The Breakup Club Part 2

We were slow dancing to a George Michael song. Thank G.o.d the band was so loud or everyone around us might have heard Gabriel's p.r.o.nouncement.

"Miranda," he said, lowering his voice, "I care about you, but I'm not ready to get married."

"I know," I said, wrapping my arms around his neck. "I meant one day, some day, some day soon, or when you're re"

He removed my hands. "I want to break up. I'm saying it loud and clear so that I don't mislead you."

No. No. No. No. No. I was dizzy. Light-headed. And I'd barely had a drop to drink. My legs felt like rubber. I tried to link my arms around his neck again, but he put his arm out.

No, no, no. "You mean you want us to take a break," I said, hoping he'd smile and say, Yes, that's what I meant, but in fact, noI'd never want a break from you. I love you, love you, love you.

"I want to break up," he yelled. "Break UP. As in WE'RE OVER. Miranda, if I did want to get married, I'm sure I'd want to marry you. You're a wonderful person, a sweet, kind, beautiful, interesting person. But I'm not ready. And I just want out, okay?"

Later that awful night, when my phone rang, I let the machine get it. If Gabriel thought for one second I was waiting by the phone for his of-course-we're-not-breaking-up apology...he was right. But he didn't have to know it.

It wasn't Gabriel. It was my friend Emmalee, who'd been pelvis to pelvis with her boyfriend all during Georgie's wedding. Well, for the few hours I'd stayed, anyway.

"I'M ENGAGED!" she screamed into my answering machine. "I'M ENGAGED. WHOO-HOO!! He asked me during the cake-cutting! I looked all over for you, but you and Gabriel must have sneaked off to your hotel room for some nookie-nookie. Miranda, you must be one of my bridesmaids! And my fianceoh my G.o.d, I LOVE saying that!is asking Gabriel to be an usher as we speak! How adorable will that be? You and Gabriel walking down the aisle at my wedding! How romantic is that! I can't wait to show you my ring. It's GORGEOUS! And guess whatwe're speeding the plans so we can get married on Valentine's Day! That's only nine months from now! OmiG.o.d, I'm going to be married in nine months! I'm going to throw the bouquet right at you! You are so next, Miranda!"

No, I was so dumped.

She exclamation-pointed for another thirty seconds, then hung up with an "I have a hundred more calls to make! Bye!"

The next day, I'd managed to buy a card, a present, see the ring, make the appropriate whoo-hoos and eat half a celebratory burrito without ever mentioning that Gabriel broke up with me or bursting into tears. The moment I left the restaurant, I sobbed all the way home.

Emmalee called later that night. "Why didn't you say something? I'm SO sorry. If you can't deal with being in the wedding with Gabriel, I'll totally understand."

I can't deal.

"I wouldn't miss being your bridesmaid for anything," I'd said instead. "A few gallons of ice cream, some Woody Allen movies and Muriel's Wedding, and I'll be over Gabriel in no time. Really. By your wedding day, I'll be like, 'Gabriel who?'"

"You're such a trouper, Miranda. You are an amazing friend!"

I was such a trouper, such an amazing friend, that in five minutes she forgot my broken heart and had moved on to what cut of bridesmaid dress I thought would best suit her sisters' figures.

Every couple of hours over the next few months Emmalee would remember that my heart was broken in five hundred places, say "OmiG.o.d, are you okay?" and then move on to whether she should offer beef and fish or chicken and fish.

"Neither of you is invited with a date," she'd said quite officially a week after Gabriel and I broke up. "That way, you don't have to spend a second thinking about it or worrying about it. Okay?"

Your friend is getting married. You will put all thoughts of your own situation out of your head and be happy for Emmalee. Happy. Happy. Happy!

"OmiG.o.d, Miranda, can I use your wedding gown?" she asked in the next breath. "I love it! My father can put the thousand bucks toward a really good photographer!

I waited for her to add, And it's not like you're ever going to wear it, but she had either developed tact and sensitivity or she was too busy fantasizing about herself in my long, cool satin I'd-like-to-thank-the-academy gown.

