Barefoot: A Novel

Brenda on the playground, who once ate a whole jar of pistachios in one sitting in El en Lyndon’s kitchen and then threw up in El en Lyndon’s powder room, the lovelorn boy who had sung a Bryan Adams song at his prom after being ditched by Vicki, was now a man who made money, who wore suits, who met Brenda in snazzy New York restaurants.

“Am I late?” he said.

“No,” Brenda lied.

“Good,” he said. He col apsed into the chair across from Brenda, shed his raincoat, loosened his tie, and ordered a bottle of wine in impeccable French.

Brenda was dying to tel him the story of Walsh. There was no one else she could tel ; her life was devoid of close girlfriends, and she couldn’t tel Vicki and she couldn’t tel her mother. Plus, Erik would be able to give her a male perspective, plus Brenda wanted Erik to know that yes, she did have men in her life other than him. However, in the twenty mil ion years of their friendship, rules had developed, and one of those rules was that Brenda always asked about Erik first.

“So,” she said, dipping into her third cosmo. “How’s everything?”

“You mean Noel?”

“We can talk about Noel if you want,” Brenda said, though, real y, she had hoped for a Noel-less evening.

“I have something to tel you,” Erik said.

We broke up, Brenda thought. If that was the case, she would talk about Noel al night. Good-bye to Noel, closure with Noel, and, of course, the requisite Noel-bashing.

Erik pul ed a blue velvet box out of his suit jacket, and Brenda thought, He has a ring. For me? But even three cosmos didn’t alter reality that much.

“I’m going to ask Noel to marry me,” Erik said.

Brenda blinked. Marry him? She gazed at the box. She was sure the ring was lovely, but she didn’t ask to see it. She had no right to be surprised

—Erik had warned her. He had cal ed Noel “marriage material.” But Noel had a flaw: She didn’t eat. A person who didn’t eat had a serious esteem problem, a self-image problem. Brenda had written Noel off at Cafe des Bruxel es, and she thought Erik had, too. Brenda was mute. If Erik knew how much Brenda loved him, he would have done her a favor and cal ed her on the phone so she could just hang up.

“Bren?”

“What?” Brenda said, and she started to cry.

Erik reached across the table for her hand. He held it tight and stroked it with his other hand. The blue box sat on the table between them, unopened. Brenda heard whispers, and she realized that somehow she and Erik had attracted the attention of their neighboring diners—who thought, no doubt, that Erik was proposing to Brenda.

“Put the ring away,” Brenda whispered. “Please.”

Erik slid the box back into his pocket but he didn’t let go of Brenda’s hand. They had never actual y touched this way, and Brenda found it both breathtaking and exquisitely painful.

“Are you happy for me?” Erik said.

“Happy for you,” she said. “Unhappy for me.”

“Brenda Lyndon.”

She saw the weight lifter approaching their table, but she couldn’t deal with another minute of this date. She pushed away from the table. “I’m going.”

“You’re walking out on me again?” Erik said. “Again, in the middle of dinner?” He started in with the awful David Soul song. “Don’t give up on us, baby. We’re still worth one . . . more try . . .”

“That’s not going to work,” Brenda said.

“Brenda,” Erik said, and Brenda looked at him.

“What?”

“I love her.”

Brenda stood up and left Erik at the table. She was crying for many reasons, not least of al because true love always seemed to happen to other women—women like Vicki, women like Noel. Brenda could practical y see Noel, naked in Erik’s bed, which he had always fondly referred to as his nest. Noel was in the nest, naked, nesting, not eating. Alabaster skin, hair like a mink, naked except for pearl earrings. Ribs showing through her skin like the keys of a marimba that Erik could play while he sang. Brenda left the restaurant.

“Eighty-second Street,” Brenda told the cab driver waiting outside of Craft, who was, of al things, American. Benny Taylor, the license said. “And do you have any tissues?”

A smal package of Kleenex came through the Plexiglas shield. “Here you go, sweetheart.”

Benny Taylor delivered Brenda to her apartment at ten minutes to ten.

“Are you going to be okay, sweetheart?” Benny Taylor said.

He was asking not because she was crying, but because there was a man lingering by the door of Brenda’s building. The man was tal and dressed entirely in black. Brenda squinted; her heart knocked around. It was John Walsh.

“I’l be fine,” Brenda said. She tried to straighten her clothes and smooth her hair. Her makeup would be a wash. She pul ed money out of her purse for Benny Taylor and ransacked her brain for something to say when she got out of the cab. Hi? What are you doing here? Brenda’s ankles were weak, and the