About a hundred times a day I would say, “Hi, I’m Ruthie, can I help you with anything?”
The answer was sometimes an enthusiastic yes, but it was usually no. Mostly a polite no, or an “I’m good, thanks.” But I would sometimes get a grimace or a condescending or impatient “No, thank you!” I’m sure you’ve received this kind of “No, thank you.” The no comes with a scowl and the thank you comes with a look that says, “Why are you even speaking to me?” After getting enough of this kind of “No, thank you,” I stopped asking the question and began walking the floor quietly, just close enough to be of assistance if needed. It was kind of boring. I liked interacting with people and missed the personal contact. But then about ten years ago it got a lot less boring: suddenly everyone and their grandmother had a cell phone. It was then that my decade of eavesdropping began.
The recent obsession with multitasking kicked cell-phone etiquette right out the window of the store onto East 59th Street. What started as a hand-over-mouth, whispered faux pas evolved into a full-volume, I-don’t-care-who’s-listening conversation. You wouldn’t believe the things people feel comfortable yelling into a cell phone in public.
Today I was following a well-dressed woman around the floor as she talked on her cell. It was soon evident that this particular woman was of the horrible variety. She is the center of this story and the reason I began by telling you that A. This story ends badly and B. You won’t feel so bad about it.
I won’t give her a name, because you know her and can name her yourself. You met her at summer camp, or in high school, or maybe even just last week at your kid’s soccer game. You’ve spent many a night unable to sleep, going over what you should have said to her in your head, and sometimes you have even woken in a bad mood thinking about her. Her name is ____ ______. We all know her.
She is the friend who greets you with the question “What are you wearing?” or tells you in the name of honesty that your jokes aren’t really funny. The judgmental type who is quick to point out your flaws. “Overdid it a bit with the tweezers, I see!” she says, laughing as you pull out your compact to examine your eyebrows. It’s strange how a compliment can go in and out of our ears in a moment but an insult can fester in there for days, even years.
She was that girl who was part of your fast-formed friend group on your cross-country teen tour, who stopped you at the entrance to the Ferris wheel at the county fair and shook her little finger at you. “Four per car,” she said. “Sorry—you’re out.” Never to be in again.
She was that girl in tenth grade with the long legs who you were nice to ’cause she was new in town. The one that wrapped those same long legs around the boy you confided in her that you had a crush on.
She was the girl I met my first year in the Bloomingdale’s training program. The one who said she’d formed a knitting club: “Oooh, sorry, Ruthie, I didn’t know you knit.” And then, “Sorry, Ruthie, we all took our boyfriends out for drinks after work and I didn’t think you had anyone special so I didn’t invite you.”
Or the worst: the one who pretends to be your friend to your face but is the first to talk about you behind your back.
Don’t worry—except for the knitting club and the tenth-grade leggy bitch, these didn’t all happen to me. But I am around women all day long, and I hear a lot of stories. A woman in her late twenties came in just last week for some retail therapy. As she browsed, I could tell she needed an ear to bend; you learn the signs. It was a Tuesday. She confided in me that on Tuesdays she usually met with her baby group. She was one of the founding moms, in fact. But soon some social-climber mom had climbed right over her, winning over all the other moms with nothing but a fistful of her husband’s cash. She then changed the group meeting to Wednesdays, knowing it was the only day our girl couldn’t make it, on account of her little Johnny having a lazy eye. Wednesdays were when the lazy-eye group meets. Let me tell you, if I ever met that witchy mom myself, I’d sell her a dress that made her look bad from behind!
Stop and think. Who is your nemesis? Even the most popular, confident, put-together adult can call to mind that one girl who made her feel inadequate. She’ll get hers, you said to yourself, praying that it was true as she walked away from you, leaving you feeling like roadkill to be scraped off the pavement. Well, fill in the blanks, ladies, ’cause today, I promise, she will get hers. Today the road-killer becomes roadkill.
