Love And Miss Communication Part 4

Chapter 4.

July in New York City was like purgatory. Every year when it arrived, Evie wondered if some noxious bus fume would sweep her into the fiery h.e.l.l of the August heat or whether one of the infrequent breezes from the trees lining Broadway would mercifully carry her directly into fall. This year especially, it seemed wiser just to stay home. The city was abandoned anyway. Most New Yorkers fled the concrete jungle in summer, seeking refuge in the country. Even virtually, life seemed to have slowed to a halt. n.o.body new was popping up on JDate. The Facebook news feed had slowed to a crawl.

Evie's building had strong air-conditioning, the kind that could make you forget the season. She could order in food delivery at any time of day, though that was an expensive habit she'd need to drop. Without a BlackBerry, her home laptop was her bridge to life outside. Her personal cell phone-practically an antique by today's standards (it literally had a flip top)-didn't have Internet access, and her iPad screen was cracked beyond recognition after she dropped it three days earlier while attempting to check Instagram and brush her teeth simultaneously. She should really go out and buy an iPhone but just couldn't bear the judgmental glances of the Upper West Side mothers juggling strollers and lattes, wondering as they gaped at her: where's your baby and overpriced caffeine? Nor could she stomach the working crowd-hurriedly trekking to the subway or competing for cabs in their suits and sensible pumps. She imagined them recognizing her from the BigLawSux article and thinking one thing: pathetic.

Four weeks had pa.s.sed since her dismissal from Baker Smith, but the sting of what occurred felt like yesterday's wound. She would never again see the green-on-green checked carpeting that covered every inch of her firm's office, nor would she hear Marianne's chatter about her "sc.u.mbag" of a husband. She wouldn't lean into her ergonomic desk chair for a lower back stretch while a junior a.s.sociate sat opposite her, nervously asking if she was satisfied with their a.s.signment. She wouldn't play a part in deals that made Wall Street Journal headlines. She wouldn't watch CNBC in the mornings and think to herself, I helped make that happen.

The worst part of reflecting on all these never-agains was her ambivalence. She missed the camaraderie of the all-nighters-fighting about who knocked over the pyramid of Chinese takeout containers on the conference table, munching on Julia's triple-threat chocolate cookies in the coffee room, and playing twenty questions with colleagues at midnight while the printer churned out three-hundred-page prospectuses. She longed for the symphony of machinery: the hum of the copier, the rumble of her computer starting up, and the click-clack of the mail cart had become the de facto soundtrack of her life.

What she didn't miss were the mind-numbing continuing legal education cla.s.ses offered at Baker Smith, or the endless hours spent overseeing junior a.s.sociates sentenced to doc.u.ment review in a windowless cellar crowded with file boxes. A pat on the back for a job well done-that just wasn't enough to sustain her in the long term.

Leaving her apartment postBaker Smith, seeing the ma.s.ses with newspapers tucked in the crook of their arms rushing to the subway, would make deciding her next steps unavoidable.

Evie's campout in her apartment prompted concerned e-mails and calls from her friends, including Annie, who had indeed proven to be more than a casual office acquaintance.

"Sorry the date didn't work out," she started off, playing dumb to the whole Google episode.

"It's all right. What's going on at the office?"

"This thing that happened to you is a cruel joke," Annie said. "I mean, I'm on Facebook the entire day and so are most of the a.s.sociates. I think the trick is to keep it open all day instead of closing and reopening. At least that's what I read on BigLawSux. No doubt, you got a raw deal. They just targeted you since you were about to make partner. I hear they are planning to let a whole bunch of juniors go for the same reason."

"Whatever. With the G.o.dd.a.m.n blog post and those nasty comments, I'm doomed."

"Not true. The article hasn't been on their most e-mailed list for a while already. It's old news. You'll be able to get another job in no time."

"If I even want one. Sleeping past seven A.M. does have its charms."

"I wouldn't know," Annie said. "Maybe I'll join you in early retirement."

Evie eyeballed her ratty sweat suit in the mirror.

"Trust me, it's not as glamorous as it seems. Keep your day job."

