What Nora Knew (15 page)

“Have
you
tried it?” Joseph Gillen asked me.

“Did you ever marry or live with someone?” I asked Cameron.

“Can we kindly return to our topic?” Gordon said.

“I’d like to recall my time in Niger during the first Tuareg rebellion,” Joseph said.

“Not that topic,” Gordon said.

“There’s a difference between not wanting to settle down and not wanting to settle,” Cameron said to me.

You can bet that stirred up applause. It would have been an excellent time for a divorce lawyer to hand out business cards.

Julia Hollingsworth cleared her throat. “Romance is transactional,” she said. “It must be reciprocal. A back-and-forth of appreciation.” She zoomed in on Joseph. “What’s your ideal, big boy?”

“Silent understanding,” Joseph Gillen said. “You say it with your eyes. You say it with your heart. You say it with your soul.” He laughed. “A woman who doesn’t talk.”

The audience booed.

“I disagree,” Cameron said. “I love a woman who’ll go one-on-one with me, who can banter, one-up me, keep me on my toes. That’s the heart of the greatest romantic duos. Nick and Nora. Harry and Sally.”

“Bogie and Bacall,” Julia said.

“Kermit and Miss Piggy,” I said. The audience laughed. Finally I’d said something quotable for Angela.

“Fay Wray and King Kong,” Joseph said. The audience booed.

“Perhaps it’s time we moved on to the Q and A,” Gordon said. “Houselights, please?”

Standing mics were set up in the front of each aisle. Anyone with a question could line up and wait his or her turn. I’ve attended enough writers’ panels to know that no matter what the subject, the same two questions are
always asked:
What’s your writing process?
and
How do you get an agent?
I didn’t have a process or an agent so I was pretty much off duty. If anyone asked me—and I sincerely doubted anyone would—I’d just defer to Julia or Cameron. But not to Mr. Elbow Hog. Joseph Gillen scared me.

A woman with gray, frizzy hair, hovering at the first mic, said, “This question’s for Julia.” Julia nodded, gripped her mic with her long, skinny fingers. “What’s your writing process?”

Another woman asked Cameron how to get an agent. A third woman asked Cameron about his writing process. Cameron grinned. “I sit down at my desk, turn on my computer, and hope for the best. And when that doesn’t work, I read
The Hardy Boys.
”

Oh, how he charmed that audience! I found myself wondering how a guy who’s not attractive could be so attractive to so many women. But I also realized—much to my horror—that he was kind of attractive to me, too.

Cameron turned in his chair to face me. “Molly Hallberg writes my favorite pieces in
EyeSpy
. In between reading Joe and Frank Hardy, I read Molly Hallberg.” He smiled at me.

I sat back in my chair out of sight of his gaze.

Another woman asked a question at the mic, this one young with blond curls pulled into a topknot. “Do you need any more volunteers for Mike Bing to date?”

“If only he’d met you sooner,” Cameron said, smiling, “but Mike’s already solved the crime.” Laughter and applause.

Gordon Fenton thanked the panelists, said there’d be books for sale in the lobby and an opportunity to meet the
authors for book signings. Theresa Flynn stepped out onstage clapping, calling out thank-you and saying good-night from the podium mic, like a hostess making a not-too-subtle hint that it was time for the guests to vamoose. The panelists rose to leave; Gordon shook hands with the men.

“Come help me, you naughty man,” Julia said to Joseph. She wrapped her fingers around his arm and made him aid her down the stairs. Gordon walked offstage with Theresa. Cameron and I followed.

“Thank you for what you said,” I told him. “About liking my pieces. Without you, I’d have felt totally invisible up there.”

“Feisty Molly Hallberg,” he said. Here came the smile again. “We might have to continue our parley.”

“Cameron!” Theresa said. “We need you at the signing table.”

“Continue it where?” I asked Cameron.

Russell came hurrying up and kissed me congratulations. “Good job,” he said. “You got through it!”

Cameron had already walked away with Gordon and Theresa.

