God, he was such a gossip. ‘Unfortunately, I don’t,’ Kate told him. ‘I’m going to be late.’ She made her way to the stairs at the end of the hall. She looked back to see Max sliding down the wall to sit on the floor. Since when was Max so compassionate about her friends? Sure, Jack was his cousin and he might feel some responsibility for Bina, but not to this extent.
‘You know, I worry about Bina,’ Max said. ‘I need to talk to Jack.’
‘No, you don’t,’ Kate called to him as she ran down the stairs. ‘Leave well enough alone.’
Steven looked terrific. Well, Kate reflected, Steven had always looked terrific to her. As he stood up his length unfolded, reminding Kate of one of those hinged yardsticks. He smiled, and his smile broke the parenthesis – the lines on each side of his mouth that looked so attractive in men. ‘Hi,’ he said. ‘What can I get you?’
Kate was glad she hadn’t committed to dinner. Though he lived in the East Village, Kate had selected the Starbucks near her apartment. It was safe: Steven wouldn’t expect her to have a meal with him and Elliot never frequented the place. Steven had what looked like a café latte grande in front of him, half of it gone. He must have arrived early. ‘An iced tea,’ she said, in answer to his question, and took the seat across from him at his tiny table in the corner. He nodded and was at the counter in a moment. It gave Kate a chance to smooth her hair and look at him from behind.
He was still long and lean – at six foot three it was easy to be long, but perhaps he wasn’t quite as thin as he had been. His hair, however, was still as beautiful: a thick black waterfall that gleamed like a crow’s wing. Kate remembered too vividly how she had loved to stroke his hair. He turned and came back to her, the iced tea and a paper plate of biscotti in his hands. They were the anise ones that she liked. She was touched and surprised that he remembered, but when he picked one up himself, she thought that perhaps it was just because he himself had come to like them.
It was the time of day when few people dropped in for coffee: after the rush that came after lunch but before the rush that came after dinner. There were no clients lingering except for the inevitable madman writing in something that looked like a journal, and an older gentleman – obviously retired – who sat in a plush chair near the window and read a rumpled copy of the New York Times in the waning light.
She took a sip of her tea and they sat for a moment in silence. Kate had promised herself that she wasn’t going to do much talking. She felt him looking at her and returned his gaze passively.
‘You look terrific,’ he said.
Kate smiled, and hoped the smile was what art critics and novelists called ‘enigmatic’. ’I’m glad you could meet me,’ he added. He paused. Kate maintained her silence. Perhaps, she thought, completely irrelevantly, she could someday become an analyst and be paid to say nothing for hours. ‘Well, enough about you,’ Steven said, ‘how do I look?’
‘I think you’ve grown,’ Kate said, tongue-in-cheek. ‘Do men have growth spurts?’
‘Sure, but only emotional ones. And it’s pretty rare.’ He stopped smiling and his face took on the lean and hungry look that Kate remembered from their love-making and his talk about his ambitions. He wore it, she knew, when he wanted things. She remained silent, waiting to hear what it was that he wanted now.
‘Kate, do you ever think about how it was…I mean how it was between us?’
She was grateful that Elliot wasn’t there to smack his forehead and whine about the months she had relived every detail of her time with Steven. ‘I’ve been busy,’ she said. Steven nodded.
‘I deserved that,’ he said. ‘But I’ve been thinking about you. Actually, I can’t stop thinking about you. I do it all the time.’
‘That isn’t good,’ Kate said, in exactly the same tone of voice Elliot would have used. God, was she going to sound more and more like a gay man?
Steven didn’t seem to notice. ‘Kate, I’m here to tell you, I was an asshole. I would say cad, but it’s too archaic. Asshole covers a lot of territory, but you know what I mean.’
Kate nodded and took another sip of her tea. ‘I think lying asshole would be more accurate,’ she said. She turned her head toward the window so that she wouldn’t display any visible emotion to him.
