Dumping Billy (15 page)

“Yes, this is Kate Jameson.”

“Hi. This is B-B-Billy Nolan.” The stammer gave him away, even if he hadn’t identified himself by name. Kate felt the color rush to her face.

“How did you get my number?” she asked. “My number here at work.” What nerve! As if it wouldn’t have been inappropriate enough to have him call her at home. Kate always worried about protocol. After all, this was her first professional job. Now this . . . this . . . jerk had her work number. She’d kill whichever one of the Bitches had given it out.

“Look, I hope this isn’t a b-bad time.”

She’d had a rough afternoon. Stevie Grossman, a fifth grader, was showing disturbing signs of schizophrenia, very unusual in a child his age. Kate knew he needed to see a psychiatrist—she had a friend at the Ackerman Institute for the Family who might help—but both his parents and Dr. McKay were trying to minimize the boy’s troubles in the face of her professional advice. And now this bozo—albeit gorgeous bozo—was calling her at work? “I’m afraid it is,” Kate said coldly. How many women had he scored with? Did he expect to add her name to the list?

“Would there be a better time?” Billy asked.

“I’m afraid there wouldn’t be,” Kate said. She should have hung up the phone at that moment, but something, she wasn’t sure what, tugged at her. It was hard for her to be really rude. “I’m sorry. I have to go.” She placed the phone back in its cradle as a twinge of guilt doused the tiny glow of pleasure she felt from the call. She was seeing Michael in just a little while. Who did Billy Nolan think he was?

She put the thought from her mind, gathered her things, and locked her office. As she passed Elliot’s third-grade classroom, she caught a glimpse of him teetering on a chair, sticking transparencies on the windows. “Math Is Fun!” they said. He was hanging them so they showed their faces to the outside world and read backward to the class.

“Well, that ought to convince them,” she teased. She needed her dose of Elliot to cheer her up. “Good for the dyslexics, at least.”

Elliot whirled, startled by her voice, and nearly fell off the chair. He grabbed at the window to steady himself, then looked down at her and smiled. “Nice to see you, too.” He sighed. “Andrew Country Day. Home of learning for learning’s sake.”

Kate walked in and took a seat in Elliot’s chair, putting her feet up on his desk. Maybe he could suggest something she could do to convince Stevie’s parents to get him professional help. He could be pretty resourceful. But he beat her to the punch.

“How’s Bina doing?” he asked, swiping at her feet to get them off the desk.

“As well as can be expected,” Kate said, shrugging. After the wedding, Bina had agreed to go home to face the music and begin her “exploration of singleness.” Somehow that had translated into coming over to Kate’s constantly for sympathy and getting gossip about Jack from Max.

“Poor Bina,” Elliot said. “I really like her.”

“So do I,” she agreed. “She’s like a sister to me.”

“I liked Bev and Barbie, too,” Elliot said. “What a hoot.”

“Well, I wasn’t as close to them,” she reminded Elliot. “But I’m glad you and Brice had fun.”

“Fun? Brice hasn’t talked about anything else since. He’s dying for the next installment.”

“There is no next installment. It’s not a soap opera. It’s life, sort of. Bina is back managing her father’s office. Maybe she’ll meet some guy who needs a spinal adjustment.”

“I’d like to see Bina,” Elliot said.

“Look, Brooklyn isn’t a spectator sport.” Kate stood up. She didn’t want to hold her friends up to derision and criticism, even if she did so herself. “Bina is very low. She had a lot invested in Jack.” She sighed. “I’ve gotta go. I have a date with Michael tonight.”

“Sit down another minute,” Elliot requested, for once without saying a word against Michael. Kate was surprised enough to do it, but only at the edge of the seat, ready for a quick exit if he got started. “Look,” he said, “I think I have a way to help Bina.”

“Oh, Elliot. Please,” Kate began, rolling her eyes. “Unless you have a written proposal from Jack in your pocket, there’s nothing you can—”

“Just listen,” he told her. “This might be as good as a written proposal.”

Kate looked at him skeptically, as if he were about to reveal the secrets of the mummy’s tomb.

“Remember how at the wedding Barbie said she got dumped by that gorgeous guy?”

Kate couldn’t believe it. Was she going to be hounded by mentions and visions of Billy Nolan? She would never tell Elliot about the call or he would become hysterical. “What gorgeous guy?” she asked.

