by Rona Jaffe
Nicole only smiled.
As she had hoped, the pilot was picked up, and they were going to start to shoot the series in mid-July, to go on in the fall. Eve sublet her apartment for six months, without telling her landlord, who frowned on subletting because he would rather she leave so he could raise the rent, and told him the bearded artist who would be staying there was her cousin, house-sitting while she was in Hollywood becoming a star. She was going to go out to L.A. in early June so she would have plenty of time to find her little dream house and fix it up before the hard work began. Of course she had to have a going away dinner at Yellowbird.
“Why do we have this table?” Eve asked Billie when she got there and saw Gara and Felicity sitting where the sight lines were not good. “I don’t like this table.”
“We’re busy tonight,” Billie said.
“Well, I’m going to Hollywood tomorrow to become a star, and this is my swan song here, so I want my table changed. I want that one.”
Billie shrugged and picked up their menus. “Come on, star,” she said.
Eve smiled, and sat down where she could see everything. “I heard that Eben has a woman living with him this summer in the Hamptons,” she said to Felicity. “She’s twenty-four.”
“Good luck to her,” Felicity said.
“I don’t care anymore,” Eve said.
“Neither do I.”
The truth was Eve didn’t care; Eben’s sex life had become nothing more than interesting gossip. She was sure to find a good replacement for him in Hollywood, maybe even a live-in lover again, like the old days. But this time of course both she and her man would have money. Eve felt that she was on the threshold of the best of all possible worlds.
Felicity left early, looking tired. Eve, however, was wide awake. “Let’s go somewhere to have a drink,” she said to Gara.
“No, I don’t think so. I’m tired too.”
“Well, I want to do something.”
“I want a cab,” Gara said.
They paid their bills and started to leave. “Aren’t you going to say goodbye to Billie?” Gara asked.
Eve shrugged. “She was never very nice to me. She’s moody.”
“Moody?”
“Don’t you think so?”
“No.”
Eve waved and smiled at Billie, who waved and smiled back. They headed for the door. There at the front booth was Nelson Gruen, her young director, sitting with a good-looking older man, in his fifties, Eve thought; not exactly her type, a little too elegant and snobby-looking, but she was leaving New York anyway. “Well, hello, Nelson,” Eve said, stopping, pleased to see him on a social basis so she could bond.
He looked at her for a moment. “Oh, Eve,” he said.
“What are you doing in New York? And in Yellowbird of all places?”
“My roots are still in New York, and Yellowbird—this is Michael Hinthorn, Eve Bader—Yellowbird is Michael’s hangout.”
“I’ve never seen you here before,” Eve said to the older man. “We must come here on different nights.”
“Or maybe on the same night sometimes,” he said. He held out his hand to Gara. “I’m Michael Hinthorn.”
“I’m Gara Whiteman.”
“I’ve seen you,” he said.
“You have?”
Eve couldn’t imagine why he had noticed Gara and not her. Nobody ever noticed Gara; despite her sometimes bright clothing, she always seemed to be wearing the protective coloring of an animal at risk.
“Why don’t you two sit down for a minute?” Michael said.
That was all Eve had to hear. She sat down next to Nelson, and Gara sat across from her next to his friend. “I hope we’re not interrupting your discussion,” Gara said.
“The discussion was finished, and now we’re just relaxing.”
“Michael is my lawyer,” Nelson said. “He makes my deals. Eve is in the show.”
“Ah. And you, Gara?”
“I’m a therapist,” Gara said.
“We all need one of those,” Nelson said.
“Would anyone like a drink?” Michael asked. “Eve? Gara?”
“White wine,” Eve said.
“Thank you,” Gara said. She was looking more comfortable now, but she had her arms wrapped around her breasts again in that mannerism of hers, which she apparently wasn’t even aware of. What did she think, that they were going to fall off? I must do that some time in a scene, Eve thought, if I ever do a breast cancer movie. There would be plenty of them to do, she was sure.
Michael ordered a bottle of white wine. “I come here for the music,” he said. “Sometimes late at night. As far as I’m concerned the best music was written between the mid-sixties and the mid-seventies.”
“That’s what Billie always says,” Gara said. “Except for her few favorites from the past.”
“Did you ever hear her night tape?”
“Oh, yes.”
“That was Billie.”
“I know.”
“I’m looking forward to starting work,” Eve said. “I’m leaving tomorrow to settle in.”
Nelson was looking at her with a squinty-eyed look. “So you’re Nicole Bader’s mother,” he said.
“Yes, and I taught her everything she knows.”
“You taught her well.”
“I also taught myself,” Eve said, a little defensively. After all, They Are Here was her show, not her daughter’s.
“You must be very proud of her,” Nelson said. “She’s so talented, and so beautiful.”
“Oh, I am.”
“It’s nice to see your children follow in your footsteps,” Michael said. “You always think they won’t want to. My daughter and son are both lawyers, too.”
“And your wife?” Gara asked.
“Ex-wife.”
