Summer in the City

by Irene Vartanoff

  “Oh, no.” Edward Thorsen had done his best to wreck Rona’s life. She hoped he wasn’t back to try it again.

  Chapter 6

  The rest of the week, Susan thought about what Louis had suggested, but she hardly saw Rona to confirm or deny. Meanwhile, her summer job at Coquette Books continued to baffle and dismay her. When she arrived at work one morning in a bright red pantsuit, Linda actually sneered.

  “Is that what they’re selling at the Ohio Walmart these days?”

  She did her best to ignore the comprehensive insult to her taste and her economic status. Even to Ohio. Instead, she tried to flatter Linda’s sense of superiority.

  “I know that my clothes aren’t right for the city. Where would you suggest I look for something more suitable?”

  “Someone as large as you needs a plus-size store,” Linda retorted. Referencing her own rail-thin frame, Linda boasted, “I don’t know anything about them. I’ve never needed to shop at one.”

  Susan resisted arguing. She was nowhere near plus sizes anymore. Since Nancy’s wedding, she had forged a new relationship with food. As a result, the pounds kept melting off. Not that she would tell Linda any of this.

  “Thanks anyway for the idea,” Susan said.

  She walked down the hall toward her desk, wondering why she had ever thought working in publishing would be so wonderful. It was like any other business. Some people were nice. Some were complete witches.

  She brightened. Once her rote chores were completed, she could play around with the hidden Coquette files. Plus, she had an hour for lunch. She’d use it to go shopping.

  ***

  A few days later, the sense of doom and gloom at her intern job that she had been fighting off was confirmed. Linda came to Susan’s desk screaming.

  “You messed up! You sent a manuscript that had already been reviewed to a second reader. Now we’ll have to pay both of them. Can’t you do anything right?”

  Linda flung the offending duplicate report invoices onto her desk. Susan examined them with dismay as Linda kept yelling.

  “I should take this out of your pay.”

  She let Linda’s anger wash over her. The mistake was obvious. During her first week on the job, she must have mislaid the first reader’s report and sent the manuscript out a second time. Then she had found the first report and sent it for payment as well as the second one. The accounting department had caught the duplication and questioned it with Linda.

  There probably was nothing to be gained by reminding her boss that Susan was an unpaid intern whom Linda had not bothered to train. Despite having a tiny little area of responsibility, Susan had managed to mess up.

  “I’m so sorry, Linda. I’ll cross check in the future to prevent this kind of mistake,” she promised.

  Linda snorted. “You think that’s good enough?” She mimicked Susan in a singsong voice, “I’m so sorry, Linda. I’m an idiot from the burbs, Linda.”

  She was too shocked at Linda’s direct insult to give her the pleasure of a reaction. Nor did she ask Linda what she had against her. Or continue apologizing. What was the point? Linda clearly wanted to rant.

  In the face of Susan’s stolid silence, the wind went out of Linda’s sails. “I won’t put up with incompetents!” she threatened, and left. Susan sat alone again, solitary queen of the hall. Had anyone else heard Linda screaming? Did anyone care?

  As usual, she had to process before she could react. Was this any different from that man who groped her? A flash attack, and then Linda was gone.

  What was that scene about? She had made a mistake, but Coquette Books would pay less than one hundred dollars extra for the duplicate report. That minor amount shouldn’t be enough to break the production budget. It was only a reader’s report, for gosh sakes. It wasn’t as if she had embarrassed the company on a worldwide basis, or caused a costly printing error, or set a lawsuit in motion. Still, there was no avoiding it. She had made a mistake. Darn.

  She pondered Linda’s outsize behavior. Would Linda use the mistake to get her fired? What did the editors think?

  When Susan delivered the next batch of manuscripts to the nearest editorial cubicle, the editor inside barely looked up. If she had heard Linda yelling, she gave no indication. Her indifference was depressing.

