Fiona and Jane(35)
“Ona,” her mother said. “Last Christmas, I could read it in your face. So much stress. Sadness. Anger. You looked so lonely.” Her mother heaved another sigh. “Take the money. Come home.”
Gabriel had accused her of being rich, and she’d denied it. But here was her mother, floating Fiona a lifeline. Five thousand dollars until she figured out her next move. She felt shame burning in her chest, tethered to relief. She told her mother she would think about it, but in her heart Fiona already knew her answer. In truth, hadn’t she already been leaning in this direction? She’d put most of her belongings into storage a year ago, when she moved into the Gramercy sublet. Living among the Virgin Marys, she seemed to have become a supplicant without realizing it. Fiona no longer wanted restitution—from Willy, from the difficulty of life in New York. She wanted peace.
* * *
—
It was Halloween, and Fiona’s last weekend in New York. She and Tish were headed downtown for a party, though neither one had made the effort to dress up this year. On the bench across from them sat a sexy Dorothy in a short blue pinafore, white fishnets, and four-inch platform heels, carrying a stuffed Toto in her wicker basket. In front of Dorothy, seven CrossFit types in body stockings held on to the overhead bar, each representing a stripe of the rainbow. They swayed and buckled with the train, attended by an eighth, a redhead wearing a green blazer over black bike shorts. He clutched a plastic bucket filled with gold chocolate coins, which he handed out jovially to everyone around him. Fiona accepted one and unwrapped the foil.
“I still can’t believe you’re doing it,” Tish said. “Who actually leaves New York?”
“You’ll come visit?” Fiona said. “After I get settled.”
Tish sniffed. “If I ever forgive you.”
Fiona hadn’t seen much of Tish in the last month. She was getting serious with her latest beau, a private equities trader. He kept an apartment in Manhattan but lived in Westchester, and that was where he and Tish retired most weekends. Sisterhood of hoes or not, even Tish wasn’t immune to cuffing season, after all.
They hopped off at Second Avenue. As they strolled up to the club on Chrystie Street, Fiona recognized a throaty guffaw. It was coming from the barricaded smoking area set up next to the entrance.
Gabriel was wearing a long-sleeved T-shirt that had been slashed to shreds, and his face was painted in zombie makeup. Strings of blood dripped from his mouth and down his throat, glistened over his Adam’s apple, and disappeared into the neck of his shirt. He was smoking a cigarette with a woman in a kid-sized A-Rod jersey and silver hot pants.
Tish followed Fiona’s gaze. “You know them?” she asked. “That bitch looks cold,” she added.
“Remember the guy who freaked out on me?” Fiona glanced over again, and then she wasn’t sure anymore that it was him. She shook her head and turned away. “Can we please just go somewhere else?”
“But Ari and his friends,” Tish protested. “They have a table. We won’t even have to wait on line.”
Fiona kept her head down, chin tucked into the collar of her coat, and followed Tish up to the bouncer. She felt the cutting glances thrown their way by the three white girls waiting at the front of the line, who shifted restlessly from one leg to the other. One of them, whose breasts spilled over the top of her black satin corset like two wobbly poached eggs, sighed loudly and snapped the gum she’d been grinding in her mouth. The other two were dressed similarly in S&M-inspired costumes, vinyl thigh-highs and spiked collars and chain link bracelets. None of the three was beautiful, exactly, but all together, they stood as a kind of advertisement for the club, attracting everyone’s attention who passed by. It was working, too. The line was growing longer by the minute.
Tish and Fiona made their way down a dim corridor that opened up into a large room with a sunken dance floor surrounded by low glass tables and leather ottomans. Sumptuous dark booths lined the walls. They weaved through the crowd and found Ari in one of those cavernous black booths.
“Babe!” Tish cried. Ari swatted the air, fluttering his hands in his friend’s face. The friend stood awkwardly and shuffled out. Tish slid in, and Fiona sat down next to her.
“Scoot in,” Tish said. To the man standing next to Fiona, she shouted, “Gil, there’s room, sit!” She introduced him to Fiona, explaining his connection to Ari. Fiona didn’t quite catch it, but she nodded as if she had.
“Pour you a drink?” Gil asked, tipping his head toward the bottle of Goose leaning in the bucket. He asked her where she was from.
“LA,” Fiona said. “Actually I’m moving back there in a few days. Bye-bye, New York.” She found the straw with her lips and sucked. It was mostly vodka. The cranberry rested on top.
“But where are you from, from?” Gil said. “Originally, I mean.”
She hesitated for a moment. “I told you. Los Angeles.”
“Oh, come on. You know what I mean. What’s your ethnicity?”
She turned away a little. Tish and Ari were whispering to each other between kisses. The music from the speakers stacked around the dance floor thrummed. She felt the bass vibrating in her spine.
“I’m Taiwanese,” Fiona said finally.
“Oh, there’s this great place I order from—I love their pad see ew and tom yum soup,” he said enthusiastically.