Uptown Girl

Bina shook her head silently but lowered the volume of her crying. Just then the phone rang again. Reluctantly, Kate left Bina and went over to it. It was Michael. She had to pick it up, and wondered what people did in ‘the olden days’, as her kids would say, before there were things like caller ID. Kate looked over at Bina who had turned on her side and was quietly sobbing into a bunch of tissues. She picked up the receiver.

‘Kate, you’re home?’ Michael asked.

‘Yes.’ She didn’t need to tell him anything more. He knew that she was usually in her office by this time and as a post-doc he might have had the brains to figure out that based on what he had reluctantly witnessed the night before she might not show up at school.

‘Hey, Kate, I … I just wanted to call to apologize.’

Kate softened. She sighed, but covered the mouthpiece to be sure that Michael didn’t hear it. She had learned that there were two kinds of men: those who apologized and continued their behavior and those who apologized and stopped it. She hadn’t known Michael long enough to know which type he was.

The way she looked at things at this point in her life, most relationships were compromises and all men had to be looked at as fixer-uppers. As a therapist, she knew people did not change unless they wanted to and worked very hard at it. As a woman, she knew she had to tolerate a certain amount of what her ten-year-old patient Susan called ‘monkey clone behavior’. ‘Okay,’ she said to Michael in a voice as neutral as she could manage.

‘I’m sure I looked like an unfeeling jerk last night. You know, it’s just that … well, your friend was very dramatic.’

That pissed Kate off. ‘I suppose a little drama is warranted when your entire life is ruined.’ She purposely kept her voice low and looked over at Bina to make sure she went unheard. What good was an apology, she thought, if it was followed by a further injury?

‘I’ve done it again, haven’t I?’ Michael asked. He might not be empathetic but he wasn’t stupid, Kate reflected. ‘Look, let me take you out to dinner one night this week,’ he said. ‘Let’s talk about it. I know I can do better.’

Fair enough, Kate thought. But it couldn’t be in a restaurant. There should be a lot of talking, a lot of negotiating, and maybe some reconciliatory sex. ‘Why don’t you come over for dinner?’ she proposed. ‘But not tonight.’ She looked over at the sofa again. Bina was just raising her head. ‘Gotta go,’ she said. ‘Let’s talk later.’

‘I’ll call you this evening,’ Michael promised and Kate hung up. She returned to Bina’s side.

Bina, her eyes red, but not as red as her nose, looked up at her. ‘How can we fix it?’ she asked.

Kate sat down and the wicker creaked. ‘Well, to know that, first I have to know what happened. Exactly what happened.’

‘So I go over to the table, and Jack is laughing and the Chinese woman – who was smaller than a size two and taller than I am – looks at me like I’m the bus boy. But Jack, he jumps and pulls his hand away. “Hey, Sy Lin was just teaching me how to say hello in Mandarin. Nee-how-ma!” So I look at him and say, “Nee-how-ma, right back atcha.” Then I turn to Sy Lin and say, “How do you say goodbye?” So she just gives me this smile, does one of those look-overs – you know the way Barbie does when someone is dressed really badly – and then looks at Jack and says, “Enjoy your dinner.” Oh, and just to make it a really bad omen, she was wearing the color nail polish you picked out. I should always listen to you.’

‘Bina, don’t be silly. This isn’t about manicures. So what happened next? Did you pitch a fit?’

Bina began to cry again. ‘That’s the worst part,’ she gulped. ‘I didn’t do anything. It was Jack, Jack who …’

The phone rang again. Kate stepped over and looked at the handset and saw that it was Elliot’s cell. ‘Wait a minute,’ she told Bina, who just ignored her anyway. Kate picked up the phone.

‘Okay. Don’t worry about a thing,’ came Elliot’s voice. ‘We’ve got the situation under control. Brice and I will be there with bagels, cream cheese and lox. We also have two pints of hand-packed Häagen-Dazs,’ he added. ‘Rocky Road – Brice figured Bina was on one – and Concession Obsession. Maybe that was because this is all like a bad movie. And that’s not all. I have a couple of ten-milligram Valium that Brice “borrowed” from his mother’s medicine cabinet. We’re the rescue squad. Don’t try to get in our way.’

‘Elliot, this is serious,’ Kate admonished.

‘That’s why Brice and I took half a day off from work. Well, that and intense curiosity.’

‘The two of you are gossipmongers,’ Kate said.

‘You betcha. Don’t let Bina say another word until we get there because even though I’m a social idiot, Brice knows how to fix up anything that’s interpersonal. I hang the shelves.’

