“You really do have a way with words, Vina,” he spat.
“This is not about me,” I fired back.
Wade took one final, deflated look at me. As if I was the one who had let him down.
“So you wouldn’t believe me even if I tried to explain? Don’t you want to hear my side of this?”
“No, Wade. I’m sorry. I’ll have to side with my bosses on this one.”
“This is bullshit,” he decided, before slamming the door on his way out of the room.
13
“Before you say anything, I’m borrowing your blue purse. And you only have an hour to get ready for Girls’ Night.”
Cristina’s butt, wreathed in the light from my fridge, was the first thing I saw when I walked into my apartment.
“I don’t understand how you can live on this stuff,” she continued before I could respond, speaking to me over her shoulder. “Not a piece of fruit or a drop of milk or juice anywhere.”
She held my refrigerator door open, displaying the lamentable contents: Three Hostess pink snowballs, a six-pack of Pepsi, two Chinese food delivery cartons and a half-empty bottle of Absolut.
“Who let you in here?” I asked, dropping my jacket onto a chair and heading for the bathroom.
“You gave me the key. Remember?”
“Vaguely.” I examined my bloodshot eyes in the mirror. “I don’t know. Long week.”
“What’s with this?” She waved the Absolut bottle at me.
“Pam probably drank it.” I shrugged.
“And since when does she store her alcohol in your fridge?”
“She’s practicing. For when we have neighboring summer houses in the Hamptons. And she comes over to my place to drink away her sorrows because William works too much.”
“And where will I be?”
“You’ll be at the gym,” I snapped.
“Ouch!” she said.
Cristina and I weighed exactly the same amount, but she always managed to look better in my own clothes than I did. It might have had something to do with her six extra inches of legs. We were both olive-skinned, dark-haired, and just shy of the age when we expected our metabolisms to begin to go to hell. But that was where the similarities ended. Five years earlier, when we became investment banking trainees, we both swore we would quit the business as soon as we figured out what else we were qualified to do. Or once our loyalty started to cost more than the annual bonuses our firms kept baiting us with. That day had yet to come.
To compensate, she had developed an unhealthy attachment to the gym, while I had developed an unhealthy resentment of myself. Lately that resentment had taken the form of an ulcer, which I had decided to call “Fred.” Its namesake was a sports agent whom I dated briefly when I was new to the city. He made inappropriate jokes and expected me to “high-five” him afterward. He was late for every date we made, and was under the impression that Speedos were acceptable. At times it seemed like he deliberately waited until his mouth was full before speaking, just to force me to watch. He had one ridiculously long nose hair which he never managed to notice, while I, on the other hand, could often see little else. In the story of my life, he was like a dried-out zit; although you resent it, you derive a certain comfort from knowing that it will be there when you need something to pick at absentmindedly.
“Sorry,” I said, turning back to the mirror and trying to ignore the burning in my stomach. “I had to fire my intern today. Things are frustrating at work. Honestly, I don’t even know what I’m doing sometimes. I’m not sure I’m up for going out tonight. I feel like I’m just not in control anymore.”
“Who told you that you ever were?” she asked, and then twisted on her heel when she heard a knock at the door. “Listen. Just forget about it. Whatever it is, you need to put it out of your mind. Girls’ Night will cheer you up. It’s gonna be like old times. By the end of the night, you’ll forget Jon’s name, and I’ll forget my own! Voila! We’re meeting Pam and Reena at the restaurant in an hour, and then your ass is ours all night. Unless you find someone hunkier to offer it to, that is. Well, if you can manage to let go of your control issues for long enough to let someone seduce you.”
Massaging the tension in my neck, I sulked toward the closet.
“Va va va voom!” Christopher gasped at the sight of Cristina.
“Cristy, Christopher…Christopher, Cristy,” I introduced in a monotone over my shoulder.