Evie's mother had taken to calling her more frequently, often from the regional playhouse where she practically lived. While she tried to spin Evie's dismissal from the firm into the best thing that ever happened to her, Evie could hear a soprano rehearsing "I Feel Pretty" in the background. Of course Fran had no idea why Evie was actually terminated, which meant she also had to listen to her mother rant on about the crash-and-burn economy and the bleak futures of American college graduates. She was relieved that she didn't have to delve into the particulars with her father. Henry Rosen had worked at the same Maryland firm since graduating from law school until the day he died.

"Who needs that miserable place?" Fran said. "Want me to call some Ogilvy contacts for you?"

Evie declined.

"All right. I'm sure you'll find a job you love."

"That's an oxymoron," Evie said.

The prospect of a blank slate excited and terrified her at the same time. Her career at Baker Smith had been motivated primarily by the goal of making partner. The idea of starting over at another firm, a.s.suming that was even a possibility, was daunting. More Mitch.e.l.l Rhodeses to impress. More Mariannes to avoid.

"At least now we can see each other more often," Fran said.

At that comment, Evie felt a pang of guilt, followed by a flight of panic. She had definitely used the excuse of work on more than one occasion to get out of family get-togethers-just recently to get out of brunch with the TWASPs. It pained her to think that her mother never saw through her excuses. But at the same time that she was experiencing this guilt, she realized that she no longer had a ready excuse to duck out of anything she didn't feel like doing.

Why did she put off visits to see her mother? The TWASPs were rarely around-they had been off at boarding school and worked ridiculous jobs over the summer (barista-ing in Aspen last year, giving tours of Martha's Vineyard the summer before). It wasn't the ever-amiable Winston, who never meddled in her life. He always gave her a hearty h.e.l.lo and an avuncular hug, and knew enough to retreat to his man cave in the bas.e.m.e.nt to play with his bank-breaking golf simulator while Fran and Evie caught up over fruit from the Greenwich farmer's market.

After Evie's father first pa.s.sed, she worried about bearing sole responsibility for her mother. What would Fran do for companionship? Evie was an only child. She started picturing Fran arriving at Yale on the weekends, shacking up on the couch in Evie's common room, waiting up for her with a cup of hot chocolate in hand. It made her feel callous the way she dreaded that scenario. But maybe that was just the way it was between parents and children. Parents live selflessly for their children, and kids are just selfish.

But Fran's solemnity lasted until the unveiling, which took place a year after Henry's death. After the gravestone was laid, while Evie was still entrenched in doing "cemetery math"-calculating life spans by computing the years carved into the neighboring headstones-Fran's psyche flipped like a light switch. She enrolled in a pottery cla.s.s at the local Y, signed up for Krav Maga at her gym and returned to her beloved community theater. In fact it was in full Eliza Doolittle costume that Fran first met Winston, in line at Starbucks. He was in Baltimore on business when half of his latte landed on her lace-and-silk ball gown. He insisted on paying for dry cleaning. She handed him complimentary tickets to the show. A year later, Evie found herself with a new stepfather and two stepsisters. She hated to think she resented her mother for moving on, for leaving her daughter to wallow solo in the grief. But Evie did, even knowing that it was unjustified. And it was probably what made Bette and Evie even closer-the two of them were still flailing while Fran had managed to propel her life forward.

Evie's mother shifted happily into her new life in Connecticut, embracing the unexpected role she took on as a stepmom in her forties, her only lament being that the Pikesville Players were far superior to the Greenwich Town Thespians. It was Evie who felt alone. But how much could she discuss dating, loneliness, and s.e.x in the twenty-first century with Fran anyway? Heaven forbid her mother knew Evie was accepting dates requested via text message in the form of "U free 2nite? Want 2 hang?" The mention of Tinder would have her picturing fireplaces.

