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Nor did I say that I like Billy about as much as I like the teal silk hanging on the hook above my head. Kate is my friend, and Billy—like that ugly designer blouse—comes with the territory.
Besides, I can’t help wondering if maybe I’d be rooting for Kate and Billy if I had somebody, too. It isn’t easy to watch your best friend fall madly in love when two complete seasons have turned since you last had sex.
“Raphael doesn’t think I should have moved in with Billy,” she says, as I triumphantly manage to hook one minibutton into its microscopic loop. “He said something about Billy not wanting to buy the cow when he’s getting the latte for free.”
I roll my eyes, muttering, “Raphael has given out so much free latte, he should have Starbucks stamped on his, um, udder.”
“Tracey!” Kate giggles. “Raphael is the first to admit he’s a slut, especially now that he’s not with Wade anymore.”
“He was a slut even when he was with Wade,” I point out.
“Exactly. But he has old-fashioned standards when it comes to me—”
“And me,” I interject.
“Right. He wants to marry off both of us, so that we can make him an uncle.”
“He said that?”
“He said aunt. Auntie, to be specific.”
“Oh, Lord. I can see it now. Auntie Raphael.” I shake my head. Raphael is one of my best friends, but he’s definitely out there. In a good way, of course.
“Whatever you do, Trace, don’t tell Billy what Raphael said.”
“About the free latte?”
“About being the aunt to our future kids. He’d probably consider that grounds for a vasectomy. You know how he is about gays.”
Gays. That’s what conservative Billy calls Raphael and his kind.
His kind being another charming Billy phrase.
What Kate sees in him, I’ll never know. Yes, he’s as beautiful as she is, and yes, he’s rich as a Trump. But he’s shallow, and opinionated and ultraconservative—the latter being his worst crime, as far as I’m concerned.
I was raised in Brookside, New York, a small town so far upstate that it might as well be in the Midwest. The people there—including my own family—are overwhelmingly blue-collar Catholic Republicans.
Billy might be a white-collar Presbyterian Republican, but there’s little difference between him and my great-aunt Domenica, who is convinced that homosexuals will burn in hell alongside Bill Clinton and the entire membership of Planned Parenthood.
“Speaking of Raphael,” I say, changing the subject as I fasten Kate’s last button, “what time did you tell him we’d meet him for the movie later?”
In the midst of studying her bridal reflection, Kate drops her eyes.
Uh-oh.
“I can’t go,” she says.
“Why not?”
“Billy—”
Of course, Billy.
“—is taking me to see Hairspray.”
“You already saw Hairspray.” Raphael got us both comp tickets when the show first opened, back when he was dating the wardrobe master.
“I know, but Billy has orchestra seats, and we’re going with his boss and his fiancée. It’s like a work thing. You know how it is.”
“Yeah, I know how it is.”
There’s an awkward silence.
She knows how I feel about her blowing me off for Billy. This isn’t the first time it’s happened. And Raphael is going to be pissed when he finds out that she’s not coming. These Saturday-night outings have been a regular thing for the three of us ever since Will and I broke up. Kate and Raphael teamed up loyally to make sure I wasn’t lonely.
But Kate didn’t come last week, either. Billy was sick, and she didn’t want to leave him.
You’d have thought he had pneumonia, the way she went on about it. Turned out it was just a cold. But she spent Saturday night being Martha Stewart-meets-Clara Barton: making homemade chicken noodle soup, squeezing fresh orange juice, hovering with tissues and Ricola.
Raphael and I spent Saturday night drinking apple martinis and bitchily dissecting the Kate-Billy relationship.
“Come on, don’t be mad, Tracey,” she pleads.
I sigh. “I’m not mad, Kate.”
After all, back when I was desperate to keep Will, I’m ashamed to admit that I’d have dropped my plans with Kate and Raphael, too.
But I didn’t like myself very much back then.
And sometimes, as much as I love Kate, I don’t like her very much when she’s with Billy.
I check out our reflections.
Six months ago, I couldn’t handle standing next to Kate anywhere, much less in a three-way dressing room mirror. Now, it’s not so bad. We’re like Snow White and Rose Red—literally, in these outfits. Svelte Kate with long fair hair and big blue eyes. Not-quite-as-svelte-but-no-longer-zaftig Tracey with long dark hair and big brown eyes.
She catches my eye in the mirror.
We smile at each other.
“You really do look good in that dress, Tracey.”
“And you look beautiful in that. I hope he gives you a ring for Christmas. It would be fun to shop for wedding dresses, wouldn’t it?”
She turns a critical eye toward the gown in the mirror. “Yeah, but remind me that I don’t like gowns with full skirts, will you? This one makes me look huge.”
“Huge? Come on, Kate. You’re teeny.”
“Not in this. It’s too froufrou. When I walk down the aisle, I’m going to go for sleek and sexy.” She reaches for the row of buttons. “Help me get out of it, will you?”
I oblige, still wearing the red dress. I’ve made up my mind to buy it for the Christmas party. Who knows? Maybe I’ll meet somebody there. Blaire Barnett is a huge agency that employs plenty of single men. And a corporate Christmas party is as good a place as any to hook up, right?
2
Wrong.
A corporate Christmas party is no place to hook up.
At least, not according to this article in She magazine, where Raphael is assistant style editor.
