Part 13 (1/2)

”Actually, I did have a date tonight,” I said, holding my breath. ”Or I was supposed to. I got stood up.” It all came backthe antic.i.p.ation. The waiting out in the cold. For forty-five minutes. The finally giving up and leaving. The having no one to call. I leaned back against the sofa, stared up at the ceiling and took a deep breath.

He was silent for a moment. ”You okay?”

I'll be okay.

”There are good guys out there, Rox,” he said. ”a.s.sholes too. But don't worry. The good guys outnumber the jerks.”

”I know. I had one of them.”

Silence.

”Well, I'd better get going,” I said. ”Thanks for calling, Robbie. For being so understanding. It's more than I deserve from you.”

”No, it's not,” he said, and hung up.

”There's no elevator?” my mother muttered into the intercom at ten o'clock sharp the next morning. ”I have to walk up five flights of stairs?”

”Well, four, really,” I said, and buzzed open the downstairs door.

The apartment was one of those old tenements, five stories, four apartments to a floor. Despite the two hours I'd spent scouring last night, getting out my aggression and disappointment over my date with a sponge and a duster, I couldn't make it look s.h.i.+ny and new no matter how much Pine-Sol and Pledge I used.

I heard my mother trudging up the steps. She was forty-six years old, taught senior aerobics, was in excellent physical shape and had no reason to huff and puff except to try to make me feel guilty.

I opened the door and saw the top of springy too-blond hair as she rounded the stairwell below. She wore a royal-blue pantsuit and carried a large shopping bag.

She stopped on the landing to the fifth floor, looked at me in the doorway and froze. ”You look like my little girl,” she said, touching her hand to her heart. ”You look like you did when you were fifteen.”

I laughed and ran to her and we hugged. ”Before p.u.b.erty and bleach and perms and s.e.xy clothes.” I took the shopping bag and led her inside. She looked around, her forehead wrinkled.

”You're sleeping in the living room?” she asked when I showed her my makes.h.i.+ft bedroom. ”This is where you're sleeping? The living room?”

”I have a door,” I said, pointing to the two folding screens from Pier 1 Imports that separated my bed from the living-room sofa.

She shook her head. ”This isn't living. This isn't how an adult lives.”

”Mom, this is how twenty-somethings live in Manhattan. Rents are high. You make do.”

I loved my makes.h.i.+ft bedroom. I loved my lumpy futon. I loved the stack of ma.n.u.scripts and Bold Books that lay on my bedside table. I loved the entire apartment, from the tiny white bathroom with its uneven floor tiles, to the tiny galley kitchen that you couldn't even turn around in. I loved sitting on the windowsill of my ”bedroom area” at night, looking out at the night skywell, at the apartment buildings across the street, really. At the twinkling lights promising everything. In every light there was potential.

”I don't get this at all,” my mother said with the accompanying head shake. ”You could be living in a gorgeous three-family house in Bay Ridge with nice furniture and a handsome husband who loves you. You could be sleeping on three-hundred-thread-count sheets that your aunt Maureen bought you from the registry. Do you know that Robbie won't return the gifts yet because he believes in you?”

”Believes in me?” I asked. ”Meaning what?”

”Meaning that he knows you'll come home. He knows you need a few weeks to get this Manhattan thing out of your system.”

Argh! ”Mom, this isn't a pa.s.sing fad. It's not something I'm trying out. This is my life.”

My life. Warts and all. I wasn't going to let one no-show of a date send me running home to my mommy and Robbie. No way.

Tears came to her eyes and she put a hand on my arm. ”No, Roxy. Your life is in Brooklyn. With Robbie. You're twenty-five years old. You should be married and taking care of a husband and a house.”

”Mom, do you really believe that?” I asked. Did she? ”You do realize this is the twenty-first century?”

She ignored me and pursed her lips in the direction of the kitchen. ”Is that a c.o.c.kroach crawling up the wall of the kitchen?”

I followed her eyes. ”It's just a scuff mark, Mom.”

She threw up her hands and set the shopping bag on my bed and dug in. ”I brought you some things from your apartment.”

I wasn't about to tell her I didn't want anything. I wasn't sure I didn't. I'd left some things behind that would give me incredible comfort. Little things, like my Pat the Bunny alarm clock that I'd had since I was seven.

She set a picture of me and Robbie on my bedside table. That wasn't what I had in mind. Roxy & Robbie 4 Evah was written in script across the gold ceramic frame I'd bought at one of those make-your-own-frame places in the mall. The picture was from our engagement party.

”That's it?” I asked.

”I also brought this,” she said, handing me my cropped pink leather jacket with the faux fur trim that Robbie had bought me last year for Valentine's Day.

”This is definitely the old me,” I said, caressing the pale gray fur. I loved the jacket. Not that I'd ever wear it again in this lifetime.

My mother patted my hand. ”I'm starving. Let's go have brunch. And Roxy, there's no old you or new you, Rox. There's just you.”

So let me be me, I thought as we put on our coats (I left the pink one on my bed) and headed to a nice brunch spot in my neighborhood. The place seemed to pa.s.s muster with my mother. I ordered a triple espresso and drank it fast.

”What is this?” my mother asked, eyeing her entree. ”Is this food?”

I glanced at my mother's luncha breast of chicken atop several inches of various layers of rice and vegetables. ”It looks scrumptious.”

She sneered. ”So this is why you broke Robbie's heart and embarra.s.sed your family? For a folding screen and vertical food?”

”Mom, please try to understand. It's not just that I want to live here in Manhattan. It's that I don't want to marry Robbie.”

She shook her head. ”How could you not want to marry Robbie? You've been in love with him your entire life. He is your life. This is a phase. Just like your aunt Maureen and Rita say it is. You'll snap out of it. And look at youyou cut off your beautiful long hair and dyed it back to brown. You're in head-to-toe beige. Your sweater doesn't show your waist off at all. You have no color in your face.”

”Mom, it's called the corporate look.”

She rolled her eyes. ”This is how you're going to attract a man better than Robbie?”

”This is how I'm going to get promoted,” I snapped. ”I'm not looking for a man, Mom. I'm looking for”

”For what?”

”I don't know.”

She threw up her hands and took a bite of her chicken. ”What kind of ridiculous spices are on this? Who doesn't know how to season a chicken?”

I sighed. ”How's Dad?”

She waved her hand. ”How do you think? Anyway, you should be asking how Robbie is.”

”I know how Robbie is.”