“If you could have just seen me, I was hysterical,” I said, still trying to process what had happened.
“Of course you were. I would have been the same way,” Tess sympathized.
“I don’t blame you. You were in shock,” Parker added.
In my head, I could see Tess and Parker listening to me, nodding their heads and offering their support. But I was still numb. I had seen my world sway out of focus and then right itself again. Or had it? A heart-to-heart with the girls wasn’t going to salve the wound this time.
“I can’t even believe he’s still talking to me,” I said.
“Most guys wouldn’t, that’s true,” Parker said flatly.
Tess glared at Parker. “You made a mistake, Lena. That’s all.”
“She’s right though, Tess. He’s being great, which makes me feel so much worse. I feel like I betrayed him,” I said.
“Just spoil him for a little while. He’ll get over it,” Parker counseled.
“How did I become this person? It’s like I’m the worst cliché of a jealous woman ever,” I groaned.
“This will pass. Things will go back to normal,” Tess advised.
“Will they?” I desperately wanted to believe her, but I wasn’t so sure. “He doesn’t trust me. How could he? What do we have if we don’t have trust?”
It was a Saturday afternoon, a few weeks after “the Malena incident,” and I sat with Colin, Caleb and Gavin in the back corner booth at Fanelli’s. They had just finished a game of soccer in the park and now everyone was settled in for a long stretch of drinking and hanging out. I could honestly say that by this point, things between Colin and I had in fact gone back to normal—were it not for the unrelenting throb of guilt that continued to plague me, of course.
“Hey, guys,” Colin said as he got up from the table, “I’m going to put some money in the jukebox. Enough of this boy-band shit already.”
“And I’m going to go ask our waitress why she gave me a Jack and Coke without the Jack,” Gavin said, heading for the bar.
“You’re starting to sound like me,” Caleb called out to him, giving me a sly wink.
“So, Ms. Lena, what’s new with you?” he asked, now that it was just the two of us.
I wondered for a moment if he knew about my confrontation with Colin. “Not too much,” I said, shaking off the thought. “Still woefully unemployed, I’m afraid.”
“See, now we have something in common!” he said, sounding truly delighted.
“That’s right, we can pound the pavement together,” I said.
“Oh no, no, there will be none of that,” he said, looking pained. “There’s so much cool stuff to be done while everyone else is working. The park is empty, the stores are empty. Oh, you know what we should do next week—” he exclaimed, accidentally knocking his Budweiser all over his sweatshirt.
“Nice one. Are you drunk already?” Colin called out from the other side of the bar.
“It’s all Lena’s fault,” Caleb kidded me as he lifted up his arms to take off his beer-soaked shirt.
“Yeah, right—” I started to say, but caught myself midsentence.
“Lena,” Caleb laughed. “You look like you just saw a ghost.”
There it was. Just above his elbow, in the same clumsy writing and the same faded blue ink.
“We met this sailor and he was going to tattoo our girlfriends’ names on our arms, but he mixed them up.”
“Lena. What’s wrong?” Caleb was speaking to me, but my mind was somewhere else. Thinking. Remembering. Bits and fragments of conversations from the past, pieces of a jigsaw puzzle that held all the answers.
“Your tattoo—it’s just like Colin’s,” I said, doing my best to feign normalcy.
“Whose name was it supposed to be?” “Her name was Lena.” He smiled. “That’s the only name I can think of right now.”
“Are you okay?” Caleb asked cautiously.
I didn’t answer. This cannot be happening again, I thought.
“I don’t think she should be hanging around guys like Jake. I’ll talk to her.”
“I don’t know. Should I be?”
“What?” He was confused.
“Should I be okay?” I was direct, focused.
“Of course. It’s just that you looked upset.”
“You know what’s going on, Caleb, don’t you?”
He didn’t answer. He didn’t have to. His eyes told me everything I needed to know.
“Cecily’s always been special.”
“How long has it been going on?” I asked.
