Everyone Worth Knowing (2 page)

but it was, thankfully, all mine. I hadn't shared it in the nearly two

years since Cameron had moved out, and even though it was so

long and narrow that I could stretch my legs out and almost touch

the opposite wall and even though it was located in Murray Hill

and even though the floorboards were warping slightly and the

water bugs had taken over, I had reign over my own private

palace. The building was a cement monstrosity on Thirty-fourth

and First, a multi-winged behemoth that housed such illustrious

tenants as one teenage member of a dismantled boy band, one

professional squash player, one B-list porn star and her stable of

visitors, one average Joe, one former childhood actress who hadn't

worked in two decades, and hundreds upon hundreds of recent

college graduates who couldn't quite handle the idea of leaving the

dorm or the fraternity house for good. It had sweeping East River

views, as long as one's definition of "sweeping views" includes a

construction crane, a couple of Dumpsters, a brick wall from the

building next door, and a patch of river approximately three inches

wide that is only visible through unfathomable acts of contortion.

All of this glory was mine for the equivalent monthly cost of a

four-bedroom, two-and-a-half-bath single-family home upstate.

While still twisted on the couch, I reviewed my reaction to the

news. I thought I'd sounded sincere enough, if not downright ecstatic,

but Penelope knew ecstatic wasn't in my nature. I'd managed

to ask about the rings—plural—and to state that I was very

happy for her. Of course, I hadn't mustered up anything truly

heartfelt or meaningful, but she was probably too giddy to notice.

Overall: a solid B-plus performance.

My breathing had normalized enough to smoke another cigarette,

which made me feel slightly better. The fact that the water

bug hadn't resurfaced yet helped, too. I tried to assure myself that

my unhappiness stemmed from my genuine concern that Penelope

was marrying a truly terrible guy and not from some deep-rooted

envy that she now had a fiance when I didn't have so much as a

second date. I couldn't. It had been two years since Cameron had

moved out, and though I'd cycled through the requisite stages of

recovery (job obsession, retail obsession, and food obsession) and

had gone on the usual round of blind dates, drinks-only dates, and

the rarer full-dinner dates, only two guys had made third-date status.

And none had made fourth. I told myself repeatedly that there

wasn't anything wrong with me—and regularly made Penelope

confirm this—but I was seriously beginning to doubt the validity of

that statement.

I lit a second cigarette off the first and ignored Millington's disapproving

doggy stare. The self-loathing was beginning to settle

upon my shoulders like a familiar, warm blanket. What kind of evil

person couldn't express genuine, sincere happiness on one of the

happiest days of her best friend's life? How conniving and insecure

does one have to be to pray that the whole thing turns out to be a

giant misunderstanding? How did I get to be so wretched"?

I picked up the phone and called Uncle Will, looking for some

sort of validation. Will, aside from being one of the brightest and

bitchiest people on the planet, was my perpetual cheerleader. He

answered the phone with the slightest gin-and-tonic slur and I proceeded

to give him the short, less-painful version of Penelope's ultimate

betrayal.

"It sounds as though you feel guilty because Penelope is very

excited and you're not as happy for her as you should be."

"Yeah, that's right."

"Well, darling, it could be far worse. At least it's not some variation

on the theme where Penelope's misery is providing you with

happiness and fulfillment, right?"

"Huh?"

"Schadenfreude.
You're not emotionally or otherwise benefiting

from her unhappiness, right?"

"She's not unhappy. She's euphoric. I'm the unhappy one."

"Well, there you have it! See, you're not so terrible. And you,

my dear, are not marrying that spoiled little brat whose only Godgiven

talents appear to be spending his parents' money and inhaling

large quantities of marijuana. Am I mistaken?"

"No, of course not. It just feels like everything's changing. Penelope's

my life, and now she's getting married. I knew it would happen

eventually, but I just didn't think eventually would be so soon."

"Marriage is for the bourgeoisie. You know that, Bette."

This triggered a series of mental images of Sunday brunches

through the years: Will, Simon, the Essex, me, and the Sunday

Styles section. We'd dissect the weddings for the duration of

brunch, never failing to collapse into evil giggles as we creatively

read between the lines.

Will continued. "Why on earth are you eager to enter into a

lifelong relationship, the only purpose of which is to strangle every

iota of individuality out of you? I mean, look at me. Sixty-six years

old, never married, and I'm perfectly happy."

"You're gay, Will. And not only that, but you wear a gold band

on the ring finger of your left hand."

"So what's your point? You think I'd actually
marry
Simon,

even if I could? Those same-sex, San Francisco city hall weddings

aren't exactly my scene. Not on your life."

"You've been living with him since before I was born. You do

realize that you are, essentially, married."

