Trying to kill time with little means is difficult. Days seem much longer. Even if you wake up with a headache at twelve o’clock, there are still about eight hours of daylight for hobbies and then another eight hours for social obligations. Gala and I have resorted to tanning on our roof. New York is having a heat wave at the moment, and I’m worried about Gala’s complexion. She says she doesn’t need to apply sun-screen because she’s of Eastern European extraction and that after a couple days her sunburn will turn into a tan. This is another example of Gala’s masochism that I fail to steer her away from. We stay on the roof for as long as we can, taking turns bringing up ice cubes from the freezer to melt on our backs. Sometimes we send photos to Nicolas to remind him how lucky he is to be working eight hours a day in an air-conditioned office. He says he would much rather be “cooking on a roof with you guys.” I have to remind him that he makes far too much money to be a lady of leisure. And speaking of which, Gala and I have been getting through a reading list (to keep us educated), and I am currently making my way through a book Lucian lent me called À rebours. He said, “It’s decadent and goes nowhere; you’ll like it.” I haven’t been able to prove him right. The sun is too bright for my astigmatism, and after a couple of pages I am in danger of falling asleep.
On one of the hottest days to date, I received a special delivery from Bergdorf Goodman. We have a fan at the end of the bed that oscillates between Gala and me when we sleep, and that night she pushed me to the side of the bed that gets the least air. Maggie had guaranteed that the room benefits from a “cross breeze,” but I think that was a fabrication. At nine, I woke up and found that I was somewhat sticky. The delivery man came around nine fifteen in a special Bergdorf van and said he was “a ways from Fifth Avenue.” I said anywhere seems far when you have to cross a body of water to get there. I ran up the stairs to wake Gala because she has a true appreciation for department stores; she calls them Free Museums. She really sprang out of bed, which I have never seen her do, and said, “What have you been working on?” Inside the box was another box, from a place called Rodarte, and inside that was a dress and a note saying, “You are the Most Intelligent Girl.”
Lucian came downstairs in his Japanese-silk pyjamas and said “something must be happening” because he has “never ever” seen us awake before noon. That’s a lie. I’m always awake in the morning. I’m usually lying down with my eyes closed waiting for the appropriate time to wake up Gala. They both inspected the package carefully before making me put on the dress. There were no tags or receipts in the box, so of course I had to wear it right then and there. I wouldn’t have been able to return it anyway. Gala described it as a glittery sheath and said of whomever it was from, “They know your favourite colour is sequins.”
Lucian wondered whether I had been enlisted in some sort of secret society, and Gala said, “Not unless they wanted to go public.” Gala told Lucian that since he was a private investigator, he should find out whom the dress was from. Lucian rolled his eyes and said he had “real work” to do because, just to remind us, he was a corporate investigator. I certainly wasn’t interested in finding out who sent the dress because one must really count their blessings when they have an anonymous donor.
Later on that day, Gala and I went for happy hour at Mystic Taboo Terrace. I was wearing the Rodarte and Gala was wearing a see-through Versace kaftan, which she had found at a garage sale. Some might say we were over-dressed to be sitting on a patio at a bar like Mystic Taboo Terrace, but the drinks themselves are often just as ornamental. A bar is only made relevant by the people who sit outside it. By sitting out front, attracting a certain crowd, we can make the difference between a bar and a destination. This seems important to the owners, so for happy hour, rather than two-for-one, it’s “two-for-none, Sweethearts!”
Sometimes Gala and I find ourselves sitting in silence, not for the lack of things to say but because the gift of content silence with someone other than yourself is to be relished. In fact, it is luxurious. In the midst of one of these silences, while we watched people pass, I received a message from an unknown number. It said, “The dress looks good. Glad it fits.” Gala put down her mai tai, looked around, and cursed. Gala says even in a big city like New York, one is always being observed.
Well, I’d had enough of the mystery because it is one thing to receive a gift, but to be stalked like plump game is another. I called the number and a skittish voice answered, “Hello, Isa. It’s a pleasure to hear your voice again.” I played along, “You too. How are you?” The voice said, “Things have been really boring since I last saw you. I think we should go on a date.” I really could not place who it was, since I could have been having this same conversation with innumerable friends. To politely investigate, I said, “Remind me how we left each other?” And the voice said, “Well, Isa, of course: in a cab in Brooklyn! I dropped you off at another man’s house!” Happy hour had put me in a cheerful daze, but it fell away once I realized. “Oh. Hello, Tuzy.” Gala spat a bit of her drink out in shock. He said, “I’ll meet you at Blowfish tomorrow at nine. Have a good evening,” and hung up before I could get a word in.
