by Jane Heller
“Oh. Gee. I hope I didn’t get you out of the shower,” I said. She could have told the doorman she was indisposed.
“You didn’t get me out of the shower. You got me out of bed,” she said. “I was having sex. We were just finishing up.” She reported this without a hint of embarrassment.
In response to my embarrassment, she flashed me a crooked, lopsided, drunken smile.
Yes, that’s it, I realized as I caught a whiff of alcohol on her breath. She’s smashed. And it’s only four o’clock in the afternoon.
Was it Jacques who was inside the penthouse, partying with her? Or was it one from among the legions of other men in her life?
“I’d invite you in for some champagne, but my friend is in his birthday suit,” she said, showing a side I hadn’t seen before—a coarse, mocking side which, in combination with her snide, condescending side, made her someone whose life I no longer coveted as opposed to someone whose life I did.
“I understand completely,” I said, although it had been eons since I’d had a naked man in my apartment.
“Good, because I think we’re out of champagne.” These words were accompanied by a genuine snicker.
“Champagne,” I said, attempting to remain cordial. “Are you celebrating something, Nancy?”
“Yes, I am,” she said, slurring her words. I am became yam. “I’m celebrating the end of another day in the life of Nancy Stern.”
The woman is whacked, I thought. Say what you have to say and get out of here. “Listen, I didn’t mean to interrupt anything, Nancy. I just came up to give you these messages.” I handed her the piece of paper on which I’d written both Bo and Henry’s entreaties. “And I keep meaning to tell you about the girl who’s looking for you.”
“What girl?”
“She doesn’t leave her name. She calls my phone number, hears my voice, figures out that I’m not you, apologizes, and hangs up. The only thing I know is that she has a southern accent and sounds young.”
“Hmm. I can’t imagine who she is or why she’s bothering me.”
“Actually, it’s me she’s bothering.”
“Oh, come on, Nancy.” She laughed. “You’re enjoying all this newfound attention you’re getting, aren’t you?”
“What do you mean?” I said, my face flushing.
“I mean that you don’t mind being the beneficiary of my calls, jotting down the messages, and trotting them up here like a doggie with a bone. That’s right, isn’t it?”
“As a matter of fact, I do mind,” I said indignantly. A doggie with a bone. It occurred to me that the other Nancy Stern wasn’t nice when she was drunk. It occurred to me that she wasn’t nice, period.
“No, you don’t mind,” she contradicted me. “You’re having lots of fun since I arrived on the scene. And from my perspective, you’re quite the competent little message taker. So efficient. So on top of everything. How’d you like to be my executive secretary for a living instead of baby-sitting people’s brats?” She threw back her head and roared. Okay, she was more than not nice. She was a bitch, talk about doggies.
“I’m happy with the job I have,” I replied crisply, thinking how wrong my first impression of this woman was, how screwed up my priorities had been. I was happy with my job, except for having to put up with Penelope’s nonsense. Why had I assumed that interviewing a bunch of self-absorbed movie stars would be so wonderful?
“Happy.” She scoffed. “What’s happy?”
Being with Bill, I answered silently, wishing he and I had met some other way, some way that didn’t involve Nancy; wishing I had it all to do over again.
“What’s the matter?” she baited me. “Is the nursery school teacher mad at me?”
“The nursery school teacher is bored with you,” I said. “But before I let you get back to your friend in there, do you have any mail or messages for me, Nancy?”
She smirked. “Just one message: The grass isn’t always greener, sweet pea.”
She slammed the door in my face.
Sweet pea, I mused as I walked away from her apartment, shaking my head at what an awful person she turned out to be. Wasn’t that Bo’s nickname for her?
Oh, who cares? I thought, as I descended in the elevator. Not me, not anymore.
And I didn’t care. Not exactly. I was curious, that was it.
Did Nancy make the grass-isn’t-always-greener remark as some sort of warning to me? Because she sensed that I’d been drooling over her life? Because she found out that I’d stolen her blind date? Was that where all the attitude was coming from?
Or was it simply that she wanted me to know how rotten things were for her—rotten instead of glorious? Was her performance some sort of cry for help? Was she “acting out” like Fischer did, just to get attention? And if so, what was I supposed to do about it?
Chapter Ten
I received a slew of Christmas cards, the majority of them for the other Nancy Stern, but I didn’t deliver them in person. Ever since the champagne-and-sex incident, I decided to keep my distance from my neighbor and, therefore, left her cards and all other communications intended for her with the doorman.
The person from whom I really wanted to keep my distance, though, was Bill, given that I was supposed to be away on business. New York is a big city, obviously, but it can metamorphose into an extremely small town if you’re trying to avoid somebody. It’s uncanny, really. There are millions of people in Manhattan, hustling and bustling and rushing hither and yon, and yet it never fails that you run smack into the single person you’d give anything to steer clear of.
Still, I had figured I could steer clear of Bill during my “business trip” because he lived on the West Side and I lived on the East Side and he worked in Midtown and I worked all the way Uptown. No problem, I thought. Piece of cake.
