Bundle of Joy? (6 page)

“I do.” I smiled and felt my shoulders drop a little. “But the booze helps. Do you still want to grab that drink?”

“And not spend a Saturday evening unpacking…”

I laughed. Something about her didn’t seem so bad. I liked her even more when she said, “I’ll just put jeans on.”

We went to a bar near Penn Station called Tier Na Nog. It was my first time there. I guess I had always assumed anything that close to the train station was off-limits, as in serious commuter haven.

“This place is super crowded during the week,” she said. “My
sound guy and I come here before he catches his train. Although, sometimes I make him miss it.”

I looked up from my Guinness.

Kelly’s eyes sparkled and she winked. “Probably not the healthiest thing I’ve ever done, but definitely one of the most fun.”

“What shows do you work on?” I asked.

She named a few and a couple of indie films—one I had just watched last month. It was a vanity project of an Oscar-winning actress who had a soft spot for animal rights. Kelly told me how the woman had this thing about always having brown M&M’s somewhere on the set, but never in her line of vision.

“Did she ever eat them?”

“I never saw her eat them, but they had to be available. And she’d check. She’d make them get the bowl between takes, just to show her.”

“Wow! I wonder what would push her over the edge, and need to eat them.”

“I don’t know.” Kelly laughed. “But I kind of wish I’d seen it, and then, I’m kind of glad I didn’t.”

“I wish I could write about it for
Who?
magazine.”

“You can’t,” Kelly said, grabbing my hand and looking mock horrified. “It could be my career.”

“Okay, I’ll take it to the grave.” I took another sip of beer. “Man, brown M&M’s.”

“Peanut,” Kelly said.

I nodded. I, too, preferred peanut.

“I think if
I
could get a rider on
my
contract…”

“Oh, God!”

“It would be for Marie’s blue cheese dressing and brown rice chips.”

I nodded again, impressed.

“What about you? What would you put in your rider?”

“It’s a great question,” I said. “Feels like one of those games people play in college, but a good question.”

Kelly giggled and signaled for another round.

“Okay, original Baby Belles.”

“The laughing cow,” she said, smiling. “Is that what you’re talking about?”

“Yeah.”

“Cool.” She nodded.

I have to admit, I was glad to elicit her approval. I told her about Raj and some of the funny shows he worked on. His latest reality thing was called “Mr. Right…Now.” It involved lots of fornication and catty women.

“I think I’ve heard he has a great deal of integrity, which in this business—and by ‘the business’ I mean the industry—” she joked, “means a lot.”

“Yeah, he’s a nice guy.”

“Don’t we all need a nice guy?”

I shrugged.
I
certainly did. I needed
something.

Kelly cocked her head and then leaned into the table a little. “Are you and uh…Armando hitting it?”

“No,” I said, looking down at my beer. I wondered if this whole get-to-know-you outing had been to feel me out about him.

“You never did?”

“No,” I said, looking her in the eyes. “And I’m glad, because all the other roommates that slept with him couldn’t hack it.”

“Is he that irresistible?” Kelly asked, and it was clear that she couldn’t see why. I was surprised. I thought Armando’s appeal was a given. I thought no mortal woman could refuse him.

“You don’t think he’s attractive?”

“I guess he kind of is, if you like that sort of thing. He’s definitely handsome, but he seems cheesy to me, you know. Kind of like Antonio Banderas.”

“I like Antonio Banderas,” I protested. “Have you seen
Tie Me Up, Tie Me Down?
”

“Have you seen
Original Sin?
”

“What about
Zorro?
”

“Spy Kids?”

“C’mon, he was trying to be campy in that. How about
Mambo Kings?
He learned to speak English phonetically. Do the words ‘beautiful Maria of my soul’ mean anything to you?”

Kelly laughed. “Yeah, what about
Femme Fatale?
Does that mean anything to you?”

“Oh.” I groaned. “I did see that. I wish I hadn’t. You got me.”

She nodded. “So, Voula, do you think we should get one more?”

It was after midnight, but I felt a great sense of relief that Kelly was not into Armando and might actually last as a roommate. I believed her.

“Okay,” I said. “Just one more beer.”

