Lucy boldly led the way inside.
Even though none of us had discussed attire beforehand, my friends had also dressed up for the occasion. Lucy was wearing a short, flouncy skirt; Tag was showing cleavage; and both were navigating on high heels. If we were going to make LinguaFrank feel deep, abiding regret and repentance, and we were representing the hot woman he couldn’t get, we had to be ambassadors of hot in her place.
As I followed them to the vacant table, skirting other customers’ legs, ducking the stale Valentine’s Day decorations still hanging campily from the ceiling and trying not to snag my dress on potted cacti, I felt the first prickle of doubt since concocting the plan.
Lingua openly checked us out as we walked by his table. He smiled a self- knowing smile, which made his Wonder Bread face even less attractive. My nerves recovered a little.
Lucy and I sat down. Tag remained standing.
“What can I get you?” she asked us.
“No foam double latte,” Lingua piped up behind her in a surprisingly solid and sexy voice. Maybe that explained Abigail’s attraction: she’d gotten to know him on the phone. A face for radio, I thought.
Tag turned slowly to him, and I nudged her foot with mine to remind her not to blow it. It worked. She forced a thin-lipped smile and turned back to us.
“Cocoa,” Lucy said.
“Small coffee,” I said.
Tag shook her head, disappointed in our predictably low octane tastes, and headed for the counter.
For the first time in the fourteen years we’d known each other, Lucy and I could think of nothing to say to each other, hyperaware that Lingua was listening. A few awkward moments passed.
“I have this new client,” Lucy finally blurted out. “He left his wife for someone thinner and he’s just hating himself now.”
I glared at her. She looked at me helplessly.
“I’m seeing Gregory tonight,” I rebutted as Tag returned to the table. “Retroactive first date.”
Lucy was confused. In one meaningful look, I tried to convey that we ought to be presenting ourselves as active- duty hotties, not offering Lingua abstract morality tales that he couldn’t absorb.
“So you’re gonna do what besides hop into bed with him?” Tag asked, following my lead. We all felt Lingua’s attention bearing down on us. I thought Tag didn’t need to reveal quite so much information about me.
“Bed?” Lucy picked up on the tactic. “That would be progress if they could make it to a bed this time.” The two of them cackled and in my peripheral vision I saw Lingua shift in his seat.
“Tag, did you ever talk to that guy again, the one you slept with in Madagascar?” I had no intention of being the sacrificial lamb.
“I never slept with anyone in Madagascar,” she said coolly. Damn my wretched geography. M … M … It was in some M place she had had a one- night stand with another parasitologist. Mexico? No, I’d remember that. Malawi?
“Do you think Mercedes will sleep with Dover Carter tonight?” I said, sacrificing the friend who wasn’t there to defend herself. It occurred to me, though, that if Lingua was as much an ivory tower prisoner as Abigail, the name Dover Carter might not mean much.
Lucy and Tag looked at each other, trying to decide whether to let me off the hook.
“Oh, I bet they won’t,” Tag conceded. “Mercedes has that prudish side that comes out when she really likes someone.”
“Wait,” I said, forgetting the eavesdropper for a moment. “Do you think she’ll actually fall for him? He’s a movie star. He won’t commit!” I felt myself getting upset at the thought of Dover’s future transgressions.
“First of all, calm down,” Tag admonished.
“And second of all,” Lucy added, “he’s a real person, too. He probably wants a meaningful relationship as much as the next guy.”
Now Tag and I looked at Lucy dubiously. She remembered where we were and whom we were sitting next to and shrugged.
“Well, some guys really do want meaningful relationships,” she amended. “And Dover could be one of them. He’s had a successful career, he’s never been married, never had a kid. Maybe he’s ready.”
Tag shuddered her shoulders like a horse keeping a fly at bay. I knew that she was also trying to picture, and not for the first time, pale little Lucy sitting in her dark basement in Bed- Stuy with not much more than a Rolodex of phone numbers to assist her, offering real comfort to a desperate, unemployed, abused single mother of three. But as I looked at Lucy’s open face, shot through with apparent innocence, I wondered whether we hadn’t all been mistaking hard-fought conviction for naiveté. If a social worker couldn’t have some faith in everyone from the street to the screen, then there wasn’t much point in her doing the work she did. Maybe this same trust in Dover Carter’s good intentions, informed by nothing more than a few issues of People magazine, served Lucy’s clientele far better than we ever gave her credit for.