Almost instantly the two of them were lost in each other. I left them to share eyelash-curling techniques, and turned on the shower. I was still undressing when the phone rang outside. I should’ve locked the bathroom door. I should’ve hid inside the medicine cabinet. I should’ve done a lot of things differently that night.
“Guess what your Nani and I are making for dinner tomorrow night?” my mother bubbled through the phone, after Cristina came into the bathroom without knocking to hand it to me. “Moong Khee Dhal and Masala Bhindi! Your favorites!”
“Great, Mom. Listen, I’ve got friends over. Can I call you in the morning?” I pinched the skin at the top of my nose. I was in no condition to play the dutiful daughter.
“Why? Did you want us to make something else? If you did, then you have to tell me now, so that I can tell your father to stop at Pathmark on his way home to get whatever ingredients I’ll be needing.”
“No, Mom. I’m really excited about the Dhal. And the Bhindi. Really.”
It was an admittedly weak attempt at enthusiasm.
“Did you forget about dinner tomorrow night?” her voice narrowed, “you said you would spend the evening with us.”
“Of course not, Mom. Of course not. I’m looking forward to it,” I gushed to overcompensate for the fact that it had completely slipped my mind.
“Sweetheart,” she coaxed, “you seem distracted. I don’t want to do anything to make you fly off the handle. I know how sensitive you can be. I also know how your father’s anger always gives you stress. And you know how you get those dark circles below your eyes when you worry too much. Have you been moisturizing? Have you been eating right? You are not your normal self these days. You know that you can talk to us about anything, right?”
A lifetime of my parents’ injured expressions at even the mention of any male who wasn’t Indian had taught me otherwise.
“Sure, Mom.” I prayed for her call-waiting to beep.
“Then what is the problem? Is it Prakash? Are you feeling insecure about his interest?”
“No, Mom. I’m not.” I clenched my teeth. “I know exactly where his interest lies.”
I eyed the half-naked, bleary-eyed, limp-haired woman in the mirror.
“Because you know sometimes a girl can make an impression by being quiet. You don’t always have to be so funny, Vina. Sometimes it is a good idea to let a man feel like a man. Let him lead the conversation. Also, try to be a little bit more…soft. And I wasn’t planning to tell you this, but I also got a call from his mother and…”
Oh no no no no no! My mother was trying to teach me about seduction! I had to put a stop to it before I literally crawled out of my own skin.
“Mom, it’s not him. Trust me. Wait, did you just say you talked to Prakash’s mom?”
“Yes, Vina, but it was nothing really. Just a small chat. Go on.”
I took a chance. “I’m frustrated, Mom. With everything. And work isn’t going so well. I’m just generally unsatisfied.”
“Vina—” her voice lowered “—you have a wonderful job, good friends and a nice boy in your life. What more could you want?”
“I don’t know. I’m just…I’m not really happy these days.” I took a deep breath. “You know, there’s this homeless woman who dances outside of Grand Central station. I pass her on my way to work every morning. And I…she just looks so peaceful, and I started thinking that…”
“So now you cannot bear the thought of taking advice from your mother, but you can take advice from this pagal homeless woman?”
“No! Mo
m, I…I’ve never even spoken to her. I’ve just been thinking about her.”
“Well, stop thinking then. And start doing. These ideas are a phase. Don’t you think I also used to have these cloudy thoughts while I was in my medical residency? Everybody has these feelings sometimes. But those who are successful waste no time on these indulgent thoughts. Try thinking about more important things. Like marriage. And getting your MBA. And don’t tell Prakash about any of these ideas, either.”
Cristina banged on the bathroom door to announce that she had invited Christopher along, that they were stepping into his apartment to pick out his ensemble and that I had twenty minutes left.
“Okay, Mom.” I dropped my towel. “I’m sorry. You’re right.”
“Fine. Good. We will see you tomorrow night.”
“So he looks me right in the eye.” Reena squinted across the dinner table an hour later. “He’s really intense, like he’s supposed to be James Bond or something. And he says, ‘Reena, I have wanted to be inside you since the moment we met.’”
