“Because he was gay.”
It comes out before I can stop it. And maybe it’s for the best. If I’m going to see where things go with Oscar, maybe I should try honesty. Perhaps not brutal honesty, but truthfulness anyway.
“It happens,” he says, utterly nonplussed. “The head of the law firm Takamura Brothers uses for almost all its legal work came out of the closet last winter.”
“I know him! He shocked everyone. His wife claims she had no idea. Even Carol Broadwick was stunned. Although in retrospect she says she should have seen it. He always sent such tasteful corporate gifts.”
“Right. But the point is, here’s a guy who’s at the top of his professional game. He’s got a wife and three kids, and he’s the head of a huge firm with a very macho culture. One day he snaps. He can’t live the lie anymore. So he explodes out of that closet and embraces an entirely new life.”
“That’s exactly what Brendan did, and I thought he was so callous about it. It was like he couldn’t believe I hadn’t always known. If I take a step back, I can see that he did what he had to do, but in the moment it was like being hit by a bus.”
I wonder whether this constitutes excessive sharing on my part, but Oscar is looking straight into my eyes, listening with what appears to be genuine concern.
“At least you didn’t marry the guy and have kids. Look on the bright side. You’re still young.”
“I wasted almost ten years on him. I’m furious with myself about it.” I’m about to go into how heartsick and furious I felt when Brendan first dropped the bomb, but the little voice in my head is screeching at me to shut up and stop volunteering too much personal, emotionally explosive information. I manage to bite my tongue, and silently applaud myself for doing so.
Oscar waits a split second, to make sure I’m not adding anything else, before weighing in. “You said this Brendan person was your best friend for at least half the years you spent together. So it wasn’t a total waste.”
“Easy for you to say.”
“I’m divorced, remember? Which tells you I’ve made my share of relationship mistakes. I’m glad you told me. It’s nice to know where you’re coming from. And this way I don’t have to hear it from some wacky aunt of yours or something, months down the road.”
Months down the road. Could he be thinking long term already? Do men do that? I thought that was a female urge. One that should be suppressed, at that. I should ask Kevin what this means.
Oscar clears the soup bowls, deposits them next to the sink and produces a platter with a whole roasted trout and an impressive assortment of vegetables from the oven. As he starts to filet and serve the fish, he asks, “How long have you lived over in Gramercy?”
I can’t believe that’s it. He doesn’t think I’m some emotionally underdeveloped freak who couldn’t deduce her former fiancé’s proclivities. I also can’t believe that I’m about to lie about my apartment, when I just came clean about Brendan.
“Not very long. Brendan and I lived in Murray Hill when we were together.” Technically, at least, this is true, and I may be moving in with Angela and her cats if my rent increases thirty-six hours from now.
“I lived over there when I first came to the city from Colorado. Talk about culture shock. I’d been going to college, skiing a hundred days a year, and living with four guys in this huge rental house. Then I come to B-school and I move into a one bedroom, six flight walk up in Murray Hill, with incredibly loud radiators, that I shared with this classmate from Tokyo. We created a second bedroom by ripping the shelving out of the closet.”
“Who got the real bedroom?”
“He did.”
“Seems unfair.” I smile, flip my hair and bat my eyelashes playfully. It’s been way too long since I’ve flirted and it feels great. Especially since he’s flirting back, smiling, looking away, mirroring my pose. I almost forget we were discussing his student digs.
“It worked out fine for me in the end. Seiji—that was his name—introduced me to his uncle Hideki Takamura during our second semester, and the rest, as they say, is history. I got my dream job and the first account I worked on was Rossignol. I thought I’d hit the lottery.”
The oven timer goes off. “Fifteen minute warning on the soufflé,” Oscar says, matter-of-factly. He reaches across the table to top off my wine.
Great. In order to reciprocate, I’m going to need to produce something far superior to slice and bake, or even cupcakes from the corner bakery.
I get out of my seat and offer to help but he waves me away. “I’ll just put away the food. The maid will take care of the rest in the morning.”
Of course she will.
