Dumping Billy (33 page)

“No.”

Elliot paused, doing the math. “But you’re in bed with someone.”

“Yes, Einstein.”

“I can’t tell you how relieved I am,” Elliot said. “At first I was going to call all the hospitals, then, when I thought of Steven, I was going to call all the mental hospitals. But instead of getting neurotic, you just got lucky.”

“This may not qualify as luck,” Kate said.

“Well, girlfriend, I want to hear all of the details the minute you get home.”

Chapter Thirty-seven

W
e’re coming to a rise. You ready?” Kate nodded.

It was hot, and the heat was already radiating up from the macadam they were skimming over. Kate had been in-line skating once or twice before but had never felt really secure. Now, on this beautifully warm afternoon, everything seemed easy as the two of them skated in Prospect Park, their hands intertwined behind their backs. Billy was a surprisingly good and patient teacher, coaching her until she felt secure enough to lean into her strokes. But the fun was doing it with Billy. He held her with the gentlest pressure, but his support gave her confidence. He warned her of every hill and curve before it came up and tightened his grip when they swooped down an incline. It was exhilarating. Kate believed their skating was almost as sensual as their sex.

“You skate so well,” she murmured as they glided into the tree-shaded part of the road.

“Six years on the hockey team and only one chipped tooth to show for it,” Billy told her.

Kate looked up and smiled at him. She had wondered about the tooth. It was the imperfection that made the rest of his perfection bearable. She was reminded of the Brad Pitt film in which he had played a boxer. Special makeup had transformed his nose and given it a broken jauntiness. Kate had read somewhere that more women found him attractive in that movie than in any other.

“I like that chipped tooth,” was all she said and then felt his arm push her slightly. She thought for a moment it was a reaction to her compliment, but, “Eyes forward,” Billy said as he avoided a stumbling skater, and then moved Kate smoothly through a crowd of children crossing the road ahead of them. Out of the shaded alley, the sun beat down fiercely, but their gathering speed created a pleasant breeze. Once they were on the flat open stretch, they really began to move.

“I can see you’ve had a lot of practice,” she noted while she kept her face forward as instructed.

“Hey,” Billy said, “you’re no virgin yourself.”

“I wasn’t any good,” she told him truthfully. “It’s because of you.”

Everything was different because of him. It had been over a week since Jack’s return and Kate’s visit to Billy, and in that time she had spent every free moment with him. The first weekend had been spent being deliciously idle. Then, after work on Monday, he had made her dinner. She’d stayed at his place, but the following evening—traditionally a slow night at the bar—he had come to her house and they’d eaten takeout pizza and one of her great salads. And they’d been together ever since. She had seen Elliot at school but had ducked him, her friend Rita, and the entire Brooklyn cadre. Now they were spending their second weekend together.

Kate was amazed by how much she and Billy had in common. It wasn’t only the French. He had also lost his mother early, although he never spoke about her death. He had spent his teenage years being raised by his father. They were both only children and both orphans.

Kate had to admit that she had been prejudiced about him; he wasn’t a dunce, and he didn’t get by just on his good looks. In fact, if she could put aside his appalling record of conquests, he was the most compatible male companion she had ever spent time with. Kate’s work for the semester was ending, and with more time for shopping and cooking, she found that she enjoyed having Billy to her place for dinner.

Over the past week, when it was Billy’s turn to close the bar, she’d gone to his apartment early and worked or read until he was through. He’d come up intermittently for quick kisses, usually bringing a treat or a drink. On nights he got off early, he’d made the trip to Manhattan, driving into what he referred to as “the city.” Kate remembered when she used to call Manhattan that, and it made her smile every time he said it.

“Another hill,” Billy told her now. “Let’s put our backs into it.”

Kate did. It wasn’t just his skating that was impressive. There was almost nothing about Billy Nolan that did not impress her. He wasn’t at all what she had thought; he didn’t seem glib, or shallow, or arrogant. Not once you knew him. And his affection for her seemed so warm and real. Could he be acting? Kate hated to doubt him. He seemed so sensitive, not only to his own vulnerabilities, as Steven had been, but also to the feelings of others.

