See Jane Date

by Melissa Senate

  A half hour later, Driscoll and I were smushed into seats at a tiny table at Dangerfield’s, the comedy club owned by Rodney Dangerfield on the Upper East Side. Rodney was known to make impromptu visits. The place was packed with dates and large groups of friends. Driscoll and I ordered Cokes and a chocolate mud pie to split.

  The first comic told a few scatological jokes to get the crowd roaring. “Ooh, lot of couples here tonight! You two, where you from?”

  Oh, God. He was talking to me and Driscoll. “Um, here?” I said, a forkful of mud pie an inch away from my mouth.

  “Are you asking me or telling me?” the comic asked. Was he related to William Remke? The audience found that very funny and roared. “No seriously, you’re from New York?” We nodded. “So, you two engaged, married, what?”

  “It’s our first date,” Driscoll called out.

  “Oooh, first date,” the comic sing-songed. The audience went wild. “You think you’re gonna score? Huh? Think you’ll get lucky?”

  I felt my face turn bright red. I slid low in my seat, hoping he’d move on to some other couple.

  “I think I’m lucky enough right now to have her just sitting next to me,” Driscoll shouted back, to the delight of the audience. They aahed and cheered and clapped. And I sat back up in my seat and beamed at Driscoll Meyer.

  “So, let’s see,” Driscoll said, the warm breeze ruffling his light brown wavy hair as we walked up First Avenue. “We had dinner, then went to a comedy club and now I’d say it’s definitely time for a drink so I can prolong this evening.”

  I grinned and looked at my watch. “Ooh—it’s twelve-thirty, and I’ve got a killer day tomorrow. I’d better get my butt home.”

  “So, do I get to see you again?” he asked.

  “I’d like that very much.”

  “Great,” Driscoll said, beaming. “Only thing is, I’m leaving for a two-week vacation this Friday. I’m going to Belize.”

  Belize. Driscoll Meyer was going to Belize instead of to my cousin’s wedding at the Plaza.

  “Fine, whatever,” I snapped, and turned to walk away. Half of me was mortified for being so childishly rude to Driscoll. But the other half had had it. And that half was about to burst into tears in the middle of First Avenue.

  “Hey!” he called, following me. “What’s your problem?”

  “I just want to go home, okay?” I said, sticking my hand out for a taxi. My legs suddenly felt like rubber. “I just want to go home.”

  Since Dana’s bachelorette party was Friday night, the Flirt Night Roundtable was being held on Wednesday night…on my fire escape. We had two bottles of wine, two loaves of French bread and two reduced-fat hunks of sharp cheddar cheese.

  “You didn’t!” Eloise said, exhaling a stream of smoke. “You said, fine, whatever and jumped into a cab?”

  I nibbled a piece of cheese. “I said that I hailed a cab, not that I jumped into one. Driscoll insisted on knowing what he said that was so wrong, so I broke down and told him the whole sorry story on the curb.”

  “You’re kidding! About the wedding and everything?” Amanda asked. At my nod, Amanda’s and Eloise’s mouths dropped open. “Then what happened?”

  I cut off a piece of cheese. “He told me he was sick of being a pawn in women’s head games. That he was glad he was leaving New York for a couple of weeks, that maybe he’d meet a woman down in Belize who wasn’t a child and didn’t have to resort to playing games.”

  “Geez, a little uptight,” Amanda snapped. “Asshole.”

  “Yeah,” Eloise agreed. “Who the hell does he think he is?”

  “He wasn’t totally wrong, guys,” I said. “If the situation were reversed, I’d probably be pissed, too.”

  “So are you okay?” Eloise asked. “About showing up at the wedding alone?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know. I did do a lot of thinking last night and today, though. There was something about Driscoll not being able to go to the wedding, after all that. Suddenly it all seemed so stupid. My whole self-worth tied up in having a date? That’s what’s pathetic. Not the ruse or the game.”

  “You do have a lot to be proud of, Jane,” Eloise said. “So much.” A car honking like crazy interrupted her. “And not just because of your promotion. That was simply the icing on the cake. I’ve done a lot of thinking too since our last visit to St. Monica’s. All these years you’ve been on your own, working hard, falling in love, getting hurt, working hard, falling in love, getting hurt. That’s what you should be proud of, Jane. Both of us should be proud.”