“Does she normally work Sundays?” It seems cruel and unusual to me to have someone, who probably slaves all week for less than minimum wage, give up her weekend so that Oscar and I don’t have to load our own dishes into the dishwasher.
“No, but I pay her double time if I ask her to come in on the weekend. She likes the extra money. She sends it home to Nicaragua. Have you been to Central America?” he asks, leaving no doubt that the subject of his overworked maid is closed.
“I went to Belize once.” I don’t add that I went there during the year Brendan and I were broken up, with this adrenalin junkie from Melbourne I’d met two weeks earlier, in a no name bar in the Village. His idea of a romantic getaway involved lots of drinking and diving, but not much in the way of spa treatments, gourmet meals or even hot showers. I stuck it out for three nights, because it was the first truly exciting sex I’d ever had in my life. By the fourth day I was so hung-over, un-shampooed, mosquito-bitten and just plain hungry, that I left him for a four star hotel ten miles and a world away. I charged four nights on a credit card. It was the best $2,600 I ever spent. We broke up for good on the plane ride home, then returned to my place for break up sex that made me cry after he left. But Oscar does not need to know any of this. He already knows more than I’d planned to divulge about the Brendan debacle.
So I say, “It was nice. Undeveloped, compared to much of the Caribbean.”
He says something about being due for some time in the sun this winter, then goes to fetch the soufflé. My eyes bulge in amazement as I take the first bite.
Oscar smiles, clearly pleased with himself. “I had you pinned as a chocolate lover, and I’m happy to see I guessed right.”
“You really made this yourself?” If I wasn’t so wowed by him, I’d probably seize the opportunity to say something snarky, like most women love chocolate, so you just played the odds. But I feel no such destructive impulses.
“Yes, ma’am. And I can do even better. You’ll have to stick around.” Another big smile. His eyes sparkle and the skin around them crinkles again. I now understand how sharing a great meal can qualify as foreplay. I will never again mock those articles touting the merits of aphrodisiac menus.
I’m definitely planning to stick around.
We demolish the dessert. Oscar selects a new bottle of wine and we arrange ourselves on the leather couches in his living room. His free hand—the one not holding his drink—reaches across the space between us and touches my arm. Every tiny hair on my body stands on end as he starts to rub his hand down my forearm to my wrist and back up again. There’s something skilled about the way he does it expertly, yet almost absent-mindedly at the same time.
He wordlessly takes my glass, sets it on the table, places his own next to it, cups my face between both his hands and leans in to kiss me. His lips barely graze mine and it takes an immense amount of maturity and self-control to keep from launching myself into his lap.
Evidently Oscar lacks comparable maturity and self-control. Before I have time to muster the will to re-commandeer control of the situation, his mouth is on mine and he’s easing me back into the couch. I slide down along the slippery leather until I’m more reclined than seated. He kisses my neck and ears and something inside me stirs. I suddenly can’t remember why I wasted the summer dejected over Brendan. Oscar moves my
hair out of the way and his lips graze the back of my neck. His ex-wife must have been insane to leave him for another man.
He whispers, gruffly, in my ear, “Stay the night.”
“Mmmm.”
Oscar smells faintly of some cologne I can’t name and his mouth tastes slightly of the dessert wine, which now sits abandoned on the coffee table. His hand runs down my side and finds its way under my sweater. He kisses me again, and when he pauses for air, he murmurs, “Let’s move to the bedroom.”
And while every fiber of my being is eagerly saying, “Yes!” I force myself to focus on my unfit-for-company underwear, or at least on the reason I wore it.
“Not tonight.” I kiss him again because I don’t want him to get the idea that I’m not interested. Because I so am. I’d love to tear off all our clothes and spend the night in his bed, but I’m not going to risk becoming a one-night stand. He’s too extraordinary. If I want to keep him interested, Angela counseled, it’s imperative to extricate myself from date number two with him wanting more.
