What Nora Knew (7 page)

I pulled out my nightgown, my sunblock, my diaphragm. “Not much in celebrity sighting,” I said. “One semifamous producer and one author, only I didn’t know the author was famous so he didn’t count. Cameron Duncan.”

“You met him?”

“Sat next to him. Major kiss-ass phony.”

“I’d let him kiss my ass.”

“You read his books?”

“I loaned my copies to my mom and can’t get her to give them back. People say he’s the Dashiell Hammett of this generation.”

“Isn’t James Patterson the Dashiell Hammett of this generation?”

Angela paused, smiled, pulled out her phone, and tweeted.

“He salts watermelon,” I said.

“Oh, that’s interesting. May I quote you on that?”

“Don’t you mean may I
steal
that?”

“Until you have your own account, all your comments are public domain.”

“I will never have a Twitter account. It’s one more time-suck. A bunch of people talking like fortune cookies.”

“Well, I think Cameron Duncan’s adorable. I follow his tweets.”

“He tweets?”

“Everyone tweets.” She happily tapped away until her face turned into one of those uh-oh expressions. I was in the middle of deciding whether my shorts needed laundering.

“What?” I asked.

Angela held out her phone. I dropped the shorts in the laundry pile and walked around the bed to read,
Cynics are made, not born. Who’s still in a bad mood 5 years after a divorce?
I read it twice.

“That’d be you, right?” Angela said.

“Who’s going to see this?” I read the tweet a third time.

“His ten thousand followers. Mostly women.”

“Really? Write something bad about him! Say no woman should fall for his bullshit.”

“Start an account and write your own insulting tweets.”

I weighed my annoyance versus the possibility of my being someone who tweeted. “Oh, forget it,” I said. “I’ve got work to do.”

“Did you get any good quotes in the Hamptons?” Angela asked.

“Nothing juicy.”

“You should’ve interviewed Cameron. He’s an expert on romance!”

After Angela left I looked up Cameron Duncan online; the press seemed to interview him every time he brushed his teeth. They sure liked reporting his social life. He was arm candy for one woman after another. How’d the guy have any time to write? I read his Wikipedia profile. Born in Hamilton, Ohio. Graduated Ohio State. Former columnist for
Ellery Queen
magazine. Three bestsellers in the last three years. Nominee for the Edgar Award. No mentions of marriages, but Wikipedia wasn’t reliable. He could have a dozen ex-wives. All dead. And nowhere did it mention his rude tweets.

INTERVIEW NOTES. CENTRAL PARK. TUESDAY, MAY 31

Sheep Meadow

ME
: How do you know someone’s perfect for you?

GUY IN RED SHIRT
: You never want to say good-bye.

WOMAN IN MATCHING RED SHIRT
: Ever.

ME
: Tell me more.

WOMAN
: We can’t. We have to go.

GUY
: Good-bye.

Bethesda Fountain

ME
: Have you ever thought a woman was the one for you and then realized you were wrong?

DUDE HOLDING A HOT DOG
: Sure. About a million times.

ME
: Why is it so difficult to recognize true love?

DUDE
: Love? Oh—I thought we were talking about sex.

Boathouse

ME
: Can you remember the first time you looked into each other’s eyes?

YOUNG WOMAN
: About twenty minutes ago. We’re on a JDate.

ME
: Oh. Sorry. How’s it going?

BALD MAN
: Great! She’s prettier than her picture.

YOUNG WOMAN
: (frowning) He’s older than his picture.

ME
: Best of luck to both of you.

Great Lawn

ME
: Hi, there. I was wondering if I can interview you about love.

GUY IN SWEAT-STAINED T-SHIRT
: I’m in the middle of a Frisbee game.

ME
: I see, but—

GUY
: Duck!

*  *  *

Wednesday night I filled in for Joel Mooy,
EyeSpy
’s restaurant critic. My assignment: check out a new, upscale Lower East Side delicatessen. I immediately called Kristine, who insists I immediately call her whenever I’m on expense account.

Kristine Marshall’s one of my best friends, only I’m not allowed to say that. She says
best friend
is a label only seventh graders use. I love her but she’s always coming up with these rules and edicts nobody else ever heard of. Kristine’s forty-two, three years older than me, and recently divorced from her husband, Zach, following an eight-month trial separation during which Zach dated while Kristine waited for him to come to his senses. Zach is now engaged to a kindergarten teacher.

