The apartment was spacious and bright, with a view all the way downtown along the East Side. There was a balcony and sliding glass doors. “I keep forgetting how nice this apartment is. Twentieth floor, doorman …” Zoë could work her whole life and never have an apartment like this. So could Evan. It was Charlie’s apartment. He and Evan lived in it like two kids in a dorm, beer cans and clothes strewn around. Evan put Zoë’s bag away from the mess, over by the fish tank. “I’m so glad you’re here,” she said. “Now what can I get you?”
Evan made them a snack — soup from a can, and saltines.
“I don’t know about Charlie,” she said, after they had finished. “I feel like we’ve gone all sexless and middle-aged already.”
“Hmmm,” said Zoë. She leaned back into Evan’s sofa and stared out the window at the dark tops of the buildings. It seemed a little unnatural to live up in the sky like this, like birds that out of some wrongheaded derring-do had nested too high. She nodded toward the lighted fish tanks and giggled. “I feel like a bird,” she said, “with my own personal supply of fish.”
Evan sighed. “He comes home and just sacks out on the sofa, watching fuzzy football. He’s wearing the psychic cold cream and curlers, if you know what I mean.”
Zoë sat up, readjusted the sofa cushions. “What’s fuzzy football?”
“We haven’t gotten cable yet. Everything comes in fuzzy. Charlie just watches it that way.”
“Hmmm, yeah, that’s a little depressing,” Zoë said. She looked at her hands. “Especially the part about not having cable.”
“This is how he gets into bed at night.” Evan stood up to demonstrate. “He whips all his clothes off, and when he gets to his underwear, he lets it drop to one ankle. Then he kicks up his leg and flips the underwear in the air and catches it. I, of course, watch from the bed. There’s nothing else. There’s just that.”
“Maybe you should just get it over with and get married.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. I mean, you guys probably think living together like this is the best of both worlds, but …” Zoë tried to sound like an older sister; an older sister was supposed to be the parent you could never have, the hip, cool mom. “… I’ve always found that as soon as you think you’ve got the best of both worlds”—she thought now of herself, alone in her house; of the toad-faced cicadas that flew around like little caped men at night, landing on her screens, staring; of the size fourteen shoes she placed at the doorstep, to scare off intruders; of the ridiculous inflatable blow-up doll someone had told her to keep propped up at the breakfast table—“it can suddenly twist and become the worst of both worlds.”
“Really?” Evan was beaming. “Oh, Zoë. I have something to tell you. Charlie and I are getting married.”
“Really.” Zoë felt confused.
“I didn’t know how to tell you.”
“Yes, well, I guess the part about fuzzy football misled me a little.”
“I was hoping you’d be my maid of honor,” said Evan, waiting. “Aren’t you happy for me?”
“Yes,” said Zoë, and she began to tell Evan a story about an award-winning violinist at Hilldale-Versailles, how the violinist had come home from a competition in Europe and taken up with a local man, who made her go to all his summer softball games, made her cheer for him from the stands, with the wives, until she later killed herself. But when she got halfway through, to the part about cheering at the softball games, Zoë stopped.
“What?” said Evan. “So what happened?”
“Actually, nothing,” said Zoë lightly. “She just really got into softball. I mean, really. You should have seen her.”
ZOË DECIDED to go to a late-afternoon movie, leaving Evan to chores she needed to do before the party—I have to do them alone, she’d said, a little tense after the violinist story. Zoë thought about going to an art museum, but women alone in art museums had to look good. They always did. Chic and serious, moving languidly, with a great handbag. Instead, she walked over and down through Kips Bay, past an earring boutique called Stick It in Your Ear, past a beauty salon called Dorian Gray’s. That was the funny thing about beauty, thought Zoë. Look it up in the yellow pages, and you found a hundred entries, hostile with wit, cutesy with warning. But look up truth—ha! There was nothing at all.
Zoë thought about Evan getting married. Would Evan turn into Peter Pumpkin Eater’s wife? Mrs. Eater? At the wedding would she make Zoë wear some flouncy lavender dress, identical with the other maids’? Zoë hated uniforms, had even, in the first grade, refused to join Elf Girls, because she didn’t want to wear the same dress as everyone else. Now she might have to. But maybe she could distinguish it. Hitch it up on one side with a clothespin. Wear surgical gauze at the waist. Clip to her bodice one of those pins that said in loud letters, SHIT HAPPENS.
At the movie—Death by Number—she bought strands of red licorice to tug and chew. She took a seat off to one side in the theater. She felt strangely self-conscious sitting alone and hoped for the place to darken fast. When it did, and the coming attractions came on, she reached inside her purse for her glasses. They were in a Baggie. Her Kleenex was also in a Baggie. So were her pen and her aspirin and her mints. Everything was in Baggies. This was what she’d become: a woman alone at the movies with everything in a Baggie.
AT THE HALLOWEEN PARTY, there were about two dozen people. There were people with ape heads and large hairy hands. There was someone dressed as a leprechaun. There was someone dressed as a frozen dinner. Some man had brought his two small daughters: a ballerina and a ballerina’s sister, also dressed as a ballerina. There was a gaggle of sexy witches — women dressed entirely in black, beautifully made up and jeweled. “I hate those sexy witches. It’s not in the spirit of Halloween,” said Evan. Evan had abandoned the moon mask and dolled herself up as a hausfrau, in curlers and an apron, a decision she now regretted. Charlie, because he liked fish, because he owned fish, collected fish, had decided to go as a fish. He had fins and eyes on the side of his head. “Zoë! How are you! I’m sorry I wasn’t here when you first arrived!” He spent the rest of his time chatting up the sexy witches.
“Isn’t there something I can help you with here?” Zoë asked her sister. “You’ve been running yourself ragged.” She rubbed her sister’s arm, gently, as if she wished they were alone.
“Oh, God, not at all,” said Evan, arranging stuffed mushrooms on a plate. The timer went off, and she pulled another sheetful out of the oven. “Actually, you know what you can do?”
“What?” Zoë put on her bonehead.
“Meet Earl. He’s the guy I had in mind for you. When he gets here, just talk to him a little. He’s nice. He’s fun. He’s going through a divorce.”
“I’ll try.” Zoë groaned. “OK? I’ll try.” She looked at her watch.
When Earl arrived, he was dressed as a naked woman, steel wool glued strategically to a body stocking, and large rubber breasts protruding like hams.
“Zoë, this is Earl,” said Evan.
“Good to meet you,” said Earl, circling Evan to shake Zoë’s hand. He stared at the top of Zoë’s head. “Great bone.”
Zoë nodded. “Great tits,” she said. She looked past him, out the window at the city thrown glitteringly up against the sky; people were saying the usual things: how it looked like jewels, like bracelets and necklaces unstrung. You could see Grand Central station, the clock of the Con Ed building, the red-and-gold-capped Empire State, the Chrysler like a rocket ship dreamed up in a depression. Far west you could glimpse the Astor Plaza, its flying white roof like a nun’s habit. “There’s beer out on the balcony, Earl — can I get you one?” Zoë asked.