So imagine the swan dive my heart did as I was standing in the bathroom section of Gracious Home, an upscale hardware store on my side of town, looking for the kind of towel bar that adheres to the wall instead of screws into it, when there, in the kitchen section, stood Bill, who appeared to be looking at cutting boards.
Well, I nearly died, naturally. Not only wasn’t I dressed for a reunion with him—it was a Saturday morning and I had just tumbled out of bed and I hadn’t put on any lipstick let alone brushed my teeth—but I wasn’t even supposed to be in New York. Besides, what in the world was he doing at the East Side Gracious Home when there was a perfectly nice branch store on the West Side, probably right near his apartment? Sure, the East Side store was the flagship store and it sold every product under the sun, but why not shop in his own backyard?
Finesse this one, I thought.
I placed the towel bar gingerly back on the shelf and tiptoed past the kitchen section, where a sales clerk was hyping Bill on the merits of Corian cutting boards as opposed to the butcher block ones. I had almost made it past them when I inadvertently kicked a stainless steel garlic press that some careless, neglectful customer had probably dropped and not bothered to pick up, and the damn thing went skittering across the floor. Bill and the sales clerk glanced up, to see where the racket was coming from, and I, grabbing the first item I could lay my hands on, hid my face behind an extra-large colander.
Great move, right, since colanders have holes and are, therefore, see-through.
Even so, Bill didn’t recognize me, thank God. Continuing to hold the colander in front of my face, I resumed my tiptoeing past him.
And then I heard my name.
“Nancy! We keep bumping into each other, don’t we?”
It was Victoria Bittner, the preschool teacher-frustrated painter, minus her husband this time. Obviously, the colander wasn’t much of a cover.
I peeked over at Bill, to see if he was looking in our direction. He wasn’t. Yet.
“So you’re shopping for kitchen wares this morning?” said Victoria, who was becoming quite the nuisance. Wasn’t it enough that she and I had adjoining classrooms at school and that she was forever run
ning back and forth through our common door to borrow supplies, to return supplies, to gossip? Did she and I have to have adjoining lives too? Did she have to appear out of nowhere at the least opportune moments, turning up whenever I was posing as someone I wasn’t? “Are you, Nancy?” she repeated. “Shopping for kitchen wares this morning, I mean?”
“Just this colander,” I said in a cross between a whisper and a growl.
“What’s wrong with your voice?” she asked.
“Sore throat,” I croaked. “Gotta get home, take some aspirin.”
She patted my shoulder. “And drink lots of liquids. Tea with honey is good.”
I nodded my thanks and started to hurry past her, toward the door, intending to dump the colander in the light bulbs section on my way out. But I was intercepted by a sales clerk, who was either desperate to make a sale or convinced that I was about to walk off with the merchandise.
“Step right up,” he said, herding me and the colander into the checkout line, before I could protest. I wasn’t happy about having my escape thwarted, but I would have been less happy about causing a scene and even less happy about being arrested for shoplifting.
So I stood in that line, ducking my head like a criminal, only to have Bill and his stupid cutting board (he’d gone with the Corian one) step into the same line.
I was positively undone by this development.
Please don’t recognize me, I prayed, grateful that the two men standing between Bill and me on the line were big men—tall as well as beefy—and provided excellent screening.
“Cash or credit?” asked the cashier when it was my turn to pay.
Terrific. I had brought just enough money for the towel bar, and now there I was buying a colander that wasn’t your average wire-mesh job but one of those high-tech, hideously expensive kinds.
Wordlessly, so as not to call further attention to myself, I handed the woman my American Express card.
“We don’t take American Express,” she said, giving the card back to me.
I rummaged in my wallet for my Visa card and handed it to her.
Along with everyone in line behind me, I watched impatiently as she placed the card in the machine and waited for verification. After what seemed like an eternity, during which I was sweating profusely, she returned the card to me and said, “Not valid. Past the expiration date. Wanna try another one?”
At that point, I was so relieved that she hadn’t shouted out my name and so frantic to get the hell out of there that instead of handing her another card, I handed her the colander and fled. It wasn’t until I was safely inside my apartment that I allowed myself to breathe.
And then I cursed myself for not bringing home the towel bar—the reason I’d gone to Gracious Home in the first place.
That’s what happens when you tell a lie, I thought miserably. You’re forced to tell more lies, not to mention act like a crazy person.
After that episode, I was more determined than ever to end my relationship with Bill, as painful as I expected that to be. My phony three-week business trip was just about over. Before the next week was out, he and I would have our final date. I would break the bad news and go on with my life, as if he’d never walked into it.
I was not looking forward to this.
I called Bill at work the following Monday, and he sounded thrilled that I was back in town, insisting that we get together that very evening. We decided to meet at Rockefeller Center, so he could see the famous Christmas tree all lit up, and then get a bite to eat.
“I missed you,” he told me after we’d said our hellos, punctuated by an immensely passionate kiss. We were standing beside the skating rink when this kiss took place. The night was chilly but clear, the rink and the tree and the shops were twinkling with Christmas lights, and the whole scene was very romantic. “I know it’s strange to miss someone you’ve only spent a short time with, but it’s the truth, Nancy.”
