Queen Of Babble: In The Big City

Chapter 7

I’m crying as I measure.

I can’t help it. I’m just so screwed.

And it’s not like I know anyone is home.

So when Chaz comes out of his bedroom, holding a tattered paperback and looking sleepy, and goes, “Holy Christ, what are you doing here?” I let out this little shriek and fall over, sending the measuring tape flying.

“Are you all right?” Chaz reaches for my arm, but it’s too late. I’m already flat on my butt on his living room floor.

I blame the sloping parquet. I really do.

“No,” I sob. “No, I’m not all right.”

“What’s wrong?” Chaz isn’t quite laughing. But there is a definite upward curl to the corners of his lips.

“It’s not funny,” I say. Life in Manhattan has completely robbed me of my sense of humor. Oh, sure, it’s all fine and good when Luke and I are in bed together, or curled up on his mom’s couch, watching Pants Off/Dance Off on her plasma screen (artfully hidden from view beneath a genuine sixteenth-century tapestry depicting a lovely pastoral scene when not in use).

But the minute he walks out the door to go to class—which is basically from nine to five every weekday—and I’m left on my own, all of my insecurities come rushing back, and I realize that I’m as close to striking out in Manhattan as Kathy Pennebaker did. The only difference between us, really, is that I don’t have a personality disorder.

That’s been clinically diagnosed, anyway.

“Sorry,” Chaz says. He’s trying not to smile as he looks down at me. “Do you want to tell me what you’re doing sneaking into my apartment in the middle of the afternoon? Luke won’t let you cry in his mom’s place, or something?”

“No.” I stay where I am on the floor. It feels good to cry. Also, Shari and Chaz keep the place pretty clean, so it’s not like I’m worried about getting my dress dirty or anything. “Shari gave me your spare key so I could come in and measure for the slipcovers and curtains I’m making you.”

“You’re making us slipcovers and curtains?” Chaz looks pleased. “Cool.” He stops looking pleased when I keep on crying. “Or maybe not cool. If it’s making you cry.”

“I’m not crying because of the slipcovers,” I say, reaching to dab at my eyes with the backs of my wrist. “I’m crying because I’m such a loser.”

“Okay. I’m going to need a drink for this one,” Chaz says with a sigh. “You want one?”

“Alcohol won’t solve anything,” I wail.

“No,” Chaz agrees. “But I’ve been reading Wittgenstein all afternoon, so it might make me feel less suicidal. You in or you out? I’m thinking gin and tonics.”

“I’m i-in,” I hiccup. Maybe a little gin is what I need to buck myself up. It always seems to work for Grandma.

Which is how, a little while later, I find myself sitting next to Chaz on his gold-trimmed couches (the cushions are gold, too. If I didn’t know they came from a law office, I’d swear his couches came from a Chinese restaurant. An upscale one. But still), telling him the wretched truth about my finances.

“And now,” I conclude, holding on to my tall, frosty drink glass, the contents of which are mostly consumed, “I have a job—I’m not going to say it’s my dream job, or anything, but I think I could learn a lot—but it doesn’t pay, and I have no idea how I’m going to get rent money for next month. I mean, I can’t even temp now, because I don’t have my days free, on account of having to be at Monsieur Henri’s. And you know how much I suck at bartending and food service. Honestly, unless I sell off my vintage clothing collection, I don’t think I’m going to make it. I don’t even know how I’m going to get the subway fare to get back home from here . And I can’t tell Luke, I just can’t, he’ll just think I’m stupid, like Madame Henri does, and it’s not like I can ask my parents for money, they don’t have any, and besides, I’m an adult, I should be supporting myself. So clearly I’m going to have to tell Monsieur Henri that I’m very sorry, but I made a mistake, and then head down to the closest temp agency and hope they have something—anything—for me.”

I draw in a deep, shuddering breath. “It’s either that, or go back to Ann Arbor and hope my old job at Vintage to Vavoom is still available. Except that if I do that, everyone will go around saying how Lizzie Nichols tried to make it in New York but struck out, just like Kathy Pennebaker.”

