The Hazards of Hunting While Heartbroken (17 page)

“No way. I would know. He lives across the hall. I see him every day. I’ve been a regular spectator of his dating life since, well, since he first got a dating life.”

“And none of those romances ever work out.”

“That has nothing to do with me. Lily the cover girl didn’t exactly show long-term potential.”

“Stupid. Stupid. Stupid,” Angela mutters.

“What?”

“Has it ever occurred to you that Kevin picks the wrong women—placeholder girls, really—because he’s carrying some kind of torch for you?”

“Has he ever said anything?”

“He doesn’t have to.”

“Wouldn’t I know if he liked me that way? It’s not like we have a lot of secrets.”

“And you never thought it was odd, that with his trust fund and all the options that affords, the
perfect
Manhattan flat just happened to be the dump across from yours?”

“You know he likes to play at being normal.”

“Not so much when it comes to his personal comfort. He could’ve easily bought that place at Fifth and Ninth. For example. Now I think you’re being willfully blind, Zoë.”

“Well, I think you’re wrong. Kevin would laugh at you if he heard this. And I’m happier than I thought possible with Oscar. So, Angela, I appreciate that you want everything to be nice and fuzzy between Kevin and me, but I’m not going to torpedo things with Oscar because you invented some crush that doesn’t exist.”

She raises one perfectly sculpted eyebrow. I wish I could do that. Raise one and not the other, I mean. Although her ability to pluck her brows like a professional is enviable, too. “You and Oscar aren’t exclusive, are you?”

“I’m not seeing anyone else, if that’s what you mean.”

Angela decides to push a little. “Do you know that he’s not seeing anyone else?”

“He says he hasn’t dated since the divorce and I believe him.” Normally I would tell Angela about my nagging doubts, magnified by his wee hours conversation behind closed doors, but tonight I decide it would just take this conversation in a direction I’m not excited to explore.

“No offense, Zoë, but I wouldn’t rely so much on your instincts. You missed Brendan being gay, and if you can’t see that Kevin likes you, well, then you’re just completely clueless.”

Angela is usually spot on with her insights into the male psyche, but tonight she’s starting to irritate me. Maybe I’m not the guy-savviest girl in New York, but I don’t see any reason I shouldn’t take Oscar at his word. He and I have no reason to fake the glow we bring out in each other.

The bartender comes over to ask if we want another round. Angela nods her approval, but I interrupt to tell him I’m switching to pinot noir. Normally I don’t mind her queen bee thing at all—she’s a magnanimous doyenne, at least as far as I’m concerned—but tonight it’s beginning to chafe.

When her BlackBerry buzzes again, I check my phone. Two missed calls. One’s from work. The other’s my mom. She will want to know whether I booked a ticket for Thanksgiving. She’ll remind me it’s only a few weeks away, and that airfares aren’t going anywhere but up. There’s no message from Oscar. But that means nothing. He told me to call him after I was done with Angela. He said he’d love to come by.

Sometimes I miss the days before everyone was so connected all the time. Even though I’m not thrilled with Angela at the moment, I’m sure that will pass shortly, and it would be nice to think I could have a drink with my best friend, without either of us worrying about whether we’re ignoring someone more important, more interesting, more pressing. When she lays her BlackBerry back on the bar, I pointedly stash my phone in my purse.

“Kevin called me,” she says. “He said to watch the news.”

I wave the bartender over and ask if he can switch one of the TV’s to CNN. Since they’re not screening any major sporting event, he obliges. It’s the top story. And there’s Kevin—on CNN!—looking like a BBC anchorman in a fabulous pink shirt and purple tie. Unfortunately the violet tones underscore the circles beneath his eyes. We’re both so impressed that it takes us a second to realize there’s no sound. The banner at the bottom of the screen reads, “Councilman: I never trafficked child pornography.” Angela calls the bartender back over, but by the time he figures out how to activate the closed-captioning, they’ve moved on to another story.

“So if he never trafficked underage girls, but just somehow tangentially benefited, that makes it okay?” Angela muses as CNN goes to commercial.

