Slightly Single (3 page)

I know what you’re thinking, but look, I love the thought of not having to take the subway to a nine-to-five job in the hot, smelly city where I answer somebody else’s phone and make copies all day. It would be so freeing to do something else for a while.

As for the advertising career…well, I could always find another agency job in the fall. Or something else. After all, it’s not like I have my heart set on becoming a big-time copywriter. It just seemed like something I could do with my English degree.

Other than teach.

My parents think I should teach. They think it’s the perfect job for women. My mother was a teacher before she married my father. My Aunt Tanya still is a teacher at the middle school back home. My sister was a teacher before, during and after her marriage to my ex-brother-in-law Vinnie, who came home one day last year and told Mary Beth he didn’t love her anymore.

She was really broken up about it—they have a couple of kids, so I know it’s a big deal—but if you ask me, she’s better off without him. He was always flirting with other women—especially after Mary Beth gained a permanent twenty pounds with each of her pregnancies.

Maybe not so permanent. She’s trying to take the weight off now. Hence, the health club. She doesn’t teach anymore. She lost her job about a week before
Vinnie dumped her. She was devastated about the job, but that didn’t stop old Vinnie from kicking her when she was down. Shows you what a special guy he is.

The running water and the singing come to an abrupt halt, and moments later Will opens the bathroom door. Mist swirls around him as he comes out with a towel wrapped around his waist.

I find myself wondering if he does that when Nerissa’s here. I guess it wouldn’t surprise me, because he’s so casual about nudity. Plus, like I said, she has a boyfriend, and he has me, so it’s not like anything could happen between them. They’re just roommates. Right?

Right?

“What are you doing?” he asks.

“Reading
Entertainment Weekly.
”

“No, I mean, you were staring at me funny. Like something’s bothering you.”

“I was?” Damn. I just shrug.

He does, too, and towels off.

I pretend to be fascinated by an article offering an update on the whereabouts of former
Road Rules
castmates.

Now is not the time to bring up the summer stock thing. Maybe over lunch.

Or maybe I should just drop the whole idea.

I mean, following Will to summer stock—that seems kind of desperate, doesn’t it? Like I’m afraid that if he leaves New York, I’ll lose him. Like I have
to go along to keep an eye on him, and make sure he doesn’t cheat on me.

But the thing is, there’s a good chance that that’s pretty much true.

Because maybe, in the back of my mind, I suspect that Will has cheated on me. It’s nothing he’s ever said or done, just a feeling I sometimes have. It comes and goes, so it could just be paranoia on my part. As Raphael always says, I’m not exactly the self-esteem queen.

I watch Will get dressed in jeans, a thick navy sweatshirt and sneakers. He combs his hair back into place after he pulls the shirt over his head, and turns to me.

“Ready?”

I nod and toss my magazine aside, grabbing my fleece pullover and black bag once again.

As we head out the door of his apartment, I reach for Will’s hand. He’s not big on affection—he says his family is on the cold side. Since my parents pretty much go around hugging everyone who crosses their path, I tend to stray into touchy-feely more often than I probably should. But Will is used to me by now, and gives my fingers a quick squeeze before releasing them to press the button for the elevator—something he could have done with his free hand, but maybe I’m just looking for reasons to be irked.

The truth is, I want Will to be as crazy about me as I am about him. Which I sometimes think he is—he just doesn’t know how to show it.

For example, there was a time, a few years ago, when he used to call me
dear.

Ew.

You know what I mean? With him it was
dear,
instead of hon, or sweetie, or babe or any of the usual boyfriend-girlfriend pet names. Maybe he had good intentions, but it just bugged me, because it seemed like something an aging spinster schoolteacher would call a prize pupil.
Yes, dear, you may go to the girls’ room, but be sure to come right back for the social studies quiz.

There was nothing remotely affectionate or romantic about it, and it just felt
forced.
I cringed every time he did it, especially when we were in public, and I wanted desperately to ask him to stop. Finally he did, on his own. Maybe he realized I never called him
dear
in return, or maybe it felt as unnatural to him as it sounded to me.

Naturally, as soon as he stopped, I missed it. At least it was something.

I wish he’d come up with some other endearment to call me, but I don’t know how to bring it up. I can’t just pop out with, “You know what would make me happy? If you called me Bunchkins or Sugar.”

Which actually wouldn’t make me happy, either. In fact,
gag.

