“Like I’m going to let you hog all the credit and be the big hero to Betsy? No. No way.”
“Then what’s your plan, Kitty? Forgive me if I sound dubious. I wasn’t aware that you learned a lot about in-depth reporting on your, um . . . squash Web site.”
That was probably uncalled for.
Kitty bristles in response. “I guess if you had any friends, you’d be aware of the concept of”—she makes air quotes—“‘social media.’ It’s ‘media’ for people who aren’t ‘socially retarded.’”
We hear a gasp from the doorway to the dining room, where Kassie stands in a long cotton nightgown, trembling with fury. “MOMMY, YOU SAID THE R-WORD! Not funny! Avery called Winston the r-word last week and I told her she was being hurtful. She didn’t care, but I do. No one’s supposed to use words on the Never Never list!!”
Kitty hustles over to Kassie and scoops her up, bringing her back to the table to sit in her lap. “Oh, honey, no. I’m so sorry, but you misunderstood me. Mommy didn’t say the r-word in a way meant to be cruel. She was using the literal definition of retarded, which means slow or stunted.”
Kassie thrusts out her chin, unconvinced. “You sounded hurtful.”
“Sweetie, even though you heard what sounds like the exact same word, the intent is entirely—”
“You realize this discussion is the very essence of semiotics,” I observe.
She barks, “Not helpful!” at me as she whisks Kassie upstairs to explain without benefit of my assistance.
While I wait for her return, I poke around the first floor. Doesn’t seem to be enough furniture for all the square footage, but what do I know about decorating? I don’t even have a bed in my Kabul apartment, just a thick mat for sleeping, a small desk, and a few changes of clothing. I no longer keep anything there that I’d miss if I couldn’t get it back. I used to have more personal items, but the previously safe Kabul, aka the Kabubble, grows more dangerous by the day. Makes sense to travel light. As our troops withdraw, the Taliban’s turned its focus on attacking Afghan citizens. Last year, a suicide bomber blew up a nice Lebanese restaurant near the news bureau, my usual haunt whenever I was in town.
As for ISIS kidnapping and executing journalists?
I can’t. I simply can’t.
For the first time, I’m not so anxious to return to Afghanistan. I used to believe that living like Kitty would be death by a slow, quiet form of asphyxiation, gasping for air until an eventual fade to black, but nothing I’ve witnessed here seems unpalatable.
In the hallway I stop to inspect her happy family photos. If this afternoon, and this wall, is a slice of her reality, I realize I don’t hate Kitty’s life.
I might, in fact, envy a few aspects.
After I finish my house tour, I help myself to a glass of water. I open a cabinet to find dozens of matching glasses, all lined up in equidistant rows. Our Saint Louis house was once similarly organized, but I don’t recall my mother garnering any pride or joy from keeping the chaos at bay. Mostly I remember her executing her motherly duties with equal parts anger and detachment, until—
“Would ya look at that—no fancy bottled water for you. I also believe Chicago tap water tastes best.”
I regard the blue-haired woman who’s sidled up next to me. “Nana Baba, I presume?”
“And you’re The Jackass?”
I take an overly enthusiastic gulp and then have to wipe off my top lip. “That what she calls me?”
Nana Baba offers a cagey half shrug. “May have let it slip once. Assume you have similar names for her, though. You can make a lotta plays on the word Kitty.”
I can’t keep from smirking. “I may or may not have explored those possibilities.”
She gives me a brisk pat on the forearm. “Aha! Then you’re guilty of name-calling, too. Sounds like you’ve both cast stones. My advice? Gotta let it go.”
“Why do you say that?” I ask.
“What does a grudge get you at the end of the day? Nothing but indigestion. You carry anger around and it just gets bigger. What was a handful eventually grows into something that’ll break your back. Years ago, I was best friends with a neighbor on the other half of our duplex, but we had a falling-out over who was supposed to shovel our shared walkway. Our stupid little fight turns us into enemies and then no one shovels the walk. We’re waiting to see if the other’ll cave. My husband gets tired of wading through the snow to get the mail, so he goes out to shovel after a real bad storm and the walk was covered in the wet, heavy stuff. We didn’t know he had a weak heart until it was too late.”
