Page 6 of We Could Be So Good
And for a minute, Nick thinks that obituaries wouldn’t be so bad if he got to write them with Andy.
***
August1958
“He is such a liar,” Nick murmurs into Emily’s ear before twirling her around. They’re at some nightclub in Midtown. Everyone’s rich and white and the music is embarrassing. Nick can’t believe the things he does for friendship.
“Ooh, I’m pleased to hear it,” she says as he reels her back in. “But what did he lie about?”
“He told me he couldn’t dance.” Nick looks over Emily’s shoulder to where Andy is dancing with Emily’s sister. He looks elegant, like he always does, only more so because his suit is a bit sharper than what he wears to work. Nobody will ever accuse him of being an inspired dancer, but he looks effortless as he glides Jeanne across the floor. How a man who can’t cross a room without tripping over a shoelace and also losing his wallet can look like that while dancing is a mystery to Nick.
“Well, you can hardly expect Andy to actually admit to being good at anything, can you? Hell would freeze over.”
Nick snorts. “Excellent point.”
“I dare you to compliment him and see how red he goes. He probably had years of dancing lessons. They wouldn’t have let him out of Groton if he hadn’t at least been able to manage a serviceable foxtrot and maybe even a waltz. You, however, are doing something more than serviceable. Why don’t you have a girlfriend?”
Nick’s ready for that question; he always is. “I have a lot of girlfriends.”
She pulls back and looks him in the eye. “You’ve taken Ruth Fisher out for dinner a couple of times and she says you’re a perfect gentleman. And Lilian Corcoran said pretty much the same thing.”
Ruth is one of the paper’s food and recipe writers. A couple times a year, she and Nick try new restaurants and then attempt to duplicate recipes. If their standing dates make people think that Nick is interested in women or that Ruth is interested in anything other than where to buy the best imported olive oil, so be it. As for Lilian, she’s a staff photographer who lives with another woman in a one-bedroom apartment on Prospect Park West. They inviteNick over for supper every month or so and never ask whether he has a girlfriend.
“Are you suggesting Ishouldn’tbe a perfect gentleman?” Nick asks, raising an eyebrow.
She hums skeptically. “We’ve known one another awhile, haven’t we?”
Nick misses a beat and nearly steps on Emily’s foot.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” Emily says, pinching his shoulder. “Stop looking at me like I’m about to peel off my false mustache and reveal that I’m three KGB agents in a trench coat.” Then, before Nick can make sense of this, she changes the topic and they spend the rest of the song laughing and talking—Emily doing most of the talking and Nick doing most of the laughing. Honestly, he can’t even pretend to mind getting dragged out to make a fourth with whatever friend of Emily’s needs a date.
At the end of the song, Nick feels a hand on his shoulder, and turns to see Andy.
“Afraid I have to steal my girl back,” he says, keeping his hand on Nick’s shoulder but not looking away from Emily.
Then Nick takes a turn around the dance floor with Jeanne, listening as she talks about the movie they all saw last week while he keeps his eyes on Andy and Emily. Emily has on a dark blue cocktail dress, one of those two-layer affairs—a strapless bodice with sheer, foamy fabric that drapes over it. Andy’s gaze keeps straying to Emily’s shoulder and collarbone, as if mesmerized by the hint of skin he can glimpse through the sheer overlay. The look of—Christ, that was longing—in his eyes makes Nick feel like he shouldn’t be watching.
He wonders what they’re like when they’re alone. He assumes they’re sleeping together, because it’s obvious that they’re crazy about one another, and why shouldn’t they be? Probably Andy isattentive and careful. And based on how decently he dances, he can probably go the whole time without spraining anything or concussing himself.
When Andy glances up and catches Nick’s eye, Nick’s first impulse is to look away, embarrassed. He is, after all, being a giant pervert, imagining his friends in bed. But he holds Andy’s gaze, not really sure what Andy can see in his own expression and for the moment not caring.
***
September1958
“Emily wants you to come for dinner,” Andy says, then clears his throat. “I want you to come for dinner.”
Emily and her sister live a few blocks away from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, in a brownstone that apparently belongs to an aunt who spends most of her time traveling. Nice work if you can get it, Nick supposes.
Nick expects sandwiches or maybe scrambled eggs. Maybe some Chinese delivery eaten in front of the television. After all, the Warburtons don’t seem like the kind of family where girls learn how to cook at their mother’s knee.
Instead the door to the brownstone is opened by an aproned waiter. Jeanne appears a moment later, wearing a black dress and dangerous-looking heels, and for a moment Nick goes a bit faint over the idea that he’s being set up with this woman who he actually likes very much. How the hell is he supposed to weasel his way out of this one? “Emily and Andy are upstairs with everybody else,” she says. “You’ll need a drink in each hand if you want to catch up.”
Everybody elsemeans six strangers whose names Nick immediately forgets. He feels like he’s been ambushed into spending time with rich people. He resists the urge to straighten his tie. He’s rumpled and covered in ink, because he always is, and if anybody has a problem with that, they can very much go fuck themselves.
Nobody, it turns out, has a problem with that. Or, if they do, they pretend not to. Or, just as likely, they’re too tipsy to notice.
One of the women is an artist. She wears trousers and has her hair down and Nick is massively intimidated. The other two women work at the museum with Jeanne, but Nick hardly gets a chance to say a word to either of them because they sit very close on the couch, their heads bent together, their voices inaudible to anyone else.
