When I get back up to my apartment, I look around, trying to figure out how I can make it more bearable.
Maybe it would help if I had a real bed, like the one in the window, instead of just an ugly futon sans colorful mattress cover.
But this is only temporary, I remind myself. All of it. The futon and the apartment. I’m not going to live here forever, even if I do stay in New York.
For now, I’m going to keep exercising and stay on my low-fat diet. I’m going to lose weight, and I’m going to save money.
And when Will comes back in September, we’re going to move in together.
I notice that the light is blinking on my answering machine.
My heart leaps….
There’s one message.
Splat goes my acrobatic heart.
It’s not from Will.
It’s from Brenda, telling me she’s got the cabbage soup recipe and that she’ll bring it to work tomorrow.
“Call me if you’re lonely and feel like talking,” she says before hanging up.
I am lonely.
But I don’t feel like talking.
Not to Brenda, who’s about to marry the man of her dreams.
The only person I want to talk to is Will, and I have absolutely no way of getting a hold of him. The very thought makes me panicky. He’s completely out of touch, a world away, and there’s nothing I can do to bring him back into my life, even temporarily.
Now the ball is in his court. He’ll decide when we speak to each other again.
But I’m getting carried away.
Of course it won’t be long before he calls. He promised he would. And he’s bound to miss me, too.
Yeah, but not as much as I miss him.
He’s been gone less than twenty-four hours and already I’ve arrived at the philosophical conclusion that it’s infinitely harder to be the one left behind in the usual place than the one who goes someplace new. That’s because the usual place is full of reminders—full of holes that the other person used to fill. The new place is ostensibly full of fresh experiences to explore, unique details to notice, people to meet.
I try to imagine what it would be like if Will were the one who stayed behind and I were the one who left.
Somehow, I don’t think he would be in my shoes.
The thing is, I can’t see him pining away for me here in New York.
Nor can I envision me sailing glibly off for a new solo adventure without constantly looking over my shoulder.
This is an unsettling realization.
I choose not to dwell on the significance of this insight. Instead, I grab a few dollars and head down to the Food Emporium to pick up some delicious cabbage. An as-yet-untried diet is as much of a new solo adventure as I can handle right now.
CHAPTER NINE
Will has been gone almost one week.
I have lost almost five pounds.
No, I’m serious.
Five pounds.
After bouncing from the protein diet to the fat-free diet to the cabbage-soup diet, I decided to do it the old-fashioned way: by simply eating smaller portions, cutting calories and exercising.
I limit myself to about a thousand calories a day. The strange thing is, I’m not starving. I mean, I occasionally get hungry, but I drink a lot of water. Plus, I guess I’ve been keeping myself too busy to obsess about what I’ll be having for my next meal, the way I usually do.
Twice this week after work, I walked down to the Seaport and back. The other nights I had to stay late at the office to help Jake prepare for a new business presentation. On those nights, I walked the fortysomething blocks home. Not only did I burn calories, but walking saved me subway fare.
Okay, three bucks.
Still, I put the money into an empty Prego jar over the sink. I’m planning to open a savings account as soon as I get enough money that the teller won’t laugh in my face. Three bucks a week isn’t going to add up fast, but I’m hoping Milos will call me to fill in on a catering job at some point. If he doesn’t, maybe I can find weekend work baby-sitting or dog walking or something.
Now it’s Saturday morning, and I’m on a bus to Long Island. Not just any bus—the Hampton Jitney, which I boarded on East Fortieth Street off Lex. It’s billed as a late-model wide-body coach, complete with complimentary beverages, reclining seats and reading lights. For all this, I’ve paid almost fifty bucks round trip.
So much for the savings account.
So much for my vow never to put on a bathing suit.