Kristine has since declared her brain a no-Zach zone. She’s determined not to be one of those women who divorce a guy but maintain a relationship in their head, rehashing and rearguing, using up their psychic energy. And, yes, I’m her role model for a bad example. She’s turned herself into the queen of moving forward, online dating with a vengeance, working her way through all of cyberspace as a determined optimist. Except she’s way picky. She stopped seeing one guy when he showed up wearing a fanny pack; rejected another because he called Myanmar, Burma.

Kristine and I first met the Christmas I worked in Bloomingdale’s appliance department. She was using her discount to buy a juicer for Zach’s mother. Kristine works in Bloomingdale’s furniture department. She calls herself an
interior decorator; Bloomingdale’s calls her a sales associate. Whenever she comes to my apartment, she starts rearranging my chairs and pushing around my sofa. But I don’t mind. She has excellent taste.

Kristine’s wide-eyed and thin-lipped, with eyeglasses that are always smudged. Honest to God, she must dredge them through a mud puddle every morning. She wears heels to make herself not just tall, but intimidating, and can outeat a military division without gaining an ounce. Her superhigh metabolism makes her the perfect companion for the occasional restaurant assignments I get when Joel’s sick at home with food poisoning.

“What’s with this place?” Kristine asked, surveying the restaurant’s glossy walls, frosted-glass panels, and linen fixtures, its long, curved bar substituting for a deli counter. We were seated side by side on a leather banquette, ivory with gold piping. “I feel like we’re eating in a spa.”

Our waitress was wearing what looked like an aproned uniform and ruffled, white cap if Armani had designed an aproned uniform and ruffled, white cap. I ordered six appetizers and four entrées. Only a moron wouldn’t suspect I was reviewing the place.

“Nothing else?” the waitress asked. She kept warning us the portions were big. “Any allergies?”

“Penicillin,” I said.

“Fine,” she said, walking off. “Stay away from the chicken soup.”

While Kristine and I waited for our food, we made conversation
like we were normal patrons, instead of undercover patrons. “How are your write-’em-like-Nora interviews?” she asked.

I said, “Thanks for ruining my appetite.”

“That badly?”

“That slowly. How about I interview you right now?”

“Isn’t it cheating to interview your friends?”

“I prefer to think of it as efficient.”

“Okay. Shoot.”

I used my best fake radio-announcer voice. “So, Ms. Marshall, how will you recognize your perfect man?”

“Besides his devastating good looks, animal prowess, and trust fund?”

“Yes. Besides that.”

“He has to be willing to die for me. And then prove it.”

“Thank you,” I said. “End of interview.”

“Have you been studying Nora’s movies?” Kristine asked. “And I don’t mean
Silkwood
; that one’s depressing. The romantic ones.”

“Yes, and I’ve read her neck book and bought her remembering-nothing book, but I can’t write like her.”

“This is the suckiest assignment in history,” Kristine said. “When Jennifer Love Hewitt made
The Audrey Hepburn Story,
the press crucified her for not looking like Audrey Hepburn.”

“What about that old senator who told that vice-president guy, ‘And you, young man, are no John F. Kennedy.’ I have nightmares about that.”

“Lloyd Bentsen and Dan Quayle,” Kristine said.

“Of course you’d know that.”

Kristine shrugged. “I know stuff.”

She does know stuff. She’s a walking encyclopedia of trivia. She was on
It’s Academic
as a kid.

Our waitress returned, plates lining her arm. “Enough appetizers for you?” she asked, after depositing our first round. We nodded our heads yes and she left.

I tasted the quinoa varnishkes and wrote a surreptitious rating in the notebook hidden on my lap. I must have looked like I was masturbating throughout the meal. “How would you rate the free-range-chicken salad?” I asked Kristine.

She wiggled her hand side to side like so-so. “I hate thinking about all the happy little chickens,” she said, “free, running around the range, and the next thing you know—bam! They’re salad.”

“Pulled pork gets me. I picture little piggy tug-of-wars.”

