See Jane Date (31 page)

“So we finally meet,” I added. “I'm Jane Gregg. I live there.” I pointed.

He narrowed his eyes at me. “I'm Archibald Marinelli.”

Archibald?

“Look,” he added. “I'm getting a little sick and tired of your passive-aggressive banging on the wall. It's really rude.”

The jerk! “Well I'm getting a little sick and tired of listening to you blasting opera and your sex life.”

“Then maybe you should get one of your own,” Opera Man snapped before stomping down the hall and down the stairs.

By the time I thought of a good comeback, Opera Man was clomping out the building. I'd been right about the
A
standing for Asshole. But that the
A
really stood for Archibald gave me a small degree of revenge. Plus, after finally clapping eyes on Opera Man, I'd already gotten the only revenge I'd ever need. I'd never have to pound on the wall again. I'd never have to worry that everyone was having more sex than I was. Because worse than all that combined was the indisputable fact that A. Marinelli looked like a tall Elmer Fudd.

 

Through the windows of Zelda's Hair and Beauty Spa, I could see Aunt Ina and Grammy and Larry Fishkill's mother, his sister and two grandmothers. And there was Dana, the Princess, shoving clipped pages from bride magazines at Zelda herself.

“There she is,” Aunt Ina announced, throwing up her hands and smacking her lips. “Fifteen minutes late, she waltzes in.” She took the dress bag out of my hand and hung it up with everyone else's.

“The bus crawled and—”

“I don't need to hear your excuses,” Aunt Ina said. “Sit down and roll up your jeans for your pedicure.”

I said hello to the Fishkills and hugged Grammy and climbed onto the huge leatherette chair like a dutiful child. The second my feet hit the sudsy warm water I relaxed and closed my eyes. A Half Day of Beauty might be just what I needed.

“Hi, Jane,” Dana said, climbing up to the chair next to mine. “What's that?” she asked, eyeing the bottle of red-black nail polish I'd set on the foot of the chair.

“It's fake Vamp. Isn't it great?”

Dana stared at me. “But we're all getting Precious Pink on our nails and toes.”

“But you can't see our toes,” I pointed out. “We're wearing
pumps.
”

“I want us all to match,” Dana said. “The bridal party should all have the same.”

“I don't see the point if no one can see our toenails, Dana.”

“Jane, if the bride wants you to get Precious Pink, you're getting Precious Pink,” Aunt Ina snapped. “What's wrong with you?”

“That black color's disgusting,” Grammy put in. “All the young girls wear it today. It's hideous.”

“Fine, I'll get the Precious Pink that no one will see anyway,” I announced.

“You're not doing anyone a big favor, Jane,” Aunt Ina sing-songed. “You're doing what's expected. Do you be
lieve her attitude?” she said to Grammy, shaking her head.

I mentally shook my own head. It was nine in the morning, and already the day was off to an unbearable start. I took a deep breath, then closed my eyes and stuck my feet under the jet stream. My pedicurist grabbed a foot, set it on the footrest, said something in Korean to Dana's pedicurist and the two women laughed. I opened my eyes. Were they laughing at my feet?

“So, Jane, we're so psyched to meet Timothy,” Dana said. “Mommy had been so worried about you, and now she's just thrilled.”

I opened an eye and looked and Dana. She was flipping through
Modern Bride.
“Worried? Why?”

Dana stopped flipping and glanced at me, then resumed her flips. “Oh, nothing. I just meant she'd been worried about you being all alone.”

“Alone? You mean without a boyfriend?”

Dana nodded. Flip, flip, flip.

“What is so terrible about me not having a boyfriend?” I snapped. “Maybe I'm concentrating on my career. Maybe I'm proud of myself for getting promoted, which, excuse me, no one seemed to think was such a big deal. Maybe I'm happy being
alone.
”

“Defensive, much?” Dana said, eyes on the magazine. “You're
not
happy, Jane. And you're not alone—you have a serious boyfriend. And you're still not happy. You haven't been happy for as long as I've known you. You probably never will be with
that
attitude of yours.”

A burst of anger shot up from my stomach into my mouth. “Oh, like you know me so well?”

“Whose fault is that?” Dana asked, glancing at me.

“She's right, Jane,” Aunt Ina said. “You never make an effort.”

Why were they ganging up on me? What the hell did I do?”

