What Nora Knew (21 page)

“The buying line,” the woman said.

We took our places at the end of the line. It was still light out. A man was selling sunhats and sunglasses on a table a few feet away. Ahead of us, two people up, another woman was shouting into her cell phone, “You’re never on time! You’re late on purpose so I get stuck buying the tickets!” The decibel level of her voice was an assault on the city’s usual noise assault. I couldn’t imagine being so angry that I’d scream in public. I’d be too embarrassed to scream in public.

Russell seemed to relax a bit when other people lined up behind us and we were no longer
last,
but he kept leaving to peek inside at the movie-times board. He was waiting for the words
sold out
to appear so he could march back to me and say I told you so.

“Still good,” he said after returning from his second reconnaissance.

“Good,” I said. “But what’s your alternate choice?”

“There’s nothing else I want to see.”

He was silent.

I was silent.

He sneezed.

I said gesundheit and went back to being silent.

A guy behind us was saying, “I hear that alien/cowboy movie really sucks.”

We inched forward through the theater doors. Inside, in line, Russell kept his eyes peeled to the digital board above the cashiers. “There’s an eleven-thirty show. We can go to that if the nine’s sold-out, but it’ll be your fault we have to wait.”

It seemed like a good time to talk about something else,
anything
else. I asked, “Russell, what did you do with that poetry book you bought?”

He raised his brow the way baffled English detectives do on PBS. “How do you know I bought a poetry book?”

“Is it for me?”

“You?”

“Yes, me.”

“No, it’s for me.”

“You?”
I must have sounded incredulous. I could see I’d hurt his feelings. The line moved forward.

“You really don’t know me, do you?” he said, keeping his voice low as if he didn’t want anyone to know him. “I like poetry. Walt Whitman. Billy Collins. Robert Frost.”

“You read Robert Frost? Why would you not mention that to me? Where along the lines of communication when you were telling me you hate Cobb salads and you were two badges short of Eagle Scout, and you once almost choked
to death on a fish bone at your grandmother’s seventy-fifth birthday, did you fail to bring up poetry?”

“I thought you’d laugh at me,” he said.

The woman up ahead barked into her phone, “Asshole!” and stomped out of line.

“Why would you think I’d laugh at you?”

“C’mon, Molly, you’re not what I’d call a poetry kind of woman.” I had no idea what a poetry kind of woman was like, but I was pretty certain she was someone Russell saw as softer, more sensitive, more Elizabeth Barrett Browning, than me. He said, “You read literature to make fun of it.”

“You watch the same crappy DVDs over and over again.”

“So?”

“So nothing.”

Russell sneezed. He searched in his pockets. I searched in my handbag and handed him a tissue.

When Evan and I uncoupled, it was a dramatic, name-calling, accusation-hurling parting of ways. For Russell and me it was a fizzle, a lazy animal that stopped plodding down the road and died. I prefer nasty split-ups. They’re more clear-cut; you aren’t left with any internal wavering.

“The simplest normal conversations with you turn into verbal banter,” Russell said.

“Is that bad?”

He exhaled a long, rueful sigh. “I feel like a trained bear running to keep up.
Can you top this?
Snappy dialogue’s for characters in movies. You want someone who doesn’t exist.” It was our turn at the ticket counter. “Maybe some people
enjoy sparring,” he said to me. “I don’t.” He asked the cashier for two tickets for
Cowboys & Aliens.

“Only one,” I said. Then I bought a ticket for
Crazy, Stupid, Love.

*  *  *

It was a mature breakup. We agreed I’d keep the coffee-bean grinder he gave me for Valentine’s Day; he’d keep the Waterpik I gave him for his birthday. In the popcorn line, Russell asked if he should stop over after his movie to pick up his belongings—his movie would run longer than mine. I had his shaving cream, sleep mask, some boxer briefs, socks, a razor, a shirt, and his Morton salt. No, I said, because we both knew we’d end up sleeping together, and farewell sex muddies the waters. He sneezed, I said God bless you; he said good luck with my writing; we’d drop off personal belongings with each other’s doormen. After our purchases at the snack counter, I asked him to say good-bye to Joyce and Irwin; we wished each other a happy life. Popcorn in hand, he headed off to his movie, followed by two women.