If only I had saved his number that night, it would have prevented much anxiety, but who in New York does that? I’ve heard in journalistic circles that three is a trend, so meeting someone only once ranks low in the grand scheme of Urban Life. By not saving his number, I’d created a sense of distance. I already have plenty of names I don’t recognize in my phone, and I usually have to save them with an identifying noun. I can only faintly recall who “Todd Abyssinian Cat,” “Hera White Boots,” or “Cole Sculptor/Mediator” are. If there is a finite capacity in one’s mind for names, I have surely reached my limit.
Gala didn’t trust Tuzy’s intentions, which I could understand. She said, “I don’t know, Isa. Maybe he’s plotting revenge.” Gala does have intuition when it comes to spite. I can’t recall half the things I said the last time I saw Tuzy. The shame would be too much if I remembered. Anyway, someone who desires a repeat of such an unhinged performance must be a little off-centre themselves. I suspect that’s true of Tuzy. Gala says, “Newly minted men are always looking to be punished.”
Before I left for Blowfish, Gala and I perused the menu to decide what I should order. Gala was so jealous because she hadn’t had Japanese fusion since we snuck into a party near Columbus Circle. We decided I should start with toro tartare, Petrossian caviar, and fugu sashimi (the creature from which the restaurant gets its name; Gala said if I died eating it she’d know whom to sue). Gala wanted a detailed account of each dish by taste and smell. It is really a talent that she can eat vicariously through me. You know, in another life, I truly believe we must have been twins. Not in the sense that we are identical, but in the sense of sharing the same food source.
Lucian suggested I wear the sequin dress again to show I was appreciative. I said, “No, you’ve got it all wrong,” because you should never wear what someone gifted you in front of the person who gifted it. This suggests that all kinds of people give you things; wearing the gift would lower its value. I wouldn’t say this strategy encourages insecurities, but it can inspire the giver to give something twice as good the next time. Gala says I could’ve made dividends meet if only I’d gone to business school. I decided on a yellow linen Escada dress with gold buttons all the way to the top. I could only afford to eat canned soup for a week after purchasing it from a consignment store. I put on gold-knot earrings and carried a small emerald-green handbag. Gala walked me to the door and said, “I hope the outfit doesn’t go wasted on him because it’s really too good.” She tucked my hair behind my ears and sent me on my way.
When I got to the restaurant, the host took me to the table where Tuzy stood to greet me. My shoes were five-inch satin platforms and amplified our height difference. While he did not seem exactly small in stature, we were probably the same height in bare feet, a detail I had been in no position to pick up on the first time we’d met. He had to lift his heels up a little to kiss me on the cheek. As the server handed us menus, Tuzy asked him if he had left a pair of “Italian sunglasses” there last week. The server left to check, and Tuzy cleared his throat in order to regard the menu. Tuzy said, “What looks good, what looks good,” and hummed to himself while scanning the pages up and down. I left the menu closed as I knew what I wanted, but Tuzy mistakenly believed that meant I was leaving it up to him.
The server came back to say he couldn’t find any sunglasses and took our drink order. When he left, Tuzy leaned into me and said, “I actually didn’t leave sunglasses here. I just wanted to impress you.” I asked, “How?” He said he could tell I was the sort of person who could be impressed by things of an unconventional sort. I said, “Sure.” I had no idea what he was talking about and began to feel unsettled by his steadfast assumptions.
I asked him about his business, how long he had lived in the city, who his last girlfriend was—because most people in New York are happy to be invited to diatribe. And all he gave in return were short, pointed answers that showed he was not interested in divulging. Once starters arrived, he folded his arms and looked at me with what can only be described as smugness. “Who taught you to ask questions?”
I took a large scoop of caviar to my mouth and said, “That’s simply conversation!” He shifted a little in his chair and said that was funny because he could tell I wasn’t a curious person, at least about other people, and I would make “a very bad adventurer.” I asked how could he be so sure and said that many people more literary than he have said I indulge in being “quixotic” from time to time. The server came, and I ordered a bottle of champagne, and he asked whether I was sure because I still had another drink on the way. I said I was quite sure and if he could please make it speedy. He rushed away and Tuzy continued, saying he very much understood me and “what” I was and that he was very much the only person who could.
