Annabelle sat on the floor and leaned against the foot of her bed. It was three weeks and two days since Wilson broken things off. Every Tuesday since then, she had taken time out to have a twinge or a pang in the early afternoon—they always marked the anniversaries of things, why stop now? She could visualize an appropriate line of greeting cards: Thinking of you… even though I dumped you last year. There might be some money in that.
Or not. Anyway, she’d been taking pretty good care of herself, although she seemed to be back on the cigarettes again. The drama surrounding the plant had taken her mind off things, and having work helped, too. So why was she sitting on the floor of her bedroom in front of her open closet, wearing nothing but panties, a bra, and a long face?
Why did she agreed to go to this stupid party with Lorna? Not only did it mean dragging all the way into Manhattan on a Saturday night, it also meant getting cleaned up and dressed up, and having to talk to strangers and maybe meeting some guy, some rebound kind of guy, and doing that rebound kind of thing. She supposed all of it was essential to her getting over Wilson, but she’d tried this kind of no-holds-barred post-party bang in the past, and it only made her feel bad. Frankly, the idea of kissing somebody made her feel nauseous, much less the possibility of nakedness and a mattress marathon.
Now that the plant’s branches were gone, she could chance a phone call to Lorna, begging off. Both the thought of the plant’s absent tentacles—surely her fault—and the idea that the only reason Lorna was doing this was to get Annabelle back into the swing of things, made her feel guilty, and as she was filled up to the brim with stupid feelings. She really wasn’t into adding a new one into the mix.
The grieving had one interesting by-product; she was pretty sure she’d gone down at least one dress size, if not two, and that opened up the possibilities inherent in the Skinny Section of the closet. She hadn’t dipped in there since last year, before all the rich dinners and various fancy lunches she and Wilson shared begun to catch up to her thighs. Just for the sake of argument, she looked through the Party Time Section, and didn’t feel up to all that taffeta and sparkle. The Casual Section was just that, too casual for a do in North Chelsea (for crying out loud!) and the PMS Comfort Section didn’t even rate a look.
The only thing about the Skinny Section was that every scrap of fabric in there had associations with the early part of her relationship with Wilson. She wasn’t big on shopping, and hated to waste hours over racks of tops, bottoms, and everything in between. Until she became the significant other of an up-and-comer like Mr. Monroe, black jeans and a low cut top seemed to work just fine, no matter the situation. Dating Wilson changed all of that, and she had the clothes to prove it.
The flesh-colored floor-length jersey dress had always given her the creeps and she’d only worn it once. She felt naked, and couldn’t take all the double-takes all night long that told her that everyone else thought that she was naked, too. That gold brocade circle skirt with the crinoline had gone very nicely with the one hundred per cent silk tank top—except for the fact that one hundred per cent silk wrinkled like a tissue at the wearer’s first breath. Unlike those Connecticut girls that made up Wilson’s social circle, girls who were bred knowing how to avoid wrinkling fine fabrics through the kind of controlled breathing that rivaled that of Indian yogis, Annabelle routinely had the thing in such a state that she felt like she wrapped herself in a raisin.
Ah, the cherry red scrap of satin that costs her a kidney and her spleen. Despite the fact that she gotten it cut-rate at Century 21, it was still designer, still unbelievably expensive—and unbelievably short. That had been interesting, and in fact had inspired the best sex of their relationship, the kind of impatient, heightened, sweaty, demanding, up-against-the-wall sex that Annabelle found she really really liked. Wilson apologized for a week, and now Annabelle wondered, for the first time, what had she been thinking?
What red-blooded American male would apologize for participating in mind-blowing, exciting, spontaneous, fun sex? He even sent flowers. What a… jerk.
“That’s a good sign,” said Annabelle to the inflammatory little dress. “We’ll keep you in reserve when a likely suspect shows himself.” A flash of curly hair, green eyes, and shoulders hugged by pristine white cotton flitted through her brain, but she refused to let it linger.
