I disconnect just before Carol unleashes another torrent, at nobody in particular. Unfortunately, she stops midstream as her eyes hone in like lasers on my new roses. They’re sort of crowding my prior roses. I can only assume that must constitute horrible feng shui.
“Zoë!”
“Uh, yes?”
“What did we say about flowers?” she yells. I hear New Girl gasp, somewhere in the back corner of the bullpen.
“Bad feng shui. I’ll take them all home tonight.”
“Very. Bad. Feng. Shui,” she announces to the entire office. “If anyone loses a deal today, it’s because Zoë undermined our balance with nature.” I watch her Chanel-suited form retreat and then her office door slams.
Marvin snickers, “She curses like one of Tony’s boys on The Sopranos, so all of Midtown Manhattan can hear, and Zoë’s flowers give us bad feng shui? This place drives me to drink.” He reaches for the secret silver flask in his desk drawer, and I wonder, for the hundredth time in a month, how soon I could get another job that would cover my rent. Not that I think that would be the best course of action for me, career-wise. And most days, I do feel more lucky than not to be here, especially with the economy still shaky. The legal industry, while not immune, hasn’t contracted as much as some other sectors, so I suppose my colleagues and I feel somewhat, albeit thinly, insulated against the gloom.
The thing is, even if the economy were booming, I don’t know what I’d be doing instead. The commission structure here gives me the opportunity to earn more than I would almost anywhere else. But Carol is certifiably nuts, and sometimes my clients act even nuttier, so it’s nice to indulge in an escapist fantasy now and then. Like three to five times during the average work day.
At just after seven o’clock, when I should be Salsa dancing myself to svelte, I’m instead staring despondently into the abyss that is my closet and wishing Angela wasn’t so fanatic about her workout regime. She’d know what to do. When I called to tell her I was blowing her off in favor of a wardrobe-induced panic attack, she graciously offered her own closet, which undoubtedly houses no less than a dozen perfect outfits for this occasion.
Since I don’t think it would be wise to try to shoehorn my size six form into any of the items from her size two collection, I’m stuck with what little I already own, and with Kevin, who’s not really helping matters.
“Maybe you should go shopping,” he says, shaking his head. He holds up a little black dress that would work except that the zipper is torn. New resolution: Fix things when they break. Do not bury them in the back of the closet and hope that tiny tailor gnomes will repair them.
“I can’t afford to go shopping!” I wail. “I have to pay the whole rent on this place, starting on the first, remember?”
“Right, there’s that,” Kevin agrees. “Unless Prince Charming wants to become your new sugar daddy. God knows he’s old enough.”
I make a face. “He’s not going to be any such thing. He’s merely a pleasant distraction.”
“Yeah, right,” Kevin shrugs. He reaches into the closet and pulls out a Pucci scarf, which he immediately dismisses as too funky for a first date with a “grown up man” who’s been admiring me in dull business wear. He wraps it onto his head, bandana-style and gets back to work, muttering that all I have is suits. Even though the blue tones bring out his eyes, he looks ridiculous.
I shake my head, and wonder, silently, whether Brendan might have been right about Kevin. I know better than to make any remarks in this vein. It would either irritate him, or set off an explanation I’ve heard dozens of times before. Kevin is in tune with women because his dad was a total check-out who worked a hundred hours a week, and his mom practically raised Kevin and his sisters alone, and their house was always full of her lady friends. Antics like this one with my scarf are performed to make me laugh, not speculate on his sexual proclivities. Instead I ask, “What are you doing home so early anyway?”
“The Councilman took the night off. It’s his anniversary.”
I look at him quizzically. Kevin never gives his candidates time off after Labor Day of an election year.
“I know, I know, I’m getting soft in my old age.” He adjusts the scarf so more of his sandy-colored hair peeks out. “But I told him tonight is absolutely it.”
“You have a rare night off and you’re spending it with me, going through clothes?”
“I’m not that pathetic. Maybe if we get done here, I can go for a run. Campaigns make you paunchy.” He pats his nonexistent stomach.
