Uptown Girl. Olivia Goldsmith
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have a shopping bag of theirs.
‘Why all the confusing names?’ Bina asked. ‘And isn’t it hot?’ she added, fanning herself frantically with a flyer for a failing off-off-Broadway show that some guy had just shoved into her hand as they walked by. He hadn’t tried to palm one off on Kate, but then she didn’t look like the kind of person who accepted garbage.
‘Well, it is nearly summer,’ Kate observed. She tried to quicken their pace – the salon was notorious for demanding promptness – but Bina was Bina and she simply couldn’t be rushed or silenced. The Horowitz family had taken Kate in when she was eleven and Kate knew practically everything about Bina. Kate had once done the math and realized Mrs Horowitz had fed her more than five hundred meals (most of them made with chicken fat). Dr Horowitz had taught her to ride a two-wheeler bike when Kate’s own father was too drunk or too lazy (or both) to bother to do it. Bina’s brother Dave had taught the two of them to swim in the municipal pool, and Kate still swam laps three times a week. Kate was grateful and loved Bina, but she had to admit that Bina was the Mistress of the Obvious in most of her observations.
‘It’s really hot,’ Bina said, as if Kate needed proof of her belief.
Back in Brooklyn, when Kate had had no other outlet and longed for more sophisticated friends – like Elliot and Brice and Rita – with whom she could banter or talk about books, Bina had sometimes annoyed her. But now that she had a circle of intellectual, cosmopolitan pals, she could give up the frustration over Bina’s provincial interests and conversation and simply love her good heart.
‘It’s really hot,’ Bina repeated – a habit she had when Kate didn’t respond to her.
‘Is it hotter in Manhattan than it is in Brooklyn?’ Kate asked her, teasing.
‘It’s always hotter in Manhattan than it is in Brooklyn,’ Bina confirmed, completely missing Kate’s mild irony. Bina definitely had an irony deficiency. ‘It’s all these damned sidewalks and all this traffic.’ Bina looked up and down Lafayette Street and shook her head in disgust. ‘I couldn’t live here,’ she muttered, as if the choice was hers and million-dollar lofts were an option she and Jack could consider. ‘I just couldn’t do it.’
‘And you don’t,’ Kate reminded her, ‘so what’s the problem?’
Bina stopped fanning herself abruptly, looked at Kate with wide-eyed appeal and meekly asked the question that she always asked midway through one of her anti-Manhattan tirades. ‘Am I being horrible?’
Kate felt a rush of affection overcome her annoyance and, as always, remembered why she loved Bina. Then she gave her the answer that she always did: ‘Same old Bina.’
‘Same old Kate,’ Bina responded, in the litany they’d used to make peace and settle differences for two decades.
Kate grinned. The two of them were right back on track. Kate could neither imagine introducing Bina to her Manhattan friends nor imagine life without Bina – although she sometimes tried. Bina absolutely refused to grow and that was both irritating and comforting to Kate – and sometimes downright embarrassing.
Just as they crossed Spring Street, Bina, as if reading Kate’s thoughts, virtually shouted, ‘God, look at him!’
Kate turned her head, expecting, at least, to see a mugging in progress. Instead, across the street a pierced and tattooed guy of about their own age was going about his business.
Not the slightest bit fazed by the local wildlife, Kate didn’t even comment and merely looked down at her watch. ‘We can’t be late,’ she warned Bina. ‘I have something special reserved.’ And, to change the subject – ‘So have you picked out a manicure color?’
Bina dragged her eyes away from the local sideshow with obvious difficulty and focused instead on Kate. ‘I was thinking of a French manicure,’ she admitted.
Kate felt distinctly unenthusiastic and it must have shown. Bina had been having the tips of her nails painted white with the rest a natural pink since high school.
‘What’s wrong with a French manicure?’ Bina asked defensively.
‘Nothing, if you’re French,’ Kate retorted, having conveniently forgotten her teenage days when she, too, thought a French manicure the height of sophistication. Bina looked puzzled by Kate’s remark. Kate had also forgotten Bina’s irony deficiency. ‘Hey. Why don’t you go for something a little more up-to-date?’
Bina held out her hands and studied them. Kate noticed she was still wearing the Claddagh friendship ring Kate had given her for her sweet sixteen. ‘Go for something … daring,’ Kate suggested.
‘Like what?’ Bina asked defensively. ‘A tattoo on my fingernails?’
‘Oooh, sarcasm. The devil’s weapon,’ Kate said.
‘Jack likes French manicures,’ Bina whined, still looking at her left hand. ‘Don’t push me around like you always try to.’ Then she dropped her hands to her sides. They were both silent for a moment. ‘I’m sorry,’ Bina said. ‘I’m just a little nervous. You know, I’ve been waiting for Jack to propose for over …’
‘… Six years?’ Kate asked, forgiving her friend. She had to stop giving unwanted advice, which was difficult for a woman with her temperament in her profession. She smiled at Bina as they continued down the street. ‘I think on your first date with Jack you started designing the monograms for your towels.’
Jack and Bina had been seeing each other for so many years. He had been her first and only real love. He’d made her wait while he finished college, got his degree and became a CPA.
Bina giggled. ‘Well, I knew right away he was the one. Such a hottie.’
Kate reflected on the wide variation of people’s tastes. To her Jack was so far from a hottie that he left her ice-cold. Of course she’d never, ever, in all the six years of their courtship revealed that to Bina. And Bina had thought Steven was sour and gaunt, while to Kate he’d been … Her thoughts were interrupted by Bina’s continued chatter. ‘I just can’t believe now that he’s leaving for Hong Kong for five months tomorrow, and tonight’s the night …’ Bina trailed off, her voice unsteady.
There were few secrets among Kate’s old Brooklyn posse, so when Jack had consulted with Barbie’s jeweler father to get ‘a good deal’ on an engagement ring, the news had traveled faster than e-mail among them. The day Bina had waited for for so long had finally arrived but when Kate glanced at her friend, Bina looked anything but happy. Surely she couldn’t be having second thoughts. But Kate knew Bina well enough to see that something wasn’t right.
Oh my God, thought Kate. Bina has changed her mind and she’s afraid to tell anyone. Her parents – especially Mrs Horowitz – would be beside themselves if … ‘You’re starting to have doubts?’ she asked, as gently as she could, stopping to look at her friend. ‘You know, Bina, you don’t have to marry Jack.’
‘Are you crazy? Of course I do! I want to. I’m just nervous that … well, I’m just nervous. Normal, right? Hey, where is this place anyway?’
‘Just to the left on Broome,’ Kate said. And if Bina didn’t want to talk about her nerves it was fine, she told herself. Give the girl a little space. ‘This is the Police Building,’ she said as a diversion while they passed the domed monument that Teddy Roosevelt had built when he was chief of police. ‘It’s condos now,’ she went on, ‘and they found a secret tunnel from here to the speakeasy across the street so …’
‘… So the Irish cops wouldn’t be caught getting drunk,’ Bina said, then stopped in embarrassment. Kate just smiled. Her father, a retired Irish cop, had died three years ago from cirrhosis of the liver and she couldn’t help but consider it a release for both of them. It was the Horowitzes who couldn’t get over it.
‘No harm, no foul,’ Kate told her. ‘We’re almost there, and we’re only four minutes late. You’re going to like this place.