Love and Miss Communication (15 page)

She paused before responding. Did she need anything? Maybe some company. The time when reality TV marathons could keep her warm at night had come and gone.

“Well, maybe we can all go out to dinner. I’d love to take my mind off of things.”

“Done and done. I was actually calling to schedule some plans with you. Marco and I miss you. Next week’s out because I need to go to L.A. for work. Some tart on the Disney Channel was caught doing cocaine in the bathroom of her little sister’s elementary school in Beverly Hills. My boss thinks we should have her become a spokesperson for abstinence or something until the dust settles. No pun intended.”

“Sounds scandalous. I can’t wait for dinner to hear more.” Evie reveled in the gossip. Without Perez Hilton and The Superficial, her only dose of Hollywood drama came from the magazines lying around her sketchy nail salon, which she was patronizing less and less since Caroline had exposed her to the real deal at the Plaza.

“But remember, I am computer-less these days. You’ll need to pick up the phone again to make plans. Don’t forget.”

“Understood. You’re living under a rock. I got it. Oh, and Evie, we have big news to tell you when I get back. Huge.”

“Let me guess. You saw Hugh Jackman in a gay club, confirming what you claim to always have known.”

“Wrong! This news, if you can imagine, is even bigger. But I want to tell you in person.”

“Okay—well I’m looking forward to dinner now more than ever. Make sure to call me. No e-mail!”

“Yes, weirdo. I will call you. And Evie, your grandma is going to be just fine. Don’t worry.”

She decided to walk all the way home from Brighton, letting Paul’s platitude soothe her for the time being. The sun shone brightly and the air was dry and cool. Evie cherished the clarity in the atmosphere. Central Park, as usual, was overflowing on a nice day—filled with New Yorkers eager to see sunlight reflecting on grass instead of bouncing off concrete. She passed a noisy playground on the east side of the park and paused to watch the schoolchildren and toddlers run amok gleefully. She loved the cadence of their laughter. The shrieks, the chortles and the squeals. They were all so pure.

Evie focused her eyes on a set of identical towheaded girls climbing up a slide. The girls’ mother, who looked to be about her age, stood about ten feet away from them. She, chicly clad in an all-ivory ensemble and leaning cautiously against a metal fence, was gripping her PDA tightly, like it was a bomb that might explode if she stopped transmitting bodily warmth to it. She only looked up once to see her kids, presumably to check that they hadn’t been kidnapped while she was busy uploading photos of them to Instagram. Ahh, the irony.

“Mom, look at London,” one of the twins yelped. “She’s sitting backward!”

The mom looked up for a millisecond and gave her daughter a
smile that utilized the minimum number of cheek muscles necessary to lift the corners of her mouth upward.

“Good job, honey,” she said. If she’d actually been listening, she would have told her daughter to face forward and quit horsing around. Instead, she returned to her electronic cocoon, oblivious to Evie’s disdainful stares.

Evie was grateful she was raised before the era of 24/7 connectedness. Fran’s biggest indulgence was to bring along a
House and Garden
to flip through while Evie played at her feet in the sandbox. Sometimes Evie would grab the magazine from her, using the pictures to inspire her imaginative sandcastles. Fran was a working mother, but when she was with Evie she was truly off-duty. If she ever had children, Evie vowed to devote herself to them, and not waste the precious early years pounding away on her phone. Caroline would surely scold her for such sanctimonious thinking. “Wait until you sit on the floor for two hours playing princess,” she would say. But Evie liked to think she’d be able to put down her computer if her children needed her, especially if they were precipitously dangling from monkey bars by their kneecaps like the twins she was watching were doing now.

# # #

Back home in her apartment, Evie had flopped onto her couch and flipped on the TV, expecting a quiet night, when her phone rang. The number was marked private.

“Hello?”

“Evie, hi, this is Edward Gold calling. I hope I’m not catching you at a bad time.”

“No, no, I’m just watching TV,” Evie said. “Is Bette okay?”

“Oh, yes, she’s fine. Status quo. I’m out of the office this week and wanted to check in on you and your family. Make sure you don’t have any questions for me,” Gold said.

“We’re good, I mean I’m good,” Evie said. “The break before the surgery gives us time to rest I guess. Then the hard part starts, huh?”

“Maybe. Try to stay optimistic. Anyway, you have my number if you need me. I’ll let you get back to your show,” he said.

“Oh, it’s fine. It’s just
Antiques Roadshow
. I’m kind of addicted,” Evie said.

“I love that show. Have you seen
Pawn Stars
?”

“Every episode.”

“So what’s the item? On
Antiques
?”

