After I dropped off Lou at his space in Soho, where he was house
sitting for an estate now in the courts, I decided to head on home. The
more I thought about Alex Goddard, the more I felt frustrated and even
a little angry that I'd completely failed to find out any of the things
I'd wanted to learn about him. I replayed our interview in my mind, got
nowhere, and then decided to push away thoughts of Quetzal Manor for a
while and dwell on something else: Sarah, my film, anything.
It was Saturday, and unfortunately I had no plans for the evening.
Translation: no Steve. Back to where I started. How many million
stories in the naked city, and I was just so many million plus one.
It's not a jungle out there, it's a desert.
The truth was, after Steve took off, I hadn't really been trying all
that hard to pick myself up off the canvas and look around. Besides, I
didn't want some other guy, I wanted him. Added to that, I somehow felt
that when you're on the short countdown for forty, you shouldn't have
to be going out on blind dates, wondering whether that buttoned-down
MBA sitting across from you in some trendy Italian restaurant thinks
you're a blimp (even though you skipped lunch), telling yourself he's
presentable, doesn't seem like a serial killer, has a job, only
mentioned his mother once, and could qualify as an acceptable life's
mate. There's no spark, but he's probably quite nice. You wanly
remember that old Barney's ad jingle, "Select, don't settle," but at
this stage of life you're ready to admit you've flunked out in Love 101
and should just go with Like.
Which was one of the reasons I missed Steve so deeply. He was a lover,
but he was also a best friend. And I was running low on those.
Every woman needs a best pal. After my former best, Betsy, married Joel
Aimes, Off-Broadway's latest contribution to Dreamworks, and moved to
the Coast with him, I was noticing a lot of empty evenings. In the old
days, we could talk for hours. It was funny, since we were actually
very different. Betsy, who had forgotten more about clothes and makeup
than most women would ever know, hung around the garment-center
showrooms and always came away with samples of next season's couture,
usually for a song. I envied her that, since I usually just pretended
not to care and pulled on another pair of jeans every morning. But she
shared my love of Asian music.
Anyway, now she was gone and I could tell we weren't working hard
enough at staying in touch. She and Joel had just moved to a new
apartment and I didn't even have her latest phone number. . . .
Which brought me back to Steve. I'd often wondered why we were so
alike, and I'd finally decided it was because we both started from the
same place spiritually. In his case, that place was a crummy childhood
in New Haven--which he didn't want to talk about much because, I
gathered, it was as lonely and deprived as my own, or at least as
depressing. His father had owned a small candy store and had wanted all
his four children to become "professionals." The oldest had become a
lawyer, the next a teacher. When Steve's turn came, he was told he
should become a doctor, or at the very least, a dentist.