Uptown Girl (31 page)

Kate lay on her bed. The oppressive heat had closed down on New York and although it was only June the temperature and stagnant air felt more like August. Kate was unprepared for the 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 in Fire Island, Bina was preparing for her wedding, Bev's baby was keeping her busy, and the latest news flash was that Barbie was pregnant. It seemed as if everyone had a direction – good or bad – but she was rudderless.

The sun, usually welcome, slanted across her bed and, falling on her legs, made her more uncomfortable. She pulled the rumpled top sheet over her, but her nightgown was damp with sweat and her hair felt matted. She sighed. Each summer she thought about cutting it off. Perhaps this was the summer she'd do it.

Kate thought about the reasons she should get up. She had laundry piling up, she hadn't been to the gym in more than two weeks. 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 thought she might have. She obviously didn't know what – or who – she wanted. Maybe she never would. All she
knew was that she ached for Billy, and that of all her friends only she was alone. She was becoming more and more convinced that she would always be alone. Something must be wrong with her, something deep, caused, no doubt, by the traumas of her childhood. Her mother had died, her father was emotionally unavailable and then he 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 had 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 roller-blading in the park, and his easy leadership when the crowd became unruly. 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 Andrew. 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 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 be 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 all time was bad time for her. She just stood aside and let them walk past her into the living room.

‘God, it's hot,' Bina, still mistress of the obvious, said 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 either be 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, perhaps for the first time in their friendship, simply wasn't sure that she could sit through one more of Bina's cloudbursts. After all, she was getting everything she wanted and needed. She'd have the Vera Wang knock-off 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.

Just as she expected, the waterworks began. Before she could manage to say anything or get up from her chair, Max put his arm around Bina. ‘It will all be okay,' Max 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.' It was probably a problem with the specially ordered satin pumps she would be wearing, or a mistake on the part of the florist.

‘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.

‘Ohmigod!' Bina said. ‘What will people think?'

Kate tried to keep her mouth from dropping open. Why in the world would Bina be unable to marry Jack? Then the 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 could hardly believe that Bina would still feel guilty about her ‘indiscretion' with Billy. She leaned forward and took one of Bina's damp 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. If she could possibly feel worse than she had, this was the one thing that could do it. It wasn't only Kate herself who was hopelessly in love with Billy Nolan. Now Bina Horowitz was as well. Both of them were ridiculous. Then the thought occurred to her that the terrible scene with Billy might not have been precipitated by Jack's bachelor party but because Billy had decided to reunite with Bina. Would he lie like that to her? Kate couldn't bear the idea of Bina as a rival, not even if she was the one who succeeded where Kate failed. But Bina had to see reason.

‘Look, it's just an infatuation. It's a physical thing. It isn't real love,' Kate said, sick to her stomach as she tried 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 wanted to know where the hell Max got off encouraging Bina's delusional behavior when, to her utter amazement, Max leaned forward and gave Bina what looked like the biggest, wettest, sloppiest tongue kiss Kate had ever had the shock of witnessing. Then he 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. Ohmigod!' 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 and it seemed as if the room was closing in on her and the air was
being squeezed out of her lungs. Billy had never slept with Bina. Her doubts about his character, her suspicions, had to be set against the fact that 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. ‘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 one another?' Kate asked.

‘Of course,' Max and Bina said almost 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 met them sitting together on her stoop, and the night she met Steven and saw Max with a woman, and even the noises she had heard upstairs. ‘How long has this been going on?' she asked the two of them.

‘Almost three months,' Max told her.

Kate tried to work backwards. She realized that all the 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, and if it had also proved to her that she had been even more unfair in her assessment of Billy Nolan, she probably deserved the extra punishment, though she wasn't sure she could withstand any more. 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 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're the one who'll have to tell Jack and 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 then they kissed again.

Kate reached over to her phone and picked it up. She dialed the number she knew so well. ‘Mrs Horowitz.' Kate looked at Max and Bina sitting so close to one another on her sofa that they took up the room of one. She nodded to them. ‘Mrs Horowitz, it's Kate.' Kate 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 said. ‘But I have some news for you.'

‘God, it's hot,' Elliot said, as if they didn't already know that. He and Brice were in formal dress again, and once again they were in Brooklyn. But this time both of them were tanned, and the contrast of their sun-burnished skin and the blazing white of their shirt fronts made them both even more attractive than usual. Kate, wearing a lilac silk strapless gown, was roasting, but they must be melting inside their jackets.

Outside the Brooklyn Synagogue dozens of friends and relatives milled around greeting guests in voices as shrill as the call of mynah birds.

‘Howahya?'

‘Waddaya doin'? We haven't seen ya in three Passovers.'

‘So she's finally getting married. I tell ya her mother was plotzing.'

‘Are the Weintraubs here? You know the story, don't you?'

