“There’s Leonardo,” gasped Jess, looking through binoculars. “I just love him, don’t you? Look, the mayor of New York is over there,” she said, pointing down to the section nearest the court. “Check out center court, it’s the actor from that new action movie and his wife. She’s absolutely stunning. Isn’t she a yoga instructor?”
As the match began, uninterested in the game, Callie craned her neck to see all the famous people Jess was scoping out. She systematically went row by row, identifying the celebrities Jess had found and a few more.
“Here,” said Callie, handing Jess her binoculars. “The guy from that spy movie we saw last week is at two o’clock. He is so much cuter in person, don’t you think?”
“Are you two going to watch the tennis match?” asked Henry, not taking his eyes off the players on the court. “Or just people watch?”
“People watch,” said Jess with a laugh. “Look, there’s that singer, what’s his name?”
“Suit yourselves. You don’t know what you’re missing,” said Henry, resuming his concentration on the game.
“I think that’s Billie Jean King over there!” said Callie, grabbing the glasses. She turned to examine another section for hidden celebrities when someone caught her eye. Down close to the court, almost on the opposite side of the stadium from where she sat, a dark-haired man looked like he had a quarter in his eye. She watched him through the binoculars trying to remember why he looked familiar. He was talking to a group of pretty girls seated around him. One of them said something to him and he popped the quarter out of his eye and it flew into his hand. The girls around him laughed. Callie knew she had seen him before, but where?
“Jess,” said Callie, passing the binoculars to her friend. “Look over in section B, about three quarters the way down on the aisle.”
“Who is it? Somebody big?” asked Jess with anticipation, taking the glasses.
“I don’t think so, but I’ve seen him before. He’s cute with dark hair and is wearing a light blue golf shirt.”
“Half the men in this place are wearing light blue golf shirts,” said Jess. “You’re going to have to give me more than that.”
“He’s got a quarter in his eye.”
Jess looked around with the binoculars for a few seconds. “I see him. He does have a quarter in his eye. I know him. Wait a minute,” said Jess, “wasn’t he the same person we met outside of O’Toole’s last winter, right after the blackout? The same night you talked to the Mystery Man.”
“That’s right,” said Callie. “What was the crazy name he called himself?”
“He wanted us to surprise him, remember? He said he was the…Astonished Commandant! Both girls started to giggle. For a second time, Callie looked through the glasses at the man with the quarter. While staring at him, her binoculars settled on a man seated next to him. He appeared to be looking directly at her, as if he could tell she was looking at them. She quickly put the glasses down on her lap and ducked her head down.
“What are you doing? Why are you all red?” Jess asked her friend.
“They saw me looking at them,” said Callie, gasping and trying to hide behind Jess.
“They couldn’t possibly know you were looking at them,” said Jess.
“Look, that tall one next to the Astonished Commandant is still looking up at us,” said Callie, peering over her friend’s shoulder.
“Shhh,” said Henry, trying to watch the match.
Callie settled back in her seat. Seeing the man with the quarter got her thinking about the Mystery Man again.
“You’re right,” whispered Jess who had grabbed the binoculars to look at the men. “The cute guy next to the Astonished Commandant is staring directly at us.”
“Don’t look. Ignore him,” said Callie, trying to focus for the first time on what was happening on the court.
Down in section B, Lorenzo and Patrick and their entourage of pretty girls were having a rip-roaring good time. The girls, a group of marketing interns from Lorenzo’s company, were eager, silly and laughed at all of Lorenzo’s and Patrick’s jokes, even the ones that weren’t funny.
After the first match ended, the interns excused themselves to go to the ladies’ room.
“Why do girls always go to the restroom in a group?” asked Lorenzo.
“Hey, look up there in section J in the next level,” said Patrick. “Go nine rows up and four seats in.”
Lorenzo looked at section J and counted nine rows up. “Okay?” he said, his eyes fixed on the coordinates. “What am I supposed to be looking at?”
“See those two girls? Do they look familiar?”
“You mean the dark-haired girl who’s holding binoculars and wearing a pink shirt sitting next to a blonde.”
“Yeah.”
“They don’t look familiar to me.”
“They were staring at us a minute ago,” said Patrick.
“Maybe they’ve seen my Astonished Commandant routine somewhere. I have a huge fan base, you know.”
Patrick rolled his eyes.
When the tournament was over, Henry, Callie, Jess and their entire group along with hundreds of others made their way to the subway station.
“We may have to wait for a few trains before we can get on one,” said Henry as they stood on the platform. The first train was too full, but their group was able to squeeze into the second. The subway bell sounded and the doors closed, sealing the people in like sardines in a can. The train slowly pulled out of the station. Through the subway car window, Callie saw a man on the platform pop a quarter out of his eye.
33
November 2017
By Thanksgiving, Callie and Henry had been a “couple” for several months. She still wasn’t sure if he was the one. She suspected he was more of a “Mr. Right Enough” and wondered if she should take her own advice and embrace it. On paper he checked a lot of boxes. Henry was successful, attentive, a good conversationalist and supportive of all of her endeavors and causes. He even helped her get signatures on her petition to get rid of plastic straws. Surely, he deserves credit for that, she told herself.
