Uptown Girl

by Olivia Goldsmith

  ‘Oh, yes, I do. I know masochism when I see it. And I’m staring at it right now.’

  ‘Shut up,’ Kate told him, her voice lowered to a hiss.

  Elliot shrugged. He turned and walked to the door. Then, before he left, he turned back to her. ‘Out of the frying pan and into the furnace. This is going on your permanent record, Missy.’

  39

  Kate looked at the pan bubbling on Billy’s burner. It certainly didn’t look appetizing, but it smelled pretty good, though she couldn’t honestly say she was hungry. Her argument with Elliot that afternoon had not only upset her (and her stomach) but had also made her nervous. What was she doing here? Elliot had told her this was only a get-over-Michael fling but it didn’t feel like one. It felt…well, Kate needed to hear that this feeling she had for Billy, who was poking at the contents of the pan with a fork, was mutual.

  Billy was cooking dinner for the two of them and Kate was keeping out of his way while he worked over the shallow pan in which he seemed to be simmering a lot of tomato sauce, meat, and capers. ‘What is it?’ she had asked him, looking at it doubtfully.

  ‘An old Nolan family recipe. Hey, don’t judge it until you’ve tried it. And why don’t we go out for lunch on Saturday? I’ll have to work Saturday night.’

  Kate shook her head. ‘I have a previous engagement,’ she said. ‘Bina’s bridal shower.’

  ‘Boy, that sounds like fun,’ he said. Then he shrugged. ‘We’ve got the bar booked for her fiancé’s bachelor party. Let me tell you, I’m not looking forward to that.’

  Kate looked down at the pan again and thought about Bina and how upset she seemed. Between the end of school and her time with Billy, Kate hadn’t had much time for her friend, and couldn’t bear to hear about the ongoing wedding preparation minutiae. Bina was obviously bewildered about why.

  Billy, seeing the look on Kate’s face, patted her shoulder. ‘Don’t you worry, everybody likes it. It’s a guaranteed way to tenderize the toughest meat. My mom used to make it.’ Billy had never spoken of his mother before, except to say she was dead. For a moment Kate considered asking about her but decided that discretion was the better part of valor.

  Kate took the glass of red wine Billy had poured her, left the scene of the culinary crimes and wandered over to the window. After her fight with Elliot he had called to make up. He asked her to meet him for a drink but she’d been forced to admit that she was spending the night with Billy and he had made his disapproval obvious and vocal. Kate had tried to ignore all of the calmer, more logical things he had said to dissuade her: about how Billy was a playboy and how she was barking up the wrong tree, and how Elliot loved her but didn’t want to have to ‘pick up the pieces’. Then he had stopped short. ‘You’re not just doing this to get a proposal, are you?’ he’d asked. ‘After all, you turned Michael down and you don’t know what the cat might drag in after Billy dumps you.’

  The words had chilled her. ‘I never believed that ridiculous theory,’ she had snapped.

  Elliot had stopped being protective only to get offended. ‘How can you say that?’ he’d asked. ‘It got Bina engaged. Proof positive.’

  Kate, with a lot of effort and side-stepping, had managed to convince him that she was not taking this affair seriously – no matter what Elliot believed, there would be no proposals. Now, as she stared out the window at the rain, she admitted to herself that both were lies. She was taking Billy seriously, and she was beginning to hope that his feelings for her were totally sincere. Elliot’s assured assumption that Billy would, of course, dump her had shaken her more than she liked to admit. Was it possible that she was nothing to him but another notch on his belt? She looked over at him, busily throwing far too much pepper into the pan. He wasn’t even wearing a belt for God’s sake and his Levi’s rode his hips in the most provocative way. Kate turned away. She’d never looked at Michael with this kind of carnal longing.