The only cloud over her happiness was the nagging thought of the host of women he had previously conquered. In the time she spent away from him, Kate sometimes wondered if all the women he had known had felt like this and, more important, if he had felt just the same about them as he seemed to feel about her. It was hardly the kind of question she could ask, and even if she did, it was not the kind of question that would elicit an honest answer.

They crested the hill, and the long slide down actually made Kate scream, partly with pleasure and partly with fear. Not so different from the way she felt about this relationship. At the bottom of the hill, Billy released one of her hands and coasted over to a bench beside an ice-cream vendor. Just behind them was a field for roller hockey and beyond it a park exit. Kate was grateful for the sit-down. “I’m exhausted,” she admitted.

“So am I,” Billy told her, though she doubted that was true. There didn’t seem to be an ounce of body fat on him, and Kate knew that under his clothes he was lean and powerful without any extra bulk. Thinking of his body gave her a momentary frisson of desire.

“Thirsty?” Billy asked, and she nodded. “Let’s go.” They took off their Rollerblades, put on their shoes, and bundled their gear into his backpack.

They were just leaving the park when her cell phone rang. She pulled it out and saw that it was Elliot. For the last week she had been ducking his calls when she could and had been equally evasive when she saw him at school. She had talked about Bina’s engagement, the shower they were going to throw for her, Elliot and Brice’s plans for the summer—everything but the identity of her new boyfriend. She hadn’t wanted to lie to him, but she knew how strongly he would disapprove of the truth.

“Are you going to pick it up? Or is it another boyfriend?” Billy asked. Just then the phone stopped ringing.

“It’s a he, and he’s a friend, but he’s gay,” Kate told Billy. “Does that count?”

Kate and Billy made their way to Jo’s Sweet Shop for some ice cream. Jo’s was an institution, the old-time confectionary where parents brought their kids for hot chocolate after winter skating and for sundaes when the weather turned warm. Kate had always envied the kids who got taken to Jo’s. A game broke, and behind them an after-the-skating/roller hockey crowd complete with blades, skates, and Prospect Park parents swarmed in to get drinks and ice cream to cool off. With the usual pattern of bullying, the bigger kids elbowed the smaller, some parents pushed ahead of other parents, and chaos reigned. Billy and Kate watched as a seven- or eight-year-old boy was virtually trampled. He began to cry.

“Oh, God!” Kate cried. She worked her way over to him, knelt, and put her arm around him. “Oh, sweetie. Are you hurt?”

“He stepped on me!” the boy sobbed, pointing upward. Kate looked up at a big hulk of a teen hockey guy still in his gear. From low vantage point, the guy looked like a giant. But Billy grabbed him by the back of his hockey shirt and tugged him.

“See? He’s gone now.” Kate comforted the child.

People began screaming their orders. “Two cookies ’n cream sugar cones with sprinkles!”

“A vanilla Coke!”

“Three large chocolate cones and an iced tea!”

The shouted orders were almost drowned out by the kids’ excited yelling and by loud complaints about people pushing ahead and whose turn it was. The adolescent working behind the counter was clearly overwhelmed by the crowd. Kate reunited the little boy with his dad, while the poor soda jerk tried and failed to gain control. With more parkgoers pushing in from the back, those in the front got even rowdier. “Please form a line!” the teen shouted desperately. No one was listening.

Billy returned to Kate’s side. He positioned her at the entrance to the work space behind the counter. “This is madness,” he said. Then he leapt over the counter and moved to the center, facing out to the crowd.

“All right,” he began in a voice loud enough to be heard all the way into the park. “All right now! Kids with hockey sticks on the left. Kids with skates on the right.”

There was silence for a moment, and then pushing and shoving began as the crowd tried to part.

“Keep it down! I mean it!”

As if he were Moses and the crowd were the Red Sea, his will was done. Kate smiled as the two lines formed. Billy leaned toward the poor, overwhelmed kid in the apron. “You take the so-called adults and I’ll do the Mighty Ducks.”

The teen nodded and began taking orders from the line on the right. Billy looked at the children and gestured to the eight-year-old who had been crying. “Service first to the player who was body-checked.”

His dad brought the little boy up to the counter. Kate couldn’t help but glow. Billy leaned toward the little boy. “What position do you play?” he asked him.

“Goalie,” he replied, and looked at his father as if he weren’t completely sure.

“Your lucky day!” Billy exclaimed. “Goalies get free cones! Wanna double scoop?”