Before you think there's something seriously wrong with me for buying a wedding gown when I wasn't even engaged, let me immediately point out that the wedding gown was free. And someone else's really. I'd been walking along Lexington Avenue on my way to the subway when I pa.s.sed a dry-cleaner's shop, and hanging in the window was a gorgeous wedding gown. It was strapless, satin and utterly beautiful, no beads, no seams. I went inside to get a closer peek so that if Gabriel ever proposed, I'd remember exactly what I wanted in a dress.

"Take it! Take it!" the proprietor said in broken English, waving his arm at the gown. "No room. Left here over four months. Policy thirty days! Take!"

And so I left with someone else's abandoned wedding gown. I insisted on giving the dry cleaner my name and number, just in case whoever brought it in came back for it. Though I guess if you brought a wedding gown to the cleaners, it had already had its day. And so it hung, symbol of hope, symbol of my future, in a bag in my closet.

"Can I wear it?" Emmalee asked. "It's probably taking up a ton of room in your tiny closet anyway."

"Em, there's always the chance that Gabriel and I will get back together. We've only been broken up for a week. Can you hold off for a"

"Sweetie," she said, putting her hand on mine. "He's already seeing someone. And it seems serious, so..."

My heart stopped beating. I felt like I was going to faint and gripped the sides of our table to keep me upright. Already seeing someone. Serious...

"It's yours," I said before rushing out of the restaurant, tears running down my cheeks.

She'd come over that night to pick up the dress. "I'm soooo sorry for upsetting you earlier, Miranda. But maybe it's better that you know he's moved on. Right, sweetie?" Her fake-concerned gaze moved from my face to my closet. And in minutes she and my dry-cleaned gown were gone.

I shook all thought of Emmalee out of my head as Lucy handed me a mug of coffee and raised an impressed but surprised eyebrow at her daughter. "How do you know about Miss Havisham? You haven't read Great Expectations."

While Lucy was turned away from me, I shook my head wildly at Amelia. Do not tell your mother I let you watch the Gwyneth Paltrow-Ethan Hawke version of Great Expectations!

"I saw the movie," Amelia said, grinning at me. "With what's-her-nameBette Davis? What a cla.s.sic!"

I blew a kiss at my niece. She was the cla.s.sic.

"Gabriel is sowing the cliched oats, that's all," I insisted. "Dating other people. It's almost a good thing. By dating other women, he'll see how amazing our relationship was, how well we connected."

Amelia chomped on another bite of cereal. "There's a girl at my school who's been waiting for her ex-boyfriend to come back for, like, three days now. Everyone thinks she's a total idiot. We're all, like, MOVE ON."

"Three days, huh?" I asked. "Well, three days in middle school and six months in adultville are pretty much the same, so I'm not that abnormal."

She raised one eyebrow, a gesture she'd picked up from her mother. "What's so great about Gabriel, anyway? I know he's really cute, and he was always nice to me, but why'd you like him so much?"

Correction: Love. And make that present tense.

"I could list all his amazing attributes, Meems," I told her, "but it's really all about chemistry. And ours was perfect."

"Then why'd you break up?" she asked around a mouthful of cereal.

Good question. I shrugged. "He wasn't ready for a serious relationship."

Amelia gnawed her lip. "I don't even like anyone yet. Is that normal?"

"Totally," I said. "Right, Mom?" I called out to Lucy, but she was staring into s.p.a.ce, at the refrigerator, actually, as though she were about to cry.

"None of the girls in this book have boyfriends," Amelia said, upping her milky chin at the novel. "They're all more concerned about their periods. Speaking of which, when am I gonna get mine?"

"I was fourteen," I told her. "So don't spend all your spare time checking your underwear when you go the bathroom. Trust me, when it comes, you'll know."

Amelia scowled. "How old were you, Mom?"

No answer. More refrigerator staring. Then Lucy started and looked at me, then Amelia. "Sorry, what, hon?"

