The Hazards of Hunting While Heartbroken (27 page)

“What’s that?”

“Make nice with Kevin. He’s afraid you’re some dirty old predator.”

“Right. Sounds like exactly the man I’d want to spend the evening talking to.”

“He’s just being protective. In a brotherly way. Think of him as my older brother.”

“My high school girlfriend’s older brother once chased me off their porch with a hunting rifle.”

“This isn’t Arizona.”

“Fair enough. I’m sure I’ll win him over with my countless charms.” He kisses me on the cheek. Kevin’s at the bar. Oscar goes over to join him. I catch myself holding my breath. After forcing myself to exhale, I turn my attention to Angela and Claudio. He’s telling us about their failed Vespa-driving lesson last night in Central Park.

“This one is dangerous,” he says with a grin, as he pulls a beaming Angela onto his lap. She looks even more radiant that usual.

“You didn’t tell me that your scooter had a manual transmission,” she counters playfully.

“You should have seen her. Right into the bushes and over the top, and she leapt right up from the ground, dusted herself off and said that was only a rehearsal.”

“Your Vespa doesn’t sound long for this world,” I say.

“I’m afraid you’re right,” Claudio says, with exaggerated solemnity. He is stunning, but he’s got something more, a charisma that money and education can’t purchase or cultivate. You have to be born with that kind of charm.

Maybe this guy has something Angela’s other rich Europeans don’t. Claudio has been in the mix with a couple of other guys for over a month, but for the past few weeks, she hasn’t seen anyone else, and he scored date status for this birthday celebration. That’s as close to a traditional boyfriend as I can remember Angela having since college.

Kevin and Oscar arrive back at the table with fresh drinks, and I’m thrilled to see they’re discussing baseball as if there’s nobody else in the room. When Oscar gets up to talk to a friend of Angela’s from the magazine he knows through work, Kevin leans over and whispers in my ear, “He’s alright, I suppose. I’m sorry I was an ass.”

Maybe Kevin’s second or third cocktail, tossed back on top of his second or third glass of Prosecco, poured tonight in lieu of champagne as Angela’s one nod to the grim economy, has lubricated his conscience. Whatever the source of his softening, I’ll take it. I jump up and give him a huge hug. “You have no idea how happy that makes me.”

He hugs me back. Maybe it’s that simple. Maybe our tiff has ended as abruptly as it began. I hope.

Lily begs off after the dessert tray she doesn’t touch comes around. She has an early photo shoot, and she’s due in the make-up artist’s chair in under five hours. Kevin walks her outside and puts her in a taxi. I’m surprised he’s not going with her, but maybe she’s serious enough about her work that she’s banned him for the night.

Angela is making the rounds, saying good bye to some of her guests, and trying to rally her core supporters for an after-party elsewhere. I’m so happy that Oscar actually found lots of people to talk with, besides the super model at our table, that it doesn’t bother me at all when he says he has to call it a night. He hasn’t gotten a decent block of sleep since before his trip to Asia. It’s somewhat surprising that he’s still upright and coherent. I’d be toast.

I go with him to get his coat, because mine is on the same hanger. The attendant is nowhere to be found so Oscar goes behind the counter and reclaims our outerwear himself. He kisses me good night and tells me he just needs a power nap. “Come by after the festivities,” he murmurs, as he drops his key in my palm.

Wow. I wasn’t expecting that. A key must mean we’re kicking it up
another
level. He trusts me to come and go from his place on my own. That’s huge.

“You sure you won’t be dead to the world? You won’t attack me as an intruder in your sleep? Clobber me to death with the bedside lamp?”

“That depends how you go about waking me up.” With a big flirtatious smile, he buttons his coat, pulls on his gloves, and kisses me once more before striding out to face the unseasonably cold autumn air. I watch him go, still feeling his kiss tingle on my mouth and thinking I even love the way he moves. He has the manliest gait.

When Oscar disappears down the hallway, I snap myself out of my happy love-haze, check that my scarf and gloves are still stashed inside my sleeve, and turn to leave the coat room to re-join the party when Kevin appears in front of me. “Zoë?”

“Yes?” I say absent-mindedly. I’m still tasting Oscar’s kiss and I’m stunned he gave me a key. I wonder if it’s just for tonight, or if he means for me to keep it.

