Dumping Billy (38 page)

“Kate, you shouldn’t waste your time on any man who doesn’t value you. Who isn’t willing to commit to you.”

Tell me about it, Kate thought, and idly wondered whether Steven had decided to become a counselor for single women. Maybe he wanted her as a client. But, once again, he took her hand in his. Kate felt nothing. But because of her purse and her unsteady seat, she couldn’t easily pull back.

“Kate, I’m asking for your hand.”

“You have it,” she said.

“No. I mean . . . I mean I’m asking for your hand in marriage.”

Kate couldn’t—didn’t—believe what she’d just heard. Was she having an aural hallucination, projecting this onto Steven, or was he making some bad-taste joke? But, to her utter amazement, he reached into his pocket and took out a ring. Before she had a chance to do anything, he slipped it onto her finger. Kate stared at the diamond flanked by two smaller emeralds, her favorite stone. “Do you like it?” Steven asked.

She stared up at him. What in the world was he thinking of? His audacity, his presumption, were enough to infuriate her, but then she stared down at her hand. The diamond seemed to wink at her in the reflected light of the bottles behind the bar. And then she began to laugh. Once she started, she couldn’t stop. Her foot slipped and her purse fell to the floor, but she couldn’t silence herself. She wasn’t trying to be cruel—she had lost control.

At first, as she began to laugh, Steven looked at her with a smile. Then, as her laughter continued, he stopped smiling. Patrons’ heads began to turn and look in their direction. She didn’t want to humiliate him, but he had already done it for himself. Why is life like this? Kate thought. When you really wanted something, you didn’t get it. Then when you did get it, you didn’t want it anymore.

With a tremendous effort she got herself under control. She stopped laughing and thought about all the things she could say, all the things she could tell Steven. In the end, she decided his education and therapy were none of her business. She simply took her hand from his, pulled off the ring, and handed it back to him. “I’m afraid not, Steven,” she said. “It wouldn’t be good for either one of us.”

His face immediately took on the stricken look she knew all too well. For a moment she felt sorry for him. Pain was as hard to inflict as it was to bear. But she knew Steven. In a few days he’d find some other woman who would comfort him, trying to get that look to change. Good luck to her, Kate thought. Then she stood up and patted Steven on the shoulder. “I have to go,” she told him. Her empty apartment suddenly seemed like a haven.

“Be well,” she told him. Then she turned and walked down the long bar to the door. It wasn’t the best exit line, but it would have to do.

Chapter Forty-six

K
ate lay on her bed. The oppressive heat had closed down on New York. The temperature and stagnant air made it feel more like mid-August. Kate was unprepared for this kind of heat. She felt unprepared for everything in her life right now; she had an air conditioner stored in the basement but hadn’t asked Max to help her bring it up to her window; she hadn’t folded and put away her school clothes and refilled her tiny closet with her light summer things; she hadn’t made plans for the July Fourth weekend. In fact, summer had come and Kate felt as unprepared for her whole life as she did for her vacation. Somehow, without planning any of it, she had wasted too much time with Michael, revisited a ridiculous relationship with Steven, inappropriately fallen for and been blown off by Billy. Meanwhile, everyone she knew was moving forward with their lives. Brice had gotten a promotion, Elliot was teaching a course at the New School, the two of them had rented a share on Fire Island, Bina was endlessly preparing for her wedding, Bev’s baby was keeping her busy, and—the latest news flash was that Barbie had announced that she was pregnant. It seemed as if everyone had a direction and only she was rudderless.

Kate thought about the reasons she should get up. She had laundry piling up, she should go to the gym, she ought to try to get the air conditioner in somehow. There was a pile of books she had been saving to read over the summer. The plants in the living room needed watering. Still, she couldn’t force herself to move. She tried to think of something she had to look forward to and failed miserably.

What came to her mind instead were thoughts that didn’t bear thinking about: Both her parents were dead, she had no sisters, no brothers. Elliot would be gone for the whole summer. Her friends were married. She’d cut off Michael and was glad of it, but the proposal from Steven had thrown her. She didn’t want Steven—but she had once. And she didn’t want Michael, but she’d once thought she might have. She obviously didn’t know what—or whom—she wanted. Maybe she never would. She was becoming more and more convinced that she would always be alone. Something must be wrong with her, something deep, no doubt caused by the traumas of her childhood. Her mother had died; her father had been emotionally unavailable, and then he’d died. She had chosen abandonment or abandoning as a way of life.