“Right now it’s a hideous vase that some guy is claiming was passed down to him by his great-great-grandmother who was one of Peter the Great’s mistresses.”

“And what do you think?”

“Well, I know it’s a reproduction. But that’s because I’ve seen this one. I’m not that clever,” Evie said, laughing into the phone.

“Hang on, let me flip it on too. Let’s see if I’m any good.”

Evie heard some rustling and then the echo of the TV show she was watching. What in the world was going on?

“Now that is ugly,” Gold said, referring to a piano being wheeled out that might have come from Liberace’s collection.

“You don’t like rhinestones on musical instruments?”

“Only on my medical instruments.”

“Very funny. So what do you think? About the piano?”

“I’m going to say it’s authentic. No one would ever reproduce something so awful. Am I right?”

“Yes!” Evie exclaimed. “Very good. You have experience with this.” She settled herself more deeply into her couch, hoping they’d continue to watch the show together.

“I’m just very smart,” Gold replied deadpan. “But actually I have to hang up. My daughter just woke up crying. Enjoy
Antiques
Roadshow,
Evie. Fill me in on the rest when I see you in a few weeks.”

“Okay, bye,” Evie said, and hung up disappointed. Where was he calling from? She had assumed he was calling her poolside, but with a crying kid in the next room and
Antiques Roadshow
at his fingertips, Evie surmised his vacation was far less exotic.

“Here goes nothing,” Evie said aloud as she ambled to her coffeemaker. At least she legitimately needed the caffeine boost this morning. It was her first day at Brighton. True to his assistant’s word, Headmaster Thane had indeed called her just hours after her interview with a few questions and an on-the-spot offer for the position, which he said would remain hers until they hired permanent counsel, a process that could take up to six months.

The school was in the midst of purchasing the adjacent two-story building to create a new computer lab and student lounge, and she would
be involved in the contract negotiations. Real estate wasn’t her area of expertise, but after eight years of handling multibillion-dollar transactions, the project didn’t seem particularly daunting, especially since she’d have outside counsel to call upon.

Grasping her warm mug, she studied her closet’s offerings, hoping to find a suitable ensemble for the new position. Tracy wore jeans to teach, but Evie dismissed her denim options in favor of something more professional. She glanced over at her old work clothes. The pantsuits by this point had made their way over to the far edges of her closet, pinned so tightly up against the wall that Evie nearly threw out her back trying to pry a tailored black-and-white-pinstriped one free. Evie slipped it on over an innocuous white blouse.

To her surprise, the waist was loose. The last time she had worn the suit was on a flight to Florence. Foreign travel was one of the carrots Baker Smith dangled in their recruiting manuals. Evie realized fast it was more of a stick; business trips to Europe meant trading in one office tower for another and submitting to painful jet lag. She distinctly remembered the snug waist from this particular suit preventing her from catching even a nap on the eight-hour flight to Italy. Evie didn’t really need to lose weight, but she struggled with the last five pounds like almost every other woman she knew. After a satisfactory glance in the mirror she parted her window sheers, tucking them behind the metal rings, which were already securing last year’s Christmas bonus splurge: purple silk curtains with crystal detail. The sky was cloudless and Evie noted the few passersby were all dressed for a sunny fall day.

From her closet, she chose a pair of open-toe black patent leather slingbacks. They were date shoes—wearing anything resembling a sandal was tacitly forbidden at Baker Smith. Slipping her feet into the marginally sexy shoes, Evie felt brazen. She was
free from the shackles of the closed-toe pumps she was forced to wear on even the hottest of summer days at the law firm. Pools of sweat would collect under her arches. Baker Smith management apparently preferred foot odor to toe cleavage.

She glanced at her microwave clock and dashed outside, shivering from an unexpected chill. The sun promised by the weatherman on last night’s eleven o’clock news was missing in action. Evie realized it was practically the beginning of October. Soon jack-o’-lanterns would be on display in her building’s lobby and Starbucks would begin promoting its Pumpkin Spice latte. Facebook was a month away from the deluge of children in superhero and princess costumes, not to mention the grown-ups hell-bent on dressing up as slutty versions of every decent profession.

After a torturous wait, her doorman finally succeeded in getting her a taxi, whose interior bore the heavy scent of lamb vindaloo. Now she would arrive at school smelling like she popped out of a tandoor. The traffic was abysmal. Evie observed in horror that they still had fifteen blocks to travel up delivery truck-packed Madison Avenue. Thane told her to be at work at 8:00
A.M.,
and the taxi TV clock read 7:53. Fuck it, she thought, and reached into her wallet to dig out a twenty.