We shared a moment of silence. Then we shared nova mousse with cream cheese.

Over wild-halibut gefilte fish Kristine told me she was exhausted from dating. “What’s the difference between a first date and an interview?” She didn’t wait for me to answer. “Two glasses of wine.”

I said, “That’s why I’m grateful I found Russell.”

Kristine groaned. “What’s the difference between Russell and a heart attack?”

“What?”

“One’s exciting.”

Kristine is not a Russell fan. She is tolerant of Russell, not enthused. I maintain she just needs to know him better. “Russell’s exciting,” I said.

“Give me an example.”

I thought a bit. “Russell and I have a very comfortable relationship.”

Kristine shook her head. “Aren’t you about thirty years too early for
comfortable
?”

“I tried excitement once. Comfortable has more long-term potential.”

“You can have both, you know.” Kristine peered closer at her plate. “Something’s funny about this horseradish aioli.”

“Clean your eyeglasses. It’s fine.”

Over Kobe-beef brisket she informed me that
she
was not giving up on love, her subtle implication not all that subtle. She scrunched her face at the brisket, gave it a thumbs-down. “I have four dates lined up this week. A musician, a writer, a stand-up comic, and a pharmacist. I hope one of them’s decent enough to sleep with.”

“My money’s on the pharmacist,” I said, scribbling
bad brisket
in my lap. “If the date’s depressing, at least you can ask for drugs.”

“Maybe I’ll buy a dog. People meet people at dog parks all the time.”

“Dog lovers meet other dog lovers at dog parks. You hate dogs.”

Kristine sampled the organic-egg salad. I sampled the organic-egg salad. And added salt.

“Hot guys frequent rock-climbing clubs,” she said. “That could be a place to meet someone.”

I grinned at my optimistic friend. “Yes, sweetie. Right before you meet a paramedic.” I flipped my notebook to another page and read off my lap. “How’s this work as an opening for my piece? ‘If you’re looking for true love, don’t forget to ask for an ID. Otherwise, who knows what you’ll get. Heartache? Deceit? Maybe embarrassed to death on a Kiss Cam.’ ”

“That’s meant to be funny?” Kristine said.

“It’ll get funny.”

“How soon?”

“Soon.”

“Better be soon because so far it’s not funny.”

“It’s honest. Honest is good.”

“You want Nora Ephron. Not Charles Dickens. That sounds like an article about love written by someone who doesn’t believe in love.”

“So?”

“Jesus, Molly, how can you listen to those
When Harry Met Sally
couples and not believe in love?”

“Those are
actors,”
I said. “And what’s more unknowable than the happiness of couples? My parents seem happy, and Pammie and her rich husband seem happy, but if you knew Evan and me, you’d have thought we were happy, too. Unless, maybe, you’d run into him in a bar, in which case he probably would have offered to buy you a drink, then hit on you. Under those circumstances you might have wondered.”

Kristine adjusted her eyeglasses. “What if we’ve already
met our soul mates, only we just haven’t realized it? The husbands
we’ll
be sitting next to on a love seat someday, talking about our lifelong romances.” I looked around in search of these mystery men. Kristine cupped her right hand in front of her left and held them to her eye like a camera lens focused on me. “
When Molly Met Whomever.
Maybe you already know whomever.”

“Maybe Russell’s whomever.”

Kristine snorted. “Yeah, sure.”

*  *  *

Kristine lives in the Village in an illegal sublet. She took a cab west to get home. I took the F train and transferred to the 6. My fellow travelers included people sleeping, people reading, people staring into space. I sat across from a young couple. A tattoo on the guy’s forearm said
WHALE BELLY
. I assumed it was the name of a band and not his favorite side dish. The girl had a safety pin pierced through one eyebrow. I couldn’t see her other eyebrow; her face was mashed against Mr. Whale Belly’s shoulder.

“Excuse me,” I said, competing against the noise of the subway. “I write for
EyeSpy,
the online magazine that’s not
Gawker
but like it, and I’m doing an article about love.”

“Love?” the guy said.

“Will our names be used?” the girl said.

“I can see you two look connected.”

“We do?” the guy said.

“He’s my boyfriend. Not my relative,” the girl said.

“How’d you two meet?”

“At a concert,” the guy said.