Hanging by a Thread (32 page)

“Who knows? Maybe.” She licks a chunk of ice cream off her spoon, then shrugs. “Maybe this is Luke's way of saying he's gotta work this out on his own.”

Which is exactly what I've been saying all along. So why,
now that he's apparently doing just that, is his silence driving me nuts? After all, who told him to leave me out of it?

Then Frances says, “Tina didn't really have a miscarriage, did she?” and I miss my mouth and smear ice cream across my chin. Frances hands me a napkin.

“W-what makes you say—?”

One eyebrow lifts; I dissolve like a wet cracker.

“Oh, God, Frances…if she finds out you know she had an abortion—”

Frances's stunned expression stops me cold. “An abortion? I assumed she'd faked the pregnancy, that's all.”

The room starts spinning; I drop my head on my arms, muttering, “Shit, shit, shit,” under my breath. Frances's hand lands between my shoulder blades, gently rubbing my back.

“Don't worry, I won't say a word, I promise. But that explains a lot.”

After several seconds, I lift my head. Tenuously. “Even so, how did you figure it out? That she hadn't had a miscarriage, I mean?”

“Intuition, I suppose. The way she didn't seem all that excited when they told us they were expecting.” Frances chugs the last of the ice-cream laced root beer from her glass, then locks her gaze with mine. “Then she
loses
a baby, and suddenly she wants out of the marriage?” Leaning closer, she says, “I love Tina, and I know she's good at heart. But nothing's ever motivated that girl except fear and neediness. And who can blame her? What else did she know, growing up? Only problem is, whichever one is stronger at the moment, that's the one she listens to. And that's not good.”

I stare at what's left of my float. Hell, fear's probably what motivates most people's decisions, when you come right down to it.

“When…when Tina told me she wanted to get Luke back…” I look up into Frances's eyes again, hating myself for
having such a big mouth, relieved I finally have someone to share the burden with. “I told her she really needed to think about telling him.”

“Really?” I hate that I can't read Frances's expression. “It'll kill him, you know that.”

“Not any more than the false hope that maybe they'll have kids someday! I mean, hey, if Tina's who he really wants, if they can work this out…” My spoon clanks against the glass as I dig for the last bit of ice cream. “Fine and dandy. But I can't stand the thought of him going back into that relationship, knowing what I know. And knowing that he
doesn't
know.”

Dammit. My hands are shaking.

And Frances misses nothing. She leans back in her chair, letting out a long breath. “You know, it's a real bitch, knowing your kid's miserable and not being able to do a damn thing about it.” Then she gets up, removing my empty dish. “So you've been carrying around this secret for all these months. That's horrible.”

All I can do is nod. She goes away, returning seconds later with a tissue, which I silently accept. I'm not crying as much as leaking, as if it's all too much to hold in anymore.

“So what are you going to wear tomorrow for this big date?” she says, again sitting across from me.

Frances doesn't mean to hurt me, I know that. But with her single, seemingly innocuous question, it's as if she's taking me by the shoulders and whispering in my ear, “See over there? Why don't you focus on that, honey?”

And I can hardly breathe through the pain.

Starr comes racing in, however, before I can answer, babbling on about what Jimmy's doing in the basement, I gotta come see, right now. I get up to follow my child, telling myself that no matter what, the instant she's in bed, I'm going online and ordering that paternity test kit.

I
know this sounds silly, but I wasn't all that comfortable with Alan seeing this place. This is someone used to staying at the freaking
Plaza,
after all. And while I'm not ashamed of my home—and I did manage to put a reasonable dent in the dust bunny/fur ball population—I figured it's a little more plebeian than Alan's used to.

Once again, I was wrong.

He's standing in the middle of our living room, graciously ignoring my sister, child and the cat sitting in a row on the couch. By the way, he's already given me flowers—a mixed bouquet, not roses, good choice, roses would have been pretentious—and complimented me on my outfit, an aqua sixties sheath with silver embroidery around the neck (my mother's), with silver fishnet stockings and nosebleed-inducing ankle strap sandals that are an exact knockoff of a pair of Manolos I saw in the March
Vogue. Exact,
I'm telling you. Twenty-four
ninety-nine at some hole-in-the-wall shoe store on Eighth Avenue. And my hair…ohmigod. I'd rushed over to Liv's and promised her my child if she could make me look good, and after falling on my neck and hugging me and calling me “cousin” like a character from a Jane Austen novel (although for some reason she didn't seem interested in my offer of another child), she sat me down and performed an absolute miracle. I am blown and fluffed and moussed within an inch of my life and dammit, I look
good.

And you know what they say: if you act like you're having a good time on the outside, you'll start to feel that way on the inside.

“It reminds me a lot of where I grew up,” Alan's saying, “before Mum died and Dad remarried. We lived in a semidetached much like this, all the rooms feeding into each other. Even down to the dark wood molding and cornices and the flowerboxes.”

He turns to me and smiles, all casual Hugh Grant-ness in an unconstructed charcoal silk blazer. We are going to look so hot together, I can't stand it. “I've nothing but good memories of those times, and that house. Now if there's a local where we can get a pint, we're in business.”

