City Chicks

Chapter 11

Eleven

“Where are you?” I asked.

“D-d-downstaaairs.”

What was KY Kathryn doing downstairs in my apartment building, coming to see me because her fiancé was cheating on her? Oh wait, that story sounded vaguely familiar.

“I’ll be right there.”

As I turned away from the intercom, the dryer buzzer sounded, signaling that the coffee casualties were clean and dry again.

Phelps made a face. “That’s probably my cue to head out.”

“Sorry.” I gestured at the door. “I need to go down and get her.”

“Only builds the anticipation,” he said as he pressed a soft kiss to the corner of my mouth. “I’ll see myself out.”

I lifted up on my toes and gave a kiss of my own. “You’re the best.”

While he headed for the laundry room, I grabbed my keys and opened the door.

“Oh, and Lydia,” he called without turning back, “I am taking you to Italy.”

The door closed behind me with a whooshing click and I sighed. There was something about Phelps Elliot that made a girl quiver. On the inside and the outside.

Now if only I knew whether that was a good thing or not.

On the ride down in the elevator, tissue box in hand, I mentally ran through all the possible reasons that KY Kathryn had come to me, of all people.

Not only were we not close, but we had never even had a complete conversation. She had her perfect life and her perfect friends and didn’t need me, a thrown-over fiancé with no ring on my finger and no Barnard on my transcript.

The only answer I came up with was that I had once played the role of jilted fiancé.

The elevator doors slid open and I entered the tear-fest. Kathryn looked worse than I had ever seen a KY look. Her hair hung in ratty strings around a face free of makeup except for black smudges beneath tear-reddened eyes. Unlike the polished Kathryn I usually saw at work, this defeated Kathryn wore a holey Barnard t-shirt with half the letters rubbed off and a pair of well-worn sweatpants. This was a picture not of an elegant, vengeful KY, but of a downtrodden and heartbroken woman.

Kathryn looked up at me with all the haunting desperation of the world in her eyes. And broke into a fresh round of wails.

“Come on, Kathryn.” I patted her awkwardly on the shoulder in an attempt at friendly sympathy. “Let’s go upstairs and you can tell me all about it.”

Handing her the box of Kleenex, I guided her to the elevator. She only sobbed harder.

“Tell me what happened,” I encouraged as we entered my apartment, hoping the ride had given her time to get control enough to actually talk to me.

She plopped inelegantly into my chofa and wiped at the tears and mascara smudged beneath her eyes. “Victor is cheating on me.”

“Did you catch him?” I grabbed the basket under the end table and pulled out the pristine package of Belgian chocolate seashells. Serious situations call for serious sugar.

Kathryn plucked a dozen tissues and blew her nose like a foghorn. “He said he was working late and I called the office and they said he wasn’t there.”

“Maybe he had a business dinner,” I proposed as I held out the box and she took a marbled seahorse from the selection. “Maybe he—”

“No,” she said around a mouthful of chocolate. “I called his driver. He was at that new dinner club in Midtown.”

“It could still have been a—”

“I saw him. With his secretary.” She dabbed at her eyes as they watered again. “Huddling.”

“Huddling?”

“Close huddling.”

Well that did sound pretty incriminating. And it sounded like Kathryn had some doubts in the first place. “Why did you call to check up on him? Are you two having problems?”

Tucking her feet up under her on the chofa, she reached for another seahorse before continuing. “He’s been spending more and more nights working late. And he’s more distant. Especially when we’re intimate,” she continued despite my sudden fidgeting at the encroaching too-much-information zone, “he seems preoccupied and he’s spending less time on fore—”

“What did he say when you asked him about it?” I rushed out before she could divulge all the secrets of her s*x life.

She didn’t answer, instead focusing on tearing her tissue to shreds.

“You didn’t ask him?

She shrugged. “I know what I saw.”

“It would be better if you talked to him, Kathryn.” I retrieved the cordless from the kitchen and handed it to her. “For your peace of mind.”

She stared at the phone then looked up at me with sad eyes. “Did you talk to Gavin when it happened?”

I shouldn’t have been surprised by either her question or her apparent knowledge of the details of our break-up. As I looked at her, a sorry heap surrounded by crumpled Kleenex, I saw a reflection of myself two years ago. Me in ratty Columbia sweats planted on Bethany’s couch and surrounded by empty candy wrappers. Drained of every last drop of energy and confidence. If Bethany hadn’t kicked me out of the apartment every morning at seven I would have lost my job.

It had been months before I went out for anything even resembling a social occasion. Months of days filled with work and self-pity and weekly trips to the candy aisle.

And as much as I despised the KYs and all they stood for, I would never wish that miserable agony on any woman.

So I answered honestly.

“No, we never talked.” I pushed the phone into her hand. “And look how that wound up.”

After several silent moments of consideration and tissue shredding Kathryn took the phone and dialed the number.

“Victor?” she asked, her voice breaking with emotion.

She looked to me for encouragement and I managed a genuine smile.

Her jaw set in determination and she boldly asked, “Are you having an affair?”

One hour and countless apologies and assurances later, Victor escorted Kathryn from my apartment. Turned out he had been working tons of overtime to surprise her with an Aegean cruise for their honeymoon.

By the time they left I was so sick of baby talk and endearments that I might have given up Jelly Bellies for life just to silence them.

I closed the door on their clinging embrace and faced my suddenly empty apartment. It had always felt like home. A comforting and welcoming space with the right mixture of cozy and spacious.

Right now it felt desolate.

Something was missing, something more than a table or a painting. Something emotional.

“Maybe I need candy,” I said out loud, maybe to hear the sound of a voice and maybe convince myself that was all I really needed.

But for once in my life candy was not the solution. That in and of itself should have floored me, if not for the greater problem at hand.

For the first time in two years I began to question whether I had done the right thing in dissolving the relationship with Gavin without so much as a this-is-over talk. Admittedly, I had caught him in a significantly more compromising position—meaning his secretary kneeling at his feet and his pants around his ankles—but that didn’t mean I didn’t need closure.

He’d said we needed to talk. He was right.

Before I could think myself out of it, I picked up the phone and dialed Gavin’s number.

When the machine picked up I nearly wimped out. Then I thought of all the heartache I had gone through, and all the heartache I had just saved Kathryn from, and I firmed up my resolve.

At the beep I left my brief message. “You’re right. It’s time we talked.”

With that long-due conversation irretrievably in the works, that left me with a looming realization. Somehow I had just made friends with a KY and I didn’t know what to think about that. And the scariest part was realizing that they—or at least Kathryn—had all the same feminine insecurities as other women. As me.

The fresh pint of Heath Bar ice cream in my freezer called to me, promising to help digest this new information.

I had just dug a spoon from the drawer when the door buzzer rang.

This night was never going to end.