“Listen, if he’s not sure he wants me, then I don’t want him.”
“Don’t lie to me, Pru. I know you too well.”
“I mean, I don’t want him to do anything on account of me. He needs to figure out where he is with Lila. And if he wants to be with her, he should be with her. And if he doesn’t, well, he needs to say so.”
“You didn’t give the guy a thing, did you? You just threw him back to the sharks, with no escape route?”
“I thought this notion of dating as a game was outmoded.”
“You thought wrong, sweetheart. And it’s not a game, it’s a war. Winner take all.”
“Thank you, Joan Collins.”
“Anyway, I’m not saying play a game. I’m saying give the guy something to hold on to. He’s floundering out there, and you throw him a stone. I mean, what if this guy is your destiny? Are you going to give up on your destiny so easily? On your whole future? On your children’s future?”
“What if I’m not up to my own destiny?” she said. “What if I’m the wrong girl for my destiny?”
The real estate agent came back into the bathroom. “What do you think?” he said, brightly. Of course he was from McKay’s vast network of gay professionals and friends. On the ride over to the house in his BMW, Pru saw a plastic Playskool phone, the kind with the smiley face on the dial. While they were driving, he’d snatched up the receiver and said, Hold all calls, Joyce! Gay men, she had noticed, were in fact an extraordinarily happy bunch. Maybe there was something in all that sleeping around and staying friends, spending their disposable income on toys and cars.
McKay scootched over in the bathtub. “Let’s see if you can get in here, too,” he said to the agent.
JUST BEFORE MC KAY DROPPED HER OFF AT HOME, HE said, “Listen, we’re really getting married. In the spring, in Provincetown. Put it in your planner.”
Pru looked at him in surprise. “Really? That’s exciting.”
“I don’t know. I’m worried that this is all because we’ve gotten to be a boring old couple, and we need to do something for excitement. Do you think that’s why?”
“I don’t think Bill finds you boring,” said Pru. “I think you guys are crazy about each other.”
“Well, he’s stuck with me,” said McKay. “Anyway, we were hoping you’d be in the wedding.”
“You know I will. Always the bridesmaid.”
“I hope it was okay to tell you. I know it’s a little weird.”
“No, it’s okay,” Pru said. “I guess I better get used to it. Even my gay friends are getting married before I do. And it’s not even legal in forty-nine states.”
Seventeen
Nadine liked to say, among other things, “When a door closes, a window opens.”
This had never seemed like a particularly good deal to Pru. What was a window, after all, compared to a door? A window was smaller and not always where you could reach it. It wasn’t intended to get you out of the house, in case of a fire. In fact, it had probably been painted shut by the previous owners. She had to guess that her mother’s point was: In a real pinch, it’ll do.
Edie was happy to let Pru help out at the shop over the Christmas rush and then stay on after the holidays. Her father was ill and she was having a hard time taking care of him while working at the store. She taught Pru how to handle the merchandising, and how to use her financial software. Pru was glad to have even a little more money, so that she didn’t have to draw on the inheritance she’d received when Leonard died. Christmas and Annali’s birthday had pretty much wiped out her severance. She bought extravagant presents for everyone, hoping to fill up the big empty holes in their lives.
Working at the shop gave her a reason to get dressed and out of the house. Patsy had signed on with one of the temp agencies in town, and most days they had something for her. She would get calls to report to the downtown law offices, where she typed up documents and did filing. She learned not to let on that she could probably fix the copy machine, whenever it broke. The lawyers she worked with liked flirting with her. With her jumble of hair and her nose ring, and her utter lack of interest in the partners, she stood out like an exotic bird next to the grimly hardworking, black-suited women of the firm. A couple of the partners had even asked her out, but she always said no. Patsy found lawyers reprehensible.
Patsy left first in the morning, so she could take Annali to preschool before heading downtown for her current assignment. Pru had a nice hour or so alone to herself, to read the paper, walk the puppy, and drink coffee. Then she walked down Connecticut to Edie’s, where she’d help the few customers who’d wander in, or work on organizing the stockroom or Edie’s hopelessly tangled finances. Edie came in sometime in the early afternoon, after settling her father down for his nap. Pru was glad to have coworkers again. There was the little guy, Paco, who folded the clothes, and Edie, and the stylists at the hair salon across the street, and the Vietnamese women in the nail salon upstairs. “Good morning, sweetie,” they said to each other, and “Pretty,” touching each other’s clothes, and, yawning, “Lord, I’m tired.” It seemed to Pru that they spent a lot of time walking around, yawning, touching things, and saying, “Lord, I’m tired.” They made excursions for coffee and lunches. Mai came down looking for an aspirin. Pru ran over to the hair salon when she needed change.
She even had her own regular customer. Her name was Lola, and she was about ninety years old. She told Pru that she used to be Eleanor Roosevelt’s press secretary. Her ankles were