  She looked around the room. It wasn’t the way other men she’d known lived. Steven’s West Side apartment had always looked like a student’s place with its sprung sofa and the books he still had in cartons, while Michael’s place, neater and furnished with new IKEA pieces, looked temporary. Michael, like one of Bonaparte’s generals, knew how to set up house temporarily until he moved on to the next – in his case academic – battle. But Billy’s three big rooms indicated that he had put down deep roots. Beneath her feet the very worn Persian rug in faded blue and maroon looked as if his grandmother might have walked on it. The Chesterfield sofa didn’t look as if it was bought from a catalogue – the oxblood leather didn’t appear to have been professionally ‘distressed’ at the factory before it was shipped. But there were new things, too: on one wall there was a big art piece – Kate couldn’t call it a painting or a collage because it was something in between – which seemed to be torn bits of white paper glued to a white canvas. On the wall between the windows there was a small abstract of a woman lying under what looked like a very fluffy duvet.

  And a series of lithographs hung in a row over the sofa. Kate took the time to look at them. ‘What do you think?’ Billy asked her. He had come out of the kitchen. ‘Are they art or did the artist who owed me a big tab rip me off?’

  She smiled at him. ‘I like them,’ she said.

  Billy took an appraising look. ‘I think I do,’ he said. He indicated the art on the walls with a flourish of the meat fork still in his hand. ‘Valuable art or bad debts. You be the judge.’ He smiled. ‘Dinner’s almost ready.’

  Kate nodded and Billy disappeared back into the kitchen. If she was completely honest with herself, she had to admit that Billy Nolan was the first man she had felt this kind of desire for. It was too comfortable to be infatuation, but too passionate to be completely comfortable. It would, most likely, end in tears. And the rain against the window seemed appropriate.

  ‘Hey! How about a little help here?’ Billy asked, coming out of the kitchen again, this time with plates and flatware. ‘You set the table.’ He went to the mantelpiece and took down two candlesticks, the candles in them stubby and of two different heights. ‘Spare no expense,’ Billy said. ‘Candlelight. Paper napkins. The works.’

  Kate smiled and set the table. She fetched a wine glass for him and put out the salt and pepper. A matchbook from the bar lay on the coffee table and she lit the two black wicks. As she did it, the thought occurred to her that the last time Billy had used these candles it might have been to dine – and sleep with – Bina. She stood absolutely still until the match burned down, almost to her fingernail. She dropped it, just the way she dropped the idea of Billy with Bina or anyone else and moved away from the table.

  To distract herself, Kate looked around at all of the French volumes lined up neatly on Billy’s bookshelves. She reminded herself not to be too inquisitive, not to bring up the past or the future, but she couldn’t help being curious, and it seemed harmless enough. ‘What’s with the French?’ she asked.

  ‘Oh. I like it. It’s not as rich a language as English, but it has subtleties that we lack.’ She sat down at his table, where he had placed her dish, and he carried his own over.

  ‘Did you learn it in school?’ she asked and picked up the knife to cut into the meat. She found the knife wasn’t necessary because the beef was so tender it fell to pieces. It was also delicious.

  ‘A little,’ he said as he picked up a forkful from his plate.

  Kate smiled at him. ‘You must have been a terror,’ she said. ‘A real class clown.’

  He shook his head, his mouth full. He had to swallow before he could answer. ‘No. I didn’t even talk in class. I had a stutter so bad that I was really self-conscious. I didn’t want to talk to anyone.’

  Kate put down her own fork and stared at him. She had almost forgotten his slight stammer. But stuttering, she knew, was almost impossible to cure completely and many of the treatments had only a temporary effect. ‘How did you…when did you lose the…’

  ‘Oh, I went all through hig
h school with it. But when I was a junior, I had a good French teacher and I noticed that in French I didn’t stutter. It was strange, to be able to say whatever I wanted to without worrying about certain words and letters I always got stuck on. I felt like I was being let out of a prison, so I learned every word I possibly could in French. Senior year I really didn’t study anything else. And I didn’t care about the grade. I just wanted to be able to speak when I wanted to.’

  Sitting across from him, Kate was amazed by what he was telling her. ‘What happened then?’ she asked, not like a psychologist, but like a child being told a bedtime story.

  ‘My teacher introduced me to some of her French friends, and even though my grades weren’t good enough to get me a full scholarship to college, she helped me get into l’Ecole des Beaux Arts. I was supposed to be studying French history, but what I was really doing was reinventing myself. I felt like I was reborn. I wasn’t the kid who stuttered. I was the American who spoke French as well as any Parisian. Sometimes people I met wouldn’t believe I was American.’

