I Hate Everyone, Except You(31)

I must have been looking at her chest for too long or with a quizzical expression that she asked, “What’s wrong?”

“Your necklace,” I said. I couldn’t tell her it was stuck to her mole, but I had to say something. “The chain’s about an inch too long.”

“Too long?”

“The pendant. It’s competing with the neckline of your blouse. If you just raised it up a little bit, your whole look would be . . . cleaner.”

She touched the pendant without looking at it and uttered an annoyed grunt. The pendant fell away from the mole and dropped into its intended place. The other two editors looked at each other, and I got the feeling I had made everyone uncomfortable.

“Other than that,” I said, “you’re a star! Can I get you guys another drink?”

“No,” she said. “We’re heading out.”

I told them it had been nice chatting with them, which was neither lie nor truth, and headed back to the folding table with a sheet over it serving as the bar. As I waited for the gin and tonic I had ordered from the rented bartender, an actor by his generic good looks, another woman I didn’t recognize asked, “How many women at this party have asked you to critique their outfits?”

“Eight or so. Slow night.”

“Must be exhausting.” She said it so earnestly I knew she was kidding. With her wavy auburn hair, wide-set blue eyes, and big smile, she reminded me of Cate Blanchett playing Katharine Hepburn.

“You have no idea.”

She smiled and modeled her own clothes with a spin. “So, what do you think?”

“You’re not nearly as dumpy as everyone says.” She gave a fake pout. “I’m kidding. You look fabulous,” I said. “I don’t even know who you are.”

“I’m Cheryl from Redbook!”

As it turned out, I did know her. She had interviewed me several times via telephone for a monthly makeover column she wrote about participants on the show. She wasn’t one of those writers who asked five thousand questions over the course of an hour for a two-hundred-word story only to painfully misquote me in print. So, she was my new favorite person in the room.

“Am I happy to see you,” I said. “Do you want to get out of here by any chance? I’m not sure I can take another minute of this.”

“I’m done too,” Cheryl said, and we grabbed our things. As we were walking out of the studio, my phone rang. Rick, my on-and-off boyfriend of two years, was calling from our apartment a block away. He asked what time I was coming home and I explained that I was going to grab a drink in the neighborhood with an editor I knew. Never one to pass up the opportunity for a cocktail (he and I weren’t too different that way), Rick asked if he could join us and I agreed.

The bars closest to the studio were all filled with bankers who also worked nearby, and I wasn’t in the mood for so much heterosexuality. So we walked a few blocks north to a quiet restaurant I had passed several times but never entered. Rick met us there, and before Cheryl and I could finish our drinks, he was bored.

“We should go to Beige,” he said.

Beige was gay night at Bowery Bar, where every Tuesday scores of good-looking, immaculately groomed, professional men, many of whom worked in the fashion and entertainment industries, would meet for drinks and act like they were better-looking, more fashionable, and richer than they actually were. When I was in the right mood, I kind of enjoyed it. Cheryl said she would probably just head on home, but Rick convinced her it would be fun. He had that effect on people, convincing them they were on the verge of having a truly spectacular time.

We arrived by taxi a little past 10 p.m. and the bar was busy, not jam-packed but headed that way. Beige usually reached maximum capacity around midnight. While Rick headed to the bar to order us drinks, I said to Cheryl, “Let’s play a game.”

“OK. Go.”

“Your phone rings right now,” I said. “It’s God. You know this because the caller ID says ‘GOD’ and because your phone has turned all glowy and sparkly. You answer, and God says, ‘CHERYL! YOU MUST SLEEP WITH ONE MAN IN THIS BAR TONIGHT! THE FUTURE OF THE HUMAN RACE DEPENDS ON IT!’ Then God hangs up and your phone goes back to normal. Now, look around the room. Who’s it gonna be?”

“Can I tell God I’m seeing someone right now?”

“God knows and doesn’t care.”

“Does God care that no one in this bar wants to sleep with me?”

“Let’s pretend a few of them do.”

“I choose celibacy.”

I was a little miffed that Cheryl wasn’t playing by the rules, but I cut her some slack because she was the only woman in a bar full of homos. I was more annoyed that she hadn’t asked me whom I would sleep with if the human race depended on it, but I was determined to play nonetheless. I scanned the room until I spotted the back of some guy’s head that struck me as the most attractive thing I had ever seen. “That one. In the orange stripes,” I said.

“What?”

I remembered she wasn’t really into the game. “I choose that guy in the stripes. On the other side of the bar. To save the world and all.”

“I can’t see him from here,” Cheryl said.

The funny thing was, I couldn’t either. I could see he was tall, about my height, with black hair shorter on the sides than on the top, and wearing an orange, vertically striped, button-front shirt I was fairly certain was by Paul Smith. And then, as if he could hear every word of our conversation, the guy across the room turned around, a full 180 degrees, and looked me directly in the eyes.