Queen of Babble Gets Hitched

• Chapter 9 •

Chaz is late. So, for that matter, is Luke. I’ve buzzed Chaz’s apartment, but no one has answered. I’m sitting on the front stoop of his building, having carefully spread a handkerchief from inside my purse out on the step so as not to mess up my skirt. And yes, I do carry handkerchiefs. This city is filthy and you never know when you’re going to need one.

And I’m waiting.

It’s a gorgeous evening, so waiting on a stoop in the East Village isn’t that bad. There are a lot of people out—some still hurrying home from work, some strolling around after an early supper, some just wandering with no apparent purpose. Some of them acknowledge me with a nod or smile, but many walk on by without making eye contact, like most New Yorkers, afraid that if they look you in the face, you’ll ask them for money. (Though do I look like a homeless person? This is a genuine Alfred Shaheen 1950s Hawaiian sundress with a halter-style top and a full skirt with a crinoline. Would a homeless woman really be wearing that? I’m carrying a vintage Halston bag and sporting platform espadrilles too. No offense, but I look too good to be homeless.)

A group of kids have started up a rowdy game of stickball, right in the middle of the street, calling, “Car,” every time a taxi turns the corner. From a window a few floors above, I hear opera being blasted.

And I can’t help thinking to myself, in spite of Valencia Whatever Her Name Is… I love New York.

I do.

I didn’t always. It was grim for a while. I didn’t think I’d make it here, that, like Kathy Pennebaker from my hometown, I’d have to go slinking back to Ann Arbor and end up married to my high school sweetheart (except that he’s gay) and shopping at the Kroger Sav-On with a couple of runny-nosed toddlers.

Not that this is the worst fate that can befall a girl. It’s a perfectly fine fate, actually.

Except that the last time I saw Kathy she was buying way more cold medicine than I think anybody would need for normal, everyday use.

But I did make it in the big city. At least mostly. Oh, sure, I can’t afford to eat out every night, and I had to take the 6 train to get down here, not a taxi.

And I haven’t exactly got a summer share in the Hamptons like so many New York singletons my age, and I don’t own a single item made by Prada.

But someday I will (well, not the Hamptons thing, because I saw what they do there on MTV, and throwing up copious amounts of Bacardi and Coke and sleeping with a different guy every weekend is not for me. And who needs Prada when you can have vintage Lilly Pulitzer?). But I mean about the taxi and eating-out thing. I’ll have moo shu chicken every night! And take cabs everywhere!

But until then, I’m doing fine. And I love it here. I really do. I never, ever want to leave.

And then suddenly three of the boys from the stickball game get into an argument, and a much smaller boy tries to intervene, and one of the bigger boys says, “Suck it, Shorty,” and pushes the smaller boy, making him fall down, and I cry indignantly, jumping to my feet, “Hey!”

“Stay out of it, lady,” Shorty says, springing back up, like a top. “I can handle this.”

And he bursts back into the argument his friends are having, only to be knocked down again.

“Hey,” I say, coming down off the stoop. “If you kids can’t play nicely together, I’m going to get your mothers!”

“And they’ll knife you,” a man’s voice informs me. “Not the kids. The mothers.”

I turn around, and my heart gives a swoop inside my chest.

But it’s not Luke. It’s not my fiancé, standing there in the last golden rays of the setting sun, looking impossibly handsome in a charcoal suit and yellow power tie.

It’s his best friend.

Chaz is the one who’s just made my heart do a loop-de-loop. I’m not even going to try to figure what that was all about.

I’m so flustered, I say the first thing that pops into my head.

“Why are you so dressed up?” I ask him, my voice gruff. I don’t know why I sound so unfriendly. It’s not his fault my heart reacted that way on seeing him without a baseball cap.

But I’m so shocked at my physical reaction to the way he looks, I can’t help sounding like a twelve-year-old boy suddenly going through puberty.