“The best man. Billy,” Elliot reminded her. “Remember? The one who looked like a much more handsome Matt Damon?”

“Oh, yeah. The toaster. What about him?” Kate said, trying to look bored.

“Well, Barbie dated him.”

“Barbie dated everyone,” Kate said. “She’d just about run out of Brooklyn guys and had to start on Staten Island.”

“Try to hold your focus,” Elliot said. “As you may or may not remember, Bunny also dated and got dumped by Billy. Right before she married Arnie.”

“Bunny had really bad luck with men,” Kate said. “So?”

“Well, she had good luck, as you call it, after Billy . . . if you consider Arnie good luck.”

Kate shrugged and tried to remember if she had picked up her white blouse from the dry cleaners or not. She wanted to wear it tonight. “And your point would be?”

“Well, Bev had dated Billy, been dumped, then got married, too. When I noted this odd probability, my brilliant mathematical mind went into high gear and I started to do some digging.”

“And?” said Kate.

“And so,” Elliot continued, sounding a little annoyed, “I went on a little fact-finding mission and found out six women at the wedding dated Billy and got dumped by him.”

“So he’s a slut,” Kate said. She thought of the way Billy had charmed her on the terrace, his phone call, his incredible good looks. She was surprised there weren’t thirty women there he’d disappointed. “Wow, Elliot. You’re a regular Sherlock Holmes.”

“You’re not getting the picture here. You remember how I had to help you with statistics?”

“How could I forget? You remind me at every possible opportunity.”

“Well, I’m a genius,” Elliot told her. “Geniuses are always disrespected.” He spoke primly, holding his nose a little higher. “Stay with me here, Kate. You’ll see. All six of these women, after getting dumped by Billy,
married
the very next man they dated.”

Kate shrugged. “Anyone would look good after that guy. He’s just a player.” Even to her, her voice sounded too bitter. A little flirt and a phone call. What was Billy Nolan to her?

“Kate. Kate! Don’t you get it!” Elliot almost shouted, clearly exasperated. “It’s not about him. It’s about what happens
after
him. Do you know the statistical likelihood of this phenomenon?”

“Obviously not,” replied Kate, who was getting pretty irritated herself by now. She stood up. She wouldn’t have time to stop at the cleaners, and if her white shirt wasn’t at home, she’d wear the green silk one. She picked up her purse. “Gotta go.”

“Kate, I’ve worked it out, and the probability ranges from one in six million and three hundred and forty-seven to one in eighty-two million six hundred and forty-three. And that’s
with
standard deviation.”

“Talk about deviation,” Kate said, “when do you have time to shampoo your hair?” She got to the door. Then she stopped for a moment. “Anyway, how does that help Bina?”

“Don’t you get it?” Elliot yelled. “We
use
it in Bina’s favor.”

She stopped. Then she turned around. “Use it?” she asked.

At that moment, Dr. McKay showed up in front of Kate like a migraine on a sunny day. “Is there an altercation going on in here?” he asked.

“Certainly not,” Elliot assured him. “We were testing the acoustics of this room. For some reason, the students in that corner near the door don’t hear all of the class discussion. Kate thought it might be the corkboards.”

Kate nodded. “Proust and all,” she said.

Dr. McKay blinked, and Kate almost laughed out loud. He was so easily impressed by literary allusion. “Oh, I see. Well, that will suffice for now,” he said, and was gone as quickly as he had appeared.

“He thinks we’re having a lover’s quarrel,” Elliot said.

“That, or he’s going off to bake some madeleines.” Dr. McKay brought his own baked goods to every cake sale. “So just tell me what the point of all that was before I run for the subway.”

“The point,” Elliot told her, “is that Bina is supposed to explore her singleness, right? So we get her to date Billy, get her dumped, get her to see Jack, and wham, bam, thank you, ma’am, he’ll ask her to marry him.”

Kate could hardly believe what she’d just heard. “And I thought Stevie Grossman needed therapy,” she said. “Elliot, you’re certifiable. Next you’ll tell me to adopt Bev’s black magic and that Bina needs to be a Pisces so she can swim to happiness.”

“Kate,” Elliot said, his voice deepening as he got more serious, “we’re talking statistics and probability here, not astrology. I’m not Bev. I calculated it out, and it’s as close to a sure thing as possible.”