“There's always Pinky's,” Jen puts in from the couch.

“What's Pinky's?” Alan says as my eyes cut to my sister.

“Just some neighborhood bar,” I say, “believe me, you wouldn't be interested—”

“Not at all! After all, how often do I get a chance to experience the real New York?” At what must be my horrified expression, he laughs. And misinterprets. “Don't worry, we've still got dinner reservations for eight-thirty at this terrific little place I stumbled across on East Seventieth. But I've always found the best way to get to know a person is to see them in their real element.”

This is me, being thrilled.

Then Starr jumps up from the couch and grabs Alan's hand, exhorting him to come down to the basement to “see Mama's
stuff.” Since protesting might lead the man to believe I've got bodies stored down there, I cringe and follow, muttering something about it's being a pee-poor workroom, but it was just makeshift and all—

—and then I remember I'd left out my last batch of sketches.

And of course Alan gravitates toward them like Frito to carbs.

“Ellie…” He lifts one up, brows drawn speculatively, then glances over at me. “These are quite remarkable.”

“You're very kind.”

A puzzled frown crosses his features. “
Kind
is what I am to old ladies who need help getting a can down off the top shelf. But I don't flatter. And I thought about taking a stab at a fashion career, before the theater bug bit me and I discovered I preferred working on a larger scale. I do have some idea of what I'm talking about. So believe me when I tell you these are good.
Very
good.”

“This one's my favorite,” Starr says, handing him one of a pants set, a mandarin collared duster over slender, too-long pants.

“These are all designed for larger women?”

“Um, yeah. I didn't figure the size twos needed another designer.”

He smiles. “I daresay you're right.” Then he crosses his arms, the sketch dangling from his hand. “Why on earth haven't you pursued this as a career?”

It's as if a sudden storm flares up inside my skull, opposing ions repelling and colliding or whatever the hell it is they do. I open my mouth, fully expecting all the excuses to come flying out—that I don't have the talent/money/means to do this, that I have a kid, that I can't take the risk. Instead, all I hear is, “I guess the timing just hasn't been right.” I don't even know what that means, but at least it puts the kibosh on the interrogation.

Ten minutes later, we're threading our way through the clot of bodies seated outside of Pinky's. The heavy summer night
air is redolent with the scent of ten-buck cologne, cigarette smoke and hope; inside is no different, except for the cigarette smoke, and the fact that the air-conditioning's up so high my lip gloss instantly congeals.

“Classy joint, huh?” I yell over the blare of the jukebox, the roar of conversation.

As we slide onto a pair of just-vacated bar stools, Alan dips his mouth close to my ear. So I can hear him. “It's terrific,” I think he says. Brother. And I think
I
don't get out much.

I introduce Alan to Jose, who plunks our order—a Diet Coke for me, a German beer for Alan—in front of us before answering a signal from the other end of the bar. Within the next two minutes, no less than a half dozen people I went to school with make it a point to say “Hi” and exchange a few words. A few are in here by themselves, or with dates, but I'm surprised by how many are here with their spouses. And how relaxed and happy and content they seem. These aren't losers trying desperately to validate their existence by making a transitory connection with another human being, but perfectly normal people simply out having a good time.

Perfectly normal people who've lived their entire lives in this neighborhood.

And are perfectly okay with that.

“Looks as though I'm out with the popular girl,” Alan says, tipping back his brew. This guy makes chugging beer from a bottle look elegant. I am seriously out of my league here.

“Hardly,” I say, stirring my swizzle stick in my Coke in order to get rid of some of the carbonation so I don't belch after drinking it. “Just hit the right night, that's all.”

I can feel his eyes on the side of my face, but before he can say anything, I hear, “Ellie! Hey, girl!”

I turn around to see a grinning Lisa Lamar, in a miniskirt and one of those skimpy tops where the whole point is to show off your purple lace Victoria's Secret bra, hanging on to some
new guy's arm. This one has hair, at least. So much hair, in fact, the medal around his neck is nearly swallowed up in it.

“This is Sal,” she says coyly, forking her fingers through her long, tiger striped hair.

I make introductions; Alan and Sal shake hands, Lisa sizes Alan up without being predatory about it. She always was good that way. Then she makes appreciative noises about my outfit, before—and I can tell it's been killing her to hold back—shyly extending her left hand, on which sparkles a fairly impressive solitaire. Round cut, simple platinum setting. I doubt we're talking Tiffany's here, but not bad. Not bad at all.

“I don't mean to brag,” she says as I make appropriate excited-for-you noises, “but Sal just gave it to me for my birthday last night and I'm still in shock! We're gettin' married in November!”

The guys shake hands, Lisa and I hug. Then she asks me about doing her wedding dress, since she knew someone who'd gone to Heather's wedding and it was all she could talk about, how gorgeous the dress was.

“An' I want to look classy, you know? You can do that, right?”

Well, yeah. But before I can figure out how to tell her I can't exactly do something for a couple hundred bucks, she says she's been saving up for this since she was sixteen, price is no object.