But you know what I mean. I just long for more, I guess, than we have. And now, with Will leaving, I feel this urgency, this need to establish our relationship more completely.

I suppose three years of going out is pretty established.

But I’m ready for more. I can’t help it.

When Will needed a roommate and placed an ad in the
Voice,
I was stung. I had hoped that maybe he’d consider us moving in together. In fact, I had finally worked up all my nerve to broach the subject with him one night after much input from Kate and Raphael—but before I could open my mouth, he told me about finding Nerissa.

So let’s take a step back and assess the situation as it now stands.

One gorgeous, buff, commitment-phobic actor blowing out of town.

One overweight, insecure, commitment-obsessed secretary left behind.

I just don’t have a good feeling about this.

But that doesn’t stop me from ordering the bacon cheeseburger with onion rings at the coffee shop around the corner from Will’s building.

And it doesn’t give me the courage to ask him if I can go with him.

R
aphael has a sprawling birthday party every year.

He always throws it for himself, and he always holds it at his apartment in the meat-packing district. A Manhattan Realtor or an optimist or a blind moron might call it a loft in a converted warehouse, but basically, there’s nothing converted about the place. It still looks and feels like a warehouse—a cavernous, dank, virtually windowless, virtually unfurnished place that not even Martha Stewart, armed with a glue gun and yards of chintz and rolls of Persian carpet, could transform into anything remotely homey.

But it’s a large dwelling, and in Manhattan, large dwellings are notoriously hard to come by. Raphael makes good use of his; he always invites everyone he
ever met to his birthday parties, and he tells them to bring everyone
they
ever met.

According to Kate, who’s known Raphael a year longer than I have and has therefore been to his birthday parties before, the crowd is typically comprised of incredibly gorgeous, hip, fashionable gay males and their incredibly gorgeous, hip, fashionable straight female friends.

This year, because it’s a milestone birthday for Raphael, the crowd is expected to be even larger than usual, and also more gorgeous, more hip and more fashionable than usual.

Raphael told me that there’s always a theme.

Last year, it was a jungle theme. Buff men in loincloths and animal prints.

The year before that, it was a beach party. Buff men in Speedos.

This year, it’s an island theme.

Spot the trend? Raphael’s motifs are designed to allow for minimal clothing—not to mention maximum alcohol consumption by way of fun, fruity drinks.

This year, he’s rented fake palm trees. He wanted to have blazing tiki torches, but I talked him out of that one. His friend Thomas, who is a set designer for Broadway shows, created this shimmering blue waterfall and lagoon out of some kind of slippery fabric. Frozen cocktails are being served in fake plastic coconut cups.

I arrive almost two hours late, with Kate in tow. She’s the reason we’re tardy. She went to a salon to
have her lip waxed shortly before the party was supposed to start, and we had to wait for the blotchy red swelling to go down.

Now, as we walk into Raphael’s jamming party, she tugs my arm and asks, “Are you sure I look all right?”

Actually, she doesn’t. In keeping with the island theme, she has what looks like a Hawaiian Punch mustache above her upper lip, despite her futile attempts to cover the welt with pancake makeup. The lighting in her apartment was so dim that I didn’t realize how much it shows until we were on the subway.

“You look fine,” I lie.

She cups a hand at her ear. “What did you say?”

“You look fine,” I shout, to be heard above the blasting Jimmy Buffet tune and the din of voices. “I just can’t believe you waited until just before the party to get your lip waxed. Why didn’t you do it earlier in the day, or yesterday? You know you always have a bad reaction to the wax.”

“I didn’t realize my mustache had come back in until tonight,” Kate shouts back. “I mean, what did you want me to do, show up here with five o’clock shadow? I can’t believe you didn’t tell me I had stubble when we were together this morning.”

“I didn’t notice, Kate. Guess I was too wrapped up in my own trauma.”

“How bad do I look?” She takes a few steps toward the television set and strains to catch a glimpse of herself reflected in the darkened screen.

“Tracey!” Raphael materializes with a shriek, um
brella-bedecked frozen strawberry daiquiri in hand, and gives me a big kiss.

He’s a beautiful man, with jet-black hair, mocha-colored skin and the longest eyelashes I’ve ever seen. People sometimes mistake him for Ricky Martin, and he invariably goes along with it, signing autographs and waxing nostalgic about the good old days with Menudo.

