Dumping Billy (19 page)

“Do you think I should set fire to your hair gel?” Kate asked. The thought of Bina seeing this grinning ass literally made her sick to her stomach. When she’d found out Steven had been cheating on her, she’d been so distraught that she couldn’t get out of bed for three days. Bina would just collapse.

Unconsciously, Max smoothed down his wavy hair. “I didn’t think so, either,” he said. “But, you know, I feel responsible for this. I introduced them and all. . . .”

Kate felt her irritation melt away. She had always thought of him as a stereotype, a kind of Wall Street/jock/yuppie clone. When he’d had girlfriends for any length of time, he hadn’t seemed particularly committed or passionate. Now, however, his concern seemed genuine and moving. She began to feel a new warmth toward him and a little guilt over how she may have misjudged him.

“I know Jack, and he is a one-woman guy.” He shook his head. “I saw Bina. I know what this has done to her, and I told her that he was just talk. I mean, who would think Jack . . .” Max stared at the picture displayed on the screen. Kate could feel him getting lost in it for a moment. “She is very pretty,” he murmured.

“Well, I hope they’re very happy together,” Kate said tartly. “I’m sure they share common goals and interests.”

“Hey, he isn’t married!” Max protested. “Even Jack isn’t that stupid.”

“How do you know?” Kate asked.

“Read the e-mail,” Max said, and displayed the message from Jack.

What a place! The views are incredible, electronics are cheap, and the women are incredible and cheap. You gotta come! Money is king here, and the dollar rules.

Kate didn’t bother to read any more. “He is disgusting,” she said. She turned away and started to walk out of the apartment.

“So you don’t think I should show this to Bina? Right?”

“Right, Einstein,” Kate said, and ran down the stairs to her own place. As she walked in her door, the phone began to ring. She grabbed it and saw Elliot’s number on the caller ID. “Shoot me in the head,” she said into the receiver.

“And a good evening to you, too,” Elliot said. “I didn’t catch you during dinner, I hope, but Brice and I are getting together with Bina on Saturday morning for the big renovation. Are you in?”

Kate hesitated for a moment, torn between the news from upstairs and her disapproval of the whole scheme. Wasn’t a makeover a kind of lie not much different from little Jennifer’s stories? It was a visual way of saying you were someone different. But Jack’s e-mail had shocked her. “I’m in,” she said.

It was only after she hung up that she realized her commitment would mean canceling Michael. They spent every Friday night together and each Saturday. After Steven’s unreliability, Kate appreciated the fact that Michael saw her every Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday night. During the week, they usually went to a movie and stayed at her house afterward. They alternated places on the weekends.

Perhaps Michael was a little too routinized, because he always seemed upset when she had to change their schedule and apologetic when he—rare though it was—had to do the same. Well, Kate would regret the pleasant, leisurely Saturday they would lose, but perhaps she could persuade him to work while she was off with her friends instead of on his usual Sunday night. She picked up the phone again and, feeling uneasy, dialed Michael’s number.

Chapter Nineteen

T
wo days later, the Bitches, accompanied by Brice and Elliot, were walking down Fifth Avenue. They had all insisted on being a part of Bina’s makeover.

“All I can say is it’s about time,” Barbie said. “You’re starting to look like an Orthodox Jew.”

“It’s the hair,” Brice agreed. “It looks like a bad wig.”

“Brice!” Elliot warned before Kate could.

“The truth hurts,” Bev said, patting Bina’s arm and then her own tummy.

“I think I need to, uh, go to the bathroom,” Bina said. “I’m so nervous. Jack liked my hair.”

“Not enough,” Barbie said.

“Don’t worry. They have a ladies’ room at Louis,” Brice told her, and took her into a marble lobby. Kate shook her head. The whole crew knew she disapproved, but they ignored her except Brice, who turned to her and said, “You know, while we’re here Pierre can cut your hair, too.”

“I don’t think so,” Kate snapped. She loved her hair long. So had Steven, and so did Michael. It was sexy and easy to put up if she had to. Now, completely offended, she joined the party as they got onto the elevator to go up to the fourteenth-floor salon overlooking St. Patrick’s Cathedral.

“Wow!” Bina said as she stared out at the skyline. “It looks almost as good as Epcot.” Kate rolled her eyes.

