See Jane Date (5 page)

Ugh. It was all so personal! Usually I didn't feel squeamish about knowing the intimate details of a person's life—after all, nothing was too personal for the Flirt Night Roundtable, and I'd worked on a lot of tell-all memoirs. But Natasha Nutley? She was supposed to remain at arm's length. I wasn't supposed to know anything about her other than what I assumed and judged. And that was the way I wanted it. That her existence on this earth had been full of larger-than-life disappointments should have made me feel triumphant, but it didn't. It made me feel weird. And I wasn't sure why.

“Sorry about that!” Natasha sing-songed, sliding into
her seat with a toss of her red ringlets. The collection of silver bangles on her wrist jingled. “My agent's such a doll. He's delighted we're having lunch. He promises to come say hi before he leaves.”

I smiled and sipped my tap water. “Great,” I said, trying not to stare at her. How had ordinary Mr. and Mrs. Nutley, who lived right around the corner from the apartment building I'd grown up in, managed to create such a stunning human being? Judith Nutley was five foot three, tops, though she did have the curly pale red hair. Mr. Nutley, whose first name I forget, was tall and thin and had the Gnat's green eyes. But neither parent was a looker. Not like Marvin and Virginia Gregg.

“So, um, Natasha, why don't we get started on discussing my ideas for streamlining the first chapter, per your outline. As you know, Posh is thrilled that we'll be excerpting the first chapter in
Marie Claire,
and we'll need—”

“All business!” Natasha stated in a mock scold, her whiter-than-white teeth gleaming at me. “We haven't seen each other in what, ten years? I have to say, Janey Gregg, you look
adorable!
”

That was an insult. There was nothing more condescending than being called
adorable.
“Thanks, Gnat,” I said, recalling how much she disliked her name being shortened.
If only she could hear that silent
G. “You look really great yourself.”

“Don't I though?” She laughed, and her green eyes sparkled like the clichéd emeralds. It was so unfair. “I have the most amazing dermatologist. I'll give you his number, if you want. He'll zap those little lines right out from under your eyes.”

What little lines?

“I still can't get over this!” Natasha exclaimed,
squeezing a lemon into her six-dollar mineral water. “I mean, Posh signs me, and who should be a big editor there but Janey Gregg from Forest Hills!”

“I'm from
here
now,” I said.
Too defensive, Jane. Calm down.
“I live on the Upper East Side. My boyfriend bought in a brownstone on the Upper West, but I've always preferred the East Side.” Why did I say all that? A boyfriend was one thing, but did I have to go into every phony detail? Apparently so.

“Ooh, a boyfriend—and he owns a brownstone! Well done, Jane!”

Yes, well done,
I thought, cringing.
Don't ask me his name,
I sent to her telepathically. I didn't have the mental energy to make up a really good one. “Well, not the
entire
brownstone, of course,” I amended, ripping off a piece of bread from the basket between us. “Just the apartment. It's a two-bedroom, so he has an office. I have an adorable studio I'm too fond of to give up, but it's a waste, really, since I spend most of my time at his place.”

Once you got started, you couldn't stop. Really.

Natasha's ringlets bobbed as she nodded. “I know exactly what you mean. My boyfriend and I live on his houseboat docked in Santa Barbara. Who could live on land after that?”

Who indeed? Now did you understand why I had diarrhea of the mouth?

“So whatever happened to those quiet twins you used to pal around with?” Natasha asked. “Are you still close friends?”

I envisioned the Miner twins. Lisa and Lora. Tall, thin and as quiet as the Gnat surprisingly remembered. They had been my only friends back in high school. Lisa and Lora had listened to me whine and complain about the Gnat for years, nonstop when she'd stolen Robby Evers
from me. Now, every six months or so I'd e-mail either Lisa or Lora, and she'd e-mail me back. They'd moved to San Francisco for college and stayed there. They were both married and had two children with a third on the way. We'd stayed close for a few years, but distance and different lives had had its usual friendship-killing effect.

“Not really,” I said. “People grow apart—you know how it is.”

Natasha looked me in the eye for a moment. I wondered what she was thinking. How pathetic and mousy and nerdy I'd been as a teenager? That I'd never had a boyfriend? That I'd had only two friends—and I wasn't even able to hold on to those friendships? Natasha had had the entire school at her disposal for friends and boyfriends. She'd
defined
the popular crowd.

“I have a great circle of friends now,” I added, reaching for my tap water. “Friends are everything. I don't know what I'd do without Eloise and Amanda.” Wow—a true statement! Didn't I get a medal for that?