People who write about their dreams are totally self-indulgent, expecting the reader to (1) give a damn and (2) waste precious time analyzing someone else’s dream as if they (#1 again) give a damn. But here goes:

I’ve just walked out of Saks Fifth Avenue having bought a pair of new socks when Nora Ephron and Nancy Drew drive up in Nancy’s blue convertible. Nancy’s behind the wheel and Nora’s carrying a pot roast and homemade cookies. “Get in!” Nora says. We drive to a bar on Second Avenue, past a mysterious old clock and a crumbling wall, and go inside. I don’t know what happened to Nancy’s convertible; maybe she valet parked it when I wasn’t looking. Anyway, once we’re inside the bar I’m eating Nora’s cookies and she’s giving me the recipe. The bar’s really hopping. Backslapping, high-fiving, boisterous energy. Harry
Connick Jr. playing in the background. But what’s really weird are the two televisions hanging over the bar—that in itself, of course, is normal—but instead of a Yankees game or the Mets, one’s playing
When Harry Met Sally
and the other’s showing
You’ve Got Mail.
Nancy Drew orders a gin and tonic and uses her flashlight to point out two men. The bar’s smoky so I can never see their faces, but one man’s in a shirt and tie sitting by himself, staring at his cell phone. Women, laughing and having fun, surround the second man. Except—even though his face is a blur—he looks straight at me and holds out a rose. Nancy Drew asks, “Which man do you want?” I start to head over to the nice, quiet man with the tie just as Nicolas Cage walks in and sits down with him, and Nora Ephron says, “Don’t be an imbecile!” and snatches my cookie away.

I have no idea what this means.

*  *  *

I was meeting Kristine on the seventh floor of Bloomingdale’s half an hour before meeting Russell on the fifth floor of Bloomingdale’s. Russell needed a new mattress. Kristine and I needed frozen yogurt. And not just any yogurt, but the frozen yogurt at the Bloomingdale’s Forty Carrots restaurant. Just thinking about it makes me want to lick this page. Their yogurt’s dense, thick, creamy, obscenely smooth, intensely flavored, and—here’s the kicker—
fat free.

I don’t actually believe it’s fat free. But I also can’t believe Bloomingdale’s would lie about such a thing.

The Forty Carrots menu has other items on it. Salads. Soups. Chicken sandwiches. But nobody orders those. There’s always a thirty-minute wait for a table and standing room only at the take-out counter, and, yes, the clientele is female. Nowhere in all of Manhattan can you get a better sense of sisterhood than sitting at a banquette in Forty Carrots savoring and inhaling frozen yogurt alongside dozens of other savoring, inhaling women. Fortunately Kristine works at Bloomingdale’s and she’s friendly with the Forty Carrots hostess. With a little surreptitious maneuvering, a secret head nod, and a certain back table, we didn’t have to wait the thirty minutes. Which is a good thing. As a Bloomingdale’s employee, Kristine only gets thirty minutes for lunch.

She ordered a medium peanut-butter yogurt. I ordered a medium half-chocolate half-coffee. The mediums are huge. Anywhere else they’d be extra larges.

“Exchange tastes?” she said.

We dipped into each other’s bowls.

Kristine sat back, closed her eyes, luxuriated in the chocolate, basked in the coffee, sat up, opened her eyes, and adjusted her eyeglasses. “Perfect,” she said.

“Perfect,” I said.

Kristine and I are purists. We never order toppings for our yogurt.

“Do you think they’ll invite you back to the Ninety-Second Street Y?” she asked.

“Yes,” I said. “If I buy a ticket and promise to sit in the last
row.” I said. “I didn’t stick to the topic, nobody in the audience asked me questions, and I was warring over elbow room with a Pulitzer Prize–winning dick. We were some panel. Mr. Charm. Mr. Ego. Miss Dirty Old Lady. And Miss Nobody.”

“Anyone ask for a refund?”

“I tried but they pointed out that my seat was free.”

“I hope they videotaped it.”

“Oh, dear God, I hope they didn’t.”

We paused for new bites,
mmm
ed in unison. All around us women were drooling and moaning.

“How insane you ended up on a panel with one of my dates,” Kristine said.

“Say that again?” I set down my yogurt spoon. That’s how taken aback I was.

“Your Cameron Duncan. My Frank Hardy. My writer date! I should have known it was a fake name.”

“You dated Cameron?” When I said Cameron’s name, my voice came out all high-pitched like a cartoon character’s.

“No.” Kristine smiled. “I dated Frank.”

“When’d you find out who he really was?”

“On my way home. When I saw his picture on the subway. How weird was
that
?” Kristine took a bite of her peanut-butter yogurt. I had to wait for her to finish savoring. “The whole date was strange,” she said. “More like an interview than a date. He kept asking about my online dating adventures. Like he was researching a book.”

A woman at the next table was served a yogurt larger than her face.

“Where’d he take you?” I asked Kristine.
Why do I care?
I asked myself.