To her horror, out of the very corner of her eye she thought she saw Max walking by. Was he with a woman? She couldn’t see them as they turned the corner but she prayed they wouldn’t step into the shop. Max had met Steven more than once and would definitely agree with Steven’s current self-assessment. Lately, Max had seemed so protective on Bina’s behalf that on her own behalf he would probably do his best to beat Steven to a pulp. Though Kate abhorred violence, she could take a certain pleasure in imagining Steven punished. Still, she preferred to handle it in her own emotional rather than physical way. Luckily, nobody entered the coffee shop and Kate could focus again on Steven.
‘I don’t know what to say, exactly,’ Steven told her. ‘Except that I’ve been reading Piaget and I think I’m a case of arrested development. I was emotionally somewhere between seven and nine years old when we were going out.’ Kate raised her eyebrows. She expected an apology but not such a complete and accurate one.
‘Kate, I don’t regret anything in my life as much as I regret letting you go.’ Kate tried not to let these words sink in. There had been so many weeks, months that she had hoped to hear them. Now she told herself to stay cool and calm. Steven looked around. ‘God, this place is murder,’ he told her. ‘Please, Kate, let me take you out for a drink and dinner. Just give me a chance to explain everything.’
Kate meant to say no. She meant to shake her head. She had gotten the satisfaction and closure that she craved and now she only had to be cold and polite and negative. Just one shake of the head.
‘My job is very demanding right now,’ she told him.
‘When will it let up?’
‘Oh, not for the next month or so.’
‘So if I call you in four weeks could we see one another?’
When she found herself nodding she was as surprised, but not as delighted as Steven appeared to be.
33
Kate had barely had time to shower and get into bed, totally exhausted from her scene with Michael and the subsequent meeting with Steven, when the phone rang. She shrank from it as if it were a snakehead fish instead of just a telephone receiver. Rather than talk to Michael she would put a snakehead fish up to her ear. She screwed up her courage and took a look at the caller ID. When she saw that it was only Bina’s number she heaved a sigh of relief and answered the ring.
‘I can’t believe it!’ Bina almost yelled. ‘It’s working! It’s working almost too good! And I haven’t even broken up with him yet.’
Kate was totally confused. ‘What are you talking about?’ she asked, her voice more resigned than irritated.
‘He called! He’s going to ask me to marry him!’
Kate felt a jolt of jealousy mixed with complete surprise. ‘Billy is proposing?’ she asked, incredulous. She knew that Bina and Billy had been having fun, but she could hardly believe…with her break-up from Michael so fresh, the idea of Bina settled was unsettling, especially when it involved Billy Nolan. If he had proposed to Bina, it must have been precipitated by the sex. Kate cringed thinking about it – it was always odd to imagine a friend in the throes of physical passion – but Bina, unlikely as it appeared, must have been great in bed.
‘Not Billy! Jack! Jack called from Hong Kong,’ Bina was almost shouting. ‘He said he’s flying home the day after tomorrow and he’s doing it to see me. Kate, don’t you get it? Elliot’s plan worked. Jack is coming back to me.’
Kate, tired as she was, had trouble digesting this news. Her head was a jumble of Max’s e-mails, Elliot’s numbers and graphs, Bina’s gossip about her dates, the recent shocking news from the baby shower. All of it seemed to converge on Kate, literally making her dizzy. ‘Jack called and proposed?’ she asked, as soon as she could figure out w
hat had happened.
‘Well, yes and no.’ Bina’s voice was slightly less joyous, slowed a bit by reluctance to admit the truth.
‘Okay. Tell me exactly what happened,’ Kate said, and wished that she hadn’t given up smoking years ago. This was going to be the kind of long, involved description that only a cigarette could help get you through. ‘And tell me it in order from beginning to end.’
She heard Bina take a deep breath. ‘Well, first the phone rang.’
Kate realized it was just as well she’d given up cigarettes: she’d probably need a whole carton for this. ‘Yeah. Then what?’
‘Then I picked it up. No, actually my mother picked it up. Then she handed it to me and said “It’s for you.”’
‘Did she know it was Jack?’
‘Not then. Not until I screamed. Well, maybe she did, do you want me to ask her?’
‘No.’ Kate pushed an extra throw pillow behind her head and wished she had a glass of beer. ‘Just tell me what he said and what you said, Bina.’