“What is this nonsense?” Grammy hissed. “The Fishkills will hear you.” I eyed the Fishkills; the four were gabbing at the nail station and not paying us the least bit of attention. “Change the subject. This is Dana's wedding day, for God's sake.”

“Fine, let's change the subject,” Dana said. “So we're all looking forward to meeting Timothy.”

Take knife, insert into gut. Then twist.

“He's coming to the ceremony, isn't he?” Aunt Ina asked. “Some people today, they just show up for the reception, the party. Do you believe that? It's disgusting.”

Deep breath, deep breath.
“Um, he might not be able to come at all,” I said. “He's sort of on call.”

“A little late to tell me,” Dana snapped. “Does he know it's $225 a head?”

Bitch, bitch, bitch! I stared at Dana. “I'll pay it, okay?”

“That's not the point,” Dana said. “It's called
consideration.
”

“You could have let us know,” Aunt Ina added. She shook her head, slowly.

“I'm sorry, okay?” I yelled. “I'm sorry. God!”

The Fishkills all turned and stared at me. Grammy shook her head and flipped her magazine.

“You know what, Jane?” Dana closed
Modern Bride
and turned to face me. “I'm a little sick and tired of your attitude. I'm sick of the way you talk to my mother. I'm sick of how selfish and immature you are. And I'm sick of my mother worrying herself sick about you when you're too selfish to care.”

My mouth dropped open.

“This is not the time or the place for this,” Aunt Ina
said. “Let's just enjoy our morning, okay? We're in a beauty spa. Why don't I pour us all some of that nice complimentary tea—”

“I have to go the bathroom,” I said. I lifted my soaking foot out of the water and startled the pedicurist. In the tiny bathroom I dropped down on the toilet bowl, shaking. How dare they! How dare they—

But suddenly I wasn't angry. I was…crying. Big, fat tears rolled down my cheeks into the creases of my mouth.

There was a knock on the bathroom door. “Janey?” Aunt Ina called. “Are you okay?”

I sat there, frozen, the tears falling faster and harder.

“Janey, open up, c'mon,” Ina said. “I want to talk to you.”

I got up and opened the door, my eyes on the floor. Aunt Ina took one look at me and squeezed inside the tiny room, shutting the door behind her. I sat back down on the toilet.

“Jane, look, Dana's just a little high-strung right now. It's her wedding day and—”

“Timothy dumped me,” I said, burying my face in my hands. “Almost two weeks ago.”

“Jane, why didn't you tell me?” Ina asked, kneeling down in front of me. She took my hands away from my face and clasped them in hers. “Huh? Why didn't you tell me?”

“I don't know,” I said.

“I'm sorry, honey,” Aunt Ina cooed. “What happened?”

I shrugged so pathetically that even I felt bad for myself. “I really liked him. I thought he liked me too, but he didn't. Or he just lost interest. Whatever. He dumped me. I always get dumped. Always.” My hands flew back
to my face. “And now Dana's getting married and you're getting all these new relatives—”

I hadn't realized just how threatened I felt by that until the words came out of my mouth. Aunt Ina's mouth had opened into an O and her hand touched her heart. “Jane, you're not losing us. Especially you're not losing
me.
Don't you know what you mean to me? You're my sister's only baby.”

“I miss her,” I whispered.

“I miss her too,” Aunt Ina said. “She was my best friend, you know.”

She hadn't been
my
best friend. I wouldn't let her be. And now I finally understood why. Because I'd been too afraid to be that close to her. Too afraid to love her to pieces and lose her the way I'd lost my father. And then I'd lost her anyway.

“I'm so sorry, Aunt Ina,” I said, throwing my arms around her and falling into her. “I'm so sorry I've been such a brat.”

Aunt Ina hugged me and squeezed me and stroked my hair. “I'll tell you what, Jane. You wash your face and then come out. I want to give you something.”

I nodded and Aunt Ina grasped my chin and pulled me into another hug. And then she was gone. I took a deep breath but collapsed back down onto the toilet seat and buried my face in a mound of toilet paper. I got up and splashed cold water on my face, then pressed a scratchy brown paper towel against my eyes.

When I came out of the bathroom, Aunt Ina was waiting for me with a little box in her hand. Grammy and Dana were eyeing us. “I wanted you to wear this today,” Aunt Ina said, handing me the box. “Go ahead, open it.”

