in, chased by Lauren’s frantic assistant.
“I tried to stop him,” Leesa apologized, practically in tears. “I really did.”
“It’s not her fault,” Jeremy told Robin. “She tried to tell me you weren’t here.”
Robin swung her feet off her desk and stood up, pointing to the door. “Leesa, call security. Now!”
Jeremy stood in front of the door, blocking Leesa’s exit. “I don’t want to make a scene, Robin. I just want to talk to you and explain some things.”
“Fine.” Robin reached for her phone and started dialing. “I’m calling 911. You can explain this all to the police.”
Jeremy walked up to Robin’s desk and pressed the lighted button on the dial pad, disconnecting the outgoing line. “You know what I find the saddest thing of all in this whole situation? That for someone who likes to act like she’s so strong and in control, you seem to relish your role as the victim. You can’t even look at yourself honestly and admit that you were responsible, that you made a mistake, because it’s more important to you to be the one who’s angry. And if your friends aren’t willing to tell you, then I’ll tell you – it’s time to get that chip off your shoulder, Robin, before you forget what it’s like to be happy.”
Jeremy turned to leave, but before closing the door he faced
me. “You’re not doing her any favors, you know.”
Leesa ran to the door and closed it behind Jeremy, leaning against the frame as if the curves she earned from daily cardio kickboxing classes would be enough to keep Jeremy from bursting in on us again. “Do you want me to call security and have them stop him?”
Robin shook her head but remained silent. Leesa stood there awkwardly waiting for Robin to say something.
“It’s okay, Leesa. You can go now,” I told her.
“What the hell was he talking about?” Robin asked me after she’d gone. “What does he want you to tell me?”
A psychology class in college didn’t qualify me to play therapist to Robin. “I don’t know.”
“I think he’s unbalanced.” Robin finished her Coke and tossed it into the garbage can behind her desk, where it landed with a clank.
“So everything’s going well with the book, good for you,” Robin repeated, as if trying to rewind our conversation and get back on track. She gave me an encouraging smile, but it quickly faded.
Jeremy’s remarks had gotten to Robin, and even though she’d asked me what he meant by his accusations, the pained look on her face showed me that she knew exactly what he was saying. I watched as she distractedly shuffled a few papers on her desk, as if looking for something she’d misplaced, and for the first time since I’d known her, I felt sorry for Robin. Jeremy may have had a point, but he had no right to dump on her like that.
“I’ve got to go,” I told Robin, and gave her a quick hug before running out of the office to find Jeremy and give him a piece of my mind.
When I reached the lobby and the elevator doors slid open I saw the back of Jeremy’s blue windbreaker about to enter the revolving doors.
“Jeremy,” I called out, my voice echoing in the massive marble tomb. He turned around and paused as I quickly crossed the floor, just a step shy of running.
“Who do you think you are, acting like you know what Robin’s been through?” I demanded, trying to catch my breath.
“I’ve had my heart broken, too, Lauren. Everyone has.”
I hadn’t. And I was taking great care to keep it that way.
“That still doesn’t give you the right to attack her like that. And why the hell are you getting on my case? You don’t know what we’ve done to help Robin.”
“I know that you let her act like some sort of martyr for women instead of telling her the way it is.”
“And how is it, exactly, Jeremy?” I stood there with my hands defiantly on my hips, waiting for Jeremy to impart his wisdom.
“Nobody can make you into a victim unless you let them, Lauren. It’s too bad you haven’t pointed that out to Robin.”
“She needs time to work this out for herself,” I countered. “Her husband walked out on her Jeremy. I think she’s justified in feeling a little cheated – he was the one who was wrong.”
“Does she want to be right or does she want to be happy?”
“For now she wants to be right.”
Jeremy nodded as if agreeing with me. “And I’m sure that will offer cold comfort to her in years to come.” Jeremy turned his back on me and raised his hand in a dismissive wave. “Goodbye, Lauren.”
Chapter 26
“What’s that?” Maria asked, looking over my shoulder.
I covered the page with my hand and looked up from the desk. “A list.”
“Like a grocery list?”
“Sort of.” I’d laid the waterlogged paper from my bath next to a blank piece of paper and hoped that I could figure out why yesterday’s date with Charlie had left me feeling so unsettled. It wasn’t that Charlie had done anything wrong. In fact what bothered me was that everything seemed so right. And yet even after I’d rearranged the list’s order, I was still left with a blank next to number one, leaving space for something that I couldn’t quite put my finger on but that I was sure shouldn’t be a guy who wants to date me for a long time.
Maria reached for my list and snatched it out from under my hand. “Do you find a non-smoker in the frozen food aisle or in produce?” she asked, holding up the list for further inspection.
“Forget it.” I grabbed the sheet back and turned it over. But it was already too late.