Evie wondered if she wouldn't be able to truly come to peace with losing her father until she had a nuclear family of her own. She didn't have any more urge to put herself out there on the romantic front than she did on the job front. An unemployed lawyer who idled away her time searching for gray hairs to snip and watching Golden Girls could very well be the definition of uns.e.xy. It was one thing to step away from a busy day at the office for an hour to meet someone for coffee or a drink. It was quite another to spend an entire day at home preparing, letting her hopes creep up, and then coming home from the date disappointed without even work to distract her. This would just have to be a season of hibernation for Evie. Luckily with her computer and her TV to keep her occupied, she had enough "acorns" stored up to last her a while.

"I saw on Facebook that you've still listed Baker Smith as your employer," Tracy said when she and Evie reached the lobby of Evie's building.

They were back from a power walk. Evie knew things were bad when a pregnant lady was the one coaxing her to exercise. Tracy phoned her early Sat.u.r.day morning, saying she was itching to get out of the house and away from Jake, who had been strumming on his guitar without any consideration for his pregnant wife, or their downstairs neighbor, who had taken to his broom.

Evie was already up when Tracy called, busy in bed Googling "numbness in arms and legs" because she could swear her limbs were falling asleep more than usual. According to WebMD, her best-case scenario was nerve damage. Her worst-case scenarios were a brain tumor or stroke. With thoughts of fatal diseases permeating her consciousness so readily, Evie was happy to receive Tracy's invitation for an old-fashioned const.i.tutional.

While they lapped the Central Park Reservoir, Tracy agreed to go with Evie to the International Fine Arts & Antiques Show at the Armory, which would be taking place soon. Evie normally went with her grandmother during her annual pilgrimage to New York in early fall, but Bette still hadn't bought her ticket and was vague when Evie last brought it up. She and Bette hadn't spoken all that much since Evie left her job. Bette was sympathetic when Evie told her about getting fired but reacted more like Evie had lost a favorite bangle than like her entire career had capsized. She lied and said she was busy interviewing, worried that if Bette knew she was home all day she'd call Evie to watch The Price Is Right and discuss "ze situation" during commercials.

The Antiques Show, forty thousand square feet of highly curated furniture and decorative items, mostly from France, was just so much better to see with someone. Maybe it was finally getting too hard for Bette to make the trip and uproot herself from her familiar surroundings-a possibility that Evie did not want to face.

"You're right about Facebook," Evie said. "I guess I've sort of put off removing it. Like at least online I could pretend to be employed. But I really should take it off. The firm probably would be upset if anyone realized."

"It's better to shed the past," Tracy said. "People use Facebook these days to find jobs-maybe some other firms will reach out to you if you take down Baker Smith from your profile."

"That's not really how it works," Evie said, it occurring to her how little even her best friends knew about her profession.

"You never know. Anyway, I gotta run to a birthing cla.s.s. Shoot me. Aren't you glad you got out of the house?" she asked, and then headed in the other direction without waiting for an answer.

Settled back in her apartment, Evie went about deleting Baker Smith from her online profiles. There were a number of pictures from Paul's wedding she'd been meaning to upload anyway-one of which she thought would make a good profile image for a new website Annie had joined called DateSmarter.com, which was supposed to cater to professionals with a no-fail algorithm for matchmaking.

Without any plans for the rest of the day, waiting around for "hearts," "likes," and flattering comments on Facebook and Instagram seemed as good a way as any to spend the afternoon. She logged on to Facebook and began reviewing her personal information page. It listed her favorite movies (Father of the Bride, Old School, Casablanca, Citizen Kane), music (The Beatles, Rolling Stones, Sarah McLachlan), and books (The Grapes of Wrath, The Namesake, The Picture of Dorian Gray). It included carefully selected pictures of her with all of her girlfriends, listed her hometown, her current residence, her age, relationship status, and the results of random Facebook polls and quizzes she had taken over the years. It was an amalgamation of truths and half-truths, things she truly loved and things she wanted people to think she loved.

Her profile picture was similarly ambiguous. It was a flattering side shot of her face, showing off her shiny locks and one sparkly green eye, but it didn't reveal enough of her appearance to make her recognizable if she was encountered head-on. The whole profile made her feel like a chameleon when she studied it.