Ugh. That hideous, stuffy, depressing trouser suit. Double-breasted and pin-striped, the trousers didn’t fit her properly and made the womanly swell of her belly appear gargantuan. The jacket was tailored in such a way as to stick straight back out behind her, over the curve of her rump; it made her look like a pigeon.
No up-against-the-wall sex after that event. What a disaster. It had been one of (not that she knew it at the time) their last outings, an afternoon wedding that Wilson assured her would be businesslike and efficient. Imagine my dismay, Annabelle thought, blushing scarlet even at the memory, when it became apparent that the thing was full-out black tie—perhaps if I’d known the party was in the Empire Room, I’d have made another choice?
The Empire Room was the kind of place that would inspire one to commit hari-kari were one dressed incorrectly. She’d been as incorrectly dressed as she’d ever been in her life, and did Wilson care? Nope! Just told her she’d looked fine, avoiding eye contact, wearing the strained, bored look that he’d been sporting for those last few weeks. She slinked off to the bathroom to take off her top—no, really, it had been a great idea, she was wearing a lacy camisole over her Wonderbra and with the jacket buttoned up, she looked like she was working a pin-striped sexy vibe… until she’d returned, and was faced with the redhead.
The sleek, petite, and sparkling redhead who was hanging on to Wilson’s arm. Her auburn French twist crowned a heart-shaped face that appeared as innocent as the dew, until the eyes revealed a shrewd and calculating gleam. A thigh-skimming, slim column of ice blue silk draped her slight form, and she barely topped Wilson’s shoulder—much less Annabelle’s.
Who was this bitch?
The bitch was Winifred Watson, Wilson’s childhood friend. Their family’s acres corresponded, and as Winnie’s tinkling little laugh attended to Wilson’s reminiscence of summers spent in the saddle, her eyes flicked up and down Annabelle’s ensemble, and her face set in an almost imperceptible mask of mocking disdain.
Annabelle perceived it, attempted three times to get Wilson—whom Winnie teasingly called ‘Willie’ and made him blush—to join her at the buffet, the bar, anywhere that wasn’t Winnie’s side… Having turned to snatch yet another glass of bubbly off a passing tray, she found herself on her own. Just like that. Within seconds, she was standing, like an ungainly pin-striped lamppost, in one of the most romantic rooms on the planet, on the edge of what was quite obviously the hoitiest, toitiest New York/New England society wedding in decades. She watched Winnie lead Wilson around by the arm, watched the little bitch allow everyone to think that she and he were together—but no one in the room, not even the friends of Wilson’s that she’d met before and knew her as his partner, looked surprised to see the two of them working the crowd.
And she’d run. She hadn’t made a scene, she hadn’t tried to work the room herself, she’d turned tail and fled.
Annabelle balled up the suit and threw it on the floor. Time to get together a bag for the Salvation Army. She slowly lowered herself to sit on the foot of the bed. Why hadn’t she seen that? No—she’d seen it, but it had obviously been too much for her. Winnie and Willie. Ugh!
“I asked him, and he said no, he wasn’t seeing anybody—or did he? I asked him, I know I did, I definitely remember asking…” She stuck her head out of the bedroom. “Hey.” The plant barely twitched its bloom at her. “Come on, no hard feelings. Listen, I know you weren’t here or anything, but I can’t remember if Wilson answered me when I asked him if he met someone else, and I thought maybe—” But the plant was sulking, and turned its stalk on her.
“Fine.” A burst of energy, part humiliation, part fury, surged through Annabelle’s veins, and she thought fleetingly of donning the red dress and the devil take the hindmost. She briskly shoved frocks and tops down the closet rail and stopped dead at the Armani.
The Armani. It looked like a scrap of polyester nothing on its hanger, but Annabelle knew from experience that it fit like a dream, and was a cunning blend of natural fibers that resisted unsightly wrinkling. Floor length, scoop-necked, short-sleeved, and body con, it was slinky and sexy and if there was any magic in the world, it was in this dress, a dress that managed to be provocative and dignified at the same time.
