Fashionistas

by Lynn Messina

  Maya rattled on in the same vein for several minutes more, discussing T-shirt designs and Oprah appearances, but I was no longer listening. I was no longer paying attention, because a procession of former boyfriends was marching through my head with considerable force. Michael, who was unable to commit to a green banana. Scott, who refused to even use the word date. Ethan, who always called me Jevig, after his old girlfriend Jennifer. Dwight, Thaddeaus, Kevin, Rob. It was a long parade of also-rans. “New topic,” I said, taking the napkin away from her. She was sketching our logo—cupid with a crossbow aimed at his own heart—on a napkin.

  But I’m thinking of Maya’s words now. I’m recalling her scathing business plan now because of Alex Keller’s sandy brown hair and his light green eyes and his welcoming smile. I’m instantly attracted and have enough sense to know that this cannot be good.

  Man and Myth

  I’m unprepared for Alex Keller’s enthusiastic welcome. I’ve come here straight from work, despite reservations and other things I’d rather be doing, and I’m all ready to sweet-talk my way into his apartment. That he would simply open the door and invite me in is not on a list of possible outcomes, and I stare at him for several seconds uncomprehendingly.

  “You’re here,” he says, grinning widely. “Great. Come in.” He’s wearing tan cutoffs with a maroon T-shirt that says Springfield Civic Center Ice Crew. The shirt is old and torn and looks like some ancient papyrus scroll that will disappear into a cloud of dust if you touch it. He is barefoot. “You’re a little early but I’m almost ready. Please sit down.”

  Alex Keller’s living room is sparse—dark blue couch, thirteen-inch TV, aged telephone stand—and is dominated by a recently refinished wood floor hidden partially by a small light blue area rug. Since my host is gesturing to the couch, I walk toward it. I walk toward it and notice as I get closer that its diagonal position has created a storage space for an assortment of small appliances, including an iron, a blender and an old-fashioned rotary telephone. The jerry-built closet leads me to conclude that he, like Anna, doesn’t have closets. I admire his bravery. Catercorners are the provenance of the rich and you don’t often see catercornered bookshelves and sofas outside of magazine pictorials, the sort that Fashionista specializes in. You have to own a five-story town house in order to be able to spare the floor space the arrangement requires.

  “Quick should be back any minute now,” he says, carrying sneakers and socks into the kitchen, where he sits down on a wooden folding chair. My perspective affords me a clear view of his kitchen with its black-and-yellow wallpaper and pint-size fridge, and I watch him pull on his socks, the muscles in his arms bunching in response to the activity. Alex Keller has biceps. I’m not expecting this. Despite its deteriorated state, the T-shirt holds up. “A neighbor is helping out in the meantime.”

  There is a misunderstanding here. It’s not me he’s expecting. I’ve known this from the moment the doorman downstairs let me go up without asking my name. I’ll tell him who I am but not right now. Right now I want to watch him put on his sneakers. The novelty of a friendly Keller is seductive and I’m loath to bring the experience to an end. In a minute I’ll tell him my name. In a minute I’ll reveal all and his pleasant countenance will turn sour and pinched and he’ll start throwing obscenities at my head. That moment can wait.

  “You’ll like Quick,” he says, tying the laces of his Adidas into double knots. “He’s got large puppy-dog eyes that melt your resolve every time.”

  I don’t know if Quick is a beloved pet or a beloved son. Keller’s spotless record only revealed his address and telephone number; it didn’t list dependents. “All right,” I say, to be vague.

  Keller smiles. He has a great smile, a little shy and dimpled. “But you have to be strong. A little discipline never hurt anyone.”

  Hearing Alex Keller, ordinarily an id on the rampage, expound on the benefits of discipline, breaks the spell. Despite his dimples and his biceps and his lively green eyes, I open my mouth to introduce myself. But before I get a chance, the doorbell rings and Keller jumps to his feet. “There’s the boy now.”

  Keller disappears around a corner and I hear him chatting with a neighbor. “Did he give you any trouble?”

  “Nope, he’s a darling,” answers a soft, breathy female voice. “It’s a beautiful day and we had a lovely time at the park sunning ourselves.”

  “Great. Thanks again for your help.”