Kate found herself holding a dead phone and looking at her almost-dead friend. Maybe some food, ice cream, muscle relaxants and diversions were just what she needed. But first she had to find out the rest of the story.

‘Was that Jack?’ Bina asked.

‘No,’ Kate admitted. She sat down again. ‘Tell me what happened next.’ And then the door bell rang.

9

‘It’s Jack!’ Bina shouted and virtually levitated off the sofa. ‘Ohmigod! It’s Jack and look what I look like!’

‘It isn’t Jack,’ Kate told her and watched Bina struggle with both relief and disappointment simultaneously. ‘It’s Elliot. He’s the only one who can get into the building without me having to buzz. He has a key to the downstairs door.’

Kate went to the tiny foyer and looked through the safety peephole. There, scary in the fish-eye lens, was Elliot, smiling and gesturing to Brice, who was holding up the promised goodie bag. Reluctantly, Kate turned the knob and opened the door. If she didn’t do it, the guys would come in anyway – Elliot had a spare pair of keys for emergency purposes (like the time Kate locked her purse in the office and got halfway home before she noticed) and he wouldn’t hesitate to use it.

Elliot and Brice almost tumbled in, the three of them crowded into the tiny four-foot by four-foot entrance hall. ‘Is she okay?’ Elliot whispered.

‘No,’ Kate told him.

‘Well, is she better?’ Brice asked.

‘No,’ Kate repeated.

‘Then it’s a good thing we came,’ Elliot said.

‘I told you,’ Brice responded and then all three of them stepped into the living room, like all those clowns emerging from a tiny car at the circus. At least it felt like a circus to Kate.

‘Oh, Bina! You poor girl,’ Elliot said and flew across the living room to sit down beside her in Kate’s good chair.

‘Don’t worry about a thing,’ Brice said and began unpacking the shopping bag onto Kate’s coffee table. ‘What’s the last thing you ate? And when was it?’

Bina, a bit dazed, tried to answer him. ‘Well, I thought I was going to eat last night with Jack but then I never finished the meal. I was too upset. Then I couldn’t find Kate. I remember having some vodka …’

‘Well, you need one of these,’ Elliot said and took out a waxed paper parcel and handed it to her.

She opened it up. Kate winced at the poppy seeds that went rolling off the bagel and onto the sofa, the floor, the rug, and places that she would vacuum for months to come. ‘Oh, I can’t eat,’ Bina said.

‘You have to keep up your strength,’ Elliot told her.

Kate nodded. ‘It would be good for you to have some breakfast,’ she coaxed. ‘Just take a bite.’

Brice nodded, moved to the foot of the sofa, sat down and rearranged Bina’s feet so they were on his lap and covered with the quilt. ‘Now, just tell Uncle Brice all about it,’ he said, his voice a combination of mockery and sincerity.

‘I can’t believe yesterday was supposed to be your big night and nothing happened,’ Elliot said. ‘You must be distraught.’ At that point Kate realized she was fairly distraught herself, and taking a throw pillow from the sofa, sank down to the floor on it beside the coffee table.

‘Tell me about it! I thought Jack was nervous. Like he was making sure the ring was still safe. Jack Weintraub was finally going to propose to me and he was nervous. You know, he’s such a perfectionist – Barbie said he insisted on a perfect stone: Flawless D color.’

‘Flawless D!’ Brice said approvingly.

‘Right. See? I love him for a reason. He knows things. He wants things right. And I thought he wanted me to be happy. So I was happy and I decided to forget about Tokyo Rose.’

‘Yes, forget the hostess,’ Kate pressed. ‘Unless he asked her to marry him. You didn’t fight over her, did you?’

‘We didn’t fight at all,’ Bina protested. ‘I was a little upset about the dragon lady – it just isn’t like Jack to flirt with strange women – but I couldn’t have loved him more. Anyway, he raised his glass of champagne and I think he was about to make a toast when he realized I didn’t have a glass. So he tried to get a waiter or a waitress and they were nowhere to be seen. So Jack says he has to go to the men’s room and on the way he’ll order me a drink. But I think he might have been looking for the hostess …’

‘Her and many like her, the man-whore,’ said a heated Brice. ‘I just hate it when a man …’

‘Hey. Don’t make this personal,’ Elliot said, cutting Brice and God only knew what story off.

‘Focus, darling,’ Kate said, touching Bina’s face gently. Kate was quickly losing hope that a simple phone call before Jack got on the plane might put things right.

‘Okay. So he excused himself and headed for the men’s room. I watched him walk away from the table. I couldn’t help thinking he was so handsome.’

