Uptown Girl (29 page)

Sunday afternoon was lovely: warm in the sun but cool in the shade of the buildings with a breeze that kept a slightly humid city air from being uncomfortable. ‘Let's take a walk,' Billy suggested. ‘I'll show you some parts of Brooklyn you might not know.'

Luckily, Kate had worn her Nikes and felt energetic. ‘I'm sorry that we can't spend the night together,' Billy told her as they left his apartment. He pointed to the bar. ‘Bachelor party tonight. Bina's husband-to-be. I'm glad things worked out for her. Anyway, it's my watch. I'm always on watch during bachelor parties.'

Kate nodded. Billy seemed completely accepting of Bina's nuptials. Had their relationship meant absolutely nothing to him? She shivered, though the weather was perfect. Surely what she felt for him was not unrequited. Billy, always sensitive to her movements, put his arm around her. ‘Yeah,' he said, ‘those bachelor parties make me shiver too,
but I just close my eyes and think of England.'

Kate hadn't even considered the kind of raunchy goings-on that were typical. She didn't want to ask if Jack would have lap dancers or strippers or – even worse. The sun and the cloudless sky were so lovely that she decided to put the whole idea out of her mind and do her best to live in the present. The present was perfect.

They walked faster than just ambling, but slower than power walking. Billy took her hand, and although it was sentimental and wrong of her, Kate felt protected and loved just because he cradled her hand so safely in his own.

‘This is Windsor Park,' he said as they turned a corner and walked along a block of small houses, each with a garden in front of it. ‘Mostly Italian,' Billy said. ‘Cops. Plumbers. A nice family neighborhood, but the yuppies are moving in from the north.'

Kate enjoyed the gardens, some of which were planted with so many colorful flowers that they were almost in bad taste. In some front yards, as if the flowers weren't enough, garden statues of everything from Bambi to the Blessed Virgin added what home magazines called ‘interest'. They walked past a big Catholic high school and crossed a walkway over the Brooklyn–Queens Expressway. ‘This is the edge of Park Slope,' Billy told her. ‘You can't touch a house here for less than eight hundred thousand dollars anymore.'

Kate looked from side to side at the brownstone and brick facades. Billy pointed to one where, unlike
the others, the paint was peeling off the front door and the windows were old metal casements instead of the elegant flat expanses on the other houses. ‘You can always tell a hold-out from the old days,' he said. ‘The old lady who probably owns that place hasn't even painted her kitchen in a decade.'

They came to a corner where a tavern had set a few tables outside. ‘Not quite a café yet,' Billy said with a smile. ‘Wanna drink?'

Kate nodded. They shared a beer and sat on a bench, watching women with strollers and kids with bikes and dads move past them. ‘So you drink?' Kate asked, though it was now obvious that he sometimes did. She had feared that he might be a sober alcoholic, and didn't drink at all. She was relieved to learn that she had been wrong.

‘My father told me there were two kinds of people not to trust: the ones who drank too much and the ones who didn't drink at all.' He stood up. ‘You okay?' he asked, and Kate was, although she had to write off one more assumption she had made about him.

They walked for another half-hour until they reached a building that was neither as perfect as the gentrified ones, nor as run-down as the one he had shown her. He stopped and searched in his pocket for a moment. ‘Come over here,' he said as he ran down the three steps and stood in the doorway. For a moment Kate thought he was only looking for a slightly private place to kiss her but before she reached him he had inserted a
key into the door. He took her hand and led her down the hallway of the brownstone, which had been divided into apartments. At the back he used another key to open another door. Inside there was an empty white room. ‘Come through this way,' Billy said and led her across the gleaming wood floor to a back door.

Once through it, Kate felt as if she had entered another world. It was a backyard garden, but what a garden. A small lawn was perfectly tended. It made Mr McKay's patch of grass look bald by comparison. The lawn had bluestone placed in it as islands in a green sea. They led in a curving path to a bower of trees – Kate thought they were pear trees. Behind them there was a small – no, a tiny – pond surrounded by iris and fern. Kate could see goldfish darting under the lily pads and duckweed. Two chairs, their wood weathered to a silvery gray, sat beside the pool. Behind them ivy crawled up the brick wall that divided the yard from whatever lay on the other side.

