“Be Sure:” part 3 (of 4)
Her best friend had everything she didn’t—including a husband.
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Weeks later. July, about to become August, and the streets were boiling.
More of the customers at Suzanne’s ate on our curbside patio. We installed it during the pandemic, to help keep our business active. While many restaurants have since taken theirs down, we kept ours. It’s wooden, seats ten, has plants and even a dark green carpet.
Some Prada-wearing bitch and her husband ate there. They disputed their bill, claiming I overcharged them. I had to break out the menu and shove it in her over-eyelined, Botoxed face so she could see the shrimp cocktails were, in fact, twenty-three bucks each, not twenty. Neither of which would‘ve put a dent in her Amex account anyway.
They left. A hand rested on my shoulder and I turned.
“Dom. What are you doing in the city?”
“Running an errand for my boss. I was in the neighborhood and remembered you said you worked nearby.”
I didn’t realize we were friendly enough yet for me to warrant an unsolicited visit. Hmm…
“How long you here till?”
“I have to be back in Newark by six.”
“I’m off at four. Wanna have a drink?”
A couple of hours later, we met several blocks south of St. John’s Cathedral, at this bar on Manhattan Avenue. I’d been there before: old, out of the way and as un-trendy as it gets. Perfect. The overhead fan didn’t work, though. Points off. I ordered a beer—a ginger ale for him; technically he was still on the job—and we sat in a booth.
I had a hunch about him based on last month. But it couldn’t be right. Could it?
“I’ve never been any good at art, so I wouldn’t know about painting from live models. “He took another sip. “That must be excruciating. Classrooms full of people, staring at you naked…”
“One, it’s not sexual. Two, I needed to do it. I needed a way to be comfortable with… this.” I patted my tummy and chuckled. “Because at this point, lemme tell ya, I’m stuck with it.”
“You say that like it’s a negative.”
Another self-deprecating wisecrack was on my tongue, but I stopped and stared at him for a minute.
“I’m curious. When you showed me that pic of you and Amie, you said you knew after your first date she was it. How? I mean, I knew Amie was special since school, but that was years ago.”
He fidgeted.
“Hell, you only need to be with her once to know she’s worth a billion dollars.”
“Yeah, but a lot of guys would’ve turned around and gone home after seeing their blind date was a fat chick.”
“She wasn’t that fat. C’mon.”
“Why did you show me that old photo of her? She was embarrassed by it. Surely you had a newer one. With a slimmer Amie.”
“It was… the first one I saw when I scrolled.”
“Why did you see me today, Dom?”
He didn’t say a word.
“You know what I think?” I took a long swallow of my beer and wiped my lips. “I think your blind date with Amie was supposed to be a joke. That’s why your friends were shocked at your engagement. I think you want the old Amie back and don’t know how to tell her.” I leaned forward.
“And I think you came here today because I’m the type of chick you secretly prefer.”
He sweated, but I doubted it was from the heat. He gazed into my eyes and his lips twisted as if his words struggled to come loose. There were probably lots of things he wanted to say at that moment. Some of them might’ve been true.
Instead he grabbed me by the neck and kissed me.
There were four or five other people in the whole bar. None of them paid us any mind when we rushed to the bathroom, entered the stall and locked it.
We didn’t stay long because he had to get back to work soon.
***
Wait, please! Before you call me a homewrecker, before you label me all kinds of things for betraying my friend, things I deserve, I won’t deny it, at least let me attempt a defense:
Did I meet Dom with the intent to seduce, if not fuck, him? Guilty as charged. From the moment I saw him at the beach—and I now believe he looked at me with the puppy-dog gaze, not Amie—I’ve made no secret of my raging lust for him and my jealousy that she scored him and not me. I had no idea how far I’d get with him, but I believed I had a shot and God help me, I did not care what she would think. That’s the truth and I’ll have to live with it.
However. In the immortal words of Rob Base and DJ E-Z Rock, it takes two, baby. Dom kissed me. He took me to that bathroom stall with the intent to cheat on Amie and he knew what it would mean if she found out. Or at least he should have. I did wrong, but so did he, and he’ll have to live with that. So put that in your vape pen and inhale it.
Oh, and one more thing: the next time I kiss a man with a beard, he either trims that beast or shaves it altogether. I mean, yuck.
After Dom left, I stayed in that bar, putting down shot after shot by myself, for hours. Missed a modeling session for a Meetup drawing group downtown. Later, the agency gave me hell. I remember feeling grateful.
On the 2 train, I shouted at a mother and her toddler for playing Dora the Explorer on their cellphone too loud. Passengers had to pull me away from the mother before I started throwing punches.
I staggered home, flopped on my futon and snoozed in my clothes.
***
At Suzanne’s the next day, a rainy one, I was a zombie. Normally at my nine-to-five, I joke with customers, talk about life—y’know, express myself, as opposed to the modeling gigs, where I’m all business: I enter the classroom, have a few words with the instructor, take off my robe and pose until the class ends, and leave. Period.
At the restaurant, I didn’t wanna talk to anyone. I just wanted to work. Edgar noticed. He’s the waiter who works with me afternoons. Married at twenty-three with baby number one on the way. When Dolores arrived for the evening shift, he took his lunch break. I got off for the day and he took me to a Starbucks. We shared his umbrella.
I told him what happened because I had to tell someone.
“Wait,” he said, “I thought this girl was your friend.”
“She is. Was. I dunno.”
“But—how could you do that to someone you were so close to?”
“Jesus Christ, Edgar, did you not hear a word I said?” The elderly couple at the table next to us shot me a look. “The story of my life is too complicated to explain and you don’t have the time to listen anyway. I wanted him, and I knew, as much as he denied it, he wanted me. She didn’t matter.”
Edgar leaned back, agape, gripping his mocha-frappa-whatever.
“I’m sorry, it’s just… Cecilia and I are bonded. I can’t comprehend seeing another woman while I was still with her, especially now, and the opposite is true for her. I was raised to believe that’s how it should be when you find your true love.”
Woo boy, did I struggle not to laugh at that.
“Is she your true love? Hell, does such a thing exist?”
“Absolutely.”
I gave him a stare he could not have misinterpreted.
“Be sure.”
I sipped my plain, ordinary coffee. He could’ve been comatose; his limbs froze and I had to check to make sure he was still breathing. Oh dear, was Cecilia not as much of a Polly Pureheart as our boy was certain of a minute ago? I thought of their upcoming baby. For a moment I felt sorry for him… but if they had issues, that was up to them to work out. I had my own problems.
A pair of guys in dripping suits sat across from us with their drinks and opened a laptop. The elderly wife next to us went to the can.
“Are you gonna tell her?” asked Edgar.
I looked at him. Then I looked away.
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Final chapter November 26