CHAPTER EIGHT

Solidarity, with a Side of Cream Cheese

There was a message from my mother on the answering machine when I got home. “Hi, sweetie. I’ll be back from the wilds of Africa next week and I’ve got gifts for you. Come visit on Saturday. Bring Emily and Nick if you want. And anyone else.” There was a momentary hiss of dead air and then, “Oh, happy birthday, too. Hope you had fun at your little party.”

I called Emily. “Caroline’s home from the wilds of Africa next week. She wants to see you.”

“Don’t say it that way.”

“Why not? My mother is gone for months to a jungle full of deadly diseases and wild animals and the first thing she does is invite you and Nick to her house.” Knowing it will annoy her, I add in a timely aside, “And anyone else, of course.”

“Diana, you make too much of it. She’s…eccentric.” Emily does tend to be generous, but since “anyone else” is a euphemism for Phil—a man my mother contends is not good enough for Emily—I am surprised not to have raised fireworks.

“You sound happier, are you and Phil okay again?”

“No.” She changed the subject. “How did it go? Did Dragon Lady like your approach?”

“She did. You were right. It’s cover worthy.”

“I knew it!” Her voice raised like a mother chucking a reluctant toddler under the chin. “Excellent. This deserves a celebration. Your treat. I’ll have Moo Shu chicken. Give me a ten minute head start before you call Pings to place the order.” She hung up.

I did the “I’m calling Pings” rap on the common wall between my apartment and Nick’s—two short knocks, a pause, and three taps. He rapped back twice—which meant order him the usual. Since I had a big favor to ask him, I added a few spring rolls—they were his favorite, but he only ordered them when he was working and had a little cash to spare.

I wondered if Phil would come along, but Emily was alone, her arms around two bags of take out.

“He’s working late,” was the only explanation she offered when I held the door open and glanced down the hall toward the elevator.

I didn’t ask if she’d told him she’d gone into the city for dinner with me and Nick. I could guess she hadn’t. Maybe she wanted him to come home to an empty house and consider what that would be like. It was a dangerous game.

“I told the delivery guy to put it on your tab—and to include a $20 tip.” She doesn’t quite look at me as she adds, “It was that really young kid who’s trying to work his way through college.”

Great. A tip to make the delivery guy from Pings happy and to ease Emily’s conscience. On my account. I thought about bringing Phil up again. But there were just things I didn’t want to know right now. I wasn’t ready for the subject of babies and or divorce. Not while I was still down one husband…one boyfriend, for that matter.

Emily put the food down on the old trunk I use as a coffee table and slapped the wall to let Nick know the food had arrived. He must have been at a good break point in his work because he came so quickly I could still smell developer fluid under the floral scented hand soap. There was something compelling about that scent. I loved it when Nick worked on his photographs, loved the way he talked, the way he smelled, the idea of capturing life on a flat white square in the most vivid of dimension. I wish I could do that. But I tend to cut off people’s heads.

“What’s the occasion?”

“Diana convinced Dragon Lady to give her the cover.”

Nick waved away the spring roll I held out. “You’re really going to do an exposé of your love life for the cover of a magazine? Are you crazy?”

Of course I was. But I wasn’t too fond of him for asking. “If I don’t, Tandy will.”

“Good.” They both knew all about Tandy and her perfect little derriere and her perfect little smile and her perfect record for getting the plum assignments from our dreaded boss. Yet Nick didn’t seem the least bit sympathetic. “Let Tandy do it—and let her use her own little black book. You don’t have to do this, Diana.”

Just before I bit into the Kung Pao shrimp on my fork, I said, “True, I could refuse, lose my job, and be like you—working odd jobs and temp employment only when our esteemed landlord needs a rent payment. Or have you forgotten I’m between roommates. Again.”

We might have degenerated into a Kung Pao shrimp fight if Emily hadn’t chosen that moment to burst into tears.

It took us both to calm her down. It wasn’t until I fished out the chocolate bar I’d been hiding for a binge moment and handed it over that she was finally able to hiccup her way into silence. Or almost silence. “What am I going to do?”

None of us had an answer to that one, so we split the chocolate bar, turned off the lights and played flashlight tag with the beer bottle mobile Nick had made for me. We didn’t stop until Emily’s tears had been chased away by laughter.

I was feeling like I could conquer the world and save my best friend’s marriage. Maybe even make my mother proud.

“Caroline demands your presence for dinner, by the way,” I told Nick as we cleaned up the empty containers. His face lit up. Traitor. He loves my mother’s travel pictures. And her cooking. I can understand the cooking, though, because so do I. Though she divorced my father and left a suburban lifestyle behind without much regret, she could still make a mean pot roast or meatloaf, using nothing but the microwave.

Emily’s smile faded. “I don’t know if I’ll bring Phil.”

I tried to make her smile. “You mean “and anyone else”?”

Nick frowned at me and comforted Emily with a quick hug and “It’ll be alright.” He didn’t say the same to me as he slid out the door, no longer smelling of developer but only of leftover Chinese takeout.

When the door closed on the two of them, I wondered why life always has to change just when you think you’re getting the hang of it.