  ***

  “Why is this woman so angry with me?” Susan asked Rona that night. They were in Rona’s apartment. Rona paced the tiny amount of open floor space, a drink in one hand, sending fraught glances at her cell phone lying on the dining table. Susan had knocked on the door repeatedly and had finally been rewarded when Rona opened it. Rona hadn’t paid much attention to her story. Still, because Linda’s hostility was so troubling, Susan pressed for enlightenment. “You’ve worked in a very political situation. What could the problem be?”

  Rona spared her a glance. “Simple. You were foisted on the bitch from above, and she doesn’t like it because she had no power over hiring you.”

  “That’s it?” She was shocked. “That was enough to turn Linda into a raging virago?”

  Rona was back to staring at the phone. Then she seemed to make up her mind. She scooped it up and threw it in a side pocket of her purse. She set her wine down on the one free space on an overburdened table otherwise covered with bric-a-brac. She picked up her keys.

  “I’ve got to go out. Sorry you’re having a rotten time.”

  With that, Rona simply left Susan in the apartment.

  She carefully locked up and went back upstairs to her place. Tonight, she didn’t feel satisfaction in all the fresh new furnishings. How alone she was. If only she could call Rick and get his opinion. Like Rona, he was a sharp thinker.

  Rick had specifically forbidden her to call him this summer, except in a national emergency. Otherwise, he’d made it clear she was on her own.

  “You can’t expect to lean on a husband now. We’re living apart and the split should be complete.” Harsh words, but he had a right to say them. She had a decision to make at the summer’s end, and Rick didn’t want to affect it in any way.

  She roamed around her apartment. She picked up the pretty green vase. She had enjoyed buying the vase, and every time she looked at it, she smiled. Not tonight. Tonight, the glamour of a summer in New York was eluding her.

  Why did she ever think this would work? Her dream job was turning out to be a nightmare, her best friend was acting strange, and she was left all alone with nothing to do. No one to talk to despite millions of people around her.

  “Oh, snap out of it!” she said out loud. “Don’t be so sorry for yourself. Rona’s busy, but that doesn’t mean I have to stay home.” Time to pull up her big girl panties and make the most of what the city had to offer.

  She consulted her newspaper and found the list of theaters. With one phone call she bought herself an orchestra seat at a Broadway play. If she could get a cab, she’d make the opening curtain with ease.

  Meanwhile, it was time to tackle what to wear. They’d never gone on their shopping trip, so her closet was still filled with the bright, summery dresses Rona so despised. It hardly mattered. Who went to Broadway shows, anyway? Tourists. The theater would be filled with out-of-towners, probably all wearing cheery garb equally as unsophisticated as her own. She confidently chose a bold-patterned, colorful dress in orange and white. She remembered the lift it had given her to buy it and how well it fit.

  It was looser around the hips now. How marvelous. All the walking she did in the city was slimming her down even more. She wasn’t even trying to lose weight anymore, only maintain. At least she was doing that right. Her wedding and engagement rings were awfully loose these days, too. She could lose them. She took them off and put them in a crystal dish on her bureau. Now her finger felt bare. She rummaged through her newly purchased junk jewelry and found a dinner ring to wear instead.

  Although sometimes catching a cab quickly was impossible, the gods smiled on her that evening and she got one right away. By sheer chance, she’d chosen a pl
ay in a theater that the taxi driver could reach without getting into the typical traffic jam surrounding Broadway shows at this time of night. She collected her ticket and found her seat minutes before the curtain.

  She enjoyed the first act, though afterward she wouldn’t have been able to describe much about it. The pleasure was in being there, among people, not the specifics of what she was seeing.

  During intermission, after she endured the long line for the ladies room, she wandered around the lobby and did her best to avoid the snacks and drinks for sale. She did not need a cookie to get her through the next act. Food addiction was insidious. It always required a conscious, careful decision to say no.

