Slightly Single (10 page)

“Yes, you did, but I don’t blame you. You couldn’t help yourself.”

“You slept with this guy?” Kate asks me incredulously.

“No! We just went out on a date, which I didn’t realize was a date until—”

“They kissed!” Raphael is gleeful.

“Until
he
kissed
me.
But that was when I still thought he was gay.”

“So he’s not?”

Raphael and I say, “Yes” and “Nope” simultaneously.

“Raphael can’t accept the fact that he’s straight,” I explain to Kate, throwing a pointed glance at Raphael. “He’s still trying to get over John Timmerman’s wife and kids.”

John Timmerman being one of the brokers who worked at the firm where the three of us temped last winter.

Raphael says, “Are you still bringing that up? I keep telling you, Tracey, my friend Thomas saw—”

“Never mind,” I cut him off, not wanting to hear that whole sordid tale again. “The point is, Raphael thinks everyone is gay until proven otherwise. And I, for one, can vouch for Buckley’s otherwise.”

“So you kissed another guy, Tracey?” Kate says. “Wow, I can’t believe y’all didn’t tell me.”

“That’s because it was so not a big deal.”

“Was he a good kisser?”

“Absolutely, Kate,” Raphael says. “Just wet enough, not too much tongue.”

“How do you know?” I demand.

“You told me, Tracey.”

“Raphael, I never said that.”

“Are you sure? Then I must’ve dreamed it,” he says airily, waving his menu at us. “What are we having besides alcohol? A Bloody Mary will go right to my head. I haven’t eaten since lunch yesterday—aside from a little midnight snack.”

“So who was he?” I ask Raphael, because I can tell by his salacious tone that he’s not talking about milk and cookies.

“His name was Phillip. He’s a sailor in town for Fleet Week.”

“Fleet Week is over, Raphael,” Kate points out.

“Maybe he lied about being a sailor.” Raphael shrugs. “He had a dotcom look about him. Whatever, the avocado omelet looks good.” He snaps his menu closed, clasps his hands, and looks at us.

“I’m having the same thing,” Kate says. “How about you, Tracey?”

“I already ate breakfast.” And lunch. “I’ll have the spinach salad with low-fat ranch dressing.”

So much for the low-carb diet. I’ve had my fill of eggs and meat. It’s too late to cancel out the butter-drenched eggs and hot dogs, but woman cannot live by protein alone. Cutting fat grams is the way to go.

Mental note: Stop to stock up on fat-free Entenmann’s goodies on the way home.

The salad is delicious, and the two Bloody Marys go down easily. So easily I’d love to order another one and settle in for a while to drown my sorrows in Absolut, but Kate and Raphael—who’ve had only one drink each—tell me I shouldn’t get drunk so soon after Will left.

“Save it for when you’re really desperate, and then indulge in a happy hour, Tracey,” Raphael advises.

“You want to go out for drinks tonight?” I ask, my spirits lifting a little. Anything would be better than sitting home in my apartment.

“I’ve got a date.”

“With Phillip?”

“With Charles. My new personal trainer. He’s going to help me work on my Pilates moves.”

I turn to Kate. “How about you? Do you have plans tonight, too?”

“I’ve got my salsa lesson.”

Oh, that’s right. For some reason, Kate has decided her life won’t be complete unless she can cha-cha or lambada, or whatever it is they’re teaching her at Enrique’s School of Latin Motion.

“You want to come with me?” she asks.

“No, thanks,” I say hurriedly. She’s tried to talk me into that before. I exhausted my Latin dancing repertoire back when the Macarena was all the rage, thank you very much.

“How about you, Raphael?” she offers.

“Kate, I’m Puerto Rican, remember? I don’t need lessons. I was born to mambo.” He raises his arms and does a little exaggerated hip-swaying for the oblivious bartender’s benefit as we make our way to the door.

The sun has poked out from behind a cloud. It turns out both Kate and Raphael are free for the next few hours. We decide to walk over to Broadway and browse in and out of a few stores.

By midafternoon, Raphael has a new outfit for his date tonight, and Kate has spent an hour trying to decide whether she prefers a red bikini or a blue one, before deciding on the pink.

Mental note: Never, ever join Kate at her beach house under any circumstances.

P.S.: throw away lone bathing suit the minute you get home, lest you ever find yourself the least bit tempted to put it on.

In the Strand, I buy a used copy of
The Grapes of Wrath.
Somehow, I never read it during my English Major days, and I always thought that I should have. I tell myself it’ll be good for me—like the diet and the budget and the exercise.

Kate, Raphael and I part ways after stopping for ice cream. Rather, they both get ice cream, and I get raspberry sorbet. I expect to find myself lusting after their dripping double scoop chocolate cones, but it’s so hot that it doesn’t matter—anything sweet and icy tastes good.

Back at my apartment, I check the answering ma
chine to see if Will has called—he hasn’t—and then I put my ugly box fan into the window. I lie down in front of it to start reading
The Grapes of Wrath.
Joyce Carol Oates can wait.

At first I’m psyched.

But gradually, I realize that there’s something depressing about this.

Not the book. Sure, it’s not the most upbeat piece of fiction I’ve ever read, and I’ve never particularly liked Steinbeck’s descriptive style of writing and the hick dialogue is already getting on my nerves.

But beyond my aversion for Steinbeck, there’s something depressing about being inside on a sunny summer Sunday, four stories up with only one window, a drooping philodendron and a boring book for company.

