We'd sit at a pair of battered desks with cigarette burns on the tops and mousetraps underneath. Our job was ensuring that the reporters spelled the stars' names correctly and got the histories of their addictions in the right order. "Charlie Sheen!" a reporter on deadline would shout, and it would be up to one of us to come up with the actor's correct age and place of birth, the titles, costars, and grosses (foreign and domestic) of his last three movies and/or television shows, and, most important for New York Night's purposes, who he'd been dating, what he'd been taking, and where he'd gone to kick it.
After a few months at the job, we each developed our own reliable sources. Janie had a quasi-phone-sexual relationship with a janitor at an exclusive rehab in Minnesota: she called him Loverboy, checked in with him at lunchtime every day, sent him expensive boxes of chocolates and promised him they'd spend eternity together as soon as her divorce went through.
I didn't have Janie's flair as a writer, or her easy way of cajoling hard-nosed publicists to give up the dirt. I had Mary Elizabeth. She'd been one of the most abusive--not to mention inebriated--of my Pimm classmates. Sophomore year she'd put a maxi pad on my seat in geometry class and let me go around for the rest of the day with it taped to my butt. The year before, she'd told me that Todd Avery at Collegiate had asked for my phone number, and I'd spent a month without straying more than six feet from the telephone as I waited for his call. Two months shy of graduation, she'd gotten expelled for the one-two punch of spiking the girls' basketball team's water bottles with Finlandia and performing unmentionable acts with one of the gym teachers in the broom closet. Mary Elizabeth had eventually gotten it together enough to get a GED, but she'd flunked out of Wesleyan, been asked to leave Penn, and burned through her trust fund before she turned twenty-three, at which point she'd eloped with one of the cloggers from the touring company of Lord of the Dance. At twenty-eight she'd come to her senses and joined Alcoholics Anonymous. The week I'd started at New York Night, she'd called me out of the blue, per step nine (making direct amends to those she had harmed). Sensing a shot at a byline, I'd shamed her into calling me each week to confirm details of famous people she'd seen at spas and rehab clinics she frequented.
Our boss was a woman named Polly, who wore glasses thick enough to stop bullets and seemed to live in the newsroom. She was there when we arrived in the morning. She was there when we left at night. Not only had we never seen her leave the building, we'd never seen her in the bathroom either. Janie and I had long discussions about this with Sandra, the mealworm-pale book critic who took great joy in pronouncing any book where the girl got the guy "ridiculous." Sandra had choppy brown hair that looked like she cut it with toenail clippers, an MFA from a prestigious university, and a five-hundred-page manuscript, which, presumably, did not include a happy ending, reposing in a shoebox underneath her bed, beneath letters from the thirty-six literary agents who'd rejected it. The three of us finally agreed that the less we thought about our boss's excretory habits, the better.
Polly's boss, the managing editor, was a man named Mark Perrault, who was notable only because once a month or so, when the layout guys had caused him to miss deadline again, he'd emerge from his office and attempt to throw his chair across the photographers' desks. Unfortunately, Mark, while not technically a little person, was barely five feet tall and probably weighed less than the chair did. He'd wrestle the chair up to chest level, all the while spluttering "How much longer am I going to have to put up with this goddamn fucking incompetence," lurch forward a few steps, and then, with a tremendous, whistling "Argh!" fling the chair a disappointing foot or two in front of him, while Janie and I would huddle by the vending machine, shaking with silent laughter.
"You know what we should do now?" Janie asked one night, over the hot fudge sundaes at Serendipity 3 she'd insisted on to celebrate her father's most recent divorce.
"What?"
"Move!"
I raised my eyebrows. "Don't you already have a place?" Janie, as I knew perfectly well, lived in her own suite in her father's Park Avenue apartment, an eighteen-room palace with its own elevator that had been photographed for Metropolitan Home.
"Oh, come on," she said. "We can't live with our fathers forever!"
"I think you living with your father is a little different from what I've got going on."
"Nevertheless," said Janie, pulling a copy of the Village Voice from a handbag that had cost several baby alligators their lives. "Look, a two-bedroom in Murray Hill for eighteen hundred a month! We can totally afford that!" She circled it in lip liner, then squinted at the page. "Where's Murray Hill?" Her eyes widened in alarm. "It isn't Brooklyn, is it?"
