I turned to Sammy and, not caring who heard what, said, ‘I’m going home. If you want to stop by later, I would love to see you. I’m at 145 East Twenty-eighth Street, apartment 1313. I’ll wait for you.’
And before anyone could say anything, I turned away. I walked across the dance floor, past a couple who appeared to be having actual intercourse near the DJ, and straight on to the door, where a horde of people seemed to be swaying with the music. I saw Kelly out of the corner of my eye, and a few List Girls who were flirting with some of P. Diddy’s group, but I managed to slip quietly past them and onto the sidewalk. The crowd there threatened to overtake the street, and no one was paying any attention to me. I made it halfway down the block without talking to anyone and was just opening the door to the cab I’d hailed when I heard Sammy call my name. He ran toward me and slammed the cab door shut before I could get inside.
‘Bette. Don’t do this. I can handle myself in there. Go on, head back inside, and we can talk about all this later.’
I stood on tiptoe to kiss his cheek and raised my arm to hail another cab. ‘I don’t want to go back inside, Sammy. I want to go home. I hope I’ll see you later, but I’ve got to get out of here.’
He opened his mouth to protest, but I got in the cab. ‘I can handle myself, too,’ I said with a smile as I sat down. And I pulled away from the entire surging nightmare.
31
By two-thirty in the morning, there was still no sign of Sammy. My phone was ringing off the hook with calls from Kelly and Philip and Avery, but I ignored them all. I’d calmed down long enough to draft a letter of apology to Kelly, and by three I’d come to the conclusion that Elisa – unlike Abby – was not necessarily evil and malicious, just very, very hungry. When four rolled around and I still hadn’t heard from Sammy, I began to fear the worst. I fell asleep sometime around five and almost cried when I woke a couple of hours later to no messages and no Sammy.
He finally called at eleven the next morning. I thought about not answering the phone – decided that I wouldn’t, actually – but just seeing his name on the little screen was enough to demolish my willpower.
‘Hello?’ I said. I was aiming for breeziness, but the noise that came out sounded like it resulted from a lack of oxygen.
‘Bette, it’s Sammy. Is this a bad time?’
Well, that depends, I wanted to say. Are you calling to apologize for last night, or at the very least to offer some explanation of why you never came by? Because if that’s the case, then this is the best time imaginable – come on in so I can whip you up a fluffy omelet and rub your sore shoulders and kiss you all over. However, if you’re calling with even the slightest implication that something might be wrong – with you, with me, or worst of all, with us – then perhaps you should know that I’m very, very busy right now.
‘No, of course not. What’s up?’ That sounded laid-back and unconcerned, right?
‘I wanted to see how it all worked out last night. I was so worried about you – you just left in the middle of everything.’ He made no mention of my invitation for him to come over, but the concern in his voice more than made up for it. Just knowing he was interested started me talking, and once I started, I couldn’t seem to stop.
‘It was a shitty thing for me to just walk out of there in the middle of everything – really immature and so unprofessional. I should’ve stayed and seen the night through no matter how bad it was. But it was like I wasn’t even in my own body. I just left. And I’m glad I did. Do you have any idea what happened last night?’ I asked.
‘Not really, but I do know that I seriously dislike those people, Bette. Why did that kid Avery have his hands all over you? What was going on?’
And so I explained everything. I told him how I’d found Philip and Leo together in Istanbul. I described the situation with Abby/Ellie, and how she’d gotten all her information from Elisa. I said that Elisa had seemed particularly competitive lately, and that I knew she wanted Philip, but I was shocked that she would do that to me. I told him all about Penelope and Avery, from their first meeting until the day they got engaged, and then I told him I’d found Avery making out with Abby. I confessed that I’d been skipping dinners at Will and Simon’s and canceling a fair number of Sunday brunches because there always seemed to be something more pressing to do. I told him that I hadn’t returned even one of Michael’s phone calls asking to meet for a drink because I’d been too busy and didn’t really know what to say. I admitted that my parents were so disappointed they could barely talk to me anymore, and that I had virtually no idea what was going on in my best friend’s life. And I apologized to him for trying to hide or deny that we had been together because I was thrilled about it, not ashamed.
