Nine Women, One Dress (15 page)

The tennis match at Grand Central was great in that we were perfectly matched. I wondered if John and Caroline played together. I thought of them playing on summer weekends wherever it is that they summer and a weird pang of jealousy followed. It took a lot of self-control not to ask him about it. Bringing her up as if I didn't know her would make my deception feel even more appalling. I resisted the urge. He had to run afterward but asked to see me again.

“I'm showing
North by Northwest
in class this week. You should come.”

I responded with a quizzical look; I didn't know what
North by Northwest
had to do with anything.

“They spoke about it on our Grand Central tour, remember? Alfred Hitchcock, Cary Grant, Eva Marie Saint?” I didn't, but his enthusiasm was catching and also quite adorable.

I smiled. “Enough said.”

That's how I found myself a couple of days later in a classroom for the first time in twenty years. It was fun—it made me feel like a college student again, when everything was ahead of me, no broken marriage behind me. John gave a brief introduction, then darkened the room, and as the opening credits started, he made his way up to where I was sitting and sat down right next to me. “Glad you could make it,” he whispered before settling down in his seat. I was a bit worried that I wouldn't be able to concentrate, sitting in the dark like this with John, but the movie sucked me right in. After it was over he mixed a few questions about Grand Central into his lecture—things we had learned on our tour. Each time, his eyes found mine, coaxing me to answer. And when I did, I felt such a strong connection to him, two people in a sea of strangers with a secret.

“Which other Hitchcock film used both Grand Central and Penn Station?”

“
Spellbound
!” I answered, barely waiting for him to call on me.

I was so eager that a couple of students in the row ahead turned around to look at me, as though wondering what I was doing there. And when I saw their faces, I realized that I didn't know what I was doing there myself. I shouldn't have come. I was falling for a married man to whom I was being completely dishonest, and who'd repeatedly talked about his commitment to his (lying, cheating) wife. I decided I would not stick around for coffee after class, as I had promised, and vowed never to see him again.

But two Sundays later I broke my vow. It was my weekend off, and damn if I wasn't again sitting in my office following John Westmont's whereabouts on my computer. Okay, if I'm totally honest, I'd checked in on him nearly every day since I had sworn I wouldn't, but on the tracking device—I didn't and wouldn't go so far as to retrieve his e-mails from my junk folder. Obeying that one rule left me feeling less out of control. Still, he had become an obsession. More like an addiction. John Westmont was my heroin. Our few encounters had left me hooked and wanting more.

That day he was walking the High Line. I know, you're probably thinking this guy is really into landmarks, but I can tell you this is the only remotely touristy thing he had done over those past two weeks. Most nights he was home at his Fifth Avenue apartment, which by the way is so palatial it covers two locations on the tracking device. It's hard to imagine such a down-to-earth guy coming from such affluence. Most of his days were spent in or around Columbia University. Last Sunday he went to Madison Square Garden, for the Knicks game, I assume. Thursday he attended a conference at the Paley Center for Media, and this past Wednesday he saw the afternoon movie at the Paris Theatre. It took every bit of self-control I could summon not to show up in that balcony and casually sit next to him. I daydreamed about what I would say.
Will you quit following me!
Or
Not you again!
How he would offer me some of his popcorn and how my hand would brush against his when we inevitably reached into the bucket at the same time. Within minutes of reimagining the missed popcorn scenario I found myself on the street hailing a cab, like the junkie I am.

A few years back the city reinvented the High Line, taking the abandoned elevated freight rail line and landscaping it, turning it into a long narrow stretch of park along the West Side of Manhattan. It's a pretty great addition. The little green dot on my computer indicated that John had started at the 34th Street entrance and was heading downtown; therefore I would start in the meatpacking district at the Gansevoort Street entrance and head up. Eventually, if we both continued on our course, we would bump right into each other. If not, it was beautiful out, and a good walk and fresh air never hurt anyone. Or so I thought.