“That list is a bunch of crap,” she told me, as if I’d asked for her opinion. “Next thing you know I’ll find you writing out your recipe for a relationship – add a pinch of charm, a dollop of good looks and bake for one hour at three hundred and fifty degrees.”
Maria chuckled and then smacked her head as if she’d suddenly remembered something. “Oh, and don’t forget to set the timer so it doesn’t burn!”
I sat still and waited for Maria’s ominous shadow to walk away, but she hovered over me like a black cloud. Sure, my list seemed crazy to her now, but maybe if she’d taken the time to make a list she wouldn’t have had to turn down Mario Spinelli.
“Oh, yeah,” Maria added nonchalantly. “A woman named Julie called. She said she was Neil’s fiancé and wanted you to call her back.” She looked up at me and waited for a reaction.
I shrugged, as if my ex-boyfriends’ fiancés called here everyday asking for me. There was no way Neil told her about our little date. Maybe Julie just wanted to talk about the cake – the cake! Maybe she changed her mind about the almond cake, which would mean that she and Neil didn’t agree. And Neil and I did.
I was expecting my first appointment at one o’clock, which meant I had two hours to screw up my nerve and call Julie.
What about Julie? What if Neil listened to what I had to say and decided I was right? I really hadn’t gotten that far, but I was sure she’d be thankful that she didn’t marry someone who wanted to be with the very person who was supposed to be making her wedding cake.
At 12:45, my nerve still wasn’t screwed up, but I was. I knew it was now or never, and so I dialed.
“I just wanted to say thanks for all your help,” Julie told me, graciously. “Neil got the name of a fabulous wedding planner, so I’m hoping it gets easier.”
And where did Julie think he found that planner?
“I’m glad I could help.” Was Julie calling to show her appreciation, or did she have a feeling, like I did, that there was something between me and Neil that needed further investigation? It just didn’t seem possible that she’d called to thank me. Nobody was that nice.
“And we really appreciate it,” Julie repeated.
“Are you sure you liked the almond cake as much as Neil?” I asked, prodding Julie for an admission that she really wanted the lemon cake. “I sort of got the feeling that he was more interested than you were, and it’s very important that you both agree on the cake.”
“Oh, no. I love the cake,” Julie assured me. “And now we’ve got one less thing to worry about. If Neil likes the items I put on our registry when he looks at them, then we can scratch two things off our list.”
Neil was back from DC?
“Where are you registered?” I asked, implying that a gift was in order and not the interception of her fiancé.
“Macy’s. I asked Neil to go over there after work today to look at the patterns I picked out. ”
I couldn’t have asked for more valuable information if I tried. Obviously Julie had fallen prey to my subversive interrogation tactics.
“I’m sure he’ll love what you chose,” I assured Julie, all sweetness and light.
But just in case, I planned on being there to help Neil with his registry selections.
“Hey, Lauren. What are you doing here?”
I let my jaw drop open, as if the sheer surprise of meeting up with Neil in the bridal registry section of Macy’s was just about the most amazing coincidence I’d ever experienced, and wandering around Macy’s aisles looking at Lenox gravy boats was the most natural thing in the world. “What are you doing here?” I asked him right back.
“We’re registering at Macy’s.”
I clutched my hand to my chest in utter surprise. “No way.”
“Yeah, Julie picked out some things and she wanted me to come and see what I thought.”
I placed the Marquis stemware back in its spot on the shelf, surrounded by matching relatives. After loitering in the china department for almost an hour, I was sure the sales woman thought I was casing the joint for a sophisticated heist of crystal decanters. I kept waiting for the security guard to show up and ask me to leave.
I offered a logical explanation for our unexpected meeting. “Sometimes I like to see what my clients are registered for, to give me a better feel for their tastes.”
Neil grinned. “I have to admit, this registering for gifts thing is pretty nice. Have you seen our list?”
Did he mean the dining section with the Wedgewood Promenade dinnerware or the cooking section with the Calphalon tri-ply stainless steel pots? The first thing I’d done when I arrived was check out everything on their registry, right down to the Ralph Lauren washcloths. “No, I haven’t.”
“Well, then let’s take a look together.”
I smiled politely at the sales woman as she printed out the registry, a smile that said see, it’s perfectly normal to browse through china and crystal and silver settings for hours and then act surprised when your ex-boyfriend shows up.
“This is too weird, isn’t it? We don’t see each other for years and now we seem to be bumping into each other everywhere we go – almost like it was meant to be.” I nudged Neil playfully, which he obviously wasn’t expecting because he almost knocked over a display of crystal vases as he fell backwards.
Neil caught his balance and righted a teetering bud vase. “Hey, thanks for that list of planners. I think we’re going to use Gloria Caldwell, if she can fit us into her schedule.”
Dress Rehearsal Page 24