Kate has been begging me all week to come out to her beach house, and it’s not like I’ve got anything better to do. I’m not anxious to put on the ancient bathing suit I dredged up from the recesses of my sock drawer. But the thought of another weekend day alone in my apartment with The Grapes of Wrath and the silent phone is more than enough incentive to pack the damned one-piece into my overnight bag and splurge on the Jitney.
Will finally called me on Tuesday night and left a message while I was out walking to the Seaport. I was upset when I came home and found that I’d missed his call, even though he said he’d try me again later.
I guess I didn’t believe that he would, but he did. He called at about midnight, when I was nodding off on my futon in front of Late Night with David Letterman.
I muted the volume on the television. But as we talked, I could hear voices in the background on Will’s end. Loud voices. But it didn’t seem to bother Will. In fact, a few times, he interrupted himself to talk to whoever was there—a crowd of his castmates, by the sounds of it.
I tried hard not to let myself be jealous, especially when he covered the mouthpiece at one point to carry on a muffled conversation. As I stared at the television, watching David Letterman silently hand a canned ham to an exuberant balding audience member wearing a turquoise windbreaker, I heard some girl laughing hysterically before Will came back on the line.
“Who was that?” I asked, trying to sound casual.
“It was Esme. She’s a real trip.”
He said it admiringly.
I know it sounds insane, but at that moment I wanted more than anything for him to consider me a real trip, too. I found myself wondering what he had told his castmates about me, his girlfriend back home. I tried to imagine him saying, “Her name is Tracey and she’s a real trip,” but somehow it didn’t seem as flattering as it did when he said it about the enigmatic Esme.
Furthermore, I wanted my name to be mysterious, rare, exotic: Esme. Instead, I’m Tracey because my mother was reportedly a big Partridge Family fan and her favorite character was the youngest daughter, Tracy—the one who played the tambourine and had no lines. What an inspiration, huh? Mom daringly added an “e” to the spelling.
Anyway, as Will and I talked about other things, I found myself mentally conjuring the fun-loving Esme, undoubtedly a confident, willowy brunette with a bawdy sense of humor and a penchant for practical jokes. I wanted to ask him more about her, yet he had mentioned her only in passing, and only because I asked. I didn’t want to come across as a cliché: the jealous, prying, long-distance girlfriend.
Yet that was exactly who I had become.
Will told me that the first show had been cast. It was West Side Story, and he was a Shark.
I could tell he was disappointed he hadn’t gotten a lead, even though he quickly said, “My voice isn’t right for Tony, anyway.”
“Yes, it is!” I protested loyally.
He sounded irritated with me when he pointed out that they would be doing a new show every other week, and theater management had promised that everyone would get a shot at a lead sooner or later.
“Well, when you get your lead, I’ll be in the front row, Will.”
Somehow, I knew from his muttered response that hadn’t been the right thing to say, either.
He seemed distracted, and we didn’t talk for long—he said other people were waiting to use the phone, and that he’d try me back again after the weekend. Opening night is Saturday—toni
ght—and afterward, there’s a cast party. Sunday there’s a matinee and an evening performance. Monday, the theater is dark, just like Broadway, so I’m assuming he’ll call me then.
So here I am on a bright Saturday morning, riding on a glorified bus with other pasty, beach-house-bound Manhattanites. There are plenty of good-looking Wall Street types onboard, and hordes of linen-clad Upper East Side girls in groups and gay men toting shopping bags: bottles of French wine and fresh basil and goat cheese.
I had a grapefruit for breakfast before I left my apartment, but I’m already famished. A stick of sugarless gum doesn’t help in the least. A cigarette would, but I can’t smoke on the bus, so I’ll have to be content with Trident until we reach our destination.
I brought along The Grapes of Wrath, The Great Gatsby and the latest issue of She magazine, courtesy of Raphael. I used to have a subscription, but now that Raphael works there, he gives me every issue for free, so I let my subscription expire.
I find myself opting for She and an interview with Kate Hudson over the tribulations of the Joads. I’ll save their westward journey for my own when I return to Manhattan tomorrow night.