“I suggested meeting for drinks at the top of the Times Square Marriott, but we went to Flute, that underground champagne bar on Fifty-Fourth. I think he goes there a lot. They seem to know him. It’s like a speakeasy.”

“He has a height-phobia thing.”

“Oh? Acrophobia? I once dated a guy with coulrophobia.”

“And that is?”

“Fear of clowns. Sometimes I’m afraid I have anuptaphobia.”

“I’m waiting.”

“Fear of staying single.”

“Thank you, Miss World Book Encyclopedia.”

Kristine looked down at her yogurt. “I’m never going to finish this,” she said.

I looked down at my yogurt, said, “I’m never going to finish this.”

“But let’s try,” she said. We scooped up two more bites. Kristine wiped her mouth with a napkin. “I suppose Cameron’s cute, if you like that type where none of the features are good-looking, but somehow they add up well together.”

“You must have liked his photo online.”

“Not particularly.”

“So why’d you go out with him?”

“Oh, you know me,” she said. “I’ll date anyone. We only stayed for one drink. When I left, he gave me a cheek
peck. I hate the cheek peck. It’s like your grandmother is kissing you.” The waitress refilled our water glasses and deposited the check. “That’s the biggest flaw with online dating. You can’t judge chemistry until you meet the guy, and when you do meet him, you can judge it in three minutes.” Kristine removed her eyeglasses and wiped them with her dirty napkin. “Fake Frank Hardy seemed sincere, smart, funny. Just not my type.”

“Good thinking. Hold out for the asshole bad boy.”

She put her glasses back on. They were still smudged. “Maybe Hunkster500 will be the one. He’s next on my list.”

“Do you think that’s a fake name?”

“I’m holding out for big-time chemistry,” she said. “I wish you would.”

“I tried chemistry once. I married chemistry. I’m good with comfortable.”

Kristine shook two fists the way someone does when they want to shake you, only they don’t really want to shake you, they just want to imply it. “Jesus, Molly. Slippers are comfortable! Cocoa is comfortable! Bing Crosby singing Christmas songs—that’s comfortable. You shouldn’t be sleeping with Bing Crosby!”

“Sex with Russell is fine,” I said.

“What about interesting?”

I had to think about that. “Well, sometimes he likes to pretend he’s Irwin and I’m Joyce during sex.”

“I said interesting sex, not kinky. What do turtles say during sex?”

“Nothing unusual.”

“So that’s it? You’re cool with the occasional turtle talk? You don’t want to feel that crazy flutter of invisible connection? That thing that makes your insides buzz?”

“That thing’s fleeting.”

“It’s a foundation. It’s your entire everything saying,
Pay attention!
You need to watch
Sleepless in Seattle
again.”

“I’ve watched it more than anyone. I’ve seen it more than Meg Ryan has. When she gets on that plane to Seattle, I know I’d have never done that.”

“And that’s why you wouldn’t have ended up with Tom Hanks.”

“
How do we know they ended up happy? We never saw a sequel.”

“You got the message, right? What the movie’s talking about?”

“Let’s not talk about it.”

Kristine picked up the check. “My treat,” she said. “I can use my discount.”

She started unloading her purse onto the table. A wad of used Kleenex. Crumpled receipts. A brush with enough hair in it to weave a wig. Two condom packets. A rolled-up, open potato-chip bag. The bottom half, but not the cover, of a lip gloss.

“That is not an attractive sight,” I said.

“Just give me a minute. You know Nora Ephron’s essay about hating her purse? In her hating-her-neck book? She was writing about me.”

“How about I buy? I’m willing to pay full retail if I can stop you before you whip out an old tampon.”

“Oh, here!” Kristine held up her wallet. “My treat!”

*  *  *

The only thing worse than shopping for a mattress is shopping for a bra, which explains the sorry condition of most of my bras. But mattresses are preposterous. What once was a question of soft, firm, or hard is now a voyage into a world of pillow top, tight top, latex, innerspring, cushioned upholstery, motion transfer, antimicrobial, visco-elastic foam. I must be the most oblivious sleeper ever. My criteria for a new mattress is: will it fit through my bedroom door?

Russell was waiting by the escalators in front of the mattress department. Pardon me. Bloomingdale’s calls it their mattress
gallery.
They must be getting it confused with the MoMA, six blocks south. Russell was checking his watch, checking his BlackBerry, looking very Russell-esque in gray slacks, a white shirt, and striped tie; his hair neatly combed back. “You’re late,” he said.