  “She’s right, Jane,” Amanda said, topping a cracker with a wedge of cheese. “It’s the process that’s important. And no matter what you guys have both been through, you’ve always picked yourselves up and kept going, never losing your spirit.”

  I thought of Natasha. That was what she was so good at. No matter what, she kept going. “So, I guess I’ll just tell Natasha and Dana and my aunt and my grandmother that Timothy and I broke up. It’s the truth, at least.”

  They nodded and nibbled cheese on crackers. “Yeah, that way at least you’ll get their sympathy,” Eloise pointed out. “They’ll have to be extra nice to you. Hey, you know something? I noticed you stopped calling Natasha the Gnat.”

  Huh. I had stopped referring to her as the Gnat. When? I couldn’t even pinpoint it.

  “So we’re both single again, Jane,” Eloise went on. “So what? I’m thirty and I’m single, and I am proud of myself. Being thirty and single is something to celebrate. It means I didn’t settle. I may not be married, but I also haven’t fucked up by picking the wrong guy, either. God, Jane, I almost did that just to feel normal. That’s what’s sick. That’s not what my mom would have wanted for me.”

  I squeezed her hand and grabbed Amanda’s. “Let’s toast to us.” I held up my wineglass. “Let’s toast to Eloise’s bravery at giving Serge back his ring and Amanda’s two-year anniversary and her skill at arranging blind dates in a jiffy. Let’s toast my quitting smoking. And let’s toast to the Flirt Night Roundtable. Six years running and still going strong as ever.”

  “To the Flirt Night Roundtable,” Eloise cheered.

  “To the Flirt Night Roundtable,” Amanda seconded.

  “To friendship,” I added, and we clinked.

  Sixteen

  “Take it off!” shrieked the attendees of Dana Dreer’s bachelorette party at the gyrating blond guy who looked like an escapee from a heavy metal rock band. The nine of us, seven bridesmaids, one maid of honor and one ex-babysitter, were seated at a long banquette table around the main stage of Hots, a Chippendales-type club in Forest Hills, where men danced around in G-strings for dollar bills. Tickets (thirty-five bucks each!) had been compliments of Aunt Ina, and both sets of grandmothers had given Karen an envelope of singles for each attendee to wave around and stuff in the G-strings.

  Embarrassing was the only word to describe Hots. Naturally, Dreer party of nine seemed to be having fun, with the exception of the spoilsport sitting on the aisle (that would be me). Even Natasha, sitting across the table and dead center, of course (right next to the bride), was whooping and singing along with the music. Hots was packed with long table after table of screaming bachelorette parties, hordes of women waving bills around as though they’d never seen a three-quarters-naked man before.

  Natasha had been so fawned over and fussed over by the group, you would have mistaken her for the bride—or a member of the wedding, for that matter. Dana was mostly responsible for all the attention Natasha had gotten. She’d said at least five times, “I can’t believe a famous actress is at my bachelorette party and is coming to my wedding!” I’d been quiet since we’d all gathered about a half hour ago in the bar before sitting down to our table. Natasha and I hadn’t arrived together; she’d wanted to spend the day sight-seeing again around Forest Hills. I’d arrived at Hots to find Natasha holding court with the bridesmaids. They’d complimented her nonstop. They loved her hair, and her slinky lavender sleeveless dr
ess and strappy silver sandals and pounds of silver jewelry, and had anyone ever told her she looked so much like Nicole Kidman? They’d asked her question after question about her life, which she’d answered with almost talk-show-guest practiced ease. “You’ll just have to buy the book!” I’d cut in at one point, and everyone had just looked at me. I’d thought it was quite clever.

  “Welcome to Hots!” bellowed the Gyrater. He pumped his pelvis in and out in front of our table to a Bee Gees song. “Who’s our lucky bride?”

  The table shrieked and clapped and jumped up and pointed out Dana, who feigned humility and made a show of covering her happy blue eyes. Gyrater reached for Dana’s hand and kissed it, then did erotic things with his body very close to her. He shook those hips and pumped that pelvis in and out a` la Ricky Martin. Dana blushed and squealed. There was nothing sexy about the guy. First of all, he was missing a neck. Second of all, his hair—short on the sides and long in the back—was passé by 1985. Third of all, he was an erotic dancer. Gross! Finally he gyrated his way to the next banquette of shrieking bachelorettes.