He listened and asked a few questions, but when I mentioned him, he sighed. Bad sign. ‘Bette, I know you’re not ashamed – I know it has nothing to do with that. We both agreed it would be best to keep this quiet considering our current situations. Don’t be so hard on yourself. You did the right thing last night. I’m the one who should be apologizing.’
I untied a plastic bag of Red Hots and poured some into my hand. ‘What are you talking about? You were great last night.’
‘I should’ve punched that kid’s face in,’ he said. ‘Plain and simple.’
‘Which one? Avery?’
‘Avery, Philip, what does it matter? It took every ounce of willpower not to kill him.’
This was the right thing for him to say, so why did my stomach still feel like it was on the floor? Was it because I wondered how worried he could have been that he didn’t call for ten hours? Or that I still hadn’t heard him mention a word about us getting together? Or maybe it was simpler, and I was just stressed about my unexpected unemployment – the reality of looking for yet another job was beginning to set in. I’d always known that banking wasn’t for me, but it was disconcerting to try an entirely different industry – one that was undeniably more fun – and realize that I wasn’t cut out for that, either. As if on cue, Sammy asked what I might do next, and I told him that Kelly had graciously offered me a few freelance projects when I’d called to apologize that morning, but she’d accepted my resignation without argument. I added that maybe it was time to suck up my pride and join Will. As my mind wandered, I realized I hadn’t even asked what was happening with his restaurant.
When I pointed this out, he was quiet for a moment before he said, ‘I have some good news.’
‘You got it!’ I shouted without thinking. Then I prayed for a second before adding, much more tentatively, ‘Did you get it?’
‘Yeah, I got it,’ he said, and I could hear his smile. ‘I turned in the pitch and the menu proposals in under two weeks. The lawyer said his clients were impressed. They chose me as their head chef, and they bought a little space in the East Village.’
I could barely speak from excitement, but he didn’t seem to notice.
‘Yeah, it’s all going to happen very quickly. Apparently, some restaurant was all set to open, but the investors pulled out at the last second. Some sort of corporate scandal that trickled down, I think. Anyway, these silent investors stepped in and bought the place on the cheap. They began looking for a chef immediately, and they want to open as soon as possible. Can you believe it?’
‘Congratulations!’ I said with genuine enthusiasm. ‘That’s so amazing. I knew you could do it!’ I meant it, of course, but the moment the words were out of my mouth, my gut switched tracks entirely. I hated myself for even thinking it, but this didn’t sound like good news for us.
‘Thanks, Bette. That means a lot to me. I couldn’t wait to tell you.’
Before I could even consider editing my words, I blurted, ‘But what does this mean for us?’
There was a moment of awful, hideous, all-pervasive silence, and yet I still didn’t get it entirely. I knew we were meant to be together. The obstacles were not insurmountable, just steppingstones to a stronger relationship.
When he finally did speak, Samm
y sounded defeated, and not a little sad. ‘I’m going to be married to this project’ was all he managed to say, and the moment he uttered those words, I knew it wasn’t happening. ‘It’ meaning ‘us.’
‘Of course,’ I said automatically. ‘This is the opportunity of a lifetime.’
It was at that point that a romance hero would say, ‘And so are you, which is why I’m going to do everything in my power to make this work,’ but Sammy didn’t say that. Instead he spoke quietly. ‘So much is timing, Bette. I have too much respect for you to ask you to wait for me, although of course part of me hopes you will.’
Damn you! I thought. Just ask me to wait and I will, ask me to understand that things will be difficult but that when this period is over, we’ll be happy and in love and together. Please stop with the dreaded respect line – I don’t want you to respect me, I want you to want me.