“I’m so sorry to hear that.”
“Was a long time ago, but thanks. All’s I’m saying is sometimes you have to forgive your enemies.”
We move back to the table and she sits down across from me, removing her glasses. I worry that she’s about to cry, but instead she huffs hard on each lens, and then rubs a cloth napkin across the lenses.
“So . . . Mr. Rich Guy’s not dead?”
What? “How do you . . .”
She puts her glasses on again. “Thin walls. Why would anyone build themselves one-a-these McMansions but cheap out on the insulation? Don’t make any sense to me. I could hear everything she told my son on the phone earlier.”
With tact, I reply, “Sometimes just because you can eavesdrop doesn’t mean you should eavesdrop.”
“Eavesdropping, overhearing. Potato, poh-tah-to.” Dropping her voice to a whisper, she says, “You really gonna call the NSA?”
“Shall I assume you ‘overheard’ what we talked about at the table, too?”
Her gaze is keen behind her bifocals. “Lemme just say this, don’t install a fancy intercom system if you don’t want nobody hearing what you have to say.”
Is Kitty hip to the intercom scheme? Wait, what am I saying? Of course she is. How else would she have a bead on everything that happens under this roof? Well played, Kitty.
“You’re a piece of work, aren’t you, Nana Baba?” I ask this without malice, as my impression is that life’s made her tough and full of moxie, the antidote to all things “girl.” Yet I can see why this behavior might frustrate Kitty.
Nana Baba puts on an innocent face. “Me? Never. Anyways, nice meeting you. I gotta get back to the Wheel before the commercials end. Do me a favor, though. Be nice to Kitty. Yeah, she’s high-strung, kind of like a poodle, but she’s decent people once you get past the annoying yipping. She’s a lot easier to work with than against.” With that, Nana Baba grabs a couple of little tarts out of the cookie jar and is on her way.
Moments later, Kitty appears, an odd expression on her face. Had she been on the intercom?
“I have good news and bad news.”
“What’s the good news?”
Kitty begins to rake her fingers across her scalp as though she’s about to stick her hair in a ponytail. “I’ve found Ingrid’s roommates and know where they’ll be tonight.”
“What? You were gone ten minutes! Impossible.”
She slides into the seat across from me. “No, totally possible, and exactly as I explained. And P.S., I didn’t commit treason.”
“Then I’m all ears. Do tell.”
“I checked out Ingrid’s LinkedIn profile but that didn’t tell me anything I didn’t already know. So, I went to her Facebook page and tabbed through her timeline. Still not a ton of info, because she uses privacy settings. But I was able to see her Group Memberships and Likes and some of them were kind of specific, such as the six thirty a.m. spin class she attends. So I started tabbing on the others in that group and cross-referenced the overlaps with Instagram, Tumblr, and Vine, to see who was a friend and who was just a follower. I figured out who she @-replied most often on Twitter and followed that rabbit down the hole until I stumbled across a tweeted exchange about erasing a DVR’d episode of Basketball Wives, and, voilà, roommates
.”
I admit, “I guess if someone was able to live-blog the Bin Laden raid, it’s possible . . .”
“I’m sure that’s as close to, ‘Wow, Kitty, you’re amazing,’ as I’m going to get, so I’ll take it. Anyway, you and I are off to the Monaco tonight.”
“What’s the Monaco?”
“It’s a nightclub in the city. You and I are going clubbing. Tonight.”
“And that’s the bad news.”
“No,” she replies, clawing at her head. “The bad news is we might have lice.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Chicago, Illinois
September 1999
“Kitty, can you please look this over for me? If I send out another press release about our client being in the ‘mist’ of prepping for next year’s Fashion Week, I will get fired.”
I take the page from Dyta, the high-energy, yet completely hapless new account manager in my department. “Don’t you worry. I’m an expert proofreader. My roommate’s a terrible speller so I had to double-check all her papers in college. Good thing, too, because I once saved her from turning in a paper describing the steps she’d implement for an effective initial pubic offering. Definitely not what she meant to write.”