Amelia rolled her eyes. "Mom, are you editing a ma.n.u.script in your head again?" She peered at her mother. "Wow, you have giant dark circles under your eyes."

"Nothing a little Maybelline cover-up won't fix," I said. Not that Lucy ever wore makeup.

"I was thirteen," Lucy said suddenly, ten beats off the conversation. She was staring out the window now.

"Thirteen? I might have to wait an entire year? Everything takes forever," Amelia complained. She tucked the book under her chin, carried her bowl and spoon to the sink, then headed out of the kitchen. A second later, she popped her head back in. "Is Daddy home?"

Lucy nodded. "He's in the shower. He went out for a jog."

Amelia popped her head back out.

"What's he jogging off?" I asked Lucy, returning my attention to the quiz. "He doesn't eat anything."

"He's just having an almost midlife crisis," Lucy said, slathering b.u.t.ter on an English m.u.f.fin. "The diet, the working out, the new clothes"

"The a.s.sholic mood swings," I put in, checking my e-mail on her laptop. "Hey, look what Aunt Dinah e-mailed. It's a picture of Larry from last night."

Lucy glanced at the screen. It was a photo of her husband's enraged face, the turkey caught mid-point on its path down the table. Lucy's eyes glistened with tears. Aunt Dinah had recently bought her first digital camera and was taking a course at the senior center on how to use it. Her first a.s.signment was to take ten pictures from her Thanksgiving holiday. I'll bet hers were the most interesting.

"Sorry, Luce," I said. "I shouldn't have shown it to you."

"No, it's okay. I'm just tired."

"I think you should print this out and put it on his scale," I told her. "Clearly, giving up white flour and sugar and endlessly worrying about his glycemic index is turning your husband into a pyscho, and I think he should know it."

"It's just a midlife crisis," Lucy said again, pouring us both a mug of coffee. "I'm sure he'll settle down. It's just like when he took up kaballah and got angry that I wasn't exploring my soul or whatever."

I nodded, having no idea what she was talking about. Lucy and Larry were five years older than I was. They weren't in midlife yet. How could Larry be having a midlife crisis at age thirty-four?

"Isn't your blind date at noon?" Lucy asked me. "You'd better go home and get ready."

Oh yeah. My blind date. No matter what was going on in Lucy's world, she always had time for my love life.

"I am ready," I said.

"You're wearing that on a blind date? Red corduroys and a black Janis Joplin T-shirt and" She ducked her head under the table and then shot back up, raising an eyebrow. "Converse high-tops? Very feminine, Miranda."

"It's the not-trying-too-hard look," I told her. I was not trying to the point that I hadn't even given the blind date two thoughts since I woke up.

"It works for girls at my school," Amelia said, pushing her way into the kitchen and pouring herself a gla.s.s of orange juice. "No one gets dressed up for a date."

"Excellent point," Lucy said. "Twelve-year-olds don't. Twenty-nine-year-olds do."

Amelia gave me an I-tried shrug and left the room again.

Lucy eyed me. "Miranda, it's a date. Not a hike."

"What does it matter?" I said. "I'm never going to like anyone you set me up with."

"You'll like someone eventually," she said with complete confidence.

I shook my head. "I'm in love with Gabriel, Lucy. I'm not going to like anyone else."

"Honey, Gabriel broke up with you six months ago. It's over, Miranda. Long over. You have to move on."

I couldn't, though. Because Gabriel and I were going to get married one day, when he was ready. He said so. Miranda, if I did want to get married, I'd want to marry you.... But I'm not ready....

The thing about a comment like that when you were madly in love and getting dumped was that it gave you something to hold on to. So I held. Maybe he'll be ready when he turns thirty, I kept telling myself. I was still telling myself, despite the fact that his thirtieth birthday came and went two months ago. The birthday card I sent, spritzed with my perfume and every-drop-of-white-s.p.a.ce filled with my feelings for him, was never acknowledged. Nor were my phone calls. Or letters. I'd called a few too many times before I realized that he was never home because he had caller ID and was simply not answering. (Lucy had provided that brainstorm.) And there was only the one card. And two letters. For an entire year of dating and six months of waiting, hoping, dreaming, that wasn't too bad. Was it?