I woke up the next morning thinking,
What if I’ve made a huge mistake? What if Russell is the best I can do? Isn’t somebody better than nobody?
What if no matter how hard I tried, how many times I pulled a Sisyphus and pushed the boulder back up the mountain, I’d never get it right—this romance thing, this choosing-the-right-mate thing, this thing where you’re supposed to connect on a soul level, an emotional level, instead of what I’d been doing, connecting on a levelheaded,
this-ain’t-bad level. I pictured myself living alone with a houseful of cats. Then told myself to buck up. I could probably have a short-term affair with Cameron Duncan. That might be good for a night or two. Before he moved on. I could sign up for Match.com and fill my evenings with go-nowhere coffee dates. I might not end up with a boyfriend, but I could always end up with a caffeine addiction. Or I could stop trying altogether. I could just lean over and pull out my Rabbit.

*  *  *

“You decided you weren’t compatible over a cowboy/space-monster movie?” Angela said. Angela and Kristine and I were getting pedicures at Sheila’s Nails on Lexington. I’m no expert on other cities, but New York’s a town where you can get your toes done on a Sunday afternoon. I was in the middle chair soaking my feet, while on my right Kristine was getting her calluses buffed, and on my left Angela’s toenails were being subjected to an emery board. Our pedicurists, three pint-size, diligent women in pink smocks, were chatting in Korean while we pedicurees discussed my less-than-twenty-four-hours breakup. You know your girlfriends really love you when they’re willing to crawl out of their own boyfriends’ beds to offer moral support for your now no-boyfriend bed.

“We sort of split up at the cashier’s window, but officially broke up while waiting in line for popcorn,” I said.

“Who paid for the popcorn?” Angela asked.

I was turning my head like I was watching a tennis match. “He did. But I got Jujubes.”

“Nobody eats Jujubes,” Kristine said.

“Who paid for the Jujubes?” Angela asked.

“He did.”

“Classy,” she said.

“I really decided to break up before we got to the theater, while we were still at home and I was watching him nap.”

“He naps?” Kristine said.

“Not classy,” Angela said. “Good thing you dumped him. My policy is, if there’s no buzz with a man, tell him to buzz off.”

“I never realized you had an official policy,” I said.

“I made it up just now.”

“It takes courage to end a long relationship,” Kristine said. “It’s like the MTA. You wait for the bus and you wait for the bus and you can’t give up on waiting for the bus, by hailing a taxi or something, because by then, you’ve already invested so much time waiting for the bus.”

“Clip short or long?” my lady asked in her musical voice, the pitch rising and falling.

“Short,” I said. She focused on clipping while I continued my story. “These two women were standing behind us, and as soon as Russell and I agreed it was over, one of them hit on him. She went all sexy-voiced on him and asked what movie
he
was seeing.”

“It’s so easy for men,” Kristine said, switching feet.

“Way too easy,” Angela said. “Did that woman make you want him back?”

“He hadn’t gone anywhere yet.”

“Dumping a guy’s like putting an item back on the sale table at Saks,” Angela said. “As soon as somebody else picks it up, you want it.” Angela’s pedicure lady said something to my pedicure lady and the three women laughed. “You should find some guy and have wild sex tonight.”

“Who? Her?” Kristine said.

“Who? Me?” I said.

“You need a new affair to forget your old affair,” Angela said.

“Russell wasn’t an affair. He was Russell.”

“When’s the last time you hooked up just for fun?” Kristine asked.

I reflected, then said, “I once had this crazy thing with a customer I met while working at Hertz. He’d leave dirty messages on my voice mail.”

“What kind of car did he rent?” Angela asked.

“A convertible. His messages said things like ‘I want you top down’ and ‘turbocharge my pop-off valve.’ ”

“And that turned you
on
?” Kristine said.

“No. But the convertible did. I was young and he was Hertz Gold.”

This led to Angela’s and Kristine’s offering up examples of their own wild affairs. To inspire me.

“A docent at the Guggenheim,” Kristine said.

“A divinity student!” Angela said.

“The floor manager in glassware and fine china.”

“This supercute meteorologist from Terre Haute. We met at a convention.” Angela’s cheeks pinked.

“Married?” I said.

She shrugged. “Oh, well.”

“Uncle Freddy.” Kristine smiled. “Only he wasn’t really my uncle.”

I didn’t want wild affairs. I didn’t want tawdry affairs. I didn’t want slapdash, superficial, rash, foolish, any affairs.
I wanted to feel cherished. I wanted to feel adored. I wanted someone to look at me as if the sun and moon set on me or rose on me or whatever it is you want planets to do when someone thanks their lucky stars for you. I wanted someone to
get
me and then love what he got. Most of all, I wanted to believe, re-believe, that was possible.

