See Jane Date (22 page)

“Yeah, instead of announcing my promotion.”

“Ooh, sorry, Jane,” Amanda said. “
Are
you okay?”

I was. And I didn't know why. Why wasn't I a blubbering mess? The man I'd been obsessed with for five years had gotten engaged to another woman, and all I could think about was whether or not Gwen was truly threatened by me or not. Where was my broken heart? Where were my tears? Where were tissues and pints of Häagen Dazs? Perhaps I was okay because I was actually happy for Jeremy. How could I not be happy for someone who'd stood up for me in front of Remke and Gwen? He'd praised my work at exactly the right time, in exactly the right place, in exactly the right way. Maybe I'd gotten what I needed from Jeremy after all. His approval. No. That wasn't quite it, either. I'd been nuts about Jeremy. I'd fantasized about him forever. I hadn't been after his approval; I'd wanted
him.
Was it Timothy? Were two promising dates enough to make me forget about Jeremy Black? I didn't think so. So what then? What, what,
what?

Maybe it was hard to be upset about Jeremy's engagement when things were going well in my life. I had earned Jeremy's praise on the excerpt; that had done a lot to fill me up inside. And I had made Gwen nervous; I was sure of it. I thought of the Gnat, sobbing all over my pillow. All but begging her mother to accept a visit. At least I had Aunt Ina and Uncle Charlie and even grumpy Grammy. They'd do anything for me. And I had Eloise and Amanda, who'd also do anything for me. And I might even have Timothy, who in a mere twenty-four hours would be folding over tortillas with my name on them. Maybe I was simply in a “good place,” as they said in
the self-help books. What other explanation could there be for my lackadaisical response?

“I'm totally okay,” I insisted. “I really am. I'll get promoted when the Gnat finishes her book. When I turn in that baby, edited brilliantly, I'll be an associate editor the next day.”

“A toast to Jane's much-deserved and forthcoming promotion,” Eloise declared, raising her glass. We clinked. Eloise lit another cigarette and was careful to blow the smoke away from both Amanda and me.

“Are you really going to the Gnat's parents' tomorrow?” Eloise asked.

I nodded and explained the whole story to Amanda. The midnight visit. The crying. The slumber party. The pancakes. Her conversation with Mommy Dearest.

“You mean her mother's conversation with Daughter Dearest,” Eloise said with a laugh.

Eloise caught me off guard. I hadn't meant that at all. Somewhere, somehow, a smidgen of sympathy had developed in me for the Gnat. Probably because her hard work had enabled me to condense her chapter into that “excellent” excerpt so easily. She'd saved my butt from Gwen's claws. I owed her one, now. That was all.

“She's not going to Dana's shower, is she?” Amanda asked.

I sipped my margarita. “No. We're taking the subway to Forest Hills together, though. The Gnat thinks it'll be fun to go slumming on the F train instead of taking a car service, but she's afraid to go by herself.”

“What's she gonna do all day while you're eating bad deli and watching Dana open present after present?” Eloise asked. “I can't see Natasha Nutley shopping in Banana Republic or Bolton's on Austin Street.”

Me neither. “She wants to spend the morning and af
ternoon walking around the old neighborhood, check out her old route to the schools we went to, where she used to hang out, that kind of thing, and then we're meeting in Starbucks at three forty-five to head over to her parents'.”

“That is one long day,” Amanda pointed out. “How are you gonna have energy to hook up with Timothy for your big third date?”

I smiled. Eating and having your clothes removed required absolutely no energy at all.

“S
o, um, I have something for you,” I told Natasha as we settled ourselves on the hard orange seats of the F train bright and early Saturday morning. I handed her a Barnes & Noble shopping bag. I'd toyed with the idea of getting her a card while I was at the bookstore, but that seemed to be going too far. The book seemed to be a card and a present in itself.

“What's this?” Natasha asked, surprised. “You didn't have to get me anything.”

“Well, um, I was in the bookstore this morning, and I noticed it on a display, and I thought it might be useful. Unless you have it already.”

She pulled out the heavy paperback of
What To Expect When You're Expecting.
She glanced at me, her face breaking into a huge smile, then she started flipping through the book. “Jane, this is so thoughtful. Thank you so much! I was meaning to buy this book.”

She was pregnant. Right here, right now, a life was growing inside of her. I wondered what that felt like. I couldn't just ask her; she'd probably think that was the strangest question she'd ever heard. I couldn't imagine what it was like to know you were carrying life inside you, that a little baby version of you and your man was developing in your womb, growing every second. What did that feel like? Maybe you couldn't physically feel the baby growing at this point, but the knowledge of it must be wild. You probably never felt alone.

“Jane, I can't tell you how much I appreciate this gift,” Natasha said.

I smiled. “You're wel—”

“Can I have your autograph, dear?” a woman interrupted.

Natasha and I glanced up from
What To Expect When You're Expecting.
A middle-aged woman was beaming at the Gnat, a piece of paper and a pen extended toward her.

