The Hazards of Hunting While Heartbroken (25 page)

Angela’s ever-shrinking eyebrows knit together in concentration as she positions two perfectly executed twists onto the cosmopolitans she’s mixed for us. Ernest and Algernon look on from their customary post on the opposite counter. She long since gave up on her foolish battle to keep them off certain furniture. She’s got a live-and-let-live attitude towards her cats, and she says she uses it to cull men. Guys who complain about paw prints near their food don’t last long. It’s a funny quirk for someone who’s so meticulous about most other things in life. Such as the presentation of our cocktails.

Finally satisfied with the positioning of garnish on drinks nobody but the two of us, and her cats, will see, she admires her handiwork before passing me my cocktail. “Here’s to a man-free night,” she grins.

“Cheers.” Angela’s concoction is stronger than I expected, and my first sip burns the back of my throat on its way down. “But why are you suddenly anti-male?”

“I feel dated out,” she says as she sinks onto one of her barstools. “And I’m kind of happy Oscar has another business trip. I’m afraid you’re morphing into one of those girls who only has time for her friends when the man in unavailable.”

Fair enough. Angela may have a more active dating life than any other woman I know, but she always makes time for her friends. Sometimes she double books an evening, and sometimes she’s rushed, but if you really need her, she’ll leave whatever hot young trader, automotive parts heir or European prince she may happen to have in her bed hanging, and rush right over.

“Sorry. This thing with Oscar, it’s still so new and intense. It’s a big change of pace for me.” I’m not sure I need to solicit forgiveness, but I’m doing it anyway, as a prophylactic measure.

“Don’t apologize,” she says, as if reading my mind. “Just don’t disappear on me totally. I don’t have that many real friends.”

This is true. Angela
knows
practically everyone in New York. But she’s so much more complicated than she looks. Most people don’t get her, or, more often, they presume: beautiful girl, great smile, works in shoes, not much substance. As a result, her inner circle is limited. Its core consists of me, Kevin, and this girl Karen she grew up with, who now lives in Connecticut.

“What’s wrong?” I ask, because it’s so unlike her to say downbeat things. With Angela, everything is normally bright and bubbly.

“I’m probably just over-tired, and afflicted with monster PMS. My boobs are killing me this month.” She slides off her bar stool and we take our drinks and move to the couch in her small living room. Ernest and Algernon, delighted to see two laps where usually they have only one, leap up to join us. Angela arranges her drink and her cat and says, “But you and Oscar have got me thinking. Maybe it’s time to stop dating like my life depends on it. Maybe I’ve already dumped Prince Charming because I didn’t get to know him well enough to realize who he was. Does that make sense?”

“Sort of.”

“I don’t know how to step off the treadmill without careening backwards, splayed onto the floor. Ouch.” She flails her arms for dramatic effect and forces a laugh.

“It’s simple. You just stop taking gifts from age-inappropriate admirers and notorious international playboys, and instead go out with guys you can actually talk to, you know, people with real relationship potential.”

She frowns at me. So I add, “Come on. There’s nothing that says one of your suitors isn’t the one. You need to give the promising guys more time, and weed out the Reiners of the world.”

“You’re right.” Angela pointedly admires the enormous cocktail ring on her finger. She’s the only person I know who can carry off big jewelry while wearing yoga pants. “I have enough baubles and I get great freebies at work.”

“You’re incorrigible.”

“Yes, I am. But don’t think for a second that I’m about to let your crack about taking stuff from older men slide. Didn’t a certain guy with more than a couple of years on you just furnish you with an entire apartment? Which, by the way, is
such
a new money move.” She rolls her eyes and I can’t tell if she’s being facetious.

I shrug sheepishly. It’s such a new development that I failed to focus on my own blatant hypocrisy while dispensing advice. “Touché, I suppose, but I had no idea how much money he had, so you can’t say I started dating him for his income.”

“That’s right. You went out with him because he’s hot. Very, very hot.” She smiles broadly.