“She the one who used to steal everyone’s boyfriend?” Chaz asks.

“Yes,” I say, thinking how nice it is that Shari’s boyfriend already knows all the important people and references from our lives, so I don’t have to explain them to him, the way I do Luke.

“Well,” he says. “They won’t compare you to her. She’s got a personality disorder.”

“Right. She has more of an excuse for striking out in New York than I do!”

Chaz considers this. “She’s also a big whore. I’m just quoting Shari, here.”

I think I’m getting a migraine. “Can we leave Kathy Pennebaker out of this?”

“You brought her up,” Chaz points out.

What am I doing here? What am I doing, sitting on my best friend’s boyfriend’s couch, telling him all my problems? Worse, he’s my boyfriend’s best friend.

“If you tell Luke,” I growl, “anything about what I said here today, I’ll kill you. I really mean it. I’ll—I’ll kill you.”

“I believe you,” Chaz says gravely.

“Good.” I climb to my feet—not very steadily. Chaz didn’t skimp on the gin. “I’ve got to go. Luke’ll be home soon.”

“Hold on there, champ,” Chaz says, and pulls me back down to the couch by the back of my beaded cardigan.

“Hey,” I say. “That’s cashmere, you know.”

“Simmer down,” Chaz says. “I’m going to do you a solid.”

I hold up both hands, palms out, to ward him off. “Oh no,” I say. “No way. I do not want a loan, Chaz. I’m going to do this on my own, or not at all. I’m not touching your money.”

“That’s good to know,” Chaz says dryly. “Because I wasn’t planning on offering you any of my money. What I’m wondering is if you could do the wedding-gown thing part-time. Like, afternoons only.”

“Chaz,” I say, putting my hands down. “I’m not getting paid to do the wedding-gown thing. When you aren’t getting paid, you can pretty much make your own hours.”

“Right,” he says. “So you have your mornings free?”

“Regrettably,” I say.

“Well, it just so happens,” he says, “that Pendergast, Loughlin, and Flynn just lost their morning receptionist to a touring company of Tarzan, the musical.”

I blink at him. “Your dad’s law firm?”

“Correct,” Chaz says. “The receptionist position there is apparently so demanding that it has to be split into two shifts, one from eight in the morning until two in the afternoon, and the other from two in the afternoon until eight in the evening. The afternoon shift is currently held by a young woman with modeling aspirations, who needs her mornings free for go-sees… or to recover from her hangover from partying the night before, whichever you care to believe. But they’re looking for someone to fill in for the morning shift. So, if you’re serious about wanting a job, it might not be a bad gig for you. You’d have your afternoons free for Monsieur Whatsisname, and you wouldn’t have to sell off your Betty Boop collection, or whatever it is. It only pays twenty bucks an hour, but it comes with benefits like major medical and paid vaca—”

But he doesn’t get to go on. Because I’ve already thrown myself at him when I hear the words “twenty bucks an hour.”

“Chaz, are you serious?” I cry, grasping big handfuls of his T-shirt. “Will you really put in a good word for me?”

“Ow,” Chaz says. “That’s my chest hair you’re pulling.”

I let go of him. “Oh God. Chaz! If I could work all morning, then go to Monsieur Henri’s in the afternoons… I might be able to make it. I might actually be able to make it in New York City after all! I won’t have to sell my stuff! I won’t have to go home!” More important, I won’t have to admit to Luke how much of a failure I am.

“I’ll call Roberta in human resources and set up an appointment for you,” Chaz says. “But I’m warning you, Lizzie. It’s not easy work. Sure, all you’re doing is transferring phone calls. But my dad’s law firm specializes in divorces and matrimonial planning—in other words, prenups. Their clients are pretty demanding, and the lawyers are pretty uptight. Things can get really tense. I know, my dad had me work in the mailroom one summer when I was just out of high school. And it sucked.”

I’m barely listening. “Is there a dress code? Do I have to wear panty hose? I hate panty hose.”