As usual, Pam, Cristina and I hung on her every word. As usual, we were afraid even to blink or swallow lest we miss a beat. We leaned closer to hear over the din of clinking glasses, drunken laughter and live music. Son Cubano was the most popular Latin restaurant “slash” bar “slash” club in the meatpacking district.
“And I’m thinking, ‘I know, you geek. Why else do you think I take my man-catchers with me wherever I go? And why are you talking so much?’ He’s all ‘blah blah blah,’ and it’s making me want to gag.” She mimed an unstoppable talking hand puppet. “I mean, shut up and let’s get down to business. If I wanted conversation, I wouldn’t be dating a model, especially a twenty-one-year-old model. Why do men always wind up ruining a perfectly good seduction scene by saying something stupid?”
“Gay men don’t,” Christopher offered, a Cheshire-cat grin on his face. “We don’t usually waste too much time talking.”
“I think that straight men are programmed to think they have to keep trying to impress us,” Cristina suggested. “They think we all want a relationship out of them, so we won’t put out until we feel like they really care.”
“Relationship, my ass. I wouldn’t be in a relationship with him for all the Botox in Bombay,” Reena confided, to the applause of everyone at the summit. “He was sexy, and it had been a while, so I might have played with him for a few weeks. But it was really because I was guessing from the proportions of the rest of his body that he might be able to…shall we say…make an impact?”
Reena was magnificent. Sometimes I wished I were able to be as take-charge as she was…outside of the operating room.
“And was he?” I had to ask.
“Not so much. Average, really. But what’s worse is that he didn’t know what he was doing. And when I asked if I could tie him up, he said, ‘No.’ That it was too kinky for him. The big baby. The only reason I even asked was because he was moving too fast, and wouldn’t really listen to me when I said, ‘Slow down!’ So I figured if I could control it, everybody would win, and I could go the hell to sleep and actually take a nap before catching my f light.”
“How much Botox is there in Bombay?” Christopher asked, slurping at the dregs of his mojito.
“Not enough,” Reena answered.
“Okay. Of course what he does with it is important. But there is such a thing as too big, right?” Cristina posed.
“How would I know?” Pamela slurred, having gulped down her second mojito in a half hour and assuming the question was aimed at her.
Whenever Reena was around, Pam became more sensitive about the fact that William was only the second man she had ever slept with. But she traded her sourpuss pout for a beaming smile when William’s name popped up on her caller ID. She must’ve been drunk by that point, because contrary to her usual attention to etiquette, she f lipped open her cell phone at the table.
“Hi, honeeeeeeeeey!”
“Well, I haven’t found anyone too big yet.” Reena grinned like a sailor on shore leave, downing her Apple-tini and signaling the waiter to bring over another round. “But then again, women do come in different sizes, just like men. Maybe I’m well-endowed, too.”
“I don’t know,” Cristina reasoned. “I had a friend who said she had a friend who slept with a guy who was way too big for her. She went along with it anyway. And the next day she was out at a restaurant, and she had gotten her period. And when she sneezed, she sneezed out her tampon!”
My eyes widened into saucers and my hands flew from my mojito to my mouth, which was now stretched open in a mixture of horror and humor overload.
“That’s gross!” Reena yelled.
“Not in comparison to the disgusting things that men say and do!” Christopher wasn’t really defending Cristina, as much as he was defending a woman’s right to say something disgusting. “For example, ladies, the other day I was walking down Lexington when I saw this man at a stoplight, watching porn on his in-car television! In the middle of the afternoon!”
“No way,” Cristina challenged.
“Seriously!” He raised an eyebrow. “Do you think I could make up something like that? I mean, he had his windows opened completely, so that anyone walking by could see the screen! I know this because I almost walked into a garbage can. Once I saw it, even though it was hetero-porn, I couldn’t look away. I mean, come on! Could you? In the middle of the day? Ignore porn-without-warning!”