W
hen Armando covered Saturday nights at the restaurant, he generally slept through Sunday. I got up early, put some coffee on and went to the corner bodega for fried egg with bacon on a roll, and the Sunday
Times.
I bumped into Kelly coming back in. She had her own Sunday
Times.

“Maybe we should start planning this better,” she said.

“Well,” I said, feeling like I could joke with her. “That depends on what your order is for reading.”

“I go front to back,” she laughed.

“Really,” I gasped. I figured everyone would start with Sunday Styles, move to City and then see what struck their fancy. “It just might work.”

Sundays were the only days I really hung out in the living room. Sure I spent nights there watching DVDs, but weekdays I forced myself into my office at all costs. Well, most weekdays. I wondered how a Sunday would be with Kelly, but she followed my lead and plopped on the couch when I sat in the easy chair.

We had been reading our papers for a while when the phone rang. It was closer to Kelly, so she looked at the caller ID and read Jamie’s number.

“I’ll take it,” I said, and she tossed it to me.

“Hey, J. You pregnant yet?”

There was a pause on the line. I saw Kelly smile and then look a bit disturbed. Maybe I wasn’t supposed to joke about this, but there had never really been a limit on what we could and couldn’t joke about. Jamie could give as good as she got.

“No, but your number came up on the caller ID a zillion times. Were you drunk-dialing me?”

She was back to her old self, but I decided to be more careful about making pregnancy jokes.

“Where were you guys?”

“Well, it was so nice out and Raj has been so busy that we decided to take a drive. We went to the Delaware Water Gap, did some hiking.”

“Tossed his salad?”

Jamie laughed, but across the room Kelly raised her eyebrows. Then she got up and went into the bathroom.

“Something like that. How’s the roommate? A slut? Did she and Armando keep you up all night with their squeals of delight?”

“Like you and Raj last night? Actually, the situation is better than I thought.” I kept my voice low in case Kelly could hear me.

“Wow! Are you making a new friend, Voula?”

I giggled.

“Are you gonna get like best-friend charms or something?”

“No, shirts.” Jamie was one to talk. There was a time when the two of us had both.

“Wow. Do you feel like going to Togi tonight for some chow?”

“Sure,” I said. We arranged to meet at eight.

Kelly came out of the bathroom as I hung up.

“It was my friend Jamie.”

“Sounds like she can take a joke.”

“Yeah, we’ve been friends for a long time. Forever.”

“How cool,” Kelly said.

I felt like kind of a dork. I wondered what Jamie would think
of Kelly. It was rare that I felt almost comfortable with someone so quickly. I rarely was in situations where I had to be with people. Maybe it was a snow job. If anyone could spot a faker it was Jamie.

“We were going to meet for sushi tonight in Chelsea proper. We have these places we go to that are almost equidistant from our apartments.” Now I was really starting to feel like a loser. “Do you feel like going?”

“I would love to, but I can’t. I don’t eat sushi. I had an allergic reaction once.”

“Actually, this place has Korean food too. It’s cooked.” Was I beginning to sound desperate?

“No, sorry.” She laughed. “That was two separate statements. I would love to go, but I can’t because I have other plans. I’m continuing my very unhealthy relationship with the sound guy, despite all signs that I should know better. Then I was just letting you know that I didn’t eat sushi.”

“Oh, okay.”

“But another time.”

“Sure.” I guess it
would
have been pretty strange to hang out two nights in a row with someone I barely knew.

I got to Togi first and ordered a green tea. Togi has the best spicy crunchy tuna roll I have ever tasted. The place had the misfortune of having opened with another name on September 10, 2001. It lasted three months, shut down and reopened as Togi. They added Korean food to the menu. It was never crowded.

In a way I was glad that it hadn’t been discovered. But every time I went in there, I worried it would be the last. I feared that Togi would close down and I would never be able to eat such good spicy crunchy tuna again.

“Hey,” Jamie said. “Sorry.”

I stood up to kiss her. I wasn’t sure why she was apologizing. She wasn’t late. We didn’t bother with the menu. When the waitress came back I got an eel roll, a spicy crunchy tuna roll and a couple of pieces of sushi. Jamie ordered bi bim bop, a Korean specialty.

