Girl Most Likely To Read online

  “No, no. It’s not that. It’s just that I barely know you.”

  “Well, if you come back to my place,” he said, cocking his head to one side, “then I might let you get to know me.”

  “And also perhaps find three heads in your freezer,” I completed his sentence.

  He smirked and raised an eyebrow at me.

  “I’m sorry, but I mean, you could be a cannibal…or a Republican. And my instincts are to trust you, but it’s too soon. This is New York,” I concluded. “I don’t make the rules.”

  “Who does make the rules, then?”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “Why can’t you make your own rules?” he asked, tucking my hand into his elbow as we continued walking.

  “Because that’s not how it works. You wouldn’t understand. You’re not a woman.” I leaned my head on his shoulder as we turned a corner onto West Broadway.

  “You got that right.” He tilted his head upward toward the moon. “And I like it that you’ve got morals. It’s a good thing. It’s refreshing.”

  “Besides,” I added, “think of it this way—maybe I’m the crazy one. Maybe I’ve saved you the trouble of waking up alone, tied to your bed, feeling used, trying to decide whether you’re more insulted by the fact that you’re covered in raspberry jam, or that your f lat-screen TV is missing.”

  When he arrived to pick me up for brunch two days later, Jon brought along a bouquet of white lilies. Pinned to the cellophane was a Polaroid of the inside of his freezer, containing only two frozen lasagnas and a copy of that morning’s New York Times. This was a man I had every reason to believe I could trust.

  It was the morning after the blackout, and I nearly tumbled out of bed to grab my cell phone. I often slept closer to the window than to the bedside table, but since Jon had already slipped into the shower, the ringing jolted me out of my comfortable state of goofy-grinned, postcoital malaise. He had sprung out of bed muttering about how the lack of electricity for the alarm had caused him to sleep late. As he scrambled around the apartment in search of his clothes, I grabbed his watch off the bedside table, squinted and announced that it was eleven a.m. Since the city was still shut down, I told him, there probably wouldn’t be any customers lined up yet for lunch outside Peccavi. Then I settled into the spot where he had been sleeping, and drifted back into my dreams. In the moment between waking up and opening my eyes, I could smell him on myself. The walls were red, the air was still and I was back in love—that suspension of disbelief, borne of instinct, nursed on hormones, cloaked in a warm, blinding light. I grabbed and f lipped open the cell phone.

  “Hello?” I chirped as if I was the lady of the house, savoring her rockin’ tan the morning after she had had her way with the pool boy.

  “Hello?” the caller asked.

  “Um, yes, hello. Who is this?” I sat up in bed, pulling the sheet over my breasts even though I was alone, and began to finger the knots out of my hair.

  “Who is this?”

  “Well,” I joked, determined not to let the caller’s attitude ruin my morning, “you called my cell phone, so you probably already know who I am.”

  “No,” she explained as if I were riding the short bus, “I called Jon’s cell phone.”

  Assuming she was a salesperson or an investor in the restaurant, I chose not to accept the negative energy. I would kill her with kindness instead.

  “Oops, I’m sorry. I must have thought that his was mine. His phone, I mean. We have the same cell phone. Anyway, he’s in the bathroom. But I can give him a message,” I cooed, scrambling naked around my apartment in search of a pen, and feeling like the Lady of My Own House again. “Who may I say was calling?”

  Booboo watched my stumbling from underneath the desk chair, tentatively, as if preparing to pounce.

  “Lissette. The mother of his son, that’s who. Who the hell are you?”

  I doubled over.

  Have you ever seen a photo of someone you used to belong to, and wondered if that’s really how they looked? So strong was my faith in the decency of this man that I might have been less shocked if advised by my pedicurist that she had discovered an additional toe. I was aware that the sentiment made me a cliché, but all I could take in at that moment was how much I hated that I had no idea.

  His what?!?!?! Whose son? Wait a minute…“son”? Wait…What? Even as my throat was swelling shut, I kept trying and failing to swallow.