“Yes, I absolutely could.” Reena turned serious. “I think that porn is disgusting. And I don’t want any part of it, watching or otherwise.”
“You have a problem with porn?” Cristy nearly choked on a mint leaf. “This, coming from a woman who refers to her breasts as man-catchers?”
“Well, have you seen my breasts?” Reena raised a prideful eyebrow.
“Everybody’s seen your breasts,” Pam said.
“Um, yeah. Everybody to whom I have chosen to show them,” Reena defended herself, to everyone’s surprise. “You know, lately I get the impression that you ladies think I’m too aggressive, but I like the way that I am. And because I go after what I want in the operating room as well as the bedroom doesn’t mean that I don’t have standards. I take control of my life and responsibility for my happiness. I realize now that I’m the only person I have to answer to. And I’m having fun. I may never find the love of my life, yet at least I will be able to say that I didn’t sit around on my couch waiting for the party to come and find me. Men always act like dogs, and we are expected to work as hard, make as much money, and then sit around and cry that they use us for sex? Uh-uh. That’s not gonna work for me.”
“Well, I guess you’re right,” Pam conceded, while the rest of us sat silent. “I mean, personally, I need some chivalry from a man, but generally they are a lot like dogs.”
“They are furry,” Cristina offered helpfully, cracking a small smile.
“And we do drool at the sight of fresh meat.” Christopher shrugged. “Gay or straight.”
“And they will try to mount everything in sight until someone explains to them why it is not acceptable,” Pam chimed in.
“And their loyalty is transferable,” Cristina added.
“And they’re always sniffing things they shouldn’t be sniffing. Like their socks. Why do they do that?” Pamela asked, her pupils dilating.
“And they wouldn’t bathe unless we made it clear that it was expected.” Reena brightened.
“And they will follow home anything that wags its tail at them,” Christopher said.
“And they almost always find a way to embarrass us at our dinner parties!” Pam laughed.
“Excuse me. That’s only the heteros,” Christopher corrected.
“And they need constant positive reinforcement!” Reena continued.
“And if you rub that particular spot behind their ear, they instantly forget their own name and start having unseemly, involuntary physical reactions,” Pam joked.
“And they al
ways want to hump you in public!” Cristina suggested, to collective applause.
“What’s with you tonight?” Pam leaned over and whispered sloppily to me. “You’re very quiet.”
“I don’t know. I’m tired, I guess.”
“That’s crap, Vina.” Pam’s eyelids drooped slightly. “And you know it. You haven’t even touched your food. It’s Jon, isn’t it?”
“No, it’s not. I…”
“Vina, this isn’t you. Don’t become one of those pathetic women who lets a bad situation with a man suck the life right out of her. Trust me.” Pam looked me straight in the eye, sober for a tenth of a moment. “I might not know a lot about picking up guys in bars, but I do know something about what a difficult relationship can do to your life. Not being able to let go of one man can turn you into a woman you don’t even recognize anymore. And the longer you hold on, the worse it’ll get. So stop it.”
Two shots of Malibu rum later, I was beginning to think that maybe I could Stop It. Maybe I could, as Bridget Jones might say, do whatever I bloody well pleased.
14
Soon after we settled the bill, I was helping Pamela into a cab. She had received a frisky call from William at eleven p.m. and decided, as usual, to go running. When I returned to our table, Reena, Cristy and Christopher had already made their way over to the lounge. I planted myself on a stool beside them, and was thinking about the look on Pam’s face as I closed the taxi door behind her, when Christopher’s voice interrupted my hazy thoughts.
“Are you ready for your second drink, lightweight? Another mojito?”
I sighed, and responded, “Well, it’ll be my third, actually. But who’s counting? Bring it on, Mary.”
“Good. I’ll go get that waiter.” He perked up, smoothing his hair and, I could’ve sworn, adjusting his butt as if it were cleavage.
“There’s a bartender right behind us.”
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