She nodded. “Pretty names. Hey, so did I mention I keep an apartment on the Upper East Side too? It's just a one bedroom co-op, and I'm rarely in town, but, like you, I can't bear to give it up. It's my
sanctuary.
Wouldn't it be darling if we were neighbors? I'm on 64th between Park and Madison.” She sipped her water. “But you already know all this—you know my life story! Well, not everything! Just the bare bones from my outline and whatever you've read about me in the press.”

Bare bones, indeed, but what more did I need to know to judge her as an opportunistic, spotlight-hungry bitch? I'd already been forced to grudgingly acknowledge that the Gnat had written a decent outline of her ridiculous life story. It had all the necessary elements for a page-turning tell-all. Rags to riches and back to supposed rags
(I knew
Agnes B.
when I saw it) with the all-important moral about self-esteem. I'd say Natasha Nutley had a little too much self-esteem. So forget about considering for a second that there was anything more to her than met the envious eye.

Sixty-fourth Street.
No one
lived on 64th Street, and especially not between Park and Madison. That was like getting married at the Plaza. It just wasn't done, unless you were a gazillionaire.

So how had Dana Dreer and Natasha Nutley, two girls from Queens, managed to do the impossible? Maybe your name had to be alliterative.

“Omigod!
Natasha?
Natasha Nutley?”

Omigod was right. That voice belonged to my cousin Dana.

I turned to find none other than Dana Dreer gaping at the Gnat, her mouth hanging open in wide-eyed joy. Of all the restaurants to have lunch in, did Dana have to pick the Blue Water Grill?

Natasha stared at Dana, taking in her big blue eyes, her pixie blond haircut and her small frame in head-to-toe Prada (compliments of the Internet-millionaire groom-to-be). Suddenly Natasha broke out in a huge smile. “Dana? Little Dana Dreer?”

They both squealed. Dana ran over, the Gnat stood up and the two hugged. Natasha had been Dana's baby-sitter for a few years when Dana was around eight, nine and ten. You could imagine that this little piece of trivia was something Dana shared with everyone whenever she was in Forest Hills visiting her parents or Grammy.

“Jane
told
me she was editing your autobiography!” Dana exclaimed. “That's so exciting! Adding author to your already very impressive résumé!”

Natasha beamed. “Well, writing has always been my first love.”

Oh, really? I thought her first love had been stealing other girl's almost-boyfriends right before major school dances. Without knowing or caring.

“Jane!” Dana mock-scolded, turning those still-wide blue eyes on me. “I called you this morning, and you didn't call me back. I wanted to tell you I found the perfect peach peau de soie shoes for you. There's a store on Lexington at 77th, right when you come out of the subway.” She turned her attention to Natasha. “What a coincidence running into you two here! I'm having lunch with my caterer—”

A waiter-model came by to ask if we were ready to order. I told him we needed a few moments. I noticed he eyed Natasha appreciatively.

“Wow! Little Dana Dreer!” Natasha said, shaking her head. “I can't believe it!”

“I'm not so little,” Dana gushed. “I'm getting married in two months at the Plaza!” As if on cue, a slight pink flush appeared on Dana's cheeks.

Natasha sucked in the appropriate gasp. “The Plaza! Not too shabby. Did your folks win big at Lotto or what?”

“More like I'm marrying very well, if I do say so myself!” Dana whispered with a chuckle as she held up her two-and-a-half-carat-encrusted left hand and wiggled her fingers. Could I throw up now? “Omigod, Natasha, you
have
to come! Please say you'll come! The wedding's on August second, a Sunday.”

“Well, I'll have to check my book…” Natasha said with the flip of a ringlet. She plopped her Louis Vuitton satchel on the table and pulled out an appointment book, also covered in Louis Vuitton leather imprinted with hun
dreds of LV's. She flipped a few pages. “Let's see…August second, August second…I'm free!” she announced, slapping shut the book. “I'm in town for two months to work on the first few chapters with Janey's expert help, and then I'm flying back to Santa Barbara to write, write, write. So pen me in!”

I was shocked. Why would Natasha Nutley, faux celebrity, want to waste six hours of her fabulous life at Dana Dreer's wedding to Larry Fishkill? Even if it
was
at the Plaza?

“It's all right if I bring a date, isn't it?” Natasha asked Dana. “Sam's flying out from the Coast for the entire month of August, so…”

Dana beamed. “Of course!”