I pulled the top off and gasped. It was the delicate pearl
necklace my mother always wore for special occasions. I stroked the antique pearls, my eyes welling again.

“I gave that necklace to your mother on the day you were born,” Aunt Ina said. “She was twenty-nine, and I was going to give you the necklace on your twenty-ninth birthday. But I think she would have liked you to wear this for Dana's wedding.”

“Why?” I whispered, even though I hadn't meant to.

“You remember how we all thought your mom just had a nasty case of the flu the week before she passed on?” Aunt Ina asked. I nodded. “Well, Dana spent so much time with your mom those last few days. She was in high school and busy with boys and cheerleading, but she stopped by your mom's apartment a few times that week and just talked to her, gabbed in her ear about her boyfriends and classes and made her laugh.”

I wish I'd made her laugh. I wish she'd had the flu. Instead, she'd had sneaky ovarian cancer. I hadn't known Dana had spent time with her. I hadn't known a lot. I especially hadn't known that the loss of my father and then the loss of my mother was so powerful a trigger that every time I lost something else, whether real like Max to another woman, or imagined like Aunt Ina to a son-in-law, I crumpled.

“Thank you, Aunt Ina,” I said, and threw my arms around her.

“Go put the necklace in your handbag,” Ina told me with a kiss on the cheek, “and then get back in that chair. You're missing your pedicure.”

I smiled and climbed back into the chair next to Dana, the box in my hands. “Dana? Could you use something borrowed today?”

Dana looked at me and nodded. I knew that we had just become friends.

T
he Plaza Hotel gleamed in the early afternoon sunlight. I stood in the exact spot on the east side of Fifth Avenue that I'd stood with my father the day before he died, the day he'd promised me the Plaza if I could find the guy. The memories seeped into me and filled me up instead of seeping out of me and making me cry. I hadn't found the guy, but I realized now that that wasn't my father's point. The point, I was just beginning to figure out, was finding happiness and peace and serenity and the very best for yourself, and that seemed to be a process, not something you could arrange by blinking your eyes and wishing on four blind dates in desperation. And the point was also not to be afraid of the process.

I'd come over with Aunt Ina, Dana and Grammy in a cab; the Fishkills had followed in another cab. Dana's photographer had shot the bridal party dressed naturally around the grounds of the hotel and in Central Park, and
then everyone had gone inside to the dressing rooms near the mini-ballroom to change. I'd met the usher who was escorting me down the aisle; a frat-boy type named Glen who had a girlfriend. I'd told Aunt Ina I wanted to snap some photos of my own and that I'd join them all in five minutes. I pulled my disposable camera out of my little beaded peach purse (compliments of Dana for the bridesmaids) and snapped one perfect photo of the Plaza Hotel—the Plaza Hotel my father had seen. And then I darted across the street and into the majestic hotel with my dress slung over my shoulder and my shoes in a tote bag.

Downstairs, the bridal party had their own dressing room. Karen and the Julies and the other bridesmaids had arrived and were slipping on their dresses. They all had Precious Pink on their toenails.

“Omigod, Jane, I still can't get over how amazing you look. I just love your hair like that!” a Julie exclaimed.

“And your makeup is so sophisticated,” Karen added. “You really do look beautiful.”

Huh. Did they suddenly have to be so nice just when I was feeling so humble? Or had they always been nice? I felt as though I had all this attention to pay now, to people and to things. I felt as though I was in for an annoying time of seeing things differently. Including myself.

“Who's helping me get my dress on?” Dana called out as she and Aunt Ina whisked into the dressing room. “Karen, it's the maid of honor's job!”

The bridesmaids stood in a circle around Dana as Karen zipped and buttoned and fluffed. When Karen stepped away, everyone gasped. Dana truly looked like a princess. Her short, wispy blond hair had been coiffed to perfection, and atop her head sat a delicate beaded headpiece
with tiny rosebuds. Her makeup was practically translucent. Her cheeks glowed pink, her lips were slightly shimmery and her blue eyes had never been so clear and bright. And the dress. The simple, elegant gown was exquisite. The high-cut bodice was satin and fitted with a row of beading at the waist, and the skirt flared out like a ballerina's to the floor. Dana's eyes began to mist, and she twirled around to check out the rear view in the floor-to-ceiling mirror. When she turned back around, she was glowing.