“Departmental cocktail party,” he says as he reaches into his pocket and pulls out his keys. His dark hair—in need of a trim, as always—falls over his eyes as he does so. I take advantage of the fact that he can’t see me to take in other details about him… the fact that he’s wearing dress shoes—Italian leather, from the looks of it, in the five-hundred-dollar range, at least—and that the suit is exquisitely and expensively cut, perfectly framing his broad shoulders. He looks totally out of place on his street, which includes a run-down offtrack-betting place on the corner, a Japanese noodle shop one building in, and a dive bar next door to that. Him standing there in a suit like that? It’s as if James Bond suddenly pulled into a suburban cul-de-sac.

“Sorry I’m late,” he says, looking up. I glance away the second his gaze meets mine and feel my cheeks begin to burn. I hope he won’t notice. “You weren’t waiting long, were you?”

“No,” I lie hastily. “Not at all.”

Oh God. What’s wrong with me?

“Well, at least it’s not raining,” Chaz says. “Come on in and let me get you a drink.”

He unlocks the outer door to his building’s vestibule, and I follow him as he stops to open his mailbox and pick up his mail. It’s weird, but I’m feeling strangely shy. I’m not sure if it’s the loop-de-loop incident, the fact that I know about Valencia, or that Chaz is looking so unlike his usual self, but I feel almost as if I’m with a stranger, and not a guy I’ve known since my first day of freshman year of college, who used to make me laugh so hard over my Cap’n Crunch in the McCracken Hall cafeteria that milk would come out of my nose.

“So what’s going on with you?” Chaz wants to know as he climbs the stairs to the walk-up he used to share with Shari, and now lives in solo. “Seems like this is the first time I’ve seen you in ages without the old ball and chain in tow.”

Because I’ve been assiduously avoiding seeing you without Luke for protection, to keep exactly what just happened—that whole heart-flippy thing—from happening.

Only I don’t say this out loud, of course.

“Oh,” I say airily. His building’s hallway is, if anything, even more industrial looking and depressing than my own. Although at least I’m the only one who uses mine, so it’s not littered with Chinese food menus and alternative press newspapers. “Well, I’ve been really busy. Working. This is my busy season, so things have been crazy.”

“I imagine,” Chaz says. We’ve reached the door to his sprawling—and slope-floored—two-bedroom (if you can call an alcove a bedroom), and he’s undoing the many various locks. “According to Luke, you work harder than any woman in Manhattan. He says he hardly ever sees you anymore. What with your own wedding to plan and all, things must be busier for you than ever.”

Where, I’m wondering, is Valencia? Are we meeting her at the restaurant? Or is she meeting us here, at the apartment? I want to ask, but at the same time, I don’t want to bring her up. I can’t seem to bring myself to mention her name. Valencia. God. I hate her.

“That’s me,” I say instead. “Busy, busy.” I let out a laugh that sounds not unlike a pony’s whinny.

Chaz pauses mid-lock.

“Excuse me,” he says. “But did you just whinny?”

“No,” I say quickly.

“My mistake,” he says and goes back to work on his locks.

He finally gets his door open, and I follow him inside, pleased by the blast of cool air that greets me from his many window units. Unlike Luke’s mother’s apartment, which took on a sort of fetid quality to it once I moved out (Mrs. de Villiers eventually started sending around a cleaning agency, after a weekend visit to the city proved that her son couldn’t be trusted to handle the responsibility of doing the dishes or cleaning the toilet on his own), Chaz’s is super-clean… except for the stacks of books and student papers piled everywhere.

But at least they’re very tidy piles.

“So what’ll you have?” Chaz asks, going into the eat-in kitchen (a rarity in Manhattan; apparently it makes up for one of the advertised bedrooms being no larger than a closet) and opening the refrigerator. “I got it all. Beer, wine, soda, vodka, gin, juice… what do you feel like?”

“What are you having?” I ask, leaning my elbow up against the pass-through, on which are balanced several stacks of library books.

He grabs a Corona from a six-pack on the bottom shelf and looks at me questioningly. I shake my head and say, “White wine would be good.”

“Coming up,” he says, and pulls out a bottle of pinot grigio from inside the refrigerator door. It’s already uncorked. It’s probably what Valencia drinks. That bitch. He just has to pull the stopper and pour. “So I’ve been meaning to ask you. What did you do to Ava Geck?”