But Kate didn't care what was on the other side or anywhere else. It was the most serene, most beautifully groomed city garden she had ever seen. She didn't want to be anywhere but here. She looked at Billy, who had stopped in the sunshine on the lawn and was watching her. She walked back to him. ‘How did you know about this place?' she asked.

‘It's mine,' he said.

‘What do you mean?'

‘Well, when I was a kid we lived here. It was my grandmother's house. She lived on the ground floor and we had the top. But my mother took care of the garden. She taught me, and then I started to like it.' He took her hand and led her to one of the chairs. ‘Do you like it?' he asked.

‘It's breathtaking,' Kate told him. She thought of
The Secret Garden
, her favorite book when she was growing up. ‘You've kept it up? Do the people who own the house now…'

‘I own the house now,' Billy told her.

‘But you live…'

‘Yeah, I live over the bar because it's convenient and it's the right amount of space and it reminds me of my dad. I've been renting out this place but I keep the bottom floor empty so that I get the garden. I renovated the house – I mean not by myself but with a carpenter friend and a plumber who used to work with my father. Anyway, it's apartments now but easy to turn back into a family house maybe someday.'

Kate sat trying not to show her amazement.

‘
Ça te plaît?
' he asked.

Did she like it? ‘
Je l'adore
,' she told him. ‘
C'est un vrai paradis.
' She didn't want Billy to see just how impressed she was because it would embarrass her, and possibly embarrass him. She was a psychologist, and supposed to be aware of people's psychological depths, but she had judged Billy as a pool more shallow than the one they sat beside. The idea of him tending the grass, planting flowers
and raking leaves just had never occurred to her. Why should it? She wasn't sure what this garden said about Billy, but she could see how much it meant to him. And she knew what it meant to her. A man who could create and tend a garden like this was very special. But it hadn't been obvious to her at all. He seemed so casual, so carefree. But a garden like this took care and…diligence. It also took vision. Kate caught her breath. A man with such tenderness as this could surely be a good father, husband, best friend.

She dared to look at him. He shrugged. ‘
Il faut cultiver notre jardin
,' he said, quoting Voltaire. ‘I used to work here with my mother.'

Billy had told her about his father's death, but she hadn't asked him about his mother's. Now she did. ‘Pancreatic cancer,' Billy told her, and Kate winced. She knew it was a particularly ugly and painful death.

‘I'm so sorry,' she said. ‘When?'

‘Quite some time ago. The day before Thanksgiving. It still makes the holidays tough.' Kate nodded. Although she didn't miss her father, and she was always included at the Horowitz table, she felt like the orphan she was from Thanksgiving to New Year's. They sat for a while, both silent but it wasn't an uncomfortable silence. Kate felt that by bringing her here Billy had shown her more than his landscaping skills. She took his hand and the two of them watched the fish move in golden darts under the surface of the water.

Kate fumbled with the lock to her door and pushed in. The lights were on and she gasped and almost jumped when she realized that her living room was filled with people. For a moment she was terrified that Elliot, Barbie, Bina and the rest would scream, ‘Surprise!' and she had become a fatal shower victim. But no one yelled, ‘Surprise'. In fact, no one said anything.

She couldn't believe that Elliot – whom she had trusted with a key – would invade her nest, bringing a flock of raptors with him. She would get her keys back, and she would get him back some other way. Before she had a chance to ask what the hell was going on, Elliot, who was perched on a windowsill, spoke. ‘Some of you might ask why we are gathered here today,' he said in a pretty good imitation of Mr McKay's pompous tone.

‘What's going on?' Kate asked. Her stomach sank as if she was in an elevator gone bad. But at the same time she felt her rage ready to choke
her. She didn't even have a place to sit or put her bag down.

‘We're worried about you,' Bina said. She was the only one there who looked apologetic.

‘Katie, look you're allowed to go out with him, and you're even allowed to sleep with him, but you're not allowed to fall in love with him,' Barbie added.

‘What are you talking about?' Kate asked. But of course she knew. Elliot must have told everyone and now they were trying to do some kind of…intervention, or something, as if she were a drunk who needed to be confronted with her self-destructive behavior.