“Something old,” Dana announced, holding up her wrist, which was encircled by an heirloom diamond tennis bracelet that Larry Fishkill's mother had given her. “Something new.” She gestured to the dress. “Something borrowed—” Dana reached into her tote bag and pulled out the box I'd given her. “Jane, will you help me put this on?” I smiled and draped my mother's pearls around her neck and clasped it. I stood back to admire it, to admire
her.
The murmurs from the bridesmaids said it all. “And something blue,” Dana added, batting her eyelashes and opening her blue eyes wide.

Someone knocked at the door. “You've got a half hour before it's time for the photographer,” Uncle Charlie called through it. “Then we'll do a mini-rehearsal of the lineup, and then it's showtime!”

 

“And now, ladies and gentlemen,” the bandleader announced. “For the first time in public, give up a round of applause to…drum roll please…Mr. and Mrs. Fishkill!”

The two hundred and fifty guests clapped and cheered as Larry and Dana marched into the lavish reception hall, bursting with smiles. The newlyweds stood in the center of the dance floor, and the band began to play “The Wind
Beneath My Wings.” I was so emotional on Dana's behalf that I didn't even think a single snarky comment at their choice of band. As Larry twirled his new bride around the dance floor, I looked through the crowd of guests for Natasha. I caught sight of her squeezed next to a woman on her left and a man on her right, but I couldn't tell if the man next to her was the Houseboat Dweller or not. He looked a bit young for Natasha and to own a houseboat. I'd spotted her once or twice at the wedding itself, but I'd been so busy trying to think of what I was going to say about the empty seat next to me at the party that I hadn't paid attention to who she was with.

The wedding song over, the perky bandleader played another boring slow song, which was my cue to find my table. My cue to face the empty seat next to me at a table for four. As I weaved my way over to table forty-two, waving at Aunt Ina and Uncle Charlie, who'd weaved their own way onto the dance floor, I noticed Natasha had had the same idea as I had. She placed her little evening bag on the table and sat down, eyeing the crowd. Before I could even reach the table, someone had asked her to dance and she accepted. The Houseboat Dweller, I assumed. Handsome. He appeared to be in his mid-thirties. I dropped down at the table and gnawed on a roll from the basket, the empty seat next to me taunting me, but not to the point that I felt like crawling under the table. I felt semi-okay. Mid-chew of the dinner roll I felt eyes on me. I glanced in the direction of the stare and found myself looking into the eyes of a cute guy. Very cute. He looked something like Dr. Joel Fleishman from the television show
Northern Exposure.
He smiled, a little smile, as though he wasn't sure I was
sans
date. Before I could smile back, gobs of wedding guests got between us. The song had ended.

Natasha appeared at the table alone. “Hi, Jane! You look so beautiful.”

Here goes nothing, as the cliché goes.
“Thanks, you too.” And of course, she did. She wore a gorgeous pale pink dress of the thinnest material I'd ever seen. It slightly shimmered.

“Guess what?” she asked as she sat down across from me. “I had morning sickness today!”

I laughed. “And you're excited about that?”

“It was the first time,” she said. “The first time I really felt something physical because of the baby.” She put her hand on her tummy and smiled.

“So where's Sam?” I asked. “I'm dying to meet him.”

Natasha glanced at the crowd. “He's not coming.”

“Not coming?” I repeated. “Couldn't get a flight?”

“Couldn't care less is more like it,” Natasha said, staring at her feet. “He broke up with me weeks ago. I kept meaning to tell you, but I just couldn't.”

I stared at her, absolutely stunned. I closed my mouth, which, as usual, had fallen open practically onto the table. “Oh, Natasha,” I said, understanding all too well. “I'm so sorry. When did this happen?”

The band was playing a Shania Twain song so loud that Natasha had to slide her chair around the table closer to mine so we could talk. “Remember that night I came over at midnight and had a breakdown in your apartment? He'd told me he met someone else, that it was over, that I was too needy and clingy.”

“But what about the baby? I thought he was happy—”

Natasha took a deep breath. “I lied to you. He was the opposite of happy. He accused me of getting pregnant on purpose, then insisted he wasn't the father but he'd pay
for an abortion anyway. Things had been pretty rocky for a while. It's why I was glad to escape to New York for a couple of months. But I thought we'd work it out. And when I found out I was pregnant, I'd hoped it would touch something in him. But I was wrong.” Natasha's voice broke a bit and she closed her eyes for a second. “He crushed me pretty bad. Are you mad that I lied to you? I guess I was just too scared and humiliated to say it out loud, you know?”

