The Men I Didn't Marry (21 page)

“I guess I can’t tempt you to get out of here early?”

“Early, but not this early,” I say.

“Lunch? My favorite Chinese place, Ping Tong Palace, is around the corner.”

“Hasn’t been there in about fifteen years,” I say.

“You’re probably the La Côte Basque type, anyway,” he says.

“Not anymore. That closed too.”

“Then where do people eat around here?”

“At their desks,” I say.

“Okay, okay, I can take a hint,” he says, grabbing his beat-up L.L. Bean backpack. “I can play tourist for a while. I’ll come back at the end of the day. Five?”

“Six. Six-thirty.”

“Fine.” He kisses me on the top of my head. “By the way, you look good.”

“I do?” I ask happily.

Kevin makes a face and reconsiders. “Not really. I mean, it’s good to see you. You’re beautiful. But what’s with the straight hair and black dress? It’s just not you.”

“It’s the New York me,” I say.

By six-thirty, I’m feeling more guilty working while Kevin’s here than I ever did being at the office when my kids were home. At least they had playdates. The best I can do is make sure Kevin has a good playdate with me tonight. Since he’s come to New York, this is my chance to show him how fabulous the town really is. Bellini’s gotten my name on the list for a hot opening-night party.

“Ready to go home?” Kevin asks when I meet him outside my office building. He’s decided he doesn’t want to come in—probably ever again.

“Better than that. I’ve planned a big time in the Big Apple.” Excited about our evening together, I give him an enthusiastic kiss. “For starters, I got us into a major opening of Himalayan art.”

Kevin looks at me dubiously. “Why would we want to do that?”

“It should be fun. One of those only-in-New York kind of nights.”

“The only kind of night I want is in your bed.”

“Later,” I say, giving him a little kiss on the nose. “I mean, have you ever seen Himalayan art?”

“I’ve never even seen a Himalayan goat,” he says. “But if you have your heart set on it, let’s go. Just like in high school. I can tell you’re trying to teach me things again.”

We head downtown to the Rubin Museum of Art on Seventh Avenue and Seventeenth Street. The building used to be a Barney’s store, and shoppers who worshipped at the shrine of Prada were horrified when low-rent retailer Loehmann’s took over half the space. But the Rubins bought the other half of the store, and now there are more Prada shoes on display than ever before—on the feet of the patrons visiting the rarefied art museum.

A big crowd is gathered outside and Kevin and I join the line under a large orange banner heralding the exhibition:
Handprints: Twenty-First
Century
.

“Be a lot easier to make our own handprints,” Kevin says petulantly, pushing his palm against the museum’s glass front.

We move slowly forward, Kevin continuing to make greasy prints all the way to the entrance. When we’re finally in front of the broad-shouldered, earphone-wearing, clipboard-carrying bouncer, I confidently give my name. He checks the list and passes us on through.

“I guess we’re the Chosen People,” I say proudly, taking Kevin’s hand. “And we didn’t even have to give up pork.”

He shakes his head. “Why do you New Yorkers only like places where you can’t get in?”

“But they did let us in,” I say.

“Great, and we probably could have gotten into Burger King, too.”

I squeeze his arm. “Better food here,” I promise, spotting tuxedoed waiters circulating with silver trays. One of them comes over to us immediately, probably because in this neighborhood—unlike my office’s— the pairing of Polarfleece and shorts in wintertime make Kevin look like an MTV star.

“Hors d’oeuvre?” asks the waiter. “It’s porcini mushroom with minced crabmeat and a dab of crème fraîche.”

“My favorite,” says Kevin, scooping up five of them, since he obviously hasn’t had dinner.

We edge our way toward the special exhibit.

“Handprints. I’d recognize those anywhere,” Kevin confirms staring at the long wall of framed pictures. He wiggles his own fingers. “This little piggy went to market, this little piggy stayed home, this little piggy had roast beef, this little piggy had—”

“—none,” says a man next to us, completing the rhyme. He’s dressed in all black with rimless glasses. He has a pointed goatee and an intense look in his eyes. I’m sure he’s dripping with disdain for Kevin’s childishness, but instead, he turns to him with a rapt smile.

“You’ve hit perfectly on what this exhibit is about,” he says. “The hand as the fundamental underpinning of human myth and meaning. As the basis for both common folklore and high culture.”