I’ve never been out to Long Island, and as far as I can tell from my occasional glances out the window, it’s one big concrete highway dotted with strip malls and split levels.
But gradually, the view becomes a little more rustic as we pass through the pine barrens, and is downright seafaring by the time the bus pulls into West Hampton at ten-thirty.
Kate is there to meet me, wearing shorts and a cropped T-shirt, the telltale pink straps of her new bikini visible at the wide neckline. She’s accompanied by this guy I’ve never seen before.
She gives me a big hug as though we haven’t seen each other in lo, so many months. But I’ve known Kate long enough by now to know that it’s not fake affection; that’s just her warm, Southern way.
She releases me and motions at the guy. “Tracey, this is Billy. Billy, Tracey.”
Apparently, we’re gong to be on a first-name-only basis, as though we’re new arrivals being introduced on one of those reality TV shows.
Billy smiles at me and says hello, but not in an overly friendly way.
Or maybe it’s just my own insecurity. What do I expect, another big ol’ Kate-style hug?
I wonder who he is, but Kate offers no explanation as we walk through a parking lot.
I light a cigarette, and assume Billy’s a nonsmoker when he looks at me as though I’ve just injected crack cocaine into my vein.
He has on Timberlands without socks, khaki shorts and a rumpled pink Ralph Lauren button-down with the sleeves rolled up and the tail hanging out. Somehow the color doesn’t look the least bit effeminate on him. Even his name manages to be masculine on him. Funny, isn’t it, how “William” would be decidedly faggy, but Billy is somehow rugged.
He obviously works out, and he’s strong, considering the way he effortlessly hoists my bulging, leaden overnight bag over his shoulder.
He’s got sun-streaked blond hair—yes, sun-streaked, in New York, in June—and a healthy-looking tan. Both look natural, but then, so do Kate’s hair and her tan—and her blue eyes. So you never know. As I said before, Kate’s hair is bleached blond and her eyes are tinted blue with contact lenses, and I happen to know that her honey-toned tan came out of an outrageously expensive cosmetic-counter bottle over the past week. She doesn’t believe in exposing her delicate Delacroix skin to the sun.
It turns out Billy has driven Kate to town to meet me, and that he’s one of her roommates. They only met last night, but they seem pretty friendly already.
I learn that Billy lives on the Upper East Side and works on Wall Street. Surprise, surprise.
Leave it to Kate to rent a beach house with a guy who looks like this.
Again, with the TV reality thing, I look at him and imagine a caption superimposed over his onscreen-image: Billy, 24, Commodities Trader, New York.
His car is even more impressive than he is—a black BMW convertible.
As we walk up to it, Billy gives me a look from behind his Ray-Bans. Catching his drift, I hurriedly stub out the cigarette before he can ask me to. As if I’d consider smoking in somebody’s car—even a convertible. I mean, I’m not that gauche.
I feed my food-and-nicotine-deprived self another stick of Trident as Kate offers me the front seat. Of course, I decline.
So here I am, perched in the middle of the back seat, leaning forward like a four-year-old trying to eavesdrop on her parents as we drive through the quaint, traffic-clogged, tree-lined streets of the decidedly upscale old-fashioned town. We head out along a highway past weathered-looking shingled houses perched on stilts in the grassy dunes.
The sky is a deep, clear blue today. So is the water in the distance. And so, I’d be willing to bet, are Billy’s eyes behind those movie-star sunglasses of his.
The radio is blasting and Kate and Billy are chattering away in the front seat, and the warm wind is whipping so that every time I open my mouth to make a comment, my hair flies into my gum. I want to chuck the gum overboard, but somehow I know Billy wouldn’t approve if he caught me.
Finally, we’re turning down a narrow, sandy lane and pulling up in front of a boxy, modern, shingled two-story house set high off the ground. Rather, we’re pulling up in back of the house; Kate quickly points out that the front of it faces the water. That explains the no-frills look of things from this angle. Knowing what she’s paying for a half share in this place, I expected something far more extravagant.
