From a rational standpoint Katie understood that she could march back to the opera house right then and set them all straight, and it would be fine.
Paul Michael would use it as validation, say, That explains so much! He’d bask in the assumption that their sex was so boring not because he sucked at it, or because their connection was never as strong as they thought, or because they weren’t compatible in the least, but because she was a lesbian. How easy that would make it for him, for all of them, to pat themselves on their backs for their betrayal.
Why should she care what they thought of her anyway, when, in truth, she could hardly stand the whole lot of them? She had worked so hard over the years to win them over, convinced her compatibility with Paul Michael was worth the extra effort, but that was just one more way she was mistaken.
Katie thought back to the first time she laid eyes on Paul Michael.
It was only a week into classes at Columbia. A girl from her civil procedure class had invited Katie out with a few other 1Ls to a bar on West End Avenue—and there he was in his Jonathan Franzen glasses and black jacket over black shirt over black jeans, drinking some pretentious cocktail that involved a cherry. If all of New York City were amalgamated into one man, Katie thought at the time, this would be him.
She waited for him to sidle up next to her at the bar, and before even a hello, he reached out to touch the silk scarf she was wearing around her neck. “Hermès?” he asked.
Katie had to keep herself from laughing because she was not in fact a wearer of scarves. This was the first silk scarf her neck had ever seen, which she’d purchased specifically because she thought she might blend in better with the coastal elite if she started accessorizing like them. Hours upon hours had gone into this one silk ornament, choosing just the right pattern, practicing knots in the mirror, deciding the double-wrap French knot was her favorite because it appeared the most nonchalant.
When Paul Michael reached out to rub that scarf between his fingers, this was what he couldn’t have known—how the moment had been choreographed by Katie herself. She hadn’t fully understood why it mattered so much, at first, to get this one accessory right, but it struck her then. Aha. Here it is. This is why.
“Yves Saint Laurent,” Katie said, sounding to herself like someone else—and she instantly fell in love with that person.
With that person. Not him. It was so clear to Katie now, how from their very first encounter, it was wrong. She’d never truly loved Paul Michael. She loved that he could get her where she thought she wanted to go.
He was right to leave her.
He was wrong to cheat on her, but they both knew she wouldn’t have left him. She would have kept at it, kept trying. Like this skateboarder Katie was watching, who kept eating it on the pavement, over and over again. That Katie wasn’t a quitter had always been one of her best qualities, but in this case it meant that she would stay the course in a doomed relationship for better or worse, in sickness and health, in spite of all signs telling her to do the opposite.
How terrifying that her own judgment could be so clouded, that she could so utterly convince herself that whatever discomfort she’d felt, whatever doubts she’d had, were simply her own shortcomings to overcome. She’d actually thought she was being brave by insisting upon him in spite of not only her family’s disapproval but also that quiet voice from deep down inside her own guts.
Katie rubbed her bare arms to warm them against the cold. What were her guts whispering to her now? That she should go home?
That she should go to Cassidy’s.
No, she should go home.
“Are you a princess?”
Katie turned to find a little girl wearing a pink tiara looking up at her.
“No,” Katie said.
The girl’s face dropped, and Katie realized her error. “Are you a princess?” she quickly asked.
“Yes!” The girl laughed and ran back to her mother.
Katie perused her surroundings, realizing how strange she must look sitting alone in her rose quartz gown among these tourists and lovers and skateboarders.
She stood up to go, waved goodbye to her tiara’d friend, and lifted the hem of her dress as she made her way to the street.
* * *
Right about now Romeo and Juliet were probably somewhere in the Capulets’ orchard wishing that morning was not upon them. Katie and Cassidy might have been holding hands in the dark, flushed and fevered, their own chemistry amplified by the passion of the performers onstage.
Instead Katie was seated alone at her kitchen table, subduing her heightened emotions with a task. She stared at the pen in her hand; her customary salutation, Dear Mama; and the following blank page.
What you’re about to read, Katie began, is a feeble attempt to puncture my inflated sadness by bringing pen to paper and accomplishing something productive. The contents of this letter will in no way reflect my current state of mind or the fact that my life is in pieces.
Okay. She’d gotten that out of her system. Now she could begin again with a fresh sheet of paper.
Dear Mama, I’m writing to you after a long, exciting evening.
Katie gazed around her neglected kitchen, at the smattering of spilled coffee grounds on the countertop, the slowly dripping faucet.
It’s actually been an exciting few weeks.
She looked around some more, this time at the faded photos stuck with magnets to her refrigerator door. The one of her as a little girl riding her favorite horse struck her, at the moment, like a punch in the stomach. Was there anything left in the world that wouldn’t somehow make her think of Cassidy?
Katie rose from her chair to yank the photo down but got distracted by the one next to it—her at fifteen with her parents and brothers, all of them posed in color-coordinated outfits. Why would she want to have this outdated version of her family staring back at her every time she opened the refrigerator? It’d been up there so long, she’d stopped seeing it.