But I said none of this. Instead I wiped away the tears that dropped to my chin and concentrated on keeping my voice steady. When I finally did speak, I was proud of my composure and my articulateness. ‘Sammy, I understand what an amazing chance this is for you, and I couldn’t be any more excited for you than I am right now. You need to concentrate all your time and energy on making this restaurant fantastic. I promise that I’m not mad or upset or anything, just so incredibly happy for you. Go. Do what you need to do. I just hope you’ll invite me to dinner when your place is inevitably the hottest restaurant in New York. Keep in touch, okay? I’ll miss you.’
I placed the phone quietly on the receiver and stared at it for nearly five full minutes before I really started to cry. He didn’t call back.
32
‘Tell me again how my life will improve one day?’ I said to Penelope as we sat in my living room. I was stretched out on my couch in full sweatpant mode, as I had been for nearly three and a half months, with no genuine desire to ever again put on street clothes.
‘Oh, Bette, honey, of course it will. Just look how fabulously my own life is shaping up!’ she sang sarcastically.
‘What’s on tonight? Did you remember to TiVo last week’s Desperate Housewives?’ I asked listlessly.
She threw down her copy of Marie Claire and glared at me. ‘Bette, we watched it when it was on the actual television last Sunday. Why would we need to TiVo it?’
‘I wanna watch it again,’ I whined. ‘Come on, there’s got to be something decent to watch. What about Going Down in the Valley, that porn documentary on HBO? Do we have that saved?’
Penelope just sighed.
‘What about Real World?’ I pulled myself upright and began punching keys on the TiVo remote. ‘We’ve got to have at least one shitty episode, even an old one. How can we not have any Real Worlds?’ I was nearly in tears by that point.
‘Christ, Bette, you’ve got to get ahold of yourself. This is just not okay anymore.’
She was right, of course. I’d been wallowing for so long that it had become standard. This period of unemployment didn’t much resemble my first one; there were no blissful mornings spent sleeping in or exhilarating trips to the candy store or long walks exploring new neighborhoods. I wasn’t trying to find a job – either enthusiastically or halfheartedly – and I was currently supporting myself (barely) by taking on some sympathy freelance fact-checking work from Will and a few of his associates. I tore through it in my flannel bathrobe on my couch each morning, and then felt perfectly justified in rotting the rest of the day. The fact that Penelope – who had every reason to be in far worse shape than I – was becoming more functional every day had begun to alarm me.
I hadn’t heard from Sammy since our last conversation, the morning after the Playboy party, which had been three months, two weeks, and four days ago. Penelope had called minutes after I’d hung up with Sammy to tell me that she’d just spoken to Avery and ‘knew everything.’ Avery had called her during the party to admit that he’d been really, really drunk and had ‘accidentally’ kissed a random girl. That morning she was upset but still making excuses for him. Finally I’d worked up my nerve and told her the full story. When she confronted him, Avery admitted he’d been sleeping with Abby for some time, and that there’d been others as well.
Penelope had then very calmly instructed the housekeeper (who just so happened to be Avery’s parents’ engagement gift to the happy couple) to pack all of her possessions and ship everything back to New York. She booked two last-minute, first-class plane tickets on Avery’s credit card, called for the largest and most luxurious stretch limo she could find, and proceeded to drink herself into champagne oblivion in the first-class cabin while stretched out across both seats. I’d met her at JFK and dragged her directly to the Black Door, where I joined her in getting blind drunk. For the first few weeks she stayed with her parents, who, to their credit, did not once tell her to forgive him or take him back, and when she couldn’t take living at home anymore, she moved onto my couch.
Finally together, we had been miserable, heartbroken, and unemployed, and so were the perfect pair: we shared a bathroom, multiple bottles of wine, and the rent, and we watched a horrifying amount of exceptionally bad TV. Everything had been perfect until Penelope had gotten a job. She’d announced last week that she’d be reverse-commuting to a boutique hedge fund in Westchester, and that she would be moving to her own place in two weeks. I’d known our extended pajama party couldn’t last forever, but I couldn’t help feeling a teeny bit betrayed. She was doing so well that she even mentioned that the guy who’d interviewed her had been really, really cute. It was now stunningly obvious: Penelope was moving on, and I was destined to be a wretch forever.