I stared at Dana. Her ex-baby-sitter, who she hadn't seen in ten years, could bring a date, but her own cousin
couldn't?
Dana probably figured that any date of Natasha's was either famous, recognizable or at least fabulous enough to add glamour to the guest list.

“So I'll get to meet Jane's boyfriend and your soon-to-be-husband!” Natasha said. “I just love romance!”

Now it was Dana's turn for shock and staring. “Jane's boyfriend?”

“He's
not
going with you to the wedding?” Natasha asked me.

“Well, I—”

“Jane!” Dana said, hands on hips. “Why didn't you
tell
me it got serious! Mom said you were seeing someone, but I didn't realize…of course bring him!”

I swallowed.

“So it's settled,” Dana declared with a clap of her hands. “You're both bringing your men. I'll seat the four of you together at your own table. Good thing I'm having lunch with my caterer—I'll add three to the list right now!
Wow—I can't wait to tell everyone that Natasha Nutley is coming to my wedding! Mom and Grammy are going to flip!”

More air kisses. And then Dana finally flitted off.

Natasha leaned her elbows on the table and rested her face between her palms. “I'm dying to hear more about your boyfriend. Where'd you meet him? What's he do?”

My palms were sweating. I rubbed them against the napkin on my lap. “Natasha,
your
life is the one interesting enough for a memoir! Not mine. Wow,” I added, glancing at my watch. “It's getting so late! I think we should order and get started on planning Chapter One. The outline noted that you want to start with the acting class you took as a kid, but I think you should open with meeting The Actor, then work your way back. You know, unfold your life story as it's relevant.”

“You're the editor!” Natasha trilled with a smile, opening her menu. “But I want to hear about the boyfriend over dessert. He sounds yummy!”

Glad she thought so. Because I'd have to eat every made-up word.

F
lirt Night Roundtable Discussion No. 8,566,932: the Supposed Boyfriend issue. Amanda, Eloise and I leaned forward at our little circular table across from the bar at Tapas Tapas as an Angelina Jolie look-alike set down our drinks.

Amanda waved away a stream of secondhand smoke with one hand and stirred her Tanqueray and tonic with the other. “Hey, maybe you could pass off Jeremy Black as your adoring boyfriend! The wedding's practically a work thing now that Natasha's going. I'll bet he'd go with you. Ask him, Jane!”

I couldn't even handle asking Jeremy if he'd had a good weekend at our Monday morning editorial meetings. I was suddenly going to invite him to a family wedding?

Deep sigh. “I can't.”

“Bull's balls!” Amanda insisted. “You've been dying
to go out with him for years. It's the perfect opportunity. I'd ask him.”

Did I mention that Amanda Frank—who threw around phrases like “bull's balls”—looked like a shorter (but even blonder) version of Faith Hill? She
could
ask out a man who someone might mistake for Pierce Brosnan. I, however, had just been described by the notorious Natasha Nutley as
adorable.
Which meant I was way, way out of the stratosphere of Jeremy Black's world.

Eloise took a sip of her merlot, then a drag of her Marlboro. “She can't take Jeremy even if she got up the guts to ask him. The Gnat knows who he is.” She turned to the left to exhale the smoke away from Amanda.

“But Jane brilliantly didn't mention The Boyfriend's
name,
” Amanda pointed out. “When she shows up with Jeremy Black, the Gnat will fall off her chair, and so will Dana! They'll both think you were too humble to mention that the mighty Jeremy was your man. Plus, you wouldn't even have to clue him in to what you were doing, Jane. He'd never have to know he was your fake boyfriend.”

“But I said my boyfriend lives on the
Upper West Side,
” I reminded Amanda. “And Natasha knows that Jeremy lives in Tribeca. I overheard part of his phone conversation with her last week when he was signing her to Posh. They were talking about where they're from and where they live now, blah, blah, blah. That's how the Forest Hills connection came up in the first place.”

Amanda stirred her gin and tonic. Eloise gnawed her lower lip. I chewed the tip of my stirrer.

“Well, you might
meet
someone in time for the wedding—you've got two whole months,” Amanda said, tightening the low ponytail holding back her long blond hair. “Maybe even tonight. We could go hang out at the
bar and start flirting. Or I could set you up with some friends of Jeff's.”

Eloise and I raised eyebrows in unison. Been there, done that. And did I really want to feel even worse than I already did because of some horrific blind date? Even Eloise had gone out with friends of Jeff Jorgensen. He was cute and normal, if a little prone to an extended frat-boy lifestyle, but the random guys who surrounded him at work were not necessarily cute or normal, let alone the all-important both.