“I hate to bother you,” the woman gushed, “but I just love you and all your movies. I didn't know you took the subway! This is so exciting! You're so beautiful!”

What movies? The Gnat was strictly small screen.

“I'm so excited!” the woman exclaimed. “It'd mean the world to me if you'd sign your autograph.”

What a fool I was. I was feeling sorry for the Gnat last night? Ha! She didn't deserve an ounce of my sympathy. She was
famous.
Faux celebrity or not. She'd been on so many talk shows earlier this year that she was recognizable to the stay-at-home set. The whole thing seemed so sleazy. This woman—and countless others—wanted Natasha Nutley's autograph because she'd slept with a famous actor? A famous actor who made his women sign documents while screwing them? Why did that merit fame?

Now I knew why the Gnat had wanted to take the subway instead of a car service. So she could whip around her ringlets and have strangers fawn all over her for her autograph. It was a good thing the subway was practically empty. Like I needed to spend the forty-minute ride watching the Gnat sign her name?

Natasha smiled at the woman and took the piece of paper and pen. She leaned the paper against the book, which rested on her unusually conservative dress-covered thigh. The Gnat typically wore skimpy tank tops and tight bootleg pants and high-heeled sandals. Today she sported a pale blue linen dress with a high round neckline, cute cap sleeves and a hem just past the knee. It was very Audrey Hepburn. A pale blue thin cardigan was tied around her neck. She wore sandals, but with a reasonable heel. Instead of her usual Prada or Gucci or Louis Vuitton purse, a pale pink straw tote bag was slung over her arm. She looked like a fourth-grade teacher on a class trip to the White House instead of the infamous Gnatasha Nutley on a Saturday morning.

I glanced at the autograph as the Gnat handed the paper and pen back to the woman. My mouth dropped open. Signed in black ink in a slightly illegible scrawl was:
Nicole Kidman.

The woman beamed as she stared at the autograph and pressed it to the chest. “I can't wait to tell my husband!” she exclaimed, and scurried away.

Okay. Was I missing something here? I glanced at Natasha. “Nicole Kidman?”

“You didn't think she wanted
my
autograph, did you?”

Um, yes, I did. “Why not? You're famous.”

“To you, maybe,” Natasha said, eyes on her lap. “Not to your average person on the F train or walking down the street. I'm mistaken for Nicole Kidman all the time.”

Woe is her for the hundredth time. How tough that must be. To be mistaken for one of the most beautiful actresses in the world.

“But how did you know that woman didn't want your autograph?” I asked. “She could have looked at the autograph, been totally confused and said, ‘I thought you were Natasha Nutley.'”

She laughed and raised an eyebrow. “Well, she didn't, did she?”

“But—”

“Jane, after I'd been on television the first time, someone asked me for my autograph. I'd practiced my signature a thousand times for that very moment. The guy handed me a piece of paper, and I wrote ‘Natasha Nutley' so proudly. The guy looked at it, looked at me, then looked at me closer and said, ‘Hey, you're not Nicole Kidman!' Then he crumpled up the piece of paper and threw it on the ground.”

The sympathy returned.

The Gnat's bracelets jangled as she brushed back a ringlet. “I picked up that autograph and smoothed it over and put it in my purse. I've kept it all this time, to remind me that I am someone. No matter what, I'm someone.”

“Of course, you're someone,” I said. “You
are
famous. You've been on TV and had your picture in so many maga—”

“No, I don't mean that,” Natasha interrupted. “I mean, no matter what. Aside from The Actor, and the talk shows and the magazine articles and the memoir, I'm someone. Just me. Whenever that gets tested, I pull out that tattered autograph, and I look at it. And I'm reminded that I have to believe in myself. So what's the big deal if I make someone happy by signing Nicole Kidman's name? It
doesn't cost me anything, and it makes someone's day, gives them a story they can tell for the next week.”

But it did cost her something. It had to.

She began flipping through the book. She clearly wanted to change the subject. Fine with me. But to what? She hadn't asked me if I'd read her draft of Chapter Three. Maybe she was waiting for me to let her know what I thought of it. But I was tired of talking about her. Tired of
her
sex life and
her
beauty and
her
unexpected problems.

“So guess who got engaged?” I blurted out. “Pierce Brosnan.”

“Really?” Natasha asked. “To that
Vogue
exec?” At my nod, Natasha let out a whistle. “Wow. The last of the most eligible bachelors in New York is off the list. I'll have to remember to pick up a congratulations card for Jeremy while I'm shopping today.”

“Wanna know a secret?” I asked her. She looked at me and nodded. “I used to have the biggest crush on Jeremy. A long time ago, I mean. When I first started at Posh. Isn't that funny?”

Oh, God. What was I
doing?
Now I really had diarrhea of the mouth. When Natasha and I had been reintroduced after ten years in the Blue Water Grill, I'd spouted nonstop lies. Now I was confiding the truth in her? Well, the half-truth. My crush on Jeremy had lasted until I'd fallen for Timothy all of a week ago. Why? Why? Why? I'd given it a lot of thought last night, but I still couldn't figure it out. How could I go from dreaming of Jeremy every night, hoping he'd notice me, hoping he'd ask me out, to being absolutely fine that he'd gotten engaged? I'd lost something here, hadn't I?