Wilson hated that dress. It made her the center of attention at the Amagansett Yacht Club, and left him sulking in its understated, sensuous dust.
It would do just fine.
Hmmm… and as Wilson never liked it when she wore red lipstick, or when she applied mascara to both her top and bottom lashes, she chose her Chanel Premiere Rouge and laid on the Maybelline. A deft application of eyeliner to her inner lids was a nod to her adolescent past, and she had to admit, it did the job; the thin line of black lent a mysterious air to her normally wide and guileless dark blue peepers.
A liberal spritz of smoky, sexy Addict by Dior added to the femme fatale aura, and gave Annabelle a huge boost in the esteem department, whether she was really trying for a fatality or not.
She came up short when it came to footwear. Damn. A girl just never got over being the tallest in the eighth grade class. Deep in her heart, Annabelle knew that a nice, narrow, three-inch heel was what was required to do the outfit justice, but she simply didn’t own any; she hated looming over most of the men she met. Again, an annoying image of wide, white clad shoulders and a six-foot-one, six-foot-two frame sprang to mind, but she drove it out and stepped into nondescript but functional black flats.
A small but deceptively voluminous black evening bag was commandeered to hold her cell phone, lipstick, ATM card, cash, keys and smokes. She was ready.
She walked out into the low light of the living room, and paused. It had been, literally, years since she’d gone out on her own, gone out socially without a man by her side. Her stomach did a little nervous flip, and she had to sit for a second at the dining room table. She knew better, knew that being with someone who lied to her, and who didn’t tell her the proper dress code, and dumped her in the middle of the day, wasn’t a worthy companion in life. Such a person was not someone that had what she was looking for.
What was she looking for? She rose and stood before her altar, and by extension, her mystery monster plant. She wanted someone who… thought she was funny, and who thought she was smart, and listened to everything she said, and paid her compliments, and made sure she was never alone at a party… and was taller than she was.
Oh, damn it. Not more tears. She checked herself in the full-length mirror that hung on the outside of her bathroom door. No damage. Wished she could say the same for her heart, and then rolled her eyes at her own melodrama. Grabbing up the short black leather biker jacket that took the overly sophisticated edge off the Miracle Dress, she slung her bag diagonally across her body for safety’s sake, and started unlocking the many locks of her door.
Behind her back, the plant snapped to attention, and as Annabelle cautiously peered around the edge of the doorway—no Nosy Ned lurking on the stairs—it shot out a sparkling, iridescent cloud that wrapped itself around Annabelle from head to toe.
Annabelle sneezed, checked herself once more in the mirror, and left the apartment.
As the locks shot into place from the other side, the plant bobbed its head, and giggled.
62y
“No hard feelings?” Lorna appraised herself in one of the elevator’s mirrors.
Annabelle leaned against the opposite wall. “Nope. Funny—my words exactly to my mystery monster plant. I did a ritual last night and made its branches disappear. I think it’s mad at me.”
Lorna ignored this obvious attempt to try her patience, and glanced at Annabelle’s ensemble. “The dress?”
“Armani.” Sometimes talking to Lorna felt like speaking in tongues, but she always got a little thrill when she could play along. “Wilson hated it.”
“I approve on all fronts.”
“So, are you trying to set me up with somebody?” Annabelle fussed with her hair, and scowled at her reflection in the elevator door.
Lorna checked that her hose was equally transparent from heel to thigh. “Why in the world would I do that? I know how you hate it.”
“Or are you trying to get me into a rebound situation? I mean, what is this, a bunch of interns having a beer bash or something? I know that you and Maria Grazia think I’ve got something for rebounding with younger guys, but I don’t, even though every time I’ve ever broken up with someone, I’ve ended up getting drunk and boffing some Columbia sophomore.”
“You’re out of luck, this bunch all went to NYU. And they’re graduates.”