“He's working at Ernst & Young now,” Amanda added. “It's the hottest accounting firm in the world. Which means a new pool of very successful possibilities. You never know.” She eyed my Cosmopolitan. “I wish I'd ordered that. After the crapola day I had, I could use something pink and strong.”

I sipped the top of the cold drink and slid it over to Amanda. She'd learned
crapola
from me and Eloise. We both tried to use some of her ranch lingo, but you couldn't say things like
bull's balls
unless you were the real thing. Amanda was a paralegal at Lugworth & Strummold, one of the biggest law firms in New York. She had no interest in becoming a lawyer, but she loved her job. Sometimes she talked about trying her hand at writing a John Grisham–type novel and making use of her publishing house connections.

Eloise and I had met Amanda a day or so after I'd started at Posh, while smoking in front of our office building. (Amanda neither smoked nor worked in the building anymore. L&S had moved to the Wall Street area four years ago.) Anyway, two or three or ten times a day, the three of us would stand puffing away on the corner of Lexington Avenue and 57th Street. A few weeks of superficial chats turned into lunch invitations, which led to
drinks invitations, which led to brunch invitations on the weekends, which led to the formation of the weekly Flirt Night Roundtable.

“Or, you could call up Max,” Eloise suggested, peering at me for my reaction. “You
have
been wondering what became of him, so this would be a good way to find out.”

I immediately shook my head. Why did just the mention of his name still hurt so much? I'd never call Max. I couldn't. Who knew if he was still with what's-her-name? Who knew if he was with someone else? And who wanted him to know that I was so desperate for a date that I had to ask my only ex-boyfriend to attend a function with me? A family function, no less.

Max and I had met in the men's department of Macy's. He'd been buying a shirt; I'd been looking for a birthday present for my uncle Charlie. And when I'd spotted Max, looking miserable and confused while sliding pants on a rack, I was smitten. Smitten enough to risk asking him if he thought an uncle would like the sweater I was holding. (Now there was a great way to meet marriageable men in New York. Only single guys bought their own clothes alone.)

Oh, wait a minute. Scratch that. I was forgetting that Max Reardon
hadn't
been a marriageable man. After a year of pretty serious togetherness, he'd fallen for someone at work, and that was that. Well, that had been that for
him.
I'd been left with a broken heart at age twenty-three. I immediately lost twelve pounds because I couldn't eat. Then I gained twelve pounds because I couldn't stop comforting myself with the Häagen-Dazs Eloise and Amanda brought me every day. I'd ended up exactly where I started: heartbroken and seven pounds overweight.

After two weeks of watching me cry and blow my nose and mope, Eloise had decided that she, Amanda and I should pretend we were tourists in New York every weekend. Each month we did a different borough. While Eloise and Amanda handed out tissues, I cried up the stairs to the Statue of Liberty's chin, gazed swollen-eyed through the viewfinder on top of the Empire State Building and sobbed over the railing of the Staten Island ferry. I cried while staring up at the World's Fair globe in Flushing Meadow Park. Cried through a Mets game at Shea Stadium. Cried during a Lilith Fair concert at Jones Beach. By month five, my tear ducts had dried up. I was over Max enough to notice how beautiful the flowers were at the Bronx Botanical Gardens and how incredibly cute some of the Yankees were. I'd tried to sell Gwen on the idea of
The Broken-Hearted Girl's Guide to New York City,
but she told me it was too gimmicky.

Max had been my first real boyfriend, and I hadn't had a real relationship since. Except for Soldier of Fortune Guy and two other short-lived romances, plus a couple of dates here and there with a maybe that always fizzed out, I'd been totally single.

Why? Amanda had Jeff. Eloise had her Russian. And I was surrounded by a Tapas bar full of women sitting across from men. What was my problem? Truck drivers and construction workers seemed to think I was cute enough to merit a catcall, so why couldn't I wrap a man around my little finger the way my friends could? The way Natasha Nutley could?

Amanda slid back my Cosmopolitan, and I slurped a sip.

“Nix calling up Max, Jane,” Eloise said. “I totally forgot that your family knows Max. You can't pass him off as the new love of your life, and you can't pretend
you're back together. Bad idea. I'm really sorry I even brought him up.”

I sent Eloise an it's-okay look. We all went back to chewing, gnawing and sipping.

Amanda pointed at me with her stirrer. “Do the blind date thing, Jane. All you need is
one
guy to bring to a wedding. What have you got to lose?”

Eloise and I stared at her. There was no need to add a sarcastic response.

