by Ariella Papa
My sister tries to get me to go ice skating, although she knows my aversion to physical activity. She and Roseanne form some kind of tag team and after an hour of waiting on line, I am circling the rink, gripping the sides. Roseanne and Monica are busy doing figure eights in the center of the rink with the pros. Once in a while they remember me and skate over to try to coax me off the wall or to call to me from the center, but I refuse. I am making my way steadily around the rink. I keep running into the same children. They mock me, these kids, because eventually they all get the hang of it and start skating in the center of the rink. I hate kids. I hate looking stupid.
Being alone, I can’t help but think about Rob King and kissing him at the party. When I think about it, I get that familiar queasy feeling. I try to imagine what it would be like to date someone like that. He’s not your average guy—I mean he is, but, he isn’t. It’s a little scary, anyway, I shouldn’t think about it. I won’t get my hopes up.
Finally, the excruciating hour of skating is over and Monica and Roseanne help me off the rink. I notice some of the kids snickering at me. Monica and Roseanne are totally pumped about the whole thing, like those annoying writers at work who talk about the “biker’s high.” Whatever. If it isn’t artificial it shouldn’t affect my mood. Despite their obvious competency on the rink, they still defer to me about where we should go now. I suggest Tiffany’s.
There’s another line for that—just to get in! It feels like a club, where the security guard/bouncer looks us up and down and waits for some people to leave, before letting us in. The thing I like about Tiffany’s, once inside, is the accessibility of it all. Who knows who you’re shopping next to and how much money they have. You want to hate it for being so snobby, but it’s not like you can’t get in, so you have to sort of love it and wish you had enough money for several pretty blue packages.
I catch Roseanne talking to a real cute guy from Texas, so I steer clear of them. I look around for my sister and begin to think she got fed up with all the consumerism and left, but then I see her checking out the engagement rings. There is not an ounce of disdain on her face; in fact she looks relaxed and almost content. Even with all the social ills in the world, my sister manages to look content for a moment. I walk over quietly, but I hear my sister tell the sales assistant that she is just browsing. When she turns, our eyes meet and she smiles at me. We go up to look at silver.
I pick out a pendant for Tabitha for Christmas. It’s about seventy dollars. I throw it on the plastic. As soon as I get out my card, my sister, who was momentarily an unknown beautiful and calm woman, turns back into the sister I know and tolerate.
“Eve, you are such a consumer, I can’t believe you are going to get such an excessive gift for anyone. Never spend that much money on me—unless it’s to donate to a charity.”
“I won’t spend that much money on you ever, Monica, don’t worry.” Tabitha’s pendant is in a box inside a tiny blue fuzzy pouch. I will keep the little bag for myself.
We decide to go to St. Patrick’s Cathedral. It’s Monica’s idea, although she diffuses it by explaining to Roseanne her misgivings about the Catholic church. She says she just likes the aesthetics. I don’t like church that much, either, but my grandmother used to always take us to St. Patrick’s Cathedral at Christmas. She gave us money to light a candle and say a prayer. It used to be a few coins, but now it’s a buck. I sit at one of the little alcoves with the statues.
I don’t think prayers are like birthday cake wishes, I think you could pretty much tell people what you’re prayers are. I mean don’t people always say “I’ll pray for you” and stuff like that (I would never say that). But anyway when I light my candle it seems pretty much fair ground to pray for whatever I want. I ask for pretty standard stuff, a new job, health for my family, my dad and grandma especially, health for my friends, no rodents in the apartment, a happy holiday, a better year, my sister to get some direction and not marry this bozo, and (then I’m trying to wrap it up), I know that I would be lying to myself and to who knows who else if I didn’t at least mention Rob King calling me, so I pray for that, too.
“I didn’t know you were so devout,” Monica says when we are all sitting on the stairs of St. Patrick’s. “Can we go soon? I’m cold.” I ignore her.
Monica can’t believe all the women who are wearing fur coats. “What are they gonna do, when the revolution comes and they are left out in the cold?”
I would like to ask her what revolution she is talking about and if it will conflict with her studies. I don’t say anything because we are on the church steps and my sister is so sensitive, I think anything I say would throw her into a tirade.