“Keep the change,” she said breathlessly and started hoofing it down the street. In a cruel twist of nature, it started to rain—first a few drops, then in sheets. The once blue sky was now a menacing gray, like a children’s book illustration, and she soon was drenched. Her once-sexy, now cursed heels were wedging themselves into every sidewalk crack. Were she not acutely aware of the debris and other better-left-unsaid substances that came into contact with the New York City streets, she would have run barefoot.

After what felt like an interminable power walk, she reached the grand entrance of the school and flew up the marble steps,
arriving along with the throng of students dropped off just before the first bell.

She studied the crowd quickly before reporting for duty. They were a rowdy bunch, sounding not that different from the kids she’d happened upon two blocks north of school, this bunch distinguishable only by peaches-and-cream complexions and trust funds. Aesthetically, the Brighton masses were a distant cry from the dowdy lawyers to whom she’d grown accustomed. Highlights ranging from creamy butter to roasted chestnut glistened. Chanel bags rested carelessly on delicate shoulders. Noses worthy of architectural awards pointed toward the ceiling. And that was just the girls.

The boys. They wore snug, but not too-tight, Lacoste shirts in a rainbow of colors. Their hair was equally if not better coiffed than their female counterparts, mussed to gently wind-blown perfection. It was like they had managed to get to school in a different weather pattern than Evie. They stared down at their smartphones as intensely as Evie once had but miraculously sailed through the hallway without collision, as though each of them had a personal trolley track just for them to glide on.

All faces showed the fading signs of restful summers spent soaking up the rays in luxurious surroundings. Brighton certainly wasn’t the orange- and brown-tiled tribute to the 1950s high school that Evie attended in suburbia, where Gap flannel shirts reigned. She was scared. Particularly so when she looked down at her wet pantsuit. Earlier this morning she thought it gave her an air of gravitas, but now it seemed impossibly dorky, like something a middle-aged science teacher would pluck from the bargain bin.

She found her way to the administrative quarters and was shown to her office by Keli, the twenty-something feline lover who conducted her interview. It was a cubicle much like the one
Marianne occupied at Baker Smith, with a desktop computer, a phone, and a few file cabinets. How far she’d fallen from the cushy private office with the killer view. She plopped her tote bag onto a simple metal chair, comprehending how much she had taken her last professional resting place—a lumbar-support recliner with adjustable cushions—for granted. Her new space was like a fishbowl, no more than ten feet from the headmaster’s leathery den. Discreetly combing the Restoration Hardware two-inch-wide sourcebook would be impossible.

“I’m going to prepare some of your tax documents now to get you set up with payroll,” Keli said. “Why don’t you walk around the school a bit in the meantime? The faculty lounge is on the second floor and the cafeteria is on the lower level.”

“Thanks. I think I’ll visit Tracy Loo’s classroom.”

Evie huffed and puffed up the three flights of stairs to her friend’s room, wondering how Tracy could continue to do this five days a week, given her cervical or placental or whatever-they-were problems.

She entered in the midst of a classroom discussion. Seeing the kids up close, Evie noticed the gawkiness beneath the veneer of sophistication. They were still teenagers, pimples and all.

“Emma? Did I see your hand up before?” Tracy called from behind a worn metal desk, with plastic-framed glasses on the tip of her nose and a fuzzy cardigan thrown over her shoulders. She looks so grown-up, Evie thought. My friends and I aren’t the students anymore.

“Yes, Mrs. Loo,” a chipper brunette in the front row responded. “I thought, like, that maybe
Survivor
was based on
Lord of the Flies
? Did you ever think that?”

Tracy pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose. “Well, yes, I suppose they both deal with groups that are stranded. But I was hoping you might have something to say about civilization versus
savagery. Which impulse do you think Golding is trying to say comes more naturally?”

“Oh,” Emma said. “I’m not sure.”

“Anyone else?” Tracy asked, hopeful, probably pining for her third-graders in New Orleans. She looked over at Evie apologetically.

“Jamie? What do you think?”

There was no response.

After Tracy called out “Jamie?” twice more, Evie heard a smug “yep” from a student seated in the back row.

“Please try to stay with the class conversation, next time,” Tracy admonished, letting him off a bit too easily in Evie’s estimation.

“Will do,” Jamie responded, and locked eyes with Evie. She felt vulnerable in his gaze, like her fly was unzipped, even though he was the one being reprimanded. Then he looked down, shoulders clenched and brow furrowed, clearly distressed by some diversion on the ground. She began to notice his arms twitching back and forth. The bastard was texting under his desk!

