Balancing Acts (12 page)

“What do you mean?”

“LA. . .New York. . .what's happening? Who's going where? Are we really going to do this thing or are we going to live in long-distance la-la land forever?”

Dan sighed heavily. “Every time I bring up LA, you shoot it down.”

“Why hasn't the possibility of you coming back to New York ever really been discussed? Why is it just
assumed
that I'll be the one to make the move? That's the kind of shit that really gets under my skin, you know? The whole male-female dynamic. Naturally, the woman has to pack it up to follow her man. God forbid it's the other way around.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa! Take it easy, anger management. Jesus. You know why I can't come back to New York anytime soon. I'm getting my master's in screenwriting for chrissake. That's sort of LA-centric, at least for the first couple years or so, wouldn't you say?”

“I know it is,” she conceded. “I just don't think I could leave New York to be with you and not resent the hell out of you if we didn't work out. You can spin it however you want it—I could easily get a job in LA, my family is from LA and my dad's not doing too hot lately, LA is cheaper, blah, blah, blah—but the fact of the matter is that I would really be going only because of you. That's a lot of pressure to put on one relationship.”

“I know it's a lot of pressure. It's pressure for me too, you know. True, I wouldn't be the one having to move, but I would be the one having to take at least a bit of responsibility for your happiness. And us living together would take things up a whole other level.” He paused. “Hey, how is your dad, by the way? You haven't brought him up in a while. How's the pacemaker working out?” Bess's father had had a heart attack when she was in high school, and had been lucky to survive. Although he was still as robust and active as ever, he was operating on only two thirds of his heart. Because of who he was, you would never know that he felt the repercussions of that loss on a daily level, but his basket full of medications and his defibrillator told a different story.

“He's hanging in there. You know, he's the last one to say that he feels weak or unwell. I'm worried about him,” said Bess. Dan brushed her hair off her face. “I really need to go see him, and my mom. Maybe I can do a double trip or something—see you and my parents.” She paused. “Would you want to meet them?”

“I would love to meet them,” he answered, not skipping a beat. “That's some ‘next level' stuff, Bessie. I like it.” She smiled at him. Her parents hadn't met a boyfriend of hers since high school.

“Listen, I want to give us a real shot,” said Dan. “Of course I understand your hesitancy and doubts about moving west, believe me. If we have to continue the long-distance thing, we'll make it work. I don't want to lose you. . .or us. I love you, Bess.”

Bess inhaled sharply. Dan had never said that to her before. It was huge. Involuntarily, tears sprung to her eyes.
Who knew I was such a chick?
she thought. “I. . .I love you, too. I really do.”

“Holy shit! We're in love!” exclaimed Dan. He wrestled Bess onto her back and smiled down at her.

“I know! What a world!” She reached up to stroke his hair. “Now that this part is established, maybe the rest of the details will just work themselves out on their own.”

Dan shook his head and laughed. “Yeah, of course. Like in the movies.” He lowered himself down on top of Bess and she encircled him with both her arms and legs.
Mmmm, nice. Just me and the man who loves me, snuggling.
She couldn't help it. The girly girl genie deep within her had been summoned by the three magic words:
I love you.
Bess would shove her back into her bottle soon, but for now, she could live a little.

“Bess, I'm sorry I'm chapping your ass about your article. I'm going to shut up about it now, okay? This is your journey and I don't want to put my stink all over it.”

Bess wrestled Dan onto his back and crouched over him, pinning him down with her hands. “To be honest, this article is starting to not make as much sense to me, either, but I'm just not done with it yet. I have some more wrasslin' to do with it.”

“I'll give you something to wrassle,” replied Dan with a smirk as he broke out of Bess's hold and reversed their positions. “But first, I must brush my teeth.”

“Yeah,” agreed Bess, wrinkling her nose in mock disgust. “That lox, onion, and garlic combo is not doing you any favors.”

Dan exhaled deeply into Bess's face. She screamed in delight. “Gahhh! You just exfoliated all of my nose pores!”