I struggled for a reference point she'd understand. "It's sort of near Grand Central Station."
"Great! Let's go see it!" She whipped out her cell phone.
"Well, first we have to see if it's even still available, and then we have to make an appointment--"
Janie held up her hand for silence. "Yes, hello, to whom am I speaking? Achmed? Achmed, this is Janie Segal of the carpet Segals."
I shook my head, even though I knew resistance was futile. In the months since we'd met at the Review, I'd become Janie's plus-one at all of the fabulous functions she attended. During six months of black-tie bashes at the city's museums and concert halls, and drinks afterwards at bars and nightclubs all over town, she'd never once made me feel like the fat, frumpy sidekick she kept around as a kind of human moat between herself and the guys who were forever asking her if she wanted a beer or wanted to dance or would mind giving them her number. We had fun together, whether we were buying five-dollar earrings at the flea market on Sixth Avenue and Twenty-fifth Street or dining on braised veal cheeks at a fund-raiser at the Museum of Modern Art, and then singing karaoke in Chinatown afterwards, still wearing our gowns.
Janie finished with Achmed and hung up the phone triumphantly. "We can see it Saturday afternoon!"
I licked my spoon clean and set it on my napkin. "I've actually got plans."
She put down her phone. "Do you have a date?" she asked. "Can I come?"
I stared at her. "Can you come?" I repeated.
"I could pretend to be your sobriety counselor!"
"Janie..."
She pushed aside the melted remains of her nine-dollar sundae. "And when they bring the wine list, I'll be like, 'Oh, no, we won't be needing that!' And I'll say how you really aren't even supposed to be dating, but that your therapist gave you a special dispensation. And then--"
"Janie!" I held up both hands. "No, you cannot come on my date and pretend to be my sobriety counselor." I paused to take a breath. "I don't actually have a date."
"Oh. So what are you doing on Saturday?"
"I'm..." Oof. It was going to sound pathetic out loud, but I plunged ahead anyhow. "I'm going to rent a movie and order Chinese food and help my father pay his bills."
"Oh," said Janie. "Well. That sounds nice." I saw her expression become wistful, and knew that unless I moved quickly to stop it, she'd break into "All By Myself."
"Do you want to come?"
Janie leaned forward eagerly. "Could I?"
"Well, sure."
"And on Sunday we'll pack!"
"We should probably find a place first..."
"Oh, right, right," she said, writing the words "wear comfortable shoes" in the margin of the Voice. She tapped her lip liner pencil on the page, considered, then wrote "buy comfortable shoes."
"I'll lend you some sneakers," I said. The next week, we'd both fallen in love with a big two-bedroom apartment in the West Village--"On Jane Street!" Janie said. "So it's, like, meant to be!" It had a bath and a half and a dishwasher, a kitchen big enough for two people to stand in, eastern exposures, and oversized windows that flooded the space with light.
We moved in on a sunny Saturday morning in April, the first warm day of spring. I'd packed my boxes and labeled them Kitchen, Bathroom, Bedroom, and Books. Janie had followed my example, begging free boxes
from the local liquor store, and even packing and labeling them herself. The three stacked at our building's front door read Cosmetics, Wrapping Paper, and Bracelets. Not perfect, but it was a start.
We lugged the boxes into the elevator, down the hall, and into our new digs. Janie had brought along a CD of Abba's greatest hits. She plugged in my boom box, popped in the Abba, and blared it loud enough for the whole building to enjoy.
I'd gotten almost all of my things into my little room in half a dozen trips, so I was helping the movers drag Janie's boxes off the sidewalk, while Janie, outfitted in specially purchased overalls, work boots, and a T-shirt that read "You Wish," stationed herself in the kitchen. From there she could keep an eye on the movers unpacking her china for eighteen, wait for 1-800-Mattress, and supervise the installation of the all-new stainless steel appliances she'd ordered, even though we were only renting and Janie had freely confessed that she knew how to cook only microwave popcorn and toast with melted Emmentaler cheese on top.