About ten blocks in, I caught a glimpse of him. It made my heart gasp a bit. I wished I didn't feel this way about this man I barely knew whom it could be a career-derailing disaster to have a relationship with. He was a good-looking guy in an everyday way. He looked like Gary Cooper or Greg Kinnear. He was sweet, very sweet and old-fashioned, which I loved. He was smart and very thoughtful. All those things are great—but as I watched him order ice cream from a vendor, I began to wonder whether I really liked him or just wanted to stick it to his cheating wife, thus indirectly sticking it to my cheating husband. The vendor handed him a cone. Could that be what this is all about: some kind of vindictive, psychological infidelity transference? Am I just feeling for him because he is about to experience the same pain that I did? I should have seen a shrink when everyone suggested it three years ago. “Don't hang on to this anger,” they said. “Talk to someone.”

The ice cream vendor handed John a second cone. Two cones. Two cones. It took a minute for it to sink in. Then up walked a smiling Caroline Westmont. I don't know why I never considered this possibility—I guess because she was cheating on him, or had been at least, and he always seemed to be alone. I looked for an extra few seconds at what appeared to be a happy couple. Maybe she had changed her mind, straightened out her ways. One glance in my direction by either of them and I was done. I turned and ran the other way.

I went back to my office and deleted John Westmont's little green dot from my tracking portal. That was it: all connections severed. I was determined to stay clean.

It was a slow morning in the store, which is unusual this close to Christmas. The only action at all was that my little black Max Hammer dress came back from being loaned out to Jordana Winston. I still call it mine, though at this point its line of succession is quite far-reaching; it arrived neatly folded in a box from Paris, of all places, although it looked more like it had hitched a ride home with a French sailor. I personally steamed it out in the back, but, sadly, I decided it was a goner. It was stretched out, stained, and had generally just seen too much action. The Max Hammer people would take it back because it had been loaned out for publicity.

As I wrote out the return slip I felt a twinge of nostalgia for the dress and everything that had happened. Why was I so stubborn about Jeremy? Why couldn't I accept his apology? Maybe I was hiding behind the whole misunderstanding because I was scared of getting hurt again. Under “reason for return” I wrote,
Damaged.
I should hang the same tag on myself, I thought. I hung the dress in the back and attached the slip for Ruthie to authorize when she came in later. That was some dress. I loved how I felt in it.

Getting dressed up like that, in a really special dress, brings back memories of playing dress-up as a kid. My sister and I had a box filled with princess costumes and old communion dresses that my mom picked up here and there to add to our collection. We would prance around in them with fake pearls, white gloves, and my mom's old heels. I think that little-girl pastime, dressing up and pretending to be a bride or a princess, or just a grownup, really sets the stage for how a beautiful dress makes a woman feel as an adult. Maybe it's just that I'm still young, but whenever I dress, really dress, a part of me feels like it's all make-believe—like anything could happen.

A slow day at work really allows one's mind to drift, and mine was drifting all over the place. Luckily I had Tomás to engage me. Ruthie is fun to be on with when it's crowded—she's queen of the side-eye and one-liner, and her running commentary can be hilarious. But when it's quiet, Tomás is my guy. When you're on with Ruthie on a slow day, she gives you a lot of breaks, which for her hold the promise of another cigarette. She'll say, “Go take an extra break,” so she can take extra breaks, which end up costing me extra money as I wander around the store making mental notes of everything I want to buy with my next paycheck. With Tomás we both generally just stick it out on the floor together. To make the time go faster we'll play games like guess who or I spy. On that day we played I spy, because we were both exhausted and didn't have the brainpower for anything more. It was his turn.

“I spy with my tired bloodshot eye something blue.” He looked at me with a sad face, and I got that he was talking about my mood. He was quite observant, Tomás. We'd become really close friends lately.

“I'm fine. Please play for real. I don't want to think about anything today.”

“Fine. I spy with my tired bloodshot eye something else blue.” He looked in the direction of a passing customer and I laughed.

“I see it,” I said. It was the head of one of those naturally gray-haired women who dye their own hair and don't seem to notice that it's blue—a little late in life for a punk-rock stage.

My turn. I looked out the window. “I spy with my little eye something…cracked.”

“Is it that little crack on Lexington that you used when we played last week?”

“Actually it is, but take a look—it's huge. It nearly crosses the whole street!”

He looked. “Wow, someone should say something about that to someone.”