I followed _____ ______ as she weaved in and out of the dress racks, sometimes stopping to feel a fabric, sometimes to look at a price tag. I knew pretty quickly that she was a mean girl of ultimate proportions. Cruella de Vil on steroids. She was on the phone with her friend, asking for fashion advice. Her cruelty was slow and subtle. It began with, “I need advice because you’re my friend,” so that her victim was all eager and ripe for the zinging. Of course I could hear only one side of the conversation, but in my head I heard both. It went like this:
THE ROADKILL: Where are you?
_____ ______: Bergdorf’s [she lied]. In the dress department. I want to wear something new to Celeste’s birthday dinner. What are you wearing?
ROADKILL: Celeste’s dinner? I wasn’t invited…Do you think it’s an oversight? I thought we were close!
_____ ______: Oh, I’m so sorry I brought it up—I just assumed…Well, I can call her and ask if you want.
ROADKILL: No, don’t. That’s so awkward.
_____ ______: I’ll just hint at it. I have to ask her something anyway. Call you right back.
Click.
_____ ______ turned to me, holding the Max Hammer dress. “Do you have this in a small. I don’t see a small.”
She was one of those entitled women who assumes that everyone exists only to serve her, so she didn’t bother phrasing her demand as a question.
“I’m sorry,” I said, not sorry at all. “It’s the hottest dress of the season—we only have the two larges left. Try one on.”
“I don’t have time to try one on and I’m not a large!” she ranted. “You would think if it’s the hottest dress you would have more!”
I hated her. “I don’t do the buying, but I have been told the manufacturer ran out as well. Sorry, seems you’re out of luck.”
When I turned to walk away, she mumbled under her breath, “Out of luck…something you’re used to, no doubt.”
Tomás overheard her and stuck out his tongue behind her back. She went back to dialing her phone.
“Celeste! Are you ready for your party? Guess who I just spoke to—Veronica Block! I had no idea she wasn’t invited.” She waited a beat. “Well, you must have forgotten.” She laughed. “She’s easily forgettable!” Another beat. “Oh, no, I’m sure she doesn’t care—she even said she had better plans that night.” And another. “Yes, I think she said better. Maybe it was more exciting—can’t remember exactly. In any case, you know Veronica and her husband are such bores. What makes a party is who you don’t invite, not who you do.” And with that last bit of nastiness she hung up.
She was the worst, this broad. She might take the nastiest-customer-ever cake. But I knew how to get my own quiet revenge on people like her. That sweet, desperate young girl with the long story had returned the overloaned size small Max Hammer this morning as promised. It was even more of a mess than when she left with it, but I didn’t care. I went in the back and got it for the nastiest customer ever, hoping that when she got it home and saw what a wreck it was she would try to return it. I couldn’t wait to accuse her of damaging it and refuse to take it back. “I guess you’re out of luck again,” I would say.
Nasty was back on the phone again, in mid-conversation with poor Veronica. “Well, I mentioned it, darling, but she didn’t bite. She explained that it’s really just an intimate get-together for her nearest and dearest. Maybe next time, you know, when she widens the net.” Poor roadkill Veronica, in way over her head. “No, I had no idea—a kidney, really, well, thank god she didn’t need it. You know you should be more careful whom you offer a ki
dney to, Veronica, really.”
I didn’t trust myself not to wring her neck with it, so I gave the dress to Tomás and went out for a smoke. Normally I wouldn’t do that to him, but I was still a bit pissed that he and Natalie had left the floor uncovered the other day to go on their little love quest. The last thing I heard was, “I guess she needed your younger eye to find a small.” I hate to admit it, but that stung. After Lillian I was probably the oldest salesgirl here. Salesgirl—even the name made me feel old. Maybe I needed a two-cigarette break.
I was standing on the corner with Lillian, a few puffs into ciggy number two, when I saw the nastiest customer ever leave the store. I had just told Lillian the whole story. “There she is!” I pointed. She was just a stone’s throw away. My kingdom for a stone.
