So listen to this,” says Crystal. “This’H kill you This’ll fucking slay you. Tony asked me to marry him last night ”
“What’d you say?” We’re in my office at eight o’clock on a Wednesday. I’m taking advantage of Intelligentsia’s flex-time program even more than usual lately, working late some nights and taking off others. It’s easier to see Evelyn this way, with big blocks of uninterrupted time
“I told him to go to hell. He only asked ‘cause he knows I’m seeing Sal again ”
“Which one is Sal? Your ex?”
“My ex-husband He’s clean now, so he says. Tony’s just jealous. If I said yes, he’d be screwing around again in a second A second.” She snaps her fingers for emphasis. “What’s new with you?”
I tell her about seeing Austin again. She knows the story. Crystal knows more about me than anyone else at work, possibly more than anyone else I know. I haven’t told any of my other friends because I know what they’ll say; they were there when I came back to New York with no job, no plan, no apartment, and a broken heart.
“No shit,” she says “You sleep with him?”
I reach for her pack of Newport Lights “Nah. We were too drunk.”
“You gonna see him again?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t decided. He was so sorry” We both laugh. They’re always so sorry.
“What was his excuse? This I’ve gotta hear.”
“His mother died, it fucked him all up, he was drinking, doing coke, he couldn’t deal with it, blah blah blah.” I expect Crystal to laugh again, but she looks sympathetic.
“When my mother died,” she says, “I was so fucked up I lost a month. A whole month out of my life, gone. I have no idea. One day I woke up in a hotel room in Atlantic City with two Jamaicans telling me I owed them a thousand dollars each ”
“What did you do?”
“I sneaked out the bathroom window. In a T-shirt. I had to blow the concierge for a new outfit and bus fare back to the city. I spent the bus fare on rock. Anyway, it’s hard when you lose a parent. The less love there was, the harder it is. It’s sick, I know “ Crystal once told me she saw her mother five times in her life, the first when she was born and the other four when her mother was asking for money “Speaking of, how’s your mother? Any better?”
“No. Worse ”
“Well, you’ll do better than I did Better than your friend did.”
“Why do you say that?” I’m thinking, I’ll do worse. I’m thinking, if my mother dies I will die too, because I absolutely cannot imagine life without her
“You’re a tough girl Tougher than I was Tougher than this guy of yours. Whatever happens, you’ll be okay.”
This is the best news I have heard in a long, long time.
Austin calls the next day. And the next. I’m screening all my calls through my cheap little drugstore answering machine and he leaves short, sweet messages.
“Hi, it’s Austin I’ll try again later ”
I’m home both times. I listen to the ring and the click and the whir of the tape and the beep and when he speaks a warm panic comes over me and I don’t know what to do
“So,” says Kyra Desai “You want me to tell you what you should do with this man, mmm? I think this is what every woman wants to know, what to do with her man.”
We both laugh. Kyra seems amused by my despair. She’s probably seen it all. divorces, reconciliations, infidelity, fights, boredom She’s refused to even speak to me about my mother, she says she won’t speak about illness, but I’m thinking I might squeeze something out of her about Austin Today her hair is piled in a huge bun on top of her head, almost bigger than her head itself, and she’s dressed vaguely like a ballerina, black choker, a pink wrap top, and black capri pants. On her feet are another pair of ultra-high-heeled sandals, these with strings that wrap a few times around the ankle. The extra toes peek out demurely from the strap of the shoes. Her fingernails and toenails are painted lavender.
“Listen,” she says. “You want me to tell you the right decision But there is no right decision, only what the stars will for us”
“So, what do they will for me and Austin?”
“You know, Mary, I try to discourage people from this type of prediction, especially people I like. The gods give me a gift to use, it’s true, but they also give me discretion, judgment Knowing the future can take all the fun out of life.”
“I’m not having fun.”
“Yes, I see that Saturn is in retrograde. Venus is well aspected. Pluto is finally moving out of Scorpio. So I tell you this: Give him a chance. Talk to him Soon after, the path will become clear”
“So, we’re going to be together?”
“I didn’t say that, Mary. All I said was what I said Give him a chance. It’s in the hands of fate, Mary. You were going to do this anyway. I only tell you ahead of time so you can relax. And now I’m telling you something else, as a friend. Before you give him this chance, let him sweat a little. After all, it’s three years that you lived without him. Let him wait a little longer. You’ll both be better off for this”
“That’s all you’re going to tell me?”
“One more thing.” For the first time all afternoon she looks serious “He wasn’t lying when he said he still misses you.”
He calls again that night. Ring. Click. Whir. Beep.
“Hey, it’s Austin again. I’ll just keep calling until you pick up the phone and tell me to stop.”
After he’s called five times, I start answering my phone again. For a few years now I’ve screened my calls to avoid bill collectors and telemarketers, but if I do that now, I’ll be picking up with him knowing that I know it’s him, and I can’t do that yet Maybe when I’m my mother’s age I’ll be mature enough to let a boy know that I like him, but not yet The first time I answer my phone it’s Visa. I hang up on them. The second time it’s Chloe. She’s seen the obstetrician today and everything’s good She’s picked out names—Nicholas for a boy, Nicole for a girl. The third time it’s Visa again. The fourth, it’s him. The plan was to pretend that I answered the phone by mistake, that I was waiting for another call. Then he says how glad he is that I’m speaking to him again and I don’t have the heart to contradict that. I lie down on the loveseat with the phone at my ear and we’re back in our own little world. He asks about my job, my mother, people we knew from Miami, the fake boyfriend. He asks, will I help him look for an apartment. It’s a favor, not a date, and I love to show off how well I know the city. There’s no reason not to say yes. Before we hang up I ask him, why did he move back to New York? For the work, he says. For the money. For the change of pace And because I was here.
This does not make me happy. Instead, when we get off the phone, I feel like I’ve been co-opted, bought in a package deal, returnable for a full refund. The money, the scenery, and the girl. I know I’m nitpicking. I tell myself, I can always blame Kyra if he fucks me again.
The concierge of the hotel where Austin is staying thinks I’m a hooker He’s asked if he can help me three times already, so I ham it up while I’m waiting for Austin to come down, crossing and uncrossing my legs, stretching my back into an erotic arch, examining my fingernails for chips I wish I had some chewing gum. I’m daring him to say it, I am dying for this skinny piece of shit in his cheap suit and hair plugs to try to evict me from his posh lobby, when Austin comes down
First we look at a loft in the Flatiron District, near where I work. Or what’s supposed to be a loft; it’s actually a gutted six-hundred-square-foot studio with decent light for three grand a month This is the price range we’re looking in—three to five grand a month I pay seven hundred for my place in Inwood. This is how much more money Austin makes than me Next we see another fake loft in the East Village, then a real loft that’s too close to the housing projects on the Lower East Side. Austin will have a studio in his loft and it has to be a decent enough neighborhood for models to troll around in their spike heels.
We break for coffee at a little cafe on Ludlow Street Sunlight falls on Austin’s face, playing on the gray hair at his temples and the small wrinkles around his eyes I wonder, how did we ever get so old? The apartments have been awful but he looks happy anyway I think it’s because of me
In the afternoon we look through North Brooklyn It’s only a little less expensive then Manhattan and the streets are exponentially dirtier. We see a flasher in a doorway of one of the buildings we’re supposed to look in, and when Austin sees a young woman heading down the block he waits with her on the corner until we can flag down a cop so she can get home safely
I don’t see how monumental this all is until I’m back home that evening: I’m deciding where Austin is going to live. And wherever he ends up, I will have been there. No matter where he lives, I will have been the first woman in his apartment.