She threw the sheet off of her and was exhausted by the effort. Why had she moved to Manhattan? Why had she struggled through school? Even her work with the children, over now for the summer, seemed hopeless, useless, and second-rate.

But it was the scene with Billy that made her inconsolable. Thinking about it was almost unbearable, but she played the scene over and over in her mind. Now she thought of the day they had gone skating in the park and his easy leadership when the crowd became unruly at the ice-cream store. She wondered if his garden was still so cool despite the day’s heat. Thinking of the grass, the fish glimmering in the water, the canopy of leaves, she felt again how special Billy was and what a perfect idiot she had been. She had sent him two notes: One was a simple apology and the other a longer explanation. She hadn’t gotten a reply. It wasn’t possible to know if he had really loved her, if he’d read her letters, or if—regardless of the nastiness—he would have dumped her anyway; but falling in with Bina’s crazy superstition and Elliot’s plan had been madness. She thought again of his face when he had confronted her at school. She had seen real pain there and couldn’t bear knowing that she had caused it. And she had hurt Michael. And she had hurt Steven, though he had deserved it. Still, she had never meant to hurt any of them and certainly didn’t want this pain she was in.

Her loneliness was too big for her little bedroom. She felt it expand out the door and into the living room, until the place felt like a vacuum of love. Kate turned on her side and thought again of Billy. It was always Billy. She began to cry, and the tears were absorbed by her already damp pillow.

When the bell rang, Kate awoke with a start. She felt sticky and disoriented but managed to rise from the crumpled bedclothes and move toward the door. Who would be visiting her, unannounced, at one o’clock on a weekday?

She opened the door, and Max stood there with Bina beside him. Both should have been at work. It was Monday, wasn’t it? Her terrible weekend had seemed endless, but it couldn’t possibly still be Sunday?

“Katie, we have to see you,” Bina said.

“Can we come in, or did we get you at a bad time?” Max asked.

Kate was too sad, dispirited, and confused to tell him that any time was a bad time for her. She just stood aside and let them walk past her into the living room.

“God, it’s hot.” Bina sighed and took a seat on the sofa.

“Oh. I should have remembered to bring up your air conditioner,” Max said. “Why didn’t you ask me?”

“I’ve been busy,” Kate told him, but the sarcasm was lost on both of them. She must look awful, but neither of them seemed to notice. Instead of looking at her, they seemed to be either exchanging looks or avoiding her glance. She thought of the Reilly twins and their bad behavior, but what did Max and Bina have to be guilty about, and what naughtiness could these two possibly be up to together? Kate sank into her wicker chair. “What’s up?” she asked.

“It’s just that . . . well, I can’t . . .”

Bina’s mouth began to tremble. Kate wasn’t sure that she could sit through one more of her friend’s cloudbursts. After all, she was getting everything she wanted and needed. She’d have the Vera Wang knockoff dress, the bridesmaids, a wedding with all her family there, the down payment on a house, a husband who might now appreciate her, and, no doubt, babies on the way. And, as always, after the flood of tears Bina would be cheerful and sunny again. It was Kate who would be drained.

Before she could manage to say anything or get up from her chair, Max put his arm around Bina. “It will all be okay,” he said. “I promise. It will all be okay.” He looked up at Kate. “Tell her it will be okay.”

“What will be okay?” Kate demanded. “Bina, stop crying and tell me what’s wrong.”

“Everything. Everything is wrong,” Bina sobbed. “I don’t want to marry Jack. I can’t marry him. But I have to.”

“No, you don’t,” Max told her.

“Omigod!” Bina said. “What will people think?”

Kate tried to keep her mouth from dropping open. Why in the world would Bina . . . Then a hideous thought occurred to her. Could she be pregnant? Pregnant by Billy? “Bina, you have been using birth control, haven’t you?”

Bina looked up for a moment and wiped her eyes. “Yeah. Sure. Why? Do I look like I’m bloated?” Max handed her his handkerchief, and she wiped her eyes. “My mother sent out three hundred invitations,” she said. “A calligrapher wrote the addresses.”

Kate leaned forward and took one of Bina’s hands in her own. “You shouldn’t feel guilty. Just because you slept with somebody else doesn’t mean you can’t marry Jack. It’s not like you had a real relationship. Or that you loved him.”