I take the glass he offers to me. “What do you mean? I didn’t do anything to her.”

“Yeah, you did. She’s not slutty anymore. She hasn’t been on the cover of Us Weekly with a big ‘Censored by Us’ over her crotch in months.”

I smile and take a sip of my wine. “Oh,” I say. “That.”

“Yeah.” Chaz, to my surprise, sets a glass of ice down next to my elbow. To go with my wine.

He remembered. He remembered that I like my white wine with a side of ice.

I tell myself it doesn’t mean anything, though. Just because Luke never remembers, and Chaz does, doesn’t mean a thing. It’s Luke’s ring I’m wearing on the third finger of my left hand, not Chaz’s.

Because Chaz doesn’t even believe in engagement rings. Or weddings.

“So what’d you do to her?” Chaz wants to know. “She’s boring now.”

“She’s not boring,” I say. I try to keep speaking in a normal voice so he won’t notice how nonplussed I am by the ice. “She’s classy. She’s acting more the way someone who is about to be married to a prince should act. I’m sure his parents are pleased.”

“They might be,” Chaz says. “But millions of Us Weekly subscribers like myself aren’t. How’d you do it, anyway?”

“I merely suggested to her that it might be in her best interest not to be photographed climbing in and out of cars and boats with her legs completely spread apart,” I say.

“Like I said.” Chaz shrugs. “Boring. You’ve personally robbed thousands—perhaps millions—of teenage boys who spend their time combing the Internet looking for glimpses of Ava Geck’s Brazilian of their only chance at seeing one. May I just say, on their behalf, a collective and sarcastic thanks. A lot.”

I tip my wineglass in his direction. “You’re welcome. They can just learn about feminine hair removal by looking at their dads’ Playboys, the way the rest of us did.”

“Oooh,” Chaz says, coming out of the kitchen and into the living room, then sinking down into one of the gold couches, which are left over from his father’s law offices before they got a makeover. “Is that how you found out about it? This is getting interesting. Tell me about it. What was that like for you? Did you and Shari used to look at your dads’ Playboys together?”

I laugh. Infuriating as he is sometimes, Chaz really can be funny.

“Speaking of Shari,” I say, joining him on one of the matching couches. “What’s going on with you? I hear y-you’re—” Here it goes. I take a long, fortifying gulp of my wine, hoping it will keep me from stammering more. “Seeing someone.”

“News travels fast,” Chaz says. “Yeah, I am. A woman from my department, Valencia Delgado. She’s meeting us at the restaurant tonight. I think you’ll like her.”

Uh, no, I won’t.

Where is this feeling coming from? The same place the loop-de-loop came from? What’s happening to me? How could I have been so good for so long—six months—only to start falling apart now, so close to the finish line… or what would be the finish line, if Luke and I had ever actually gotten around to making any wedding plans? Why am I freaking out over this Valencia Delgado person? Just because she’s bound to be incredibly beautiful and well read. Not at all like me. The last book I read was—God! An Agatha Christie novel someone left in the shop! What would someone getting his Ph.D. in philosophy ever see in a girl like me?

But wait… what does that matter? I’m not dating Chaz. He isn’t even my type! My type being the kind who actually believe in marriage.

“Wow,” I say, trying to sound unconcerned, although the truth is I’m consumed with gut-wrenching anxiety over meeting this woman. Which doesn’t even make sense. “That’s so great. I’m glad you’re not still upset over what happened with Shari… ”

“Actually,” Chaz says, “Shari and I are good now. We had lunch the other day—”

“Wait.” I am so astonished I completely interrupt him. “You and Shari had lunch the other day?”

“Yeah. And her friend, Pat,” he says. He’s reached up and is undoing his tie. His lovely yellow silk tie, the one that practically caused my heart to stop. “Sorry,” he says when he notices the direction of my gaze. “But this thing is driving me insane. I have to go change into real clothes. Do you mind?”

I shake my head. “Go ahead,” I say. Then, as he disappears down the hall, I call after him, because I can’t stand not knowing more, “You had lunch with your ex-girlfriend and her new girlfriend?”

