Food Whore (11 page)

“I understand,” I said.

“You understand . . . what?”

“I understand . . . I have to be careful. And not tell my boyfriend.”

“Because why?”

“Because . . . you have to look out for the ones who are closest to you.”

“No, that's not what I said. I said the ones closest to you are the ones who hold you back.”

“Right,” I said. “That's what I meant.” Perhaps they were one and the same. You just had to pay attention to the ­people in your life. I convinced myself that Elliott would be fine. No casualties.

Michael Saltz smiled a sweet but devilish smile. “Good. I'm glad we're on the same page. Now, going forward, keep your schedule flexible. I will call you when I need you.” I wasn't sure how a graduate student with major obligations could remain “flexible,” but it was the price I had to pay for this arrangement.

“Yes, sir,” I said. “Thank you?” It came out like a question, but Michael Saltz softened, as if he empathized.

“I'll call you to schedule our next dinner. You may not have time to go to Bergdorf beforehand, so I guessed your size and got you this.”

He unzipped a garment bag labeled
Prabal Gurung
and revealed a silk sheath dress in a golden peacock print. Then he opened a shoebox of copper strappy stiletto sandals embellished with little gems.

I had never touched clothing this exquisite, much less worn it. This was the world I was stepping into, and it couldn't have come at a better time.

“This is just to tide you over until you make it to Bergdorf. I will see you soon.”

I rushed out of the apartment and found the hotel-­like smell of the hallway cleansing after the stench of Michael Saltz's place. When the elevator door closed, I collapsed to the floor and screamed. For thirty-­five floors, all I could say was “
Yes, yes, yes!
”

I made sure the Bergdorf bag was in clear view as I entered the lobby, and just as I expected, the doorman—­the stupid doorman who couldn't be bothered to even smile thirty minutes before—­ran to open the door for me.

Helen and the
Times
were cemented into my future. The city was my playground. I'd be heard. I couldn't have imagined a better scenario. Walking to the subway, I realized I held my head higher. I wasn't afraid of this cacophonous city or intimidated by the achievements of others. And I even put aside my worry about what would happen to Madison Park Tavern after that two-­star review. A rush of possibility flooded my heart, and I rode the wave all the way home.

 

Chapter 9

I
N THE TWENTY-­FOUR HOURS THAT FOLLOWED MY MEETING
with Michael Saltz, I did as he said and didn't tell a soul. I woke up and did my reading about food systems in Australia. I wore my regular clothes and went to my internship seminar and talked about modes of leadership.

But the whole time, our conversation tingled. Here I was, sitting in a concrete cell, talking about drab assignments. My classmate Rachel was studying canned mackerel and brought five tins to class, one of which had leaked foul-­smelling oil into her new purse. Geo thought he'd be recruiting a new class of bakers into the incubator, but was spending all his time doing paperwork thirty blocks away from the actual space.

They had accepted this as their lot, and I don't think they were even unhappy. It was what they had asked for, and they'd gotten it.

I was glad I wasn't in their shoes.

A
FTER MY MORNING
class, I went to visit Elliott. We had yet to find a good rhythm to our days. My classes and internship shifts were scattered and herky-­jerky. And though he had a full-­time job, that didn't mean he had a regular schedule, either. Experiments went long, fund-­raising events held him captive. Sometimes he worked the night shift and returned home on sleepy subways taking their time making all local stops.

But today, we had found time.

“Tia!” Elliott said as he opened the door and gave me a hug. “I got a thing! For the apartment!”

I looked in the farthest corner of the room, a mere five feet away in Elliott's tiny studio, and saw an end table. He'd even hung a wreath on the window behind it.

Elliott was determined to get “real person” furniture—­no funky hand-­me-­downs and no bottom-­of-­the-­line IKEA. Lucky for him, his studio was so small it didn't take much to fill the space. In college, we had both lived on-­campus and never bought anything that couldn't be abandoned at the end of the year. Now I was pleased to see the adult Elliott coming to the forefront. An adult Elliott who like hardwood end tables and sage and lavender wreaths.

Though he still hadn't gotten chairs, so we stood awkwardly in his space.

“I love it!” I replied, then gave him a hug and a kiss.

“Good, I'm glad you said that. Because maybe in a year or so, we can find a place and . . .”

I hugged him again. He was shopping for our future apartment! So Elliott.

“How was your day?” he asked.

“Oh, you know, class, things.” I felt my meeting with Michael Saltz pushing itself into my consciousness and I focused on forcing it out. “How are you?”

