I’ll make my mark in the world through writing. I haven’t given up on Yule Be Sorry.”
I groaned. “I wish you would.”
We had been over this before, gingerly. “It isn’t about you and me,” he assured me for the hundredth time.
“No, it’s about an idealized you and a caricature of me.”
“Not at all. You make Ramona sound like a cartoon. She just has a few traits you share. I’m culling from all over, though. She’s a composite.”
Don’t be fooled; the woman was me.
And really, I had to wonder. Because the woman was doggedly conventional and a bit of a killjoy. One of those tiring people who believed every argument had a flipside—who would come out with expressions like “different strokes for different folks” as if she were delivering original kernels of wisdom. (I never said things like that!) The boyfriend, an artistic free spirit, comes to realize that what is holding him back is this girlfriend he’s attached to who doesn’t believe in him and reins in his phenomenal creativity out of subconscious jealousy.
That’s just what I gleaned from the first act.
I didn’t want to be unreasonable. I knew that writers had to cull a little of their work from real life. This one just seemed a little too culled. But what was I going to do, take his computer away from him? I suppose I could have put my foot down, but the hold-it-right-there-buster impulse was never strong in me. And as much as I hate to admit it, I was scared. I liked having Fleishman for a friend, if nothing more; I didn’t want to alienate him.
I consoled myself with the knowledge that it would probably never be finished, or if it were, that it would never see the light of day. The theater world was a lot tougher to crack than we had assumed back in our little college in Ohio. Wendy was going the academic route and following her dreams that way, but Fleishman professed to be burned out on school.
“I’m glad you’re feeling inspired,” I said. Supportively.
Maybe he would feel inspired to write something else.
He raised his glass of cheap house wine. “To new beginnings,” he said.
I clinked my chai tea against his glass. “Here, here.”
He leaned back and sighed dreamily, pinning me with that gaze of his. “I don’t know what I would have done without you.”
I chuckled uncomfortably. “You make it sound as if you’re either about to accept an Oscar or to ship out overseas.”
“It just seems amazing to me sometimes. We’ve been friends for so long.”
“Six whole years,” I said.
“Isn’t that a long time?” he asked.
“An entire lifetime…if we were six.”
He shrugged. “Well, it’s longer than most friendships I’ve had, and the amazing thing is what we’ve weathered. How many ex-boyfriends have you stayed friends with?”
I had to admit that he was it.
“And you’re the only ex-girlfriend I’ve ever been able to be around, too. Most of the time I duck down store aisles and sidestreets to avoid them.”
“I feel honored.”
“I guess the difference is we always knew getting together was a mistake,” he said.
I swallowed. We did?
He explained, “It would be like the old Dick Van Dyke Show, if Rob had run off with Sally.”
I laughed, then stopped abruptly. Being compared with Rose Marie wasn’t exactly my dream.
Besides, what if Rob had run off with Sally? Would that have been so awful? Sure, she wasn’t Mary Tyler Moore, but she could make up jokes, and she could sing. Think of how much fun Rob had at the office. At the Alan Brady Show they were always laughing, but at home, it was just mixups and headaches, the Helpers and Little Richie. (Sally would never have saddled him with Little Richie.)
Fleishman snapped his fingers. “Rebecca!”
I jerked back to attention. “Huh?”
“You were about to start defending Sally, weren’t you?”
I choked on my tea. “Okay, I get your drift. We weren’t meant to be.”
“Right. Most people aren’t meant to be. The miracle is that we realized it was all a big mistake before our feelings got hurt.”
I nodded. “Exactly.”
At the end of the meal he looked at his watch and nearly knocked over his water glass in his hurry to wave down the waiter for the check.
“What’s the matter?” I asked.
“I gotta get back,” he said.
I frowned. “Back where?”
“To the apartment. I have a date.”
So much for companionability. I gritted my teeth. “Really? Who?”
“This woman from the telemarketing job. Dorie. She’s got a painting at some gallery, but I think the gallery’s more like a coffee shop. It’s probably going to be really lame, but I promised to go.” He shrugged. “Dorie’s not really my type. She’s mousy and insecure, but for some reason she’s latched onto me a little.”
I bolted the rest of my tea, cold by now. Fleishman generally went out a lot on weekends. I went out too, if less frequently. (Confession: A lot less frequently.) Still, every time I heard him say he was going out with someone, I could feel a little knife twisting in me.
I could also hear Wendy’s warning voice.
But I ignored it. Like Fleishman said, he and I were lucky that we had realized our mistake before any feelings got hurt.
My first day of work, and wouldn’t you know it, it was pouring rain. The cats and dogs kind of rain where there’s no way to avoid getting soaked. I had a dorky all-weather coat that I threw over one of Natasha Fleishman’s suits. It was Chanel, and pretty snazzy, if I did say so myself. Then I grabbed the biggest umbrella I could find and shivered and sloshed my way into Manhattan. When it rains the subway can be so gross. Even when it’s not hot, there’s something about so many wet bodies crowded into a confined space that starts making everyone look limp and slightly mildewed. Glancing around my crowded car, the moment did not seem to auger great things for the new beginning that Fleishman had been toasting a few days earlier.
As I was scurrying toward the building, I walked through a cloud of smoke and heard someone call my name. I turned. Rita, AKA my new boss, was huddled under a plaid umbrella, puffing away.
She had to speak loudly over the sound of the rain beating down. “Aren’t you early?”
“First day,” I confessed, though I had never had a boss complain about someone being on time. “I wanted to make a good impression.”
She lit another Benson and Hedges. She looked anxious. “I should show you around…”
“I can find my office,” I assured her, even though I was a little doubtful about whether I actually could. My memory of that place was that it was a confusing maze of hallways.
She flagged down a passerby. “Andrea!” Another figure under an umbrella stopped in mid-scuttle toward the doors. “This is Rebecca Abbot. She’s starting today. Think you could give her the tour?”
Andrea and I gave each other once-overs. She had dark curly hair, a Roman nose, and a mouth that turned down at the corners. She was tall and, I have to say, slightly intimidating. “So you’re the latest victim.” Her voice was loud, with a little bit of a scratch in it. “Okay, let’s go in before you float back to wherever you came from.”
“I’m right behind you!”