‘I know. Men are so cute from behind,’ said Brice.

Bina nodded her agreement. ‘I mean, people are like “Jack is just ordinary”, but that’s what I like about him,’ she continued, paying no heed to the sexual orientation of Brice’s comment nor being the slightest bit shocked. It seemed to Kate as though Bina was bonding with Brice the way she did with her girlfriends. ‘Jack reminds me of the Goldilocks story,’ Bina went on. ‘He’s not too tall or too short, he isn’t too skinny or too fat, he isn’t too handsome or too ugly. He’s just right,’ she said. ‘At least just right for me.’ Then she realized anew where she was and what had happened. ‘He was just right, but I wasn’t just right for him. Maybe it’s me that’s ordinary.’

‘Oh, Bina,’ Kate said and put her arm around the girl, squeezing tightly. ‘You’re not ordinary.’ That might not have been totally true, but that she was Jack’s equal was a sure thing. Kate had never met anyone more ordinary than Jack. ‘What happened then?’

‘Jack was gone for a little while. So finally that stupid hostess came back and asked me if I wanted a drink. I told her that my boyfriend was getting me something, and she said, “Your boyfriend? He said this was a business meeting. Otherwise I would have given him a more private table.”’

‘The bitch!’ Elliot and Brice said simultaneously.

‘Yeah. The beautiful, thin, exotic bitch,’ Bina agreed bitterly.

‘This is not productive,’ Kate said. No matter what the story was, Kate was going to be sure they didn’t criticize Jack too much, because when he and Bina patched things up – and they would – Bina would forever remember Kate’s criticism. Kate had learned that lesson the hard way with Bev, before she married Johnnie.

‘Bina, you are so beautiful. Any guy in the world would be lucky to share the same air as you,’ Kate told her friend and meant it. Every bit of Bina’s soul was generous and giving. Her heart was loyal and loving. And she had an adorable, round little face, and a curvy figure. Kate stroked Bina’s dark shiny hair. What the hell was wrong with Jack? It must have been a panic attack. Commitment was a very frightening prospect. ‘Didn’t you tell me just last week that Jack said he found you beautiful in so many ways?’

‘Honey,’ Brice said with a tilt of his head, ‘greeting cards can tell you that.’

‘No, he said I was too beautiful and too good for him,’ Bina corrected.

‘Uh oh,’ Brice and Elliot said, again in unison, and exchanged a look.

Kate gestured to them behind Bina’s head, then focused on Bina again. ‘Well anyway, Bina, you are beautiful and I am sure Jack still feels the same way.’

‘Yeah? You haven’t heard the end of the story,’ Bina said.

‘We’re trying to,’ Kate told her, attempting not to snap.

‘Go on. Get it all out,’ Elliot advised.

‘Well, of course I was hating this … woman.’ Bina paused and Kate was pleased that she didn’t stoop to any slur. ‘So I told her to go away. Jack finally came back with my drink and said – and you won’t believe this –’ Bina mimicked Jack’s deep Brooklyn baritone voice. ‘“I looked at you from across the room. You looked good from over there.” Was that a compliment or a diss?’

Kate pursed her lips but refrained from speaking. It seemed clear that her theory was right – Jack needed distance in both senses to see Bina. But up close and intimate his anxiety paralyzed him. If only he could have stayed at the bar and proposed by cell phone, Kate thought ruefully. He could have sent the waitress over with the ring and everyone would be happy. Instead, here Kate was, stuck with an immovable object on her sofa, trying to stave off an irresistible force. And uptown at Andrew Country Day there were children who wouldn’t get to see her while she practiced adult psychology in her cramped living room.

‘What did you do?’ Kate asked.

‘I just gave him a look,’ Bina said.

‘And what did he do?’

‘Well, I think Jack saw my reaction. He asked if something was wrong. He sounded so sincere, so concerned, that I felt bad and figured I had to let up on the poor guy. I thought he was a nervous wreck about proposing. Also, to tell the truth, Jack has never been … well, let’s just say he’s careful with his money.’

‘Oh hell,’ Brice said. ‘Let’s say he’s cheap.’ Bina opened her eyes wide, and for a moment Kate thought her friend was going to giggle.

‘Go on,’ Kate said.

‘Well, I just shook my head and suggested that we make a toast. And all he said was “To us”. I waited for more, you know like “and to our future as Mr and Mrs Jack Weintraub, the perfect married couple”, but there was nothing more.’ A tear slid down her cheek and Brice took her hand.

