"Yes, Miss." Howard paused before adding. "And you might bring some Kleenex."
"I'll be right down."
On the ride down in the elevator, tissue box in hand, I mentally ran through all the possible reasons that KY Kathryn had come to me, of all people.
Not only were we not close, but we had never even had a complete conversation. She had her perfect life and her perfect friends and didn't need me, a thrown-over fiancé with no Manolos in my closet and no Barnard on my transcript.
I went through all the possibilities and came up with none. Zip. Zero. Zilch. And all those other words started with Z. Except that I had once played the role of jilted fiancé.
The elevator doors slid open and I entered the tear-fest. Kathryn looked worse than I had ever seen a KY look. Her hair hung in ratty strings around a face free of makeup except for black smudges beneath tear-reddened eyes. Unlike the polished Kathryn I usually saw at work, this defeated Kathryn wore a holey Barnard t-shirt with half the letters rubbed off and a pair of well-worn sweatpants. This was a picture not of an elegant, vengeful KY, but of a downtrodden and heartbroken woman.
Poor Howard, with only the experience of sons to guide him, sat with his arm around sobbing Kathryn's heaving shoulders. He saw me and lit up like a kid on a snow day.
He leapt from the bench, helping her to her feet and guiding her in my direction. "Here she is, Miss Danforth."
Kathryn looked up at me with all the haunting desperation of the world in her eyes. And broke into a fresh round of wails.
"Come on, Kathryn." I patted her awkwardly on the shoulder in an attempt at friendly sympathy. "Let's go upstairs and you can tell me all about it."
Handing her the box of Kleenex, I met Howard's gaze over her low-hung head and mouthed a "Thank you." He smiled and nodded. And then hurried back to the front desk, out of sight of the crying woman.
"Tell me what happened," I encouraged as we entered my apartment.
She plopped inelegantly into my chofa and wiped away the tears and mascara smudged beneath her eyes. "Victor is cheating on me."
"How do you know?" I grabbed the basket under the end table and pulled out the pristine package of Belgian chocolate seashells. Serious situations call for serious sugar.
Kathryn plucked a dozen tissues and blew her nose like a foghorn. "He said he was working late and I called the office and they said he wasn't there."
"Maybe he had a business dinner," I proposed as I handed her the box and she took a marbled seahorse from the selection. "Maybe he—"
"No," she said around a mouthful of chocolate. "I called his driver. He was at that new dinner club in Midtown."
"It could still have been a—"
"I saw him. With his secretary." She dabbed at her eyes as they watered again. "Huddling."
"Huddling?"
"
Close
huddling."
Well that did sound pretty incriminating. And it sounded like Kathryn had some doubts in the first place. "Why did you call to check up on him? Were you two having problems?"
Tucking her feet up under her on the chofa, she reached for another seahorse before continuing. "He's been spending more and more nights working late. And he's more distant. Especially when we're intimate," she continued despite my sudden fidgeting at the encroaching too-much-information zone, "he seems preoccupied and he's spending less time on fore—"
"What did he say when you asked him about it?" I rushed out before she could divulge all the secrets of her sex life.
She didn't answer, instead focusing on tearing her tissue to shreds.
"You didn't ask him?
She shrugged. "Seems pointless. I know what I saw."
"It would be better if you talked to him, Kathryn." I retrieved the cordless from the kitchen and handed it to her. "For your peace of mind."
She stared at the phone then looked up at me with sad eyes. "Did you talk to Gavin when it happened?"
I shouldn't have been surprised by either her question or her apparent knowledge of the details of our break-up. As I looked at her, a sorry heap surrounded by crumpled Kleenex, I saw a reflection of myself two years ago. Me in ratty Columbia sweats planted on Bethany's couch and surrounded by empty candy wrappers. Drained of every last drop of energy and confidence. If Bethany hadn't kicked me out of the apartment every morning at seven I would have lost my job.
It was months before I went out for anything resembling a social occasion. Months of days filled with work and self-pity and weekly trips to the candy aisle at D'Agnostino.
And as much as I despised the KYs and all they stood for, I would never wish that miserable agony on any woman.
So I answered honestly.
"No, we never talked." I pushed the phone into her hand. "And look how that wound up."
After several silent moments of consideration and tissue shredding Kathryn took the phone and dialed the number. "Victor?" she asked, her voice breaking with emotion.
She looked to me for encouragement and I managed a genuine smile.
Her jaw set in determination and she boldly asked, "Are you having an affair?"
One hour and countless apologies and assurances later, Victor escorted Kathryn from my apartment. Turned out he had been working tons of overtime to surprise her with an Aegean cruise for their honeymoon.
By the time they left I was so sick of baby talk and endearments that I might have given up Jelly Bellies for life just to silence them.
I closed the door on their clinging embrace and faced my suddenly empty apartment. It had always felt like home. A comforting and welcoming space with just the right mixture of cozy and spacious.
Right now it just felt desolate.
Something was missing, something more than a table or a painting. Something emotional.
"Maybe I need candy," I said out loud, just to hear the sound of a voice and maybe convince myself that was all I really needed.
But for once in my life candy was not the solution. That in and of itself should have floored me, if not for the greater problem at hand.
For the first time in two years I began to question whether I had done the right thing in just dissolving the relationship with Gavin without so much as a this-is-over talk. Admittedly, I had caught him in a significantly more compromising position—meaning his secretary kneeling at his feet and his pants around his ankles—but that didn't mean I didn't need closure.