Dyta sits on the corner of my desk. “I don’t get it.” She’s wearing Obsession, my favorite perfume, but for some reason it’s bothering me today. Like the musky notes are too musky. Weird.
“A public offering is an initial stock sale. A pubic offering is a successful Saturday night.”
Dyta looks at me from behind her veil of wiry bangs. I’m dying to get ahold of her with some control serum and a round brush. Frizz isn’t, and will never be, the new black. “I don’t get it.”
Oh, honey, I think. You are not cute enough to be this dim.
“Work it out, every word. You can do it.”
Dyta’s eyes widen. “Oh!” Then she lets out an enormous bark-laugh that’s disproportionate to her tiny body.
I scan the document and make the needed corrections, then offer a few suggestions for improvement.
“You rock, Kitty Kord.”
“Happy to help,” I reply. “And if you need advice on anything, doesn’t have to be work related”— such as your hair, sweet Jesus, please let me help you tame that bush—“you just ask, okay?”
Dyta crosses her legs and swings her foot. At least her shoes are cute, so there’s hope. “So what’s the word for the weekend? Doing anything fun? If you don’t already have plans, some of the Calvin Klein account team are going to Barleycorn after work. Will you come? And let me buy your first round?”
I rub my midsection. “I will take you up on this, and soon. Today’s bad, though. The Pad Thai I ate is not settling well.”
Imagining the thick, pink shrimp I was so excited about an hour ago now makes my stomach cramp. Then again, the six Diet Cokes I’ve chugged so far today can’t be helping either.
I tell her, “I kind of feel like vegging on the couch with my roomie. It’s so sad. We live together, but I never see her—she’s a junior analyst at Goldman and her schedule’s just nuts. We’re SO due up for some girl time. Pop some corn, put in a Meg Ryan movie, you know? Ooh, or maybe Winona!”
More than anything, I need a good old-fashioned chitchat because I have to figure out what to do about Ken. I love him. I do. But I’m not up for the long-distance thing and I need an exit plan before we get too serious. I haven’t told him Betsy and I plan to move east in the spring when our lease ends. Chicago’s great for a lot of reasons, but if either of us really want to make names for ourselves in our respective fields, we need to be in New York City. Betsy’s dying to work on Wall Street proper and Eiderhaus’s biggest clients are serviced out of Manhattan. I want in on that. Thankfully, HR has already approved my transfer. We just have to find a place (I loooooove the Friends apartment even though I know it’s fiction) and figure out the subway, then, boom! New Yorkers!
Despite all evidence to the contrary, Chicago’s actually a small town. Between everyone I know who grew up in and around my suburb, my friends from tennis camp and my parents’ country club, plus all the Greeks at Whitney who also moved to Lincoln Park after graduation, I feel like I’m still in high school. I can’t go anywhere without bumping into someone familiar. I’m always, “Kitty, the dentist’s daughter,” or “Kitty with the wicked backhand,” or “Kitty, the North Shore cheerleader,” or “Kitty from Tri Tau.” (Or, “Kitty, Kelly’s sister,” which, frankly, terrifies everyone even though she’s seriously mellowed.) For once, I’d like to know what it’s like to be Katherine, with no preconceived notions.
I feel like I could find that in New York.
Ken and I met at a Tri Tau/Sigma Chi mixer as sophomores and I let him pursue me until first semester of our junior year. Is it sad that the chase was the most exciting part of our relationship? We’ve been together ever since. Thing is, we’ve always enjoyed each other’s company and I’m content. I never mind when anyone calls us Barbie and Ken. It’s just that I’m not . . . challenged. He’s sweet as can be and anxious to provide us with a nice lifestyle, hence dental school, but there’s nothing about him that drives me to be better. He doesn’t discourage my dreams, but he’s not exactly cheering them on, either.