  Her self-pitying thoughts were creeping upon her again. She wasn’t used to going places all alone. She’d had a husband as an escort for nearly thirty years. The average American woman became a widow at age fifty-five, her own age. They coped. Many women were attending the play without men, but they weren’t alone. They had girlfriends with them. A good idea. She must make a note of that for the future. Currently, she had no one to discuss the play with unless she attempted a conversation with a stranger. A theater lobby filled with people having drinks and chatting was not the same as a private party. She couldn’t walk up to somebody and start talking.

  Then she caught a glimpse of a face that seemed familiar. A striking-looking man who was probably a decade younger than her. He was dressed formally as most other men were, in a suit. Not the khakis and chambray shirts Susan was used to seeing at cultural events in the suburbs.

  Was he an actor she’d seen on television or in the movies? Someone whose face she knew, but who wasn’t famous enough for her to connect a name to? No, although he was handsome enough to be an actor. He had slightly wavy dark hair, beautifully proportioned features, and a taut build. If she was going to stare boldly at a stranger, he certainly was a good one to look at.

  To her horror, the man turned slightly and saw her looking at him. Ogling him. His face took on an instant expression of recognition. Then doubt. At the same moment, several people shifted around, heading for the bar or elsewhere. The path between them cleared, and the man walked toward her. She didn’t know whether to be alarmed or thrilled.

  “Please forgive me, but do I know you?” he asked in obvious puzzlement once he had reached her. “I realize it’s the oldest line in the history of mankind.” He shrugged an apology. He had a smooth, deep voice.

  “I had the same thought,” she admitted. “Oh, not that it’s an old line,” she hastened to reassure him. What an awkward thing for her to say. Obviously she wasn’t used to carrying a social occasion on her own anymore.

  “Then we do know each other from somewhere,” he said. “Why don’t I remember exactly?”

  “Let’s not make any jokes about senior moments, shall we?” she said, smiling, conscious that she was older than him.

  He smiled back. “Agreed. My name is Michael Sheppard. I live here in New York, but I’m guessing you don’t?”

  She grimaced a bit ruefully. “I’m Susan Bailey from Ohio. My dress gives me away, doesn’t it? Too colorful for this town.”

  Michael Sheppard stared at her in her bright dress. She squirmed, realizing that she had invited his scrutiny with her self-deprecating comment. “You look fine to me,” he said appreciatively. Her breath caught.

  At that moment, they both made the connection.

  “Florida.”

  “Megan Feinstein’s Bat Mitzvah two years ago.”

  Suddenly, they both were smiling. She remembered, “You’re Bev Feinstein’s best friend from high school. We sat on the opposite sides of the same table, and could hardly talk over the noise of the children’s music.”

  “That’s right. You’re connected to Bev how? I’m forgetting.”

  “A bit more complicated. The former roommate of her former boss. I’m Rona Wong’s friend.”

  “Of course. I remember.” He seemed to scrutinize her again. “Surely you looked somewhat different two years ago?” Michael had the delicacy to stop at that and not say the obvious, that she had weighed one hundred pounds more.

  “We only met the one time,” she said, not wanting to go into a long story about weight loss. Especially not with a handsome stranger. She changed to a safer topic. “What do you think about this play?”

  He politely followed her lead. Their discussion lasted until the intermission was over, when they parted to go back to their respective seats.

  At the next intermission, Michael sought her out again and insisted on buying her a drink. Orange juice. “You’re here for a summer internship? How unusual.”

  Michael briefly described his lifelong career in the financial industry.

  “I’m afraid I don’t exactly understand what it is that you do,” she apologized. “I am impressed that you have your Ph.D. in mathematics.”

  He looked rueful. “Now it sounds as if I was bragging. It’s all statistical analysis or creating new models. Precise but abstruse work,” he demurred, trying to play down the brain power needed for such a career.

  How modest he was. How handsome. Even more so up close.

  They were polite and conventional. No one said a word out of place. Yet something hummed between them. She couldn’t forget how handsome he was. That first shock of attraction she’d had on spotting him. She kept noticing his body. How lean, yet strong it was. He seemed so comfortable in it. He exuded a kind of masculine self-assurance that made her feel ultra-feminine. He had dark eyes, dark hair, and a five o’clock shadow that proclaimed maleness under control, but just barely.