“And Maria Grazia, for some strange reason, wants me to go to some book launch or something, a book about sports! Maria Grazia? Please! She couldn’t tell a baseball from a hockey puck! And Kelli is running around telling everybody that some sloppy Irish guy is talking about me, or something. I wasn’t born yesterday, you know—”
The elevator’s happy chime let them know they’d arrived, and cut off Annabelle’s tirade. Lorna wiggled her skirt up another millimeter or three, and led the way out onto the 52nd floor. “Anna, just leave it to us, all right? We’ll get you back on the road to recovery,” she said as she headed toward the loud, thumping music.
“I can do it myself,” mumbled Annabelle. As she got no reaction, she shouted over the now-deafening music. “I CAN! MYSELF!”
Annabelle wedged herself into the apartment in Lorna’s wake. A long narrow hallway clogged with downtown-fashionable young bodies seemed to go on for days until they arrived in the spacious living room. If it weren’t for the extremely loud Hole CD blasting on the stereo—the 2020s were the new 90s, after all—you could have heard a pin drop as the hosts clocked that Lorna, their ice-queen, untouchable colleague, had arrived. Even in the midst of a blaring rendition of “Asking For It,” Lorna could make an entrance. Annabelle squirmed around her friend as the minions paid their respects, and headed for a window.
Air. And view. Times Square shone in the distance, an endlessly recycling festival of bright lights and flashing signs. Annabelle lit a cigarette, and leaned against the windowsill, as Lorna materialized with two bottles of Heineken and three young men.
Oh, crap. This isn’t going to be worth it, thought Annabelle, as she tried to look even vaguely interested. The dudes seemed so… bright and shiny, sporting oversized skateboarder shirts over top of incredibly expensive Hugo Boss trousers. Cookie-cutter boys, with the same unsullied, open faces that shouted Score!
Not if she had anything to do with it.
“Annabelle, this is Mike, Marty, and Mitch. Some of the… freshest talent at the agency.” Lorna ran a finger down Mitch’s arm, and sent him into visible paroxysms of delight.
Annabelle felt compelled to make conversation. “So… are you guys roommates?”
Mike took the lead. “Yeah. Since college.”
“Yeah. NYU,” illuminated Marty. Mitch was still quivering, and was, for all intents and purposes, out of the picture.
“Buddies,” said Annabelle.
“Yeah.”
“Yeah. Definitely. Omega Beta Phi, woo hoooo!”
The guys banged bellies, and fell back, grinning.
“ Lorna and I went to art school; we weren’t into that Greek stuff—we were roommates in college back in—”
“Yes, thank you, Anna—”
“—Well. I was very interested to discover that the fraternity initiation process has its roots in actual Greek culture, geared more toward the Goddess, mind you. Do you guys know anything about Goddess culture? It’s a viable alternative to debilitating and denigrating patriarchal society, such as the one we ourselves live in at the moment and—”
Lorna grabbed Annabelle by the elbow and forcibly dragged her toward the kitchen, leaving three pairs of glazed eyes in their wake.
“Lorna, I was about to enlighten your colleagues with a bit of matriarchal wisdom—”
“Very funny. Just relax, for God’s sake. Relax!”
They stood with their backs to the wall of another hallway, one which, if the noises were any indication, led to the bedrooms and the bathroom. Endless flushing and moaning emitted at intervals from down the narrow hallway’s length, and Annabelle was shocked at how quickly the bedrooms had been commandeered by gasping couples. I really must be out of it…
Both she and Lorna finished their beers at the same time, and made the move for more beverages simultaneously. As they squeezed their way to the kitchen, Annabelle’s back brushed up against someone else’s and that someone else immediately grabbed her arm. Lorna took one look and kept moving.
Annabelle turned and gazed up into a dazed face that was at least a full foot above her own. A severe brush cut indicated a recent trip to the barber’s, and flushed, beefy cheeks seemed to point to a few post-work, pre-party cocktails. The loosened tie thrown over the shoulder screamed ‘Wall Street’, and the large hand had the kind of calluses that shouted ‘racquetball’.