SEVEN
When we pull up in front of Angela’s building, her doorman is having a heated exchange with a very Nordic-looking man in tweed. He looks about forty years old, and his face has turned red with fury. When the doorman notices us, he asks his adversary to step aside. The Nordic man continues to freak out and steps closer to the doorman, so his nose is inches from the other man’s face. He starts screaming, in a pronounced Germanic accent, that he has friends in Washington, and that he will have the doorman’s pathetic self deported back to Puerto Rico if he doesn’t let him pass at once. I see spit flying from his mouth, illuminated in the darkness by the portico lamps. The doorman stands his ground.
Oscar, who of course has no idea that the crazed Teuton must be my best friend’s date, laughs out loud. “Puerto Rico is a U. S. territory. We don’t deport there. Not that your doorman looks Puerto Rican to me.”
“He’s from Brazil, actually.”
Oscar double parks and gets out to open the door for me. As if on cue, a window several flights up flies open. Angela leans out, waves her phone maniacally, and screams, “Reiner! If you don’t stop disturbing the peace this instant, I’m calling the police.”
At this, more lights come on from other units.
Reiner, who appears strangely encouraged by Angela’s threat, abandons his quest to throttle the poor doorman and runs out onto the sidewalk so he can see her better.
“Please,” he wails. “I just want to come up and talk.”
“Forget it! It’s over between us,” she yells back. “Now please leave before I have to pour a pot of boiling water down on you.”
“You’ve misunderstood, my darling!”
“No, I think you’ve misunderstood. If you don’t leave, I’m calling the cops.”
“You know I have diplomatic immunity,” Reiner yells, more coldly. His imploring tone has vanished.
“That just means they can’t charge you. I can still call,” says Angela, petulantly.
I start towards the entrance, but Oscar is rooted to the spot, watching the show. Angela raises her arms to shut the window, and as she does, she notices me standing there. “Zoë! I didn’t expect to see you back before dawn. You must be Oscar! I’m Angela, and you really are cute. Sometimes Zoë’s taste isn’t so great.”
Oh, God. She’s drunk. Angela never slurs her speech, but you can tell she’s had too much to drink when she says something unfiltered.
Oscar actually blushes. Angela leans out the window again. “Hey, Zoë, why don’t you and your new lover come up for a nightcap?”
“He’s not my new love –” I cut myself off and feel my face go red.
“Sounds great,” Oscar yells with a smile, before I can decline on his behalf. He takes my arm and starts steering me towards the entrance, giving wide berth to Reiner, who’s now making motions that suggest he might be about to physically assault the poor doorman.
The doorman turns away from his tormentor to let us through. Reiner screams, “That bitch owes me. Do you have any idea what I’ve spent on her, tonight alone? Not to mention over the past three weeks. I demand to go upstairs.”
His accent gets more and more pronounced as his cheeks get redder and redder.
“I’m sorry, sir, but Ms. Mancuso made it clear that I am not to admit you under any circumstances. Now I’m going to ask you one last time, to please leave. If you don’t I’ll have to call the police.”
Reiner looks as if he’s trying to formulate some persuasive retort, but his brain must come up empty because he lets out an alarming roar and charges at the doorman. Reiner’s first punch knocks the older man off his feet. His uniform hat skips across the ground like a flat stone over water, before coming to rest on the pavement.
Oscar’s there in a flash. He grabs Reiner with both hands and shoves him roughly against the wall. I watch in mingled horror and admiration as he closes his fingers around Reiner’s throat, and when he speaks, his voice has lost every last bit of its earlier charm and tenderness. “I’m not surprised the lady won’t allow you upstairs.”
Reiner makes a sucking sound, as if he’s not getting enough air. The doorman clambers to his feet.
Oscar says, “Now you are going to get the hell out of here and never come back. Because if my friend over here sees you around again, he’s going to call me. And I have friends who could care less about your diplomatic immunity. Do you understand?”
Reiner tries to nod, but Oscar’s choke hold prevents his head from moving very much.
“I can’t hear you.”
“Yes.” It’s barely audible, but it must be good enough because Oscar releases his grip and a very disheveled Reiner slumps towards the pavement. He forces himself onto his feet, and makes his way across the street, his face burning with shame and anger.