Brice didn’t bother with the view. “Pierre, please,” he told the woman at the desk. “Tell him it’s Brice and we have a cut with him and a consultation with Louis.” Bev, Barbie, and Bunny looked at one another, obviously impressed. All those years of reading
Allure
magazine had familiarized them with Louis Licari, the god of hair color. And Brice had just called him by his first name. “Now c’mon. I think we can do everything your head needs here,” he instructed Bina as he clutched her hand and escorted her to the stylist’s chair.

“Except get it examined,” Kate muttered. She looked over to Elliot, but he just shrugged. Barbie, Bunny, and Bev were right behind them. Kate was delighted that Bina was getting so much help and attention. It was just what she needed at a time like this. But, oddly, she also felt a bit of envy. She had never asked for help when her crisis with Steven had taken place, not that the Bitches would have been much help.

Bina spent four hours at the salon. While they were there, Barbie got a good cut, Bev had a facial, and Bunny got a massage—as a belated wedding present from Brice and Elliot. Kate merely had a manicure and didn’t even care for the color she’d selected. But it was Bina who was transformed. Her hair had been lightened a bit around her face, and then streaks of ash blond made the dark brown of her natural color glow. Kate was stunned by the subtle artistry of it. The style, a chin-length, undercut masterpiece, made it seem as if Bina had a head of moving light, a kind of nimbus of hair. Even Kate had to admit the transformation was remarkable.

“Holy haircut, Batman,” was all Elliot said as he looked up from the papers he was marking. Bina giggled and shook her head from side to side. The nimbus moved like a saintly glow in a chapel. The receptionist and two cashiers oohed and aahed, as they were paid to do. Barbie, Bev, and Bunny kept cooing like demented pigeons. For an insane moment, Kate wondered if she should get her own head shorn. Maybe a haircut, a few highlights, and a makeup makeover would . . . She took a deep breath. Then she got a grip.

“Okay,” Brice said. “We did the drapes. Now on to the upholstery.” He looked at Bina’s outfit, an old Gap blouse and a charity skirt. “First stop, Prada!” he called, and the entire group headed outside and into two taxis.

Before Bina even had a chance to take note of the ambience or the price tags, she was standing in front of a three-way mirror while a saleslady pinned up the hemline on a skirt that, in Kate’s opinion, was already far too short and far too tight. It draped to one side, exposing a thigh. “Do you really think this is
me?
” Bina asked the admiring group.

Barbie backed away from Bina and gave her an approving once-over. Kate remembered squirming under those looks back in tenth grade. Barbie liked what she saw. “Isn’t it nice to wear something red? It’s the new beige, you know,” she confided.

Kate didn’t have a clue as to what that meant, but she thought that Bina looked ridiculous. But that didn’t stop them from buying the skirt and moving on to Victoria’s Secret. Brice picked up a Wonderbra and then handed it to Bina.

“Here you go, honey,” he said. “Every girl needs a little support.”

“Don’t forget this.” Bunny handed her a lacy black thong.

Bina looked down at the bra and dental floss in her hand. “I’m not wearing these.” She lifted up the thong and held it two ways. “I . . . I don’t even know how to wear this,” she admitted. “Besides, I’m not sleeping with him. My underwear isn’t relevant.” She looked at Elliot. “The charts didn’t say I had to have sex with him, did they? Because I’m not doing that.”

“Honey, it’s not about having sex, it’s about feeling sexy,” Brice said. “And if you feel sexy, you’ll look sexy to others. Right, Elliot?”

“I plead the Fifth,” Elliot responded.

“Bina, you’re a Capricorn,” said Bev, “and trust me, they need all the help they can get when it comes to attracting men. See what it does for you.”

Bina disappeared into the dressing room and came out with her eyes and breasts bulging. She’d put her blouse on to step out of the dressing room, but she hadn’t buttoned the top two buttons. Barbie leaned forward and unbuttoned the third. “Now, that’s a nice rack,” she said.

Bina stared at herself in the mirror. Then she turned to Kate. “I wish Jack could see me now,” she said. Kate’s breasts, unexposed, felt a stab of sympathy for her friend. Cheerful little Bina, a cupcake of a girl, now looked more like a Pop-Tarts pastry and still she thought only of Jack. She was doing all of this because of him, and Kate honestly couldn’t decide if it was an act of self-mutilation or love. She doubted that any of this would make a man like Billy Nolan want Bina. After all, she was still “Bina, the good girl from Ocean Avenue.” At least, she decided, it gave Bina something else to concentrate on, and who knew? Looking like a hot tamale, she might meet someone else. One thing Kate did know was that while she could go on without Michael and even without marriage to anyone, Bina always had only one goal: marriage and children, preferably to and by Jack.