Before I could think myself out of it, I picked up the phone and dialed Gavin's number.
When the machine picked up I nearly wimped out. Then I thought of all the heartache I had gone through, and all the heartache I had just saved Kathryn from, and I firmed up my resolve.
At the beep I left my brief message. "Gavin, it's time we talked."
With that long-due conversation irretrievably in the works, that left me with a looming realization. Somehow I had just made friends with a KY and I didn't know what to think about that. And the scariest part was realizing that they—or at least Kathryn, who always had been the friendliest of the clique—had all the same feminine insecurities as other women. As me.
The fresh pint of Heath Bar ice cream in my freezer called to me, promising to help digest this new information.
I had just dug a spoon from the drawer when the phone rang.
This night was never going to end.
13
Q: What goes "tick-tick, woof-woof"?
A: A watch dog.
— Laffy Taffy Joke #115
"Miss Vanderwalk, this is—"
"Just tell me there are no tears involved, Howard," I pleaded over the sounds of raised male voices in the background. And for a second I thought I heard a yip.
"No, Miss," Howard assured me, "no tears."
"Heellooo, Lydia!" one of those male voices shouted into the phone.
I pressed a palm to my forehead, certain I was feverish in explanation of this hallucination. Hadn't I just sent Phelps home a few short hours ago? A quick glance at the kitchen clock confirmed my suspicion that it was after two.
Clearly I was not meant to sleep tonight.
"How many are there?"
"Two. The young man you returned with earlier and an older gentleman—"
"I am not old, I am distinguished!"
"—with white hair and an... unplaceable accent."
"My accent is Italian."
Even if he was not.
Howard did not respond to Ferrero's comments, remaining steadfastly professional.
When a sharp pinch to my thigh and counting to ten did not wake me from this nightmare, I relented. "Send them up."
No way I was fetching those two. Whatever the reason for their visit. Of course I wasn't going to turn my boss away from my doorstep in the middle of the night, either.
I managed three quick and painfully cold bites of ice cream before the buzzer rang. Peace of mind was not immediately attained. Giving the sugar a chance to work, I waited as long as I could to answer the door.
Even willing the sugar into action didn't work.
They started banging on the door.
"We know you're in there, Lyd."
"Please, cherie, let us in. We have a problem."
Bang, bang, bang.
I glared at the ice cream carton, knowing it was willfully denying me comfort in my hour of need. Shoving it into its new home at the
back
of the freezer, I steeled myself for whatever was to come.
Whoever said
bad things come in threes
grossly underestimated the persistence of problems.
Bang, bang, bang.
"Don't make us sleep in your hall," Phelps goaded. "What would the neighbors think?"
Probably that I have a pair of stalkers.
Fortified by a deep breath, I swung open the door. "What's this big prob—" I caught sight of something furry in Phelps' arms. Pointing a shaking finger at the furball, I demanded, "What is that!"
"A puppy," he answered with a smile.
"No," I backed cautiously into the apartment, away from the tiny brown fluff, "puppies are soft and round and behind Plexiglas at the pet store. That," I accused, waving my hand in an encompassing gesture, "is a rat."
"Please,
cherie
," Ferrero soothed as he approached me, "give her a chance."
"H-her?" That thing was female?
Oh no, a tiny brown head popped up and a tiny pink tongue dropped into view. Big round puppy-dog brown eyes blinked against the light of my apartment. She was... she was... the most adorable thing I had ever seen.
But that didn't explain why she was here.
Unless... "No, no, no. I don't want a dog. I hate dogs, ever since Sissy Kowalchuk's bulldog trapped me up a tree when I was nine." I tried to back further away as Phelps approached, but ran into the couch. "And dogs hate me back. They bark and drool and snarl and pee on me. It's a mutual dislike. They—"
Phelps held the little furball out and she had the nerve to lean forward and lick my nose, undermining my entire argument.
"See," he waved the dog before my eyes, "she likes you already. And she's housetrained."
Ferrero approached, reverently petting the furry little head. "Take her. You were made for each other." He winked and elbowed me in the side. "I can tell these things."
I met his eyes and knew he referred to more than just the dog. If his intuition saw a blissful ever after for Phelps and me, then the dog and I were doomed.
"No, I—"
"She has nowhere else to go."
Phelps smiled sadly, clearly knowing he played the trump card. How could I turn away a sad little ragamuffin with no home and no one to love her?
"Why can't you—"
"My place doesn't allow pets," Phelps argued.
"And I," Ferrero interjected, "travel all the time."
I was beat, and they both knew it. Phelps held her out and I reluctantly took her in my arms. She immediately settled in, snuggling her cold nose into the crook of my arm.
Tempted as I was too coo and baby talk—despite my repulsion at the same only minutes earlier—I was not about to show my maternalistic weakness in front of them.
So I focused on business.
"Is this the problem you were moaning about?" I looked them both in the eyes, indicating my disapproval of their underhanded techniques. "Or was there something else we need to discuss at, oh, two o'clock in the morning?"
Neither had the decency to look ashamed.
"We," Ferrero spread his hands dramatically, "have a crisis."
With Ferrero, there was always a crisis.
Last month it was the color of the hangers Barney's was using to display his ready-to-wear collection.
The month before it was the number of stitches per inch on the lining of one of his men's coats.