Dan laughed and got up. “I'm hitting the shower, too,” he announced.

Bess lay on the bed, pleased with the way they had worked through their argument.
Look at me,
she thought.
In an adult relationship. With someone who loves me. With someone who lights up when I mention him meeting my parents instead of disappearing into the ether.
She would get to work on her own reservations about the sacrifices being in a relationship entailed, but for now she would just relish the bliss of being open enough to admit she was in love with someone who loved her back.
Who said it first.

She sat up and grabbed her laptop off her bureau. She decided to e-mail Sabine to set up a hang. She wasn't exactly sure where her article was headed, but she figured that a glass of wine with her might point her in the right direction. It certainly couldn't hurt.

I
s Brooklyn singlehandedly responsible for the soy movement?” asked Sabine, as she sat with Naomi at a coffee shop in her neighborhood. She had asked for a regular latte and their waitress had looked at her like she was speaking Swahili.

“What do you mean, regular?” she had responded, exasperated by Sabine's assumption of a universal “regular.”

“Um, with milk?” Sabine had replied meekly.

“Full soy, light soy, chocolate, vanilla, hazelnut, what?” the waitress had replied, rattling off the list with practiced disinterest. Sabine had looked to Naomi for help.

“She'll have vanilla soy,” she volunteered. The waitress left and Naomi laughed, putting her hand over Sabine's. “Welcome to Brooklyn, Sabine! Milk is déclassé here, in case you weren't aware.” She laughed nervously. “I apologize. This place just recently changed owners. The owner is supposedly a dairy nazi, but the coffee is just too damn good. I hope you don't mind the aforementioned additive. It's actually very good in coffee. And cereal, for that matter.”

“Oh, I know,” said Sabine. “It's not that I haven't had it before, it's just that I wasn't prepared for the waitress's soy sass. No worries.”

“‘Soy sass'!” echoed Naomi. “That's the perfect way of describing what just went down.” She paused for a moment. “Aren't you a writer?”

Sabine sighed. “In my dreams, I'm a writer. In my reality, I'm an editor at Rendezvous Books. I edit romance novels.”

“No way! That must be fun—reading steamy sex scenes all day.”

“Mmm, not so much.” The waitress appeared with their lattes and set them on the table. Sabine cradled her mug between both hands, savoring its warmth. “It pays the bills, but other than that, it sort of sucks.”

“Really? I'm sorry to hear that. How did you end up there?”

“Oh, typical story. Young, naïve writer with big dreams comes to New York thinking that a gig in publishing will lead to novelist status. Cut to ten years later and the only thing I write are e-mails.” She sighed heavily. “I miss writing, I really do, but I just don't have the time for it. Or the drive, obviously.”

“I can relate to that,” said Naomi, taking a sip from her mug. “I used to take photos and now all I do is design websites.”

“Well, surely your designs are based in the same sort of artistic sphere?” Although she meant it as a statement, it came out more as a question. She didn't have the first idea about web design, other than what she surfed through every day as a means of procrastination.

“Mmm, not so much. I basically plug someone else's ideas into a template, throw in some rollovers and call it a day. When I first got into it, I would spend hours laboring over the exact placement of even the most mundane detail, but now it's a pretty robotic setup. Plug in, link to this, roll over that,” she said, her voice shifting from its normal tone to one of a C3PO-like intonation.

“But at least it's YOUR company. You might be a robot, but at least you're your own robot.”

“Okay, that I will give you,” conceded Naomi. “It is a gift. If only for pure wardrobe reasons. Most days I don't get out of my pajamas until I have to pick Noah up from school.”

“That's right!” exclaimed Sabine. “Your son. How old is he?”

“He's eight. Even as I say that, I can't believe how old he is. He was just a baby, like, yesterday.”

“What's he like?” Sabine wanted to probe Naomi about his father but thought better of it. She was pretty sure that Naomi was a single mom, but she wasn't positive.

“Oh, he's a love. The sweetest, smartest, funniest, handsomest boy in the whole wide world. I don't know how I got so lucky.”