Billy politely carries my bag up the flight of steps and deposits it just inside the door, then turns and informs us that he’ll see us later.
“Where’s he going?” I ask Kate, hearing his car start up outside momentarily.
“I have no idea.” She sounds disappointed, and I realize she’s into him.
This shouldn’t be news to me. He’s just Kate’s type—a rich, good-looking WASP.
Kate admits freely that she’s not living in Manhattan to launch a serious career or even to soak up culture—even though she majored in art at the University of Alabama. She’s hoping to land a certain kind of husband. A Billy kind of husband.
That’s why she continues to work as an office temp—the better to meet a Wall Street guy. She sure doesn’t need the piddling salary, since her parents pay her rent and all her expenses, and deposit “pocket money” into her account weekly.
I’ve seen pictures of their house back in Mobile, and it looks like Tara in Gone With The Wind. Swear-to-God, it’s one of those big old Southern plantations with white pillars and a circular drive and towering moss-draped trees.
Kate has two older sisters, both of whom apparently live in Mobile plantation houses of their own with their wealthy fellow-Alabaman husbands.
But Kate says she’s never been attracted to Southern men. Her college boyfriend was a New Yorker, and he apparently gave her a taste of the Manhattan society life she craves.
Knowing Kate, I guess I was expecting more of this house in the Hamptons—maybe china and crystal and chandeliers.
Now I look around the big combination kitchen-living room we’re standing in, taken aback by the lack of elegance.
The furniture is strictly functional, all of it as beige and rectangular as the house itself. The place seems to be empty, but there is evidence of its inhabitants.
Snapple bottles and today’s Times litter the coffee table.
A fragrant half-full pot of coffee sits on the countertop.
Several pairs of shoes are scattered on a mat by the door.
A stereo is playing in the background…hip-hop music—not my favorite.
At the far end of the room there are sliding glass doors leading out to a wide wooden deck. Beyond that are the dunes and, presumably, the beach.
“So what do you think?” Kate asks expectantly.
“It’s nice.”
“Not the house,” she says, as though I should’ve known. “Billy.”<
br />
“Oh, Billy. He’s nice.”
Her disappointed, expectant expression says, Is that all? So I try to come up with a new adjective. Something other than arrogant.
“Cute, too.” I am nothing if not articulate. “Very cute.”
“Yeah, he is cute,” Kate agrees readily.
“What’s up with you and him?”
“How did you know something is up with us?”
“Because I’m psychic, why else?”
She smirks.
“So what’s happening with you guys, Kate?”
“We hooked up last night. We all went out to this club, and…well, you know. Not that there was any privacy when we got back here. We’re all three to a bedroom, and there are twelve people staying here—thirteen, including you. So, you know, things didn’t really…advance,” she says demurely.
“Meaning, you didn’t have sex.”
“Of course not! I just met him, Tracey.” Her Southern accent is more pronounced than usual, which is what always happens when she’s doing her best to act offended and ladylike.
I happen to know she bedded her last fling—a Boston blueblood visiting New York en route to grad school on the West Coast—the night she met him at a happy hour at some wine bar in the East Forties.
But hey, if she’s in the mood to reclaim her virtue, who am I to burst her bubble?
“How do you like it out here?” I ask her as she shows me the way up a flight of stairs and down a hall to the room we’ll be sharing with two other women. I’m dragging my bag up step by step. Thump, thump, thump. It weighs a ton.
“I love it out here. It’s great,” Kate says, and stops to look down over her shoulder at me. “What do you have in there? Bricks?”
“Just some shorts and a bathing suit,” I tell her innocently.
Actually, I also brought several potential outfits for tonight, not knowing what people wear to clubs in the Hamptons and hoping skimpy isn’t in. I don’t do skimpy.
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