I was hoping the mains would arrive soon because I could already tell stretching dinner till dessert would be trying. He said with certainty, “I bet you were a sixteen-year-old runaway with all kinds of ideas about the world.” I laughed and told him how generous he was to think sixteen-year-olds have ideas. He went on to say that my “brave face” could not fool him. I had to wait to correct him because it seemed he had much more to say. He said I had probably dated plenty of older men because I thought I could really be “handled” that way, and that he knew all my “tricks.” He said he wanted to know me beyond what I “served up” to other people. Which made it sound like I was giving out stale doughnuts and all he wanted was something out of the fryer, special for him. The server came by to deliver the bottle of champagne and a purple spiny round thing on ice. Tuzy smiled and said it was only right for “one urchin to meet another.” The server cut it open with a scissor and scooped out its insides, which were an orange, pumpkin colour. He served them on two pieces of brioche with shavings of summer truffle on top. The whole thing was rather violent.
Tuzy did diatribe, and I took it as an opportunity to eat my main course. Luckily I was not tempted to respond right away because I was having a Wagyu tartare. I could take a bite and let it sit in my mouth and melt while Tuzy was outlining what he thought about me. I concluded his rage came from a history of scorn and bitterness. Some people think that in order to make an impression on a pretty girl, one has to be mean to her. People think girls who have certain magnetism have never known Real Struggle, so they take it upon themselves to give a little bruising and a hard time. They think we should always be learning Life Lessons. You know, he could lacquer me up with whatever ideas he pleased, I could only disappoint. And wouldn’t that be easier on him? I said outright, “If I took myself as seriously as you take me, I may consider being hurt.” I am highly educated in true sorrow, so I don’t succumb to silly criticism. In no way am I going to be shocked by someone’s ideas about me. Gala always says, “Never give a sucker an even break” because you can only blame yourself if you do!
After dinner we took a cab three blocks to his apartment because he said he needed to get something. Despite his shortcomings, he still tips cab drivers ten dollars. I mean, I have to take some positives into account. We went upstairs and I became quite lazy and wanted to stay there, but Tuzy demanded we go to this one hotel bar. He opened his fridge and took out two cans of whipped cream. “Let’s do one before we go.” Here I was doing whippets with a grown man; life really takes you anywhere. My head felt light and breezy, like I had a giggle growing in the back of my throat. I asked him if I needed to bring anything with me and if I could leave everything at his apartment, and in this case what I really meant was my purse. He said to leave everything, but he had something I really should bring with me. He went into his room and produced a tennis ball. He lightly threw it to me, and throughout our whole walk to the bar we tossed the ball back and forth. I thought it was a good trick because trying to keep the ball from falling had me truly mesmerized.
When we reached the front of the hotel, Tuzy turned and looked at the ball in my hand and said, “Why’d you bring this?” He took it and threw it into a trashcan. Just as predicted, Tuzy is perverse.
The hotel was the kind of place that was mostly inhabited by travelling businessmen, like modern door-to-door salesmen, lonely and always twisting their wedding rings when talking to any woman who is not their wife. The lobby bar was empty except for a man asleep in a wing chair and the tall bartender. Tuzy asked for two of those vodka-champagne drinks he likes so much. The bartender was named Tim and had one of those forlorn faces that suited his lean frame. Tim said that before we arrived, he had been in deep thought about serious matters. I sensed they felt a kinship, and Tuzy said he was a regular at this bar ever since Tim began to work there, which seemed like it must have been forever or at least a long period of time. Tim was recently divorced and rather forthcoming about his inner feelings.
Tuzy said I should always be single and free because being with anyone would ruin what I “had.” That for me, “Boyfriends are stop signs, husbands are roadblocks.” I laughed and said, “But Tuzy, I can’t drive.” Tuzy disregarded my joke and said he simply wanted me to “accompany” him to things, as his companion, because being a bachelor in his line of work was tiring and all he needed was a charmer like me to raise the interest of all his business investors.
I could tell Tuzy loved to lavish someone from the outset, testing their reaction to his “strong feelings.” If you’ve been starved for kindness and attention for so long, it’s an easy salve. A high-calorie dessert. After a couple of weeks, he’ll start to withdraw and then disappear almost entirely. You’re left wondering whether anything was true at all, if he meant it. With the quickness of his disappearance, you ask if you did anything wrong to send him away. I’m wary of the type because the initial reasons he’s taken with you are, in the end, the same ones he’ll hate you for. A man like that is only interested in a lady to kiss his forehead and give him the distractions he needs to forget himself.
In the morning, I awoke to loud music blaring from surround-sound speakers in Tuzy’s apartment. He had drunk five tall cans of an energy drink to prepare for a morning conference. He made a point of declaring he had a “very early meeting” over the music and offered to share a cab. I declined and said I would prefer to walk. I called Gala on the way to the nearest subway. She said, “Well?” I burst into laughter, “Very little potency!”