Dumping Billy (7 page)

“I won’t,” she assured him, but a nagging voice at the back of her mind wondered about that. Despite all her professional training and the analysis she herself had been required to undergo, she still sometimes felt that much of what she did was a reaction to the desperate childhood she’d had.

Elliot shrugged, turned around quickly in order to pick up the tray of coffee cups, and knocked over Kate’s purse, which had been sitting on the counter.

“There goes my cell phone,” Kate said.

“Is it the Havilland?” Brice called from the living room.

“No. It’s the Melmac,” Elliot yelled. “He’s obsessed with the damn stuff,” he told her.

Then he knelt to pick up Kate’s handbag and all the objects that had scattered over the floor. “I’m so sorry. I think I broke your makeup mirror.”

“Uh-oh. It was a magnifying one. So do I have fourteen years of bad luck, or just seven years of more intense bad luck?”

“Stop it, Kate. I’m a statistician, a mathematician, not a superstitious bumpkin.”

“But you talk about magic . . .”

“Not Harry Potter magic. Not superstitious nonsense. I’m talking about magic between two people.”

“Need any help?” Brice called. “We’re waiting out here.”

“No, dear,” Elliot responded. He handed Kate her purse. Kate, kneeling beside him, picked up the rest of her items and threw them in. “Hey, what’s this?” Elliot asked. Kate looked up. He was waving an envelope in the air.

“It’s an invite to Bunny’s wedding.” Kate sighed.

“Bunny of the Bitches of Bushwick is getting married?” Elliot asked. “When did this happen? You never tell me anything.”

“Hey, I got it today. And you’re on a need-to-know basis.” Kate stood up. “Can you believe it? She was just dumped by a guy a month ago. I don’t know where this came from.”

“Brooklyn. And on the rebound,” Elliot said. “Can I go? Please, can I go?”

“No,” Kate replied. “See, this is another valid reason why I shouldn’t break up with Michael. With Bina getting engaged and now this, I have to go with someone viable.”

“But Michael is so—”

Elliot didn’t get a chance to finish his critique. Suddenly there was a loud and frantic pounding at the front door of the apartment. “What in the world . . . ?”

The two of them hurried into the living room just as Brice was striding to the door. He turned back to look at Elliot, who shrugged. Brice opened the door. A woman, her hair wild, her face covered by her hands, threw herself into the room, sobbing uncontrollably. Everyone stood in silent amazement, and Brice actually took two steps back. It was only after a moment or two that Kate saw the woman’s fingernails and realized, with a horrible shudder, that she had a French manicure.

“Bina!” she gasped. “Oh, Bina! What’s happened to you?”

Chapter Seven

B
ina looked around her wildly. “Katie! Omigod. Oh, Katie!” Then she threw herself onto the sofa and heaved with sobs. Kate stepped forward and put her hand gently on Bina’s shoulder. Could she have been raped? Had someone mugged her? Her clothes were such a mess and her hair was so disheveled that for a moment, Kate thought only of physical calamities.

Elliot stood looking down at the weeping woman on his couch. “It’s Bina?” he whispered. “This is the famous Bina?”

Kate ignored him. “Bina? Bina dear, what’s happened?”

Bina shook her head violently. Kate sat and put her arms around her sobbing friend. “Shhh,” she crooned, stroking Bina’s hair. All the times Kate had witnessed Bina’s hysterical outbursts over the years, at sleepovers and parties, flashed through her mind. It was a familiar sensation, kneeling with her arms around Bina. Then she looked up and remembered that they had an audience—and that this drama was playing out in Manhattan on a borrowed sofa. She hoped the whole thing wasn’t as bad as it seemed. Then a new thought occurred to her. “Bina, how did you find me here?”

“Max,” Bina said, struggling with her tears. “He heard me crying in the hall and told me where you were.” She took a gulping breath and burst into tears again. Elliot and Brice drew closer to the couch, like rubberneckers, while Michael had withdrawn to a spot behind the dining table. Kate couldn’t help but think that she was watching them all react in predictably typical fashion for men: Michael, the straight male, retreated in the face of emotional turmoil, while Elliot and Brice jumped right in.

She looked back at her friend. “Bina, what’s happened?” she asked again.

“Choked,” Bina wailed as fresh tears streamed from her eyes.

“Are you choking?” Kate asked, confused.

“I can do the Heimlich. Does she need the Heimlich?” Brice asked a bit too hopefully.