Chaz sighs. “Roberta can tell you all about that. Listen. Not to make it not all about you for a change, or anything, but do you know what’s up with Shari?”

That gets my attention. “Shari? No. Why? What are you talking about?”

“I don’t know.” For a minute, Chaz looks younger than his twenty-six years—which is only three years older than Shari and I are, and yet in so many ways, light-years older than that, even. I personally think that’s what comes of sending your kid off to boarding school during those integral tween and teen years. But maybe that’s just me. I can’t imagine having a kid and purposely sending him away, the way Chaz’s parents did, just because he was a little ADD. “She just can’t seem to stop talking about this new boss of hers.”

“Pat?” I’ve heard the Pat stories ad nauseum myself. Every time I talk to Shari, it seems like she has another story about her intrepid new boss to share.

But it isn’t a wonder, really, that Shari’s impressed by the woman. She has, after all, been instrumental in saving hundreds, maybe even thousands of women’s lives by getting them out of their abusive family situations and into new safe environments.

“Yeah,” Chaz says, when I mention this. “I know all that. And I’m glad Shari likes her job, and all. It’s just… I hardly ever see her anymore. She’s always working. Not just nine to five, but evenings and some weekends, too.”

“Well,” I say. Regrettably, I’m beginning to sober up already. “I’m sure she’s just trying to keep afloat. From what she says, the girl who had the job before her kind of left everything in a huge mess. She told me it would be months before she got it all straightened out.”

“Yeah,” Chaz says. “She told me that, too.”

“So,” I say. “You should be proud of her. She’s helping to make a difference.” Unlike me. And, I want to add, Chaz, who is only working on his Ph.D., after all. Although when he gets it, he intends to teach. Which is admirable. I mean, molding young minds, and all. Certainly more than I can say I’ll ever be doing.

But young girls, they do get weary…

Okay, I totally have to stop thinking of that song all the time.

“I am proud of her,” Chaz says. “I just wish she could help make a difference fewer hours of the day, is all.”

“Aw.” I smile at him. “You’re sweet. You wuv your girlfriend.”

He shoots a sarcastic look at me. “Maybe you do have a personality disorder,” he says.

I laugh and take a swing at him, but he ducks.

“What about you and Luke?” he wants to know. “I mean, aside from the shameful secret you’re keeping from him—about your abject poverty—how are you two getting along?”

“Great,” I say. I think about asking him what I should do about Luke’s mom. The guy who’d called—the one with the accent—had left another message, sounding wounded that Bibi hadn’t shown up to their meeting. Again, he didn’t leave a name, but again, he’d mentioned their standing appointment, and that he’d be waiting.

I’d erased the message before Luke got home from class. It just didn’t seem to me like the kind of thing a guy would want to listen to. About his mother, that is.

Of course, I was considering the fact that I hadn’t blabbed the whole thing out to Luke anyway the minute he walked through the door a sign of my newfound maturity and ability to keep my mouth shut.

The fact that I’m not blabbing it to Chaz now is even further proof of my incredible New York sangfroid.

Instead I say to Chaz conversationally, “I’m still doing the tiny woodland creature thing, and it seems to be working.”

Chaz blinks at me. “The what ?”

And I realize, belatedly, that I’ve been lulled into a false sense of comfort by his easygoing nature… so much so that I’ve started talking to him about stuff I normally reserve for Shari’s ears only! What am I doing, talking about my woodland creature theory with another GUY? Worse than just another guy—my boyfriend’s best friend ?

“Uh, nothing,” I say quickly. “Things are fine with Luke.”

“What’s the tiny woodland creature thing?” he wants to know.

“Nothing,” I say again. “Just—nothing. It’s a girl thing. It’s not important.”

But Chaz totally won’t let it go. “Is it a sex thing?”

“Oh my God!” I cry. “No! It’s not a sex thing! God!”

“Well, what is it then? Come on, you can tell me. I won’t tell Luke.”

“Oh, right,” I say with a laugh. “I’ve heard that before—”

Chaz looks wounded. “What? Have I ever ratted you out to any of your boyfriends before?”