The article is Ten Office Party Don’ts, and I stumble across it while I’m sprawled on his couch, leafing through the December issue and waiting for him to get dressed for our Saturday night out.
1. Don’t dress in a revealing manner.
“Uh-oh, Raphael,” I call. “I’m in trouble already.”
“Tracey! Trouble? What kind of trouble?” He peeks around the edge of the chartreuse folding screen that separates his “dressing room” from the rest of the loft.
“Are you wearing makeup?” I ask, realizing that his big dark Latin eyes appear bigger and darker than usual.
“No! It’s an eyelash perm. I got it yesterday. Do you like it?”
An eyelash perm. Oy.
I say, “It’s ravishing.”
The lunatic grins and flutters the fringe.
I go on. “So this article in She says I’m supposed to wear something corporate to the party next Saturday night. Something I’d wear to work. You know the dress I bought this afternoon? Well, I wouldn’t wear it to work unless my office was Twelfth Avenue after midnight and my boss was a guy in a long fur coat and a fedora.”
“Oh, please, Tracey. You should see the editor who wrote that article. We’re talking Talbots.”
This, coming from über-fashionista Raphael, is the ultimate insult. Still…
“I don’t know…maybe she’s right. Maybe it’s not a good idea for me to look like a trollop next Saturday.”
“It’s always a good idea to look like a trollop,” declared Raphael, who indeed looks like a trollop in a snug black silk shirt and snugger burgundy leather pants.
“I thought we were going to the movies,” I say as he steps into a pair of mules that match the pants.
“We are, Tracey. And afterward, we’re going dancing.”
I look down at my jeans and navy cardigan. “Raphael, I’m not dressed for a club.”
He turns to examine me. “You’re right. Tracey—” he shakes his head sadly “—that outfit—” clearly, he uses the term loosely “—has to go.”
Suddenly I feel like a contestant on that TV show Are You Hot?
Buzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. You are not hot enough to proceed to the next round. Please exit the stage.
“Don’t worry, Tracey. After the movie, we’ll shop.”
“I’m broke, Raphael. I used up my weekly—” more like monthly “—shopping budget at Bloomingdale’s this afternoon.”
“Oh, my treat, Tracey. I’ll write it off.”
The beauty of Raphael’s stylist job is that he can actually do that. I can’t tell you how many times he’s treated me to a mini–wardrobe spree on the corporate credit card. Not to mention many an expensive sushi splurge.
“Isn’t accounts payable starting to get suspicious, Raphael?”
He shrugs, running a comb through his longish black hair. “Tracey, they love me there.”
“Raphael…” (I know—but I can’t help it. When I’m with him I tend to mimic his frequent name-user conversational style.) “I don’t want to get you into trouble at work. We’ll go to the movie, and then you’ll go dancing and I’ll go home.”
“Home?” Raphael echoes in horror.
“Yup, home.”
Home to my lonely studio apartment in the East Village. It’s still about the size of the elevator in one of those doorman buildings on Central Park South—and the only reason I know that is because I worked quite a few catered parties in them. The apartments, not the elevators.
My apartment will never be as fancy as a Central Park South elevator, but it’s definitely looking a little better since I started using my catering cash to buy “real” furniture, plus curtains, rugs and even a great stereo system.
Still, that doesn’t mean I want to spend the better part of a Saturday night there alone.
Looking as though I’ve just told him I plan to compose a “Farewell, world” note and scale a girder on the Brooklyn Bridge, Raphael declares, “Absolutely not, Tracey! You can’t go home. We see the movie, we shop, we dance. In fact—the hell with the movie. Let’s just shop and dance.”
“I thought you really wanted to see it.”
“I can’t believe I’m saying this, Tracey, but…” He looks over his shoulder as though expecting to find someone eavesdropping, then lowers his voice to a near-whisper. “I’m starting to think Madonna should stick with singing.”
“Raphael. You? I thought you said she should have been nominated for an Oscar for her last film.”
“Supporting actress only,” he clarifies, pausing to bend over a table and straighten one of his many small glass sculptures. His apartment is filled with outrageously expensive clutter that he and his delusional friends refer to as objets d’art. I call them chotchkes, and you would, too, if you saw them. I can think of a zillion better ways to spend what little cash I have.
“And anyway,” he goes on, “that was two films ago. Let me tell you, Madonna’s no Cher. Her acting went downhill in that last romantic comedy, which I said in the first place she should never have done. And I hear this new one isn’t very good, either. I might even wait for the DVD. Unless you really wanted to see it, Tracey.”
“Me? No! I was just going for you.”
“Then it’s settled.” He gives a single nod and declares with the veneration of a Hells Angel embarking on a nocturnal Harley journey, “Tonight, we shop.”
Shop we do.
Two hours, three cab rides and a pit stop at my apartment later, I’m sitting across from Raphael in a dimly lit bar. He’s traded the burgundy leather for a pair of equally tight retro acid-washed flare jeans he couldn’t resist. I’m in a fetching vintage Pucci print minidress. Raphael insisted on buying me a lime-green boa to go with it—They’re all the rage in Paris this season, Tracey—but it’s draped on the back of my stool over my brown suede jacket. Screw Paris.
“I’m just not the boa type,” I tell him when he begs me yet again to wrap it around my shoulders.
“Maybe not a few months ago, Tracey, but the new you definitely screams boa.”
I glance down, half expecting to see something other than my newly familiar shrunken self.
