Dumping Billy (16 page)

She entered her small but orderly space and sighed, kicking off her shoes and leaving them at the door. It was past five, and she needed enough time to put away the food, arrange the flowers, take a shower, and change her clothes. She would have to rush. She was just putting the last rose into the vase for her bedroom when the phone rang. She picked it up while she carried the flowers to her bedside table. She checked her caller ID. She simply didn’t have time for another call from Bina. Cruel as it might be, they were starting to annoy her.

“Look, I don’t want you to be angry,” Elliot’s voice said.

“I’m not angry, I’m just in a rush.”

“Of course you’re not angry yet,” Elliot said. “I don’t want you to be angry after I tell you what I’m going to tell you.”

“Is it that I look fat in the skirt?” she asked. “It’s too late for me to take it back now. You told me it looked good.” She put the flowers down and stood back to get the full effect. The room looked charming.

“I know you’re just joking, but I’m serious. Don’t be mad. I’m inviting Bina to brunch on Sunday.”

Kate, in the act of slipping out of the new skirt while she cradled the receiver between her shoulder and her neck, nearly dropped the phone. “Why would you do that?” she asked. “Why in the world would you do that?”

“I knew you would be mad,” Elliot said. “But I’ve done a little more sleuthing, and—”

“Who are you? Nancy fucking Drew?” Kate asked. “No one does sleuthing, no one drives a roadster, and no one is inviting my Brooklyn girlfriend to their Chelsea apartment for brunch except me—and I’m not even sure
I’ll
do it.” She hung up her skirt and was delighted to see that she
had
brought home her white sleeveless blouse from the cleaners. She would wear it with the top two buttons undone and the gray pants from Banana Republic. But first she’d get rid of Elliot and stop this stupid plan.

“Kate, it isn’t just Barbie and Bunny. There are six women who have dated Billy, and right afterward—right after he dumped them—they got married to other men.”

“Are you still on that?”

“The statistical probability is almost unheard of. You owe it to Bina to—”

“Elliot, I don’t know why you’ve gotten this bee in your bonnet, but kill it right now.” Kate, truly annoyed, put her clothes on the bed and held the phone so that she was speaking right into the mouthpiece. “You only want to have Bina over so that you and Brice can watch her up close and personal and then make fun of her later.”

“That is so unfair! This is just a way to help Bina.”

Kate looked at the alarm clock on her dresser. “Michael is coming over. I have to go. Bye.” As she replaced the phone on the receiver, she could hear Elliot whining.

“But Kate—”

She rushed into the bathroom, showered but kept her hair dry, got dressed, and primped for a few minutes in front of the steamy bathroom mirror. Then she picked up her hairbrush, went into the kitchen, and began brushing out her hair while she poured herself some peach iced tea.

Since their reconciliation after the night of Jack’s failed proposal, she and Michael had begun to slip into that comfortable stage where both of them assumed that they would spend most of the weekend together and called each other just about every day. Although it was a hot day, Kate kept the window open and she sat at it, sipping the tea and waiting for Michael’s arrival. She had only to toss a few greens and take out the rest of the food and they would be ready for a pleasant dinner. She had a bottle of Frascati chilling in the refrigerator, and the table was set. Michael, as usual, was just a little bit late, but Kate didn’t mind. It gave her more time to enjoy the peace of her apartment and the pleasant view of brownstones.

Last winter, after she had broken up with Steven, when the trees were bare, the view had seemed gray and empty, just like her life. Elliot had nursed her through, and time . . . well, time had passed and done what it does.

She smiled for a moment, grateful that she had put those days behind her. It was funny; someone should write a book about the new, twenty-first-century stages of commitment and separation in relationships. Perhaps she would suggest it to Michael. Each action represented either a step in growth or a diminishment in love and trust. First a couple only had each other’s home numbers. Then they exchanged phone numbers at work. Then there was the important moment when you programmed both numbers into your home and cell phones, followed by the ceremonial leaving of the toothbrush, followed quickly by the leaving of personal hygiene products—deodorant, moisturizer, a razor. Then, most symbolically, came the critical exchange of keys. Eventually, of course, each of these actions was reversed. Kate didn’t know when Steven had wiped her name from his cell phone, but she remembered clearly the day she had deleted his.