We decide to get take-out and head home. We stop at a gourmet market and get some prepared stuff. Roseanne decides to buy some fresh pasta and have Tyler (Mr. Texas) over for dinner tomorrow. She’ll have a little dinner party. Tabitha can come over and talk to Tyler (a soap opera name, if ever there was one) about The Lone Star State. She starts running down a list in her head.
“Ro, you shouldn’t get all this stuff. We can get it right on 23rd. Just get the pasta if it’s so great here, but really do you want to carry all this stuff home?” Suddenly my sister looks like she is about to expire, she is completely horrified.
“We’re not walking, are we? It’s so far.”
“Monica.” I take a tone I’ve heard my mother take when they are on the phone, I’m amazed I can do it so well. “It’s twenty-eight blocks and a couple of avenues to our house. It’s all flat land. Come on!”
“But it’s cold.” She rocks herself a little like a kid who has to pee. “Besides, we’ve been walking all over, all day.” I cannot believe this is my sister.
“Monica, what are you gonna do when the revolution comes?” That said, we walk home in silence.
We are watching COPS on Fox, trying to decide where to go. Tabitha is over and she wants to go somewhere good. I realize that I’m going to be pretty poor by the end of December with all this spreading of Christmas cheer. Monica is also being a big baby (surprise!) about going out. She complains that everything is too expensive in New York. We decide to drink at home—we have some beer, vodka and Collins mix. If we are still functioning we’ll go to Dusk, a bar on 24th where the English bartender calls us “sweetheart” and gives us every third drink free. It’s swank enough for Tabitha, although I have to bribe Monica into going by promising to get her some drinks.
Roseanne isn’t having much luck putting together her dinner party. Tabitha seems down with it until she hears Tyler is from Texas. It’s strange the way she changes her mind suddenly. “I have no desire to trip down Memory Lane with a redneck.”
It’s beginning to look like Monica and I are going to have to make ourselves scarce during the dinner party.
COPS is taking place in a real white trash neighborhood in Texas. We ask Tabitha if that’s her hometown. She doesn’t laugh. An overzealous cop is handcuffing a potbellied criminal who is wearing dirty jeans. His partner is asking the guy in a black heavy metal concert T-shirt humiliating questions. Later these two sensitive guys are shown counseling the wife of one of the criminals. My sister is outraged.
“Do you realize how wrong this is?”
“Totally,” Tabitha, to my surprise, agrees, “I mean when you think about it someone could just come in and wardrobe these people, it would be great product placement and we wouldn’t have to be subjected to seeing these dirtbags.”
I just start filling up everyone’s glasses again. Maybe if I can get Monica drunk she won’t be so hard to deal with. I actually think it’s working because I start to hear a little Jersey accent come out in her voice.
We make it to the bar. It’s dark and trendy and just small and selective enough to make us feel like we have our own exclusive place. We drink cosmopolitans—even Monica—and dance a little to the DJ’s trip-hop. I know when my sister is totally drunk because she keeps twirling around and saying, “I’m so cosmopolitan.”
She also calls Chuck from the pay phone on my mom’s credit card. When she comes back she says she misses him a lot and wants to go home. We aren’t very far from my apartment, but I have a feeling if I give her the keys and send her on her way, I might never see her again. I tell the girls to stay, but Roseanne says she wants to get beauty sleep for her date tomorrow. I assume Tabitha will leave, too, but she wants to stay and chat with the bartender about Paris. She is leaving in a week.
When we get back, my sister throws up all the vegetables she ate for dinner and I hold her hair and rub her back. I force her to drink water and remind her how cosmopolitan she is.
We go shopping in the village all day Sunday. I pick up a couple of presents for Adrian and Roseanne. For Adrian, a belt with an awesome buckle; for Rebecca, a cookbook and a sexy black shirt. My sister and I go in on a couple of appliances for our parents and decide that I will pick up some Broadway tickets. We also get some little things for our family. Monica buys Chuck a huge coffee table book on Frank Lloyd Wright architecture and a sweater.