“Great. So great. Today we harvested our first samples from those South American specimens I told you about.”

I didn't remember him telling me about any South American specimens, but I stayed quiet as he continued. The thoughts about Michael Saltz had bubbled over and now all I could think about was my first dinner. My clothes. My words in the paper. Those three things cycled in my brain so fast I felt like I was hovering over real life, disconnected by the ecstasy of excitement.

“Tia . . . hello?” Elliott said, and I snapped to attention. “Did you space out? I just said you've barely been over since we got here.”

“I know, I know, I'm sorry,” I said. “It's just . . .” But where could I start? I wanted to tell him so badly, but I couldn't. I had never kept anything from Elliott in our four years of dating.

“Hold on a sec . . . I
did
get something else. Close your eyes!” Elliott tiptoed his fingers over my shoulders and closed my eyes with his palm. Even with my eyes closed, I could feel his excitement. I loved Elliott's surprises.

I heard the
tap-­tap
of his feet and the sound of things hitting the floor.

“Okay, open!”

Elliott gestured toward the queen-­size bed, which took up a third of the room. His messenger bag and folders had been thrown to the ground.

“New. Sheets. Five hundred thread count.”

“Hooray!” I said.

For the longest time, Elliott had said that thread count was a hoax. The human body can't detect thread density, he'd said. But then we'd stayed in a hotel in D.C. that had 750-­thread-­count sheets, and he was converted. We'd had amazing sex that night, and he—­scientific mind that he was—­deduced that it was the sheets. I didn't think the linens had anything to do with it (more likely a delicious dinner, perfect weather, and drinks that buzzed us just enough), but there was no point in bursting his bubble. Elliott was happiest when he had a problem to solve.

“Well?” he said. “You may approach the sheets.”

I bent over and ran my fingers across the fabric. They were white and very smooth but reeked of the vinyl packaging. You could see still see the crease marks from the folds. But on the whole, they were nice. I ran my hand across the duvet as Elliott came up behind me and kissed the back of my neck.

“Want to give it a go?”

I gasped as if I couldn't believe how louche he was being, even though I loved every second.

“Should I?” I teased.

“You should,” Elliott said, nodding with his whole head and torso. “In fact, you have to.”

“Oh, is that so?” I said, my fingers tucked into the front of his jeans.

Elliott stepped forward and I stepped back, but his binoculars were in the way and I ended up tripping and hitting the bed with not just an unsexy collapse, but a mood-­killing
thud
.

Elliott fumbled down right after me and then we were kissing and grappling all over those sheets. I guessed they did have magical powers. I'm sure we didn't look very sexy or competent, but we were enjoying each other. It occurred to me for a fleeting second that we'd been in New York for more than a month and hadn't had sex yet. There were some days when we didn't even make contact with each other.

But his touch erased any distance. Elliott and his perfect body, the ideal size for me, the right height and boniness and flesh and heat and hair. I couldn't have fashioned a man better fit for my hands and hugs than Elliott. I'd missed him.

His fingers slipped under my T-­shirt. Suddenly, I wished I had something from Bergdorf at that second—­anything to replace the boring stuff I was wearing. Lately, Elliott seemed to be caring more about nice things. And I was, too.

Elliott started kissing me on the nose. I nudged myself closer and we kissed faster, deeper. He unbuttoned my jeans, then swept his hands up my shirt and under my bra, barely touching my breasts but just holding them, understanding their shape.

I could hear the next-­door neighbor playing the keyboard, repeating the same lines in a manic tumble that sounded like marbles falling down the stairs. She kept on going, laboring over and over that part.

We rolled around more, but I couldn't block out the neighbor. Why couldn't she just move on? The thrashing of her keyboard drilled in my head.

Elliott took off my top and then started on his. I looked at him while his face was hidden and cringed for some reason. But by the time he got his shirt off, I was ready to embrace him again. Whatever that feeling was, I had shaken it off.

He unlatched my bra with minimal struggle, and I looped my big toes around his white athletic socks and peeled them off. He pressed his chest against mine and that feeling overcame me again. Heartache. Fear. I buried my face in his neck—­a neck and body that had been so good to me for so long—­and winced. I was sure he felt my face change against his skin, but he kept going. He kept kissing me and moving his hands across my shoulders. It was the same tempo and sequence as always. Kissing, undressing, him on top, done. Perfectly fine. But this was different in other ways. Suddenly everything filled me with an inexplicable sadness.