While she and Michael had not yet exchanged keys, Kate felt that they were moving nicely from the dating phase into what she would call “a relationship” if the word didn’t make her wince. And that was a relief. When she was in her twenties, it had seemed that dates had either been more casual or guys had played games, and when they parted after a time together, Kate never knew if they would call her the next day or the next week or even ever. Maybe it was because she was in school and there was a big pool of people to date, so it was easy to meet someone to replace the someone of the previous month. Now, however, since Steven, she felt some kind of shift. Dates always seemed to be an assessment on her part of the chance for a long-term hookup, and if she didn’t feel a strong level of interest from a man, she found herself losing interest in him.

As she looked down at the street, thinking of him, Michael appeared around the corner. From her vantage point, she could observe him and remain unobserved. There was something about his walk that, seen from above, looked a bit prissy, but Kate put the unworthy thought out of her mind.

“Yo, Michael!”

Down below, he stopped, looked up to the trees for a moment, and then caught her waving from the window. “Hey,” he yelled up. “Sorry I’m late.”

She hadn’t meant to make him feel guilty. She just shrugged, smiled, and gestured for him to come up. She left the windowsill and buzzed to unlock the downstairs door, then opened the door to her apartment and waited for him.

She heard his steps on the stairs before she saw him, ignored his second apology, and kissed him instead. He held her for a moment, and it felt so good that she was disappointed when he let go. But dinner was pleasant, and Michael was appropriately grateful. She talked about the progress she was making with Brian Conroy, the motherless little boy, and about some trouble they were having with two brothers—twins—who kept trading places and confusing not only the staff, but their classmates. Michael told her about his week. All of his news lately had been about the mutual courtship between him and the Sagerman Foundation. He was still hoping for an offer to chair a department at the University of Texas. Kate wasn’t sure whether or not she was included in his Austin plans. He didn’t speak about it, and she didn’t ask. Did he plan for her to go? Or would he bring it up at some point in time? Maybe he only wanted to be offered it and then wouldn’t accept. Austin . . . Kate tried to put it out of her mind. Texas was not for her.

When dinner was over, Michael helped her clear the table and produced a white paper box containing a poppy seed pound cake for dessert. “I have some vanilla ice cream that might go well on top of that,” she told him.

“I can think of something that might go well on top of something else before dessert,” Michael said. He took her hand. “Did I tell you how pretty you look?”

She shook her head. “Are you telling me now?” she asked, hoping for more.

Instead he looked down at her. “You have a problem with the buttons on your blouse.” From his height he could see her modest cleavage. She smiled up at him. “You’ve made a mistake.” He put his hands on the next button. For a moment, she thought he was about to button her up, but then she realized what he was doing. “You silly girl. You’ve neglected to leave them all open,” Michael said. And in a moment, he had undone them.

In a few moments more they were on her bed, and she was—in the Victorian sense—being completely undone. After Steven, with whom she’d shared such an intensely passionate relationship, Kate had been afraid that anyone she slept with would be a second best; but what Michael lacked in humor, he more than made up for in bed.

Kate was so engrossed in her own thoughts that when she felt his hands move deftly over her body, she had to rouse herself to put her arms around him and do more than simply lie back and enjoy it. Together they kissed, fondled, and held each other. When Michael pressed his hands against her shoulders and rolled onto her, she was more than ready.

Chapter Seventeen

W
hen Kate awoke on Saturday morning, she was smiling. She stretched out, arching her back in the delicious relaxation of postsexual languor. Her smile widened as she thought of the weekend of leisure ahead of her. She wanted to snuggle up and whisper a thank-you to Michael, perhaps even entice him into an encore, but when she turned on her side, she realized he was gone. It took her a moment to remember that he always ran for an hour between six and seven. “No matter what,” he’d told her when they’d first met, and she’d admired his self-discipline. Now she was just disappointed. He’d come back wide awake, he’d shower, and he’d want coffee, which she’d have to serve him.