  “If only James could move like that,” said one of the Julies. She sipped her frozen margarita. “James can’t dance at all!”

  “Omigod, your fiancé is a better dancer than mine,” quipped skinny, short-haired Amy. “But whoever said how a guy dances is any indication of how he is in bed…”

  Squeals and peals of laughter and shrieks.

  “My fiancé is so amazing in bed,” the other Julie said. “I don’t know where he learned it or from who, and I don’t care. I’ll take him!”

  More squeals and peals. This was how this group talked? Granted, the Flirt Night Roundtable got down and dirty about every last detail, but at least we discussed our sex lives with some degree of class.

  “So how’s Larry in bed?” I asked Dana before I could shut my big fat mouth. I was sorry the second it was out.

  Silence. Eight faces peered at me.

  “Jane!” Dana scolded. “I can’t believe you! His sister is, like, right next to you.”

  I bit my lower lip and turned to my left to peer at Larry Fishkill’s sister. “Sorry.” The sister eyed me and sipped her frozen raspberry margarita.

  “Let’s toast to Dana’s penultimate night as an unmarried woman!” Karen shouted. “Yay!” She sent me the fastest dirty look I’d ever seen, then resumed her big smile and began whoo-hooing the Gyrater.

  Glasses raised and more peals and squeals followed. I shrank down on my seat and eyed Natasha, who was deep in conversation with the bridesmaid sitting next to her, a pretty blonde named Gayle. I could hear bits and pieces of Natasha telling Gayle about her boyfriend Sam and the houseboat.

  I hadn’t meant to ask Dana that inappropriate question. I most certainly did not want to know anything about Larry Fishkill’s sexual ability. But being around these shrieking women in their bebe outfits and their Tiffany diamond rings was unbearable. And there, at the center of the table, was Natasha. The very Natasha who had the nerve to be invited, the nerve to be humanized, the nerve to be nice to me, the nerve to be a very good writer. I didn’t even like these women—well, except for my cousin because I had to, and maybe Natasha because she was my author—and I still felt like the ugly duckling. The only one without a boyfriend. The only one without a proposing someone. The only one who went home to a futon and a Parsons table and nothing else, not even a pack of cigarettes. Talk about Plain Jane…

  “So Jane, how’s your boyfriend?” one of the Julies asked. “Didn’t Dana say he was a doctor? Lucky you!”

  My heart made a small twisting sensation in my chest. I managed a smile. “I am lucky,” I said. “Hey, do any of you know where the bathroom is?” Karen, Miss Know-It-All, pointed me in the direction, and I fled.

  Someone was smoking a cigarette in one of the stalls. I locked myself in a stall next door and inhaled deeply and squeezed my eyes shut. The familiar smell of smoke wafted around me. I wanted to climb on the toilet and reach over the stall and steal the cigarette out of the woman’s hand. Deep breath, deep breath. The urge to smoke will pass whether you smoke a cigarette or not. Repeat until the craving passes.

  It worked. Craving gone, I made my way back to the table, where half the bridesmaids were waving dollar bills at a new Gyrater, another blonde with a shaved chest and the biggest biceps and triceps and deltoids I’d ever seen in my life. The other half of our table was in conversation, including Natasha. “I feel so bad for my older sister,” one of the Julies said. “She’s, like, twenty-eight and totally boyfriendless.”

  “I would die,” Amy said. “You have to go out with the guy for a year to get engaged, then a year or two years until the wedding. Can you imagine being thirty and not married?”

  “Well,” Natasha said, “I’m twenty-eight and not married.”

  “Yeah, but you have that amazing-sounding boyfriend in California,” Karen said. “And you’re, like, famous.”

  “I love your hair, Natasha,” Amy said. “It’s so gorgeous.”

  Dana ran out of singles to stuff in G-strings and joined the conversation. “What are we talking about?”

  “How jealous we all are of Natasha’s hair and how depressing it would be to be boyfriendless at our age,” a Julie said, flashing her toothy smile. “This woman I work with, she’s thirty and isn’t even dating anyone. You know what they say—you have a better chance of getting killed by a terrorist than getting married after thirty.”