The crowd began to move up the steps and
into the building. Kate hung back while Brice moved with the crowd. ‘I'll get us good seats,' Brice told them.

Kate stood alone with Elliot. She took a deep breath. ‘Another wedding,' she said and tried to keep her voice cheery. ‘At least this is the last. I'll never have to buy an ugly bridesmaid's gown again.'

‘Hey, you're not a bridesmaid,' Elliot told her. ‘You're an old maid of honor.'

‘Thanks for reminding me. You're the first of a long and distinguished list.'

‘Long and distinguished?' Elliot repeated. ‘Are you talking about a part of my anatomy?'

Kate just sighed again. She knew that both Elliot and Brice were trying to keep her cheerful but this was really hard. She was still unable to pull herself together about Billy. Although she knew that there was no such thing as just one person for any other person, she felt as if she would compare Billy to every man she ever met. And the others would suffer by comparison. She had been stupid and she was being punished and there was nothing she could do about it except pretend she didn't hurt as much as she did and wait for time to take the sting out. Having to participate in this wedding, however, certainly wasn't helping her to have a sense of proportion.

As if he knew just what she was thinking – and he usually did – Elliot took her arm. ‘Okay, Katie,' Elliot said and made her grimace at the
name. ‘It's show time.' They began to move up the steps together. ‘Look on the bright side,' Elliot told her. ‘It's not a three-hour Catholic mass.' He lowered his voice as they entered the sanctuary. ‘It actually looks more like a Jewish mess. Check out the outfit on the old lady with the walker.'

Kate glanced in the direction Elliot indicated and saw the old woman with a fur piece draped around her neck. ‘Is it living or dead?' Elliot continued. ‘And I mean the lady, not the fur.'

‘Shut up,' Kate hissed. ‘That's Grandma Groppie. She's Mrs Horowitz's mother and bakes the best mondlebroit in Brooklyn. She used to send me a box when I was away at school.'

‘And for that you're grateful?' Elliot asked.

Brice called out to Elliot before Kate had a chance to smack him. People were talking, waving to one another and having mild disagreements over where they should sit. Behind her two old yentas were busy gossiping. ‘…So, takka, he changes his mind but he doesn't know she's going to change hers.' The woman, her hair fifty years older than Heather Locklear's but the exact same shade, nodded her head. Her companion, short and dumpy but wearing a regal beaded dress, shook her head and tisked.

‘After all those years you would think Jack Weintraub knew what he wanted.'

‘Oh, the Weintraubs. For them it's a crisis to pick towel colors.'

‘These kids today. What a shanda.' Heavily, she took her seat. But the elderly blonde wasn't finished.

‘Don't judge like that, Doris. I lost Melvin after forty-one years of marriage and if I had to do it over again, better I should have eloped with Bernie Silverman like he asked.'

‘Bernie asked you, too?' the Doris woman asked in a shocked voice.

Kate was fascinated but she, of course, was part of the wedding party and had to join the rest. ‘Can I leave you here?' she asked Brice and Elliot. ‘Or will you misbehave?'

‘You can trust us,' Elliot said.

Brice nodded. ‘I've never seen a Jewish wedding, except in
Crossing Delancey.
Will they really hold Bina in a chair in the air and dance around her?'

‘This isn't
Fiddler on the Roof
,' Kate snapped and left the two of them. When she found Bina and her mother the hysteria was already more intense than she expected – and she'd expected plenty. Somehow Bina had forgotten one shoe. ‘I must have left it on the dressing table,' she was telling her mother.

‘Ohmigod! What are we going to do?' Mrs Horowitz said.

‘Myra, it's not a tragedy,' Dr Horowitz said. ‘If it was a foot she lost, it might be a tragedy.'

‘Norm, what is she going to do? Hobble down the aisle like a cripple? And do you know how
much we paid for these shoes? You have to go back to the apartment and get the other one.'

Kate looked at Bina and figured she was about to begin crying. But today Kate saw a different Bina from the one she had known. It was a cliché to say that the bride was glowing, but between Bina's obvious joy and the heat, her face looked beautiful and incandescent, almost as if a candle burned within her. ‘Forget about it,' Bina said. ‘I'll just go barefoot.'

‘Are you meshuga?' Mrs Horowitz asked. She turned to Kate. ‘My daughter, the bride, has gone crazy. Talk to her, Katie.'

‘I think it's a great idea,' Kate said. ‘After all, Julia Roberts did it.'

‘Another meshugana,' Mrs Horowitz said. She looked at Kate. ‘You look beautiful, darling,' she said and kissed Kate on the cheek. Just then a sweating man in a shirt open at the neck came in.

‘We're ready to go,' he said. ‘The cameras are set up and we've put the lights on. You better start before the congregation melts.'

‘Where are the girls?' Mrs Horowitz asked.

‘They're in the ladies' room. Where else?' Dr Horowitz answered.