“Probably because you're an amazing mother. I highly doubt it's a coincidence that he's so great.”

“You're sweet, Sabine. Thanks. I try. It's not easy though, especially doing it myself.”

Sabine did a little mental calculation. Eight years ago would have made Naomi twenty-four. Twenty-four. What had she been doing at twenty-four? She searched through the caverns of her mind and could come up with nothing as life-altering as deciding to bring a child into the world.

“Did you not plan it?” she asked, although the answer was clear.

“No way. Not even close. I was taking pictures in Manhattan and Brooklyn, enjoying the good life, living like a rock star. A baby was not even in the realm of my imagination. Alas, my uterus had different ideas.”

“I wanted to ask you something,” said Sabine shyly. “I hope you don't mind.”

“Ooh, this sounds serious. I'm glad I'm sitting down.” Naomi's blue eyes sparkled at Sabine over the rim of her mug.

“Were you a model in some Calvin Klein ads around nine years ago?” Sabine blurted out the question in an excited rush. She had been dying to ask Naomi since, well, since she had seen them so long ago.

Naomi laughed. “I'm afraid that the answer is yes.”

“I knew it!” said Sabine, practically yelling. “I knew that was you! I kept looking at those ads and wondering. I mean, it was you from behind, right? You could just barely see a hint of your profile.”

“Yep, that was me, all right. How funny is that?”

“You looked amazing! A total supermodel. How did that happen?”

“How did what happen?” asked Naomi. “The modeling part?”

Sabine nodded eagerly. “Yeah, of course! Were you discovered in a shopping mall, just like Paulina Porizkova?”

Naomi laughed. “Paulina Porizkova!? God, Sabine, you are a riot. Actually, no, nothing that dramatic. I was actually a fairly successful photographer in those days. I had some photography shows in Manhattan and Europe and was kind of on the scene, you know?”

“What scene?”

“Oh you know, the bullshit downtown, club and drugs scene. My boyfriend at the time, well, actually, Noah's dad, was a huge fixture. He was a photographer also, but he was much more successful than I was.”

“Why?”

“A tiny part talent, a large part schmoozing capability, and an even larger part good looks and drug-snorting,” replied Naomi. “He created a huge name for himself.”

“So you guys were like, a contemporary Studio 54 or some shit?” asked Sabine incredulously.

“I guess so. It was a wild lifestyle. Gene, that's his name, was on this crazy rocket to stardom and I just hopped on for the ride.” She paused to take a sip of her now lukewarm latte. “Anyway, he met Calvin at an art opening and immediately became his muse. Calvin met me shortly thereafter and asked us to be in his fall campaign. Voilà, instant stardom. We were both so high during those shoots. I can barely remember them.”

“Really? You couldn't tell. But I guess that was the height of heroin chic, right?” Sabine remembered the first time she had seen the ad—on a huge billboard at the corner of Lafayette and Houston. She had literally shrieked in surprise and awe, so certain she was seeing her former college roommate blown up to gigantic proportions on one of the busiest intersections in the world. It had amazed her.

“I know her!” she had bragged breathlessly to her friend, pointing excitedly up to the billboard in the sky. “I went to college with that chick! She was my roommate!”

Her friend had eyed the billboard and said, “She could use a burger. Jesus.” Sabine agreed but was thrilled by the very idea that Naomi, the same girl who had given her a smoky eye in her dorm room of all places, was now a famous model.

“Yeah, it was,” said Naomi. “Thankfully, I only dabbled a bit in drugs. I could never fully give in to their allure. Gene, on the other hand, he was a mess.”

“I'm sorry. That must have been tough. Is that why you broke up?”

“More or less. I got pregnant and he left. He couldn't deal. I thought about giving up the baby or an abortion, but I just didn't want to. I thought the baby was a sign. Finally, someone or something other than my parents telling me to get it together. So I did.”

“What happened to your photography?”

“I just kind of fell off the art world map at that point,” said Naomi. “When Gene and I were no longer a couple, nobody really gave a shit about me or my work. It was him they wanted.”