Bina, still sobbing, violently shook her head no.

Kate took Bina’s hands in her own and spoke to her firmly but gently. “Who choked? Who’s choking, Bina?” She turned to Elliot. “Would you please get her a glass of water?”

Elliot, turning to Brice, repeated the request. “Brice, get her a glass of water. This is better than
One Life to Live.
”

Brice didn’t budge. “
One Life to Live?
This is better than
The Young and the Restless.
” He turned to Michael, still in the corner behind the table. “Put down the linen,” Brice told him. “You get the water.”

Michael seemed all too happy to leave the scene, and he disappeared into the kitchen. Bina gave another wail.

“Bina, you have to calm down,” Kate said. “And you have to tell us what’s wrong.” Bina took some trembling breaths and got the sobbing under control. It occurred to Kate that she might have had an accident; maybe she was ill. “Does something hurt?” she asked.

Bina nodded.

“Do you need a doctor?” Kate continued.

Bina nodded more vigorously. “Yes. Jewish and unmarried. The kind who likes my type and who’s looking for a serious commitment.” She broke out into sobs again.

Elliot and Brice moved even closer to the circle. “Uh-oh,” Elliot said. “Kate, check out her hand.” He and Brice exchanged meaningful looks.

Kate, not quite understanding, thought of their manicure that afternoon. “Bina, have you hurt your hands?” She looked down at Bina’s hands but didn’t see anything more alarming than the French manicure.

“Not her right hand, Kate,” said Brice. “Her
left
hand. Second finger from the pinkie.”

Kate finally understood. She wrapped her arms around Bina and said, “Oh, my God. Jack . . .”

“Jack choked,” Bina told her. “He had the ring in his breast pocket. I could see the bulge the box made.” She began to cry again. “Oh, Katie! Instead of asking me to marry him, he asked if we could spend this time apart . . . exploring our singleness.”

“That son of a bitch!” Kate, who thought that she understood enough about people and their motivations to be surprised at nothing, was shocked. While Jack had finished school and moved into corporate life, Bina had waited, worked, and collected every issue of
Bride.
She’d watched as all her other friends became engaged, she’d relentlessly thrown shower after bridal shower, a virtual preconnubial fountain. And now, when it was her turn at last, Jack had choked? “That goddamn son of a bitch!” Kate was ready to spit.

She looked up to see that Michael had returned from the kitchen just in time to hear her undeleted expletives and recoil at the outburst. Lucky she hadn’t called Jack a motherfucker, she thought as she watched him approach the sofa and gingerly offer Bina the glass of water. Bina ignored the offer.

“I can’t believe it!” Bina said, wiping ineffectually at her face and only making the raccoon eyes worse. “He got the ring from Barbie’s father. Mr. Leventhal gave him a break. It was princess cut, Barbie said—just under a carat and a half.” She paused for breath while Michael gaped and Elliot and Brice shook their heads in sympathy—and almost in unison.

“Everyone will know,” Bina said, and began sobbing again. “I can’t believe he’d do this to me. Just drop me. And shame me in front of everyone.”

Kate took a napkin from the table, dipped it into the water, and held up her friend’s face to mop up. “Bina, honey,” she said with all the assurance she could muster, “you’ve been going out with Jack for six years. You grew up together! He loves you.” She wiped mascara from under Bina’s eyes. “Blow your nose,” she said, and Bina did. “Look, this is just a temporary thing. Sometimes it happens. Picking a life mate is a serious decision. It isn’t that Jack doesn’t want to marry you. It’s a lot more probable that he just got frightened. I’m sure he’ll call you tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow he’ll be in Hong Kong. With my ring! I’ll be dumped in Bensonhurst and he’ll be the Christopher Columbus of singleness,” cried Bina, who had a penchant for wildly inappropriate metaphor when under pressure.

“Maybe you should drink the water,” Michael said awkwardly, and pressed the glass into her hand.

Bina looked down at the glass. “Is there strychnine in it?” she asked without lifting her eyes.

“Uh . . . no,” Michael replied.

In a single smooth motion Bina dumped the water out over her shoulder and down the back of the sofa. “Then what good is it to me?” she said to no one in particular. She fell back onto the sofa and burst into a fresh batch of tears.

“That was a gesture,” Elliot said, grabbing a napkin.

“On Fortuny fabric,” Brice added. “This is
so
Brooklyn.”

“I knew I’d love Brooklyn,” Elliot said.