On the other side of the equation, Henry thought Callie was the one. She made him laugh—deep in his belly. He thought she was pretty, smart and kind and liked that she cared so deeply about certain things. He didn’t agree with her on everything but kept things running smoothly by steering clear of controversial topics whenever Callie took the conversation in a potentially inflammatory direction.
“Why do you always change the subject when I bring up politics or saving the Amazon rainforest?” Callie said one evening while they were having dinner at a sushi place.
“Because,” said Henry, stirring wasabi into his soy sauce, “you almost always get yourself worked up into an incredulous mode and start shouting.”
“Because it’s important. I’m passionate.”
“Can you ratchet your passion down a little?”
“How can you not become irate about antibiotics in our chickens?” said Callie, her voice getting more animated. “You’re not even interested in who our next senator is going to be?”
“All politicians are the same. Even the ones you think are good are just like the others.”
“I refuse to believe that,” said Callie, shaking her head. “Look at Congressman Huston. He only takes money from small donors. He wants to make real changes. There are still some good people out there.”
Henry shook his head and chuckled in a way that indicated he thought she was naïve. His tone irritated her.
“At least I try to make positive changes in the world,” she said, narrowing her eyes.
“You’re spinning your wheels for nothing, Callie. The system is fixed.”
“Why are you so cynical?”
“Let’s split a dessert,” said Henry, smiling, watching the tizzy his girlfriend was working herself into. “Flourless chocolate cake? That should get you back to your happy place.”
Callie took a deep breath and smiled.
Henry had gotten very good at changing the subject whenever they got into uncomfortable territory. Other than the occasional political disagreement, she had to admit, she and Henry got along very well.
“Order the cake while I run to the ladies’ room,” she said, getting up from the table.
The long, dark and narrow restaurant had only a single ladies’ restroom in the back and two women were already waiting outside the bathroom door.
Callie got in line and leaned back against the wall, looking out at the bustling Asian eatery. Almost every table was filled by couples. To entertain herself, the writer in her invented stories about various people seated around the room.
She spied a couple in their sixties having an intense conversation. With no other information other than their body language, Callie decided the wife was telling the husband that since his retirement he’d been hanging around her too much and he needed to get a hobby, a job or…get out.
On the other side of the room, a young couple in their early twenties had several saki bottles lined up across their table. The girl laughed continuously at anything her partner said. Underneath the table, the girl had kicked her heels off and was caressing the man’s knee with her bare right foot. Callie suspected the women was telling the man what she wanted to do to him when they got home.
At a table in a far corner, a good-looking man in his thirties wearing a navy-blue suit was seated opposite a stunningly alluring woman with big dark eyes and a mane of thick dark brown, almost black, hair. The woman talked non-stop while the man smiled and nodded. Callie decided that the dark-haired woman was a fashion editor from Harper’s Bazaar magazine and was telling her dinner partner about the models at the photo shoot who were so difficult to work with. She was telling him how surprised he’d be if he saw what the models really looked like without their makeup. The man skillfully bobbed his head at appropriate moments seemingly enthralled with everything the woman had to say.
The attractive couple so piqued Callie’s curiosity that she scrutinized them further. They looked good together but something about them was off. Once inside the ladies’ room, she ran a comb through her golden hair and put on a fresh coat of dark crimson lipstick. Rubbing her top and bottom lips together, she looked at her reflection in the mirror and smiled.
Exiting the bathroom, Callie walked right by the handsome couple, got a better look at them and that’s when it hit her. From a distance, they looked happy and perfect together like they belonged on the cover of a magazine or the top of a wedding cake. But close up, she saw an unmistakable vacant look in the man’s eyes. The woman is beautiful, thought Callie, but he’s not listening to a word she says.
After Callie passed their table, the man looked up and caught the back of her head. Something made him hold his gaze for a second as she walked to the front of the restaurant and joined her companion. His eyes moved back to the gorgeous, dark-haired Sunny, still chattering on about something that happened at work that afternoon. He had started seeing the local TV weather girl a month earlier. After nodding appropriately at something Sunny had said, he turned and looked down the aisle at the blonde woman again.
“Patrick, you’re a million miles away,” Sunny said as she snapped her fingers in front of his face and laughed. “You still with me?”
Patrick turned back to his new girlfriend. “I thought I saw someone I knew.”
“I was thinking, maybe we could go away on Thanksgiving weekend, just the two of us,” said Sunny cheerfully. “My family has a cabin in the Poconos. We could light a fire and open a bottle of wine and relax.”
“That would be fun,” said Patrick, “but I’ve already made plans to go to my sister’s. I can’t disappoint them now.”
“Don’t you think we should spend major holidays together, now that we’re a thing.”
“Are we a thing?”
“Of course we are,” said Sunny, smiling and touching his arm.
“Only kidding,” said Patrick, laughing.
“I can’t wait for you to meet my family,” said Sunny while texting her mother about Patrick coming for Christmas.