I looked at Lucy with new admiration. She returned my glance with one of suspicion.
“What?”
“Nothing,” I said, giving her arm a brisk, affectionate rub. “Maybe you’re right about Dover.”
Tag hung her head in defeat, as though she’d lost another friend in her ongoing personal crusade against the Warm Fuzzies. She looked at her watch.
“Okay, it’s been ten minutes. Let’s do it,” she hissed.
“I think we should let him sweat it out another five,” I said in a low voice, growing nervous again.
“But look at him. He’s not sweating. He’s as cocky as he was when he came in here.” We glanced over. He was lounging in his chair now, elbows back, surveying his kingdom.
“He’s too interested in our conversation to notice he’s being stood up,” Lucy suggested.
“Don’t flatter yourself,” Tag told her. “Unless either of you want to do the honors, I’m itching to do the deed.”
“Wait,” I said, “we haven’t gotten our drinks!”
“So? We’ll tell him, then have our drinks, then go.”
“That doesn’t make for much of an exit,” Lucy said, and I silently agreed.
So we waited another minute until the barista called out Tag’s name. Tag brought back our drinks and we blew on them and sipped them in silence.
“Are we taking a picture?” I whispered.
Lucy held up her cell phone.
“I’m nervous,” I finally admitted.
Tag and Lucy nodded their heads.
“Wait, you? You’re nervous?” I said to Tag accusingly. She was shattering my world order. Nothing made Tag nervous.
“Well, not nervous exactly…” she corrected me unconvincingly
“We don’t have to do this,” Lucy suggested. “Even if we do nothing, he’ll still have been stood up.”
The thought of not following through made me feel like I’d failed Abigail, who back in Palo Alto was eagerly awaiting our phone call. Tag had the same thought.
“No,” she said, gulping the rest of her espresso, “let’s do it.”
She surreptitiously dialed my cell phone. I took a deep breath and answered. She hung up, but I pretended to have a conversation.
“Oh, hi!” I began too brightly. Tag and Lucy shook their heads at me. I brought it down a notch. “ Uh- huh. Uh- huh.” I was stalling, giving my unrealized acting career a moment to dust itself off. “Ohhhhh,” I said knowingly, glancing over at LinguaFrank, who was openly watching and listening.
I brazenly caught his eye. “Yeah, I see what you mean.” It was a pleasure to watch his narrow eyes grow even closer together with concern. “Yeah. Yeah. No, don’t waste your time. We’ll handle it.”
I snapped shut my phone and shook my head dramatically at my friends. With the safety of numbers behind me, I turned abruptly to Lingua.
“You’re waiting for someone, yes?” He looked startled. “Asian? Thin?”
“Red dress,” Lucy piped up.
Lingua just looked at us, surprised.
&n
bsp; “She’s not coming,” I told him cheerfully.
“Who are you?” he asked.
“Her friends. Her good friends.”
“And she’s too cowardly to come in here and tell me herself?” he demanded.
I hadn’t thought of it that way. Tag jumped in.
“She’s busy. She doesn’t have time for men like you.”
“Like me?” he said, leaning forward menacingly. But Tag leaned right back at him.
“Fat. Jewish,” she said, enunciating evilly. He sat back as if she’d slapped him, and even I felt my heart race. Then his eyes narrowed again.
“But we met,” he said through gritted teeth, “on JDate.”
“Ironic, isn’t it?” I was happy to interject with fake thoughtfulness. “What kind of person would say that to someone they met on JDate?”
“What kind of person,” Lucy said, warming up, “would say that to anyone at all? What kind of thing is that to say to anyone?”
The three of us watched him, waiting for the light to dawn, waiting for him to look ashamed or beaten. But instead, the scholar just sneered at us impatiently.