Kate looked up over Bina’s head and gave the two of them a warning squint, her blue eyes narrowed to lizard slits. She wondered if she could get her friend home to her own apartment, but either getting a cab or walking back with Michael seemed impossible. Better to deal with it here and then go home. But first she needed to free the frightened Michael and stare off the spectating twosome—though, to be fair, it was their own home. “I’m sorry, guys,” Kate said, looking up at the three men. “It looks like we might have to put off dessert.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Brice said. “In times of pain, nothing works better than drowning your problems in profiteroles.”

Elliot nodded, but Michael began backing toward the door. “I think you’re right, Kate,” he agreed, relief shining from every pore. “I’ll just see myself out.” He picked up his briefcase and headed out the door into the foyer. “Have a nice evening,” he said, and closed the door behind him.

Kate jumped up. “Just a minute, Bina,” she said, giving another narrow-eyed glance at the guys as a deterrent, and ran to the hallway. She was just in time to see Michael step into the elevator. “Hold it!” she called, got to the button, and pressed it. Michael stood in the fake mahogany cab like an insect suspended in amber. “You’re leaving like that?” she demanded.

“Like what?” he asked, looking down at himself as if she were commenting on an unzipped fly.

“My friend just had her life shattered and you go out the door saying, ‘Have a nice evening’?” Kate had learned not to expect too much of a date in the early stages of their mating dance, but Michael was
way
out of tempo. “Have a nice evening?” she repeated, mirroring him.

“Kate,” Michael began, “Bina is your friend, not mine. I don’t really think it’s my place—”

“To be what? Nice, kind, caring? Can’t you just pretend to be sensitive?”

Kate realized she was holding him hostage and took her finger off the button. The door closed slowly across his miserable face. She turned away, hoping he would press the open button and return, at least to give her a kiss and a moment of sympathy, but the elevator door remained as smoothly closed as Michael’s emotions. She shook her head to clear it. She had to return to Bina.

She entered the apartment and found, to her surprise, that Bina had stopped crying. She was sitting up on the sofa beside Elliot, who was holding her hand and sharing his own heartbreaks. “. . . and then he said, ‘I’m going back to my place to get my things and move in.’ I was thrilled, just thrilled, so I said, ‘Can I come and help?’ And he kissed me and said, ‘No, sweetie. It won’t take but a few hours.’ And I never saw or heard from him again.”

Bina shook her head in mute sympathy.

“Just as well,” Brice said. “Street trash. It’s all worked out for the best.” He kissed the top of Elliot’s head. Kate saw Bina blink.

“Well, let me bring out the profiteroles,” Brice said, and headed for the kitchen.

“Meanwhile I’ll get a blanket,” Elliot offered, and disappeared into the bedroom. Bina nodded gratefully to Kate.

Kate, with nothing else left to do, sat beside her. “I’m sorry,” she said, comforting her friend now that they were alone. “You must be devastated.”

“Oh, Katie, how could he do this? Who does he think he is? The Magellan of certified public accountants?” Bina asked. “How could he?”

Kate looked into her imploring eyes, but she had no easy answers. “Even if he leaves for Hong Kong, he’ll have that long flight alone, he’ll miss you, he’ll remember the good times and how much he loves you. . . .” She paused, hoping that all she conjectured was true. She wanted to comfort Bina, but not lie to her. If an eight-year-old like Brian had to face the death of his mother, Kate believed it would be best for Bina to face the death of her relationship with Jack, if that’s what it was. But it couldn’t have suffered a mortal wound. Bina was lovable, and Jack, slow moving as he was, had always seemed to adore her. “I’m sure he’ll call. Even if he leaves for Hong Kong, I bet he sends you a ticket to join him and proposes there,” Kate ventured hopefully.

“Men are just funny. . . .”

“Not homosexual ones,” Elliot said as he walked back into the room carrying a knitted afghan throw. “We’re fucking hysterical.” He knelt beside Bina and wrapped her up in it. Brice came out of the kitchen carrying a full tray, which he put down gracefully on the coffee table. Arrayed before them were four dessert plates, the plate of profiteroles, a silver server of piping hot dark chocolate sauce, lace-trimmed napkins, a crystal shot glass, and a frosted bottle of Finlandia. “All for you,” Brice said.

Bina looked at the tray. “I’d love some dessert, but I don’t drink,” she told him.

“You do tonight, honey,” Brice said, and poured her a shot. “Chocolate and alcohol together beat the shit out of Prozac.”