  “My pleasure. Are we still on for dinner tomorrow?”

  Although I can’t see her, I know this woman is curvaceous and blond with a cute nose and heart-shaped face. All breathy women are.

  “Of course,” he says. “How’s eight?”

  “Come by at seven and I’ll serve cocktails,” she offers. There’s a flirtatious lilt to her voice that I’m very familiar with. You can’t go to the Beauty Bar or Man Ray on a Saturday night without hearing it, which is why I stay far away from such trendy places.

  “Sounds good. So I’ll see you then,” he says, winding down the conversation. “And thanks again for helping out.”

  “Really, it was my pleasure.”

  Of course it was. What woman wouldn’t want a man who looks like Keller in her debt?

  I hear the door close and prepare myself to meet Quick. If he’s a boy, then it’s just as well that Keller is a bad-tempered, emotionally unavailable co-worker with multiple personalities, because my skills with children, especially little ones, are undeveloped.

  Quick turns out to be a chocolate Lab. He is large and consumes more space than a catercornered couch. His movements are ponderous and deliberate and he seems to be considering each step before he makes it. He is wagging his tail in greeting, but it’s like an oscillating fan on slow. There is nothing swift about him.

  “An odd choice in names,” I say because it’s the first thing that pops into my head, but I’m not sure if this is the sort of thing you can say to a besotted dog owner.

  Keller smiles, revealing the devastating dimples and shyness. I can feel myself staring with a sort of gape-mouthed stupidity and I try to pull myself together. Emotionally unavailable, I chant in my head. Emotionally unavailable. The legendary bad temper, nowhere in evidence, doesn’t seem so important.

  “No, Quick isn’t very quick. He’s seven now, but even when he was a puppy he never had much energy,” Keller says. “I took him to the vet to see if he had low blood pressure or an overactive thyroid or something like that but everything checked out okay. I think he’s just a very lazy dog who prefers to stay in one place. Like Nero Wolf, without the mystery-solving capabilities.”

  I don’t know if Nero Wolf is a real character or a fictional one, so I don’t pursue it. Instead I say, “Why Quick then?”

  Hearing his name, the chocolate Lab meanders over to me and leans his body against my leg. I pet his soft fur gently, even though I’m not sure if he’s seeking affection or using me as support.

  “It’s the other kind of Quik—the chocolate drink with the cartoon rabbit. We had two dogs named Pepsi and Sprite while I was growing up. I wanted to keep the beverage thing alive,” he explains, “and Snapple or Shasta just didn’t seem right.”

  “Shasta?”

  “Shasta, Fresca, Tab. I dug deep and tried them all out. He was Yoo-hoo for a few days but that didn’t play well at the dog run. It sounded like I didn’t know my own pet’s name. I could feel the other owners judging me. I think one lady was about to call the ASPCA and report me for doggy abuse.”

  I’m surprised that a man who has done everything possible to alienate the people he works with on a daily basis would care what strangers think. But then again, it’s not like he actually works with us on a daily basis. I scratch Quik’s back and his tail makes a halfhearted sweep. I know I should tell Keller who I am but my moment of resolve is crumbling.

  Emotionally unavailable. Emotionally unavailable.

  “All right, boy,” he says, picking Quik’s leash off the floor and tugging him gently in
the direction of the door. “Come on, one more walk. Let’s go introduce your new friend Kelly to all your other friends at the dog run.” Keller winks at me. “We don’t use d-o-g-w-a-l-k-e-r because I don’t want him to feel abandoned.”

  “All right,” I say, charmed by this logic.

  He hands me the leash. “Here, why don’t you take him? You guys should get to know each other.”

  I take the leash, wrap it around my hand a few times and tug on it authoritatively. I’m trying to look like a professional, but Quik isn’t fooled. He yawns at me with long yellow teeth and leads the way out of the apartment.

  I follow Quik to the elevator and push the button while Keller locks up his apartment. I look at my watch. It’s almost five-thirty and I wonder for the first time when the real Kelly is supposed to show up. I know I should say something but by now there are other factors at work aside from his dimples and biceps. And it’s more than just the stunning embarrassment I’ll feel when I reveal the truth. Quik is involved now. He and I are getting to know each other. I can’t callously abandon him.