“God, I’m sorry, Lena.” And I could tell that he was.
“Just tell me. I want to know.”
Caleb lowered his eyes. “High school. It just never really ended. I thought maybe it would when she started dating your friend, Jake, but I think she was just trying to make him jealous.”
“You just come here in the middle of the day hurling accusations at me. This is not the way to have a trusting relationship, Lena.”
“Caleb, you’re a good person,” I said, rising from the table. “It’s not your fault that your best friend is a complete and total asshole.”
“Lena.” It was Colin. He was smiling like an idiot, pointing to the stereo speaker, which had just begun piping out the opening strains of “Stand By Me.” “May I have this dance?” he said, approaching the table. Then he saw my face. “What’s wrong?”
“Everything,” I said flatly.
He looked confused. Caleb had buried his head in his hands, preparing for the inevitable.
“Apparently, my imagination isn’t as misleading as you’d like to have me believe.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He looked at me and then at Caleb.
Caleb didn’t answer; he just shook his head in defeat.
“That seems to be your favorite refrain, Colin.” I paused. “And I’m sure Cecily will be hearing it before too long.”
“Lena, you are not going to start this again.” His voice was threatening.
“No, I’m not,” I looked at Caleb and then back to Colin. “A man more honest than you just finished it.”
Moments later, I collapsed in a window booth at Veselka. Tears slid messily down my face, but I didn’t bother to wipe them away. It was still too early for the dinner rush and the place was nearly empty. A portly Ukrainian woman with flesh-colored panty hose and dyed white-blond hair tied up in an Ivana-esque twist approached with a menu and a glass of water.
“Thank you,” I said.
She gently patted my hand and smiled. “Svetlana,” her name tag read in all caps.
I sipped my water and waited. What had just happened? What was going to happen next? I had immediately called Tess after I left Fanelli’s and she had calmly instructed me to wait here until she arrived. It was a place I knew well. I used to come here every weekend when I lived across the street. I only lived a few blocks away now, but it felt like I was visiting a different city, a different life. Through the window, I could even see my old building and, if I hunched down a bit, the window to my first apartment in New York.
It had been a snowy March day (a fluke spring snow-storm, they had said) when I pulled up in a cab to that very building with one suitcase, a couple hundred dollars, and what now seems to have been an alarming sense of optimism. I had finished college the previous spring and had spent the ensuing time battling between the practical and the romantic. The romantic won out and thus I packed everything up and moved to New York.
That first night I couldn’t sleep, but not because I didn’t yet have a mattress and was using my coat as a pillow. I couldn’t sleep because my mind was racing. Finally I was in the city, snug in my little shoebox apartment—my own tiny slice of real estate in the most amazing city in the world. No, I didn’t have a job yet, but that was just a matter of time. I had found my city and surely it wouldn’t take more than a moment or two for it to take me in its arms and let me sample all that it had to offer.
I would go to galleries and museums, shop at Barney’s, drink espresso at outdoor cafés, sprinkle my words with Italian phrases, ride the subway with the Times tucked under my arm. Gradually but assuredly, fabulous new alliances and opportunities would come my way. I would collect exotic, cultured friends who would welcome me into their fold. Inevitably, I would date a string of handsome, exciting men—all with some new talent or attribute—Marco the actor, Bartholomew the cellist, Gustavo the linguist. My life would become a series of glamorous and impossibly cool vignettes in which I starred, of course. I would be the girl in black smoking a Silk Cut, tossing her Philip Treacy hat in the air as a gaggle of midwestern tourists looked on, both mystified and intrigued.
That next morning after my arrival, my first day as a New Yorker, I trudged out into the snow, which had piled up to more than a foot overnight, immobilizing the city and emptying the streets of its usual chaos. I walked and walked and walked that day—downtown to Battery Park City, up through Chinatown and then west to SoHo, north a few blocks and over to the Hudson, up and up and up to Riverside Drive and then east through Central Park. By the time I reached the other side, dusk had fallen. I walked down Fifth Avenue with wide eyes taking in the grandly sculptured buildings, the stoic and starched doormen, complete with tan felt top hats and white gloves.
