Nine Women, One Dress(44)

Halfway between the appetizers and the main course, and well on my way to the realization that I was the fifth wheel, I excused myself to “go tee-tee,” a line that usually had Margot and Halle in stitches, but this time they were so busy trying to impress these nincompoops that I got nothing. As I passed the bar, I decided to prolong my absence by sitting down and ordering a cosmopolitan. I didn’t even know what was in one, just that it was pink. Like most girls my age, the sum total of my knowledge of what to do in a Manhattan bar came from watching reruns of Sex and the City. The older man sitting next to me was dressed like he was someone important, but he was a bit liquored up. He was drawing a pitchfork and devil horns on a photo in New York.

“My girlfriends work for New York,” I said, channeling my inner Carrie Bradshaw.

“I have nothing against the magazine,” he said, slurring a little, “just this nightmare of a woman!” He shoved the picture toward me.

Under his devil scrawls was, according to the caption, an actress from That Southern Play. But it was the strangest of coincidences. I looked closer. There was no question: the actress was wearing my dress! Well, not my dress, really, but the one that got my picture on the front of Women’s Wear Daily and a host of modeling jobs to boot.

“That’s my dress!” I exclaimed proudly.

He plopped down his glass for a refill, and the bartender reluctantly poured him another while explaining to me, “Don’t mind him—he produced what was to be the hottest play of the season and his actress flew the coop.”

“That’s awful,” I said, ’cause it was.

“She was awful,” he answered. “She did a horrible southern accent, and her reviews were dreadful. I hired her only because the investors pushed me to. I’ll never do that again.”

“Like my grandma always says, you lie down with dogs, you wake up with fleas.” I looked at the desecrated picture again and added, in full southern drawl, “Bless her heart.”

Hearing my accent, he didn’t seem to know if I was for real or was just mocking him, so he asked me, “What are you doing at this bar? Did someone send you over here to audition?”

“Audition? Why, no, sir. I’m just getting away from two boys who think the sun comes up just to hear ’em crow.”

The producer’s eyes popped out. “Who sent you? Stephen Schwartz? Nathan Lane? That is quite a heavy accent you got there!”

“Heavier than a cow in a cotton field!” I told him.

And so it was that right there at Sardi’s I auditioned for my first part on the Broadway stage for the producer of That Southern Play. Soon I’ll make my Broadway debut! Not too shabby for an Alabama girl.

I don’t mean to sound like a T-shirt, but really, I love New York!





CHAPTER 25


In Too Deep at the Ostrich Detective Agency


By Andie Rand, Private Detective





The tennis match at Grand Central was great in that we were perfectly matched. I wondered if John and Caroline played together. I thought of them playing on summer weekends wherever it is that they summer and a weird pang of jealousy followed. It took a lot of self-control not to ask him about it. Bringing her up as if I didn’t know her would make my deception feel even more appalling. I resisted the urge. He had to run afterward but asked to see me again.

“I’m showing North by Northwest in class this week. You should come.”

I responded with a quizzical look; I didn’t know what North by Northwest had to do with anything.

“They spoke about it on our Grand Central tour, remember? Alfred Hitchcock, Cary Grant, Eva Marie Saint?” I didn’t, but his enthusiasm was catching and also quite adorable.

I smiled. “Enough said.”

*

That’s how I found myself a couple of days later in a classroom for the first time in twenty years. It was fun—it made me feel like a college student again, when everything was ahead of me, no broken marriage behind me. John gave a brief introduction, then darkened the room, and as the opening credits started, he made his way up to where I was sitting and sat down right next to me. “Glad you could make it,” he whispered before settling down in his seat. I was a bit worried that I wouldn’t be able to concentrate, sitting in the dark like this with John, but the movie sucked me right in. After it was over he mixed a few questions about Grand Central into his lecture—things we had learned on our tour. Each time, his eyes found mine, coaxing me to answer. And when I did, I felt such a strong connection to him, two people in a sea of strangers with a secret.

“Which other Hitchcock film used both Grand Central and Penn Station?”

“Spellbound!” I answered, barely waiting for him to call on me.

I was so eager that a couple of students in the row ahead turned around to look at me, as though wondering what I was doing there. And when I saw their faces, I realized that I didn’t know what I was doing there myself. I shouldn’t have come. I was falling for a married man to whom I was being completely dishonest, and who’d repeatedly talked about his commitment to his (lying, cheating) wife. I decided I would not stick around for coffee after class, as I had promised, and vowed never to see him again.

But two Sundays later I broke my vow. It was my weekend off, and damn if I wasn’t again sitting in my office following John Westmont’s whereabouts on my computer. Okay, if I’m totally honest, I’d checked in on him nearly every day since I had sworn I wouldn’t, but on the tracking device—I didn’t and wouldn’t go so far as to retrieve his e-mails from my junk folder. Obeying that one rule left me feeling less out of control. Still, he had become an obsession. More like an addiction. John Westmont was my heroin. Our few encounters had left me hooked and wanting more.