‘Go get them and I'll get the flowers. Katie, you keep an eye on Bina so she doesn't decide to marry a third guy.'

Kate and Bina were left alone. ‘You look beautiful,' Kate told her friend. ‘Are you as happy as you look?'

‘Ohmigod! I'm so happy. And it never would have happened without you. Thank you, Katie.' Bina's eyes filled with tears. ‘I love Max so much. I didn't know it could be like this.' Kate knew exactly what she meant, but said nothing.

Just then the girls arrived, looking like a bunch of tangerines that had rolled out of a broken bag. ‘Katie!' they called.

‘Shh,' Mrs Horowitz said. ‘They'll hear you. With decorum.'

‘And the bouquets,' Dr Horowitz called. ‘Refrigerator fresh.' All the bridesmaids received the same nosegay of orange orchids with glossy lemon leaves. Then Kate got a larger bouquet of lilacs, dianthus and white roses.

‘That's not the only thing that's fresh,' Mrs Horowitz whispered into Kate's ear. ‘I made kugel just for you. Just don't tell the caterers.' She fluffed up Kate's dress and then looked up at Bina. ‘Time to go,' she said.

‘Exactly,' Dr Horowitz told her. ‘Now go sit down where you're supposed to, Myra. I walk her down the aisle.'

‘See you at the bima, Bina,' Mrs Horowitz said and cackled. ‘I waited thirty years to use that line,' she told them as she went to take her place.

Kate stood under the traditional canopy in front of the whole congregation with the Bitches arrayed behind her. There wasn't a lot of room and the brims of their picture hats were bumping into one
another as well as into the back of Kate's neck. She had her hair up and was actually grateful for the tickling because it kept her distracted. Max and Bina stood on either side of the rabbi. Kate couldn't take her eyes off Bina. She looked so happy and stared adoringly at Max. He was a little bit pale, but he returned the passion of Bina's looks. In fact, it seemed to Kate as if they were unaware of the rabbi, the wedding party or the couple of hundred guests before them. Kate looked out at the rows of faces. She wondered how many of the couples sitting in the pews loved one another. She also wondered if Jack, who, along with his family, had boycotted the wedding, felt desolate. Elliot gave her a little wave, and it helped her feel less lonely.

Most of the ceremony was in Hebrew and Kate was clueless as to what it meant. But she did know that it meant that Bina had gotten the man she loved, and that Max was a kind, loving and dependable man. Kate supposed that she would never find a man she could look at the way Bina was now looking at Max. When the wedding vows, first pronounced in Hebrew, were repeated in English, Kate couldn't keep the sadness at bay any longer. She loved Bina and was really happy for her but Bina would now join the sisterhood of young wives and mothers. It was ironic that just at a time Kate had merged her old friends with her newer ones she would lose Bina to housekeeping, motherhood, and preschool.

‘Do you, Max, take Bina to be your lawfully wedded wife…'

Kate heard the words and this time it was not Bina's but Kate's own lips that trembled. As tears rose to her eyes, she raised her bouquet as if in self-defense. She thought of Billy, now lost to her, and the way he looked at her when her face had been beside his on the pillow. Had it been with as much warmth as Max now displayed?

‘I do,' Max said.

‘So do I,' said Bina, inappropriately jumping the gun. People throughout the temple laughed and Kate, who had been on the edge of tears, had to laugh as well. Same old Bina.

The heat and the noise at the reception were almost overwhelming. It didn't help Kate's mood that it was being held at the same banquet hall where Bunny had been married and where all of the Billy Nolan nonsense had begun.

Elliot and Brice were doing their best to keep her diverted but it wasn't an easy assignment.

‘When do the Elders of Zion do the blood ritual with a little Christian baby?' Brice asked.

‘That's
after
the appetizer,' Kate told him.

Unfortunately, the two of them couldn't keep up the bodyguard act because Kate had to sit on the dais with the wedding party. That left her open to the women who kept accosting her, wanting to know ‘When is it going to be your turn?' Kate wanted to tell them she was a lesbian and had
already had a civil union performed in Vermont, but she wasn't sure there was oxygen and an EMS team nearby. When the announcement that the dancing was starting was made, she stood up because she couldn't bear to sit there like a target any longer.

‘And now, ladies and gentlemen, for the first time on the dance floor, let us put our hands together for Mr and Mrs Max Cepek.'

The room was filled with the sound of applause, shouts of ‘mazel tov', the dinging of forks against glasses and the squeals of children who were running from table to table. Max stood up, put his arm around Bina's waist and swept her onto the dance floor, where the two of them began to waltz. Kate applauded along with the rest despite the tears in her eyes. Over Max's shoulder, Bina threw a kiss to Kate and mouthed ‘thank you' to her. Kate nodded and felt she could bear no more. As quickly as she could without calling attention to herself or tripping on the hem of the damn dress, she stepped off the dais and, as unobtrusively as possible, opened a door to the terrace.