“Hardly,” I say, even though I know he’s fishing for a compliment. “And I still think you’re pathetic.”
“That’s because I didn’t tell you that after my run, I’m going out with Lily.” He folds his arms across his chest, in a classic male gesture of self-satisfaction.
“Who’s Lily?”
“I’m surprised Angela didn’t tell you. She’s a model. From Slovenia. Or maybe it’s Slovakia.”
“You know, they’re totally different countries.”
“I have it written down in my diary.” Kevin spent two years in London and picked up the lingo. He likes saying “diary” and “shed-yool.”
I hold up a pink sundress that would be perfect. That is, it would be perfect if it were a weekend in July and we were going for sunset drinks in the Hamptons. Kevin grimaces. “It’s not saying Nobu to me.”
“I know. I’m getting desperate.” I study the feasibility of fixing my little black dress with safety pins and change the subject. “Why is a model going out with you?”
“Because Angela told her she should,” he grins. “And who knows? Maybe I’ll get lucky before she discovers I’m absolutely worthless, in terms of advancing her career.”
At least he’s honest.
“This is never going to work,” I groan. I drop the reliable little black dress in a little black heap on my bed and dive back into the closet. I’m not sure what I expect to find in there.
Kevin picks up the dress and asks, “Just a zipper, right?”
“Yeah. What? Are you going to tell me you secretly minored in home ec or something?”
“I wish,” he laughs. “I would have been a hit with all the ladies in the class. But no, I was thinking the dry cleaner across the street could fix this.”
I consult my watch. “They close in seven minutes.”
Kevin grabs the dress and runs for my door, calling behind him, “The girl in there loves me. I’ll be back.”
He’s got one foot out of my bedroom when he remembers the scarf. He turns, whips it off his head and tosses it to me. As I re-direct my focus to my shoe options, I wonder what I’d do without him.
FOUR
In the cab on the way to Nobu I start to second guess myself. I do this even though I know I look good tonight, and that dating is good for me. I’m also fairly sure I’d be a moron if I didn’t jump at the chance to go out with a hot, successful man who fell into my lap, but I’m anxious at the same time. What if he’s a freak? Or worse, what’s if he’s perfect, but decides I’m a freak before we finish our first drink? I take a deep breath and remind myself this date is a healthy exercise, a life-affirming leap of faith.
Or maybe I’m getting ahead of myself.
Maybe it’s too soon to plunge into something as rash as a last minute dinner with an older stranger. It would seem more rational to ease into the choppy singles scene waters by consenting to a safe fix up with a friend of a friend, or something in that vein. As much as I want to get back out there, part of me is paralyzed by the prospect of failure at dating. I already feel like I’m under-achieving at work, compared to many of my friends, so why should I risk turning my love life into even more of a fiasco? Not that it would be easy to out do myself in that department. Although, as my mother loves to remind me, and my voicemail when I can’t face her chatter, I’m not getting any younger. It really smarted when she tried to re-enroll me in Internet dating last week. The whole idea of meeting men on the web sort of
skeeves me after my first failed foray.
But then, it’s not like I’ve suffered one of those normal breakups, where they say you need a month to heal for every year of the relationship. In the case of Brendan and me, I have a sense of absolute finality most girls take ages to reach, because he’s not interested in women. Therefore, no matter what else happens, we will never, ever reconcile. Angela says at least I’m inoculated against wondering whether he was the one who got away.
The cab stops and goes with the traffic that never seems to ease up these days. I feel like I should be eagerly anticipating a first rate dinner with my handsome stranger, but instead my mind goes where it’s gone countless times over recent months, to another fancy dinner.
Brendan didn’t have the nerve to tell me in the privacy of our own home. So he took me to the Blue Water Grill. I was expecting a romantic evening to decompress from the wedding insanity that had taken over my life. Seriously, no human being should ever have to lose sleep over the ribbons on her bridesmaids’ bouquets, an overbudget ice sculpture, or the fact that her mother and future mother-in-law have a serious difference of opinion regarding the choice of font for her ceremony programs. Our upcoming wedding, a six-figure extravaganza largely furnished by his parents but micro-managed by my mother, had taken on a life of its own. I couldn’t entirely disagree when Brendan called it all ridiculous.