  “Hello? Hello?” she asked again. “Who is this?” She sounded like someone who might punch me in the face over a pair of shoes on clearance at Macy’s.

  “I, um…this is Vina,” I managed, eyeing the bathroom door and wondering if I should tell her anything else. Feeling dizzy, I had to take a seat.

  “I…I didn’t realize he had a girlfriend,” I continued, squeezing my eyes shut. “Or wife? Or, um…look, I’m sorry. I don’t want to know. I mean, I’m not sorry…I didn’t know about you or the…the baby? Believe me. I’ll give Jon your message. And I’ll throw him out. But can I just ask you something? How old is your kid? I mean, I know this is awkward. But I need to know.”

  “Two months,” she replied after a pause. And then all I could hear was a dial tone ringing inside one ear and the glub, glub, glub of my own blood pulsing inside the other. Booboo yawned and stretched across the window sill, having had his fill of me. I thought that blood was supposed to be rushing right now, although I wasn’t sure what it was supposed to be rushing toward. Mine seemed to be draining out of my head like beer from a bottle turned upside down.

  I curled up naked on the couch, the cell phone pressed to my face. With my lips apart and a hand to my throat, I listened to the torrent of water from the shower, and speculated what would come next.

  I always loved waking up in Jon’s bed to find our cell phone lights blinking in unison. It was as if they were dreaming the same dreams on the nightstand, of a charger for two plugged in beside the four-poster bed, in the master suite of our country home. My parents would complain about the lack of spice in the meals Jon conjured up from the ingredients in our backyard garden. An Amish handwoven straw mat, which was far too quaint for our Manhattan apartment, would welcome visitors at our door.

  I missed waking up with him wrapped around me like a teddy bear, so that the hair of his forearms danced with my breath. I missed how he would tighten his grasp and pull me closer when I tried to get out of bed. When he slept, he looked like an angel to me, and when he woke, he would tickle me relentlessly. Grabbing my ankles and kissing my feet, he would ask how I managed to balance on a pair so small. When we went to bed angry, with our backs facing one another, his foot would search out my own during the night, coming to rest once it was wrapped around my ankle.

  Jon was inside another woman when he was supposed to belong to me. So why did the thought of it make me feel so disgusting?

  By the time he emerged from the bathroom the lights were back on, and I was determined not to let him see me cry. An hour ago I had belonged to him, but now he was a trespassing dog. And I was getting ready to fire a warning shot. I could get through this if it was quick; I would have to rip him off like a Band-Aid. I would not give in or attempt to rescue him when he squirmed. I would not give him the satisfaction of reacting to the knife that was sticking out of my heart.

  “I don’t need anything from the store,” I told him flatly, while avoiding eye contact by feigning interest in Booboo’s attempts to scratch his way into my closet.

  “Am I going to the store?” He cocked his head, perplexed.

  “Well, I don’t know where else you’re gonna get diapers for your son.” I was as matter-of-fact as all hell.

  He stood frozen with that idiotic smile erased, as if I had slapped it right off of his chin. Stupidly, typically, maternally, I felt sorry for him. Old habits linger even after they die. I bit my lip to stifle a tear, though I wasn’t sure which one of us it was for.

  “Oh,” I added, my voice beginning to shake, “and Lissette call
ed while you were in the shower. Don’t worry. I told her the lights are back on in midtown.”

  The look on his face said the wind had been knocked out of him. The pain in my gut said it hadn’t been knocked hard enough. For a second I wished I were another woman, a woman who could take him back, or perhaps a woman who could ask for details that might make a difference. Was it a one-night stand or an actual affair? How did they meet? Was he in a relationship with her now? Did he love her? Was he really, really, really sorry?