  At Seventy-fourth and Broadway, Keller’s apartment is just a block and a half from Riverside park. During the walk over, Quik behaves and makes it look as if I’m leading him, even though it’s really the other way around. For a dog with no energy, he is certainly strong.

  “He gets along with everyone, except Julie Andrews’s walker,” he says as we cross West End Avenue.

  It’s a beautiful mid-August day, the sort summer brides pray for—sunny, warm, breezy and gentle. I breathe deeply and absorb summer. You don’t need a house on Fire Island to enjoy the season.

  “Julie Andrews’s walker?” I ask. I don’t know why I’m surprised. When you live in New York, you are surrounded by celebrities. They stand on street corners with you while the light changes; they wait behind you in line at Balducci’s.

  “Yeah, I don’t know why he doesn’t like this little feller.” He pats Quik on the head affectionately. “From what Adam tells me—Adam is Quik’s previous friend—the guy took an instant dislike to Quik. So don’t be offended if a short troll-like man scurries off in the opposite direction with a poodle. I think he has unresolved issues with his mother.”

  This description fits the Keller of myth so well that I whip my head around and look at him intently. I’m trying to detect some hint, some small indication that he knows who I am, but there is nothing. His green eyes are staring ahead at the tree-lined park.

  “Here we are, boy,” he says to Quik, as we open the first gate of the dog run. The dog’s temperament remains even. It does not quicken with excitement or slacken with dread.

  We are in the fenced-off area but I’m wary of letting Quik go. There are so many dogs running around, so many bouncing, athletic, robust, energetic dogs darting to and fro that I begin to fear for Quik’s safety. Does he really come here every day?

  “The first rule of good parenting,” Keller intones wisely in my ear, “is knowing when to let go.”

  I have never met a man in my dating demo who knows any rules of parenting let alone the first one of good parenting and I stare dumbly at him. Emotionally unavailable, I tell myself. Emotionally unavailable.

  Keller bends down on one knee and unhooks Quik’s leash. Rather than run like a child for the monkey bars, Quik meanders over to a corner in the shade and lies down. Nap time.

  We sit down on a green bench along the fence where other pet owners and dog walkers are sunning themselves and talking. We are upwind and unmolested by the scent of urine.

  “So, do you think you can handle him?” he asks, closing his eyes and turning his face toward the sun. I’m left to marvel at his handsome face with impunity and find myself almost pining for the other Keller, the ogre who roars at villagers for stepping into his swamp.

  I’m silent because I don’t know what to say. Yes, I think I can handle Quik, but even though I hate my job I’m not quite ready for a career change. I’m not quite ready to give everything up, but Keller tempts me very much. He makes me want to quit Fashionista so that I can take his dog to the park every day.

  “Like I said on the phone, you come highly recommended and I trust you implicitly with Quik. I know your schedule is pretty full already and you’re insanely busy, but it would only be three days a week. And you don’t have to take him out for hours and hours.” He laughs. “As you can see, Quik doesn’t do much here that he doesn’t do at home.”

  This is almost true. Quik is lying on his side sleeping but he has company. A collie-golden retriever mix has sidled up next to him. They both look peaceful.

  “I’ll have to check my schedule, of course,” I say evasively, glad that he has given me something to cling to. “I don’t think I’m that busy but I shouldn’t commit until I’m sure.”

  This is the right answer. Keller smiles. “Fair enough.”

  “What happened to Adam?” I ask, in the silence that follows. I know I should fess up now but I don’t want to end this. I’ve never sat in the dog run on a breathtakingly beautiful day with a handsome man who knows the first rule of good parenting. It might never happen again.

  Connecticut Small Talk

  Maya lives in the Future, in a sleek silver thirty-five-story building on the corner of Third Avenue and Thirty-second street. It looks like one of those pictures of the twenty-first century that you used to see, the sort that depicts nuclear families in their polyester jumpsuits enjoying life on Mars. Its Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow quality is what attracted Maya in the first place. Enamored of all things kitsch, she was hooked the second she wandered past it on the way to the movie theater. Other people see the town houses on Bedford or the towers on Central Park West and lose their hearts but not Maya. Maya needs a steel-plated facade, a space-age lobby and the word future spelled out in red letters in that clunky old computer font.