I glare at him. “I’ve never had a boyfriend before. At least, not one who wasn’t gay or using me for my money. Back when I had some money, I mean.”

“Come on, just tell me,” Chaz says. “What’s it mean to do the tiny woodland creature thing? I swear I won’t tell anyone.”

“Just… ” I can see I have no choice but to tell him. Otherwise, he’s never going to let it go. And with my luck, he’ll bring it up in front of Luke. “It’s just this theory I have, all right? That guys are like tiny woodland creatures. And to lure them in, you can’t make any sudden moves. You have to be subtle. You have to be cool.”

“Lure them in to do what?” Chaz asks, seeming genuinely not to know. “You’ve already got Luke. I mean, you’re living together. Although I still don’t understand why you can’t tell your parents that’s what you’re doing. They’re going to find out it isn’t Shari you’re sharing your place with eventually. Don’t you think the fact that you have an address on Fifth Avenue is going to make them a little suspicious?”

I roll my eyes. “Chaz. My parents don’t know from Fifth Avenue. They’ve never been to New York. And you know what I’m talking about.”

“No, I really don’t. Enlighten me?”

“You know,” I say. Because he’s clearly never going to let it go. “Get them to commit.”

“Get them to… ” Comprehension dawns across Chaz’s face. Comprehension combined with what appears to be a healthy dose of horror. “You want to marry Luke?”

I have no choice but to lift up one of the gold cushions and hurl it at him in fury. “Don’t say it like that!” I yell. “What’s wrong with it? I love him!”

This time Chaz is too stunned to duck. The cushion bounces off him, nearly overturning his empty gin and tonic glass, already teetering precariously on the uneven floor.

“You’ve only known the guy like three months,” he cries. “And you’re already thinking about marriage ?”

“Oh, what?” I can’t believe this is happening. Again. Why did I open my big mouth? Why can’t I ever keep anything to myself? “Like there’s some kind of correct time frame in which you’re supposed to decide these kinds of things? Sometimes you just know, Chaz.”

“Yeah, but… Luke?” Chaz is shaking his head in disbelief. This is not a good sign. Considering Luke is his best friend. And he probably has insider information.

“What about Luke?” I demand. But I’ll admit it, even though I sounded cool about it—to my own ears, anyway—my heart was beginning to race. What was he talking about? Why did he have that expression on his face? Like he’d just smelled something bad?

“Look, don’t get me wrong,” Chaz says. “I think Luke’s a great guy to hang out with and all. But I wouldn’t marry him.”

“No one is asking you to,” I point out. “In fact, in most states, that would be illegal.”

“Ha, ha,” Chaz says. Then he clams up. “Listen. Never mind. Forget I said anything. You go on forest-creaturing him, or whatever it is. Have fun.”

“Woodland,” I say. Now my heart isn’t just racing. It feels like it’s about to explode out of my chest. “Woodland creature. And tell me what you mean. Why wouldn’t you want to marry Luke? I mean, aside from the fact that you’re not gay.” And that he hasn’t asked. Me, I mean.

“I don’t know.” Chaz looks uncomfortable. “I mean, marriage is pretty final. You have to spend the rest of your life with the person.”

“Not necessarily,” I say. “I think your father’s built himself a pretty lucrative career proving that this isn’t always the case.”

“That’s what I mean, though,” Chaz says. “If you pick the wrong person, it can end up costing you hundreds of thousands of dollars. If my dad’s firm represents you, I mean.”

“But I don’t think Luke is the wrong person,” I explain to him patiently. “For me. And I’m not saying I want to get married to him tomorrow. I’m not an idiot . I want to be established in my career before I start having kids and all of that. And I told him the whole moving-in-together thing was on a trial basis and all of that. I’m just saying that, if things work out, when I’m thirty or so, marrying Luke would be very nice.”

“Well,” Chaz says. “That’s fine, I guess. But I’m just saying, a lot of stuff can happen in the six years before you turn thirty—”

“Seven,” I correct him.