  Secretly I knew none of that mattered. I reminded myself that the baby was conceived while we were a couple, and I wondered if I was the last to know. Did everyone at the restaurant know? Had they been keeping it from me this entire time? Had Lissette known that I existed? I felt like Jon had tattooed his name on my butt while I was asleep, removed all my clothes in the middle of Times Square and invited a crowd over to point and laugh. In fact, that was exactly what he had done. Suddenly, I went into self-preservation mode, and I knew that I had to get him out of my home as soon as possible.

  I opened my door and leaned against it. I felt sorry for him because I knew I could have loved him better than anyone. I hated him because of the fool he had made of me. I wanted to get tested for STDs, and to kick him until he cried. I wanted him to feel what he had done, to see my hurt and to want to comfort me, and to not be allowed to try. I wanted to see this woman, and to know if she was prettier than me. I wanted to travel back in time to the first night he was ever with her, to shake him and make him understand what he was beginning to throw away. I wanted to forget that I ever loved him. I couldn’t look him in the eye before I slammed the door behind him and hurled the leftovers of our relationship into the toilet, but I did manage to force out a whisper.

  “Get out.”

  8

  By the time I escaped the clutches of the “Hispan-iddish Inquisition” at Starbucks (as I referred to Pam and Cristina’s irritating attempts at emotional intervention), I was, of course, running late for work. While there was no expected time of arrival on a Sunday, I fully believed I’d find that Peter and Sarah had been at it since ten a.m. What I didn’t believe I’d find, however, was the following e-mail from Jon.

  Sunday, March 27, 10:30 a.m.

  From: Jon

  To: Vina

  Re: Us

  Baby,

  You have to know that I’m sorry. I deserve a chance to explain.

  We deserve a chance to try to work it out. Please give us that.

  Jon

  In an electronic folder named “Handsome” I had saved every e-mail I had ever received from him. I had planned to print them out one day, tuck them into a shoe box and hide it in our closet. I had planned to pull them out to embarrass our children during their Thanksgiving vacations from college. I had planned to call on them for strength when Jon spent half our savings on a luxury RV. And I had planned to refer to them for proof, ten years and three children into our marriage, when he began to forget that he had ever been romantic.

  But now? Now they meant about as much to me as a mug from last summer’s company picnic. Of all the goddamned nerve. How dare he continue to refer to me as his baby? He had a baby, and it sure as hell wasn’t me. And if he had to address me, I would have preferred that he use the title “Ma’am” while dressed in rags and begging me for change. He would have lost everything, you see, after some food critic became ill from his meal, forcing him to shut down the restaurant and downgrade from his Soho loft to a cardboard box in a doorway on Second Avenue. Naturally, I would pass by his new home each morning on my way to a better job, and a better man with more…stamina…and a bigger…wine collection.

  I added his last e-mail to the folder and twisted my finger through the air above my head, like a plane in some miniature air show before thumping ceremoniously on the Delete key.

  “You have permanently erased all of the messages in the folder marked: Handsome.”

  I leaned back in my chair, inhaled and clasped my hands behind my head. I imagined myself strutting toward Grand Central in a shiny gray DKNY skirt-suit, with my chocolate-brown Manolos barely avoiding his spleen as he lay prostrate across my path. My salon-perfect hair would flounce in the wind, synchronized to the beat of my footsteps and the tune of “Who’s That Lady?” being pumped through some invisible speakers in the sky.

  I don’t know if the electronic age has made relationships easier or more difficult, although I can testify to the unique sense of comfort inherent in a digital gesture of dissociation. It was especially soothing to execute it from a cocoon of prestige and privacy so many floors above the rest of New York. I comforted myself with the fact that there was at least one aspect of my life that was under control: my career.

  Perhaps the only thing more annoying than a company that’s an old boys’ club is one that is but believes it is not. Mine considered itself progressive. My colleagues used phrases like “We’re all fired up” and “I’ll shoot that right over” and “Let’s find a way to leverage that.” Everyone wore suits or Brooks Brothers office casual wear, played squash on the weekends and looked like a WASP even if they weren’t. At least Alan and Steve, my mentors and our team’s co-Managing Directors, treated me like one of the guys.