I was outside, of course, but I felt like I was walking through a posh and vaulted parlor. The street was empty, save a few chauffeurs standing next to idling, sleek black cars with smoky windows and gleaming exteriors. I felt as if I’d come upon the missing piece of the city’s jumbled puzzle. It seemed as if the whole mania and excess of New York’s collective life could be traced back to this street, this quiet pocket of calm tranquility, opulence and ease. This tiny stretch of land on this tiny sliver of an island was the prize, the goal, the inner sanctum. This was Oz.
I imagined walking through one of these grand entrances, riding the smooth elevator up and up and up to the very top apartment. I saw myself out on the terrace looking at my unobstructed, above-the-trees view of Central Park. And I exhaled.
That night, I sat alone at the counter of Veselka, pretending to read a Village Voice (but really just spying on the people around me) while sipping a…
“Coffee?”
“What?” I said, jolted out of my reverie.
“Would you like some coffee?” Svetlana leaned over the table now, her right hand poised to pour coffee into my empty mug, her coral-stained lips stretched into a kind smile.
“Yes, she definitely needs coffee.” I heard a voice from behind me.
It was Tess.
She leaned over to kiss my cheek. Her hair fell long and loose, which she rarely let it do and her cheeks were flushed from the cold. She seemed radiant with energy.
“Lena, what’s going on? I raced over here.”
“I’m okay,” I said, not even convincing myself.
“I don’t think you are.”
I paused, suddenly realizing how much I didn’t want to go into the gory details of the past hour of my life.
“Honey, what is it?”
“I am such a fool,” I said finally. “He’s been cheating on me with Cecily this whole time.”
“What? You’re not serious?” Tess seemed truly shocked. “Tell me what happened.”
And so I did—in one long, painful monologue, interrupted only by hiccups, nose blowing, and an occasional moment of silence as I searched in vain for the appropriate descriptive terms to clearly convey the awfulness of the past day and the pathetic hopelessness of my present.
“You were right, Tess. You’ve been right all along,” I said.
“Right about what?” Tess’s voice was soft.
“I’ve been living in a dream world. Men cannot be trusted. There were so many signs—I just refused to see them.”
“You did see them, Lena. You just had the wrong girl.”
“But I shouldn’t have trusted him from the start, Tess. You never would have thrown yourself into a relationship the way I did.” I shook my head. “You told me over and over. And I just wouldn’t listen….”
Tess clicked her tongue. “Would you stop blaming yourself?”
“I won’t be mad if you feel like telling me ‘I told you so,’” I said. In fact, I really wanted to hear Tess launch into one of her frequent diatribes against the universal sham of romantic love and the general uselessness of the male population. For some reason though, she wasn’t taking the bait. And she always took the bait.
“Lena, don’t say that. You’re going to find the right guy, I promise. It’ll all work out.”
Huh? Tess? What the hell was she talking about?
“You’re hurting right now—understandably. But it’s going to get better, I promise,” she said, patting my hand.
“Tess, that’s so optimistic of you.” I searched her face for clues. “What’s going on?” I said, suspiciously.
“What do you mean?” She laughed and looked away.
Okay, something was definitely going on.
“Is there something you’re not telling me, Tess?”
“Honey, let’s just concentrate on you. You’ve had such a traumatic day and—”
“Come on. Humor me here.”
She paused. “Well, it’s not such a big deal.”
“Go on.”
“Okay.” She looked down at her hands as she slowly formulated her confession. “I was at French Roast earlier, but it wasn’t to have coffee.”
“Okay…”
“I was meeting someone there…”
“Right…”
“To go…”
“Yes…”
“On a date.” She spilled the words out quickly and I wasn’t sure at first what she had said.