‘Okay, so he said, “Bina, is that you?” So I said who wants to know, but I knew it was him because I knew his voice right away. You know, it sounded like he was calling from Coney Island or something, not from the other side of the world.’
Kate marveled again at her friend’s ability to insert a cliché into the most extraordinary situation. ‘Then what did he say?’ Kate sighed.
‘He says, “Bina, I got to talk to you” and I say I’m listening and he goes, “I’ve made a big mistake, Bina.” And I go, well, how is that my business?’
Kate was astounded that Jack and Bina’s dialogue continued in the exact same way it always had despite the trauma of their separation. She couldn’t help but compare it to her uncomfortable conversation with Steven.
‘So he says “This is Jack.” And I say – you’re gonna like this, Katie. I say Jack who? Wasn’t that good?’
‘Great,’ Kate said.
‘So he says “Jack Weintraub.” And I go, oh, I was confused. I thought it was Jack Marco Polo. And he’s like “What?” And I’m like “You know, the single guy that discovered a whole new world in the orient.”’
Kate thought for a moment of correcting Bina and telling her that she was talking about Asia, but decided against it. If she gave lessons in geography and political correctness she’d be on the phone all night.
‘So he says, “Bina, don’t mock me. Have you been going out with someone else?” And I say, “What’s it to you?” And he says, “Now I know you are.” And I say, “Think what you want, but I know the truth.” And then he’s like, “Bina, I really have to talk to you.” And I say, “Whatever.” And he’s like, “I know you’re probably angry at me and everything…” And I interrupt him and I say, “Think again, because I hardly remember you.” Hey, Katie, do you think he heard gossip all the way in Japan?’
‘He’s in Hong Kong, Bina.’
‘Isn’t that a part of Japan?’
Kate just shook her head. ‘So what happened then?’ she asked.
‘Now it gets really good. He goes, “I have to talk to you.” And I say, “Isn’t that what you’re doing now?” And he says, “I’ve got to talk to you face to face.” So I go, “That will probably be difficult since you’re so two-faced.” And he says, “Meet me at the airport on Thursday, Bina. I’m flying into JFK just to see you. Please don’t say no.”’
Kate waited. There was silence at the other end of the phone. ‘So what did you say?’ Kate asked, hesitating, remembering how Elliot had warned her not to see Steven. But, of course, this situation was very different.
‘I said yes!’ Bina almost yodeled into the phone. ‘And he says, “I have something I want to ask you and something I want to give you.” Isn’t that great? So do you think it’s too late to call Elliot and Brice and tell them or should I wait until tomorrow morning? I mean, if it wasn’t for Elliot’s statistics I never…’ She paused. ‘Ohmigod, Katie! Ohmigod! I have to get Billy to dump me for this to work, right?’
‘Come on, Bina, that’s all nonsense, Jack called you because he loves you and misses you.’
‘Forget that. This is because of Elliot. If I didn’t go out with Billy…’
Kate flung the blankets off and stood up. ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ she said. ‘You don’t have to do anything now but show up at the airport.’
‘I’m calling Elliot,’ Bina said. ‘I have to find out how long I have to date Billy, and then you and Elliot have to figure out how we break up.’
‘Oh, come on,’ Kate said. ‘You can just tell him it’s over.’
‘Nahuh,’ Bina said while Kate stomped into the hall and across to her tiny kitchen, phone in hand. She prayed there was just one beer left somewhere in the back of the refrigerator. ‘He has to break up with me, remember?’ Kate opened the refrigerator door. It made that lonely light that illuminates single women at one a.m. after they’ve had some horrible disappointment. ‘I have to figure out a way for him to dump me, Katie,’ Bina continued. ‘And I have to do it by Thursday, otherwise…’
Behind the mayonnaise jar Kate caught a glimpse of the brown neck of a Samuel Adams. She uttered a silent prayer to the god of alcohol and grabbed it. ‘Look, Bina, you don’t have to believe me,’ Kate told her friend as she poured the beer into a glass. She never drank from the bottle. It reminded her too much of her father. ‘Jack has just about proposed. I don’t know if you should accept him but if that’s what you want, that’s what you’re doing Thursday night.’