“The feds might give him a pass if they can’t prove he was an active participant.” Marvin explained this to me today, but it was probably in the papers, too.

Marvin claims that whoever they catch is in deep shit regardless, because the international trafficking and Internet distribution make the crimes federal offenses. Not that the State of New York should turn a blind eye if the feds don’t jump all over this. Anyone involved in something so vile should be held accountable, especially someone as high-profile as the Councilman. The fact that his biggest donor and oldest friend was just hauled off in handcuffs doesn’t give me a lot of confidence in O’Malley’s innocence.

Angela must be thinking the exact same thing. “O’Malley already lost my vote.”

“Yeah, mine, too, though I’m not eager to tell Kevin that. I’m hoping he doesn’t ask. Or at least asks you first.”

“He probably will, but only because you two are fighting. You’re always his first choice.” The bartender looks our way and Angela tells him she wants to switch to wine.

“We have a cool connection that other people don’t get. It doesn’t mean he likes me that way.”

“I can’t talk about this anymore. It’s too irritating.” The bartender brings us both fresh wine glasses and pours generously from the bottle of Oregon pinot noir I’d been drinking. Angela, who seems inexplicably unstoppable in her quest to strike every one of my raw nerves, asks, “Did you pick an apartment yet?”

“Not yet.”

“Why not?” she prods in a lilting tone.

“I want to look at a few more.”

“If you say you’re waiting for Oscar to ask you to move in, I’m going to slap you.”

“That’s not it at all. It’s only been a couple of weeks. I’m not even thinking anywhere remotely close to those lines.” I’m protesting way too much, and I feel my ears and cheeks redden. Even lubricated with alcohol, I’m smart enough not to voice my real feelings to Angela. She’d probably march me right out of the bar and into a psychiatrist’s office. Fortunately, the bartender picks this very moment to serve the antipasti tray she ordered while he was fumbling with the TV remote. It’s decadent, especially on top of the third round of drinks, and Angela catches me wincing as I contemplate our bill. She softens and says, “I ordered it, I picked this place, and I’m getting the check. You need to save your pennies for your move.”

Which makes me feel relieved and inadequate at the same time.

Oscar is waiting at my place, right before eleven, when I step out of the cab. I thrust a wad of ones at the driver, who peels away from the curb like a teenage boy with a week-old license. Oscar looks delicious with his tie and top button undone and the faintest hint of stubble on his face. He scoops me towards him with his free hand and plants a kiss on my mouth. He tastes like a dirty martini.

“Successful dinner?” I ask.

“Highly. I just landed the biggest account of my career.” He’s beaming.

“Congratulations. What account is it?”

“A company you’ve never heard of.”

My face must show disappointment, because he says, “You’ve never heard of it because it’s the largest holding company in the alcoholic beverage industry. Which is one of the few businesses thriving these days. So I feel like celebrating, and patronizing my newest client. Do you have any bubbly upstairs or should we go buy some?”

“There’s a bottle in the fridge I’ve been saving.”

As we slip through the door, he pins me against the wall and kisses me hard. His free hand grasps both of mine and holds them to the paneling above my head. His new briefcase hits the floor with a thud. His mouth pulls at my lower lip and his hand finds its way up my shirt.

His lips move to my ear lobe and he whispers, “You have no idea how sexy you are,” just as the door swings open and Kevin walks in and jolts me from my ecstasy. I see him in full focus, underneath the unforgiving fluorescent lights of the foyer. His faces flushes and I feel mine start to burn. I think I hear him mutter something along the lines of, “Christ, Zoë, you
have
a room,” before Oscar disentangles himself from me enough to stick his hand out and smoothly say, “Oscar Thornton.”

Kevin, visibly unwilling to be the smaller man, grudgingly shakes hands. “Kevin O’Connor.”

“Great to meet you. I’ve been telling Zoë she needs to go public with me and introduce me to her friends. Why don’t we have a drink next week?” I love how unruffled he looks, even though his tie is undone, I messed up his hair a little, and he clearly wasn’t thinking about meeting anyone two seconds ago. He’s still so manly. So in control of himself at every moment.