“Happy Birthday, honeybunch,” I say, squeezing him.

“You didn’t dress up, Tracey!”

“I didn’t?” I feign horror and look down, as though expecting to find myself naked. “Don’t scare me like that, Raphael.”

He swats my arm. “I mean you didn’t dress in keeping with the theme.”

“What did you expect me to wear? A bikini? Trust me, Raphael, it’s better this way,” I say, motioning at my black turtleneck beneath a black blazer, worn with trendy black pants I splurged on in French Connection. Hopefully, the monochromatic effect is more slimming than funereal. “Great outfit on you, though.”

“You like?” He does a runway twirl, modeling his tropical print shirt, short shorts and Italian leather boots. “You don’t think it’s too gay, Tracey?”

In case you haven’t noticed, Raphael is a frequent name-user. He likes to think of it as his conversational trademark.

“Since when are you worried about being too gay, Raphael?”

“Since I saw the man Alexander and Joseph brought with them. Tracey, he’s delicious, and incredibly understated. You’d never suspect he’s a homo like the rest of us.” He motions over his shoulder at the reasonably good-looking, straight-looking man deep in conversation with Alexander and Joseph, who tonight are wearing matching sarongs with their matching gold wedding bands.

“The rest of us? Speak for yourself,” I tell Raphael, and add, eyeing the guy’s not-in-keeping-with-the-theme blue crewneck sweater and jeans, “Anyway, maybe he’s not a homo.”

“Oh, please. Kate!” Raphael screams her name as she rejoins us. He grabs her and plants a big kiss on her—his standard greeting—then steps back, tilts his head and frowns, wiping at her upper lip with his thumb. “Sorry, I slobbered my daquiri on your face.”

“Oh, hell.” In her accent, which is suddenly full-blown, it comes out
hay-ell.
“That’s not daquiri, Raphael. Tracey!” She turns on me, asking darkly, “It does not look okay, does it? It’s still all raw and red, isn’t it?”

I hedge. “It’s not that bad.”

“It’s not that bad? Raphael thinks it’s slobbered daquiri!” Kate rushes off to the bathroom.

In response to Raphael’s questioning glance, I explain, “Lip wax.”

He nods knowingly, and says, in his barely there Latin accent, “Poor thing. And with her complexion…
From peaches and cream to peaches and blood. Tracey, lip wax kills.”

“I wouldn’t know. I’m a bleach gal myself.”

“Trust me. Wax kills.”

“Trust
you?
”

“I’m serious, Tracey.” His eyes are big and solemn.

There are two basic Raphael moods: Giddy Enthusiasm, and Earnest Concern. He is not currently sporting the facial expressions that accompany Giddy Enthusiasm.

“You wax your lip?” I ask incredulously.

“Tracey,
I
don’t do it.” He winces and shudders. “I have Cristoforo do it for me.” Cristoforo would be his stylist and erstwhile lover who has since taken up with a well-known, supposedly straight soap opera actor who shall remain nameless.

“Cristoforo waxes your lip,” I repeat, not sure whether to be bemused or amused.

“Not just my lip. My whole face. Believe me, Tracey, it’s better than shaving every day.”

“I believe you, Raphael. So that’s how you keep that boyish look.”

“You know it. Let’s go mingle with Alexander and Joseph,” Raphael suggests, promptly bouncing back to Giddy Enthusiasm as he links his arm through mine.

We make our way across the room to where they’re standing. Along the way, I snag a daquiri from the tray of a passing waiter who’s all rippling muscles and washboard abs, practically naked save for a tiny thong.

“You hired waiters?” I ask Raphael, who shakes his head.

“Tracey! That’s Jones,” he says. “You’ve met him before.”

“Jones? Just Jones?”

“Just Jones.”

“I don’t remember him.”

“Yes, you do.”

“No, I don’t.”

“Of course you do, Tracey. He’s the dancer. The one from Long Island? The one with the tutu fetish?”

Raphael has this annoying habit of insisting that you know people or have been places when you have no idea what he’s talking about. It happens all the time. I used to argue with him.

Now I just shrug and go along, pretending to know Jones.

Note that Raphael’s crowd, like the pop music industry, has more than its share of mono-monikered folks. Jones and Cristoforo. Cher and Madonna.

I don’t know what to make of this, but it seems significant. I’m about to point it out to Raphael when he goes on with his explanation.