Lillian took her in. “She doesn’t look so bad. Look, she’s helping that old lady get a cab.”
That didn’t sound right. I took a look for myself. It was bizarre. She was actually helping an old lady get a cab. She smiled at her and said something we couldn’t hear. We craned our necks to try. The old woman thanked her as she stepped into the street and raised her hand for a taxi. The old woman seemed touched by her kindness. And then it happened. A cab pulled over, and the nastiest customer ever became the nastiest New Yorker ever. She got in, slammed the door, and rode away.
Lillian yelled, “Oh my god, she stole that woman’s cab!”
We both rushed to the old lady’s aid.
“Did you see what that bitch just did?” she asked as we approached.
I love that about New Yorkers, frail old ladies giving it out like gangsters. As I stepped to the curb to hail her another cab, the ground shook. At first I panicked, thinking it was a bomb. People were screaming as the earth rumbled again. I looked across 59th Street just in time to see the ground open up, like something out of a sci-fi movie, and swallow up the Yellow Cab with everyone and everything in it. I was never one to believe in karma, but on that day I was converted.
*
The next day Tomás and Natalie gathered round while I read them the front page of the New York Post. They were both still kissing up to me, trying to make up for their little disappearing act. I was over it—it was nice to see them both so happy. Neither of them had been very lucky with love since I’d known them. I’ve worked with a lot of younger people over the years, and I can honestly say these two were my favorites. They even invited me to join them on their upcoming double date. I declined, but how sweet are they to have asked?
Natalie thought the headline “Holy Sinkhole!” was a bit tacky, since a woman had actually died, but the New York Post has its own moral compass. From its most infamous headline, “Headless Body in Topless Bar,” to my personal favorite, “Osama bin Wankin’,” which ran when they found porn in bin Laden’s foxhole, they clearly go for the laugh above all else. I get it—I often have a tendency to do the same. This was as close as I had ever been to front-page news.
The earth really outdid itself yesterday when a sinkhole opened up and swallowed a Yellow Cab, killing one. Onlookers outside Bloomingdale’s feared a bomb as the ground shook at the corner of 59th and Lexington. But the culprit was a 10-foot long, 12-foot-deep sinkhole caused by a break in the sewer line. Employees of local businesses say they had noticed a growing crack in the pavement but hadn’t thought it anything serious.
The taxi driver, who emergency workers said had been protected by the front cage, survived with a couple of broken bones. Police have yet to release the name of the deceased passenger. She had a Bloomingdale’s bag with her, and witnesses confirm that she had just come from the department store.
“Do you think Celeste canceled her dinner party?” Tomás asked coyly.
“Now there’s a spot at the table for the other one!” I answered, laughing to myself. I had been calling the wrong girl roadkill!
I knew we sounded insensitive, but really, the woman had been so horrible. I almost felt worse that our beautiful Max Hammer dress had met such a dreadful fate.
CHAPTER 32
The Balcony of the Paris Theatre
By John Westmont, Caroline’s Husband
I was sitting at my desk in my study looking out the window at Central Park. It’s a two-sided desk with chairs on both sides, one facing the interior of the room and the other facing the window. I choose where I want to sit depending on whether I want to concentrate or daydream. I had a tall stack of papers to grade and should have been concentrating on them, but my mind was elsewhere.
I was thinking about Andie, wondering what she was up to and why she hadn’t stuck around for that coffee after class last week. My hope was that she had stood me up because she was a good person and knew that although nothing inappropriate was going on, it still wasn’t right. A part of me had been relieved. I hadn’t felt this way about anyone since meeting Caroline. I wondered if it was just a byproduct of the growing distance between us—if that void allowed for something, or in this case someone, to step in and fill it. It is the classic excuse people give for cheating: filling a void.