“What kind of people have nothing better to do on a Saturday afternoon than be their friend’s lackey?” He sat back and crossed his arms, scowling.
“Why are you surfing JDate if you don’t want a Jewish woman?” I blurted out.
He considered me for a moment, and a lewd smile crept across his face.
“Because plenty of shiksas wanna screw a good Jewish man. I only aim to please, ma’am.” He tipped an imaginary hat. Tag fake- lunged at him and he flinched. She snorted with disdain.
“In what world are you a good man?” I demanded.
“Zephyr!” I was off- script and making Lucy nervous.
“Well, Zephyr,” Lingua smirked at his discovery of my name, “good, in this case, can be a means of describing someone’s abilities in bed, and not necessarily an overall character assessment.”
“Well, Darren, it’s good you’ve got that linguistics degree,” Tag snapped at him. His face darkened.
“How the hell do you know my name? Or what I do?” Suddenly, it seemed we had the upper hand. Or, at the very least, it seemed like a good time to end this party, especially as our conversation was starting to attract the attention of other patrons. The three of us stood up, prepared to make a haughty exit.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Darren stood up too, cementing our position at center stage. Lucy and I looked to Tag for backup, but she looked just as surprised as we were.
“We’re done with you,” she said quietly, trying to project authority. She started to thread her way out, and we followed her. Darren Schwartz followed us.
“What do you mean ‘done with’ me? What did you come here to do? Why doesn’t your friend come and tell me to my face that I’m too fat? Too Jewish?” His voice rose to a whine but he still didn’t seem to recognize his own epithets.
By now, the four of us were out on the sidewalk, but the wide- open doors only framed us so that no one inside could do anything but watch the free entertainment. I wondered why I had ever thought this plan could come to any kind of satisfying or remotely dignified conclusion.
“Mature, very mature.” He was warming up now, his arms gesturing wildly around his torso. “Your friend stands me up and you watch and report back? Oh, that’s brilliant. A brilliant plan. Great use of your time.” He tried to cackle, but he had the wild look of a leashed dog confronted by a predator.
The fact that he actually thought his fantasy woman was out there in the Village at this moment, wearing a tight red dress and rejecting him, made us realize we’d succeeded.
Tag, Lucy, and I all burst out laughing at the same time.
“Why are you laughing?” he demanded, which only made us laugh harder.
The three of us ignored him and started strolling toward Greenwich Avenue, our arms linked. I didn’t want to turn around and ruin the effect of our dramatic, triumphant leave-taking, but I could practically see him staring after us, open-mouthed, frustrated, duly punished.
Nobody messes with my friends and gets away with it, I thought, as the breeze rushed at us and tossed the front of my dress up over my face.
* * *
TAG AND LUCY PEELED OFF AT THE CORNER OF TWELFTH AND Seventh to go buy Beard Papa cream puffs and catch the second night of the Weighty Eighties film retrospective at the IFC. For a moment, I felt a tug of longing, wanting to be sitting with them in the dark, gorging on sweets and John Hughes movies, exchanging whispered trivia about Molly Ringwald. I wanted to be in the comfort of their safe, familiar company instead of mustering the energy required to launch a new relationship with a testy and unpredictable man. Spinsterhood seemed to have its benefits.
I made my way along Twelfth Street but stopped mid-stride when I spotted a figure sitting on our stoop, hunched over, appearing to study his feet. A drunk I was going to have to ask to move along? A New School student needing to be reminded to take his cigarette butt with him? A construction worker who would leave McDonald’s ketchup packets behind him? I tensed with the anticipation of confrontation.
My anxiety turned to irritation when I saw it was Gregory. An hour early. Again. What was with him? Didn’t he understand anything about a standard social protocol that had been in place (or so I assumed from reading Jane Austen novels) for centuries? Yet, I was flattered and impressed. He was eager to see me and wasn’t going to hide it for fear of seeming vulnerable. Either that or he’d forgotten what time we’d agreed on.