She got sidetracked for a while looking up old boyfriends and guys she'd had casual dates with-trying to glean from their pictures what they were up to. She also looked up various girls she knew from New York and old friends from summer camp and school whom she hadn't spoken to in years. Nothing of any significance seemed to have changed since she last checked. And Jack wasn't on Facebook-she knew he considered social media far beneath him. He had his own website. He didn't need to post photos of himself on vacation in South Beach for the world to see he was flourishing.

After returning to her own page with the task of deleting Baker Smith, she decided to click on her firm's link one last time. Someone at her office had organized an unofficial Baker Smith group, and all the lawyers who were on Facebook were able to join at their discretion. It was mostly young a.s.sociates who joined, and Evie started combing through their profile pages. Once she removed herself from the list, she would no longer be able to see these people's profiles unless she was independently friends with them. She quickly got sucked into looking at their photos of sw.a.n.ky travel, dreamy weddings, and Raphaelian babies. One woman, whom she recognized from pa.s.sing in the firm's hallways as a fairly new litigation a.s.sociate, had posted pictures of a recent trip to Turkey, where she and Jack had mused about visiting when they could both get away from work.

She studied the pictures, Photoshopping herself into the scenery. The girl had visited all the major sites, including Ephesus, Cappadocia, and Istanbul. After a dozen sightseeing photos, Evie came to a group of wedding shots. The affair appeared lavish, and Evie became engrossed looking at the fashionable dresses and colorful jewelry. Some of the guests were adorned with intricate henna tattoos snaking all the way up their toned arms. There were several shots of just the food. Platters of vibrantly colored Turkish delights made Evie's mouth water.

She started clicking through the photos faster to get to the bride and groom. She found a striking photo of them from the back. The bride's scalloped-edge veil rivaled Princess Di's in length and intricacy. The groom stood about a foot taller than the bride and had wavy brown hair circling a tiny bald spot. Evie grew curious for a front view. The next few pictures showed the couple from a distance standing under the wedding canopy. Finally, the last photo in the alb.u.m showed the bride and groom, knot tied, walking happily hand in hand back down the aisle. The bride was radiant. She was exotic-impossibly thin, with Mediterranean skin and black straight hair tied in a chic knot resting on one shoulder. Her white teeth appeared like tiny index cards in a neat row. Her dress managed to be fashion-forward but still elegant. Evie was so caught up in studying the bride that she barely glanced at the groom.

When she finally did focus on him, she saw that it was Jack. The groom was Jack Kipling.

Evie vomited everything she had eaten that day right there in her bed, directly onto her laptop.

It was a full five minutes before Evie could get off the bed. She sat shivering, stunned into paralysis even as her throat was burning. When she finally unfroze, she wiped her computer screen with some crumpled tissues and brought it closer to her face to confirm that her eyes weren't playing cruel tricks on her. The groom was her Jack. The man who told her on date number one that his parents' messy divorce had turned him off from marriage for good. The man who clung to those beliefs after two years in a loving and supportive relationship. Their breakup rivaled the pain of losing her father. She had coped primarily by telling herself that at least Jack would die alone.

Who was this girl?

Evie needed to know every single detail about her. There was no question that Jack's new wife was beautiful. G.o.d help her if she had an amazing career to boot. Maybe she was pregnant. A baby could explain everything. Evie stared at the screen, tilting it backward and sideways to see if a sliver of a swollen belly was visible under the bride's silk gown. The only thing she could make out under the dress's bodice was a protruding rib cage. If the bride wasn't with child, she was probably a Turkish princess. Evie couldn't compete with royalty. But she didn't even know if Turkey was a monarchy. Jack would know. Apparently he'd made it to Turkey after all.

Evie slid off her bed and went to the kitchen for some paper towels to wipe off her keyboard. The empty roll stared at her from the top of the garbage. She ducked into the bathroom instead and reached for a wad of toilet paper. She plopped back down on the bed and set about cleaning out the nooks and crannies of her computer. Once the mess was cleared, she double-clicked the Google icon. It took a full minute to load-much longer than normal, but at least it appeared to be working. Without looking up, she typed "Jack Kipling" and "Turkish princess" and hit Search. Again she thought, who was this girl? What magic had she worked on Jack? What qualities did she have that made her "forever" material and Evie a mere stopover?