“You never went for him?” Natasha asked as the train rumbled to a stop in the first station in Queens.

I laughed. “Are you serious?”

“Yeah, I'm serious. Why not?”

“Right,” I said. “Uh-huh. Tell me another one.”

“Jane! You're a beautiful, smart woman. Why wouldn't he go for you?”

Who was she, Aunt Ina? “That's sweet, Natasha, really, but I'm not an idiot. I'm not exactly in his league. You're the type he'd go for. Not me.”

Had I just told Gnatasha that I most certainly was
not
a super-fabulous senior editor making one hundred thousand smackers a year? Yes, I had.
Not in his league.
What the hell was wrong with me? Maybe I could amend that so she'd think—

Natasha looked at me. “He's engaged to an executive vice president of the most respected women's fashion magazine in the world. I doubt he'd be interested in a whore who's a recovered alcoholic to boot.”

My mouth dropped open. “Natasha!” I was allowed to think of her that way, but
she
wasn't. Come to think of it, even I didn't go
that
far. Did she really have so little self-esteem? How was that possible? She was exquisite. She was mistaken for Nicole Kidman, for goodness' sake! She'd had everyone wrapped around her ringlets from the minute she was born. She'd smiled her way through junior high and high school without a pimple and graduated with the Homecoming Queen crown. She had two parents, living and breathing in the home she'd grown up in. She had a getaway on 64th between Park and Madison and a marriage-proposing, houseboat-dwelling boyfriend in California. She had a book contract that would keep her wealthy for life (if Remke was right about its anticipated success). She had a publisher salivating to sign her to a sequel. And now she was pregnant. She had
everything.
Fine, she'd had a few disappointments along the way, but who hadn't?

“Okay, so I'm monogamous now,” Natasha corrected. “So I licked the drinking problem. But once a mess, always a mess. It's always there, just waiting to come out. Why do you think I'm so nervous about being a mother?”

“So you're saying people can't change?” I asked, the sympathy growing annoyingly stronger. She couldn't be serious. Yes, she'd been a bed-hopper with a penchant for vodka tonics, but now she was a sober, one-man woman who wanted to be a good mother.

That thought stopped me cold. She'd been an alcoholic slut, and now she
wasn't.
Beating both must have torturous. Beating even
one
addiction would have been hard enough. What the hell did I know about either world or what it must have taken to stand on her own two feet? She
had
changed. And she'd come through just fine. More than just fine. She'd come through her own personal hell a winner. So why didn't she know it? Why did she still think of herself as a loser?

“Natasha, you've already proven that people can change. You're walking proof. The outline for the memoir documents every word. You've overcome so much. How can you sit here and tell me that you haven't changed?”

“Just wait until you meet my parents, Jane. You'll see
how.
”

Did I have to? I didn't know if I could take it. I didn't want to feel sorry for Gnatasha Nutley. I didn't want to like her. I didn't want to have conversations with her that were more intimate than the ones I'd had in the past week with Eloise. I wanted the Gnat to go back to being all hair and bangles and perfection. Gnatasha Nutley was morphing into a human being right in front of my eyes.
It wasn't fair. I wanted her ridiculous life story to go back to being ridiculous.

“Yo, excuse me, Miss Kidman?” asked a teenaged boy with an awestruck expression and a backward baseball cap. “Could I get your autograph?”

 

I could smell the hazelnut coffee the minute the elevator doors pinged open to the tenth floor of Karen Frieman's apartment building. Talking and laughing spilled out from underneath Karen's door. Oops. I wasn't late, was I? It was ten-forty. Which meant I was ten minutes late and twenty minutes early at the same time. The shower attendees were supposed to arrive at ten-thirty, and Dana was due at eleven for the big surprise. We'd been instructed to pipe down starting at ten-fifty and be prepared to shriek “Surprise!” at the top of our lungs when the doorbell rang at eleven.

Aunt Ina, in the fake French outfit we'd all been forced to wear, frowned at me the minute she saw me. “You're late, young lady.” Her hands flew to her hips, which were encased in loose black capri pants. She wore her little white Keds. I had to admit that Aunt Ina looked pretty cute. She even had a beret atop her strawberry-blond curls. She grabbed my chin and kissed me on the cheek, then wiped off the lipstick stain she always left behind.

Karen's apartment was filled to capacity with people. The seven bridesmaids and the maid of honor were in the French outfits; of course, Karen had to stand out as the big cheese of the bridal party, so she was the only one allowed to wear a beret. Darn! I wanted to wear one! (Just kidding.) I'd ordered fifty-five invitations to the shower, and there must be that many women dotted around the huge apartment. Some were friends of Aunt Ina's from the neighborhood, but most were Dana's friends from
Forest Hills and college and the few jobs she'd held as an assistant buyer at Sak's and Bloomingdale's.