“Hey. Turn around,” Bev said. “Let’s see if there’s a panty line.”

“How can there be?” Bina asked. “There’s hardly any panty.” She turned as directed. “This is so uncomfortable,” she said.

“Beauty has to hurt,” Bunny told her.

At Tootsie Plohound, Bina once again followed Barbie’s directives and bought her first pair of serious “fuck me” sandals.

“You need a low-cut top,” Bev said, taking inventory of their progress to date. “I mean, you’ve got ’em, and you’ve lifted ’em, might as well show ’em. And you’ve always had a small waist, so we should find something tight.” She looked down at her own stomach. The Lycra she was wearing couldn’t be any tighter without crushing the fetus, Kate thought.

“Yes, that would complete the outfit,” Brice agreed.

As the seven of them walked down the busy West Broadway sidewalk, Kate had to marvel at how seamlessly Elliot and Brice seemed to join in with her Brooklyn friends. She’d avoided this for years and never introduced Bina and the others to Rita, her friend from graduate school, or Maggie, a choreographer she’d met in her exercise class. Somehow she hadn’t thought a mix like that would work as smoothly, and she suspected it was because Brice and Elliot were observing all this as they participated.

But while everyone else seemed to be enjoying themselves, Kate was feeling distinctly uncomfortable. She had worked diligently for as long as she could remember to change her style, her look, her vocabulary . . . well, almost everything that she had believed didn’t reflect who she was or wanted to be. She thought she had succeeded in creating a unique persona. Hers, she felt was valid. Now, watching Bina’s instant transformation, she wondered if it wasn’t valid as well, even if it had been overseen by others. After all, Kate had made all of the changes to herself based, in part, on what others—even if they were people in magazines or strangers she’d observed in Manhattan—had shown her.

As Elliot led the way to hail yet another pair of cabs, Brice took stock. “Give me half an hour in Make Up For Ever and I’ll have you looking like a queen,” he promised.

A look of horror came over Bina’s face. “I’m not changing my makeup,” she protested as the cab pulled out into the traffic.

“You have to
wear
makeup if you want to
change
makeup,” Bunny said sharply. She reached into her purse and pulled out a lipstick tube. “Just try a little of this.”

“Oh, leave her alone!” Kate begged. She wondered what all the criticism and change was doing to Bina’s self-esteem. But Bina took the tube and applied it. It was awful—it made her look like Mrs. Horowitz at a funeral.

“I don’t think red is her color,” Kate objected, and then realized she had now added to the critique.

“I agree with you there,” Brice said from the front seat beside the driver. He handed Bina a tissue. “I see you more in a sizzling salmon.”

By the time they were ready to head home, Bina had charged more on her credit cards in one day than she ordinarily spent in three months. Kate was exhausted but happy to see that Bina finally seemed to be enjoying herself, even if it was over silly things and a harebrained scheme. It was the first day she had paid more attention to herself than Jack since he’d left. Elliot helped Bev waddle up the steps of Kate’s building.

“A fashion show!” Brice demanded once they were inside. Barbie, Bunny, and Bev added their chorus, and so did Kate, a little reluctantly. Having all of them in her living room felt not just crowded but claustrophobic. It was a clash of cultures and sexual orientation in the tiny space that was, in a way, sacred to her. But Kate was the only one who seemed disoriented. Bev had her feet up, her hands over her belly, Barbie sat primly in the rocker, Bunny stood in front of the fireplace, glancing every so often at her honeymoon tan in the mirror that hung over the mantel, and Brice was busy going through the bags, while Elliot just sat back on the sofa, smiling to himself.

Bina took the shopping bags into Kate’s bedroom and, a few minutes later, returned completely transformed. There was a moment of silence. Kate was shocked. In a single day, Bina had changed literally from head to toe, and she could barely recognize the hot little number pirouetting in front of them. She thought of Billy Nolan and the look he had given her out on the terrace. Would a man who had approved of her style and looks want a woman arrayed the way Bina was?

“Wow! You look great!” Bev said, breaking the silence.