“I’m jammed until after the election. Maybe sometime in November, though.” Kevin steps towards his mail box, clearly determined not to walk up the stairs with us.

“I’ll call you tomorrow, alright, Kevin?” I say, as I take Oscar’s arm and make motions to move along.

“Sure,” he says flatly. “Nice to meet you.”

Oscar remarks on the stairs that the campaign looks like it’s kicking Kevin’s butt, and he doesn’t even know the guy.

“He’s like you. He’s one of those lucky people who loves his job, but unfortunately, in this particular election, he’s getting way more than he bargained for.”

Oscar’s big career coup must whet his appetite beyond its normal levels, because he has most of my clothes off before we get beyond my tiny kitchen. He leads me straight to the sofa and we do it on top of this month’s
Vogue
. I push Janice Broadwick’s college file out of the way just in the nick of time. I try to enjoy the moment, but all I can do is pray that Kevin can’t hear anything. Hopefully he’s got
The Daily Show
on.

When Oscar collapses in a sweaty heap on top of me, I wait a minute or so and ask if he still wants champagne.

“Sure, but I’d love a shower first.”

“No problem.” I ease myself out from underneath him and wrap a throw blanket around me. I get him one of the good guest towels from the linen closet. Thankfully, he doesn’t invite me to join him. Even though we’re going at it like rabbits almost every night, I’m not ready to be totally naked with him yet. By which I mean I’m not ready for him to see me with wet hair
and
no make-up. Maybe soon, but not tonight. I had too much to drink at Per Se, and I have the sneaking suspicion that I’d look more haggard than I’d like without my war paint.

When I hear the water start running, I pad over to the kitchen to get the champagne. Just because I’ve had too much wine doesn’t mean we can’t have a teeny drink to toast my boyfriend’s success. Hmm. Boyfriend. I wonder if that’s what Oscar is. We haven’t had that talk, and Angela’s admonitions start ringing in my mildly drunk head.

Of course he could have someone else, but I have no easy way to find out, short of asking him and therefore appearing totally needy and insecure. My eyes settle on his BlackBerry on the kitchen counter. Would it be so bad to steal a quick peek? I pick up the device and see that it requires a four digit code to unlock. I’m suppressing the urge to try a few obvious combinations when I hear the water turn off. If Oscar is indeed my boyfriend, I’m sober enough to realize he won’t want to continue in that role if he catches me rifling through his contacts. But who locks a cell phone?

The little voice in my head cautions me not to question my man’s silly quirks. She says I should be thankful he doesn’t have a lucky shirt he never washes, or an irritating need for friendship with all his ex-girlfriends. She warns me not to be nosy. For once, I listen, abandon my musings about Oscar’s possible extra-curricular love life, and retrieve the bottle of Veuve Clicquot that I’ve had stashed in the fridge since before Brendan left. I haven’t been in the mood for bubbles, but that’s changing.

Oscar emerges from my cubby-hole sized bathroom with the towel wrapped around his waist. I pop the champagne and pour us each a glass. “Congratulations,” I say, with a broad smile, as I step closer to him. He sips the bubbly but his eyes dart to his BlackBerry. Maybe I moved it down the counter a bit and he knows I was looking at it. Or maybe that’s paranoid.

I swear something in his expression darkens. For one ugly instant, my mind flashes back to his throttling of Reiner, and I wonder if my too-sexy-to-be-true new lover might just possess a bit of a nasty streak. The little voice in my head snaps at me to stop concocting drama. She says if I stopped to look, I’d see Oscar beaming at me. So I should stop behaving like a damaged, paranoid crazy person and enjoy the moment. She adds, unnecessarily, that tens of thousands of pretty, smart women would kill to be in my shoes right now.

“You know, on the way over here, I was thinking there’s nobody I’d rather celebrate with.” He sets down his glass and scoops me up in his arms. I gaze up at him and wonder how I got so lucky as he plants a lingering kiss on my mouth.