I'm Glad About You(62)

“Of course I know who you are,” Martin assured her. He was plainspoken, with an open face, good looking perhaps if he would compose his features into some kind of expression, but that hadn’t occurred to him, or maybe he didn’t actually know how to do it. His absolutely ordinary face seemed to simply want to be pleasant. These people really didn’t exist in New York; they just didn’t.

“Nice to meet you, Martin,” Alison responded.

“When Kyle said you were in town, I thought, terrific! I really want to meet her,” Martin explained.

“Oh, thank you,” said Alison. This was different from her fans, who gushed a little more effusively and always took a selfie. Martin was considering her now with a quiet and expectant enthusiasm. He seemed to want her to say something more, but what? Or maybe this fuzzy silence was enough for him. He smiled and nodded, and for a moment Alison thought that he might start bleating, like a sheep.

“So you’re from Cincinnati!”

“I, yes,” Alison agreed.

“But you live in New York now?”

“Yes.”

“I thought all you actresses lived in Los Angeles.”

“Oh—well, a lot do,” Alison acknowledged. What was with this guy? He didn’t come at her with the alpha male energy of a New Yorker, but there was an undertone that implied that he knew absolutely everything, even though he was from Ohio. On her way over Alison had told herself that a party at an old boyfriend’s house in Cincinnati would be a cakewalk compared to the shark-infested dinners and screenings and openings and club nights that were her usual fare. But she was already feeling the troubling misconnects of people who lived and believed different things. What had Kyle just said, he knew this guy from church? In New York no one admitted that they went to church, unless they went to temple.

Martin was still smiling, but there was that edge of something else underneath that fuzzy Midwestern bonhomie. Superiority? “I was in Los Angeles once, the weather’s nice but the traffic was so horrible. I don’t know how anyone lives there.”

“I can’t stand LA,” she agreed, although the few times she had gone on press junkets out there, they had put her up in posh hotels and treated her like a movie star. It didn’t precisely suck.

“New York is worse,” Martin continued. “All those homeless people? Who wants to see that?”

Kyle swooped in with a glass of wine for them both. “When was the last time you were in New York, Martin?” he asked, as if this were a serious conversation.

“I’ve never been,” Martin announced, again with such an air of authority that Alison started. She had been immersed in the innate New York dismissal of the Midwest for so long she had forgotten, frankly, how thoroughly Midwesterners returned the favor. This clown had never been to New York, but he still thought he knew enough to dismiss it? Dismiss New York? The whole thing?

“You must come!” she said, smiling winsomely, completely pretending that he hadn’t insulted her life choices six times in two minutes. “It’s actually such a crazy interesting and dynamic place. It truly is a melting pot, it’s so amazing to live with so many people from so many different cultures. I love it.”

“I’ll take your word for it,” Martin informed her.

“How long have you been there now?” Kyle asked.

“Wow, I guess it’s been—four years? Five years?” She wasn’t feigning; at some point time did blur and that point had been passed long ago. Which was why, presumably, she could stand in the kitchen of Kyle’s glorious home and chat with total strangers about nothing. In the distance a doorbell rang. Kyle’s pretty wife floated by, greeting people, making sure their coats were put in the proper bedroom. A gorgeous little girl ran after her, golden curls flying. Kyle was apparently living a Victorian fantasy now.

“How do you and Kyle know each other?” Martin asked.

“We dated in high school,” Kyle said.

“Oh.” Martin made a face, putatively impressed. “Kyle! You have an eye for the ladies.”

“Well.” Kyle smiled and offered up a self-conscious little shrug, what can I say? There were more people now, drifting into the kitchen, cooing hellos. He turned to greet them and to collect drink orders.

“You and Kyle dated?” This Martin person apparently had concluded that Kyle’s offhand mention of it made their personal history fair game.

“We did, yes.”

“So how’d you let him go?”

“Excuse me?”

“Good-looking doctor, isn’t that what you girls all want?” Leering? Was he actually leering? “You’re an actress, you’re going to need someone to take care of you. Unless you were looking to trade up.”

“Oh, look who’s here!” What a f*cking creep. “Excuse me, I really do need to say hello.”

Tragically there was really no one she knew there, but she headed across the room with a purposeful determination. The guests who were slowly filling the house were a different sort from what she was used to. The women were dressed up; Ann Taylor or something like, tasteful fitted dresses off the rack, a lot of beige brushed wool, a flash of houndstooth, low heels. Their husbands in dress slacks and sports coats, ties, Alison honestly didn’t know any people like this anymore, and there were so many of them here, standing around holding wineglasses and chatting. They were all clearly educated and well-off, young adults who seemed like old adults. She felt like a slightly dysfunctional teenager next to them; her black jeans and loose violet-striped top seemed boho and unsophisticated and rebellious, when in fact she had hoped that something so simple and chic might help her fit in. You look hotter than anyone else in the room, her brain reminded her. Stop worrying.