“No spicy, crunchy?”

She shook her head. “No, just in case.”

“Just in case, what?” I asked, and then remembered. “Oh, right. Was last night the night?”

“Well, I was ovulating again. We’ll see how it goes. I hope it takes, because my next ovulation should be right before Memorial Day.”

“Oh, just in time.” Every year on Memorial Day the Jacobs family went to their parents’ summer house in Block Island. They brought all kinds of boyfriends and girlfriends, but I was a staple.

“Yeah, it could be a real family affair.”

“Well, at least you’ll be able to drink some Dark and Stormies if it hasn’t taken.”

Then Jamie gave me that laugh, this time it was the
“you are so dumb, of course I would sacrifice ever again tasting ginger beer and dark rum mixed in an amazing concoction if I could only get Raj’s wayward sperm to find my egg”
laugh.

Our salads came—seaweed for her, house with ginger dressing for me. I ordered a Sapporo. “So give me the dirt on the latest installment of
Three’s Company.
How is she, really?”

“Not bad, honestly. We went out for drinks last night.”

Jamie looked shocked. “Wow!”

“What?”

“That’s pretty big.”

“What do you mean?”

She kind of laughed. “I don’t know, you just don’t usually, like, like people.”

“I know, but she seems nice.” I didn’t say that I was probably so open to it because I didn’t want to be alone.

“I’m sure she is, but I rarely hear you say that about anyone.”

“Maybe I’m changing,” I said, twisting my face from side to side so she could see the possibilities. Our meals arrived before she could say anything else.

“Hey, how was your cousin’s party?” Jamie asked, stirring up the egg in her bi bim bop.

“Can I get a fork?” I asked the waitress. I never learned to use chopsticks. I figured, I’m a westerner, I use western silverware. “Fine,” I said to Jamie.

“So, how was your mom?”

“She was…herself. You know, I should be more like Georgia or my other cousins Roula, Toula, and Sula—I know it’s ridiculous—and marry a Greek man.”

“I can’t believe she actually can mention men to you.”

“As long as it could be sanctioned by the church and I promised to only use sex to give her male grandchildren, it would be all right.”

“Jeez.”

I thought about telling her about Helen, but for some reason I never talked about my sisters to Jamie anymore. And since I didn’t talk about them to her, I didn’t talk about them to anyone. If she had been home when I called, I probably would have told her. But it was a new day and I didn’t think I had the energy to mess with my emotions again.

“How’s Georgia?”

“She’s good. You know her. Well, you don’t really, but you know that she brings it all back to mental illness.”

“Right.” She continued to play with her meal. “So, I looked at the tapes of the finalists for Raj’s show.”

“Oh, I love those.” There was nothing better than seeing how far people would go to get on TV. “Do you have any left for me to see? Has Raj agreed to let me write about them yet, anonymously?”

“Well, you’re going to have to take that up with him, but I do have one.” She reached into her bag and pushed a VHS across the table. I picked it up. The name on the sticky was “Warren Tucker.” My mouth dropped. It had been so long since I had thought about that name, and yet, somehow I think I thought about him every day. Mr. Number Two of my two-and-a-half.

“Wow!” I couldn’t quite get my voice back to say anything more.

“I know, I couldn’t believe it. Remember when you had that crush on him? Remember that night?”

“Yeah.” I nodded. “I think I do.”

“Now, he wants to be Mr. Right…Now.”

“Oh
panayia mou,
” I exclaimed in Greek. “Can we get some ice cream tempura?”

“Sure.” She ordered it. “Voul, are you okay?”

“How was it?” I asked, gesturing to the tape.

“Well, he is almost as cute as he was when he worked at the pub with us. I don’t know. I didn’t watch the whole thing, just saw the intro. The weird thing for me was thinking this guy, you know, pushing thirty guy, wanting to be on TV like everyone else in America is Warren Tucker.
The
Warren Tucker.”

“Oh.” I dropped my face into my hands. Was everyone deciding to resurface in my life all at once? Dan the Man, Helen, and now, oh, now Warren.

“Are you sure you want to see the tape?” Jamie said, reaching across the table to take it back.

“Yes!” I practically screamed. “I’ll watch it…when I’m ready.”