He waited until the waiter cleared the salads and took our entrée orders to tell me. Then he just blurted it out. “You’re going to hate me, Zoë. But not as much as I would hate myself if I didn’t tell you.”
I remember stopping my wine glass in mid-air while my mind raced to figure out what he could possibly have to say that would make me hate him. Things had hardly ever been passionate between us. No super high highs and no dreadfully low lows. We were never one of those gooey engaged couples who spent hours staring into each others’ eyes. Instead, Brendan and I had a solid friendship, dating back to our sophomore year at Princeton, which I had long since convinced myself would serve as the foundation of a long, contented life. I never imagined our future would look much different from our present. So what could it be? My brain jogged to unsavory places. Maybe he had herpes. Maybe his law firm wanted him to transfer to the west coast. Maybe, due to a premature midlife crisis, he wanted to quit the law firm altogether and sell T shirts to tourists in the park.
Before I could form any of the questions my brain wanted to ask, he just said it. “I can’t pretend anymore. I love you, Zoë, but I can’t marry you. We need to call off the wedding.”
I sat in stunned silence for a second, then used a monumental effort of will to keep from tossing my Brunello into his face. I felt my face crumple and I started to cry.
“It’s not what you think,” he said, and reached a hand across the table to rest on mine. I brushed him away. “Zoë, if I wanted to marry any girl, it would be you.”
“So you’re having an early mid-life crisis? Or is it regular, plain old cold feet?” It came out louder than I intended. The diners at the next table turned to look.
“Keep your voice down,” Brendan hissed. “It has nothing to do with a mid-life crisis, and everything to do with having the maturity to be honest with myself. Zoë, I’m gay.”
“Excuse me?” I heard what he said but couldn’t process it.
“I think you heard me.”
“And you’ve just figured this out now? After almost ten years together? After a year-long engagement, two engagement parties, an announcement in the Times, hundreds of hours wasted on wedding planning, and RSVP cards trickling in every day, from as far away as Europe and South Africa? Now you decide you’re gay?”
I remember thinking it was preposterous. Inconceivable. Unreal.
“I’ve known for years. I thought I couldn’t do it to my family. I thought I could make it work with you, and maybe if we had a family of our own, playing it straight could make sense.”
“And did you ever, for one second, stop and consider what all this would mean for me? That my marriage to my alleged best friend would be a sham? That the person I thought I could trust more than anyone else in the world not only lied about who he is, but didn’t contemplate my feelings at all?” I paused for air and forced myself to lower my voice a notch. “Wow. I have no idea what to say, Brendan.”
“How about you understand?”
I remember I glared at him and forced myself to keep breathing until he came out with, “Think how hard this is for me. And at least now we won’t ever get divorced.”
The Brunello flew into his eyes and I ran out of the restaurant, burning with embarrassment over making a scene, humiliated beyond what I ever imagined possible, and terrified of facing my friends and family with the news that I must be the stupidest woman in the Tri-State area, if not on the entire Eastern Seaboard, if I could be with a guy for a decade and fail to deduce his sexual orientation.
My mother denies it, because she doesn’t want to support the idea that her daughter’s happiness should be tied up with a fairy tale wedding, but my brother tells me she’s been seeing a therapist regularly ever since my break up. I think at times she felt more invested in planning the reception that I did, and I think she nearly died of shame when she had to tell her friends the news. My father reacted in a more circumspect manner, reassured me it was better to know, and never brought up the topic again. My friends all claimed to be as stunned as I was, though I suspect Kevin and Angela may have played up their shock so as not to rub more salt in my open sore.