My silence, though, was enough of an answer for Amanda. She whipped out her cell phone. “Jeff, guess who's willing to go out on blind dates again? Jane! Shut up—that was, like,
two
years ago! Got anyone for her?” We all waited. “No! He's bald! No, too short—Jane's five-six. Hmm. Oh, that guy? No way—he's cute, but an idiot! Jane's an editor—he's gotta be smart. Ooh—yes! Uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh…he sounds really good! Set it up.”

Sounds
good? So Amanda had never clapped eyes on Mr. Uh-Huh?

Amanda clicked off her cell, her blue eyes twinkling. She leaned forward at the table and whipped her long ponytail behind her. “Kevin Adams. Thirty-three. Senior Accountant. Lives in a brownstone off Central Park West. Jeff says all the admins in the office salivate over Kevin.”

I almost spit out my mouthful of Cosmopolitan. It was fate. Kevin Adams was exactly who I'd described to Natasha! Right down to the brownstone on the Upper West Side.

“He sounds good, Jane,” Eloise said, nodding. “Damned good.”

“Do it, Jane,” Amanda seconded. “Or it's telling Dana and the Gnat you lied. It's going out with Incinerator Man!”

They'd mistaken my look of shock for disdain. I burst out into a grin and beamed at Amanda. “Tell Jeff to give him my number. At home
and
work.”

 

Eloise and I gave Amanda real kisses on the cheek and disappeared down the steps into the Union Square subway station. Both Grammy and Aunt Ina had made me promise never to take the subway. They refused to believe that the New York City subway system wasn't the crime pit it had been in the seventies when they'd been “career women” with jobs in the garment district. Eloise and I swiped our metro cards in the turnstile and headed for the Uptown IRT line.

A woman pretending to be the Statue of Liberty stood stock-still on a platform (she was painted silver), holding a torch. An upside-down hat in front of her had a few bills in it. Down a few feet, three teenagers played drums, an open drum case in front of them without a coin. Eloise and I stopped for a few minutes to listen to an overweight gospel singer. We each threw the change from the bottom of our purses into what looked like the case of an amp.

We slipped inside the 6 train just as the doors were closing and grabbed two of the hard orange seats. A pack of teenagers huddled together playing a hand-held video game. An elderly man was clipping his fingernails. Two or three sad sacks read newspapers or the ridiculous advertisements lining the top rim of the car. And six attractive women, all in their late-twenties and early thirties, were dotted around, their Kate Spade handbags tight against them as they read reports, books or stared blankly out the dark windows.

Looking at them depressed me. I was one of them. Like me, they'd spent a few hours after work with friends, maybe even on a date, and now they were going home. Alone. On a Friday at ten-thirty. To open their mail, check
out cable, root around in the refrigerator, flip through a
Vogue,
fantasize about promotions, boyfriends, marriage proposals and be depressed until sleep thankfully took over. One of the Me's caught me staring, so I shot my gaze upward to an advertisement for a local podiatrist.

“So tell me more about her,” Eloise said as the train rumbled uptown.

“The Gnat?”

Eloise nodded. “Is she a total diva? All fabulous and tragically hip?”

I envisioned Natasha. “Yes and no. She is sort of ‘super-fabulous' in the way you mean, but there's something I can't put my finger on about her. I don't have her figured out yet.”

“You will, though. You're gonna know her inside and out after working with her on the memoir. Why is she going to Dana's wedding, anyway?”

I shrugged. Yeah, why?

Eloise was flung against me as the train short-stopped in the 42rd Street station. “Maybe she wants the free booze. Does she still have a drinking problem?”

“Not according to her book outline,” I said. “And she didn't have any alcohol at lunch.” Which, by the way, had come in just under eighty-five bucks. Maybe I could treat myself to a fifteen-dollar pan-seared salmon tomorrow night. That was practically a cure for Another Saturday Night Alone Syndrome. Even if you had to eat the salmon alone while renting a video. I glanced around the car at the Me women. Not one of them had that I-have-a-date-tomorrow-night contentedness in their “adorable” faces. “El?”

“Yeah?”

I kicked the toe of my sandal against the dirty floor. “You don't think what I did was pathetic? I mean, telling Natasha and Dana I had this great boyfriend?”

Eloise raised an eyebrow. “Pathetic? Try
necessary!
And you didn't tell Dana anything. Natasha did. You had no choice. Don't worry, Jane. I'll bet Kevin turns out to be everything you described and more. He'll ask you out for a second date, you'll start seeing each other, and suddenly you're bringing your boyfriend to Dana's wedding.”