“Are you
serious?
” he cut me off, for the first time since I had known him. “You’re really doing this? I mean, I can’t say I didn’t know this was a possibility, but do you really think they’ll get away with this?”
I didn’t like this color on him. It was way too aggressive and self-righteous for an intern, especially a sexually-harassing-intern. Perhaps Alan and Steve had been right. I couldn’t believe that Wade expected to stay at the company after what he had done. I took a seat so that we were eye-level, and fixed my sights on him.
“Wade, it’s better for everyone at the firm for you to leave. It would be your word against theirs. Think about it. And look, they’re offering you a little something extra in your final paycheck…like a severance package. I don’t know all the details, but I know as much as I think I need to know. You should cut your losses and leave quietly. That’s the best advice that I can give you.”
“You really do have a way with words, Vina,” he spat.
“This is not about me,” I fired back.
Wade took one final, deflated look at me. As if
I
was the one who had let
him
down.
“So you wouldn’t believe me even if I tried to explain? Don’t you want to hear my side of this?”
“No, Wade. I’m sorry. I’ll have to side with my bosses on this one.”
“This is bullshit,” he decided, before slamming the door on his way out of the room.
“B
efore you say anything, I’m borrowing your blue purse. And you only have an hour to get ready for Girls’ Night.”
Cristina’s butt, wreathed in the light from my fridge, was the first thing I saw when I walked into my apartment.
“I don’t understand how you can live on this stuff,” she continued before I could respond, speaking to me over her shoulder. “Not a piece of fruit or a drop of milk or juice anywhere.”
She held my refrigerator door open, displaying the lamentable contents: Three Hostess pink snowballs, a six-pack of Pepsi, two Chinese food delivery cartons and a half-empty bottle of Absolut.
“Who let you in here?” I asked, dropping my jacket onto a chair and heading for the bathroom.
“You gave me the key. Remember?”
“Vaguely.” I examined my bloodshot eyes in the mirror. “I don’t know. Long week.”
“What’s with this?” She waved the Absolut bottle at me.
“Pam probably drank it.” I shrugged.
“And since when does she store her alcohol in your fridge?”
“She’s practicing. For when we have neighboring summer houses in the Hamptons. And she comes over to my place to drink away her sorrows because William works too much.”
“And where will I be?”
“You’ll be at the gym,” I snapped.
“Ouch!” she said.
Cristina and I weighed exactly the same amount, but she always managed to look better in my own clothes than I did. It might have had something to do with her six extra inches of legs. We were both olive-skinned, dark-haired, and just shy of the age when we expected our metabolisms to begin to go to hell. But that was where the similarities ended. Five years earlier, when we became investment banking trainees, we both swore we would quit the business as soon as we figured out what else we were qualified to do. Or once our loyalty started to cost more than the annual bonuses our firms kept baiting us with. That day had yet to come.
To compensate, she had developed an unhealthy attachment to the gym, while I had developed an unhealthy resentment of myself. Lately that resentment had taken the form of an ulcer, which I had decided to call “Fred.” Its namesake was a sports agent whom I dated briefly when I was new to the city. He made inappropriate jokes and expected me to “high-five” him afterward. He was late for every date we made, and was under the impression that Speedos were acceptable. At times it seemed like he deliberately waited until his mouth was full before speaking, just to force me to watch. He had one ridiculously long nose hair which he never managed to notice, while I, on the other hand, could often see little else. In the story of my life, he was like a dried-out zit; although you resent it, you derive a certain comfort from knowing that it will be there when you need something to pick at absentmindedly.
“Sorry,” I said, turning back to the mirror and trying to ignore the burning in my stomach. “I had to fire my intern today. Things are frustrating at work. Honestly, I don’t even know what I’m doing sometimes. I’m not sure I’m up for going out tonight. I feel like I’m just not in control anymore.”
“Who told you that you ever were?” she asked, and then twisted on her heel when she heard a knock at the door. “Listen. Just forget about it. Whatever it is, you need to put it out of your mind. Girls’ Night will cheer you up. It’s gonna be like old times. By the end of the night, you’ll forget Jon’s name, and I’ll forget my own! Voila! We’re meeting Pam and Reena at the restaurant in an hour, and then your ass is ours all night. Unless you find someone hunkier to offer it to, that is. Well, if you can manage to let go of your control issues for long enough to let someone seduce you.”