“Excuse me—” Annabelle made to follow Lorna, who disappeared.
“My name is Chad, and you are the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen in my life.” He blinked at her like a love-sick puppy.
“Don’t get out much, do you, Chad?” Annabelle tried to retrieve her arm.
Chad threw back his head and laughed. Loudly. And long. “Ah HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA! What a sense of humor! I love a sense of humor in a woman!” He stopped laughing abruptly, and gazed soulfully at her once more. “I love your jokes.”
“Uh, joke, singular—”
“HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA! Did you hear that?” Chad addressed the entire party. “Don’t you just love funny women!” he continued, softly, in Annabelle’s ear. “I know I do. I know I could love you.”
Whaaaaaaat? “You don’t even know my name—”
“Please tell me, tell me your name! But I know already that it’s the most beautiful name in the history of names, in the pre-historic history of names, tell me, please tell, I beg you, I beg—”
“Annabelle, okay, just—stop.” Shit! She told him her real name.
“Annabelle. Annnnnnabellllllllllllle. The goddess Annabelle, the Shakespearian queen of the fairies of the forest!” Chad trailed off in ecstasy, and grabbed her other arm and pulled her close.
“There is no Annabelle in Shakespeare, you dumb ass!” She tried to struggle out of his grasp without struggling.
“You’re so smart! So literarily astute! I love smart women—but only smart women named… ANNABELLE!”
Lorna! Lorna! Maybe for once she’d actually manage a telepathic communication. LORNA!
“I need to… go to the bathroom. Please. My friend, uh, she’s sick, I need to find her—”
Chad eyes lit up at the idea. “We’ll go together! We’ll find your friend, together!”
Annabelle edged away, as best she could with at least six-foot-seven of male attached to her like a limpet. “I’d prefer to go on my own—”
“I’d NEVER leave you alone!” Chad was looking positively wild-eyed at the thought. “I’d NEVER leave you alone at a party!”
Wait a minute. Annabelle stopped dead in her tracks.
Laughing at her jokes.
Thinks she’s smart.
Won’t leave her alone at parties—“I don’t believe this!” She shook her head, and triggered off a manic spate of nodding from Chad.
“Neither do I! I don’t believe that the smartest, funniest, most beautiful woman in the WORLD is talking to me right now!” He looked as if he might weep.
Annabelle narrowed her eyes. “So, Chad. What do you think of my dress?”
His eyes closed in bliss. “I think I might be blinded by its sexy sophistication.”
“Think I’m pretty funny, do you?”
Chad threw back his head and howled with laughter once more. Lorna appeared with two fresh bottles of beer and looked utterly appalled.
“Think I’m smart, too?”
“I could fall at your feet due to my intellectual inadequacy.”
“Right.” Annabelle leaned into him and tugging on his arms, brought her mouth up to his ear. Leaning closer, closer, as Chad’s face took on a look of sheer ecstasy, she whispered, “Sacred circle hear my doubt, shield me safely round about, bring love in—keep bros out!”
As if a bucket of frigid water had been dumped over his head, Chad stood straight up and let go of Annabelle. He looked down at her, and shook his head as if to clear it. “Whoa. Like, sorry,” he mumbled, and backed away.
Lorna handed off the beers to an innocent bystander, and grabbed Annabelle’s recently liberated right arm. “Are you okay? What in the world was that?”
Annabelle took a deep breath, and looked Lorna in the eye. “You wouldn’t believe me, even if I told you. I gotta go.”
62y
Back out on 30th Street, they paused at the corner of 8th, waiting for a taxi. Annabelle was mumbling to herself, and Lorna, a little peeved at the early exit, kept prodding for an answer.
“I told you, you don’t want to know.” Annabelle lit up a restorative smoke.
“It’s not that hazelnut nonsense, is it?”
“You. Don’t. Want. To. Know.” She offered a Marlboro, which Lorna accepted grudgingly. “Thanks for the outing, anyway.”