I laugh. She’s not far off. Hot and interested in me, and that’s all it took to hook me. And sometimes I can’t help but wonder if it’s normal for him to be this into me so fast. It all feels too fairy-tale-perfect. So much so that I’m a tiny bit afraid that I fill an immediate vacancy in his life more than a longstanding hole in his heart. Which would fit his over-achiever profile. I don’t like to dwell on that, because it makes me wonder slightly too much about what I want from our fledgling relationship. Besides exclusivity. I’ve been hedging on whether to solicit Angela’s opinion on the whole call girl thing, but now I decide to broach it.

“So we ran into Olivia again at Anissa.”

“She’s suddenly everywhere, huh?”

“So it would seem. She cornered me in the bathroom.”

Angela jumps ahead of me. “Do you think she wants to steal Oscar back?”

“I don’t think so. She gave me this whole ‘I’m telling you this because you seem nice’ spiel and then said the real reason they divorced was because Oscar was seeing call girls.” I’m embarrassed to say it, even to my best friend.

“Yikes.”

“Exactly. So I asked Oscar and he denied it.”

“That was ballsy of you. I’m impressed. But do you believe him?”

“I think so. But why would she make it up?”

“It’s a convenient way for her to make his life difficult. Oscar is running around blaming their divorce on her, so she’s getting even. Not that Olivia’s motive really matters. The real question is whether you trust your boyfriend or not.”

“I’m not very confident in my ability to read people lately.”

“You could always indulge in some harmless fact finding,” she suggests, almost hopefully, as if she’s eager to partake in a little secondhand drama.

“Maybe. I don’t know. That’s not the kind of relationship I want.”

We eat our Chinese take out, kill a bottle of pinot noir, and watch the
Sex and the City
movie (again) before Angela brings up the tapdancing pink elephant on her coffee table. “How long are you planning to avoid Kevin?” she asks without looking at me. Instead she makes herself busy with uncorking a new bottle of wine.

“Until he decides to move out of the building?” I’m only half joking. After I told Kevin off on the phone the other night, I asked Marvin, who practiced law for three years during his life before Carol Broadwick, and who is therefore my go-to guy for all questions legal, if there would be a problem with me selling the place Oscar bought me. He told me that I’m the owner, I can do what I want, but if I want to avoid an unpleasant “taxation event,” he suggests I live there for two years before selling.

“Seriously. Are you going to the party Tuesday night?”

Right. The election. Which is now too close for the pundits to call, so they’ll have to conduct actual voting and wait for the count before releasing the balloons and confetti. Though I suppose they do that anyway, even if everyone expects a landslide. Angela prods again, “Well?”

“I wasn’t planning on it after the other night, and I doubt Kevin wants me there, either.”

“I really wish you could work it out.” She reaches over to refill my wine glass.

“Me too, but he’s pitted himself against Oscar and he seems hellbent on making me feel like a horrid human being. So, as much as it stings inside to say this, I’m done. The next move is his and it had better be a sincere apology.”

Algernon readjusts himself on my lap and continues purring, without regard to my human angst. His paws knead my thighs contentedly before his green eyes close to upturned slits and he falls asleep.

“Your cat snores,” I say, and reach for my refilled wine.

“Don’t change the subject. Kevin feels awful, too, you know.” She sounds like she’s getting stuffed up.

“Well, he should. He’s been doing his best to put me down and I’ve had enough.”

“He’s been driven to temporary insanity by jealousy. And he’s not so much judgmental, as protective of you. He just expresses it all wrong.”

“Angela?” Not having Kevin as a daily part of my life is finally taking its toll. A lump is forming in my throat. I force myself to swallow it and resolve that another will not take its place.

“What?”

“Promise me you won’t say anything to Kevin about what Olivia said to me. I don’t want to give him more ammunition.”