“Yeah.” Chaz’s muffled voice floats toward me from his bedroom. “Only Pat’s not really Shari’s new girlfriend, is she? They’ve been together, what, like half a year now. Or more, actually.”

I am having trouble absorbing all of this. I dump some ice into my wine and stare at a pile of student papers sitting on the coffee table in front of me.

“So you guys are like… friends now?” I ask.

“We were always friends,” Chaz calls back to me. “We just had a period where we didn’t talk as much as we used to. And, of course, we no longer make the beast with two backs.

“So anyway,” Chaz says, coming back into the living room. He’s changed into jeans and a University of Michigan Wolverines T-shirt. One of his many baseball caps is back in its usual place. I know I should feel relieved that he’s out of his heart-fluttering finery, but strangely, all I feel is confused.

This is mainly because he looks as good to me in the baseball cap as he had earlier in the suit.

“She seems good,” Chaz goes on. “Shari, I mean. And Pat’s nice. For someone who clearly considers me one of the hetero male oppressors.”

“So,” I say, unable to stop myself. I try. I really do try. But before I can clamp my mouth shut, words are pouring out of it—words I’d give anything to stuff back inside it. “I know it’s none of my business, but I was just wondering if you had told Valencia your opinion on the whole marriage thing—”

“Lizzie.”

It’s no good, though. As usual, the words are just streaming out of me, like water from a fountain. And nothing can plug it, not even me.

“Because it really isn’t a good idea to lead her on,” I prattle away. “I’m just warning you for your own good, you know. I imagine a female tenure-track philosophy professor scorned is not a pretty—”

“Lizzie.”

For the first time in my life, something in another human’s voice actually causes my own to dry up. I close my mouth and stare. His eyes, for some reason, seem bluer than normal. His gaze blazes into mine from where he stands, looking at me from behind the pass-through.

“What?” I ask, my throat suddenly going dry. I realize, from the intensity of his gaze, that we’ve somehow passed from ordinary—or, in my case, anyway, mindless—conversation to something much more serious.

And, incredibly, I feel myself blushing to my hairline, my cheeks flaming hot as the asphalt outside had been before when Chaz had come walking up.

Anything, it seems, might be brought up at such a moment. The fact that for the past six months we’ve barely talked… except politely, and always in the presence of someone else (Luke).

Or the fact that six months ago, we had our tongues down each other’s throats.

Is he going to bring up one of those things? And if so, which one? I’m not sure which I dread him bringing up more—the fact that I’ve been trying so assiduously not to be alone with him so we can’t have a repeat performance of what had happened on New Year’s Eve… or discussing what actually happened on New Year’s Eve…

What if he comes out from behind the pass-through and tries to reenact what happened on New Year’s Eve? Will I try to stop him?

Wait. Of course I will. Won’t I?

Yes! Yes, of course I will! I’m engaged! To his best friend!

Except… his eyes are so blue right now… I feel as if I could go swimming in them…

“I swore I wasn’t going to ask this,” Chaz says.

I gulp. Oh God. Here it is. I try not to remember that loop-de-loop my heart gave when I saw him coming toward me down the street. I swear I don’t even know what that had been about. I am not in love with Chaz. I am not in love with Chaz.

“Are you—”

Then I jump as the buzzer to the front door to Chaz’s building goes off.

My shoulders, which I’d clenched with nervousness, sag. Whatever it was he was going to ask me, he evidently decides to drop the subject, since he says, “Huh, speak of the devil.”

And he goes out into the hallway to buzz Luke in without another word.

I find that I’ve been clutching the sofa cushions. Slowly I release my fingers… as well as the breath I’ve been holding. I’m sweaty, as if I’d just been running a mile.

Not that I’ve ever actually run a mile. But as if I have.

What’s going on? Why am I such a bundle of nerves? This is dinner with my boyfriend and his best friend. And his best friend’s new girlfriend, the woman I’m going to murder. Nothing to worry about. What is happening to me?

And when is this evening going to end, so I can go home and kill myself?