"Negative, darling. Either one of us is free to leave at any point,

without any messy legal or emotional ramifications. And that's why

it works. But enough of that; I'm not telling you anything you don't

already know. Tell me about the ring." I filled him in on the details

he really cared about while munching the remaining Twizzlers, and

didn't even realize I had fallen asleep on the couch until close to

3 A.M., when Millington woofed her desire to sleep in a real bed. I

dragged us both to my room and buried my head under the pillow,

reminding myself over and over that this was not a disaster.

Not a disaster. Not a disaster.

2

Just my luck that Penelope's engagement party fell on a Thursday

night—the night of my standing dinner date with Uncle Will

and Simon. Neither appointment could be denied. I stood in front

of my ugly, postwar, high-rise Murray Hill apartment building, desperately

trying to escape to my uncle's huge duplex on Central

Park West. It wasn't rush hour, Christmas, shift change, or torrentially

pouring, but a cab was nowhere to be found. I had been

whistling, screaming, and jumping skywards like a lunatic for

twenty minutes to no avail, when a lone cab finally pulled up to

the curb. The cabbie's response when I requested to go uptown

was "Too much traffic!" before he screeched off and disappeared.

When a second driver actually picked me up, I ended up tipping

him 50 percent out of relief and gratitude.

"Hey, Bettina, you look unhappy. Is everything okay?" I'd insisted

that people call me Bette, and most did. Only my parents

and George, Uncle Will's doorman (who was so old and cute he

could get away with anything), still insisted on using my full name.

"Just the usual cab hassle, George." 1 sighed, giving him a peck

on the cheek. "How's your day been?"

"Oh, just dandy as always," he replied without a hint of sarcasm.

"Saw the sun for a few minutes this morning and have been

happy ever since." Nauseating.

"Bette!" I heard Simon call from the lobby's discreetly hidden

mailroom. "Is that you I hear, Bette?"

He emerged from the mailroom in tennis whites, a racketshaped

bag slung over his broad shoulders, and picked me up in a

bear hug as no straight man ever had. It was sacrilege to skip a

weekly dinner, which in addition to being a good time also provided

by far the most male attention I received (not counting

brunch).

Will and Simon had developed lots of rituals in the almost

thirty years they'd spent together. They vacationed in only three

places: St. Barth's in late January (although lately Will had been

complaining that it was "too French"), Palm Springs in mid-March,

and an occasional spontaneous weekend in Key West. They drank

gin and tonics only out of Baccarat glasses, spent every Monday

night from seven until eleven at Elaine's, and hosted an annual holiday

party where each would wear a cashmere turtleneck. Will was

almost six-three, with close-cropped silver hair, and he preferred

sweaters with suede elbow patches; Simon was barely five-nine,

with a wiry, athletic build that he swathed entirely in linen, irrespective

of the season. "Gay
;
men," he'd say, "have carte blanche to

flout fashion convention. We've earned the right." Even now, moments

off the tennis court, he'd managed to don some sort of

white linen hoodie.

"Gorgeous girl, how are you? Come, come, Will is sure to be

wondering where we both are, and I just know that the new girl

has prepared something fantastic for us to eat." Always the perfect

gentleman, he took my exploding tote bag from my shoulder, held

the elevator door open, and pressed PH.

"How was tennis?" I asked, wondering why this sixty-year-old

man had a better body than every guy I knew.

"Oh, you know how it is, a bunch of old guys running around

the court, tracking down balls they shouldn't even try for and pretending

they've got strokes like Roddick. A little pathetic, but always

amusing."

The door to their apartment was slightly ajar and I could hear

Will talking to the TV in the study, as usual. In the old days, Will

had scooped Liza Minnelli's relapse and RFK's affairs and Patty

Hearst's leap from socialite to cult member. It was the "amorality"

of the Dems that finally pushed him toward politics instead of all

things glamorous. He called it the Clinton Clinch. Now, a few short

decades later, Will was a news junkie with political affiliations that

ran slightly to the right of Attila the Hun's. He was almost certainly

the only gay right-wing entertainment-and-society columnist living

on the Upper West Side of Manhattan who refused to comment on

either entertainment or society. There were two televisions in his

study, the larger of which he kept tuned to Fox News. "Finally," he

was fond of saying, "a network that speaks to
my
people."

And always Simon's retort: "Riiight. That huge audience of

right-wing gay entertainment-and-society columnists living on the

Upper West Side of Manhattan?"

The smaller set constantly rotated between CNN, CNN Headline

News, C-SPAN, and MSNBC, perpetrators of what Will referred to

as "The Liberal Conspiracy." A handwritten sign sat atop the second

TV. It read:
KNOW YOI;R ENEMY.

On CNN, Aaron Brown was interviewing Frank Rich about the

media coverage surrounding the last election. "Aaron Brown is a

lily-livered milquetoast pantywaist!" Will snarled as he put down