We all watch him plod down the block, until he’s out of sight. I stand rooted to the sidewalk, stunned at my date’s amazing display of masculine prowess, and slightly startled by how fast he resorted to his fists. Even though this Reiner character clearly had it coming.
“Thanks,” the doorman says to Oscar. “Even five years ago I would’ve turned him to pulp, but I’m getting old, and with all the panic about immigrant labor lately, I’m afraid to get physical, even with a prick like that.” His eyes move from Oscar to me and he adds, “Sorry, miss. I meant to say even in self-defense.”
“It’s alright. I’m glad you’re not hurt.”
“Probably just bruised a bit. You enjoy your evening, miss.”
Oscar asks, “Shall we go in? I’m ready for that drink.”
As we pile into the elevator, he says, “It must be nice, having a friend in your building.” He sounds cool and collected, not at all like a man who nearly beat someone to a pulp mere minutes ago.
“Mmm-hmm.” I press the button for Angela’s floor.
“Which floor is yours?”
“Not tonight,” I say with the best smile I can muster. He pushes me against the wall and kisses me, hard. His little fight doesn’t seem to have taken anything out of him. In fact, it seems to have revved him up. I’m glad we’re not at my place. He might be hard to turn away under the circumstances.
Angela’s waiting at the door, wearing a floor-length hand embroidered silk robe that one of her beaus brought her from a business trip to Asia. It’s not like she’s uncovered or anything, but I don’t know anyone else who would receive her friend’s date without getting dressed. She’s also sporting the beginnings of a greenish mud mask on her chin.
“Is he gone?” she demands, before I can even make introductions. The treatment on her chin crackles.
“Yes, and I doubt he’ll bother you again. Oscar Thornton.” He sticks out his hand.
“My hero!” Angela’s eyelashes flutter. “Angela Mancuso. Please, come in, have a drink.”
To my surprise and relief, Oscar says, “Thank you, but I might beg off. I’m afraid I accepted your invitation under false pretenses. I though
t if I got inside the building, Zoë might have me up to her place.”
At this, Angela’s eyebrows go up. Oscar leans down to kiss me on the cheek. “I’ll call you in the morning,” he says, and then to Angela, “It was nice to meet you.”
“You, too, and thanks for your help with Reiner.”
“My pleasure.”
We watch him disappear back into the elevator. Angela hisses, “You still haven’t told him you don’t live here?”
I shrug. “What the hell happened tonight?”
“I need a drink before I launch into it.”
I open the fourth bottle of wine I’m about to share tonight while Angela finishes slathering a new kelp-based anti-wrinkle potion on her face.
“That bastard slapped my ass.”
I look up from the corkscrew, confused.
“Reiner ran into some prince from Monaco, and instead of introducing me, he told me they had to talk in private, and that I should run off and get him a fresh drink. And then he slapped my butt, as if I was some 1970’s Bond girl, and he and the prince laughed like it was the funniest thing ever.”
“Why didn’t you slap him back?” It’s unlike Angela to take anything less than fawning, doting treatment from her dates.
“All the decision makers from Vogue were in the room, at least half of the senior management team. I couldn’t risk making a scene.”
“I thought this baron or whoever was taking you to dinner.”
“That was supposed to be later. We had to stop in at the Cavalli men’s fragrance launch first.”
“Why did you have to go to that? You do shoes.”
“Zoë, dear, you’re missing the point. Reiner humiliated me. In public. And I didn’t know what to do, so I ran outside and got a cab home. I guess he charged out after me.”
“Wait, when was that?”
She consults her watch. “Just over five hours ago.”
“He was out there with your doorman for five hours?”
“No. There was a shift change. He only harassed Philippe for about three hours. Juan was down there before. But that’s not the worst part. My boss called me twice. She’s furious. Reiner’s family owns, among many other things, a major cosmetics company that buys a lot of ad space in the magazine.”
The Hazards of Hunting While Heartbroken Page 8