Uptown Girl. Olivia Goldsmith
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poor girl,’ Elliot said, his sympathy real. ‘How can I help?’
‘Short of teaching Michael to deal with human feelings and finding Jack and slapping some sense into him, I don’t think there’s much you can do,’ Kate said.
‘Yeah, I told you Michael was a dud. What went on between you two in the hall? I’ll bet he got a pounding.’
Kate thought of Michael’s face before the elevator door closed and chose to change the subject. She spilled some coffee as she moved her mug to the counter beside the refrigerator. ‘I don’t think there’s much anyone can do, but I’m taking a sick day.’
‘Maybe you should call it a mental health day,’ Elliot said. ‘Except this one isn’t about your mental health.’
‘Don’t worry, it will be mine soon enough,’ Kate predicted and poured some milk into her coffee. She preferred half-and-half, but she hated skim so she had compromised on regular milk. The coffee took on the exact shade that Bina’s skin used to tan to back on the beach when they were kids. Kate had always envied that beautiful color, but now her friend’s complexion had a distinct green tinge. Kate just hoped she didn’t wake up and throw up again. She liked her rug. ‘I’ve got to go,’ she told Elliot.
‘Do you want me to take the day off, too? The kids have standardized testing most of the day. I can keep you company and help with Bina.’
‘Forget it,’ Kate told him. ‘I know you’re just afraid you’re going to get my cafeteria duty,’ she joked. ‘Anyway, you had your first and last dose of the Bitches of Bushwick. It ought to be enough Brooklyn to last a lifetime.’ Before he could protest, she added, ‘I have to go. She’s waking up.’
‘I’ll call you later,’ she heard him say as she put the phone down.
She quickly poured a glass of club soda – her favorite remedy for the dehydration of a hangover – and walked from her kitchenette into the living room with her mug in one hand and the glass in the other. Bina groaned, put a hand to her forehead and then opened her eyes, which she closed again quickly. ‘Ohmigod,’ she said and Kate wasn’t sure if it was a reaction to the light or a remembrance of things past. She groaned again.
‘It’s okay, Bina, drink this.’ Kate held the glass in front of her friend and Bina squinted at it.
‘What is it?’ she croaked.
‘Well, it’s not vodka,’ Kate told her. ‘Come on, sit up and take your medicine.’
Bina did as she was told, took the glass, drank three or four big gulps and then began to choke. She put the glass down on Kate’s coffee table and Kate moved it onto a coaster before she went to Bina’s side.
‘Ohmigod,’ Bina repeated. And Kate knew that this time she had remembered Jack and the night before. Bina looked up at her. ‘Oh, Kate. What am I going to do?’
Kate sat down in the wicker chair and reached out and took her friend’s hand in her own. ‘Bina,’ she said, ‘what happened last night?’
‘You were right about the French manicure,’ Bina said. She shook her head and Kate could see the physical pain register on her face.
Kate went back to the kitchen and brought her three Tylenol and a couple of vitamin Cs. ‘Here,’ she said, thrusting them into Bina’s hand. ‘Take these. You’ll feel better.’ She left Bina again and returned to the kitchen where she took out her emergency stash of Saltines. Bina had just downed the last pill when Kate returned. She didn’t want them all to lie there in an empty stomach so she handed Bina a Saltine. ‘Eat it,’ she said.
‘Oh, please,’ Bina responded in a world-weary voice.
‘Eat it,’ Kate commanded, ‘and now tell me what happened last night.’ She watched as Bina made an entire meal of the Saltine taking many tiny bites and washing them down with the club soda. The moment she was finished, Kate handed her another Saltine and refilled her glass. ‘Good girl,’ she said. ‘So what happened?’
Bina lay back among the cushions and put a hand across her forehead. This time the tears were silent ones. Kate rose, went to her bedroom, and came back with a box of tissues. Wordlessly, she handed one to Bina who mopped at her eyes and began to talk in an unsteady voice. ‘You know that I was meeting him at Nobu and I was excited because it’s one of the kinds of places you go to.’ Kate almost smiled. Nobu was one of the most expensive, stylish, Asian restaurants in the city and Kate couldn’t afford to eat there even on her birthday. Sometimes Kate wondered about Bina’s vision of Kate’s reality, but she didn’t have the time to do that now. ‘Anyway, the place was beautiful and when I walked past the bar I could see that all the women looked better than I did. I don’t know why, because their clothes weren’t as good as mine – at least they didn’t look as good, but somehow they looked better, if you know what I mean.’ Kate just nodded. ‘Anyway, when I got to the dining room the hostess wasn’t there. I looked around, kind of self-conscious, then I thought I saw her. She had her back to me and was talking to some guy at a table and she was holding his hand up and laughing. When he laughed back, I realized it was Jack. I nearly plotzed.’
Kate had a vision of Bina going into hysterics and throwing a scene in the middle of the Zen of Nobu. God, she thought, that would end a romantic evening quickly. Bina did tend to overreact. ‘So did you …’
‘For a minute I didn’t do anything,’ Bina said. ‘I couldn’t believe it. Then I walked over to the table and …’
The phone rang and Kate looked at the caller ID. ‘It’s your mom,’ Kate said.
‘Don’t pick up,’ Bina nearly screeched.
Kate let the phone ring until the answering machine kicked in. Mrs Horowitz’s concerned voice came on and Kate turned the volume down. ‘You will have to tell her what happened. After you tell me, of course,’ Kate said. ‘And she must be concerned. Where does she think you are? Did she know about your plans last night?’
Bina covered her eyes again. ‘I can’t talk to her now,’ she said. ‘And I didn’t tell her anything because she would have nudged me to death. But I’m sure she knew about the ring and she knows Jack is leaving …’ Bina stopped for a moment and began to wail. It was a high-pitched keen of misery. ‘He’s leaving tonight. Ohmigod, he’s leaving tonight.’
Kate crouched at the edge of the sofa and took Bina in her arms. She felt Bina tremble against her, shaking with every sobbing breath. ‘Bina, you have to calm down and tell me what happened. We probably can fix this.’
Bina shook her head silently but lowered the volume of her crying. Just then the phone rang again. Reluctantly, Kate left Bina and went over to it. It was Michael. She had to pick it up, and wondered what people did in ‘the olden days’, as her kids would say, before there were things like caller ID. Kate looked over at Bina who had turned on her side and was quietly sobbing into a bunch of tissues. She picked up the receiver.
‘Kate, you’re home?’ Michael asked.
‘Yes.’ She didn’t need to tell him anything more. He knew that she was usually in her office by this time and as a post-doc he might have had the brains to figure out that based on what he had reluctantly witnessed the night before she might not show up at school.
‘Hey, Kate, I … I just wanted to call to apologize.’
Kate softened. She sighed, but covered the mouthpiece to be sure that Michael didn’t hear it. She had learned that there were two kinds of men: those who apologized and continued their behavior and those who apologized and stopped it. She hadn’t known Michael long enough to know which type he was.
The way she looked at things at this point in her life, most relationships were compromises and all men had to be looked at as fixer-uppers. As a therapist, she knew people did not change unless they wanted to and worked very hard at it. As a woman, she knew she had to tolerate a certain amount of what her ten-year-old patient Susan called ‘monkey clone behavior’.