  ‘And what happened to your stutter? In English, I mean?’ Kate asked, touched and amazed by this story.

  Billy shrugged. ‘When I had to come back because of my father, it just seemed to be gone. Sometimes when I’m tired or under a lot of stress I stammer a little bit.’

  Kate remembered his speech at the wedding. He had stammered a little then, and perhaps he had when they had first met. She refrained from mentioning it except to ask, ‘How do you control it?’

  Billy shrugged again. ‘I just relax and it goes away.’

  ‘You never had speech therapy? No one ever tried to help when you were younger?’

  ‘Oh, there was some attempt at grammar school. You know, a speech therapist. She used to come and take me out of class. I was mortified.’ He looked down at the plate. Kate thought he might be ashamed again but he looked up. ‘Does this need salt?’ he asked.

  Kate shook her head. ‘It’s delicious,’ she told him truthfully, remembering her manners. But she was too fascinated by his story to pay much attention to the food. ‘Didn’t your parents try to help? I mean was there any other…’

  ‘Well, both of them were very concerned. Every time there was an article about stuttering with some new cure they got excited. But it was expensive and nothing really worked for long and by the time I got to junior high I just told them to forget it.’

  ‘And you found a way to cure it yourself,’ Kate said. His resourcefulness amazed her.

  ‘Well, I kind of fell into it, didn’t I? I wasn’t so stupid that I ignored the possibility.’

  ‘And what did you study in Paris if not history?’

  ‘Girls. I mean I could talk to them. And I studied cheap train tickets. I got to Berlin and Bruges, and Bologna.’

  ‘Only places that began with “B”?’ Kate asked with a smile.

  Billy stared at her. ‘B was the letter I had the most trouble with,’ he said. ‘I wonder if that was just a coincidence.’

  Kate shrugged. ‘Jung would say no,’ she told him, ‘but I’m not sure.’

  ‘What did Jung say about repetition compulsion?’ Billy teased and Kate didn’t know if she should laugh or cry. She didn’t have to do either because he rose and cupped one hand round her neck, then combed his fingers down through her hair. ‘I have ice cream,’ he told her, ‘but I can think of a much more delicious dessert.’ Kate smiled up at him.

  40

  ‘My God! These girls and showers! They are the cleanest people in the city of New York. Not to mention the ones with the most gifts.’

  Brice, despite his sharp tongue, was smiling. He sat between Elliot and Kate in the cab, a big, beautifully wrapped gift sitting on his lap. Kate wasn’t sure she could face everyone in Brooklyn but Bina’s bridal shower couldn’t be missed and afterwards she was seeing Billy. They were going to Sheepshead Bay for a seafood dinner.

  Elliot was silent. She knew he was angry at her but there was nothing she could do. She thought of the Pascal line: ‘Le cœur a ses raisons que la raison ne connaît point.’ The heart has its reasons which reason knows nothing of.

  The story of Billy’s French lingered on in Kate’s mind. She tried to imagine what a silent, humiliated young Billy Nolan had been like. She couldn’t. It was either a failure of imagination or too sad to visualize. Somehow, his history changed her view of him in the present. Instead of cocky and too self-assured she saw his outgoing personality as a celebration of his freedom. It made her feel far more tender toward him, as if he needed protection. That was, of course, ridiculous, since the days when he was a vulnerable child and adolescent were long over. Billy Nolan could certainly take care of himself, but despite her intentions to keep a lid on her feelings, she found herself feeling more and more for him.

  They were crowded in the back of the taxi and Kate was relieved when the cab pulled up in front of the Horowitz house.

  Before they even reached the front door it was flung open by Mrs Horowitz. ‘Come on,’ she called. ‘Hurry up or you’ll spoil the surprise.’ Kate would never tell her that she had ‘spoiled’ the surprise by telling Bina in advance about the party. The two of them had made a pact long ago that they would never allow either one of them to show up badly dressed and be scared out of their wits by a ‘wonderful surprise’.