The teenager behind the counter gave him a look of “No way.” Billy ignored him, took out his wallet, and placed it beside the ice-cream tubs. “What’s it gonna be?” The little boy asked for a vanilla cone with sprinkles and hooted with joy when he saw the double dipping he received. Billy moved to the next in the line.

“What’s it gonna be?” he asked.

“A cup of chocolate with nuts and whipped cream,” the next kid said.

“You got it. And it’s on me.” Billy sprayed some of the aerosol cream on his shirt. “Get it? It’s on me.”

The portion of the crowd that was up front laughed. Kate watched Billy with a combination of astonishment, awe, and delight. When he took his next order, he smiled at the kid. “Position?” Billy asked him.

“Guard,” the boy said proudly.

“Whoa!” Billy pretended to be taken aback. “Guards get free toppings.”

“Wow!” the boy cried. “Hey, Mom! I get a free topping.”

Billy leaned over to Kate and gave her a quick kiss right below the ear.

“What do I get?” she asked him coyly.

Billy was already busy making up a cone, but he looked up at her.

“Depends on what position you play,” he said, and smiled.

The thing about him, Kate thought, was that he knew the way things worked. He wasn’t a macho guy, but he was strong enough and confident enough to be willing to take chances. When the manager of the shop came from out back, leaving the booths and table behind, he took over for Billy. Thanking him, he insisted on giving Billy and Kate free cones.

As they finally made their way out of the sweet shop, Kate looked at Billy. “That was quite a scene, Mr. Nolan,” she said. “You’re a take-charge kinda guy.”

“Hey, what would you expect from a bartender who has dealt with bachelor parties?” Billy said.

“Well, you really managed that crowd.”

Billy looked down at his cone, melting over his hand in the heat. “Yeah. If only I could manage my own ice cream.”

“Okay. This I know how to do,” Kate said, and moved him over to a trash bin. She knocked two scoops off his cone and into the bin, did the same with her own, pulled a Wet-Nap out of her pocket, wiped his hand, and then, with her finger, cleaned up the last trace of whipped cream from his neck.

“Hey, no fair,” said Billy. “That was mine.”

Kate just smiled and put her ice-cream-covered finger in her mouth. Billy took her hand and licked the remaining ice cream off her finger. Then he gently pinned her against the wall of the sweet shop and, keeping her left hand in his, lifted his arm and pushed his weight against her. Kate thought of Victorian heroines and how they “swooned.” She was feeling pretty swoony.

“What do you call this position?” he asked her, his voice low.

At that moment the door of Jo’s opened and a bunch of kids streamed out. When a couple of them saw Billy, they began hooting.

“Exhibitionist,” Kate told him, and smiled.

On the subway, the unruly park crowd pushed as the train doors opened. Kate was about to be crushed against a pole until Billy corraled her, placing her in the corner of the car against the front window. He protected her with his body, but the crowd had the two of them pushed against each other. She was shocked when his hands disappeared under the back of the waistband of her jeans. He leaned forward to whisper in her ear, “What do you call this position?”

“Tight. Very tight,” she said.

Back at Kate’s apartment, Billy undressed her slowly. She was surprised and touched by his tenderness: He took off her sandals as if she were a very young child. But by the time he had worked his way up from her feet and unbuttoned her blouse, she knew he considered her grown-up. Then he was on top of her, kissing her neck and making his way to her breasts. She could barely manage to hold back a moan of pure pleasure. Then he stopped, took each of her hands in his, and held them beside her face on the pillow. He looked at her. “And what do you call this position?” he asked.

“Perfect,” Kate whispered.

Chapter Thirty-eight

D
espite his nose for news and Kate’s constant exposure to Elliot at school, she had managed not to raise his suspicions or start him questioning her on why she seemed so happy. If he wrote it off to relief at her breakup with Michael, it was just as well. Although she and Elliot often fought and sometimes didn’t speak for a day or two, they had never lied to each other, and Kate did not want to set a precedent now. A sin of omission, however, was less than a fib. But Elliot would be a veritable bloodhound if he got wind of a juicy tidbit like this, and Kate was afraid it was only a matter of time before he sniffed her out. Sooner or later, he would discover the reason for her sunny disposition, and when he did, thunderclouds would gather.