Dumping Billy (13 page)

He held out his hand, and Kate couldn’t resist shaking it. She tried to appear casual, despite the thrill that ran up her back, causing hairs on her neck to rise. “Do you prefer Billy to Bill?” she asked.

“Hey. We’re in Brooklyn,” he answered. “Go with the flow. Here I’m Billy Nolan. And should I call you Dr. Katherine? Kate? Kathy or Katie?”

“Oh, please, Kate. Not Katie. I hate it,” Kate confessed. “Oh, look, they must be playing their song.”

To her complete surprise, Billy stood up, grabbed her hand, and started to dance. Before she could make a move, he stopped abruptly. “‘Doo Wah Diddy’ is their song?” He made a face, looking puzzled in a really exaggerated way, his head cocked to the side.

Kate laughed. “Well, maybe not.”

“I hope not. If it is, I give the marriage three weeks. You have to at least
start
with some romance.”

She bet he did—and that for him romance wore off fast. Kate looked him over. The sun glinted on his golden hair. He was one of those very few lucky Irish with the kind of skin that tanned and made their blue eyes bluer. “So you don’t think you can keep romance going?” Kate asked him.

“If I thought that, I’d be married.” Billy Nolan laughed, and from nowhere the phrase
coup de foudre,
a lightning bolt, entered Kate’s mind. He was something—and he knew it, she reminded herself.

“Ah. The tyranny of commitment,” Kate said, nodding.

Billy reacted with widened eyes. Then he clutched at his chest. “Now they’re doing the hokey-pokey!” he said, as if that upset him.

“So unusual at a Brooklyn wedding,” Kate agreed a bit sarcastically. They always played the hokey-pokey or the alley cat or both. She looked in the window, where dozens of old ladies were dancing, their backs to them. “We definitely won’t be able to get their attention now.”

“Uh-oh. I think I’m in trouble,” Billy said, and began to shake. Kate wondered if he was still reacting to the word
commitment.
“Good thing you’re a doctor,” he said.

Kate looked at him suspiciously. “Why is that?”

“I may need treatment right now. I have a terrible phobia of the hokey-pokey.”

“Really?” Kate said. She didn’t need this kind of banter now, but as long as they were stuck outside . . . “As I say in my practice, ‘Why do you feel that way?’”

“It seems obvious,” Billy told her. “Did you ever think about it?”

“About what?”

“About the song? I mean, ‘You put your left foot in, you take your left foot out.’ Yadda, yadda. You do the hokey-pokey and you turn yourself around. And that’s what it’s all about.” He did an exaggerated shiver.

“So?”

“Well, what if that
is
what it’s all about? What if life is just putting one foot in front of the other and that’s it? Doesn’t the thought terrify you?”

Before Kate could decide how tongue in cheek he was being and come up with an answer, the doors at the other end of the terrace flew open and a big guy in a wrinkled blue suit stuck his head out. “Hey, Nolan!” he shouted. “Get your ass in here. Arnie wants to talk to you about the toast.”

Before he vanished again, Billy shouted: “Larry! Hold that thought and that door!” He gracefully ran the length of the terrace, catching the handle just in time. Then he turned back to Kate, held the door ajar, and said, “After you,
chère mademoiselle.
”

Kate felt her cheeks color again but wasted no time stepping through the doors and into the crowded room. She was about to thank Billy when she heard Bev Clemenza’s high-pitched voice screech, “Katie! Katie! Over here,” and didn’t dare look back.

Chapter Thirteen

A
s Kate crossed the room toward her posse, she almost felt a gravitational pull back toward Billy Nolan. She was deeply embarrassed by the strength of her attraction and decided to put it out of her mind. He was just a superficial Brooklyn flirt. And she had an important job to do now.

“Katie!” Bev called again. Kate didn’t want to see how terrified Bina was going to be. Though it wasn’t her choice, she bitterly regretted that she hadn’t been beside Bina during the first few critical minutes. As she moved through the crowd—now twisting again as they did last summer, or at the last wedding—she silently cursed Billy Nolan and the time on the terrace, diverting as it had been.

At last she managed to get across the dance floor and could clearly see table nine. Luckily, Bina was still somewhere in the crowd and Elliot had apparently abandoned the table for greater intrigues. There was Bev, her frosted hair slicked back and her visibly pregnant belly stretching her unsuitable Lycra dress. Barbie, with her big hair hanging halfway down her back, was already seated, too. Barbie’s dad, in the jewelry trade, had been more successful than the other friends’ fathers had been. She’d always had more clothes, trips to Florida, weekends in the Poconos, and things that seemed enviable at the time. But now she was a Brooklyn wife, a buyer for a women’s clothing store on Nostrand Avenue. Her husband, Bobby, was in insurance. Kate could look at her now and feel no envy at all.