The truth. Well, the truth was, I had missed Bill too. So much so that I almost didn’t go through with my plan. During the entire day at school, it was impossible to concentrate on the kids, impossible not to feel conflicted about what I was about to do.
Why are you going out with him if you’re dumping him? I kept asking myself. How can you do it? Why are you doing it?
You’re probably asking yourself the same questions, wondering why I would put myself through the torture of being with Bill, only to tell him to his face that we were history.
The simple answer is I didn’t see any other way of handling the situation. I wanted to go out with him one last time, but I needed to end the charade. I had to break up with him, but I preferred that he think me a cold-hearted witch than an impostor. We all have our quirks.
So there we were at a seafood restaurant near Rockefeller Center, not that I was hungry.
“And then there was the wild-goose chase Denham sent me on,” Bill was saying.
I had drifted off for the umpteenth time that night, rehearsing my I-can’t-see-you-anymore speech, but I pulled myself back to reality. If this is your last date with Bill, you might as well enjoy it, I decided. “This was when you were at the D.C. store?” I asked, trying to pick up the thread of his story.
“Right, when I was still in sales. We had a phone call from an extremely wealthy client of ours who lived in Texas. He was in the market for a particular size and setting of diamond that we didn’t have on hand.”
“Was this diamond for his mistress?” I said wryly.
“No, for his mother.”
“How sweet.”
“You haven’t heard anything yet. We didn’t have the piece he was looking for but we offered to get it for him and personally deliver it to his house.”
“Wow, just like Domino’s Pizza.”
“Exactly. The setter and I flew to Houston, rented a car, and drove to this dusty, God-forsaken town where he lived. We drove and we drove and we drove, trying to find his place, based on the directions he’d given us. Finally, we ended up at the door of what looked like a crack house. We’re talking about a rundown shack in the middle of nowhere.”
“Were you scared?” I asked. “You had big-time jewelry with you, didn’t you?”
“A seven-carat marquise diamond. You bet we were scared. We also had a handgun, but neither of us knew how to use it.”
“Swell. So what happened?”
“We checked the directions again and realized that the dirt road we were on wasn’t a dead end after all. We got back in the car and drove a little further and what do you know? We went over a hill and across another dirt road and there, like a mirage, was this guy’s house, which, by the way, was the size of Madison Square Garden.”
“You must have been relieved.”
“We were, but we were kind of touched too. When we asked him about the shack, he explained that it had been his home when he was growing up. Instead of tearing it down after making his millions and building his mansion, he decided to keep it, to remind him of his humble beginnings.”
“Aw, that’s a nice story,” I said. “For a minute there, I thought you were going to tell me he was a fraud.”
“That’s why it’s a nice story. It’s so rare to find a guy with that kind of money who’s decent and honest and comfortable with who he is.”
Yup, I’ve made the right decision, I thought as Bill was paying the check. It’s better to break up with him than to have him find out I’m not decent and honest and comfortable with who I am.
Still, as I held his hand all the way back to my apartment, as I inhaled his scent, as I sensed yet again the intense mutual attraction between us, I was filled with regret—not that I wasn’t the other Nancy Stern but that I wouldn’t have met Bill without pretending I was. It was such a shame.
When we got to my building, Bill asked if he could come up for a while. I said, yes, I wanted him to come up, because there was something I had to talk to him about.
He came up. We sat on the sofa. And then he reached for me as I suspec
ted—hoped—he would. Not only reached for me, but murmured between caresses that he felt incredibly lucky that Joan Geisinger had given him my name.
Lucky. If he only knew.
“Bill.” I forced myself to pull away from him. “I guess the only way to say this is to just say it,” I began, determined not to cry or tear up or even swallow hard. I would do plenty of blubbering later.
“What is it, Nancy?” he asked.
I cleared my throat. “I’ve really enjoyed the times we’ve spent together and I think you’re a very special man, but I’m afraid I won’t be able to see you anymore.” God, I did it.
He smiled at me, as if I’d made a joke. “Anymore this week, you mean?”
“No, Bill. You and I are both aware that what’s between us is becoming more serious than a couple of dates, and I feel I have to put a stop to it now. Before it goes any further.”
His expression changed. He was no longer smiling. “Why, Nancy? I don’t understand.”
“Because of my job,” I said. “Joanie indicated to you that I’ve always been an ambitious person. Well, she was right. I am ambitious. I can’t let anyone or anything stand in the way of my success. I have my sights set on television, on becoming Barbara Walters someday.” I tried not to choke. I sounded like a character from a Jackie Collins novel.
“I have no problem with that,” Bill maintained. “I’m not one of those men whose manhood is threatened by a successful woman.”
See, Janice? “I’m sure you’re not, but this is about me, Bill. About the deadlines and the traveling and the pressures of my career. I can’t get involved now. It wouldn’t be fair to you.”
“Shouldn’t I be the judge of what’s fair to me?”
He was being entirely too sensible, making things harder for me. “Look, Bill. I know how much you value honesty, so I’m being honest with you, okay? I don’t want to be in a relationship at this point in my life. It’s that simple.”
He shook his head, refused to buy my act. “I don’t think it’s simple at all. In fact, I don’t think you’re telling me everything, Nancy.”