I’m so lost in my thoughts and horrified at the still fresh hurt that I’m not sure how long it takes me to realize that we’ve arrived at the restaurant. The cabbie is tapping on the partition, understandably urging me to pay the fare and vacate the back seat so he can pick up a new customer. I apologize, tip him well, and find myself on the sidewalk. Good. Eight minutes early. Time to walk around the block and clear my head. I will not allow my bad break-up to derail my first promising post-engagement date before it starts.
The over-plucked, under-nourished hostess peers down at me from her elevated stand for a good half minute before speaking, and during those thirty seconds, I loathe myself for allowing her to make me feel inadequate. At least I’m in respectable company. Even Angela agrees that a single sniff of disapproval from one of these slinky, black-clad creatures is enough to send almost anyone running to an emergency session with a therapist. Or at least an expensive wardrobe consultation. Thanks to Kevin’s sprint to his love-struck laundress, my trusty almost-too-much-but-not-quite chandelier earrings, and the sample size Sergio Rossi’s Angela sent my way last week, I have nothing to apologize for. I am the fashion equal of every person here. Amazingly, the hostess’s studied frown breaks into a smile when I say I’m meeting Oscar Thornton.
She steps down from her pedestal and leads me through the restaurant to one of the best tables. That must be a good sign. A total psychopath probably wouldn’t have favored patron status at an upscale restaurant. But it’s not impossible. Why did I ever agree to dinner? Does he do this all the time—ask out women he’s never met and then take them on expensive dates?
He gets up when he sees me approach and I freeze. What’s the etiquette here? Will he go in for the air kiss? Should I stick out my hand and introduce myself? I wish the hostess would stop hovering. For some illogical reason I don’t want her to know we’re meeting for the first time.
Before we make it across the room, it becomes obvious that practically every woman in the place is watching Oscar Thornton. And with good reason. He’s even better looking up close than from across Madison Avenue, and taller. He’s broad-shouldered, high-cheekboned, and he’s been blessed with the most soulful brown eyes I’ve ever seen in my life. He’s wearing his suit with a pink, French-cuffed shirt underneath, but no tie. And he’s definitely one of those men who can carry off pink. A forty-something blonde woman rolls her eyes when she sees me coming and whispers something to her friend, who actually points at me. For a second I have
the sickening feeling that my dress is caught up in my underwear. But that’s not it. I can feel the fabric, swishing reassuringly against my legs.
Oscar goes in for the air kiss. I turn my head too fast and he gets my ear. We sit down and wait for the hostess to retreat before I say, “I’m Zoë, by the way.”
“Oscar,” he says. “But you already knew that. Can I offer you a drink?”
I glance down at his dirty martini, and when the waiter arrives I order a pomegranate one, which should take the edge off my nerves, but which I resolve to nurse. There’s no word that fairly describes this Oscar other than “delicious,” and I am not about to screw things up by becoming a drunken fool. I search the recesses of my brain for a safe topic. I’m guessing he does not need to hear about my recent humiliation at the hands of my former fiancé.
Fortunately, he speaks first. “So tell me, what goes on over there across the street? I’ve decided you’re either in phone sales, or you’re some kind of consultant. Which is it?”
“Well, I suppose both would be accurate. I work for C.R. Broadwick and Associates. We’re headhunters. But you really don’t know where I work? You didn’t check before you sent the flowers? Which are gorgeous by the way, thank you again.” If he asks what happened to them, I’ll have to tell him I took them home, for fear of inappropriate feng shui.
“You’re very welcome. So do you like hunting heads?”
Less than five minutes into our first date, and he cuts right to the million-dollar question, which my parents ask me at least every other time we speak. “Not many kids dream of growing up to work in legal search.”
“Right. Most toy stores don’t carry junior headhunter kits.” He nods with flirtatious pretend seriousness.
“I worked in a gallery out of college, which loses its glamour quickly, unless you’re lucky enough to own your own place. And the Wall Street Journal isn’t exactly full of ads that say, ‘Art History Majors Wanted.’ The money in head hunting is good, and once in a while, I can really help make someone’s career, which is nice.” I realize I’m on the verge of answering a short answer question with an essay response and stop myself.
The Hazards of Hunting While Heartbroken Page 4