“It is a relationship,” Max said. “A serious one.”

“And I do love him,” Bina said, and began sobbing again. “I love him with all my heart.” Now Max took Bina’s other hand, which left her none to wipe her nose with.

Kate turned away, feeling sick to her stomach. She and Bina both hopelessly in love with Billy Nolan. It was ridiculous. “Look, it’s just an infatuation. It’s a physical thing. It isn’t real love,” she said, trying to convince herself as well as her friend.

“It is real love,” Bina said, and looked at Max. “It’s real, isn’t it, Max?”

“Of course it is,” Max said.

Kate was wondering where the hell Max got off encouraging Bina’s delusional behavior when, to her utter amazement, he leaned forward and gave Bina a deep, soul-searing tongue kiss that left Kate reeling. Then he turned and looked at Kate.

“It isn’t just an infatuation, Kate. We’re sure of it. I love Bina and she loves me. We didn’t mean to do anything behind Jack’s back. I mean, after all, he’s my cousin. But he was, well, playing around and telling me all about it, and—”

“Wait!” Kate wasn’t sure she was hearing this correctly. “You slept with Billy Nolan and now you’re sleeping with Max?” she asked Bina.

“Billy Nolan? Why would I sleep with Billy Nolan?” Bina asked. “I just needed him to dump me. Then he did and Jack proposed, and I said yes, and you said it was all right even though I slept with Max, but . . .”

Kate tried to think back. When Bina had told her about her “indiscretion,” she hadn’t been talking about Billy. Kate had misunderstood. And she had spent all of this time tormenting herself about Billy’s promiscuity while he and Bina had never . . . “Oh, my God!” Kate said.

“See. I told you. Omigod!” Bina echoed. Max smoothed Bina’s hair and kissed her on the top of her head.

“Look,” he said, “I don’t mind telling Jack, and I don’t mind telling Bina’s parents, but she’s afraid that it will cause a big to-do and that they’ll hate me.”

Kate felt so hot and so confused that she was actually dizzy. The room was airless, but her mind kept working while she struggled for a breath. If she could possibly feel more regret about the end of her affair with Billy, she felt it now.

Billy had never slept with Bina. Her doubts about his character, all her suspicions, had no basis in reality. Billy had gone out with innocent Bina and had seen and respected her innocence. She could barely take it in. “But the towels. The night in the rain when he dried you off.”

“Bina told you about that?” Max asked, and looked at Bina. “Did you tell her what we did afterwards?”

“That was you and Max?”

“That’s the point,” Bina said. “I want it to be me and Max, not me and Jack. But I have Jack’s ring and the rabbi is scheduled and we picked out the flowers and hired the band . . .” She began to cry again.

“Do you two want to get married to each other?” Kate asked.

“Of course,” Max and Bina said simultaneously.

Kate took a deep breath. She looked at the two of them and remembered the way Max had looked at Bina after her makeover, and the time she had once met them sitting together on her stoop, and the night she had met Steven and seen Max with a woman, and even the noises she had heard upstairs. “How long has this been going on?” she asked them.

“Shortly after Jack left,” Max told her.

Kate thought back. She realized that virtually the entire time that Bina was dating Billy she had been interested in Max, and Kate had been jealous and . . . Oh, the whole thing was too ridiculous. She looked across at her friend. “Not the same old Bina.”

Bina shook her head.

“Okay,” Kate continued as the reality sank in. The truth was, she had never liked Jack. She had never thought he was good enough for Bina. And Max was perfect. All of this was a good thing—just because she had totally fucked up her life didn’t mean that Bina had to follow in her footsteps. “Max, you take care of Jack and your family. I’ll take care of Bina’s side. And it’s best to do it right away.” She looked at Bina. “But you’ll have to give him back the ring.”

Bina nodded.

“I’ll get you a bigger ring,” Max told Bina.

“I don’t want a ring. I just want you,” Bina told him, and they kissed again.

Kate reached for her phone. She dialed the number she knew so well. “Mrs. Horowitz, it’s Kate.” She was greeted with the usual effusive hellos, invitations to come over for a meal, and questions about her health, her job, and her dating life, all without a pause or the opportunity to answer. “I’m just fine,” she finally managed to say. “But I have some news for you.”