We got our fried ice cream and talked about what the weather would be like on Block Island. I was glad that she didn’t bring up the baby stuff, because I wasn’t really hearing anything she was saying and I don’t think I would have been supportive. I was too busy thinking about Warren Tucker.

Back home, I stared at the tape. I didn’t feel like bringing it out into the living room where Kelly and her bad-boy cameraman might stumble across me. I wasn’t sure I
could
watch it.

Warren Tucker.

I wasn’t prepared for this. Warren bartended at the pub where Jamie and I waitressed the summer after our junior year of college. We lived in her parents’ Block Island house for the summer. All of the Jacobs children got the house for the summer after their junior year, and I tagged along. Jamie’s parents took themselves on a cruise those summers and only came out for Memorial Day. It was the longest I had ever been away from home. After the traditional Jacobs reunion that Memorial Day, Jamie rented out the extra rooms and we lived with four other girls. I imagined that that was what going away to school must
be like. It felt like I was having a normal life, even though I still maintained all my abnormalities.

But there was Warren Tucker. As soon as I showed an interest in him (and it took me to the Fourth of July to admit it to anyone, including myself), Jamie declared him off-limits to everyone in the house. It wasn’t really a problem, because almost everyone but me had paired up with someone. Jamie had a constant stream of boys that she dated.

There was just one night with Warren Tucker. Oh, I didn’t want to think about it. I never talked about it. It had been my thing. My moment with the boy I’d wanted all summer.

Now that boy was going to be cheapened on network television. I couldn’t, I just couldn’t watch Warren Tucker pandering to nameless producers.

I climbed into bed and read the last of
The New York Times Magazine.
I should have fallen asleep dreaming of writing for
The New York Times Magazine,
but instead I thought of sitting on the jetty with Warren Tucker….

Warren smiled as he opened his picnic basket. It seemed pretty loud for Block Island. It sounded like New York City. I was wearing a heavy wool coat even though the sun beat down on me. My face was sweating, but Warren didn’t seem to notice. He just gestured inside the picnic basket and I saw rows of beautiful spicy crunchy tuna. Before I knew it, Warren had lit a match and set the sushi on fire. I smelled it burning. There was a lot of smoke—

I woke up, disoriented. There was smoke in my room and Armando was screaming and banging on my door.

“Our apartment is on fire!”

I grabbed a sweatshirt and slippers and opened the door. Immediately, my throat filled with smoke, and Armando grabbed my arm and led me through the hall.

“My laptop, my laptop,” I said.

“No, Voula, no. I call fireman. They coming. We mus go.” Armando pulled me out of the apartment. The sirens were so close they seemed like they were inside me.

“Kelly! Kelly’s still inside,” I screamed.

“No, she not here. I open door, I look.
Non preoccuparti.
Let’s go!”

As we started down the stairs, crouching to avoid the smoke, we saw the firemen. There must have been four of them with axes and giant backpacks running up the stairs to the fire. They were so fearless, running toward what we were fleeing.

“Go right downstairs,” a voice behind a mask boomed.

And I ran with Armando still pulling on me—all the way down the four flights that the firemen had raced up.

Outside, it was cold, and a blond woman came up to us immediately. She was wearing a thin T-shirt and a pair of Armando’s silk pajama pants.

“Voula, dis is Nadia.”

“Hello,” said Armando’s latest conquest. “Nadia.”

“Hi,” I said. I was still kind of in shock. I looked up to our floor. There were flames in Armando’s room and smoke coming out of my window. I watched as the firefighters fought it out. In addition to the men that had run up the stairs, firemen hustled up the fire escape pulling hoses from their giant backpacks. On the street, some firemen sprayed hoses to back up the firemen on the fire escape. Other people in the apartment building ran out onto the street where passersby gathered. It was close to two in the morning, but the fire gave the street a new light. The air was filled with the sounds of beeping horns. We had blocked 32nd Street. Armando was cursing in Italian.

The whole thing was unbelievable. There were three fire trucks, and another one arrived just as I saw Kelly walking up the street.

She looked up at our building, not sure what was happening. I yelled her name, and when she saw the three of us standing there, she ran over.