Just Friends Read online

  “Sorry.” Freya bit her lip.

  The waiter brought wine and food. Over her truffle salad, Freya told Michael about her appointment this afternoon with a client sent by Lola, one of “my dear old friends,” who had arrived an hour late and turned out to be a complete time waster. “All he did was give me a pompous lecture on the inner meaning of each canvas—total art catalog crapspeak. In the end I had to throw him out so I could get dressed. Otherwise I’d be here looking like a grunge.”

  She paused, in case Michael wanted to comment on how ungrungy she was. He didn’t.

  “I hate that type, don’t you?” she burbled on. “All Rolex watches and phony European accents, and leering at you as they talk about the role of art in breaking sexual taboos.”

  “Not a lot of leering goes on at Reinertson and Klang, I’m afraid.”

  “Glad to hear it! I wouldn’t want you running off with Mrs. Ingwerson.”

  “Mrs. Ingwerson is fifty-four years old.” Michael’s tone was cool. “And the best secretary I’ve ever had.”

  “Joke, Michael!” Freya gave her fork a humorous little flourish. He certainly was slow on the uptake tonight.

  “Oh. Sorry.”

  “Anyway,” she continued brightly, trying to smooth things over, “we don’t want to talk about work, do we?”

  “No,” he said uncertainly. “Here, have some more bread.” He grabbed a basket in front of him and held it out to her. “You never eat enough.”

  To please him, Freya took a piece and crumbled it onto her plate. Over his shoulder she caught sight of a couple leaning close to smile into each other’s eyes, their faces lit by a glow of candlelight, their legs entwined under the table. Wasn’t that how it was supposed to be? She felt a tremor of disquiet. Why didn’t Michael get to the point? She was beginning to lose her nerve.

  The waiter cleared their plates and brought the main courses while Michael began telling her, at some length, about an article he’d read in the Times about the mayor’s controversial policy on underage crime. Freya nodded at appropriate moments while her mind raced along its own track. Romance wasn’t everything, she told herself. By Monday morning that couple probably wouldn’t even be on speaking terms. Or he’d say he’d call, but he wouldn’t, and she’d wait by the phone for a while, then go out and buy a new dress and start again. Freya knew the routine well. It was juvenile to expect to be swept away by passion. Mature relationships were founded on companionship and mutual respect, not to mention cash flow and a nice place to live. You had to take the long view.

  Michael rambled on. It was almost as if he was marking time before—before what? Freya pushed her fish nervously around her plate. One man—this man—for the rest of her life, “till death us do part”: it was a scary idea. She told herself she was lucky to have the option, in a city where a single woman was ten times more likely receive a dirty phone call than a proposal of marriage. And people changed when they got married . . . didn’t they?

  But when Michael finally finished his steak and laid down his knife and fork neatly, Freya’s heart began to hammer. Uh-oh, was this it? What was she going to say?

  Michael cleared his throat. “Freya. I’ve brought you here tonight for a special reason. I have something to say, and something to give you.”

  “Really?” She gave an inane laugh.

  “Please. I’m serious. I want you to listen.”

  “I will, I will.” Freya felt herself flapping helplessly like a fish in a net. “But, you know what, I’m still hungry. Isn’t that amazing?” she gabbled. “I’ve just got to have one of those irresistible-looking chocolate things.”

  “Okay,” Michael said curtly. He waved over a waiter.

  “What about you? The berry pie sounds good. Or the sorbet. I always think sorbet is so—”

  “I don’t want to eat. I want to talk.”

  “Oh. Right.” Freya grabbed her wineglass and drained it.

  Michael smoothed his tie down his shirtfront. “These last few months we’ve been together have been some of the best of my life,” he began. “You’ve opened my eyes to so many new things—art, and interesting food, and parts of the city I never knew existed. I want you to know that I think you’re a terrific person.”

  “You’re a terrific person, too,” Freya responded chirpily.

  He plowed on as if he hadn’t heard. She realized that he’d rehearsed this speech. “I’ve been thinking about the future. I’m thirty-six now, and I know what I want. I’m ready to settle down soon. If I get the partnership, I’ll be able to afford to move. A house out of the city, Connecticut maybe, or some place upstate. Who knows, I might even take up golf.”