“Really? I always remember you being so talented, even as a freshman.”

“Well, thanks. But my stuff just didn't work past a certain point. And for me, photography became intertwined with a lifestyle that I didn't want to lead anymore. I hung up my camera, as they say.”

“I'm really sorry,” said Sabine.

“Oh my God, don't be sorry! I have a beautiful baby boy and a sense of self and independence that only comes from going through the ringer. Please! Nothing to be sorry about here.”

Sabine laughed. “Too true. What an interesting story you have, though. I kept hoping I would run into you after I saw that billboard. Never did I think that I would actually be sitting with you drinking soy lattes in Brooklyn, though.”

“Who knew that that goofy reunion would pay off so handsomely?” Naomi laughed. “I feel terrible, Sabine. I've been blathering about myself and you've barely gotten a word in edgewise. I want to hear about your writing. And we haven't even talked about class!”

“Oh please. We talked plenty about my writing. I don't do it, so it's only appropriate that our conversation was so short.” She laughed and looked at her watch. “I can't believe it's noon! I have to go!” Zach was picking her up in T-minus-8 hours and she hadn't even begun the cosmetic overhaul that she had planned. From the depilatory cream to the exfoliating scrubs to the nail polish and beyond, she had just about spent half a week's pay at Duane Reade in preparation.

“Noon! No way! Cecilia is going to kill me. I was supposed to be home an hour ago.”

“Who's Cecilia?” asked Sabine, as Naomi motioned wildly for the check.

“Oh, she's my neighbor. She babysits for Noah while I go to yoga.” The women paid and zipped themselves back into their winter suits of armor, preparing for the face-biting cold outside.

“This was so nice,” said Naomi, giving Sabine a hug on the street.

“I know,” agreed Sabine. “Hey, would you be into getting drinks one night this week? I was thinking about inviting Charlie and Bess, too.”

“Definitely. That's a great idea. There's no reason we have to confine our hangs to Saturday mornings.”

“Exactly! Cool, I'll send an e-mail around.”

“Okay, bye!” said Naomi. “Get home safe!” She waved and took off at a quick clip down the block.

Sabine headed toward the subway, smiling. Naomi was a former Calvin Klein model! What a trip.
Ooh, I should get some water for my ride,
she thought to herself as she passed a deli.

Her entrance was blocked by a gaggle of teenage boys. Tall and lanky, with noses too big for their faces and unfortunate cases of varying acne, they were all wearing shockingly light jackets considering the frigidity of the weather and barking at each other.

“Yo, you stupid,” said one Asian boy.

His white counterpart mumbled something back that sounded like “pussy.” Sabine couldn't be sure. She always noticed how most teenage urban kids talked like washed-up rappers. She wondered if this was the way in which they addressed their parents, who no doubt owned brownstones down the street and summered in the Hamptons.

As she prepared to go in, the door of the deli blew open and two more boys emerged in a fog of addled testosterone. In their hands they clutched brown paper bags. Sabine couldn't believe that they had just bought forties. There was no way they could pass for even sixteen, much less twenty-one. And it was only noon!

One of the boys reached into the bag. Sabine braced herself for the inevitable bottle of Olde English. To her surprise, he pulled out a carton of. . .soy milk!?

Could this really be happening?
She looked around, hoping someone else was there to witness this.

“Yo, that mess tastes like garbage,” said the Asian boy.

“Yo, this shit is mad good son,” answered the soy-milk lover. And with that, he twisted off its cap and began drinking it straight from the carton. His other brown-bagged friend followed suit.

Sabine, barely able to contain herself, pushed past them into the fluorescent-lit deli and burst into laughter.
What!? You cannot write this shit! Soy-guzzling Brooklyn gangsters!?

She ambled over to the refrigerator and pulled out a bottle of water, shaking her head at what she had just witnessed. Sometimes stories just wrote themselves. She smiled broadly, pleased by the universe's unexpected inspiration.

She couldn't wait to get home to put it on paper. It was too good.