Massaging the tension in my neck, I sulked toward the closet.
“Va va va voom!” Christopher gasped at the sight of Cristina.
“Cristy, Christopher…Christopher, Cristy,” I introduced in a monotone over my shoulder.
Almost instantly the two of them were lost in each other. I left them to share eyelash-curling techniques, and turned on the shower. I was still undressing when the phone rang outside. I should’ve locked the bathroom door. I should’ve hid inside the medicine cabinet. I should’ve done a lot of things differently that night.
“Guess what your Nani and I are making for dinner tomorrow night?” my mother bubbled through the phone, after Cristina came into the bathroom without knocking to hand it to me. “
Moong Khee Dhal
and
Masala Bhindi!
Your favorites!”
“Great, Mom. Listen, I’ve got friends over. Can I call you in the morning?” I pinched the skin at the top of my nose. I was in no condition to play the dutiful daughter.
“Why? Did you want us to make something else? If you did, then you have to tell me now, so that I can tell your father to stop at Pathmark on his way home to get whatever ingredients I’ll be needing.”
“No, Mom. I’m really excited about the
Dhal
. And the
Bhindi
. Really.”
It was an admittedly weak attempt at enthusiasm.
“Did you forget about dinner tomorrow night?” her voice narrowed, “you said you would spend the evening with us.”
“Of course not, Mom. Of course not. I’m looking forward to it,” I gushed to overcompensate for the fact that it had completely slipped my mind.
“Sweetheart,” she coaxed, “you seem distracted. I don’t want to do anything to make you fly off the handle. I know how sensitive you can be. I also know how your father’s anger always gives you stress. And you know how you get those dark circles below your eyes when you worry too much. Have you been moisturizing? Have you been eating right? You are not your normal self these days. You know that you can talk to us about anything, right?”
A lifetime of my parents’ injured expressions at even the mention of any male who wasn’t Indian had taught me otherwise.
“Sure, Mom.” I prayed for her call-waiting to beep.
“Then what is the problem? Is it Prakash? Are you feeling insecure about his interest?”
“No, Mom. I’m not.” I clenched my teeth. “I know exactly where his interest lies.”
I eyed the half-naked, bleary-eyed, limp-haired woman in the mirror.
“Because you know sometimes a girl can make an impression by being quiet.
You don’t always have to be so funny, Vina.
Sometimes it is a good idea to let a man feel like a man. Let him lead the conversation. Also, try to be a little bit more…soft. And I wasn’t planning to tell you this, but I also got a call from his mother and…”
Oh no no no no no!
My mother was trying to teach me about seduction! I had to put a stop to it before I literally crawled out of my own skin.
“Mom, it’s not him. Trust me. Wait, did you just say you talked to Prakash’s mom?”
“Yes, Vina, but it was nothing really. Just a small chat. Go on.”
I took a chance. “I’m frustrated, Mom. With everything. And work isn’t going so well. I’m just generally unsatisfied.”
“Vina—” her voice lowered “—you have a wonderful job, good friends and a nice boy in your life. What more could you want?”
“I don’t know. I’m just…I’m not really happy these days.” I took a deep breath. “You know, there’s this homeless woman who dances outside of Grand Central station. I pass her on my way to work every morning. And I…she just looks so peaceful, and I started thinking that…”
“So now you cannot bear the thought of taking advice from your mother, but you can take advice from this
pagal
homeless woman?”
“No! Mom, I…I’ve never even spoken to her. I’ve just been
thinking
about her.”
“Well, stop thinking then. And start doing. These ideas are a phase. Don’t you think I also used to have these cloudy thoughts while I was in my medical residency? Everybody has these feelings sometimes. But those who are successful waste no time on these indulgent thoughts. Try thinking about more important things. Like marriage. And getting your MBA. And don’t tell Prakash about any of these ideas, either.”
Cristina banged on the bathroom door to announce that she had invited Christopher along, that they were stepping into his apartment to pick out his ensemble and that I had twenty minutes left.
“Okay, Mom.” I dropped my towel. “I’m sorry. You’re right.”