Elliott's sheets reeking of vinyl. His tiny studio with barely any light. The belongings he'd triumphantly swept off the bed. The fact that he'd thought this would be a wonderful surprise pinched my heart. He seemed so ravenous for me, while I was holding my breath, waiting to be seized by another wave of sorrow.

My phone rang on that new end table. Rescue. I picked it up.

M
I
S
S
E
D
C
A
L
L
:
M
I
C
H
A
E
L
S
A
L
T
Z

And then, a text:

Call me now.

I put the phone down—­a little too loudly—­as Elliott realized that he had lost me in the moment.

“Hey, what, who,” he said, panting, his hands hovering over my topless body as if I were radioactive. “What is . . . ?”

“Oh, Elliott. I—­ It's just—­” I jumped out of bed and kissed him on the forehead to make up for the abruptness, but of course that didn't help.

He let out a ruffled, pained sound and wrinkled his face like he was talking to the sun. “Tia, come back. What are you doing?”

“I have to—­”

“Seriously, Tia? Please come back to bed. I miss you. I want you.” So he'd noticed our lack of sex, too.

“Elliott, I have to do this thing . . .”

“Come on! Can't it wait? Who was that?”

“No one,” I said, putting on my bra and shirt. “I just remembered I forgot to write up my report for my internship seminar. Which is in an hour. And that will take me at least an hour to do.”

Elliott looked at my phone on the table, and I swiped it away. Nothing I said seemed to stick with him. He kept looking at me, expecting me to say something that would register. But I couldn't do that for him.

Still lying on the bed, Elliott slammed the wall.

I'm sorry,
I mouthed, as if uttering a sound would make this a real problem. This was a little blip. I was adjusting to Michael Saltz, and soon everything would settle into place.

Elliott propped himself up on his new sheets and stared at me with round, searching eyes. The tiniest of frowns crossed over his face. “It's okay. Let me know if you need help.” But he said it as an afterthought.

“Thanks, I will,” I said.

I called Michael Saltz back the second I got onto the street.

“Okay, I'm returning your call.” My eyes climbed to the fourth floor of Elliott's building. I wasn't sure which window was his.

“Well, hello to you, too,” he said. “Are you free Wednesday night? I'd like to go to Panh Ho.”

Elliott and I were supposed to hang out that night and I had an internship report due on Thursday, but now that I had it within my grasp, I needed to get the NBT. Everything else would have to wait.

“Yes, I'm free,” I said. “And . . .” I was searching for the little bead that had changed things with Elliott. “I want to go to Bergdorf, too,” I said, just to try it on for size.

“Go anytime you want!” Michael Saltz said. “You have free rein over my account.”

A rich and luscious relief washed over me. It came out of nowhere, as sudden as the wave of sadness in Elliott's apartment. It rushed in like fresh air, something new and invigorating.

As I hung up, I noticed Elliot's wreath in the fourth-­floor window and ran down the street to the subway that would take me uptown to Bergdorf Goodman. I had to get away.

B
ERGDORF WAS UNLIKE
any store I had ever seen, more like a museum than a place to buy clothes. I didn't see cashiers, or lines, or even many ­people. Each designer had his or her own little boutique with its own type of carpet and mannequins and sales­people. The Chanel boutique was black-­and-­white Parisian elegance. The Roberto Cavalli boutique screamed with color and print and leg. The Chanel saleslady wore a prim black sheath and cardigan, while the Cavalli woman wore a whipped tropical number slit to her upper thigh.

A tiny, impeccably dressed Italian woman approached me. She wore towering black patent leather ankle boots and had very arched eyebrows, the best-­looking woman in sight.

“May I help you?” she asked. She had no name tag, nothing that would puncture a hole in her beautiful blouse.

“Yes, I'm looking for Giada Fabrizio? Michael Saltz sent me.”

“Ah, I am Giada! Signore Michelangelo is very nice. Come with me to lingerie, yes?”

“Lingerie! No, no.”

“You don't want something . . . pretty?” Just then I saw the obvious: older man sends young woman to “get some nice things” with his money . . . I shuddered at the thought.

“I need something that will make me look polished and sophisticated.”

“Of course,” she said, though she looked disappointed. “Is it for special occasion? What sort of thing you like? We go polished and tough, perhaps Balenciaga? Or polished and modern like Prada? Or do you like the polished and . . . how do you say . . . girly? Like a Temperley or Matthew Williamson, do you suppose?”