“I can’t do this anymore.” Kevin says, and his voice sounds like he has something big on his mind.

“Do what?” I start to ask, but before I can spit it out, one of my closest friends, who was too mad to speak to me until very recently, has pushed me back against the counter and he’s kissing me. Hard. Like he means it.

My brain lurches into overdrive. The one time I contemplated hooking up with Kevin was many years ago, after I came back from that ill fated trip to Belize with my Australian adrenalin-addicted transitional man. I thought there might be something nice about being with someone whose quirks are already familiar, who’s smart, reliable and always there. A known entity. But I never went there, mainly because I assumed if we had that kind of chemistry, we’d have acted on it years ago. I figured kissing Kevin would be like kissing my brother. Platonic. Disgusting.

But it’s none of those things. Kevin’s kiss is insistent, hungry, and not taking no for an answer. And even though I’m still fingering Oscar’s key, I feel myself kissing the best guy friend I’ve ever had back.

Like I mean it.

Claudio clears his throat loudly and turns to look out into the corridor while Kevin and I unlock lips and step away from each other. “Everyone is ready to go,” Claudio says. He’s located the coat check girl and she slides behind the counter and takes his ticket.

The remains of the party pile into three cabs. I make a point of taking a separate car from Kevin. He goes with the birthday girl and I hop in with some of Angela’s girlfriends from the magazine. I stare out the window and watch Midtown whiz by and wonder, quietly and incoherently, what I’ve just done, whether it means anything, and what happens next for me and Oscar.

Angela’s new beau reserved space for her after-party at the Rose Bar in the Gramercy Park Hotel. I perch on an upholstered chair designed by someone famous and stare at the Warhols. Claudio tells us that they recently refused entry to Paris Hilton, which to him is reason enough to patronize the place.

After the waiter takes our order, Angela leaves her post at Claudio’s side and drags me into the ladies’ room. Once we’ve checked that no one from our party is within ear shot, she says, “Told you so.”

“Told me what?” I’m not sure why I decide to play clueless. News obviously travels fast.

“Don’t be coy.” She whips out a lipstick and pouts at the mirror.

“Claudio told you?”

“Of course. He thinks there should be no secrets between lovers, which is total bullshit, but he’s an awful gossip. He said he cleared his throat twice before you guys noticed.”

“He’s exaggerating.” I feel my ears redden. The bathroom attendant hovers a few feet down the counter. She’s taking her time stacking clean hand towels, and obviously hoping to hear something good. Who can blame her? It’s got to be a horrible job, even in an immaculate marble bathroom like this one.

“So? How was it?”

“How was what?”

“The kiss. Don’t play dumb.”

“It was nice. Really nice.”

“Who started it?”

“He did, but I didn’t exactly push him off me.” I turn away from the mirror where I’d been playing with my hair, trying to arrange the highlighted pieces to best frame my face. “What am I going to do?”

She pauses with her eyelash curler in mid-air and says, “You don’t necessarily have to
do
much. Not yet. Kevin knows all about Oscar, and Oscar doesn’t suspect a thing about Kevin. You could date them both for a few weeks and see how you feel. Even if you choose Oscar, which I don’t think you will, by the way, Kevin will be okay because you were open about it from the beginning. And if you dump Oscar, it really doesn’t matter what he thinks of you dating Kevin.”

“Why do you think I wouldn’t choose Oscar? We’re well past the point of dating other people. He gave me a key to his place tonight.”

“So fine. Tell Kevin you’re sorry, but you’re in love with Oscar and you can’t do this right now.”

“I can’t do that to him.”

“If you loved Oscar, you could.”

One of the girls from
Vogue
sashays into the bathroom. Angela gives me a look that says she thinks she’s gotten the last word in under the wire.

When we get back to the table, Claudio is talking nonsense about inviting all of us to spend next August at his family’s villa in Capri.

“Are the taxis really all convertibles?” One of the
Vogue
girls asks.

“Of course. And the rest are boats. You’ll have to come stay. We have the most amazing chef.”

The girl’s eye lashes are batting wildly by the time Angela reappears like a fast rising electrical storm and displaces her new would-be rival from the perch next to Claudio. I’ve never seen Angela so besotted. It can’t be just Claudio’s looks. She’s not as easily plied by chiseled abs, soulful eyes and a winning smile as the average female. Some of her short timers actually tend to be wealthier than they are handsome, but with their resources, they can make the best of whatever the genetic lottery awarded them.