“You’re no fun,” she pretend whines, but I know my secrets are safe with her. It’s one of the best things about Angela. Despite her love for gossip, frivolity and drama, she can be the most discreet person I know. At least when reminded.

On Tuesday night, at twenty-eight minutes past ten o’clock, the Associated Press calls New York City’s most closely contested mayoral race in decades for Councilman O’Malley. He marches to the podium and claims victory with neither his wife nor any of his daughters at his side. The margin of victory is just under one percentage point, and TV’s talking heads predict a recount, but it’s obvious none of them expect the result to change. The pundits say he put himself over the top at the Feminist Majority dinner. His promise to fight child exploitation turned out enough women who wouldn’t have otherwise bothered to vote.

I watch the revelry on the tube, in my flannel pajamas with the sheep on them, and the Totes slippers with treads that my grandmother sent me the Christmas before she died. It’s safe to lounge in my secret single outfit tonight, with Oscar halfway around the world in Tokyo. It’s also safe to do a little research on his ex. I’ve had my laptop out all night, but I’ve found nothing remotely unsavory about Olivia Sevigny. All Google comes up with are a few articles about her charity work with the Afghan girls’ schools. I give up around eleven and shut my laptop in disgust, just in time to change the channel and see Kevin giving an interview.

Kevin sounds like he’s reading bullet points from the spin team. He tries to wrap it up by saying, “The Mayor-elect looks forward to working with citizens from all boroughs, and from all walks of life, to make the best city in the world even better.”

The surprisingly plump reporter purses her lips and asks about the pornography scandal.

“The Mayor-elect abhors all abuse of children and his administration will work tirelessly to protect the city’s most vulnerable citizens. He looks forward to working closely with law enforcement, to bring those who exploit minors to justice.”

The reporter scowls. “What about Mr. O’Malley’s alleged ties to the adult film business?”

Kevin answers in a tone that sounds way too sober for election night. “Like many New Yorkers, the Mayor-elect owns stock in a company, which has a subsidiary, which in turn owns another subsidiary that is the target of the current investigation. The Mayor-elect has absolutely nothing to do with the corporation’s day to day activities and he does not participate in its management.”

“Shouldn’t the Mayor-elect have vetted his investments more carefully?”

“As this campaign has repeatedly noted, he plans to divest his stock holdings to avoid any appearance of impropriety, before taking office.”

The reporter, visibly disappointed that she can’t elicit one candid comment from the newly elected mayor’s battle-weary aide, sends the broadcast back to her anchor.

In one of the shots panning the ballroom at the Marriott Marquis, I see Angela, looking marvelous in a kimono-inspired dress with her hair skewered into an elaborate up do, held in place with just sticks. And hairspray, I imagine. She’s got a date in tow, an olive-skinned Roman heartthrob named Claudio, whose family somehow married into an enormous stake in one of those mind-boggling Greek shipping fortunes. She told me his vital statistics over the weekend. He’s getting his MBA at NYU so he’s local for at least the next year and a half. And he’s our age, which I thought sounded like a good development, until she snidely reminded me that I was still an infant when Oscar was finishing the fourth grade.

I glance at my cell phone on the coffee table and briefly consider sending Kevin a congratulatory text before switching off the TV and padding to bed.

The next morning, on my way to the office on the early side for a change, I step out of the stairwell and see Kevin at the mailboxes. He’s in last night’s suit minus his tie and he has about a week’s worth of mail spilling out at him. He’s flipping through his bills and hasn’t seen me yet. Maybe I should just go back to the stairs and wait five minutes. No, that’s stupid. He lives across the hall. I’m bound to run into him. But should I say something? Nod good morning? No. He’s in the wrong. He needs to make the first move.

I march into the foyer purposefully, convinced I am the aggrieved party, who should be allowed to pass without delay. Kevin looks up when the door opens. His eyes are red and exhausted, but the worry lines aren’t as severe as they were last time I saw him. I’m fully intending to give him the silent treatment and brush past when he stops me dead in my sneakers.