  A one-bedroom in the Future does not come cheap and Maya has had a steady stream of roommates, some better than others, all of whom have lived behind a thin artificial wall that went up as quickly as it will come down. The L-shaped living room lent itself to graceful subdivision and the resulting spaces are not large but certainly comfortable enough to justify the rent.

  Maya lives on the fringe of two neighborhoods. She’s almost Gramercy, not quite Murray Hill. Getting there is a challenge, especially when you’re coming from an apartment on the Upper West Side, and even though she e-mailed me the schedule of construction the MTA is doing on the N and R trains, I’m surprised to find out that they’re not running from Times Square. I arrive at her dinner party a half hour late and with a sad bouquet of dying daffodils in my grip. I meant to bring wine, but when I couldn’t find a liquor store I grabbed a bunch of flowers from a Korean grocer. I considered and dismissed the idea of buying a bottle of twelve-percent merlot at the supermarket. There are worse things than showing up empty-handed.

  Answering the door in oven mitts and her mother’s cast-off apron, Maya welcomes me with an exuberant hello and sends me to her bedroom to drop my backpack. Her bedroom is small and fits only her bed (double) and dresser (makeshift collection of plastic milk crates piled one on top of the other and secured with duct tape). The walls are white, bare and smooth, a pile of paperbacks congregate in a confused crowd at the head of her bed and clothes hang from a metal rod installed on the back of the door to accommodate the overflow from the narrow closet. Next to the bed is a paint-splattered garbage-picked stepladder that serves as a nightstand. A picture of her family—mother, father, brother, other brother, Grandfather Harry—rests next to an alarm clock.

  The disheveled, half-finished, seams-still-showing bedroom is in sharp contrast with the living room, which is unnaturally neat and organized. Maya didn’t just scour estate sales and flea markets for the right blend of Eames and Sears, she internalized a philosophy. The result is a living room that has the disturbing sterile air of an Electrolux commercial. You never touch anything because fingerprints on the Formica are like a reproach: You
really should be wearing white elbow-length gloves.

  I duck my head into the kitchen with offers of assistance, but I’m handed a stack of cloth napkins and sent away to do busywork. Folding napkins and placing them next to plates is not the sort of helpful I want to be, but I content myself with making odd, fanlike creations that resemble abstract swans. Today the card tables are set up on the sleeping side of the Sheetrock wall. Maya’s roommate, a small Indian woman who worked as a pastry chef in one of Manhattan’s finest French restaurants, had recently returned to her home-town in Goa with fifteen hundred dollars of Maya’s money. She’d opened envelopes addressed to Maya, extracted checks and deposited them into her own account. This theft, coming in the wake of two major disappointments—agent and boyfriend—hardly registered on Maya’s radar. Her only complaint was that Vandana had spelled deposit wrong, adding an e at the end.

  “I’m a copyeditor, for God’s sake,” she said. “It offends me on a professional level.”

  This is why she’s having a dinner party tonight. Temporarily free of the constraints of communal living, she wants to revel in the novelty of going to bed with dishes in the sink, of having people over until four in the morning, of leaving three card tables smack-dab in the middle of the room. I can relate to the giddy feeling of temporary freedom. Before my roommate moved out two years ago, I cherished those evenings when I had the place to myself.

  With seven swans swimming on the table, I can distract myself no longer and reluctantly submit to Connecticut small talk in the living room. Maya’s high school friends are pleasant. Sophie, Beth, Tina and Michelle (in descending height order, which is how they always arrange themselves) are pleasant and blond and have politics but the wrong kind and employ the sort of social graces that earn the approval of people like Emily Post and Queen Elizabeth II. They make me uncomfortable. Their conversation is always town and country, and even though I don’t know who these people are, they continue to drop names as if they’re pistachio shells. Mrs. Frothingham-Smythe, no doubt a social scion in Greenwich, doesn’t play well in New York City and anecdotes about her son’s shocking behavior (refusing to join Ashley Bennett in mixed doubles!) don’t carry the same narrative weight. I stifle a yawn and glare at the kitchen door, willing Maya to stick her head out and say she needs help killing the fatted calf.