“Jones is going to be doing a chorus part in a summer stock production of
Hello, Dolly
in Texas, of all godforsaken places, so I told him to grab a tray and pretend he’s rehearsing for the show. I thought he’d wear a tux, something classic with tails, but, Tracey, you know Jones and his infernal need to display his physique.”

Like I said, I
don’t
know Jones or his infernal need to display his physique, but I pretend to, rolling my eyes along with Raphael. Still, I have to ask, because I don’t get the connection:
“Hello, Dolly?”

“Yes, yes, yes, you know—the Harmonia Gardens scene with the dancing waiters.”

I do know, but before I can tell Raphael, he rushes on, assuming I’m clueless, “You know, the dance contest and the stairway and ‘so nice to have you back where you belong.’ Shh, shh, we’re almost there,” Raphael says impatiently, wildly waving his hand at me as though I’m the one who won’t shut up.

“Almost there” means that we’re almost standing in front of Alexander, Joseph and the object of Raphael’s latest crush. Maybe it’s just that he’s positioned beside two of the most flamboyant men in the room, but he seems awfully low-key and—well, normal. Too normal for Raphael’s taste.

“Aruba…Jamaica…ooh, I want to take him…Tracey, isn’t he adorable?” Raphael gushes in my ear against the opening bars of the song “Kokomo,” which is blasting over the sound system.

“He’s pretty cute,” I agree. “But not adorable.”

He looks aghast. “Tracey! How can you say that? He’s definitely adorable.”

I reassess.

The guy has short brown hair—just plain old short brown hair, rather than one of Cristoforo’s statement-making “styles” or tints that are so popular with this crowd. He has brown eyes, and a nice nose, a nice
mouth—the kind of guy you’d expect to find teaching sixth grade, or pushing a toddler in a shopping cart, or raking some suburban lawn. The kind of guy you’d expect to find pretty much anywhere other than here.

But here he is, an average Joe in a crowd of outrageous Josephs and Alexanders and Joneses—which is, I suspect, precisely the reason Raphael is so attracted to him.

“Joseph!” Raphael cries, moving forward. “I love the sarong! Yours, too, Alexander! And you…whoever you are, I love the sweater. Banana Republic?”

“I’m not sure,” the guy says, wrinkling his nose a little.

He is pretty adorable. And I see that his eyes, which I assumed from a few feet away were brown, are actually greenish. He looks Irish.

Raphael is momentarily taken aback at his idol’s lack of label awareness, but he recovers swiftly. “We’ve never met,” he says, thrusting his hand forward. “I’m Raphael Santiago—the birthday boy. And this is my friend Tracey Spadolini.”

“I’m Buckley O’Hanlon. Nice meeting you, Raphael. Hey, Tracey.”

“Hey,” I say, noticing a bowl of tortilla chips on a nearby overturned cardboard box serving as a table. I’m starving. I skipped dinner, feeling guilty about that massive diner lunch with Will.

I take a step closer and dive in, scarfing a couple of chips while Raphael manages to work into his next
few sentences the fact that he’s available now that he and his lover Anthony have broken up, that he works out at least five mornings a week and that he recently went to Paris on business. Until last August, he was an office temp. Now he’s an assistant style editor for
She
magazine.

The job isn’t as glamorous as you might think. Plus, the Paris trip was last September. But Raphael manages to make it sound as though he just blew into town on the Concorde with Anna Wintour.

“What do you do, Buckley?” Raphael asks.

“I’m a freelance copywriter.”

“A writer? You’re a writer! Buckley, what do you write?”

“Copy,” Buckley says with a faint grin. “Trust me, it’s not that exciting.”

“Buckley is writing the copy for our new brochure. That’s how we met,” Alexander says, taking out a pack of cigarettes. He hands one to Joseph before putting one between his own lips. Raphael, a notorious butt-moocher, snags one out of the pack before Alexander puts it away.

I reach into the pocket of my blazer and take out my Salem Lights. Alexander clicks a lighter four times, and we all puff away.

Buckley shakes his head. “Guess I’m the only nonsmoker left in New York.”

“Oh, I’m going to quit tomorrow,” Raphael announces.

“Since when?” Joseph asks.

“Since I turned thirty. Joseph, I want to live to see forty. That’s not going to happen with a three-pack-aday habit.”