‘How long do you think I have to wait before I can go check out the restaurant?’ I asked for what must have been the thousandth time.
‘I’ve already told you, I’m happy to put on a disguise and sneak in there with you. Very discreet – he doesn’t even know me! Healthy? Maybe not. But definitely a good time.’
‘Did you see the piece in The Wall Street Journal? They worship the place. It calls Sammy one of the best new chefs of the last five years.’
‘I know, honey, I know. That certainly seems to be the consensus, doesn’t it? Aren’t you happy for him?’
‘You have no idea,’ I whispered.
‘What?’
‘Nothing, nothing. Yes, of course I’m happy for him. I just wish I was happy with him.’
Sammy had opened his restaurant – a charming little Middle Eastern fusion place that in no way resembled a franchise – two months earlier, to little fanfare. I wouldn’t have even known if Will hadn’t casually mentioned it at one of our Thursday-night dinners, but from that moment on, I tracked every new development. At first there hadn’t been much information: a biography of the chef and some details on the quick opening. Apparently, the adorable twelve-table Italian joint on the Lower East Side had been the pet project of a prominent former investment banker who’d been targeted by Eliot Spitzer and ultimately sentenced to two to three years in a federal prison. The guy had to liquidate his assets to pay the massive fine to the SEC. Since the entire place had just been gutted and renovated and the entire kitchen fitted to perfection, Sammy could open for business almost immediately. At first there were some scattered customer reviews on various websites and a small mention of the restaurant in a piece about neighborhood gentrification. But then something happened: Sammy’s restaurant went from Neighborhood Solid to Citywide Spectacular in a matter of weeks.
According to the most recent WSJ Lifestyle article, people in the neighborhood went early and often, and Sammy was able to keep the doors open while his menu came into its own. By the time Frank Bruni went to review it for The New York Times, Sammy had hit his stride. Bruni gave him three stars, virtually unheard of for an unknown chef and his very first venture. The other New York papers and magazines immediately followed with ecstatic reviews of their own. New York magazine published a typically understated article proclaiming Sevi ‘The Only Restaurant That Matters.’ He’d gone f
rom being a total unknown to New York’s must-get-reservations-or-die-a-horrible-death-in-C-list-purgatory restaurant. The only catch with that was that Sammy didn’t take reservations. For anyone. Under any circumstances. According to every interview I read of him – and trust me, I read them all – Sammy insisted that everyone was welcome, but no one was getting any sort of priority treatment. ‘I’ve spent so many years determining who’s allowed in and who’s not, and I’m just not interested anymore. If they want to eat here, whoever they are, they can come on down like everyone else,’ he was quoted as saying. It was his one and only requirement.
‘But no one will go if they can’t make a reservation!’ I’d shrieked to Penelope when I’d first read about it.
‘What do you mean no one will go?’ she’d asked.
‘You have to have some horribly bitchy reservationist who insists that there’s nothing available for the next six months if they want to eat after five or before midnight.’
She laughed.
‘I’m serious! I know these people! The only way anyone will ever eat there is if he makes them believe they’re not welcome. The fastest way to fill those tables is to tell anyone who calls that they’re fully booked and then promptly raise all entrées by eight dollars and all drinks by four. Hire waiters who think they’re above waiting tables and a hostess who looks all the guests up and down disapprovingly as they arrive, and he’ll have a chance.’ I was only half-kidding, but it didn’t much matter: his policy clearly worked.
The review in The Wall Street Journal had gone on to describe how the New York restaurant scene had lately been dominated by a slew of high-profile restaurant openings and superstar chefs, how there were five such restaurants in the glittering new Time Warner Building alone. Somewhere along the way, people had grown weary of all the pomp and circumstance. They longed for a wonderful meal in a simple restaurant. And that was precisely what Sammy’s place offered. I was so proud of him, I nearly cried every time I read a new write-up or heard someone mention it, which was pretty damn frequently. I was dying to see it for myself, but I couldn’t deny that Sammy had most definitely not picked up the phone to invite me.
Lauren Weisberger 5-Book Collection Page 79