Girls In White Dresses (16 page)

Cate met Bridget the first day of college, when Bridget knocked on her door during orientation. “Hello,” she called. “Caitlin or Maya, are you in there?” Cate was alone in her room, unpacking underwear into her dresser. Before she could answer the door, the knob turned and Bridget walked right in. “Hi,” she said. “I’m just going up and down the hall introducing myself to people. All the names are on the doors, so it’s totally easy. Are you Caitlin or Maya?”

“Caitlin,” she said. “But everyone calls me Cate.”

Bridget jumped on Cate’s bed and sprawled out, leaning against her pillows and putting her arms above her head. “I love the name Caitlin,” she said. “I’m totally going to call you Caitlin.”

Bridget was short, with a big chest and a raspy voice that made it sound like she’d been at a great party the night before. She was bossy and happy. From the start, she was kind of annoying, but Cate was so lonely those first few days that she would have sold her soul for someone to walk to the dining hall with. They were inseparable for the first week of college, but as the year went on, they both met other friends, and their paths slowly went separate ways. Bridget was always there, of course. They’d get together every once in a while, and invite each other to parties they were having. Cate always said yes when Bridget invited her somewhere. She felt like she owed her something for her friendship during those first solitary days of college.

And Bridget wasn’t an awful person. Not exactly. She was just, in her own way, exhausting. She never relaxed, never sat back calmly. She was always on the edge of her seat, laughing and cutting in on other people’s stories to tell her own. When you asked Bridget how she was, things were always
amazing, wonderful, perfect!
When she lost her job, she was
thrilled to have the free time to explore other opportunities
. When she was in a relationship, she was
crazy in love
, and when she was dumped she was
excited to live the single-girl life and really get to know herself
.

It was infuriating to listen to her spout her happiness, her absolute joy at being herself. At first, you might think that she was putting on an act. But what was even more annoying was when you realized that she believed everything she was saying. In college, Bridget always assumed that she was invited everywhere. Overhearing talk of a party meant that she was, of course, going to go. It never occurred to her that people might not want her around. The thought just never crossed her mind.

When Bridget got back from her semester abroad in London, she developed a strange English affect in her voice. “This lift,” she would say, waiting for the elevator, “is taking forever.” It made you want to punch her.

But if Cate was being honest, there was a reason she kept in touch with Bridget, and it was this: Her lack of reality was fascinating. Listening to her tell stories was hilarious and horrifying at the same time. When her boyfriend cheated on her, Cate offered sympathy and Bridget just shook her head. “Can you believe,” she said, “that he’s so scared of being in love with me that he cheated?”

Cate logged these stories in her brain, saving them up to tell friends later. She had a whole catalog of Bridget stories to pull out at parties. They were unbelievable. The girl was a complete loon. It was comforting to Cate that no matter how messed up she was or how many mistakes she made, she wasn’t nearly as crazy as Bridget.

It was early October when Cate went to meet Bridget. It was one of those warm fall days in New York when everyone walks around without jackets and soaks up the last of the sun. There were no clouds in the sky and everyone seemed happy. As Cate walked among all of these smiling people, she felt anxious. She knew she should have stayed at work, but she told herself that Bridget would just have hounded her until she met her. Better to get it over with, she told herself.

From down the block, Cate could see Bridget sitting at an outside table at the restaurant, wearing sunglasses and a shawl. Cate could tell that she thought she looked like a movie star. Her face was tilted back toward the sun and she had the happy little smile of someone who is perfectly content. As Cate got closer, she saw that there were two glasses of white wine on the table and immediately she felt relieved. This lunch would be much easier to handle with alcohol.

Bridget shrieked as soon as she saw her, causing everyone to turn and stare, which embarrassed Cate to no end. “Caiiitliiin! Oh, how are you?” Bridget opened her arms wide for a hug, and then kissed both of Cate’s cheeks. This would have been a little pretentious for anyone, but Bridget was from Pittsburgh, which just made the whole thing absurd.

Bridget pushed her sunglasses up on her head in a theatrical way and leaned back to laugh. “It is just so damn good to see you! I can’t believe it. You look well! I ordered some wine for us. Now, I know it’s a school day for you, but I thought we needed to celebrate. A little day drinking never hurt anyone, no?”