But Katie really looked at the photo now, and she remembered that day. She and her mother had gone to get their hair and nails done in the morning, and then the whole family had piled into the car and headed for Sears. It had been a sunny, warm afternoon in April, but just as they stepped out of the car, a full parking lot’s length from the store’s entrance, the heavens opened and it started to pour. Her mother screamed bloody murder, like it was a vat of pig’s blood that’d been dumped on her head, and the four of them ran through sheets of rain laughing so hard, because there was just nothing to be done.
You couldn’t even tell any of that had happened by the picture. The line at the Sears portrait studio was long enough that they’d all dried off, and Sue Ellen at the hair salon had used enough hairspray on her mother that no amount of rain was bringing down anyone’s updo. The photo turned out perfect.
Tears started falling from Katie’s eyes then. She returned the photo to its place on the refrigerator door and looked to her letter.
She took her pen in hand and sat.
There’s something important I need to tell you, Katie wrote. So I’m going to stop beating around the bush.
Nope.
Katie crossed out that last line, taking extra care to fully blacken out the word bush.
The truth, she wrote, is that I’ve met someone and I believe I’m in love.
But it’s a woman I’ve fallen in love with, Mama. And I don’t know what that means, or if it means anything different about me, but I don’t want to lie to you about who I’ve been spending my time with.
More tears rolled down Katie’s cheeks as she imagined what it would be like for her tough and sometimes difficult and often fearful mother to read these words. Her mother who had always done the best she could to love Katie the best she could.
Her name is Cassidy. She’s a born-and-bred New Yorker and who knows if you will like her very much,
but I do. I truly do.
I want to continue spending time with her, so that I can get to know her better, and it would be great if I could share that process with you, but I understand how this is asking a lot.
I need you now more than ever, Mama. And I love you more than ever, too. I hope that once the understandable shock of this has worn off, you’ll see that I’m still the same Katie you’ve always loved so much.
When she was finished writing, Katie set down her pen and folded the letter into thirds. She reached for an envelope from her stationery box—and then paused.
There was something she needed to do first, before sending this off. She quickly got dressed and slipped the letter into the inside pocket of her jacket.
* * *
It was Brandon, not Frank, on duty in the lobby of Cassidy’s building. Katie greeted him as she headed straight for the elevator. “Is Cassidy in?”
“I don’t think so,” he said. “But I’ll check.”
“Oh.” Katie’s forward momentum came to a halt. She hadn’t considered that Cassidy might not be home when she sped out of her apartment and across town on this mission.
Brandon called up to Cassidy’s room. “No answer.”
“Oh,” Katie said again. She couldn’t have come all this way for nothing. “Well, she said she’d be here in just a few minutes.”
Brandon hung up the phone and eyeballed Katie like he sensed something was suspicious.
“Can you let me up?” Katie asked. “She gave me a key, but I misplaced it. We’ll have a new one made tomorrow.”
Brandon hesitated, then nodded and smiled. “Of course.” He fetched Cassidy’s spare key from wherever it lived and politely led Katie up to Cassidy’s floor.
It was true; Cassidy wasn’t home. The apartment was pitch black when Brandon opened the door.
He clicked on the lights. “Can I help you with anything else?”
“No,” Katie said. “You’ve been very helpful, thank you.”
Brandon exited, and Katie shut and locked the door behind him.
Should she text Cassidy to tell her she was there?
If she did, Cassidy might flip out. She had been so angry when she left Katie at the opera—and she had every right to be.
No. Katie would just sit on the couch and wait.
She took the letter from her jacket pocket, unfolded it, and read it over.
When Cassidy arrived home, Katie would apologize and then she would show her this. She would explain how she understood that it was the twenty-first century, but that her family was stuck somewhere in the late 1950s—and that parts of herself were, too.
I’m sorry for my failings, she would say. But my feelings are real. She would tell Cassidy that she wanted to try. She would beg for another chance.
Just then Katie heard footsteps coming from the hallway beyond the door—then voices.
It was definitely Cassidy. And someone else?
A female someone else.
Oh no.
Katie heard the jangling of keys and ran for Cassidy’s bedroom.
They entered the apartment, and their voices were muffled for a moment. No one seemed to notice that the lights had been left on.
Then Cassidy said, “Can I fix you a drink?”
“Thank you,” the woman said, in what Katie believed was a European accent. “If you bring to me in the bedroom.”
The bedroom? Fuck fuck.
Katie dashed for the closet and silently closed the door.
The ironic absurdity of this hiding spot was not lost on Katie, but the fact of the matter was there was no better place to take cover when you’d sort of accidentally broken into someone’s apartment.
In the dark, surrounded by all of Cassidy’s clothes—her suits and sport coats and custom dress shirts, her leather boots and oxfords—Katie covered her mouth and prayed.
Oh god. Please don’t open the closet door.
Cassidy had followed the woman into the bedroom, laughing. They sounded a little drunk.
Katie stood very still, surveilling the slip of light coming from the crack beneath the closet door.
Cassidy and the woman were quiet for a few seconds.