“—and that if you guys were horses, and I were a betting man, Luke’s not the horse I would bet on to come in first. Or at all, for that matter.”

I shake my head. My heart has slowed down. It’s clear Chaz doesn’t have the slightest idea what he’s talking about. Not bet on Luke? What is he talking about? Luke is the most fantastic person I’ve ever met. What other guy does Chaz know who’s memorized every song on the Rolling Stones’ Sticky Fingers album by heart—and frequently sings them in the shower—on key ? What other guy does Chaz know who can take oil, vinegar, some mustard, and an egg, and make the most delicious salad dressing I’ve ever tasted? What other guy does Chaz know who was willing to give up his lucrative salary as an investment banker to go back to school to become a doctor, and help heal sick children ?

“That’s not a very nice thing to say about your friend,” I point out.

Chaz looks defensive. “I’m not saying he’s a bad person. I’m just saying that I’ve known him a lot longer than you have, Lizzie, and he’s always had a problem with—well, let’s just say when the going gets tough, Luke has a habit of getting going. As in quitting.”

I’m appalled. “Because he put off medical school to become an investment banker, then realized he made a mistake? People do that, you know, Chaz. People make mistakes.”

“You don’t,” Chaz says. “I mean, you make mistakes. But not that kind. You’ve known what you’ve wanted to do since the day I met you. You’ve also known it was going to be hard, and that it would take a lot of sacrifice, and that you probably wouldn’t make a lot of money at it right away. But that never stopped you. You never gave up on your dream when the going got tough.”

I gape at him. “Chaz, have you even been in the same room with me for this entire conversation? I just got through telling you how I’m about to give up on my dream.”

“You just got through telling me how you were going to move home and figure out some other way to pursue it that doesn’t include New York City,” Chaz corrects me. “That’s different. Listen, Liz, don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying Luke’s a bad guy. I’m just saying I wouldn’t—”

“Bet on him to finish first if he were a horse and you were a betting man,” I finish for him impatiently. “Yes, I know, I heard you the first time. And I get what you’re saying, I guess. But you’re talking about the OLD Luke. Not the Luke he’s turned into, now that he has me to support him. People change, Chaz.”

“Not that much,” Chaz says.

“Yes,” I say. “They do. That much.”

“Can you give me empirical data to support that statement?” Chaz asks.

“No,” I say. Now I’m really getting impatient. I don’t know how Shari puts up with Chaz sometimes. Oh, sure, he’s cute, in a jockish kind of way. And he totally adores her, and is supposedly fantastic in bed (sometimes I think Shari shares a little too much). But what’s with the turned-around baseball caps? And the Can you give me the empirical data to support that statement?

“Then that,” Chaz goes on, “is a specious argument—”

What’s that Shakespeare saying?The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers? It should be,The first thing we do, let’s kill all the graduate students getting a Ph.D. in philosophy.

“Chaz!” I cut him off. “Do you want to help me measure your windows so I can go home and start on your curtains, or what?”

He glances at the windows. They are covered with hideous folding metal gates, in order to keep out the few remaining crackheads in the city, all of whom seem to live in his neighborhood, for some reason.

They are terrifically ugly. Even a guy should be able to see that.

“I guess,” he says, looking deflated. “It’s more fun arguing with you, though.”

“Well,I’m not having any fun,” I inform him.

He grins. “Okay. Curtains it is. And Lizzie.”

I’ve scooped up the measuring tape and am slipping off my shoes so I can climb up onto the radiator to measure. “What?”

“About the job. In my dad’s office. There’s one more thing.”

“What?”

“You’re going to have to keep your mouth shut. I mean, about who you see and what you overhear in there. You’re not supposed to talk about it. It’s a law office. And they promise their clients total discretion—”

“God, Chaz,” I say, irritated all over again. “I can keep my mouth shut, you know.”

He just looks at me.

“If it’s important, I can, ” I insist. “Like, if my paycheck depends on it.”

“Maybe,” Chaz says, almost as if to himself, “recommending you for the job isn’t the best idea… ”

I throw the measuring tape at him.