I knew my marriage felt shaky, but it seemed to me that the problem could be traced to a time before I met Andie. The day-to-day looked the same. Caroline greeted me when I got home with the same warm smile, but now it seemed oddly forced. I asked her many times if something was wrong, but she always denied it. But I felt alone even when I wasn’t. There’s nothing as sad as feeling lonely when you’re lying next to the person who is meant to complete you. Still, I would never use that as an excuse for infidelity. I don’t believe there’s any excuse. I decided that tonight I would sit Caroline down and insist that we go talk to someone.
Eventually I gave up grading papers and looked up what was playing at the Paris movie theater. It had been weeks since my last visit; I imagined the movie would have changed by now. It had, so I left and hailed a cab to my number-one place to escape.
As I climbed the steps to the balcony, my favorite place to sit at the Paris, my anxiety began to melt away. I sat down in my usual seat, balanced my popcorn on the ledge, and took off my coat. Then I saw her. My heart skipped a beat. Andie was seated at the other end of my row. I felt guilty and exhilarated at the same time. I felt alive. I felt terrified. I felt like I should run. Then she saw me. A smile washed over her face, and I could swear her eyes welled up. The lights went dark and we both silently met at the seats in the middle of our row. We didn’t say a word. When the movie began I offered her some of my popcorn. A few minutes later we reached into the bucket at the same time. As our hands touched, the bucket fell to the floor. I grasped her hand in mine and didn’t let go for the rest of the film. I can’t even tell you if the film was any good, because all I could feel was her hand in mine. When the film ended I felt as if I had been holding my breath. I didn’t know what had come over me; I knew this was wrong, but it also felt so natural, so comfortable, so right.
As the credits rolled we put on our coats and left the theater, still not speaking. I took her hand again as we went down the stairs from the balcony. At the bottom of the stairwell the light of day shone into the lobby, an unwelcome beam of reality. We dropped each other’s hands. I shot her a forlorn smile. She returned the same.
Outside on 59th Street we stood at that particularly Old World cross-section of New York, looking out at the square in front of the Plaza Hotel. As a professor of film, I often had scenes from movies running through my head. But this particular location seemed ironic to me now. As Andie bent down to tie her shoe, the final shots of The Way We Were, a film about two people who couldn’t be together, played before my eyes. Barbra Streisand saying, “Your girl is lovely, Hubbell,” before running her hand through Robert Redford’s hair for the last time. “See you, Katie,” he says, pain in his eyes. “See you,” she says to no one as he runs off to a waiting cab.
I had really lost it—a few meetings with this woman who was a virtual stranger to me and I was comparing us to the characters in one of the greatest cinematic love stories of all t
ime. I had to start watching more sci-fi and apocalypse movies. I had a loving family that meant the world to me, and I to them. When Andie stood back up I would say it: “See you, Andie.” And I would leave. In fact I would run, and never look back.
“Oh my god,” she said as she stood. Her face was white. She looked as if she’d just witnessed a murder.
I touched her shoulder. “What is it?”
She recoiled. “Don’t touch me!”
I was totally confused. She sighed, looked again at her shoes, and then explained. She was calm and straightforward.
“John, there is a photographer taking pictures of us from across the plaza. He was hired by your wife, who’s trying to prove that you’re cheating.”
I couldn’t believe my ears. It felt like I’d been sucker-punched. “How do you know that?” I managed to stammer.
“I know because I’m a private investigator and I sometimes use that same photographer.”
At this point I thought she must be joking. I even laughed, relieved that she was just fooling around. But she went on.
“Your wife, Caroline, hired me a few months ago to try and find evidence that you were having an affair so she could take advantage of the infidelity clause in your prenup.”
“My prenup? What the hell do you know about my prenup?” I was feeling unsteady on my feet. Betrayed. Confused. My heart was racing; my neck felt like it was on fire.
“I told you, your wife hired me as a private eye. I’m sorry, John, but it turned out she was the one having an affair. She’s cheating on you but wanted to make it look the other way around, for the money.”
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