Then Katie heard what she was fairly certain was dirty talk in Italian.
The bed squeaked.
Cassidy let out a barely perceptible grunt. Katie knew that grunt. She’d grown to love that grunt.
She couldn’t take this. She couldn’t be here for this.
Katie was poised to throw open the closet door, to yell, Stop! Please stop!
TWENTY-FOUR
Cassidy sipped her scotch alone at the bar, her bow tie an unraveled black ribbon at her elbow.
“Buy me a drink?” Gina climbed onto the vacant stool beside her.
Cassidy raised a finger toward Dahlia, who immediately set down a rocks glass for Gina and poured her a double.
“Can I have a Budweiser?” Gina said.
Dahlia grimaced, poured the contents of Gina’s glass into Cassidy’s.
“I tried to tell her,” she said to Gina while popping the cap off a bottle of Bud. “Look on the bright side; at least this happened while we’re still here. But she’s not having much looking on the bright side.”
“Want to talk about it?” Gina twirled Cassidy’s discarded bow tie around her fingers.
“Nope,” Cassidy said.
“I’ll go mess that bitch up right now, C, I’m not even kidding.”
“I brought it on myself. You tried to warn me.”
“That’s true. But I’m sorry I was right.”
Cassidy shook her head. “I must be getting soft in my old age.”
“Nah.” Gina yanked off her knit beanie and scratched at her fauxhawk. “You just need to get with someone tonight, get back to feeling like yourself.”
“Not this time.”
“Well you can’t just sit here looking like a groom who got stood up at the altar. You’re embarrassing yourself.” Gina tugged her beanie back on. “I heard Becky’s got a cousin in town from Italy who looks like a young Sophia Loren. They’re on their way here. You should tap that.”
Cassidy crumpled her discarded bow tie into a ball and shoved it into her tuxedo jacket pocket. “Do you even know who Sophia Loren is?”
“No, but she sounds hot. And the point is, who better to fuck the pain away than a visiting Italian cousin?”
“I know you’re only trying to help,” Cassidy said. “But please stop trying to help.”
“Can I give you some real talk?” Gina swiveled around on her stool and squared her shoulders to Cassidy. “We both know this thing with Katie was never going to work. It’s better she screwed you over. If she didn’t, you would’ve gotten her to the point where she was totally devoted to you and then freaked out on her and bounced. Or, more likely, you would’ve freaked out and cheated on her so she’d leave you. So stop this feeling sorry for yourself. All that’s happened is she beat you to the punch.”
Cassidy swallowed some scotch to wash down the emotion creeping up her throat.
“You should write her a goddamn thank-you note,” Gina said. “For saving you the time. Also, look.”
Cassidy turned to follow Gina’s gaze to where Becky was escorting her cousin into the bar.
The girl did have something old-world movie star about her.
“She’s beautiful,” Gina said. “And I bet you could get her to make out with you, at the very least.”
Cassidy didn’t care if she could or couldn’t. Whether the girl made out with her or not didn’t matter nearly as much as the trying.
“She’s coming over.” Gina hopped off her barstool to free it up for the Italian.
“Cassidy, come va?” Becky escorted her cousin, who bore no family resemblance whatsoever to the chef, to the bar like a t
rophy wife. “I want you to meet Emiliana. Doesn’t she look like a young Sophia Loren?”
“I wish you would stop saying that,” Emiliana said.
“Nice to meet you.” Cassidy took the girl’s hand in hers but resisted going in for a European-style double cheek kiss like an American idiot.
“Cassidy’s a cater waiter,” Becky said. “That’s why she’s wearing the monkey suit.”
“She’s kidding,” Cassidy said. “I’m an attorney.”
Emiliana touched the fabric of Cassidy’s lapel, then examined the stitching just inside her jacket’s hem. “Good quality,” she said. “No waiter suit.” Her thick accent was definitely appealing.
“I was at the opera earlier,” Cassidy said.
“Oh?”
“Cassidy’s what you might call a Casanova,” Becky interjected. “Il stronzino. Capisce?”
“Sì?” Emiliana gave a nod to Becky but kept her eyes on Cassidy. “She said you’re a little asshole.”
“She’s lying,” Cassidy said. “I’m a big asshole.”
Emiliana laughed.
* * *
Cassidy and Emiliana made their way into Cassidy’s apartment, overcoming their tepid language barrier with raw physicality.
Cassidy was no longer a person; she was a vehicle in motion, fueled by self-loathing and a willful disregard for her own misgivings.
“Can I fix you a drink?” she asked, stupefied by her own relentless soberness. Emiliana was a blurred vision—a cinched waist in a black dress, bare legs to the thigh—but Cassidy could still see her clearly enough to remember she wasn’t Katie.
Emiliana kicked off her shoes and drifted toward the bedroom, and Cassidy wondered, Who is this person and why is she here? But she still followed after her.
No, Cassidy was not drunk enough for this, and yet they were on her bed, and the girl was whispering incomprehensible Italian into her ear.
When Katie Met Cassidy Page 17