  There were only two ways to win respect at a company like that: either act as if you’re thrilled to have the honor of being part of the team, or encourage the impression that you know everything about the business and are therefore an irreplaceable asset to the firm. Early in my career I chose the latter tactic. My method involved a careful blend of carrying myself as if I had it all figured out, and intimidating people from asking me questions I didn’t know how to answer. Being a self-assured (translation: inherently scary) woman among the type of men who self-selected New York finance in the first place didn’t hurt.

  Instead of causing you to want to poke out your own eyeballs due to the mind-numbing details of what I actually do at work, I will share the stuff that’s interesting. I’ll talk about what went on between the people thrown together in a place like that, which is always far more compelling than how the money is made.

  My neighbor, Christopher, had apparently decided that he was my new best friend. He was standing at my door not five minutes after I got home from work that Sunday evening, with a presumptuous smile and a blender full of peach margaritas. With Booboo in tow, he barreled right past me and began to make himself comfortable. Having also decided that we were too close to bother ourselves with formalities like Hello, he simply waved the blender in my face, kicked off his flip-flops, and bounded into my kitchen.

  “If you turn me away, I’ll become that pathetic queen who lives alone down the hall, drinking margaritas and talking to his cat,” he said. “Please don’t turn me into that guy. I may be getting old in gay-years, but I am still way too cute to be that guy.”

  I watched from my doorway as he sat on my couch and began pouring into my mismatched coffee mugs. After rearranging my throw pillows and settling himself among them, he held a mug out toward me. He motioned to the easy chair, and I sat myself down.

  “So tell me.” He smiled, propping his heels onto my coffee table. “Why won’t you give Jon another chance?”

  Booboo busied himself in my closet, probably trying my best heels on for size. After leaning on my apartment buzzer for about a half an hour the night before, Jon had apparently realized that either I wasn’t home, or I wasn’t planning on letting him in. Since he was drunk, he decided to buzz all the other apartments until he found someone who was willing to hear him out. In the end, he found Christopher, who was all too happy to listen to his side of the story through the intercom. Which leads us to Christopher, reclining on my couch that evening, expecting me to justify myself. The annoying yet endearing thing about gay men is how they assume instant emotional intimacy with almost any single woman whom they meet. That, combined with the fact that I babysat Booboo, probably meant Christopher and I were family.

  I took a gulp of my margarita and made no
attempt to respond.

  “Don’t you at least want to hear his explanation?” he asked, lifting and sniffing each of the candles on my coffee table, and scoping out my copies of The Economist, Newsweek, and Jane magazine. He was probably looking for the Vogue I didn’t have. For a new best friend, his loyalties were all wrong.

  “Not really,” I answered, grabbing a package of double-chocolate Oreos from the cupboard. “I think the child speaks for himself.”

  “Does he? How old is he?”

  “That’s not what I meant.” I kicked his feet off my coffee table before putting down the Oreos.

  “I know.”

  “Look, I just don’t think he should have the right to explain himself. He forfeited all of his rights when he cheated on me. And made a fool out of me by keeping it a secret. You have no idea how humiliated I am.” I swallowed one cookie, and twisted off the top of another.

  “Wait a minute. You mean your friends knew about this?” he stopped.

  “I don’t know if they knew, or if they didn’t. The point is that he’s got me wondering if any of them knew. He made me look like a naive, trusting idiot!”

  “To who?”

  “To myself.”

  After a moment of silence during which he contemplated the inside of an open-faced cookie, Christopher decided, “I don’t like double-chocolate.”

  “What?”

  “The Oreos. They’re double-chocolate flavored. I don’t like ’em.”

  “Oh, okay. Well, me, either.” I sucked down the rest of my margarita and then refilled my mug.

  “Then why did you buy them?”

  I huffed, rubbing my forehead. “Because it was all they had. You know, you’re not a very good houseguest.”