Mind you, I don’t want a Betsy-style boyfriend with all the intense highs and lows. For such a composed woman, her breakups are surprisingly theatrical, perpetually ending with massive fights, followed by lots of crying and a week where I nurse her back to sanity with Buffy marathons and pints of ice cream until she’s ready to slap on a pair of stilettos and try it all again. I tell her she’s got to start dating smarter guys, knowing some intellectual equality would lessen the fireworks, but she never listens. Nope, it’s always either bartenders or liberal arts grads, which are basically the same thing.
I suspect that after staring at numbers all day, Betsy enjoys the interpersonal drama. She’d never even kissed a guy before she pledged and didn’t have a serious boyfriend until senior year, so she was definitely behind the curve with guys. She’s having fun figuring out the dating nuances most of us first encountered in high school, so if dramatic is how she wants to play it, I’m down.
Naturally, Jackass Jordan disagrees, telling Betsy her romantic tempests are “unhealthy” and “problematic.” Whatevs. Who cares what she thinks?
My stomach churns audibly.
“Hey, you all right?” Dyta asks, raising her pencil-thin brows. Look at them—they’re like two tiny commas on her face. Ironic that she doesn’t have enough hair there, yet far too much elsewhere. She is crying out for a spa day with me. She just doesn’t know it yet. “Where’d you have lunch?”
“I ate the rest of yesterday’s takeout from the new place on Delaware—Phuket, Let’s Get Thai.”
Dyta hops off my desk. “Ooh, bad news! I saw Lissy Ryder puking her guts out earlier this week after eating there. You should probably go home. Like, now. Typhoon a-coming, if you know what I mean.”
A tsunami of nausea hits me and I break into a cold sweat. “You may be right.”
“Feel better,” Dyta says, taking four giant steps back from me.
“Food poisoning isn’t contagious,” I tell her.
“Yeah, it’s just that these shoes are suede. Later! And thanks for proofing my copy!”
I e-mail my boss to let her know I’m sick and pack up my laptop to work from home. I make haste leaving the office, anxious for some fresh air.
I call Kelly to commiserate while I walk down Michigan Ave to the bus stop. I wish Kelly lived in the city now. She spent six months working in marketing after graduation when she met her now-husband, Brett, at my parents’ club. He was Green Valley Club’s golf pro, but he’s recently been accepted onto the PGA tour. They married ten months into dating. They now live in North Shore with their adorable toddler, Sophia, and another baby on the way. When Kelly wants so
mething, she doesn’t mess around.
“So you’re nauseated?” she asks.
I clutch my roiling stomach. “Yes.”
“I see. Let me ask you—does the idea of a dirty ashtray make you want to barf?”
I feel the bile rise in my throat. “Yes, every day of my life, largely because I hate smoking.”
“Okay, what about biting into a raw onion? One of those big red Bermudas Dr. Daddy puts on his burgers.”
“Sure, but I have food poisoning. The idea of any foodstuff makes me want to hurl.”
“Are you peeing a lot?”
“I had six Diet Cokes today, so, clearly.”
“Do you have any cramping?”
“Only because I’m due for a period.”
Kelly clucks her tongue on the other end of the line. “Interesting. And how do your tits feel?”
“What kind of question is that?” She loves trying to trip me up by saying whatever’s the most shocking and outrageous. As always, I take her bait, stopping short in the middle of the sidewalk in front of the Hancock Center. “I don’t know; how do your tits feel, Kelly?”
I’m mortified when I realize I’ve caught the attention of a mustached police officer on horseback. I lower my head and keep walking.
Undaunted, she replies, “Tender as fuck, thanks. Brett accidentally grazed one with his elbow last night and I almost sent him flying through the sliding glass door. Tell me something, Kitty. Where are you?”
“Almost at Watertower Place.”
“Cool. Do me a proper and cart your happy ass to the Walgreens on the corner.”
“That’s where my bus stops.”
“Perfect. When you get there, go inside and buy yourself a pregnancy test. What the hell, why not buy two?”
I feel a sudden stab of dread. “I don’t need a pregnancy test, Kelly. I’m on the pill.”
She snorts. “Oh, sweetie. Go piss on a stick and then tell me how that whole birth control pill thing worked out for you.”
The Best of Enemies Page 21