“Oh, come on, Elliot!” Kate exclaimed. “You’ve lost it. I don’t even begin to have the time to tell you how flawed your plan is.”

“Try,” Elliot challenged her.

“Number one: Bina doesn’t want to date anybody else. Number two: Billy is an asshole who has slept with every truly attractive girl in Brooklyn—and possibly lower Manhattan. Number three: Bina, as much as I love her, couldn’t pick up a guy if he had a handle on him, much less get a date with Billy Nolan. Will that suffice for now?”

“Okay,” Elliot conceded. “But give me one more good reason it won’t work.”

“You’re insane.” She began to walk down the hall.

“You won’t be saying that when I am Bina’s matron of honor,” Elliot called after her.

Jesus, Kate thought, McKay would be on them in a private school minute. She turned around to face Elliot. “No, Elliot. Just no.”

Elliot examined her face. “Who tutored you so you passed your GMATs?”

“You did.” Kate sighed. She knew the litany.

“And who graduated top of his class from Columbia?” he asked her.

“You did, but—”

“And who was invited to accept an adjunct professorship and a grant at Princeton?”

“You, but that doesn’t—”

“But that doesn’t mean that you can still doubt my abilities?” He shook his head. “In the land of the blind . . . Kate, this is an absolutely fascinating finding, and a tremendous opportunity to exploit, and you are calling it hooey?”

“I don’t think I ever actually used the word
hooey,
” she said, and lowered her voice. “That sounds more like something McKay might say.”

“But you know I’m
never
wrong when it comes to numbers,” Elliot told her, grinning.

Kate looked down at her watch and then again turned to leave. Let him screech down the hallway if he wanted to. “Elliot,” she said as she began to walk, “I don’t believe in magic, I don’t believe in superstition, or horoscopes, or coincidences that predict the future. Now I’ve got to go. I’ve got a date with Michael, and I haven’t shaved my legs in a week.”

“Ah, yes, Michael,” Elliot said, walking past the lockers. “I thought—”

“I would rather not go into your thoughts right now.” She got to the entrance. “Bye, bye.”

Elliot put his hand on her shoulder. “Look, Kate, this doesn’t involve just you, it involves Bina and
her
future. At least let me present the facts to her. It ought to be her decision.”

Kate looked back at her friend, shook her head, and shrugged. Then she hurried down the steps on the way to her date.

Chapter Sixteen

K
ate strolled along Eighth Avenue with the pleasant anticipation of the weekend before her. She decided that after the Bina siege, Bunny’s wedding, and Elliot’s insane reaction, she wouldn’t allow herself to think about any of it. She wouldn’t even think about her little clients at school. She had done a bit of what she thought of as indulgent grocery shopping: stopping at some of the superb food specialty stores in her neighborhood and buying prepared curry chicken salad, a bunch of perfect red grapes, and poached sole with lemon-zest garnish.

Friday afternoon was a special pleasure to Kate. She had finally reached the point in her adulthood where she had hired a cleaning lady. Teresa came for only half a day each Friday, but the $50 was well worth it, because at the end of a hard week, Kate could look forward to walking into a vacuumed, dust-free living room and a bed freshly made up with clean sheets. When she remembered her teenage years, she thought of the reluctance she had felt in going home to the four dirty rooms that she shared with her father and the misery of shopping for the cheapest basics—sardines, canned soup, and cold cereal. She would open the door fearfully, never knowing what she would find inside. All this had given her an enormous appreciation now for the security of knowing what to expect when she opened her own door, as well as a pride in the order and cleanliness of her apartment.

She passed by a Korean market, and her eyes were drawn to roses of an unusual apricot color. It would be nice if Michael brought her flowers, but if he didn’t, it would be lovely to have some of these roses in a bowl in the living room and a vase beside her bed. She stopped, and when the old merchant offered her “special discount two bunches for ten dollars only for pretty lady,” she smiled at him, took out a $10 bill, and walked away with the paper-wrapped roses tucked under her arm.

Kate turned the corner to her block. Many of the windows were open, and as she walked by the brownstones, she could see people in basement kitchens preparing dinner, others in living rooms with books or a glass of wine, and even a few children playing on the stoops and tiny yards in front of the buildings. When she got to her stoop, she strode up the steps quickly, had her key ready, entered the vestibule, and managed to pick up her mail and get up the flight of stairs to her apartment without dropping the delicacies, her purse, the flowers, or the mail.