As always with Bridget, Cate barely said a word. Bridget rattled on about her job, and revealed that she was working on a memoir in her spare time. “I’ve always been a great writer,” she said. “There’s a lot of people interested to see it when I’m done. So we’ll see! Maybe I’ll have a fabulous book deal by the end of the year,” she said and then laughed. “So, how are you?” she asked. But before Cate could answer, Bridget started describing how she’d redecorated her apartment, how she seemed to have a gift for choosing color palettes and antique pieces that just seemed to fit.

They ordered a second glass of wine and Cate drank while Bridget filled her in on the cooking class she was taking. Then she told her about the trip to Italy she was planning. “I just feel so lucky,” she said. “To have a job I love that pays me enough that I can do other things that I love. Do you know how rare that is?” she asked.

“I do,” Cate said.

Bridget sighed, and took a sip of her wine. “Caitlin,” she said. “There was something else I wanted to tell you.”

“Really?” Cate asked.

“Yes,” she said. “I wanted to tell you that I’m dating Jim.”

“Jim?”

“You know, Jim from college. Turns out he works near my building in Boston and we ran into each other at a happy hour. And you know, trouble!” Bridget raised and lowered her eyebrows and pursed her lips, then laughed out loud.

“Oh, now, don’t look so shocked! Look, I wanted to tell you because I know you and Jim had that thing in college,” Bridget said and took a sip of her wine. Her face suddenly grew serious. “But, I mean, college was about a million years ago! And I knew that you wouldn’t really mind, but I still wanted to tell you myself. You know how funny girls can be about these things.”

“Yeah,” Cate said. “I do.”

“Oh, I knew you wouldn’t mind! I told him that you’d be fine with it. Boys are so silly, aren’t they?”

“So, how long have you two been, um, together?”

“Almost a year. Well, about nine months. And I wanted to tell you earlier, but we’ve both been so busy that we’ve barely spoken!”

“I know,” Cate said and raised her hand to the waiter for another glass of wine.

“Oh, you are so bad,” Bridget giggled.

“So is it serious?” Cate asked. Her head felt light, and she struggled to keep her voice steady.

“Yes,” she said. “It is.”

“But it’s only been nine months, right?”

“Well, yes. But he’s already looking at rings.”

“What?”

Bridget made a big show of clamping her hands over her mouth and making her eyes wide. “Look at me,” she said. “I can’t keep a secret to save my life! But between you and me? This is it.”

Cate picked up her glass of water and drank the whole thing down in one swallow. She was afraid that if she stopped, she would throw the glass on the floor. Jim. Jim? Jim and Bridget? This didn’t make sense. She was making it up in her head. Maybe Bridget was even crazier than Cate had ever known. The waiter brought over a new glass of wine, and Cate picked it up and started drinking it like it was water. She was so thirsty all of a sudden.

“We’re going to Italy together, and I just know he’s going to do it there,” Bridget said.

“Really?”

“Yeah,” she said. “Isn’t that romantic?”

Jim was the person Cate still thought about, the person that her mind went to when things got bad. It was stupid and she knew that. It was obvious that they’d never get back together, but still she liked to think, “What if?” She knew that he would date other people, she’d even thought that maybe he’d be married soon. But to Bridget? No. Not to Bridget.

“Caitlin,” she said. “Caitlin, does this bother you? Oh, that’s not what I meant to do.”

Cate shook her head. “No one calls me Caitlin. Did you know that? Not one other person on this earth calls me Caitlin.”

“I know,” she said. “That was always our thing. I love the name Caitlin!”

Cate left the restaurant in a hurry. All of a sudden, she needed to get out of there. “I have to get back to work,” she said, throwing some money on the table. “My boss is on the warpath.” Bridget was saying something but Cate wasn’t listening. She stood up and her chair hit the table in back of them. “Sorry,” Cate mumbled. “Sorry, sorry,” as she wove in and out of the tables. She took a left on the street and walked quickly for a few blocks before she realized that she had no idea where the subway was.

Cate stopped for a second, just outside a little park, and leaned her head against the fence to gather her thoughts. There was a man in there feeding pigeons, and Cate watched him throw the seeds out at the dirty birds. They gathered all around him, pecking at the ground. How gross, she thought. How gross to let those disgusting creatures get close to you.