‘Time to go now. Party's over,' Kate told them, using Billy's phrase that closed the bar. She turned into her little hallway to get to the bedroom and away from all of these so-called friends. Unfortunately, Brice was standing there, leaning against the wall.

‘Sorry, girlfriend, you have to hear this,' he said, and gently turned her around and marched her into the middle of her living room. Bina got up out of the wicker chair and Brice maneuvered Kate over to it. Bev leaned forward – well as forward as she could lean given the state of her belly – and took Kate's hand.

‘I know how it is, Katie,' she said. ‘You want a home of your own. You want a wedding and a husband and a baby,' she added as if anyone could forget. Kate snatched her hand away.

‘I have a home,' she said. ‘It's right here and I would like you all to do me a favor and get out of it. Please,' she added so that she didn't sound quite so rude. After all, they probably meant well.

Elliot came up behind her and put his hands on her shoulders. His face was beside her own. ‘I wouldn't have done this if I didn't think it was really serious,' he said.

‘I want my keys back,' Kate told him and extended her hand. ‘I mean now.' It was better to be locked out permanently she thought than ever to walk into a scene like this.

‘Look, you moved out of the neighborhood. You might not remember what players in Brooklyn are like, but you have wasted enough time. You're not getting younger this week,' Bunny said.

‘Yeah. A fling is okay, but once you're thirty your flings are flung,' Barbie told her. ‘And even if the guy dresses well, don't get confused. What-do ya think? A blow job's a commitment?'

‘Shut up, Barbie,' Kate told her. ‘None of this is your business.' She turned and looked at them all. She couldn't defend herself with logic. And a part of her knew they were probably right. But that was a part she didn't want to be in touch with.

Elliot looked around the room. ‘I told you this wouldn't be easy,' he said to the assembled bunch of gossips, nosy bodies, yentas and morons that, up to now, Kate had considered her friends. He leaned toward her again. ‘Kate, I'm not saying you did the wrong thing in turning Michael down.'

‘I am,' Bev interrupted. ‘He was a doctor and a Pisces. Perfect.'

Brice silenced her with a look. ‘I think what Elliot is trying to say is that you can waste a lot of time with men like Steven and Billy but you get propositions, not proposals, from them.'

Kate could feel her face getting warm with anger and embarrassment. ‘We only want what's best for you,' Elliot said.

‘We're worried about you,' Barbie added. Then she looked down at Kate's feet. ‘Where did you get those shoes?' she asked. ‘Are they Ferragamo?'

‘Not now, Barbie,' Brice admonished. ‘This isn't Full Frontal Fashion.'

‘No. It's Full Frontal Confrontation and it's over.' Kate took a deep breath. She looked at Bina, who had been quietest. ‘How was the bachelor party last night?' she asked.

‘Didn't you hear?' Bev asked.

‘There was a fist fight.'

‘You're kidding?' Brice said. ‘Why haven't I heard about this?'

‘My Arnie said it was incredible. Max and Jack really went at each other.'

‘Yeah, my Johnnie said Jack's black eye probably won't heal before the wedding. And if Billy hadn't of broken it up…'

Once again Kate felt her stomach lurch, this time over the scene in a Brooklyn bar during a bachelor party. She knew Billy kept a baseball bat beside the cash register, but she wondered
if he had been hurt. This, however, was not the time to ask.

‘So what happened?' Elliot wanted to know.

‘Oh, Max called Jack names and he got mad and took a swing at Max but then Max got wild and jumped him. Whadaya expect? They were all drunk.'

Kate stood up. She wanted to call Billy and find out if he was okay. She also needed all of these so-called friends of hers to leave her in peace. But Elliot had other plans. ‘Kate, you have to promise us all that you'll break off this thing with Billy,' he said. ‘I mean, what's the point? After he dumps you you don't want to get proposed to by a stranger.'

‘Will you stop that!' Kate told him. ‘What makes you so sure he'll dump me? And if you believe that garbage about proposals…'

The room filled with half a dozen ‘ooooooh's. ‘Jesus,' Barbie said. ‘Do you actually think he's serious about you?'

‘Kate, this is a guy who has made fear of commitment a permanent lifestyle,' Bev said. She stood up with difficulty. ‘You know,' she said, a strange look on her face, ‘I feel a little twinge.' She put a hand onto her belly and as she did her water broke.