“Just trying to help.” Lorna exhaled elegantly.
“Yeah, you and… everybody else.”
“Anna. We care about you. We want you to be happy, to have what you want. Maybe this wasn’t the greatest idea in the world, maybe that guy was a bit over the top—” Lorna cut across Annabelle’s sarcastic “Ha!” “—but you’re the one who’s always wanted a boyfriend, and always had to have a boyfriend, and whined when you didn’t have a boyfriend, and whined about the boyfriend when you had a boyfriend, and now you don’t have a boyfriend, and you were at a party where you could, quite possibly, have found another boyfriend, if you’d given it a chance!”
“I don’t just want a boyfriend. I want a relationship!”
“I want a relationship!” Lorna mimicked, and Annabelle looked away, stunned. “I do not, in any way, profess to be acquainted with the ways and means under which one undertakes to initiate a long-term relationship, but I think that at the very least, you have to go out and actually meet people!”
They stood glaring at opposite ends of the street. “This is your idea of helping me?” Annabelle’s voice wobbled. “You of all people try to tell me how to build a relationship—you haven’t had one since 2004!”
“We’re not talking about me!” Lorna shouted, and raised an arm to flag down a cab.
“Well, then, don’t expect me to do the things that you do to meet people!”
“I’m not, but this is New York City, how else do expect to meet people if you don’t go out! You don’t have a job. You refuse to go on the apps—”
“Hey. The scribe. Howaya?”
Lorna and Annabelle turned west as the cab screeched to a halt beside them. Annabelle gawked and Lorna stopped shouting.
“Oh. Hi. Restorer-slash-painter.” Annabelle froze, and silence reigned.
Lorna charged into the breach. “We haven’t met. Lorna Bates.”
“Jamie Flynn.” They shook hands, Jamie politely, Lorna assessingly.
“Odd hour for a delivery?” Lorna mused, indicating the wrapped, flat object under Jamie’s arm. Jamie looked at it as if he’d never seen it before.
“Um. No… well, yes. Something for a relative. She rang me, last minute, I’m to meet her here, somewhere…” He trailed off, and shrugged, and tried to look nonchalant, as if he always wandered around Manhattan at night, carting paintings around.
“Jamie’s a painter.” Annabelle looked a poleaxed as that extremely tall bro had.
“How do you two know each other…?” asked Lorna, and behind her back, motioned at the cabbie to relax.
“The thing—” said Annabelle.
“The show—” said Jamie.
They both stopped short, and Lorna smiled inquiringly.
“Jamie—Kelli—”
“Annabelle—the play—”
The cabbie honked his horn impatiently. He didn’t have all night.
“Well, okay. Nice seeing you. Uh. Again.” Annabelle dove into the taxi, and waited for Lorna to stop shaking Jamie’s hand. He tapped on the window before he walked away.
As the taxi sped off east, Lorna turned to Annabelle. “So?”
“So what?” Annabelle turned to Lorna in an attempt to camouflage the fact that she was looking out of the back window out of the corner of her eye.
“So. Is that The Irish Guy?”
Annabelle turned fully to look out the window at Jamie’s receding form. “He’s—yeah.” As the cab turned south, Annabelle turned around and slumped slightly in her seat.
“Interesting.” Lorna turned forward as well, her fingers itching to get at her cell phone.
“He’s—we just met at the thing—did Maria Grazia say anything? To you? About… him?” Annabelle twisted the strap of her evening bag around her finger.
Lorna watched her friend cut off the circulation to her pinkie, and suppressed a wicked, triumphant grin. Wilson, and memories of Wilson, the very essence of Wilson, was about to get shipped out to the dump in Staten Island.
“She mentioned that some hot guy in a pristine white shirt was into you.”
“He’s not!” Annabelle protested. “He’s just… He isn’t—it’s nothing.” She turned away and stared out the window, as the lights of Chelsea blurred past the speeding cab.
Ah ha, thought Lorna. Very very interesting.