“Class, I’d like to take a moment to introduce my best friend from college. She’s going to be working at Brighton temporarily,” Tracy said, gesturing at Evie. “If you all work hard and stop texting during class, some of you could have a chance of going to Yale and making great friends like I did.”

So Tracy was aware of the classroom shenanigans. Evie gave a friendly wave to the class.

“Stay for a bit. We’re working on the first book from the summer reading list.” Evie nodded her acceptance.

The students, despite Tracy’s ample preparation and fluid Socratic style, just looked glazed over. Maybe it was the atmosphere. The only adornment on the faded yellow walls was a Heimlich maneuver poster and a caged school bell. It wasn’t a
preschool, but Evie thought much could be done to liven up the place. She’d love to spruce up the room as a surprise for Tracy while she was on maternity leave. Blowing up the covers of the books on the syllabus to decorate the walls would go a long way. She could assemble a crown molding out of famous quotes from the English canon. Soon her creative juices were bubbling over like a shaken soda can and she could barely wait to get started. Tracy would flip. After Teach for America, she’d often remark how grateful she was just to have four walls and a ceiling in her classroom.

With a head cock, Evie indicated to Tracy that she was going back downstairs. At her desk, she saw Keli had placed numerous forms that needed filling out and documents that the headmaster wanted her to read, including the school’s charter, operating agreement, and financial statements from the last three years. She immersed herself in reading and making notes, back in lawyer mode as though she’d never left, and before she knew it, it was time for lunch, and the administrative office cleared out like there was a fire drill. She didn’t know where to go but filed out alongside her coworkers.

Outside, her cell phone buzzed, indicating a new voicemail from a number she didn’t recognize. She was surprised to hear a message from Rick. “Hey Evie, Stasia and I are just checking in to see how you’re doing. Give a call if you need anything.”

How silly Evie had been to worry about entering his phone number into her contacts. Instead she kept it scrawled on a loose receipt for milk she’d found at the bottom of her pocketbook. She liked to think that if she were the married one, she’d have no problem with a friend calling her husband for advice or a favor. Just as long as that friend was two dress sizes bigger than she was and had a husband of her own. But Stasia was more secure. How could you not be when your hair resembled gold silk and your legs
were shaped like number two pencils, even down to the skinny ankles that looked like freshly sharpened points?

Evie picked up a sandwich at the deli across from Brighton, her mind fixated on Rick, Stasia, and their baby once again. It must be that Stasia was feeling so ill that she’d delegated her friendship duties to Rick while she remained out of commission. As she was gobbling her Havarti and hummus wrap on the sidewalk, Evie noticed a figure emerging from a chauffeured black Escalade with tinted windows about twenty yards down the street. The man who stepped out, dressed in a dark suit and tie, looked remarkably like Dr. Gold. It couldn’t possibly be him, since she knew he was on vacation and would have no reason to be driven around in a rap mobile uptown, but still she squinted while his doppelgänger walked down the block trailed by a string bean of a woman in a sheath dress and red-soled heels, the kind that added another zero to the price of otherwise ordinary shoes.

Even if it was for Bette’s surgery, Evie realized how much she was looking forward to seeing the real Dr. Gold again soon. She must have had a smile on her face thinking about him because as Tracy’s student Jamie passed her entering the building he said with a smirk, “Someone’s having a good day.”

# # #

After work, Evie decided to make the thirty-block trek to see Bette, even though her first day at Brighton had been draining. The acclimation to her new surroundings was not unlike her first day of sleepaway camp. Were the coffee mugs shared or had each person already laid claim to one? Was taking a cell phone call in the office a no-no? Every office had its unwritten rules, and she had no one to turn to for the oral handbook. Actually she’d never been employed anywhere but Baker Smith, other than a million years ago at Rising Star, hawking bat mitzvah dresses to Baltimore’s
Jewish tweens. Remembering the code to the locked file cabinets, the directions to the faculty lounge, and even the names of her new coworkers at Brighton was exhausting.

Still Evie needed to see Bette.

Evie shuddered when she saw the apartment her grandmother was staying in. Bette absolutely refused to be a burden to Fran and Winston in Greenwich and wouldn’t entertain staying with Evie in her “tiny little place.” Instead, she’d taken up residence in an apartment fortuitously located less than a block away from Sloan Kettering. It belonged to her friend Esther from Boca, who had inherited the place when her mother passed away fifteen years ago at age one hundred. It was a studio with peeling wallpaper, patchy wooden floors aching to give out splinters, and the ugliest mustard-colored drapery Evie had ever seen. Bette, who stretched a tea bag until her last cup of the day was nothing but faintly tinted water, would never do anything to fix up the place during her stay.