More drinks arrive and the conversation becomes increasingly inane as the
Vogue
girls toss back too much wine and gush about a trip to Italy that will never happen. Kevin sits between them, studiously avoiding eye contact with me. When Claudio gets up, I slide in next to Angela and say, “I didn’t know you had it so bad.”

“He’s wonderful, Zoë, but I don’t know.”

“What do you mean you don’t know?”

“I’m not really a monogamy kind of girl.”

“That’s because you never date anyone you actually like enough to be that way. You go for the guys who can show you a good time, but if you take away the glitzy gifts and big nights out, there’s nothing left. I love you, Angela, but you do have a tendency to fall for the same smoke and mirrors tricks over and over again.”

The little voice in my head wonders whether I’m guilty of falling for a similar type of substance-free glamour myself. She’s speculating, somewhat loudly, that Angela and I suffer from the same fear of true romantic intimacy. I tell her to shush. This isn’t about me. It’s about my friend.

“I’m not falling for them if I’m the one who does the dumping,” Angela says finally, as if she’s really been thinking this through.

“Fair enough.” I don’t want to sail into treacherous waters so I ask, “What do you suppose it is about Claudio?”

“He checks all the boxes I normally require, of course, but the thing is, he
gets
me. It’s like we’re on the same wave length. He knows what I’m going to say before I say it. And I can’t stop thinking about him. Like yesterday, when I was going over the proofs for the January feature on Jimmy Choo, a not-so-little part of my brain was trying out my last name with his.”

“Your name, if you wanted to change it, would go with any Italian name.”

“I know! It must be a sign that we’re meant to be,” she says jokingly. “And I have this destructive urge to tote him home to meet my family.”

“So now you know how I feel about Oscar.” I stir my Stoli Raspberry tonic.

“But do you? Even now that you know I wasn’t off the mark with Kevin?”

“Kevin and I need to talk.” I hear myself try to say this with conviction, but the truth is, I’m unsure what I really want to say to Kevin.

“I don’t think talking is what he has in mind,” Claudio says as he re-joins us. He waits expectantly for me to slide over a chair so that he won’t have to sit three feet away from Angela.

Sometime before two, the birthday girl decides she’s had enough to drink and Claudio gets the check. We all reach for our wallets, but he waves us away, looking almost insulted that we would foist our dollars on him. Of course, he’s a rich man made even richer by the exchange rate. I’m curious as to what three hours for a dozen people in the Rose Bar costs, but I’m not drunk or rude enough to ask.

Kevin comes over to me. “Share a cab?”

I open my mouth to say I promised to go to Oscar’s when the party broke up, but what comes out is, “Alright.” I can always ask the cab to make two stops, or, better yet, I could go home first and get my overnight stuff. I don’t want to be wearing my dress and stilettos again in the morning.

We kiss Angela and Claudio goodbye. She raises one eyebrow and gives me a knowing look. When Kevin’s attention is elsewhere, I hiss at her, “It’s not going to be like that.”

“Of course it’s not, honey,” she says playfully. “Call me in the morning, okay? And thanks again for a great birthday.”

Kevin and I settle into the taxi for the quick trip home. As the driver pulls away from the curb, Kevin looks out the window on his side and says, “So it seems that my secret is out.”

I don’t know how to respond. I suppress the urge to come up with something pithy and pointless to fill the silence and wait for him to say more.

“I didn’t mean to tell you that way.” He’s still looking out the window.

“Well, technically, you kind of
showed
me. Although, if we’re being honest, I’m not completely clear on what exactly you hoped to communicate.”

I’ve been staring straight ahead but now I turn to look at my friend. I’ve always thought he was cute, no, better than cute, but in a totally different way than Oscar. Oscar is classically tall, dark and handsome, and judging by the looks he gets on the street, that’s not a matter of opinion. Kevin’s one of those guys who’s better than average looking to begin with, but his charm makes him even more attractive.

He finally turns his head to meet my gaze. He takes a deep breath. “I love you Zoë. I have for a long time, and not in the just-friends sense. I thought I was being so painfully obvious about it, but in retrospect, maybe I wasn’t. And now you’re with Oscar and it’s literally tearing me up inside.” He looks away again.