“Right,” says Kevin. To continue proving his intellectual prowess, Kevin makes two fists and raises the thumb of each hand. “Where is thumbkin? Where is thumbkin?” he sings.

“Here I am! Here I am!” chimes in the man, animatedly waving his own thumbs at Kevin.

I’m suddenly afraid that this is a gay mating call, and Kevin doesn’t know it.

But the man is simply thrilled to think he’s found a fellow aficionado of the finger. “What you’ve so innocently pointed out is that the thumb is the engine of the hand, and far more important than pinky or pointer. But it has different significance in Mongolian culture and Tibetan. Come let me show you what I mean.”

I’m intrigued now, so I start to trail after him. But Kevin isn’t impressed. “Pretentious asshole,” he whispers in my ear. “I’m going to get some more hors d’oeuvres.”

In front of another wall of prints, the man starts making cultural comparisons and gesturing wildly—I guess proving that the hand is also the fundamental basis of language. From across the room, Kevin waves to us. With his hands. I’m starting to think this really is an important exhibit.

“Sweetheart, look at this,” I say, when Kevin finally ambles over. “I’ve just been learning from my new friend Digger that the extended middle finger in that painting is a sign of royal lineage, denoting the high status not of the artist, but of the patron who commissioned the work.”

Kevin gazes at the picture skeptically, then extends his own middle finger in the air. “Hasn’t anybody ever told you two what this really means? I think it’s a pretty universal symbol.”

“Stop that,” I say, trying to cover his hand before anybody else sees. Digger may be a little offbeat but he’s also smart, and he’s attracted a small crowd of art lovers who are milling around us, wanting to hear what he has to say about the importance of hands. I look down at my own. Maybe I should have gotten a manicure.

A photographer from the
New York Post
pushes through the throng.

“Digger? I need a shot of you for the society page. With your friend.”

Digger puts his arm around me.

“The other friend,” says the photographer, pointing to Kevin. “She’s a nobody. I can’t have a nobody in the picture”

“I’m a nobody, too,” Kevin objects.

“Then you’re a nobody with great style,” says the
Post
man. “I love the look. So faux downscale.”

“Genuinely downscale,” Kevin says disdainfully. “And why would I want to be on the society page, anyway?”

The group around him titters, knowing that everybody wants to be on the society page. And despite his protests, they still think Kevin’s somebody. In Manhattan, you have to be very rich or very famous to dress with such nonchalance.

Suddenly, the photographer turns away, obviously noticing a celebrity even more worthy of his attention. Or maybe somebody just dressed worse than Kevin.

“Sorry, pal, catch you later,” he says, dashing after bigger prey.

Kevin looks at me and shakes his head. “I don’t understand these people. Your people. Your New York people,” he says. “Your boss thinks I’m dressed bad and that’s bad. The
Post
thinks I’m dressed bad and that’s good.”

“Badly,” I say.

“What?” he asks.

“You’re dressed badly.”

“You think so, too?”

“No, darling. You’re gorgeous,” I say, realizing I’d better not explain that I had automatically corrected his grammar. That would make me sound like the teenage girl who was always smarter than him.

“Let’s see the rest of the exhibit,” I suggest.

“I’d rather just eat some more of those crabmeat-mushroom things,” he says, practically tackling a waiter walking by. But after he stuffs a few in his mouth, he doesn’t mind when I take his hand to wander through the rest of the museum.

We slip away from the crowd and walk upstairs, past textiles embroidered with Mongolian goddesses and silver Shiva sculptures.

“Look, a female Buddha,” I say, admiring a bronze statue. I read from the card next to it. “Gender identity is a powerful tool for exploration of the divine.”

“My feelings exactly,” says Kevin, putting his arms around my waist and nibbling my ear. “It would be divine to explore your gender. All I want is to make love to you.”

I giggle. “Don’t tell me you’ve seen enough Himalayan art already.”

“I’ve seen enough of everything except you,” he says.

He leads me toward a dark alcove, where it’s just us and a painting from Bhutan of naked gods.

He slips his hand down the front of my dress and caresses my breast.

“Ever have sex in a gallery of Himalayan art?” he asks, kissing me.

“Just once or twice,” I tease.

“Then let’s do it again.” He starts to unzip the back of my dress, but I spin away.

“Not here,” I say.

“Why not?” he asks. He lowers his lips, kissing my neck. “Trust me, all these gods and goddesses will give their blessing.”