‘I’m calling Elliot,’ Bina said. ‘I’m calling him and then I’m calling Barbie and then…’
Oh, God. After the baby shower, Kate didn’t think she could do one more function with the Bitches. ‘Fine,’ Kate said. ‘Call them all, but leave me out of it.’ She hung up the phone and chugged all the beer. Then she put down the glass and left it alone on the counter while she went, alone, to her bed.
34
Thursday morning dawned beautifully. Kate knew because she was awake – as she had been, on and off – for most of the night. The window in her bedroom faced east and she saw the murky brown that passed as darkness turn first beige, then pink and, lastly, salmon as the sun rose. It was close to the summer solstice, and the light would last till eight thirty that evening, but there was no light in Kate’s heart. Though this brief period between the beginning of spring and the deep heat of summer was Kate’s favorite time of year, she woke with a heaviness in her chest and a gray despair that no dawn could affect. She had been working and eating – though without an appetite – and walking to and from school but she felt barely conscious of any of it. Although she didn’t regret breaking up with Michael and she didn’t expect anything from Steven, she felt lonely and hopeless. Like many women in Manhattan, she would go without a partner because either she was good enough or they weren’t. Her Brooklyn friends had exhausted her, and like a sore spot on her gums that she couldn’t keep her tongue away from, there was something annoying and painful about Billy Nolan and Bina’s affair with him that she preferred not to think about, but that her mind kept going back to. Perhaps worst of all, she couldn’t talk to Rita or her other Manhattan friends about it because they would never understand, and she couldn’t talk to Elliot about it because he was the instigator, and the truth was she didn’t want him, like a dentist with a fine instrument, picking at this sensitive spot.
It was a quarter after six and Kate had just drifted into a light sleep when the phone rang. She couldn’t imagine who it would be. She picked up the phone to hear Bina’s imploring voice at the other end. ‘Please Kate, help me! I have to go to the airport. I went out with Billy last night and I acted as snotty as I could but he just laughed. I flirted with another guy, but he didn’t seem to mind. Kate, I tried everything everyone suggested. You have to help me. Jack lands in an hour and a half and…’ Bina began to cry. And while Kate had heard Bina cry through almost every phase of their lives, there was an element to this that was new. Kate made shushing noises
while she tried to wake up to define what was different. And then it came to her. For the first time, Bina was crying like an adult. Gone was the open-hearted hysteria that allowed Bina to be so infuriating and yet sweet. Instead, Kate heard overlays of guilt, and shame, and anxiety.
‘I made a mistake, Kate. But I don’t want to have to tell Jack and if Billy doesn’t dump me, Jack won’t propose and I’ve ruined my life.’ Bina’s sobs were muffled, but Kate couldn’t help but think that she too was afraid she had ruined her own life.
‘It’s all going to be all right,’ Kate assured her. ‘I’ll get a limo and pick you up in thirty minutes. I’ll drop you at the airport, just look good. I’ll take care of everything. I promise you, it’s all going to be all right.’
‘Cross your heart and hope to die?’ Bina asked, and before she assured her, Kate thought same old Bina at the other end of the line.
Dressed, made-up, coiffed and scented, Bina sat beside Kate in the limo. Kate had pulled herself together, called the car service, picked up Bina in Brooklyn and had swept her into the back seat. Impressed with the car, Bina was still nervous.
‘But what are you going to do?’ Bina asked.
‘That’s for me to know, and for you to never find out,’ Kate said and leaned forward. ‘Take the BQE,’ she told the driver, who seemed to be taking the scenic route – as if there was one – to JFK. ‘Do you know which terminal he is coming into?’
‘International?’
‘There is more than one international terminal,’ Kate began to explain; although she wasn’t absolutely sure that was true. She leaned forward again. ‘International arrivals,’ she told the driver. ‘Follow the signs.’ She leaned back into the leather of the seats. The limo was a bit of a luxury. But she didn’t want to have to argue with the driver once they reached the airport. She turned to her friend and looked into her eyes. ‘Listen to me,’ Kate said.
Uptown Girl Page 26