“Define ‘no object,'” I shout.

“Sal,” she says, lightly smacking him in the arm to interrupt his conversation with Alan, “you got somethin' to write with?” He hands her a matchbook and a pen; she scribbles on it and hands it to me, saying in my ear, “I didn't think I should exactly be shouting this figure at the top of my lungs, you know what I mean?”

I'm staring dumbfounded at the number on this tiny piece of cardboard. Uh, yeah, I know exactly what she means.

“So. This would work?” she says.

I take the pen from her and write down my cell number on the matchbook and hand it back. “Call me,” I say, and she
squeals. Although we really need to talk about the tiger-striped hair, I think as the happy couple squeeze their way back to their table. Maybe I'll bring Liv in on this one.

“Drumming up business?” Alan says, grinning.

“Apparently so.”

“You want to be careful, though.”

“About what?”

Somebody's put on some ancient Rolling Stones number (it's been a while since the music selection's been updated, but nobody seems to mind), so he has to lean over again in order for me to hear him. Damn, he smells good.

“If you get too busy making wedding dresses for your friends, you won't have any time or energy to develop your own line.”

Now, would somebody tell me why that totally supportive comment is sending prickles of irritation along my skin? Why I'm prompted to shoot back, “But I
like
making wedding dresses for my friends”?

And mean it?

I see Frances and Jimmy come in and wave them over. In her tank top and slinky, ankle length skirt, Frances looks like a teenager, which I tell her.

“Which only goes to show,” she says, climbing up on the stool perpendicular to mine, “if the room's dark enough, anybody can look good.”

“Ain't that the truth,” Jimmy says, hauling himself up onto the stool next to his wife and signaling to Jose to bring them a couple of beers. “Soon as I come in, some chick sidles up to me and says—” he lifts his voice into a breathy falsetto “—can I have your autograph, Mr. Clooney?”

We all laugh, not because Jimmy's corny joke is funny, but because he's so damn sincere about it. And as I make introductions, a wave of tenderness washes over me for these people, immediately followed by a twinge of conscience for how much for granted I've taken their presence in my life. If I were
drunk, this would be where I'd drape myself around their necks and blubber, “I love you guys!” Since I'm not, I settle for talking and laughing and munching munchies for the next few minutes, until I suddenly catch Frances focusing on something, or someone, beyond me. Without thinking, I twist around, at the precise moment all the bodies part, giving me a clear shot of the booths. And there, in the same back booth where Tina and I had our little chat way back in January, I see her again. Only this time, she's sitting across from Luke.

Her gaze flies to mine as though answering my call, but her expression gives nothing away. A second later, Luke—whose back is to us—rises and goes to the restroom; when he's gone, Tina lifts one brow, smiles triumphantly and gives me a big thumbs-up.

I twist back around, briefly catching Frances's eyes. But I refuse to hold her gaze, refuse to let myself see the relief I know will be there.

“Ellie?” Alan asks. “Is everything okay?”

I look into his kind, concerned face and think,
For God's sake, Ellie—snap out of it.
Here I sit, out on a date with a wonderful, funny, together guy who—for whatever reason—is fascinated with me and who treats me like gold. And who, as far as I know, isn't still attached to some other woman (although I should probably ascertain that for sure before much longer). Maybe the circumstances surrounding our being together are a little off-the-wall, and maybe we'll end up hating each other by the end of the evening. But if this isn't a sign that I need to start enjoying what's put in front of me instead of pining away for the one thing that's not on the menu, I don't know what is.

“Yes, everything's fine,” I say, giving him a bright smile. “But we should probably get going, don't you think?”

Alan's eyes narrow, just a fraction, but he gets out his wallet and leaves a bill on the bar as we make our excuses to Frances and Jimmy. Frances grabs my hand and says, “Have
a great time, you two.” Then, in a lowered voice to me, “You deserve it, baby.”

That much, I can definitely agree with.

 

Three hours later, I think it's safe to say Alan and I don't hate each other.

In fact, I think it's even safer to say he's one of the nicest guys I've ever met. And since he hasn't stuffed me in a taxi and thrown money at the driver, I guess he doesn't think I'm too strange, either.

And that's not me putting myself down. That's just the way these things work, sometimes. You can put two perfectly nice people together and still end up with zip chemistry. Like trying to put cream cheese on a kielbasa. Nothing wrong with either one, they just don't work together. Although, come to think of it, I remember going over to visit Luke in his apartment a couple months before he and Tina got engaged, and discovering he'd put all his leftovers in one pot and then heat them up whenever he got hungry. Spaghetti, peas, chicken, whatever. Totally disgusting—

Do you
hear
this? I swear, I should be taken out and shot.

In any case…to get back on topic (which is, in case I'm interested, the man with whom I'm currently strolling down Park Avenue), if one can judge a date by the conversation, then this one has been great. At least, nobody's eyes have glazed over yet. Always a good sign. Of course, we're talking typical first-date stuff, but still. Having been on first dates where stepping out in front of a moving bus held no small appeal, this one's a dream.