She glanced up at the results and didn't see Jack's name anywhere. She wondered if she accidentally typed in the wrong search terms in her distressed state. She checked the search box and saw a series of random numbers and letters in no apparent order. The recent numbness in her legs probably was symptomatic of a brain tumor. Now the delusions were starting.

She closed Google and double-clicked to reopen it. Nothing happened. She triple-clicked. Quadruple-clicked. Nada. She tried Microsoft Excel. That opened with no problem. She felt temporarily relieved that her computer wasn't totally fried. So she couldn't look up anything of any consequence. She could make charts!

Without much hesitation, she threw on shorts and a tank, hoping the weather was still as warm as when she was on her morning stroll with Tracy. Normally, she'd be one click away from a humidity a.n.a.lysis and a minute-by-minute precipitation graph. Without a BlackBerry, or a working iPad and computer, she just stuck her head out the window and decided her outfit would do.

As she rang for the elevator, it dawned on Evie that she had no idea where to get her computer fixed. That was just the sort of thing she would have looked up. If she hadn't been in such a foul mood, she would have chuckled at the irony. Instead she stood in her apartment building's long hallway and considered which of her neighbor's bells she could ring. Most people were at work, where Evie would also have been if her life hadn't recently overturned. There were a few elderly people on her hall, but she didn't think any would be too welcoming. Mrs. Teitelbaum had it in for Evie ever since she wouldn't sign the old lady's pet.i.tion to ban music after 9:00 P.M. Mr. Warren, who smelled like cigars and Depends, was also a no. Evie had been dodging him for six months after he suggested fixing her up with his grandson, a coroner in Sioux Falls. She rushed to the lobby, thinking she could ask one of the doormen for help.

"Nico!" Evie gushed, gripping at the sleeve of the doorman's uniform with her free hand. "Where can I get my computer fixed?"

"I think there might be a place on Seventy-Second Street," he said, gently trying to free his elbow. "Oh wait, never mind, that closed. Oh-I know. There's a repair shop near my place in Queens that'll charge you half what you'll get fleeced for around here. Want me to get their info? It's called Al's Technology World. Or is it Abe's? You know what, I'm not sure. You better just look it up. Rockaway Boulevard."

"I can't look it up! That's the problem," Evie explained. "Thanks, Nico, but I gotta go."

She flung herself through the revolving doors and headed north on Broadway until at last she came upon a Best Buy. The service department was tucked two levels down in the subbas.e.m.e.nt. She hoped it wasn't too unrealistic to expect her computer to be fixed within an hour. Luckily there was only one person ahead of her in line. It was midafternoon on a workday, and she no longer had to cram her errands in on the weekend with the rest of the employed ma.s.ses.

While waiting for her turn, her cell phone rang.

"h.e.l.lo?" she asked cautiously, praying it wasn't her mother or, G.o.d forbid, Bette, on the other end. Eventually she would tell them about Jack, but today was not the day.

"It's Stasia. Where are you? You didn't e-mail me back. I got nervous."

"Phew, it's you. I'm at the electronics store-my computer's broken."

"Yikes. I knew something was wrong when you didn't respond in two minutes. I'm just calling because Rick thought you might want to come to see a movie with us tonight. I told him you were staging a be-in."

Evie sighed, with a deep inhalation through the nose that she held on to until she felt nauseated. To think it was Rick's idea to invite her out with them to make sure she was doing all right. Maybe Stasia and Rick would have infertility and Evie could get a break from secretly envying them. G.o.d, what an awful thought that was. Evie winced at her jealousy.

"Yeah-maybe. I'll call you later. Listen, I have some big news. Jack's married."

"WHAT? TO WHO? HOW? ARE YOU SURE?" At least she hadn't known.

"Yes-I'm sure. I stumbled onto his wedding pictures online. It's a long story." Even as she said it, she knew Stasia wouldn't believe her. She'd think she was snooping on Jack. Not that it was above her to do that, but in this case she had happened upon the pictures by sheer coincidence.