“But the people downstairs won’t,” I say, squirming away and tugging my dress closed. “Come on, honey. We can’t do this in public.”

“We never worried about that on the beach in Virgin Gorda,” he says.

“Manhattan’s a different island,” I say.

The mood slightly altered, we drift back down the widely elegant, circular staircase, out of the museum, and into the frigid night. We take a cab to Grand Central, and while we’re waiting for the train to Chaddick, I point out the twinkling constellations that cover the station’s vaulted ceiling. Not quite the big open sky of a Caribbean island, but the New York version of Nature.

“The funny story is that the city spent a fortune renovating the ceiling, and after all that, whoever did the map drew it backwards. It’s like you’re looking down at the sky instead of up.”

“Yeah, funny,” says Kevin, who doesn’t seem entertained. In fact, he doesn’t seem like he wants to be here at all. His eyes are downcast and his shoulders slumped, and his arms are crossed in front of him.

I rub his arm. “Are you mad at me because I wouldn’t make love in front of Buddha?”

“No, I’m just—” He clutches his stomach and lurches away from me, rushing down a staircase toward a sign that says RESTROOMS.

I scramble after him and wait outside for what seems like a very long time. I check my watch. We’re about to miss the train to Chaddick, but I feel as helpless as I used to when Adam was in grade school and I had to let him go into a men’s room by himself.

So I do what I did then, and standing at the doorway, shout into the vast tiled room.

“Kevin? Kevin? Are you okay? I’m right here. I’m waiting for you.” My voice bounces off the walls, but nobody answers.

“Kevin? Kevin, do you need any help?”

A businessman in a blue pinstriped suit, carrying a briefcase, comes out of the men’s room and gives me a smile.

“Is your little boy in there?” he asks. “I know how you feel. My wife always panics when our son uses a public bathroom by himself. Want me to check on him?”

“That’s very nice of you,” I say, but I hesitate, since trying to explain why my six-year-old is six feet tall might be a little tricky.

Just then, Kevin stumbles out of a stall and staggers toward us. He’s pale, his eyes are bloodshot, his mouth is hanging open, and there’s a little drool on his chin. The businessman grunts disapprovingly at what he assumes is my drunken companion and hurries off.

“My god, you’re sick,” I say to Kevin, taking his elbow and trying to steady him. “What happened? All you had tonight was seltzer.”

“And crabmeat,” he croaks. “I’ve been poisoned.”

“Food poisoning,” I say, trying to be consoling. “It’s awful, but it goes away. Let’s get you home.”

We make our way up to the trains, and Kevin leans heavily into me. I hold his elbow more tightly and feel his body swaying out of my grasp. “We’re almost there,” I say encouragingly.

But maybe not encouragingly enough.

Thud.

Kevin collapses on the floor of Grand Central, his half-closed eyes staring upward at the constellation-filled ceiling. One way or another, he’s seeing stars.

I kneel down next to him. “Are you okay?” I ask stupidly, because obviously he’s not. He’s breathing raggedly and out cold.

Two policemen rush over to us, their nightsticks swinging against their legs and their guns sticking noticeably from their holsters. They’re each leading a sleek, bomb-sniffing dog.

“No grenades, just bad crabmeat,” I explain as they circle around us.

The policemen are quickly satisfied that we’re not an international threat, but the dogs aren’t sure yet. One of them sniffs at Kevin’s neck, and I want to explain that he usually smells a lot better than he does right now. But the dog and I obviously have different tastes in men because he gives Kevin a little lick.

“That’s nice,” says Kevin, just starting to come to. But in a moment he realizes he’s on the floor with a dog and sits up, startled.

The policeman leans over. “Would you like us to call an ambulance, sir? Get you checked out at the hospital?”

“Yes,” I say, worried about him.

“No,” says Kevin.

“Come on, maybe a doctor can give you something,” I say.

He shakes his head. “It’s okay. A couple of hours of vomiting and I’ll be fine.”

If only. Kevin’s right about the vomiting, but instead of a couple of hours, we’re at day two and counting. Yesterday I played Clara Barton, bringing him ice chips, then ginger ale, and finally by dinnertime, clear chicken broth with saltines. He was cranky the whole time, but no match for Arthur, who practically fired me on the phone when I called in to say I was staying home with my sick Kevin.