Barbie sat beside Bobby, her plunging neckline revealing the half of her breasts not covered by her push-up bra. Kate averted her eyes, but the husbands were, in their own way, more difficult to look at. If each of them hadn’t been wearing a bow tie and cummerbund that matched his wife’s dress, Kate wouldn’t have been able to tell Bev’s and Barbie’s husbands apart. They were nice-looking Brooklyn boys, but neither of them was the kind of handsome that Billy Nolan was. And behind their eyes was none of the genuine intellect that Michael possessed. The thought of Michael trying to communicate at table nine raised goose bumps on her arms. “Hey,” Bev yelled. “Look who’s here.”

For a moment Kate thought she was being greeted, but Bev was staring past her. Kate turned to see Billy Nolan join the wedding party at the head table, talking to the groom. Bunny looked down from the dais and gave Kate a quick wave and a big, proud smile, while taking Arnie’s arm. Kate waved back, but her eyes strayed to Billy, talking earnestly to the groom, then laughing with him. Well, there would be no laughs at table nine, Kate reminded herself. She forced herself to turn back to her own companions.

“Wow, Kate, you look great!” Bev said. “Of course, you’re a Scorpio and your ruling planet has come out this month, so no wonder.”

“Yeah, there’s that. And the sale at agnes b.,” Kate said with a smile. Kate’s simple dress, sleeveless and high collared, with a placket that covered the buttons, was the antithesis of all the overdone outfits of her old friends. If she but knew it, she easily looked the most elegant woman in the room. It was always curious to Kate that while her Brooklyn crew never missed an issue of
Vogue, Allure,
or
Cosmo,
they never seemed to dress any differently from the way they always had. Or if there had been a change, it seemed merely to be that blouses had gotten tighter and patterns had gotten louder. Bev, despite her belly, was wearing a black-and-lemon tiger-striped Lycra thing. Barbie wore a tight, strapless dress in a Hawaiian floral print, all banana leaves and toucans wreathing (and writhing) around her torso. Kate could never quite decide if their taste was unbelievably bad or whether hers had been permanently repressed by the nuns at Catholic first school.

“You could use some accessorizing,” Barbie opined by way of a hello. “A scarf, or maybe a pendant.” Barbie herself was wearing an emerald—no doubt real—that was suspended just above her cleavage.

“I have to wait until I get the chest and the gem for it,” Kate said smoothly.

“You are so cynical,” Bev snorted. “Such a Scorpio.” Since she had become pregnant, Bev, always a horoscope reader, had
really
gotten into astrology. Hormones or something, Kate thought. Or perhaps the feeling of being out of control and the comforting compensation of a system to predict the universe. Kate turned to face the wedding hall again, to try to spot Bina and the guys. She was getting nervous about them. At last she saw Elliot making his way across the room. He arrived carrying three drinks.

“For you, and you, and you,” he said, and gave each of the women a cosmopolitan.

“Ooh. Thanks,” Bev said, “but I can’t.”

“What a gentleman,” Barbie said appreciatively, then dug Bobby in the ribs.

“This is my friend Elliot.” Kate took Elliot’s arm.

“We’ve already met,” Elliot said. Kate raised her eyebrows. “Out in the reception area. Your friends are as unique as you are, Katie.”

“Oh, we’re very unique,” Bev said.

“Where’s Bina?” Kate asked Elliot out of the corner of her mouth. She scanned the room and saw Brice and Bina making their way toward the table.

Bev tugged on Kate’s elbow. “Hey, that guy with Bina, is he her date or what?”

Barbie raised her highly waxed eyebrows. “I love the tuxedo,” she cooed. “Armani.”

Kate had to smile. If Judaism was a religion to Bina, fashion had always been Barbie’s creed. And Kate remembered that Brice had predicted the impression he would make.

“But do you think Jack would approve?” Barbie asked. “I mean, he’s gone only a couple of weeks and she’s . . . Does he know?”

Kate shrugged. Let ’em guess. Keep ’em busy and distracted.

“His name is Brite or something,” Bev said, rubbing her belly.

“Brice,” Kate corrected.

“So, what’s this guy Brice’s sign, anyway?” Bev asked.

“I think he’s a Taurus, you’ll have to ask him,” Elliot said, holding out a chair for Kate, who was grateful to sit down. It was going to be a bumpy ride.