  There was a tinge to his manner that suggested he was feeling something about her, too. Nothing he said. An expression in his eyes and a kind of protective stance he seemed to be taking around her as they stood and talked, as if she belonged to him. He didn’t crowd her, exactly. He was marking her as his territory. Maybe it was automatic, merely instinctive good male manners. On some level, she was thrilled. Thrilled to be with him, thrilled to be holding his attention, thrilled to be marked.

  Their seats were far apart. After the play ended, Michael caught up with her to make sure she got a cab. She accepted his help and he led her outside. As they stood on the sidewalk, he said, “I’d like to see you again.”

  She was shocked, but it was a pleasant kind of shock. She ought to be forthright about her situation. “I’m not looking for a romantic adventure.”

  “You’re married.” Michael said. “Of course, I should have realized.”

  “Well, it’s more complicated than that.” She was tempted to declare that she was as free as the air. It wasn’t true.

  “Are you separated? You’re living here alone for the summer.”

  “I…I can’t talk about this now,” she demurred, feeling the familiar ache of her own confusion about her marriage.

  Michael’s expression was more serious than before. “I’ve been married, too. Marriages have their ups and downs and sometimes end. Mine did.” At that moment they reached the front of the cab line. Michael put her in the first one. Then he handed her a business card. “Call me if you want some company. No strings.”

  Susan looked at Michael thoughtfully. A lock of hair had fallen onto his forehead. His face was long and lean. Chiseled. He was a handsome, cultured man. He wasn’t pressuring her, but he was interested. She carefully tucked his card into her purse. “Thank you. Perhaps I will. Good night.”

  The cab ride took a while because so many plays were letting out at the same time. She didn’t mind. She was daringly contemplating the idea of being a single woman, even thinking about dating.

  Once the excitement of being with Michael stopped confusing her, she wondered at her behavior. She had an obligation to Rick to consider the future of their marriage. That’s what this summer alone was for. So why was she thinking about how attractive Michael Sheppard was? How intelligent, how charming, how attentive he was? How sexy?

  She felt a pang deep within. She had long denied her b
ody. Even the resolute diet and exercise program she had taken up last year after the devastating events at Nancy’s wedding was a form of denial. She’d gotten used to pretending she wasn’t hungry for food. She was stunned to realize she was hungry for sexual fulfillment and she was thinking perhaps Michael could provide it.

  These were dangerous thoughts. Traitorous thoughts. She was married to Rick. Well, sort of. She was a faithful wife and mother. At least, physically. She didn’t want to go there. She was sick of feeling hurt, sick of being angry. She needed to think about herself, not anybody else. Rick had told her to take the summer and think. Then they’d decide for real.

  She had not lied to Michael. She simply had not told him that she and Rick were separated. If they couldn’t live together happily, if they shared nothing, it was only right to part. Then Rick could be happy again with some other woman. Maybe even a woman who could give him more children.

  Here she was again, thinking mostly about what Rick wanted and needed. Not what she needed herself. Well, she didn’t know yet. She hadn’t thought about what she wanted.

  Maybe she wanted Michael. Maybe she wasn’t done with sex after all. He was so attractive. So polite. So interested in her.

  She happily walked up the four flights to her apartment since the elevator wasn’t working. What a lovely evening. It was so pleasant to meet an educated man. He was younger than she was. Maybe that accounted for his respectful behavior. If he only wanted to treat her as an elder sister or something, that was okay with her. She could use the company. Although she’d be a little disappointed. Maybe they could see each other again. Or maybe she was kidding herself, and he was merely being polite. Whereas she had an instant and most improper case of the hots for a much younger man. She knew better, but it was nice to fantasize a little about romantic possibilities.

  She unlocked her door and found Rona pacing inside, with the inevitable wine glass in her hand, and an almost-finished bottle sitting on the coffee table.

  “Where the hell have you been?” Rona’s tone of voice matched her accusing words.