  I slid down lower on the leatherette bench, defeated. I grabbed my frozen margarita with both hands and slurped the straw and stared at the little wooden purple umbrella stuck in the lime wedged onto the side of the glass. I thought I was over this. I thought I was proud of myself. But these women, most of them strangers, had managed to make me feel like the insecure loser I’d felt like in junior high. Suddenly I felt like I’d intruded at the popular girls’ lunch table. Why did I care so much what people said, what people thought? Why did my sense of self depend so much on the opinion of people I didn’t even know? I hadn’t known Natasha at all when I’d felt compelled to create a fake boyfriend. How could someone you didn’t even know, hadn’t even laid eyes on in ten years, have such power over you?

  “Jane, you’re so quiet!” quipped a Julie. “Aren’t you having fun?”

  I forced a smile. “I’m having a great time.” And as if to punctuate the point, the Gyrater returned and thrust his pelvis so close to my face that I could maim him. But I should be grateful. According to one of the Julies, I had a better chance of getting shot by a terrorist than I did of ever getting this close to a penis in the flesh.

  I woke up on Sunday morning to silence. Well, not silence exactly. I heard birds chirping on my fire escape. I heard cars driving up the block. But I did not hear the Oh Moaner. Perhaps Dana Dreer’s wedding day was considered sacred even by Opera Man.

  Compliments of Larry Fishkill’s mother (but secretly, Aunt Ina suspected, Larry himself), the immediate female relatives were getting makeovers this morning at Zelda’s, a la-di-da salon in my neighborhood that was being closed to the public for the morning. Makeup, hairstyling, manicures, pedicures, aka A Half Day of Beauty. I’d have to remember to bring earplugs to drown out the annoying conversation I was surely in for.

  I’d tossed and turned Friday night and last night over what I was going to tell everyone about “my boyfriend.” Because I hadn’t mentioned the breakup at the bachelorette party when I’d been asked about him, it would seem weird to announce at the wedding that we’d broken up. My only option was to tell Dana and my aunt and Natasha that Timothy and I had broken up a couple of weeks ago, and that I hadn’t wanted to mention it because I didn’t want to take away from the excitement leading up to Dana’s big day. That way, I’d still play the sympathy card and get a gold star. But after Friday night’s festivities at Hots, all the “my fiancé this, my fiancé that” bullshit, how was I supposed to tell that group I’d been dumped? Like I needed Dana and the Julies to cast their pity-fi
lled eyes at me? They’d probably throw riot gear at me and wish me luck against the terrorists.

  I wasn’t sure what I’d tell Natasha. I wouldn’t know what would come out of my mouth until it actually did, at the reception. I just knew that I couldn’t think about it anymore. Not right now, anyway. Because every time I did, Timothy’s Thomas Gibson face floated before my eyes, dimples popping, and I heard him exclaim “Me too!” over and over. Stop it, stop it, stop it, I ordered myself. Get thee into a shower and wash that man right out of your hair.

  The shower calmed me down, as hot water and green-apple shampoo and Dove pink soap always did. My Timothy-free hair towel-dried and in a ponytail, I fingered the peach bridesmaid dress hanging in my closet. Okay, it wasn’t my color, but the dress was pretty. I hadn’t tried it on once since picking it up. The seamstress at A Fancy Affair had tried to make me put it on there before I left, but I’d refused, claiming I was pressed for time.

  It had been two years ago that I’d first heard Dana was planning to get married at the Plaza. Two years. Two boyfriendless, practically dateless years. Two years had seemed so far in the future that I never really expected the day to come. And now here it was, dawning bright and sunny and warm. A perfect summer day for a perfect summer wedding. According to Fox news, today was even a good hair day on the frizz-meter. Dana must be thrilled. Had it been raining, I wouldn’t have been surprised if she’d postponed the wedding.

  I slipped into the dress and the shoes and peered at myself in the full-length mirror. Interesting. The peach looked somehow softer and sweeter than it had in the bridal shop. The dress was floor length and straight, like a movie-star’s gown for the Academy Awards. The high neckline was flattering, as was the empire waist, which was decorated by a delicate triple line of tiny peach-colored beads, which was repeated on the hem. I checked out the rear view in the mirror. I had to admit, I looked pretty good, even down to the peau-de-soie peach shoes. I should have taken Aunt Ina’s advice and broken them in; they were a little stiff, and now I’d get blisters. I wanted to practice walking around in them, but walking around in shoes in an apartment in New York City was against the law, punishable by death if your best friend happened to live below you. Plus, it was eight in the morning on a Sunday.