“Someone should. You're up.”

He turned his attention back to the interior of the store. “
Dios mio!
” he cried. “I spy your short, shallow, and now shameless ex-boyfriend.”

I followed his line of sight. “I goddamn see it. Ugh. Game over.”

Flip Roberts walked directly toward us through the dress department. He had come in with the excuse of buying his wife a gift. It was the first time that I had seen him since Turks and Caicos and, more important, the first time the sight of him hadn't rocked me to my core.

I called him right out on his reason for being there. “Really, Flip? There are like a thousand places to buy a gift in this city—”

He interrupted me with what he thought was a joke: “Out of all the dress joints in all the towns in all the world, he walks into mine.” It was just the kind of clever thing that I would have laughed at when I was dating him. Now it just seemed hopelessly unoriginal…like him.

“I really came to see you,” he said disingenuously. “I assume from the photo on Page Six this morning that you and your boyfriend broke up, and I just wanted to see if you were doing okay.”

What photo on Page Six?
I couldn't hide my shock, or the fact that the thought of a photo of Jeremy with another woman made me want to throw up, so I spun it.

“You're a married man, Flip! Do you really think your wife would appreciate your checking in on your old girlfriend like this?”

“She doesn't know I'm here.” His response was pathetic.

“I figured as much,” I said disapprovingly.

“I haven't stopped thinking about you since we bumped into each other, and when I saw the
Post
this morning, well, I thought maybe—”

I really didn't care what he thought, and I wanted to make that clear. I interrupted him. “I'm glad you came in,” I said, rather cruelly. His face lit up. “I've been wanting to thank you.”

“Thank me?” he asked, confused but hopeful. I couldn't believe I'd ever had it so bad for this guy—he was such a tool.

“Yes. If you hadn't realized that something was lacking in our relationship, I might have spent my whole life with you—my whole life feeling less than, when really I am so much more than. Thanks to you, I didn't settle for that.”

He jumped at the bait. “But you're not less than, you're incredible, and I was just too stuck on some snobby version of who I thought I deserved to marry.”

“Who you deserve to marry? I can tell you one thing, you don't deserve me! Go home to your wife, Flip.” I walked away with tears in my eyes and made a beeline for the dressing room. But I wasn't crying over Flip Roberts. I was crying over Jeremy.

After our parting in Turks and Caicos he had called nearly every day. At first his messages were about wanting to win the fight, wanting to be right. Then they turned apologetic. And the last one just said, “I will always miss you but won't bother you anymore.” It had been a week since then. While I was drawing this out like some kind of Greek tragedy, he was playing the Hollywood version and moving on.

Tomás knocked on the dressing-room door. He was carrying the paper. “Sorry,” he said. “Do you want to see it for yourself?” There in black and white was Jeremy lip-locked to a woman on a ski lift in Vermont. The caption read, “Snowbound!”

I let out a spontaneous roar, unable to stop myself from laughing at the joke. “This is from his new movie,
Snowbound
!” I said, still smiling, tears of happiness filling my eyes. “That's his costar, not his girlfriend!”

Tomás had tears in his eyes too. He's such a good friend. And such a romantic! “Are you sure?” he whimpered.

“Of course I am—I read this script. I ran the lines in this scene with him.”

“You should go, Natalie—go get him!”

His energy was catching. I thought about it, running right up to Vermont and into Jeremy's arms. But that stuff didn't happen in real life. And I don't even drive.

“I have no idea where this was taken, and I can't just barge onto the set. I'll wait for him to get back.”

But Tomás wasn't having it. He looked at the picture again. “What if he falls for her? Look at her. Even I might fall for her.”

I looked at the picture. He did have a point. “Even
I
might fall for her!” We laughed as I considered my options.

“I have his publicist's card in my wallet from that photo shoot.” I pulled it out. His office was right around the corner.

Tomás grabbed it from me. “Let's go in person!”

“But the floor isn't covered!”

“Love trumps a lady needing a different size.” He grabbed my hand.

“You should stay. We could get fired!” I protested.

“No way!” he protested louder. “I'm your ride-or-die chick!”

I laughed the whole way there.