"He married some Turkish princess who looks anorexic but might be pregnant."

"She's anorexic and she's pregnant? Evie-what are you saying?"

The bell dinged and it was Evie's turn at the service window.

"Stas-I gotta go. It's my turn. I'll call you later about the movie."

Evie approached and placed her laptop on the desk. The service technician wrinkled his nose in disgust. Obviously the smell of vomit hadn't fully worn off.

"Ma'am, what happened here?"

"My three-year-old niece threw up on my laptop and it doesn't seem to be working now. Can you fix it?" At least she was a quick thinker. That and clovering her tongue were her special talents.

"I'm sorry but I don't think we'll be able to fix this. Once a computer gets this-um-soiled, it's usually toast. I suggest you go upstairs and look for a new one." He handed her back the laptop, along with a rebate coupon for an iMac.

Evie dashed back upstairs, taking the steps of the escalator two at a time. A salesperson with trifocals and a m.u.f.fin's worth of crumbs in his beard offered help. Geek Squad, indeed.

"Is there a computer that's working that I could use-you know, to try it out?"

"Of course, ma'am. This one right here is connected to the Internet." He babbled on about the hard drive and megapixels, but Evie's fingers were already busy at work. She repeated the search on Jack that she had attempted earlier. A slew of articles came up about his restaurants, but she couldn't find anything on his wedding. Her eyes darted all over the screen, looking for the words "bride" and "ceremony" or anything else nuptial-related.

"Jack Kipling, huh?" the salesperson said. "Just took the wife to one of his restaurants for our anniversary. That was a good meal."

This guy's married? Every pot has its cover, Bette would say.

"Oh yeah? Well he onced bribed a health department official not to report mouse droppings in the kitchen." How many times had she pledged never to repeat that? At least one for each time Jack swore he'd never get married. So much for promises.

"Listen, I'm afraid I'm not ready to commit to another computer right now," she added, grabbing her things and heading out in search of an Internet cafe where she might continue with more privacy.

Miraculously she found one a few blocks away from the electronics store, in a second-floor shop above a Korean restaurant. The cafe smelled like a mixture of disinfectant and kimchi, and was almost entirely abandoned save for a sleeping hobo wearing shoes fashioned out of hand towels. Evie cringed as she sat down at the computer farthest away from the homeless guy and slid her credit card into the machine. An error message appeared.

"Excuse me," she said to the attendant, a Goth teen with blackened lips and indecipherable words tattooed on her forearm. Evie desperately didn't want to know what they said. "This computer isn't working."

"Sorry, lady. You'll have to use that one," she said, pointing to the computer adjacent to the homeless man. "Next to Sleeping Beauty."

Evie held her breath and booted up the machine. Her knee shook vigorously as she waited for the monitor to load. Just as she was about to open Google, she froze.

What was she doing?

She was sitting next to a reeking hobo in a dirty Internet cafe so she could look up Jack's wife. It wouldn't do her any good to find out more information. He was married. Finding out what school his wife went to, or whether she was a successful entrepreneur or even carrying his child, wasn't going to make him any less married.

It was unhealthy, to the point of pathological, her obsession with knowing everything about everyone. What good had stalking people online done her? She'd rejected perfectly good dates because of meaningless things she'd discovered on the Internet-a job t.i.tle she didn't think was impressive enough or an unflattering photo. Her last decent date ditched her because she cyber-snooped on him-and she had the wrong guy anyway.

She lost her job because of her Internet addiction. That should have been enough of a wake-up call, but no. Instead, she was spending her unemployment surfing the web for upward of seven hours a day. She spent way too much time agonizing over her profile pictures on Facebook, JDate, and Match.com. Her vision was all but shot from the hours wasted staring at her inbox waiting for e-mails from guys she'd gone out with once. If someone really liked her they could pick up the freaking phone and call.

She was going to quit the Internet! But what did that mean? All good things, as far as she could tell at that moment: No more stalking people on Google.

No more Facebooking exes.

No more reading twits on Twitter.

No more posting pictures and waiting for "likes."