By now, Will is someplace green and woodsy. I picture a big, tree-dappled country house with whitewashed rooms and hardwood floors and rag rugs. Maybe he’s unpacking his bags by now. Maybe he’s gone to explore North Mannfield with his castmates. Maybe it’s like my earlier nightmarish vision, and the men are all gay, except for Will, and the women are all oversexed and built like Nerissa.

I stub out my cigarette, snap my book closed and stand up, striding restlessly over to the window.

The tall buildings cast semi-shadows on the street, and there isn’t a patch of green to be seen.

Suddenly, I feel trapped.

I can feel my heart racing.

Dizzy, I take a step back from the window.

I need air—that’s what’s wrong with me.

I need trees. Or grass. Or water—the East River, even. I just need to feel that this city, with its towering concrete and throngs of strangers and stagnant heat, isn’t such a foreign place to be on a glorious summer afternoon.

I put on my sneakers, grab my keys and rush out the door.

I feel better the moment I get outside. I don’t know what happened to me back upstairs, but my heart rate slows a bit as I walk down the street, and I’m no longer feeling dizzy or lightheaded.

I hesitate momentarily when I reach the avenue before instinctively turning toward downtown and striding off in that direction.

I’m uncertain where I’m going, but I do know that I want to be anyplace but in my apartment right now.

I arrive at the South Street Seaport nearly half an hour later.

This is tourist central, the kind of place any true New Yorker would avoid at all costs on a sunny weekend afternoon in June.

Much as I want to consider myself a true New Yorker after a year in the city, I can’t help but find comfort in the blatant commercialism and in-your-face quaint atmosphere of this area. It’s as though I’ve stepped out of Manhattan and into a theme park without the rides.

I hate to admit that I feel at home here among the
clusters of camera-and-shopping-bag-toting people in bright colors and comfortable shoes; people who look like they popped out of Brookside, or, say, Nebraska.

I savor the almost New England feel of the moored historic ships and the weathered deck planks beneath my feet.

And for once, I’m not repelled by the suburban mall aura of the Seaport’s enclosed shopping pavilion, with its chain stores and food court and escalators.

This—all of this—reminds me of the world I left behind, a world where I once assumed I would always belong.

Way back when, before I outgrew Brookside and set my sights on Manhattan, summers meant swimming in lakes and backyard pools, and eating burgers off the grill and driving around aimlessly in cars with my friends, listening to top forty stations.

I might not want to go back to that life, but it suddenly seems to me that I’m not entirely comfortable with the one I have, either.

What’s so appealing about living alone in a gloomy one-room apartment in the heart of an on-the-fringe neighborhood?

And why haven’t I noticed until now that it’s lacking?

I guess it wasn’t so bad, my new life—not when Will was here.

Now that he’s gone…

The heavenly scent of deep-frying grease lures me to a fast-food place that sells fried chicken and onion
rings, among other high-fat faves of mine. I’m about to order the three-piece meal with a shake when I catch a glimpse of my double chin in the chrome countertop.

“I’ll have…uh…”

The guy behind the register is poised with classic New York impatience, his expression basically hostile as he waits for my decision.

“A Diet Coke,” I announce triumphantly.

I can do this.

I can lose weight.

Sipping my Diet Coke—which is flat and has too much ice—I emerge from the food court onto an outside patio. People mill about, licking ice cream cones and munching french fries with careless abandon.

After draining my soda in a few thirsty gulps and tossing it into an overflowing trash container, I walk over to the railing to look out over the water.

The river is dotted with sailboats, and if you ignore the shadow of the Brooklyn Bridge and the jammed urban landscape beyond, you can almost forget you’re in the heart of this massive city.

What the hell am I doing here?

Will is gone, and I have a dead-end job and a crummy apartment. Is this the kind of life I envisioned when I moved to New York? I could have a better life than this anywhere.

Including Brookside.

Brookside, where I’d have family watching my
every move, wondering when I’m going to settle down and get married.

Where there are no interesting jobs and no creative people, where I know everyone and I’ve done everything there is to do at least a few thousand times, and I’ve seen everything there is to see….

No.

Maybe I’m not convinced, at this particular moment, that I want to stay here, but I definitely don’t want to go back there.

So.

Until I figure out what to do with my life, this is it.

My life is here, in New York, and I’d better start making the best of it.

I turn away from the railing and head for the escalators with renewed determination, even though my mouth waters as I pass the pizza place with its pungent sausage-and-oregano aroma.

I walk swiftly back uptown, sweat dripping off my forehead in the humid air.

By the time I’m striding past a vacant bench at the edge of Thompkins Square Park, and my aching legs are begging me to plop down for a rest, the bombshell has hit me.

Hey, this is exercise!

Look at me…

I’m getting a workout by default.

I marvel at the fact that this extended jaunt of mine was exercise, and it was interesting and it was free—except for the Diet Coke.

I allow myself a little window shopping as a cool-down period. There are Grand Opening streamers in front of a cavernous furniture store. I examine the display windows, admiring in particular an enormous oak sleigh bed. It’s the kind of bed you could spend an entire day in; the kind of bed that calls for piles of pillows and a big down comforter.

When I get back up to my apartment, I look around, trying to figure out how I can make it more bearable.

Maybe it would help if I had a real bed, like the one in the window, instead of just an ugly futon
sans
colorful mattress cover.

But this is only temporary, I remind myself. All of it. The futon
and
the apartment. I’m not going to live here forever, even if I do stay in New York.

For now, I’m going to keep exercising and stay on my low-fat diet. I’m going to lose weight, and I’m going to save money.

And when Will comes back in September, we’re going to move in together.

I notice that the light is blinking on my answering machine.