Some days are great I wake up, go to yoga, eat lunch, take a class Afterward I’ll do my homework or go shopping or whatever I please. No ties, no responsibilities I could fly to Paris for the weekend if I wanted I’m a fucking debutante Some days, I’m too free Without the anchor of Evelyn, chain-smoking in the GV office a few miles downtown, nothing holds me to the earth and I’m floating. Everyone tries to cheer me up and it’s hard not to get angry at the “it’ll get better” platitudes During one particularly black weekend, which stretches into five days of lying on my new zebra-print sofa with the curtains drawn, Chloe even brings Nicholas up for a visit, operating on the principle that a baby is a sure cure for whatever ails a woman. He’s cute, but he’s no Evelyn.
Still, I get better anyway.
On one moderately black day, Austin is supposed to call at noon. We’ve made plans for lunch after his morning meeting with, of all people, Kerri May—he’s doing a colossal spread for the September issue of Kerri’s magazine. At 11 50 I pick up a new book on yoga. Apparently the whole thing is about uniting the Kundahni energy with the crown chakra, but only one person in a century, at most, actually achieves this
11.59.
I put down the yoga book and pick up the new issue of Martha Stewart Living and read an article on cookies. I have never in my life baked a decent cookie, and now I know why: too much heat.
12:05
I throw the magazine across the living room. At 12:10 I’m pacing around the apartment By 12.15 my knuckles are white and it takes all my will not to call Veronica and take her someplace expensive for lunch, maybe the Russian Tea Room or the Plaza Hotel.
At 12:20 the phone rings.
“I told you I’d be early,” Austin says. I open my mouth to tell him to go to hell and then shut it Early?
“Mary? Are you there?” Stupidly I nod. Twelve-thirty. He was supposed to call at twelve-thirty.
“Mary, are you there? Is everything okay?”
“Yes, yes, I’m right here I’m here and everything’s fine ”
We make plans to meet at a Korean barbecue spot on Stuyvesant Place in an hour When we get off the phone I tell myself that the next time I won’t assume the worst.
From now on, I won’t always assume the worst.