And then it happened. Cate hadn’t noticed, but there was a net on the ground, and the man bent down and in one swoop had gathered all of the pigeons inside. He picked up the bag of pigeons, walked to a white van, got in the back, and drove away.

Cate looked around, waiting for someone else on the street to react so that they could stop this man. What was he doing? He was stealing pigeons! People walked past Cate on the sidewalk, and she tried to catch someone’s eye, but they all kept walking. No one cared. No one had even noticed. “Didn’t any of you see him?” Cate wanted to scream. “There’s a thief in our midst!” But she didn’t. No one would have listened anyway.

Cate went back to work, sweaty and disoriented. Isabella looked up as she ran to her desk. “What happened to you?” she asked. Cate shook her head and picked up a bottle of water she’d left on her desk. She unscrewed the top and held up one finger while she chugged most of it.

“You won’t believe me,” she said when she was done. “But you have to believe me.”

“Are you drunk?” Isabella asked.

“No,” Cate said. “I had some wine. But listen, I have to tell you something. And you have to believe me.”

“Snowy is going to freak out if you aren’t ready for the meeting. It’s in twenty minutes, you know.”

“I know, but just listen to me! Listen.” Cate told her about the pigeons. She described the man who’d scooped them up and taken them away. Isabella listened, raising and lowering her eyebrows as the story went on.

“Why would anyone steal pigeons?” she asked when Cate was done.

“I don’t know,” Cate said. “It’s crazy, right?”

“Yes,” Isabella said. “It’s crazy.”

“You believe me though, right?”

“Cate, are you okay?”

“I’m fine. I’m just telling you, it was the weirdest thing. He just scooped them up, like it was his job. Like he was sent there to do that.”

Isabella shrugged. “Maybe it was,” she said. “Maybe he works for the city.”

“No,” Cate said. “I thought of that. The van wasn’t marked.”

Isabella sighed. “Okay, so it was just some crazy man. Why do you care?”

“It’s not right,” Cate said. “It’s not right that people can just go stealing pigeons in broad daylight.”

“They’re disgusting,” Isabella said. “I say, let anyone who wants to take them go ahead.”

“But you believe me, right? You know I’m telling the truth?”

“Yes,” Isabella said. “I believe you. Can we just go over the stuff for the meeting now?”

“Yeah,” Cate said. “Okay, sure.”

“Cate, are you sure you’re okay? Did something else happen?” Isabella asked.

“No,” she said. “I’m fine. Let’s just get this over with, okay?”

Cate started to write an e-mail to her friends about Bridget, but she didn’t get far. How embarrassing was it that her ex-boyfriend was dating Bridget Carlson? She looked at the sentence she’d typed and erased it. It was pretty embarrassing, she decided. She stared at her computer and tried to figure out how long it would be before everyone knew about Bridget and Jim. Knowing Bridget, she was probably posting it on Facebook right then. Her status would probably read, “Bridget Carlson is madly in love with Jim.” Cate wondered if Bridget had a blog. She hadn’t mentioned it, but if anyone was going to fill the world with pointless information about her life, it would be Bridget. This lunch was probably going to be in Bridget’s memoir.

Isabella gave Cate suspicious looks all afternoon. Cate tried to ignore her. Once, she started to tell Isabella what had happened. Isabella didn’t know Bridget, so she couldn’t possibly know the extent of the awfulness. Cate tried, but she couldn’t get the words out.

Isabella had saved Cate in the meeting. She’d talked for the both of them, acting as if Cate was involved in the work she’d done. “Thanks,” Cate said to her when they got back to their desks.

Isabella just shrugged and shook her head. “Sure,” she said. “No problem.”

Isabella was always so serious. She constantly reminded Cate that she was older, and said things like “When I was your age” and “You’ll understand in a few years.” Whenever Cate told her to calm down, she said, “I don’t have any time left to fool around.” Isabella was only three years older than Cate, but she acted like she was a hundred. If Cate told her about Bridget and Jim, there was a good chance she would shake her head and say, “Oh, children these days.”

Cate’s phone wouldn’t stop ringing the rest of the afternoon, but she refused to answer it. “What is going on?” Isabella demanded.