“Oh.” It was obviously not his wife’s occupation she was interested in but his marital status, and of course he knew it too because he was smiling. But then she looked away and busied herself with her glass.
Poor Gara, Eve thought, she’ll never know how to flirt with a man. I wonder how she ever got her husband.
They stayed there until midnight. After they had finished the bottle of wine Gara got a little more friendly with Nelson’s lawyer, and Eve was relieved because that gave her the chance to have Nelson to herself. She wanted him to remember her, so he would make her part bigger and give her more lines. Eventually she offered to fix him up with Nicole, since he was apparently such an admirer of hers, and they were both available. He said he couldn’t think of anything nicer.
“She doesn’t run around,” Eve said. “She’s a very serious girl.”
“I’m serious, too.”
“You’ll be my son-in-law,” Eve said, elbowing him, and laughed. “Then I guess I’ll have to hire you all the time, won’t I?” he said, laughing too.
You think you’re kidding, Eve thought. Just you wait. She thought she would never be able to stop laughing, and although they didn’t know what she thought was so funny, or why she was so manic, eventually they were all laughing just as hard as she was, for no reason at all.
Chapter Forty-three
THE MORNING AFTER THEY HAD MET at Yellowbird Michael Hinthorn called Gara and invited her to go to a screening with him of the new Bertolucci movie. This is a date, she thought, feeling younger than she had in years, and unexpectedly excited, the way she had been when she was much younger and dating, looking forward to fun. It was safe but intriguing: an event, out with other people to protect her, doing something interesting, maybe even flirting, knowing a man was curious enough about her to want to spend a few hours in her company. She could not imagine falling in love. She was not unaware of what she had done all these years in her ambivalence; she had protected herself, and avoided men even when she was asking people to introduce
her to one. She had never even noticed Michael Hinthorn in Yellowbird, although he had noticed her. She had been content, she had made her compromise. She didn’t know if the compromise had come from fear or realism, but she had made her world safe and comfortable, and that had been enough.
But one night a month ago, alone as always in her apartment, just as an exercise Gara had made a theoretical list of the kind of man she would want to meet. Number one: I should feel comfortable with him. That was essential. Two: Intelligent and interesting to talk to, hopefully even funny. Three: Likes to go out and do things with me. Four: Presentable enough to fit in with my friends. She did not ask for gorgeous, just acceptable. She did not think she was asking for anything too unreasonable.
She had not asked for Emotionally Available, although she knew that should have been at the top of her list. She was not emotionally available, so why should he be? She just did not want him to be involved with another woman, because then he would not fit number three: Likes to go out and do things with me. What she was looking for, she realized, was a companion. Of course, eventually, she would have to deal with the sex part of it, because if she only wanted a companion she could go out with Brad. She knew she wanted sex too, and she didn’t know if she would have the courage ever to go to bed with a man again. You couldn’t have sex in the dark forever, although people said you could, and what if he recoiled? He would have to love her first. If he really loved her enough it wouldn’t matter. But she could not imagine that kind of love happening to her anymore.
They met at the screening room in an office building on the West Side. In the crowd outside the little screening room she saw him before he saw her, and she thought again that he was attractive. She had thought that when she first saw him at Yellowbird, but then she had withdrawn into her shell and not let herself think about it at all. Watching the movie they sat in huge comfortable upholstered seats, and did not touch, although they glanced at each other from time to time. She didn’t know what that meant.
The movie was called Stealing Beauty, and it was apparently about a very pretty young woman with enormous, mobile red lips, who was looking to lose her virginity, and all the men who were eager to help, or just to know her, or to watch her. The scenery was spectacular. Gara thought of Carl, and the trips they had taken, and then she glanced at Michael and wondered if they would ever know each other well enough to want to go to Europe together. Now that she was sure she had her life back there were many things she wanted to do.
“I liked that,” he said afterward.
“So did I.”
“Where do you want to have dinner?”
“I don’t know.”
He took her to a small French bistro on the East Side. Gara had a few glasses of wine for courage, and over the salad and grilled fish they talked about the movie and others they had seen, about books, about art, about his clients and hers (the little she could reveal), and about ideas. Neither of them said a word about their pasts. Not about former marriages, not about affairs since then, not about dysfunctional childhoods. The closest they came to any discussion of the past was to tell each other what schools they had gone to, and that they had both grown up in New York.
There was something about living in the present that Gara found surprisingly reassuring. It was as if they were both too tired to reopen old wounds or to grieve over old losses. If they liked each other it would have to be through instinct, through enjoyment of the moment, through little things they did that were considerate or made the other smile. Eventually, she knew, they would have to pry, or at least hint, but right now everything was fresh and new, and . . . she felt comfortable with him.
“I’m glad we met,” he said to her when he walked her to her door.
“Yes,” Gara said. “Thank you for the wonderful evening.”
She was not surprised when he kissed her goodnight. She had felt he would when she saw the instants of hesitation and resolve cross his face, and when he did, she liked it. Then he was gone.