“Are you sure you aren’t spending too much money on him, Monica? You don’t want to turn him into a consumer.” I can’t help but bring it up.
“How could I spend too much money? There is no way to place a value on all he’s given me.” When my sister says cheesy crap like that, I have to think she is not too far removed from all the people she looks down at.
My sister definitely has an agenda for our day, she wants to extract details about my sex life and insinuate nonstop the possibility of her marrying this Chuck guy.
“Are you being careful, Eve?” My sister got her major in public health. She has always considered herself an expert and maybe the only person on earth who knows about condoms. From the time I was fourteen, she has been trying to push condoms on me and extol their virtues. My sister’s big quest in life is to find out how many sex partners I’ve had and if I’m having more satisfying sex than she is. She has an elaborate method for doing this. She doesn’t come out and ask me what she wants to know; she hints at it. She also has a habit of asking me the wrong questions in the wrong places. “Eve, are you being careful with the boys you see?” she asks over tempeh burgers at lunch. “You can be creative, you know, you don’t always have to have intercourse.”
“I’ve been thinking about face painting or maybe setting up a piñata.” I wish my sister would just ask me if I’m a slut instead of taking this tone of medical superiority.
“I’m serious, Eve, and so are STDs.” I have to laugh at that one. This burger is misnamed, it’s disgusting. “Are you in a relationship?” In spite of myself the name Rob King pops into my head. Damn! (Was I creative enough with him?)
“Monica, honestly I’m fine. I know everything I need to know. Don’t get neurotic about that, too.”
“Too? What do you mean? You think I’m neurotic like Mom?”
“I think Mom is an alarmist, I don’t think she’s all that neurotic. But, I guess it’s a fine line. Don’t get excited.”
We go to some other stores and the sales are so good that I wind up buying stuff for myself. I love this season and I love the fact that Monica is giving me the silent treatment, so she can’t tell me how tired she is from walking.
When we get back to the apartment, it smells really good. The dishes are still on the table and the food appears to have been picked at. I start to call out to Roseanne, but then I hear noises from Roseanne’s cranny that lead me to believe that Roseanne is being very creative. You go girl! Monica decides to go back to my parents’ house. I’d prefer not to have her pissed at me, but I don’t think I can handle much more of her. I walk her to Penn Station and give her a big hug. Maybe I’m a bad sister—but don’t forget about the puking. That makes me a kind sister.
On Wednesday, the Feed Meet is canceled because Herb’s on vacation. I know I’ve been here too long, when I’m actually telling myself it’s the hump day. I brought some of Roseanne’s Christmas cookies in to work today, and everyone crowds around my desk and demands to know about the fat and sugar content. I confess that I have no idea, but it’s probably a lot. They ravage the cookies anyway.
Roseanne is having an emotional crisis. She’s happy (and relieved) that she finally got some booty but Tyler’s business is finished in New York. There’s a good chance he’ll return in six weeks, but that’s a long time and apparently they really clicked. If only we could find a nice straight New Yorker that neither of us works with; we could even share him. Now, that’s creative. Anyway, I take her out for sweet potato perogies at Veselka, this Ukrainian place on 2nd Avenue. It seems to make her feel better.
Tabitha is off to Paris this week until after the New Year. Luckily the Big C takes a cruise every Christmas time, so Tabitha was able to get all that time off.
December is a really slow time, so I spend time cruising the Net. Maybe I should start my own Web page about living in New York, and get Prescott to fund me. Pipe dreams. I won’t make a resolution, but I vow this year will be different. This year I will actually do something that I enjoy. The phone rings.
“Eve Vitali.”
“Eve, this is Sherman Mussey, Rob King’s assistant. Rob told me he took a look at your proposal and thinks it a great idea—”
“He took a look at my what?”
“Proposal. He is pretty jammed up today, but he was wondering if he could meet you tonight around nine for a late dinner meeting.”
“Is this a joke?”
“Is what? Isn’t this Eve Vitali?” The guy seems genuinely confused and very serious. Is Rob King asking me out on a date through his assistant?
“So, ah, Sherman, did you read my proposal?”