Kate sighed, lifted herself up, saw that it was a quarter to seven, and lay down again. She considered her options: She could get up, shower, and begin to make breakfast, or she could go back to sleep and wait for his return. Despite wanting some snuggle time, she knew if she waited for Michael, he would go straight to the shower, thoughtfully leaving her alone to sleep. He’d probably read the
Times
quietly until she got out of bed. She decided to replay last night’s sex in her mind and was just closing her eyes when the phone rang. No one would be calling her this early on a weekend morning except . . .

“Hello, Elliot,” she said. “Do you know that it is ten minutes to seven on a Saturday morning?”

“Am I interrupting something?” Elliot asked coyly. “I can call right back. Or does he take longer than a few minutes?”

“Elliot! You are interrupting my sleep,” Kate said. “What’s the emergency?”

“Look, Kate, I don’t want you to be mad.”

“Mad? What have you done?”

“Look, I know how you are. And I didn’t mean for it to be more than Bina, but she told Barbie, and you know how
she
is . . .”

Yes, Kate reflected, she did know how Barbie was, but she didn’t need to hear about it, and certainly not from Elliot before seven
A.M.
on a weekend.

“I had to do it. The mathematics and the potential for happiness here were just too big to be ignored.”

“Elliot, what are you going on about?”

“About the brunch. I had already told Bina about the findings, and she wanted to hear more, and Brice suggested a brunch, but then I was going to cancel after I spoke to you. Now, though, she’s invited Bev and Barbie. And Bunny is back from her honeymoon, so Bev told her, and now—”

“Oh, God,” Kate cried. “Don’t tell me you bothered Bina with this geeky idea of yours. Stop it, Elliot! And what does it have to do with the others? Or a brunch?” She had hoped for a Bina-free weekend, a time to relax with Michael and refuel. She tried to focus on what Elliot was saying, but she wanted to be unfocused, soft and fuzzy and feminine and pampered. “Elliot, don’t get Bina crazy with your nonsense.”

“You don’t understand the clarity and magnitude of the numbers, Kate,” Elliot told her. “Since Bina talked to the girls, they found two other cases where a woman married
immediately
after Billy broke up with them.”

“So what?” Kate heard the door to her apartment squeak open. Maybe, if she got up right now, she could negotiate a little more time in bed. She liked Michael sweaty, but he was too fastidious to comply with her wishes. Still, there was a chance. . . .

“I have to go,” she told Elliot.

“I understand,” Elliot said meaningfully. “Have fun. Just close your eyes and think of England. And be here tomorrow at eleven-thirty.”

“I hate you,” Kate said.

“But doesn’t it feel good, in a strange and exciting way?” Elliot asked. “Eleven-thirty tomorrow. Be there or be . . . talked about.”

On Sunday morning, Kate knocked on Elliot’s door at a quarter to eleven. She wanted to arrive before the Bitches, lay some ground rules, vent a little anger, and limit the way Elliot and Brice would toy with them.

“Kate!” Brice shouted in false surprise when he opened the door. “You’re early! Whatever could be the reason?”

“I thought perhaps I could help you get ready by putting some ground glass in the chicken salad,” she said with an insincere smile.

“My, my. Little Miss Hospitality,” Brice said.

She stepped past him and walked into the apartment. She had a bone—well, more like a whole skeleton—to pick with Elliot.

Her quarry was standing at the sofa, barely visible, behind an armload of charts and graphs. When he saw her he dropped everything onto the coffee table. Brice, never dumb, disappeared into the kitchen, from which delicious smells were emanating. “What’s all this?” she asked Elliot, who had begun to sort out the charts, placing them on an easel.

“This is the evidence,” Elliot replied. “I thought putting the facts right in front of Bina’s eyes would convince her.”

“Elliot, I absolutely forbid this. You are not allowed to interfere in people’s lives in this way.”

Elliot gave an exaggerated blink, lowered his chin, and looked over his glasses at her. “This from a woman who is attempting to reshape two dozen kids at Andrew Country Day.”

Kate bristled. “My work is very different. I’m professionally trained to assess and assist children, some of them in crisis, while they are developing their personalities. I am trying to prevent future problems. You’re dealing with adults, you have no training, and you’re going to
create
future problems.”