I’m glad we met, she thought, remembering his voice when he said it, liking his husky voice, his charming smile, his thick, gray-flecked dark hair, the way he dressed, the sense she had that he was in very good shape, younger than Carl, still eager but not looking for youth and beauty like that girl in the movie if he was content to be here with her. The one thing she had not noticed was his eyes. She didn’t even know what color they were. She had been too afraid to look into his eyes, because then he might see her.
It will all take time, Gara thought. Maybe we can be friends. I would love that, having a man to go out with. I expect nothing more, and I am still amazed to have this.
When Michael called her two days later she was surprised it was so soon, and unexpectedly happy that she would see him. He took her to an art gallery opening downtown, where he bought a drawing for the new apartment he had moved into and was still fixing up after his divorce, and then he took her to dinner in SoHo. When they talked about their usual nonthreatening intellectual subjects, enthusiastically, appreciating each other’s opinions, rising to gratifyingly unexpected heights of insight like two well-matched tennis players, Gara realized how hungry she had been for just this kind of intelligent conversation. In her world of single women it had all been jokes, laughter, repartee, commiseration, complaints, and always, always the subject of men. Would they find one, did they want one, how they had lost one, or gotten away from one, how could they get one; the existence of these unconquered men hovering on the horizons of their lives like some kind of rainbow.
When they were drinking their espresso she felt as if she had been doubly filled, mind and body. “Thank you for another wonderful evening,” Gara said.
“You know what I like?” he said. “That we never talk about ourselves.”
She looked at him. Did he mean it, or was he being ironic? Perhaps both. “There’s plenty of time for that,” she said.
“But I think I know you already,” he said. “You’re a good person.”
“That’s very perceptive.”
“Aren’t you?”
“Yes. And are you?”
“I try to be.”
“That’s a step.”
She had never flattered him, feeling uncomfortable verbalizing anything positive for fear he would run away, or that her discomfort with emotion would make him think she was being insincere. But now as they smiled at each other she thought that he must know that she liked him. She looked at his eyes. They were blue.
We must be the two most terrified people in the world, Gara thought. That night when he kissed her goodnight at her door they both opened their mouths and fed on each other. We’re not too scared for that, she thought. But she didn’t ask him up, and he ran away as soon as she turned to go in. “I’ll call you,” he said, his voice trailing away from his flight.
She knew he would.
“So you’ve found another frightened bunny,” Felicity said at dinner in Yellowbird. There were only the two of them now. Felicity was delighted Gara was dating and wanted to hear all about it. “He sounds just like you.”
“It’s good,” Gara said. “We can learn to trust together. Or not. Somebody must have done an excellent job of destroying him.”
“Like you were damaged. Like we all were. That’s why we find each other.”
“Maybe you’re right,” Gara said.
“Think of it this way,” Felicity said. “If it doesn’t work out with you two, at least he will have been practice. Then you can find another man. But maybe it will work. Just have fun.”
“How did you get so mature, finally?” Gara said.
Felicity smiled. “I’ve been working really hard with my therapist, and also it’s been almost a year since Eben dumped me. Sometimes I still get very upset when I remember all the lies he told me, but I’m okay now. I would have been happier if it had worked for us, of course, but I see him as he is. He will ne
ver make any woman happy for long. He isn’t happy either. But he was my bridge person.”
“Bridge person?”
“Bridging my two lives: Slugger’s Baby, and a free, independent woman. I know I still have a long way to go, and I want to learn.”
“That sounds good,” Gara said.
“I spoke to my parents a few times on the phone,” Felicity said. “My mother has reconciled with my father, but only because she’s sixty-five years old and her last boyfriend left her and she doesn’t think she’ll ever get another one. My father is glad she’s being nice to him. I think in a funny way my mother has fallen in love with my father, finally, because she needs someone to take care of her and he’s willing to do it. Of course she keeps yelling at me for divorcing Russell. She says I’ll never get such a good husband again, and that more likely I’ll never get one at all.”
“That’s supportive,” Gara said sarcastically.
“I realized that I’m still trying to get her love and approval, even though I don’t approve of what she does. But it’s becoming clearer to me that it doesn’t matter that I’m not the daughter she wanted me to be. I want to become the woman I want myself to be.”
“And you will,” Gara said.
They were getting ready to leave when Michael came in, looking around. Gara knew the person he was looking for was her. He had said he was going to be out with a client and she had said she was going to have dinner with Felicity at Yellowbird. She was surprised at how happy she was to see him.
“That’s Michael,” Gara said, waving.
“He’s cute.”
“Do you think so?” But she thought he was.
He came over to their table, obviously glad to see her. Gara introduced him to Felicity and he sat down. Walking by, Billie gave them a knowing glance. Billie, who always knew which man at the bar would like her, also knew which of her customers would discover each other. Often they were mismatched, but nothing surprised her, neither when they met nor when they broke up. On the sound system LaBelle was singing “Lady Marmalade,” and the energy in the room was high. Michael ordered more wine for them, and as soon as she had finished hers Felicity insisted on leaving them alone together, making a great show of looking at her watch.