  Kate and the guys walked in and joined the others. There were kisses and hugs and introductions. Kate added her gift to the big colorful pile already stacked on a card table. Then Mrs Horowitz called out, ‘Sha! Sha! They’re coming!’ Kate sighed while everyone else in the room seemed to suck in their breath so they could shout loudly. Dr Horowitz flung open the door and made way for Bina. Kate thought she did a miserable imitation of a surprised person, when everybody yelled, but no one seemed to notice and when Bina gave Kate a special look Kate smiled at her.

  The party went through each of its traditional segments: the ‘weren’t-you-surprised-yes-I-was’ part. The ‘no-you-shouldn’t-have-this-wasn’t-necessary’ section. On to the ‘oh-let’s-eat-isn’t-this-delicious’ portion (and they were big portions) and culminating in the traditional oohing and aahing over gifts. Kate knew she was watching an important female rite of passage but she just wasn’t in the mood. She regretted giving up the day with Billy, she was annoyed by all of the Horowitz extended family and their questions about when it was her turn, she was bored by the chatter and old jokes. Not to mention resentful of the way Brice and Elliot seemed to relish it all.

  Kate wondered why Bina kept throwing looks at her and hoped that Elliot hadn’t told her about what Kate and Elliot were starting to refer to as ‘the Billy thing’. Several times Bina seemed to try to get next to Kate and talk to her, but Kate managed to slide away. Elliot wouldn’t have – couldn’t have – broken the confidentiality of Kate’s private situation without her permission.

  When the cake was cut and being passed around, Kate, who could take no more, went into the bathroom to tidy herself up. She looked about as lousy as she felt. She put on some lipstick and a little blush but it didn’t seem to do much. She decided it didn’t matter. She had been so happy for weeks that her discomfort seemed especially painful. Why was seeing her friends such an onerous task? She thought about it for a little while. Kate believed she wasn’t like her friends. She had a career and loved her work. She hadn’t been out looking for a husband from the time she was twenty. She didn’t feel as if she needed a man to protect her or to support her. But somehow because of breaking up with Michael or seeing Steven or because of this…thing with Billy Nolan, she felt as insecure and lonely as she used to feel back in high school.

  Since her talk with Elliot she had been feeling more and more doubt. Somehow being here with Bina and all her married Brooklyn friends made it seem more unlikely that she would ever get to share their experience. Billy wasn’t ‘a safe bet’. He was not the kind of man that women got to marry or that men threw bachelor parties for. Kate imagined his whole life had been a kind of bachelor p
arty and Elliot was right, there was no reason for her to think that would change. Kate began to feel extremely sorry for herself and realized it was best to leave the bathroom now before she had to leave it in tears.

  As she walked into the hallway, Bina sidled up to her. ‘I have to talk to you,’ she hissed. ‘Quick before anyone notices.’ Bina took Kate’s hand and drew her down the narrow hallway to her bedroom.

  Nothing had changed in there in years. The same flowered pink curtains hung at the window, the same matching wallpaper covered the walls and the print repeated itself on Bina’s bedspread. The dressing table with the pink skirt that Kate had envied so when they were in seventh grade still sat between the two windows. Kate herself sat on the bench in front of it. ‘What is it?’ she asked.

  ‘Oh, Katie, I just can’t keep this lie going,’ Bina said.

  Kate took a deep breath. She loved her friend’s simplicity but sometimes it was just too much. ‘Oh, Bina. Nobody cares. If you just act normal now and carry on everyone will be thrilled.’

  Bina’s face registered horror. ‘I can’t believe that you would tell me to do that,’ she cried.

  ‘Bina, it’s just a party. It’s not a lifetime.’

  Bina’s mouth dropped open. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I beg to differ with you. I think a marriage is supposed to last a lifetime.’

  Kate stopped examining the pictures and mementos on the dressing table. ‘Bina, what are you talking about?’ she said. ‘Just because you pretended to be surprised doesn’t mean you’re starting your marriage with a lie. For God’s sake, have a sense of proportion.’

  Bina took a step backward as if Kate had physically attacked her. Then her lip began to tremble. ‘Is it really you saying this?’ she said. ‘Max thought you would understand, but even if you don’t, I can’t go through with it. I can’t marry Jack. It’s not like he really loves me. I know what he was up to in Hong Kong. Max showed me.’