I knew. Boy, did I. If her broken heart and my own weren't so painful, I'd probably be laughing my head off at the irony of it all. Plus, I felt as though I had some nerve (as Aunt Ina would say) whining about facing a wedding reception boyfriendless when she was facing motherhood husbandless, boyfriendless
and
parentless. But not friendless.

“So you must think I'm pretty pathetic, huh?” Natasha asked, her eyes on the empty plate in front of her.

I smiled at her. “Actually, I think you're pretty great. I think you're one of the strongest people I've ever known. I really admire you, Natasha.”

She looked up at me, biting her lip, and suddenly I knew what it was that Natasha Nutley had that made her so irresistible to everyone. The thing I'd wanted to know since I was twelve years old in Mrs. Greenman's sixth-grade class had finally come clear.

Natasha Nutley showed her vulnerability. Through the beauty, the strength and the supposed perfection of her existence, she exuded
vulnerability.
Not helplessness. Not fear. Vulnerability. And that was exactly what
I
had been so afraid to show my entire life. Terror at appearing vulnerable had kept me on the outside looking in, set me on the defensive and ready to attack to protect myself.

“I think you're pretty great, too,” Natasha told me, a
smile on her shimmering pink lips. “So where's the good doctor?”

“Having sex with someone else,” I admitted almost painlessly as the band began the theme song from
Dirty Dancing.
“He dumped me weeks ago, too.”

“Oh, no!” Natasha said. “I'm so sorry.”

My heart pinged a bit. “Aw, it's okay. You want to know a secret? When I met you in the Blue Water Grill for lunch back in June, I didn't even know him.”

She tilted her head. “What do you mean?”

“I wanted to impress you, so I lied and said I had this fab boyfriend who owned a brownstone. And then I had to find some guy to bring to the wedding, so I went on a bunch of blind dates and one actually worked out: Timothy the doctor. Well, he worked out until two weeks ago. And then I scrambled to find a sub, just to feel okay enough to sit at this table with you. Talk about pathetic.”

“Oh, Jane.” She bit her lip “Is that how I make you feel?”

“Past tense,” I said. “That's how I felt back in Forest Hills years ago. But I carried it with me, I guess, until I got to know you. And then I realized you were a person, just like me, just like everyone else.” When had I realized that? Just now, perhaps. Or maybe that was what I'd hated about her all along. That with everything she had, she was just a girl, just a woman, just like me.

She smiled. “So you and Timothy clicked, and then what?”

“And then he dumped me for some redhead. I actually caught them together in a bar.”

Natasha shook her head. “Men stink, huh?”

“They sure do.”

“Too bad they're also so damned wonderful,” Natasha
added. “And irresistible and cute and you just can't live without them.”

“Yeah, I know.” We both laughed.

Natasha sipped her ice water. There was a lemon floating in it. “In fact, that guy over there, a real cutie, has been staring at you for the past ten minutes.”

Ha. Any guy staring in our direction was staring at Natasha, not me. I glanced over where Natasha's eyes were pointed. It was
Northern Exposure
Guy. Man, he was cute. And he did seem to be checking me out. His date was probably in the bathroom. No way was a guy that cute here solo. The band was now playing
Hit Me Baby One More Time
by Britney Spears. The dance floor was packed with guests, young and old.

I ripped off another piece of my dinner roll. “He is pretty cute,” I agreed. “Maybe I'll get lucky and he'll ask me to dance.”

“You could ask
him,
” Natasha pointed out.

“Maybe later.” Yeah, like never. I'd be ready to risk rejection sometime soon, but I'd been through enough for one wedding. “I'm sorry about Sam,” I told Natasha. “Are you okay with everything?”

“Well, I'm taking it one day at a time and just thinking about the baby, doing what's good and right for her or him.”

“That sounds like a good idea,” I said.

“Actually, I'm lying again,” Natasha confessed. “I'm scared to death. Really scared. But I think I'm gonna be good at it, after all. Motherhood, I mean. I love this baby so much already, Jane. I can't tell you how much.”

I smiled and believed her. “I think you're going to be a great mother. Definitely.”

She grinned and raised her water glass. I raised mine,
too. “Here's to keeping our chins up and to figuring it all out.” We clinked.

“So are you staying in New York for good?” I asked.