“Oh, Katie, a Taurus! Not for Bina!” Bev complained. “Dangerous while her fiancé is gone.”

“Oh, he’s a dangerous man,” Elliot agreed.

“Is he on the cusp?” Bev added, hopeful.

Kate didn’t need or want to explain that Brice was way over the cusp as a mate for Bina. “I think they’re just friends,” she said.

“That’s not what it looks like to me,” Barbie said as she joined Kate on her other side. “And he’s
gorgeous.
Like a
GQ
model. He’d be perfect for my cousin Judy. What does he do?”

“He’s an attorney,” Kate told Barbie.

“In a big firm or a solo practitioner?” Barbie asked.

“You’ll have to ask him.” Kate sighed. Same old Barbie. Putting everyone in boxes, fixing them up with one another. She turned to watch Brice and Bina, who were caught in the electric slide on the dance floor. She couldn’t help but smile a little at Brice’s artful moves as he sidestepped between the slides, dragging Bina behind.

“What happened to Michael?” Bev asked. “Is that all over?” Except Bev pronounced it “ohvah.” They all dropped final r’s and added inappropriate ones at the ends of words that didn’t have them.

But Kate didn’t have time to consider diction, because at that moment Bina and Brice arrived at the table. Bina said, “Hi there, everyone,” and sat down immediately without making eye contact. In fact, the only contact she seemed interested in was grabbing what would have been Jack’s waiting glass of wine with her right hand and pinning down Kate’s hand with her left. To Kate’s astonishment, she knocked back an entire glass.

“Hello,” Barbie said, but not to Bina. She leaned over the table and extended her hand to Brice while exposing more breast than most foldouts did and a lot more than Brice needed or wanted to see. Well, maybe she was trying to scoop him for her cousin, Kate thought charitably.

Meanwhile, Bina picked up Kate’s wineglass and drank off half of that. Before Kate could say something to slow her down, eagle-eyed Bev noticed. “Since when do you drink? Capricorns don’t drink!” she cried.

“Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose,”
Kate said, surprising herself. Obviously her encounter on the terrace had had an effect after all.

“What?” Barbie and Bev asked in unison. Kate just smiled and shrugged.

“Bobby, Johnny, this is my friend Elliot, and this is Bina’s friend Brice,” Kate said to the men, interrupting a deep conversation about the pros and cons of moving some football team to Dallas. “Elliot, Brice, meet Bobby and Johnny.” The husbands nodded a greeting in unison.

“What do you boys think of them moving the Rangers to Dallas?” Bobby asked.

“I’m not really into spectator sports,” Elliot said.

“Oh, I love football. Tight ends, wide receivers.
You
know,” Brice said, smiling at them.

For a moment, the two husbands looked confused. “You a Jets or a Giants fan?” Johnny asked, a little suspicion in his voice.

“Definitely a Giant. Love a ‘Giant’—”

“Brice!” Elliot said, trying to interrupt.

“—game,” Brice finished, and Kate let her breath out.

Bev and Barbie, now also totally confused, stared across the table and looked the two men over more carefully. Kate knew they were setting them up as potential husbands for their two poor, unmarried friends. Ha! When should she thwart them by breaking the news that Elliot and Brice were already married—to each other. But, as Kate hoped, they were at least temporarily distracted by their looks. Well, the delusion would do for now.

“What’s your sign?” Bev asked Brice.

“‘Do Not Enter,’” Brice replied, raising his eyebrows and smiling innocently.

Elliot, always ready with a peacemaking lie, smiled at Bev. “Oh, he’s a bull,” he said, and gave Kate a nudge under the table, as if she wouldn’t get the joke without it. On the other side, Bina was still clutching Kate’s right hand with her own.

“Hmm. A Taurus,” Bev murmured, reappraising him.

Meanwhile, Bina reached out and picked up the cosmopolitan Bev had refused. In another moment she’d gulped it down.

“Bina!” Barbie exclaimed. “What are you doing?”

“Yeah, you have to pace yourself,” Bobby advised.

Brice nudged his chair closer to Bina and took away her empty glass. They had created a Bina sandwich, insulating her from her friends. Bina reached out for Brice’s glass of wine. He paused for a moment, then shrugged and handed it to her. She downed it in a few breathless gulps. Bev and Barbie stared at Bina. Kate could see Barbie reevaluating Brice as a candidate for Judy.

There was a moment of complete silence. Then Barbie asked the dreaded question. “Bina, you have to tell us about Jack’s proposal. Let’s see the ring.” Kate clenched Bina’s hand and tried to change the subject.