What Nora Knew (8 page)

“How sweet! What’s the first thing you said to one another?”

“I don’t know. I was high,” the girl said.

“Me, too,” the guy said.

“This sounds like a terrible article,” the girl said.

INTERVIEW NOTES. TIFFANY’S, 5TH AVENUE. 2ND FLOOR. THURSDAY, JUNE 9

1:45 p.m.

ME
: Can I ask you a question?

YOUNG MAN
: I don’t work here.

ME
: I see you’re eyeing engagement rings.

YOUNG MAN
: Do you work here?

ME
: No.
EyeSpy.

YOUNG MAN
: On customers? That is really rude.

1:52 p.m.

ME
: Looks like you two are getting engaged.

WOMAN WITH BANGS
: We’re ring shopping.

ME
: How do you know it will last, that two years from now you won’t be trying to resell your ring on eBay?

MAN WITH SIDEBURNS
: Who sent you here?

WOMAN WITH BANGS
: His mother?

ME
: I’m a reporter.

WOMAN WITH BANGS
: (teary-eyed) She’s right! What if it doesn’t last?

1:58 p.m.

ME
: So where did you two soul mates meet?

GIRL IN PONYTAIL
: At a barn dance.

ME
: Excuse me?

FRESH-FACED GUY
: We’re from Nebraska.

GIRL IN PONYTAIL
: We’re visiting New York because what’s more romantic than buying your engagement ring at Tiffany’s?

ME
: Buying the same ring for half price on 47th St.

2:03 p.m

SECURITY GUARD
: I’m sorry, ma’am. But we must ask you to leave.

*  *  *

On Friday, Deirdre dropped a press kit and plastic baggie on my desk. “A new assignment,” she said. “See if they work.” She jingled and wafted off.

“If what work?” Emily called out from the other side of my cubicle.

“Gift certificates for Bergdorf’s,” I called back.

I opened the baggie and pulled out panties with some kind of rubber plug, about the size of a nipple on a baby bottle, sewn into the crotch. Now I knew why Deirdre had made a Road Runner exit. According to the instructions, if I inserted the one-inch silicone extension vaginally, I’d have a focus point for performing Kegel exercises. Several bullet points on the press sheet explained why tighter is better, one of which claimed I could release stress throughout the day. A good thing, since these panties were already stressing me out.

Saturday morning I was meeting Angela and Kristine at the Met. Angela’s idea. Something to do with a client of hers, a Greek restaurant. Kristine and I were waiting at the top of the stairs when Angela came bounding up, out of breath. “Sorry!” she said. She’d been with Mr. Iannuzzeli, discussing lamb-chop promotions.

“No problem,” I said. “I kept busy.”

“Are you wearing them?” she asked.

“Tighter is better!” I said.

Two German tourists were ahead of us in the ticket line. I apologize for any racial profiling, but you can always tell from their socks and sandals; that, plus they were speaking German. Kristine was digging out her wallet while Angela was tweeting and asking how to spell
slowpoke
in German.

On our way past the uniformed security man, Angela told us her big plan to use Greek history for her client. “How often can you tweet about moussaka?” she said.

The museum was packed. People swarming about, peering into glass cases of museum-quality dishes, bowls, and figurines, shrugging and walking away. The whole thing made me depressed, seeing the visitors zipping past artifacts that were some ancient craftsman’s life’s work. But nothing depresses me more than the museum guards standing off to the side no doubt hoping, praying, for
anyone
to touch something, breath on something, or, too much to wish for, attempt a heist, thus alleviating the tedium of what must be the most boring job on earth. I know. I once spent a summer as a lifeguard waiting for someone to drown.

“Aren’t you glad you don’t have to dust this place?” Kristine said, as we headed to our gallery.

The Met’s Greek and Roman galleries are considered a big deal, a multimillion-dollar-renovation big deal with an overhead skylight, a penny-filled fountain, and Greek pillars. Or maybe Roman; I can never tell the difference. And a tile floor designed to look like rugs are spread all over it, except the rugs are made of tiles, too. The main attractions are the white marble figures scattered around the room on gray pedestals. Some of the gray pedestals just have heads, and others have headless bodies. The Met could save a lot of space if they stuck some of those heads onto some of those bodies. There are also a few urns, vases, and a marble coffin or two.