It was a perfect afternoon. The sky was blue, and the sliver of the Hudson I could see between the buildings was sparkling. It looked like everyone in New York City, or at least everyone in the Village, was out and about, carrying balloons, pushing babies, licking ice cream cones, and many of them felt compelled to comment on our stuff.
"Moving day!" a dozen of them had said. Or, "Howdy, neighbor!" Or, "Don't hurt yourself with that," as I struggled to lift a box Janie had labeled Other Boxes and thought to myself that telling someone not to hurt herself was not even close to offering to help her. By five o'clock that afternoon I'd vowed that the next person to say something stupid was going to get a piece of my mind. So when a deep male voice remarked, "Are you moving into four-B?" into my ear, I straightened my aching back and said, without turning around to look at who that voice belonged to, "No. I'm actually committing the crime of the century. Don't tell anyone, okay?"
"Your secret is safe with me," the voice promised. "In fact, I've got a guy on Eleventh Avenue who can move this stuff for us. We'll split the profits and run off to A.C."
"A.C.?" I asked.
"Atlantic City, baby," the man said.
I put my hands against the small of my back and turned around, smiling in spite of myself at the thought of hightailing it down to New Jersey. The man smiling back at me was tall, with close-cropped dark curls, flashing green eyes, and a cleft in his chin. "They'll never find us," he promised. I felt my face flush as he knelt down and started flipping through the compact discs in one of the milk crates I'd scavenged from my former bedroom. He plucked out a copy of Billie Holiday's Commodore Master Takes, then one of The Essential Ida Cox. "Are these yours?"
I nodded. Then I cleared my throat. "Yes."
He looked at me closely. "You got Blues for Rampart Street?"
I nodded again. "I've got everything," I said, wishing I'd found time to put together an ensemble like Janie's, instead of wearing an old Spoleto Festival T-shirt and my least-flattering jeans.
"You like the blues."
"I like girl singers," I said. "All those sad old songs..." My voice trailed off while he flipped rapidly through my CDs and whistled in appreciation before plucking one and brandishing it at me. My heart sank as I saw Debbie Gibson's face staring back at me.
"Electric Youth?" he asked.
"It was the eighties!" I protested.
He shook his head and hefted the crate under his arm.
"Come on, I'll help you."
I picked up Janie's box of boxes and followed him onto the elevator. He had strong shoulders, sinewy forearms, and a pale strip of milky skin under his hairline, like he'd just had his hair cut.
I hit the button for the fourth floor. "Hey, we're neighbors," he said. His smile widened. He was looking at me like he'd known me my whole life...or, I thought, feeling my cheeks heat up again, like he'd already seen me naked, and liked what he'd seen.
Oh, God. I raised my eyes, studying the lit numbers far too intently as he started whistling "Wild Women Don't Get the Blues." I imagined hitting the emergency stop button and how, once the elevator stopped moving, the lights would somehow magically dim, and my neighbor would reach for me, his fingers just skimming my shirt. "Come here," he would say, in his deep voice, in a tone that wouldn't permit refusal, and I'd step into his arms, and I'd press my face to his chest, inhaling the sweet scent of his skin as he slid his hands down my back while nibbling at the side of my neck, saying...
"Hey."
I blinked, shook my head, and found the elevator doors open and the handsome guy staring at me. "It's our stop."
"Oh, yeah! Right! Four-B, that's us!" At the apartment door we both reached for the doorknob at the same time. I almost fell into the foyer and Janie's antique iron headboard.
"So what's your name?" he asked.
"It's Kate." I swallowed hard. My throat felt dusty, and I'd apparently forgotten the rest of my name.
"Kate," he said, and nodded, as if this pleased him. "I'm Evan McKenna. Four-A."
"Nice to meet you." There. I'd gotten a complete, socially appropriate sentence out of my mouth without babbling or mentally molesting him. Progress! I set the box into the hallway closet and put my hands in my pockets.
He cocked an eyebrow at the mess, the suitcases and boxes leaking crumpled newspaper and packing peanuts onto the floor, the movers sweating and cursing as they shoved the headboard along the hall to Janie's bedroom.
"So how many of you are there moving in here?"
"Huh? Oh, um, just two. Me and my roommate Janie. Janie Segal of the carpet Segals." Shit. Now why had I said that?