A piece of newspaper blew along the sidewalk and wrapped itself around my aching calf. I plucked it off, wondering if he’d even notice my legs, when he suddenly raised his head, looked straight at me, and smiled a soft, knowing, lopsided smile. The sunlight filtering through the apple tree in the front yard made his thick brown hair shine golden, and his cheeks looked warm and pink. I wanted to race up the stairs and dive headlong into his embrace.
I waved and smiled coyly, trying to pick up my pace without succumbing to hunchbutt.
“Hi,” I said, hoping to infuse the single syllable with multiple meanings.
“Hi,” he returned, still smiling. This was the furthest we’d ever gotten without a misunderstanding. He turned and picked up a flimsy plastic- coated box sitting beside him on the step. Cream puffs. Beard Papa cream puffs. The fortune- teller’s prediction that Gregory and I would spend our lives together flashed through my mind. I stared at him, wondering how he knew that Beard Papa was the way to my heart.
“It’s so nice out, I thought we could maybe sit here for a while and have dinner a little later. You know, the whole thing about life being uncertain, so eat dessert first?” He actually looked nervous.
I sat down as gracefully as I could and tried not to yell over the thumping of my heart.
“Actually,” I said lightly, “I put that saying on my senior yearbook page in high school. I think being able to eat dessert whenever you want is one of the unsung benefits of being an adult.” Even as I said it, I was surprised to hear myself describing myself as an adult.
He nodded seriously. He was making a concerted effort to make this date go smoothly, without sarcasm or squabbling. I was touched, but the moment felt as precarious as if we were playing catch with a soap bubble. It made me acutely aware of the fact that we were complete strangers.
“So,” I began awkwardly, “I know virtually nothing about you.” I quickly bit into a cream puff.
He raised his eyebrows at me, started to smirk, then caught himself.
“I grew up in Alabama—”
“Seriously?” I interrupted, my mouth full of custard. I swallowed. “I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone who grew up there who wasn’t—” I hesitated, looking for the right words.
“Baptist or black?” he offered. “There are more Jews down south than you’d think, but no, it’s no New York.”
“Is that why you moved here?” I asked with trepidation. Too observant or too
tribally constrained and we’d never make it as a couple.
“God, no,” he grimaced. “I moved here for graduate school.”
“Ha!” I shouted. My first impression of him had been right. Ridofem jumpsuit and all, I’d pegged him for an academic. I smiled triumphantly.
“Ha, what?” he said suspiciously.
“Nothing, nothing.” I waved my hand, eager for more. “Where? To study what?” I prompted.
“NYU. Shakespeare.” He dug around for a second cream puff just as I was debating what to do with the last corner of mine that had no custard touching it. The dry corner.
“So, what happened? Are you still there?” I discreetly laid the unappetizing remnant on the step and helped myself to a second puff. I hoped he would notice I was a good eater and not a girly salad type.
He shook his head. “You ever heard of Harvey Blane?”
I nodded, surprised, and mentally thanked Abigail. Blane was a Shakespeare scholar legendary for his prolific writing, his insatiable appetite for female grad students, and his vulgar, unpredictable temperament, all of which he robustly maintained despite being blind since birth. Abigail had told me one infamous story about a woman who was sitting beside Blane in a seminar when he suddenly wrinkled his nose, turned to her, and said, “I can tell you’re menstruating.” He had single-handedly spurred the creation of NYU’s sexual harassment policy.
“Don’t tell me he hit on you, too?” I laughed, glad I could hold my own.
“I might have had more fun, at least.” Gregory licked custard off his fingers and I suddenly had an image of what he had looked like as a little boy. “No, I made it to my orals and afterward he told me that even though I’d passed, I just didn’t have that extra something that makes a truly gifted scholar. So I asked him if I should start coercing my undergrads into sleeping with me, if that would do the trick, and, well, after that,” Gregory shrugged, “things became very unpleasant between us. On top of which, I basically realized he was right. I just wasn’t cut out for academia. So I left.”
“To become an exterminator?” I asked doubtfully. As someone who had less of a right than most to pass judgment on anyone quitting professional school, I was surprised to feel a pang of disappointment in Gregory.
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