We stood in front of a statue of a fella who looked like, well, a Greek god. I squeezed out a couple of Kegels.

Angela asked, “Why are there never any penises on the
men statues? Do you think there’s a big drawer in back holding all the broken penises?”

“Yes,” Kristine said. “Right next to the drawer with all the women’s arms.”

“Good one!” Angela said, her thumbs flying into action.

“No penis is a definite deal killer,” I said.

So while the other art devotees were conversing about Hellenistic this and BCE that and Greco-Roman whatever, we got into a spirited debate on the biggest deal killers with men, although it’s hard to top a missing penis.

“Dirty fingernails,” Kristine said.

“Excessive sweating,” Angela said.

“Gross Adam’s apples,” Kristine said.

“Refers to breasts as melons or bazooms!” I blurted out.

“Shhh!” the guard said.

“Nicolas Cage movies,” I mumbled, and immediately felt guilty. I thought of Cameron Duncan saying he loved
Sleepless in Seattle
. “Insincere men. A guy who uses romance like a hit-and-run artist.”

We checked out a frieze, or a fresco; I get those confused, too.

“How’s your Nora piece coming?” Angela asked.

I said, “It’s due in a week and hard to squeeze in with my other assignments.” The three of us guffawed. The guard shushed us. I contracted my pelvic floor muscle. “I feel like I’ve questioned half the city. I’ll interview a fire hydrant if I can get a good quote out of it. I even talked to the carriage drivers across from the Plaza. One of them told me about some guy making a marriage proposal.”

“That’s romantic,” Angela said.

“Proposing while riding around behind a horse’s diaper is romantic?” I said.

“Tell me again why they asked you to write this article,” Kristine said.

We walked to the American-furniture wing, which was far less crowded than the wing with the Greek gods. Maybe because it’s a room filled with chairs but no place to sit. We stopped to ponder something called a tête-á-tête, which looked like two chairs fused together at one arm in opposite directions. Apparently that was considered a good idea in 1850.

“Designed for soul mates,” Angela said, studying the chair-amabob.

“Okay, so how will you know someone’s the one?” I asked her.

“Give me three martinis,” she said. “Two on an empty stomach.”

Kristine sighed. “I should try that.”

“How was your date with the pharmacist?” I asked her.

“Dull.”

“The stand-up comic?”

“Tortured. But maybe I should give him a second chance. It took Meg Ryan twelve years to realize she loved Billy Crystal,” adding for all we non–
It’s Academic
members of humanity, “in
When Harry Met Sally.
” Angela and I nodded yes-we-knew-that.

“Didn’t Nora write that with her sister?” Angela said.

“Which sister?” I said. “There’s more than one sister.”

“She wrote
You’ve Got Mail
with Delia,” Kristine said. We were walking through a re-creation of a seventeenth-century
living room. “I like the stuff we sell at Bloomingdale’s much better than this crap.”

“I can’t imagine writing with my sister,” I said.

“Your sister’s an upholsterer. None of us can imagine that,” Kristine said.

We paused in front of a Samuel McIntire chair in dire need of some Hallberg reupholstering; the silk fabric on the seat was in shreds.

“You know, Russell reminds me of the boyfriend in
You’ve Got Mail,
” Angela said.

“Greg Kinnear,” Kristine said. “But I think he’s more like Bill Pullman in
Sleepless in Seattle
. Although they’re both interchangeably bland.”

“Russell’s not bland,” I said. “And I like Bill Pullman; I like Greg Kinnear.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Kristine said. “We all want Tom Hanks.”

*  *  *

After Kristine left for her Internet-musician date, and Angela decided to hang out in the museum store, I walked down Fifth Avenue, squeezing my way though the other pedestrians. I needed a new cord for my laptop.

The Apple store on Fifth is a major tourist attraction in town. Even PC users visit. A three-story glass cube lures you below sidewalk level. A spiral glass stairway wraps around a glass elevator. I found the cord I needed. An apple-cheeked employee swiped my credit card. I was walking up the stairs,
feeling pleased with myself, my day, my efficiency, when riding down in the glass elevator, laughing with a curly-haired redhead in a swirly red dress, was the one and only Mr. Cameron Duncan. I didn’t turn away fast enough and he spotted me, his smile smug and charming. He waved, kept waving. I could feel my innards tighten. I forced myself to smile back. Wave. Squeeze. Wave. What an ass.