‘So?’ Kate prompted. She wondered what time Jack’s plane was actually taking off, whether Jack planned to be on it, whether he had called the Horowitz household, whether he had called his cousin Max across the hall.

‘Then he said he really wished he didn’t have to take this trip, but said some of that stuff about markets misbehaving. So I suggested that in the future maybe we’ll make the trips together.’

‘What did he say to that?’ Kate asked.

‘Well, of course, then the waitress shows up before he can answer. Just my luck. And you know it takes Jack a long time to order. And then he has to make sure none of the things on his plate are going to touch any of the others.’

Kate had forgotten about that phobia. She nodded to Bina.

‘So we had our drink and it seemed that the dinner was going fine until I told him how much I was going to miss him. I mean that’s okay to say, right? The guy is going away for months and it’s halfway around the world. Jack and I haven’t been separated by more than ten miles since we first started dating.’

‘Really?’ Brice asked. ‘That’s so romantic!’

‘It’s true, right, Kate? She was there the night Max, you know, Kate’s neighbor from across the hall, had the party where I met Jack.’ Kate rolled her eyes. Bina had the habit of playing what her friends called ‘Jewish geography’. Kate had gotten her apartment because Bina’s brother knew Max from summer camp and he had told Kate about it. Kate got the place and Max invited her to one of his parties to which Bina had also come – on one of her few sallies across the East River – and Max’s cousin Jack had … well, it could go on endlessly, between Hebrew schools, summer camps, bar mitzvahs, weddings, cousins, and on and on and on. Kate didn’t know the Yiddish word for six but there seemed to be fewer degrees of separation between the Jewish communities than the six in the John Guare play and film. Thankfully Bina didn’t overindulge. ‘The weird thing is we had both grown up in Brooklyn just six blocks from each other but we were introduced for the first time that night, and we haven’t been apart since. I mean, he took me out for a drink after the party and asked me out for the next night. And that weekend he came over for dinner with my parents and brother and … well, there we were, saying goodbye to each other for a very long time. So I thought it was appropriate to say I would miss him. And I thought it would be good to kind of, you know, get him started. I mean, we were finished with our appetizers and entrées. Did I have to wait until he popped the question?’

‘Men spook easily,’ Brice offered. ‘I remember the time when Ethan Housholder told me …’

‘Not now, Brice,’ Kate interjected.

‘Right, sorry. Continue, honey.’ Kate had to admit that Bina couldn’t have had two more sympathetic listeners than Brice and Elliot. And sometimes simply talking was the best therapy. But then, just when Kate thought they had safely gotten out of the water, Bina began to cry again. Elliot’s soft pats and Brice’s coos of sympathy only made it worse.

‘Well, it was like all the color drained out of his face. And then he said, “Bina, you know I have to be in Hong Kong for almost five months and that’s not going to be easy.” He kept touching his breast pocket and the tension was almost overwhelming. I couldn’t help but think “here it comes”. Then he just sat there. I wanted to scream, “Why don’t you just take the damn thing out of there and ask me to marry you?” But, nothing. The man just sat there and then looked down and finished eating his fucking Chicken Rangoon.’

10

‘What did you do?’ Elliot asked.

Kate was afraid that she would hear that Bina had become hysterical, attacked Jack physically, made a huge scene, or something even more dramatic. But Bina surprised her.

‘I went to the ladies’ room, of course.’

‘Of course,’ Brice agreed. ‘I can’t tell you how many times I wished I could go there myself.’

‘So, anyway …’ Bina continued. She opened her eyes wide and they glazed over as if she could see the scene replaying itself.

Kate, Elliot and Brice all held their breath, as if at last they were to find out what had actually happened. Then the phone rang. ‘Shit!’ Kate said and grabbed for the receiver, peering at the number. ‘It’s your mother again,’ Kate said. ‘I think you better talk to her.’

‘Kill me first!’ Bina pleaded. Kate froze for a moment. She couldn’t bear to explain the situation to Myra Horowitz and she didn’t have the heart to give the phone to Bina. But she couldn’t refuse the call again …

‘I’ll take it,’ Elliot said.

‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ Kate told him, realizing he was getting deeper and deeper into her Brooklyn life. She pressed the ‘answer’ button.

‘Katie! Thank God! Listen, do you know where Bina is?’

‘She’s fine. She’s right here with me,’ Kate told Mrs Horowitz, only telling one lie, not two.

‘Well, put her on.’

Bina was wildly shaking her head, her hands in front of her face as if to ward off a blow.