“You’ll meet someone,” Angela said. “Love is in the air.”

“And ragweed,” I said. “Spores. Pollen. There’s all sorts of grief out there.”

Emily Lawler was standing in my cubicle. She was tanned, and dressed in a flouncy, lavender skirt with a lavender floral top. “Want to see my vacation photos?” she asked.

Emily was not a flouncy, lavender kind of girl. I was immediately suspicious. Of what, I didn’t know, but something was strange. “I’m holding out for the slide show,” I said.

“A lot happened.”

“A lot happened here. Nobody disturbed me.”

“You’d miss me, you know, if I weren’t here.” She sat down in my
guest
chair.

“I’ve already tested that theory. I survived.”

“I did a fabulous interview for my column last night.” If it’s possible to convey smugness in the pronunciation of one word, that’s what Emily did when she said
column.
“Emily Literati,” she added, in case I didn’t know just which column
she meant. She stretched out her legs, crossed her ankles, and sat back with her head resting in her hands, elbows up.

“Anyone ever tell you that it’s rude to drop by uninvited?”

“One of my best columns ever,” she said.

“Thanks for sharing. And thanks for bragging.”

“Cameron Duncan? I believe you were once on a panel together.” She sat up straight, folded her arms across her chest. “Of course, you weren’t
supposed
to be on a panel together. He was pretty amused when I told him what happened. Y’know, that thing about you stealing my appearance.”

“Cameron’s easily amused.”

“His new book sounds amazing. Mike Bing’s girlfriend won’t be killed off. Mike’s ready for commitment. Like in Spenser novels, Spenser’s psychiatrist girlfriend.”

“So now Cameron’s copying Robert Parker?”

“It’s an homage.”

“And Cameron’s cool with you telling the ending of his book, that the girlfriend lives; it’s okay if you blab that news?”

“Oh, no. That’s completely confidential. I’m not revealing a thing.”

“You’re off to a good start.”

“We shared many secrets.”

“You and Cameron? Secrets?”

Emily smiled, looking heavenward like that was where she hid her secrets. Miss Innocent, Miss Smug. “He’s not conventionally handsome, but I think he’s really handsome, don’t you? And what self-effacing charm.” I’d never noticed him being self-effacing. I thought of him as cocky and presumptuous.
“We talked for what seemed like hours,” Emily said. “About his growing up in the Midwest, how it affected his values; what it’s like for a guy to have all those sisters; my column and how much he liked writing his column when he wrote for
Ellery Queen.
We share a bond you couldn’t understand.”

“A columnists’ bond?”

“He’s so sensitive. You should have heard him—not that you would have been there—he was talking about love and romance, and old expectations that get in the way of love. How many men think about these things? He said cynicism’s self-protection, a defense mechanism used by cowards who give up on love because they’re afraid love’s given up on them. Mike Bing’s new girlfriend will fall so in love with him that she’ll stop being a cynic.”

“And because of that, she deserves to live?”

“Because of that she gets to be an ongoing character.”

“Well, thanks for the update.” I looked at my watch. “Gee! Check out the time! And I have so much to do! I wish we could gab longer about your great night last night, but I’m swamped.”

“Have it your way,” flouncy, lavender Emily said, standing up. “Cameron is so sweet. He made me an origami flower out of a napkin. Do you want to see it?”

I said, “Let me just imagine it.”

*  *  *

A week later, Deidre had me enlisting to be a Rockette. Her ideas were becoming diabolical. I couldn’t wait for her to assign “I Was a Crack Addict” or “I Was Buried Alive.” This latest
one involved something called the Rockettes Experience—two hours of my learning to high-kick in a chorus line. It’s how the Rockettes keep themselves employed until Christmas.

Dancing is not my sport. Some people are naturals. My sister Lisa, for instance. Any type of music you pop on a stereo and her body can’t help but react; she starts tapping her toes, swinging her hips, snapping her fingers. Within minutes, she knows all the steps to a rumba, the latest moves for hip-hop. If we were passing a fire station with a radio playing some frolicky music, I’m sure she’d do a pole dance. Whatever family DNA existed in the dance-talent gene pool, Lisa snatched up all the goodies. Jocelyn and I, we’re sideliners.