*  *  *

That night I made burgers and salad for Russell and me. He helped clear the dishes. He rinsed while I loaded. He scrubbed the broiler. By now you’re probably thinking,
Marry this guy.
I was holding a drinking glass up to the light, looking for spots like a lady in a television commercial, and asked, “How about watching
Sleepless in Seattle
? I’m halfway through my notes.”

He looked as if I’d suggested,
Now please scrub my floor
. “Can’t you do that some other time?” he said. “I hate the way you pause the DVD to write stuff down. It takes twice as long.”

The spotty glass went into the dishwasher.

“And I’m kind of sleepy,” he said.

“Did you take your hay-fever pills?”

“Right before I got here.” Russell sponged the sink while I sponged the counter. “Do you mind if we go to bed early?” He was bending over, sliding the broiler pan back into the oven.

“Not at all.” I smiled, patted him on the butt.

“And read,” he said.

“And read?” I stopped patting.

On our sixth date Russell gave me a special foam pillow
that curves at the base to support my neck. By our tenth date he brought over a second foam pillow for himself along with pajama bottoms, an electric toothbrush, two sets of fresh underwear, and the sleep mask he keeps in the nightstand. Russell prefers the side of the bed with the clock radio. I prefer the side closest to the bathroom. We’re compatible in so many ways.

In bed, on the clock-radio side, he asked me what I was reading. Stretched out on the bathroom side, I held up
Gone with the Wind.
“Research?”

I nodded yes and asked what he was reading. He held up
Felonies among Friends
.

“Why that?”

“It’s good. I like it,” Russell said. Five minutes later his eyes were closing, his head lilting forward.

“That must be some swell book,” I said.

“It’s the hay-fever medicine,” he said. Down and out.

On paper, Russell was the perfect boyfriend. Pleasant. Reliable. But in real life, sometimes, not always, he was just Russell. I tucked him in. Didn’t bother with his mask. I set his book on my nightstand, Cameron Duncan’s smile grinning at me from the back cover. I turned the book faceup and opened my novel to the bookmarked page, Scarlett about to be swept up the red-velvet staircase in Rhett’s strong arms.
“Stop—please, I’m faint!” she whispered,
while my boyfriend snored beside me.

Tuesday morning I handed in my Kegel story. Tuesday morning Deirdre announced she was off to an important meeting and returned three hours later with a manicure and new highlights. While I was waiting for her feedback, Keith Kretchmer poked his head into my cube. “Hey, don’t tell anyone, but Stacy in legal had a nose job.” I was trying to remember who Stacy was and what her nose looked like when he said, “Hush-hush, Molly?”

“Hush-hush, Keith.”

A moment later I heard him next door, saying, “Hey, Emily, don’t tell anyone but—”

I put on my headphones and Lady Gaga and assessed the male employees in the office on their date-ability. The pickings were slim. And the answer to the ever-ongoing burning question:
Why do I know so many great available women and no available men?
At some point all the men who were now
paired, attached, snapped up, or spoken for had to be available, right? Wasn’t there a layover time when these men were on the market? A transition week, an hour or two between their ex-girlfriend and their new fiancée, their last wife and their current marriage? Then I remembered how the third Mrs. Naboshek was already choosing china patterns before the second Mrs. Naboshek—idiot, chowderhead Mrs. Naboshek—had tuned in to the end of her marriage.

I began with Keith. A knuckle-cracker. Gum-snapper. The first to spread any office scuttlebutt. And married.

Next came Wolfie, the art director. Wolfie’s a germaphobe; he keeps a pump-size bottle of Purell on his desk. We went out for pizza once. When the waitress brought our water glasses, he used a napkin to clean off her fingerprints. Wolfie’s married to a nursing student.

Brady—the cloud administrator. His title’s one of the jokes at the office. Brady’s so tall people say he’s personal friends with the cloud. Married.

Joel Mooy—restaurant reviewer. On his fourth wife.

Ronald Miller—celeb reporter. Between stories Ron sits in his cubicle eating cannoli and studying Italian on Rosetta. Engaged to a stylist named Gina.