“Fine. Good. We will see you tomorrow night.”
“So he looks me right in the eye.” Reena squinted across the dinner table an hour later. “He’s really intense, like he’s supposed to be James Bond or something. And he says, ‘Reena, I have wanted to be inside you since the moment we met.’”
As usual, Pam, Cristina and I hung on her every word. As usual, we were afraid even to blink or swallow lest we miss a beat. We leaned closer to hear over the din of clinking glasses, drunken laughter and live music. Son Cubano was the most popular Latin restaurant “slash” bar “slash” club in the meatpacking district.
“And I’m thinking, ‘I know, you geek. Why else do you think I take my man-catchers with me wherever I go? And why are you talking so much?’ He’s all ‘blah blah blah,’ and it’s making me want to gag.” She mimed an unstoppable talking hand puppet. “I mean, shut up and let’s get down to business. If I wanted conversation, I wouldn’t be dating a model, especially a twenty-one-year-old model. Why do men always wind up ruining a perfectly good seduction scene by saying something stupid?”
“Gay men don’t,” Christopher offered, a Cheshire-cat grin on his face. “We don’t usually waste too much time talking.”
“I think that
straight
men are programmed to think they have to keep trying to impress us,” Cristina suggested. “They think we all want a relationship out of them, so we won’t put out until we feel like they really care.”
“Relationship, my
ass.
I wouldn’t be in a relationship with him for all the Botox in Bombay,” Reena confided, to the applause of everyone at the summit. “He was sexy, and it had been a while, so I might have played with him for a few weeks. But it was really because I was guessing from the proportions of the rest of his body that he might be able to…shall we say…make an impact?”
Reena was magnificent. Sometimes I wished I were able to be as take-charge as she was…
outside
of the operating room.
“And was he?” I had to ask.
“Not so much. Average, really. But what’s worse is that he didn’t know what he was doing. And when I asked if I could tie him up, he said, ‘No.’ That it was
too kinky
for him. The big baby. The only reason I even asked was because he was moving too fast, and wouldn’t really listen to me when I said, ‘Slow down!’ So I figured if I could control it, everybody would win, and I could go the hell to sleep and actually take a nap before catching my f light.”
“How much Botox
is there
in Bombay?” Christopher asked, slurping at the dregs of his mojito.
“Not enough,” Reena answered.
“Okay. Of course what he
does with it
is important. But there is such a thing as
too big,
right?” Cristina posed.
“How would I know?” Pamela slurred, having gulped down her second mojito in a half hour and assuming the question was aimed at her.
Whenever Reena was around, Pam became more sensitive about the fact that William was only the second man she had ever slept with. But she traded her sourpuss pout for a beaming smile when William’s name popped up on her caller ID. She must’ve been drunk by that point, because contrary to her usual attention to etiquette, she f lipped open her cell phone at the table.
“Hi, honeeeeeeeeey!”
“Well, I haven’t found anyone too big yet.” Reena grinned like a sailor on shore leave, downing her Apple-tini and signaling the waiter to bring over another round. “But then again, women do come in different sizes, just like men. Maybe
I’m
well-endowed, too.”
“I don’t know,” Cristina reasoned. “I had a friend who said she had a friend who slept with a guy who was way too big for her. She went along with it anyway. And the next day she was out at a restaurant, and she had gotten her period. And when she sneezed, she sneezed out her tampon!”
My eyes widened into saucers and my hands flew from my mojito to my mouth, which was now stretched open in a mixture of horror and humor overload.
“That’s gross!” Reena yelled.
“Not in comparison to the disgusting things that men say and do!” Christopher wasn’t really defending Cristina, as much as he was defending a woman’s right to say something disgusting. “For example, ladies, the other day I was walking down Lexington when I saw this man at a stoplight, watching porn on his in-car television! In the middle of the afternoon!”
“No way,” Cristina challenged.
“Seriously!” He raised an eyebrow. “Do you think I could make up something like that? I mean, he had his windows opened completely, so that anyone walking by could see the screen! I know this because I almost walked into a garbage can. Once I saw it, even though it was hetero-porn, I couldn’t look away. I mean, come on! Could you? In the middle of the day? Ignore porn-without-warning!”