All in all, Pru felt, it didn’t seem like a grown-up life—living with her sister, trying to get over John, and working retail. It was like being in college again, except with a little more money. Grown-up life didn’t involve so much hanging around, being called “sweetie,” talking about what kind of chocolate to try, and whether the nail polish color “Cherries in the Snow” was a truer red than “Redcoat Red.” Grown-up life was the thing that would resume, once this phase of Pru’s life was over. This was just the intermission. Circling the airport. The little voice in the back of her mind, when it wasn’t taunting her about John Owen, liked to bark, This is your life? This is why you’ve had a job since you were sixteen years old, and got a graduate degree in nineteenth-century British literature, which took you ten years to pay off? So you could become a lowly . . . shopgirl?!
ONE DAY, EDIE WALKED INTO THE SHOP AND ANNOUNCED that they were going on a buying trip to New York. They would be given private tours of designers’ new lines, and make purchases for the store. She wanted Pru with her. Pru agreed to go along, mostly to make sure they’d bring back more double-digit sizes. The twos and fours looked great on the mannequins, but she was still seeing too many average-sized women leave the store, empty-handed and discouraged, because Edie failed to stock twelves or fourteens.
Also, it was a chance to see her friend Kate, who could always be counted on for solace after a good heartbreak. Kate was frequently going through heartbreak herself, in one form or another.But when she called, later that night, Kate said, “Listen, I’ve been meaning to tell you. I’m seeing a doctor.”
For years, Kate had been talking about her nonexistent throat cancer. Every cold, every cough, every catch in the throat was carefully scrutinized for possible malignant causes. It all started when she was twenty-nine, and realized she had been a smoker for more years of her life than she had not. At least it had gotten her to quit.
“Good,” Pru said. “It’s about time you sought medical attention.”
“No, I mean, dating a doctor,” Kate said. “I met him at the gym.”
“Wow. Well, will he be able to administer your chemo?”
“I asked him to feel my throat!” she laughed.
“It seems so grown-up,” Pru said. “A doctor.”
“I know,” she said. “He’s a nice, stable, normal guy. Can you believe it?”
Pru felt a little twinge of jealousy. Kate was drawn, as if by a force beyond herself, to the unavailable ones. The married, the phobic, the plain lazy or narcissistic. Poets. Priests. That kind of guy. Pru was the one who was supposed to be dating some nice, stable, normal guy. That was the way it was always, always, always supposed to have been.
Eighteen
A few hours before she was supposed to leave for New York, she was still unpacked, and instant-messaging with Kate about where to meet that night, when Patsy burst through the front door, breathless.
The door’s bursting open upset Whoop, and he jumped up, which triggered the puppy Jenny to jump up, too, and go sprinting after him. If they owned anything like a Ming vase, Pru thought, it would be crashing to the ground right about now. Except, of course, they didn’t.
Patsy rolled Annali’s stroller over Pru’s foot, in her excitement. “Tell her, honey,” she said to Annali.
“We found a new ’partment!” Annali announced. Her cheeks were flushed, as were Patsy’s.
“I found us an apartment,” Patsy said, nodding. She was flushed and out of breath.
“Three bedrooms, a deck, and a dining room. Oh my God, hardwoods, and you won’t believe the price.”
Us? thought Pru, pushing the stroller off her foot.
“You’ll love it. I mean, we can’t keep living here!”
Pru realized she hadn’t given their situation as much thought as perhaps she ought. They were living together day to day, but she hadn’t really considered making it permanent. But Patsy was so happy and excited that she didn’t want to say anything that would ruin her mood.
“Even better, it’s just around the corner,” Patsy added, all in a rush. “Moving will be a snap!”
“Why does everyone say that?” said Pru, closing up her laptop and rolling up the cord. “You still have to pack up your stuff, put it on a truck, take it off a truck, and put it all away. The driving it a thousand miles across the country is the easy part.”
“It’s rent-controlled,” Patsy said, turning the stroller around, “so it’s not going to last. Noah tipped me off about it, at drop-off this morning. It’s practically right next door to them! The kids can play together all the time! So, come on, stop sitting there looking reluctant and get your coat. You have to come see it now. Right now.”
“I have to go to New York,” Pru said. “I can’t go look at an apartment now. I haven’t even packed.”
“Throw your stuff in a bag. Grab a cab and have it wait for you. We’ll go and sit on it, so no one else takes it.”
Pru started to laugh. “It’s not a parking space, Pats!”
“Please,” said Patsy. “This place reeks of despair. We have to get out of here.”
“It does not reek of despair,” said Pru. “We reek of despair.”
“Just come and see it. If you don’t