“Tess, honey. It’s okay. Just because I’ve sworn off men doesn’t mean you can’t date.” I still didn’t get it. Why the secrecy? Why the optimism for God’s sake? “Do you really like him?” I asked gently.
“Yeah,” she answered quickly, but still seemed to be holding back.
“Have you seen him more than once?”
“Yeah, a couple of times.” She blushed and held her hands to her face.
“Tess, just tell me. Who is it? What’s going on?”
“It’s…Macho Macchiato.” She looked down.
Wow, I thought.
“Wow,” I said.
Tess didn’t answer, she just continued to stare at her hands.
“So, what’s he like?”
Tess sat up straight in her seat, ready to talk. The shock of it was over.
“Well, he’s just…” Her gaze turned upward and she smiled as she talked. “He’s just so great. He’s funny and he’s sensitive and he’s just so, so kind. His name is Marcel. And he’s smart and interesting…and just so kind. Did I mention that already?”
“Yeah.”
“Oh,” Tess caught herself. “I’m sorry. I know it’s not the time for all that. I guess I’m just excited.” She looked at me sheepishly, not quite at ease with her giddiness but completely unable to tame it.
“Tess, stop it. I’m so happy for you. Really.”
Tess looked at me with pained eyes. I knew she wanted me to be happy.
“And here you thought he was some nineteen-year-old out-of-work actor!” I tried to be upbeat.
“No,” she smiled mischievously. “He’s a twenty-one-year-old out-of-work dancer.” She laughed.
“Where did you go for your date?”
“Oh, we haven’t gone yet. I was just meeting him after his shift.”
“What? Go on then, get out of here!”
“Are you kidding me? I’m not going anywhere.”
“I’ll be fine.”
Tess stared at me, unconvinced.
“I’m serious. Go.” I tried to summon a smile, but all I could muster was a lopsided smirk.
We sat like that for a moment—Tess mentally berating herself for admitting she had plans—not to mention, happy, romantic on
es. I sat very still in the booth, using all my energy to portray a well-adjusted, mentally stable person.
“Okay, but I’m calling you tonight. No screening.”
And then she left. I had wanted her to go. I didn’t really want to spend my energy convincing her that I wasn’t going to slit my wrists or maybe slit Colin’s. Still I was surprised she left, and, selfishly, a little stung by it. But then again, hadn’t I learned that men make you do crazy things? If I’d needed more conclusive proof—and I really didn’t think I did at this point, thank you very much—a giddy Tess trotting off to meet her jailbait Joffrey dropout was certainly the clincher.
Alone again.
I dialed Parker’s number, but I knew there was no chance of catching her free on a Saturday. I heard the first few words of her greeting and hung up.
I watched Svetlana line up glasses behind the counter while she talked on the phone. What was she saying? Something about her sister, or was it her mother? She would pick up the prescription, yes, and don’t forget the roast was in the fridge. She seemed like the kind of woman who was always taking care of others. Family, friends, customers. She was the one who cleaned up the kitchen, shopped for the groceries, made dinner, wiped noses, cleaned drains, picked up clothes, poured coffee and folded laundry. And here she was smiling at me, pouring me coffee, comforting me.
She didn’t wear a wedding ring. Never married? Maybe her no-good husband had left her for a younger Oksana. Maybe there hadn’t been a husband at all. Whatever the case, I assumed she was alone now. The city was full of lifetime loners—mostly women and mostly not by choice. These were the odd women out who were left still standing when the music stopped. I’d see them pushing wire shopping carts, sitting alone in coffee shops, waiting for the bus—going about their lives in a city that saw them as an afterthought if they thought about them at all. No matter how happy or successful they may be, they were viewed with a certain suspicion and, much worse, a heavy dose of pity. Love was as cut-throat and competitive as everything else here. Good men were more rare than a rent-stabilized one-bedroom with a view.
I got up from the table and took a seat on one of the bar stools, the very same spot where I had sat on that first snowy night. It was also the night I met Jake.
Live from New York, It's Lena Sharpe Page 15