"Janie Segal of the carpet Segals," he repeated.
I nodded. I'd decided that speed was not my friend.
The eyebrow lifted higher. "Did she have some kind of reversal of fortune?"
"Oh, no, no," I said, shaking my head more vigorously than I had to. "She just likes to keep it real, you know. With the Village people. Well, West Village people. Ha ha."
Evan--Evan! Had there ever been a more beautiful name!--surveyed the mounds and piles and teetering stacks of Janie's belongings. "Do you guys need more help?"
"Oh, no, no, we're fine, we've got it..." Just then, there was a loud crash from the kitchen, followed by some even louder cursing. Evan and I hurried into the kitchen, where Janie was on her hands and knees.
"Damn!" she said, picking up the pieces of a broken soup bowl. "So much for our service for eighteen."
"Careful with that," I said, kneeling down beside her as she picked through the shards. "Hey, Janie, this is Evan McKenna. He's our neighbor."
She raised her head, swept her index finger dramatically beneath each eye, then looked at him...then at me...then at him again, as something in her bedroom crashed to the floor with a wall-rattling bang.
"Very pleased to meet you," she said. She stood up, gave Evan's hand a brief shake, and bounded out of the room.
"Huh," said Evan, watching her go.
"Yeah, she, um, she's a little..." God, he was handsome! Like a General Hospital-era Rick Springfield, only without the mullet. Just then, as if I'd willed it, or as if Janie had read my mind, the Abba was replaced by the opening notes of "Jesse's Girl."
Evan grinned. "Are you ladies Rick Springfield fans?"
"I love this song," I babbled. "I wrote Rick Springfield a fan letter when I was twelve, I think, and he sent me back an autographed picture. My mom always called him Rick Springsteen."
"Rick Springsteen," he repeated.
"Yeah," I said. "She's an opera singer. She doesn't like any music that was composed in the last fifty years," I said. "Well, I guess I should, you know, get back to it."
"Let me put on something better."
I stared after him. Then I opened a box labeled Hairspray, which turned out, unsurprisingly, I guess, to contain about two dozen half-empty cans of hairspray. I'd started sweeping up the broken bowl when Rick was replaced by Bessie Smith's bemused crooning, courtesy of Janie, playing DJ in the living
room.
"Comes a rainstorm, get your rubbers on your feet. Comes a snowstorm, you can get a little heat. Comes love, nothing can be done."
My heart lifted and thrummed in my chest as Evan hummed along. It meant something. It had to.
"Comes a fire, then you know just what to do. Blow a tire, you can get another shoe."
I sang softly, tipping the dustpan into the trash can. "Comes love, nothing can be done."
"Hey." I looked up. Evan was looking at me...really looking at me, with that grin still on his lips. "What?"
"Hold still," he said. He reached out with two fingers and deftly plucked something out of my ponytail. "You had this stuck."
I looked down into his palm, where a curled pink feather rested. "Wow. Huh. Wonder where that came from?" My guess would have been Janie's feather boa, which I'd removed a few hours before from a box labeled Feather Boas, but I wouldn't have been able to say so even if I'd wanted to. He was staring at me, I was looking at him, and my mouth was dry, and my heart was pounding, and...
Evan pulled a beeper out of his pocket. I hadn't noticed that it was ringing. "Oops," he said. "Appointment. Gotta run."
"Oh. Sure! Okay, um, nice meeting you..."
He waved at me, edged through the thicket of Janie's stuff, and then out the door, leaving me standing there, staring after him, my heart in my throat and a feather in my hand.
The movers had left Janie's nine-foot mirror in a baroque gold frame leaning against the wall. My heart sank as I studied myself two hours later. Why couldn't I have worn a little foundation, I thought, gazing at my flushed cheeks and shiny forehead...or lipstick...or a bag over my head? A bag would have solved all my problems, although it would have made it difficult to schlep boxes around.
I yanked at the hem of my shirt and sucked in my cheeks. The SAT tutor I'd dated had had a bit of an overbite and an unfortunate tendency to spit when he talked. The MBA candidate was handsome but a head shorter than I was. A guy like Evan McKenna would have never looked at me twice--if he hadn't noticed my music first.
Goodnight Nobody Page 7