“I have to confess, I haven’t, but Rob seems very enthusiastic about it.”
“Thanks.” For a minute I actually believe I wrote some sort of proposal. “Can I call Rob directly?”
“Well he does answer his own phone, but today he has back-to-back meetings.”
“Voice mail?”
“I have to check his messages, in case it’s urgent I can find him and alert him.”
“Alert him, huh? What about e-mail?”
“Same thing I’m afraid.” He gives me the name of the restaurant and offers to send a car to my apartment to pick me up. I respectfully decline the car.
No one can believe it. I can’t believe it. I can’t believe I’m going out with Rob King and that his assistant asked me out. Tabitha insists she come over to help me plan my outfit. She can’t believe I turned down the car. She and Roseanne entertain the notion of a surveillance operation while we are eating, but I quickly nix that idea. I don’t want those girls anywhere near the restaurant.
Tabitha does my makeup. I remind her minimalist, only she can’t help but mix the brown eye shadows with a sparkly yellow. I’m wearing black pants and a gray Asian shirt with frog fasteners. I think I might be doing it.
He picks a Russian place in midtown that’s really close to the office. I stand kind of stupidly in the elegant foyer and try to look into the restaurant for him. I ask the host if he has arrived yet, but he hasn’t. The host suggests I have a drink in the bar. I order a rum and Coke. I wish I had a magazine or something; the bartender isn’t the friendliest and the other two guys alone seem like some kind of dorky salesmen waiting for their clients.
I am midway through my second drink and starting to wonder how much of a credit card bill I will have if I charge these, when he shows up. He is wearing a dark gray suit and it fits him well. I guess I sort of forgot what he looked like. We smile at each other a little awkwardly and then he kisses me on the cheek. I lean up into him. He smells good—it reminds of the party, but nothing concrete. He settles my bar tab and we go to our table.
“So, do you want to talk about my proposal?”
“Yes, I do, Ms. Vitali, I definitely like your idea about elevator game requirements, but I’m afraid I’ve talked with the board and we have voted against your policy of not alerting us of your progress. C
ommunication is key if we want to—” he cocks his head to the side “—put this project to bed.” He is so hot!
“Oh, that, well I’ve been busy.”
“You know in the cab on the way home you told me all about how little you have to do and how bored you are at work.” I did? “I think you’ve just plain been avoiding me, Ms. Vitali.”
“It’s not that—” I’m interrupted by the waitress who wants to take our order. Rob tells me to order the wine, I pick one of the more (but by no means most) expensive reds. Rob orders us two of these special Russian drinks he guarantees will “warm me up.” I have a bad flash of Zeke, but ignore it.
“So continue.” He looks over his menu at me, intensely.
“I just, you know, didn’t know.” I don’t want to sound like a confused kid. I don’t want to act like I think he is such a great catch. I want to be the catch. “I didn’t know what was up.”
“Have you thought about that night at all?” I wait while the waitress places our warming drinks on the table and lets him taste the wine. He tells her we’ll need a few more minutes to mull over the menu. He smiles at me and leans closer. “I hope you’re going to be a good girl and eat all your beets.” Why is he so sexy?
“You know, you have really nice teeth. Did you have braces?”
“No. Just good breeding.”
“I bet.” We sit there until the waitress assumes we are ready to order. Rob gets a bunch of appetizers and I get some lamb dish that is really just the first thing I see.
“Look Rob, this is kind of a ridiculous thing to ask, but—” he is hinged on my every word “—did we…” I roll my hand over to imply.
“What?” He rolls his hand over faster.
“You know, do the deed, get nasty, slap skins, what have you?”
“Well there was quite a bit of ‘what have you,’ but I don’t know about that other stuff.” He shrugs, he is so cute.
“C’mon, tell me.”
“Well—” he looks from side to side and then peeks under the table “—no.” I don’t know how to feel. “Believe me it wasn’t for lack of encouragement on your part, but I figured when you almost walked into the closet, you weren’t really in any shape to be making decisions. You were difficult for a while, but then you sort of conked out. I’d like to think if it did happen, you’d remember.”