Kate was grateful for every moment she had spent at the Horowitz house because even with her training it took more than therapeutic skills to talk Mrs Horowitz down. Kate said soothing words, then distracted her with questions, then reassured her, then sent her love to Dr Horowitz. All the while Elliot circled his hand, telling her to move it along, while Brice pulled his index finger across his throat, giving her the sign to cut it short. As if she wanted to be the middleman! She finally hung up.

‘At last,’ said Brice.

‘So you were in the ladies’ room,’ Elliot prompted.

‘Yeah. You know, I just wanted to be by myself for a minute; just long enough to get it all together again,’ Bina said. ‘So I fixed my makeup – and I still had to give the woman there a dollar, even though I hadn’t used the toilet – but I just looked at myself in the mirror and said, “Bina Horowitz, this is the night that’s going to change your life. Be nice and be happy.”’

‘Good for you,’ Kate said, though in the face of obvious tragedy to come.

‘So I get back to the table and Jack stands up. He always does it when we’re in a fancy restaurant. So he leans over to help me into my chair and …’ She gulped. ‘The ring box slipped out of his pocket. It was like a car accident in one of those movies. I saw it all happening in slow motion. The ring box fell over and over and over. The moment the box hits the floor, Jack lets go of my chair. The ring flies out of the box and he scrambles to retrieve it. I’m as frozen as a Swanson TV dinner, and I see the ring skid across the floor and that stupid bitch hostess bends all the way over and picks it up.’

‘Wow,’ was all Kate could say.

‘Wow, indeed,’ Brice added.

‘What did you do?’ asked Elliot.

‘I just sat there, like the turkey dinner that I am, and I realize that Jack, on the floor, can see up the woman’s skirt – well, it was so short and she bent right over. And not from the knees like you’re supposed to but from the waist. And she isn’t wearing any underwear.’

‘What?’ all three said in collective amazement.

‘None. And Jack is on the floor, looking straight up her – well, up her …’

‘We get the visual,’ Kate said.

‘So did Jack. Everyone was looking. I think that was when he lost his mind. It must have been then. So Jack manages to get off the floor and tear his eyes off that woman’s naked crotch and she turns around and hands him the ring. He stands up and puts it in his right pocket. Then he scoops up the box and puts it in his left one.’ Bina stopped for a moment and shook her head. ‘He walked back to the table.’ She turned to Kate. ‘I couldn’t stay happy anymore, Katie. I told Jack that if he was trying to make it a memorable evening, he was succeeding. I mean I could have smacked him, I was so mad. And you know what the asshole said?’

‘What now?’ Kate asked.

Bina, using her Jack voice again, said, ‘“This isn’t how I want to remember you, Bina.”’

‘Uh oh. Here it comes,’ Brice said.

‘Wait for it,’ Elliot warned him.

‘Please, you two – it’s like Tweedledee and Tweedle Very Dumb,’ Kate admonished. ‘Let the woman finish her story, which, I pray, is almost over.’

‘Almost,’ Bina said. ‘So, I was wondering which pocket my ring was in now. It made me think of that game, Kate, that my father would play with us when we were little girls. You know, when he would have surprises for us and we would have to guess which pocket they were in.’

Kate nodded, almost smiling in remembrance. Dr Horowitz had been so kind to her. He used to give his daughter her allowance every Sunday morning and since Kate’s father was usually sleeping one off on Sunday and rarely gave her money, Dr Horowitz always gave Kate the same allowance as well. A big Sunday event was going to the candy store and agonizing over Junior Mints or Bit O Honey. Not to mention the Betty and Veronica comics. Bina and her family were good people, and she hated hearing how she’d been subjected to this hurtful slapstick. But maybe the situation could be salvaged. After all, Bina and Jack had years of history and were made for each other. ‘So then what?’ she asked.

‘Well,’ Bina continued, ‘Jack then looked me in the eyes and said, “Bina, I have something I want to say to you.” And I’m thinking at least someday we’ll tell our grandchildren about all this and laugh! But then Jack says, “I have to be honest; Hong Kong is far away from here. Very far away.” Like I didn’t take geography, right? So I think maybe he’s going to want to elope. It would break my mother’s heart, and I want the dress and all, but I was like dying by now. I kept waiting for Jack to reach for the ring, but his hands are staying folded together on top of the table. He takes a deep breath, looks up to the ceiling, and says, “I think it would be unfair of me to leave and ask you to just wait for me.” I told him I agreed and I looked down at my hand to get my finger ready. But then he said, “I think this time apart might be a good chance for us to – well, for us to – I think this might be a good chance for us to explore our singleness.”’