I had to move on. I had to. And I had! I'd agreed to today's blind date, hadn't I?

"Miranda, go home and change," Lucy said. "Larry was nice enough to arrange this fix-up, and you really should put some ef"

"Fine, I'll go change," I interrupted in my best world-weary voice. "Can we change the subject now? What are you doing today? Shopping with Amelia?" Lucy always took Amelia shopping on the Friday after Thanksgiving for the first rush of the holiday-season sales. I couldn't even bear to be outside in Manhattan on Black Friday. You couldn't walk down the street without getting hit in the leg with a shopping bag.

She gnawed her lip, then busied herself at the sink, washing Amelia's dishes. "I have to go into the office for a few hours. Katrina's last day was Wednesday, and she didn't touch the Cobb bio, plus I have a bunch of resumes to go over and"

"Are you okay?" I asked, knowing full well she'd tell me nothing. Part of the problem with working in the same office as your older sister who was a hundred rungs above you on the career ladder was that she didn't share much of her personal business at home either.

She didn't answer me. She turned around and began straightening napkins.

"Lucy? Did you and Larry have a huge fight over what happened last night?"

She didn't turn around. She shook her head. "I don't want to talk about it, okay?"

"Okay," I said. I hesitated just in case she might turn around and tell me everything, but no dice. So I thanked her for the Chinese feast, yelled a see you later at Amelia, and left. I had two hours to prepare for my blind date. And since I didn't plan to prepare at all or change out of my I'm-really-not-trying look, I took myself and the Cosmo to Starbucks. I had a quiz to score.

Why oh why had I let Lucy set me up on this can-I-excuse-myself-to-go-to-the-bathroom-and-escape-out-the-window-please! blind date from h.e.l.l? Actually, I shouldn't blame my sister. I should blame Lucy's insane husband. My brunch date was one of the residents Larry knew from Lenox Hill Hospital, where he was affiliated.

Everyone I knew was trying hard to knock into my extra-thick skull that there was Life After Gabriel, Men After Gabriel, and the more I crossed my arms over my chest and insisted that I could never love anyone else, the more blind dates were thrown my way. I said yes not to prove them wrong, but because I hoped like h.e.l.l they were right.

And so I here I was, in my favorite brunch spot with one Phineas Rigby, whose parents must have pegged him for a future orchestra conductor at birth. Phineas? What kind of name was Phineas?

Out of sheer politeness I didn't ask, but Phineas immediately launched into a very long story about the history of his name. This, after correcting me when I called him Phinwell, Finn, in my mindwith an "I prefer Phineas." Apparently, the name Phineas had something to do with both the Bible and Jules Verne.

"Jules Verne was an adventurer, right?" I asked. "An explorer?"

He eyed me with an I thought you were supposed to be an editor and therefore reasonably intelligent skepticism. "He was a highly regarded French author. Around the World In Eighty Days? You must have read it in high school or college."

Oh. Well, it wasn't like I hadn't heard of Jules Verne. I knew he had something to do with the exploring the world. "Julia Roberts named her boy twin Phineas," I threw in to get us on a subject I knew something about: celebrities and trivia. And an award-winning segue, if I did say so myself. "But I think she spelled it differently."

He raised his eyebrow in the same impressed-but-surprised way Lucy had this morning. "You don't know who Jules Verne is, but you know the Australian neurosurgeon who successfully separated the conjoined Aboriginal twins last year? I'm impressed." He held up his mimosa to toast me, his expression conveying his newfound respect for me.

Huh?

I shook my head. "I meant Julia Roberts the actress. You know, Pretty Woman? Erin Brockovich?"

The expression changed. He then flagged down the waiter and spent the next two or three minutes discussing the brand of champagne used for the mimosa, which wasn't to his liking.