Patrick stole a glance at the blonde woman near the front of the restaurant. She was far away but he could see she was with a man. He shook his head, confused as to why he was looking at her and turned his focus back to Sunny, still busy with her phone.
“My mom is dying to meet you. What if we went up to Vermont over Christmas? We could stay at my uncle’s ski house and throw our first Christmas fête together—cocktails and hors d’oeuvres. It would be our first holiday party as a couple.”
Patrick gazed at the stunning woman seated across from him. On paper, Sunny Raines, whose real name was Cassandra Rainardi, had it all. She was a popular weather girl at a local New York TV news station, KNYC. Ambitious, bright and charming, she was always the best looking and best dressed woman in any room. Men tripped over themselves to get near her and Patrick was rather puffed up that she had agreed to go out with him.
They had been dating exclusively for over a month and things had moved very quickly, neatly orchestrated by Sunny. He would have preferred to keep things easy and breezy a lot longer, but Sunny had different plans and big aspirations. Unlike most of his friends, every minute of her life was carefully and strategically planned out. Nothing was done without a purpose and an endgame. Every move she made and every word she uttered was designed to move her closer to the prizes—an anchor news job at a major network and the perfect husband—in that order. Sunny’s goal was to become a household name and she was on her way to accomplishing that.
Nearly twenty-seven, she had subbed in a few times for sick or vacationing news anchors on a few weekend mornings. The brass thought she had done well but agreed she wasn’t ready yet. Despite her good reviews, there were no current openings nor did there appear to be any coming in the near future.
“I intend to win an Emmy,” she had announced when they first started seeing each other. “And, if I ever want children, I’ve got to nail an anchor job before I take time off to have a baby. It’s a well-known fact—if you don’t establish yourself by the time you’re thirty, you’re over.”
“But you are doing it,” Patrick had said. “Everyone in New York loves the Sunny Raines weather forecast. You’re a natural.”
“You want to know the truth? I don’t know the difference between a cyclone and a tornado or hail and sleet and I don’t want to know. I only went for the weather job so I could get my foot in the door in a New York City TV station. Otherwise, I would have had to take some awful field reporter position in some godforsaken place like Sioux City or Bismarck, North Dakota,” said Sunny, wrinkling her nose as if she smelled something awful. “When most correspondents start out, they have to leave the big cities and take jobs in third- or fourth-tier markets until someone up top notices them. Believe me, plenty of journalists spend their entire career in Mobile, Alabama. I’m not about to move to Alabama. Only New York, LA or Chicago for me.”
“Now that I know your true feelings, I’d say you do a remarkable impersonation on TV of someone who’s passionate about weather,” said Patrick, grinning. “You had me and all of New York fooled.”
“It’s a gift.”
While Sunny’s main interests revolved around her, Patrick found the ambitious weather girl funny and oddly endearing and couldn’t find any significant reason not to continue seeing her. She came from what appeared to be a close-knit family on Long Island. She had money in the bank, good teeth, a master’s degree in communications and loved football…the last being a huge plus.
At this stage of their relationship, her biggest long-term negative from his perspective was that she was highly allergic to dogs and cats, which meant that if things got serious, a dog would be out of the question. Other than that, he got a kick out of her and enjoyed the envious looks he got from other guys when he walked into a room with Sunny on his arm. Patrick had a long storied history of ending relationships right as they were getting started—before they
got too serious. For the first time in a long time, he thought about taking this relationship to the next level.
“Wait until you hear about what I heard at work today,” said Sunny as the waiter refilled their water glasses. She launched into a story about another scandal at the station.
“…and this is totally hush-hush but there’s a rumor going around that the evening anchor Jim Bauer is in deep trouble, something to do with his wife,” Sunny continued. “Now, his job would be my dream come true. I’ll keep you posted.”
Patrick nodded and continued to listen as Sunny shared more New York City gossip.
“…and the gallery owner must have died when no one showed up for the opening night show,” said Sunny, wrinkling her forehead. “It was all in the Daily News. So embarrassing for him. But I’m not shedding a tear because the artist who was having the show once snubbed me at a black-tie gala. Serves him right. Karma bit his ass hard.”
34
In the true spirit of the season, the week before Thanksgiving, walking uptown to her office after another session with her new writing group, Callie was grateful. The group had turned out to be instrumental in helping her make significant progress and improvements to the Fussy Virgin Guide manuscript.
As the most popular American holiday neared, Callie’s self-imposed MM embargo was proving harder to follow than she had expected. Occasionally, she’d bring up the subject and Jess would immediately shut it down. “We’re not going there again,” Jess said for the tenth or twelfth time. “You made me promise not to let you talk about it. Remember?”
With little sympathy from her best friend, when Callie found herself waxing poetic about the phone call, she kept her thoughts to herself—most of the time.
Arriving at her office cubicle that afternoon, she threw her heavy navy-blue winter coat over the back of her chair, turned on the electric heater beneath her desk and waved to Jess who was in the middle of a call. Thirty seconds later, as if on cue, George breezed by her cubicle and dumped a load of files on her desk with a thud.
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