  “Golf?” squeaked Freya, beginning to panic.

  “And I want someone to share that life with me.”

  Freya suddenly saw herself trapped behind a white picket fence with a frilly apron glued to her waist.

  “Home. Stability. Shared interests,” Michael intoned. “And kids, one day.”

  Behind the picket fence there now appeared a mob of yowling toddlers with jammy faces, freighted by bulging diapers. Freya could actually feel her biological clock whirling into reverse. A hand placed her dessert before her—brown goo in a creamy lake. Her stomach heaved.

  “These are the things I see happening, things I’m looking forward to, things I want to share with another person.” Michael stared at her intently, almost fiercely.

  Quick! Head him off at the pass. “Could we order some coffee?” she croaked. “I’m feeling kind of tired.”

  “In a minute. What I’m trying to say—” He broke off in exasperation as she gave an enormous fake yawn. “God, you’re making this so difficult. There’s something I want to give you.”

  Now he was patting his pockets. Any minute he was going to produce the ring!

  “I don’t need anything. Really. It’s not my birthday.”

  “Please stop interrupting. I’ve got something important to say to you.”

  “There’s no rush. Let’s leave it to tomorrow.” Freya was now giving her hair careless little flicks and grinning like a Disney chipmunk.

  “You see, I think you’re wonderful,” Michael continued.

  “Hey, I think I’m wonderful too. So why don’t we—” Freya cast around wildly for inspiration and caught sight of the canoodling couple. She leaned low across the table, clenching her forearms to her sides to give herself a Grand Canyon cleavage. “Why don’t we go home,” she cooed, “and make mad, passionate love?”

  “You don’t understand.” Michael had now taken whatever it was out of his pocket. He held it hidden, cupped between both hands, and was looking down solemnly, like a small boy about to show her his live pet toad.

  Freya tried a different tack. “It’s too soon.” Her voice was redolent with untold tragedy. She nudged his hand. “Please, put it away.”

  Instead, Michael pressed the object into her fingers—a small, square box.

  Freya hesitated. She might as well see what he had picked out. Did she rate diamonds? Or the predictable sapphire, “to match your eyes”?

  She opened the box. Inside was a gold signet ring engraved with the monogram MJP. The initials stood for Michael Josiah Petersen. She knew this because she had bought him the ring herself. American men liked that kind of thing. It had been a gesture, to show her gratitude to Michael when he first gave her shelter.

  “Wow.” She was completely at a loss. In American high schools, girls and boys swapped “class rings.” Maybe this was a grown-up version. “I—I don’t know what to say.” She took out the ring and turned it around in her fingers, then looked into Michael’s face for guidance.

  “We’ve had such great times together.” Michael’s voice was thick with emotion.

  “Yes . . .” She hung her head.

  “I so much want you to be happy.”

  “I know.”

  “But—”

  But? Freya’s head jerked up. But what? She’d lost the script. What was going on he
re?

  “—but I think it would be better if . . .”

  “If what?”

  “Well, you know . . .”

  “No, Michael, I don’t know.”

  “If we could be . . .”

  “Yes? . . .”

  “I think it would be better if we could be . . . just friends.”

  “Friends,” she echoed. “Friends?” she repeated loudly.

  There was a dull splat. It was the ring, dropping from her lifeless fingers into the chocolate torte.

  CHAPTER 2

  Walk. Don’t walk. Signs flashed. Headlamps dazzled. Traffic revved and roared. There was the whoop-whoop of a police siren, a percussive strafe of rap music from a passing car. Freya strode up Broadway, heels clacking, long legs scissoring in leather trousers. A piece of crushed material dangled from one swinging fist. From time to time she swished it angrily, like a lion tamer with his whip. People got out of her way.

  Bastard! How dared he ditch her like that? He’d led her down the garden path, then pushed her headfirst into the muck heap. “I think you’re a terrific person,” she mimicked to herself, waggling her head like a crazy. So terrific that he’d made her spend over a thousand dollars, just so he could ask her to be “friends” with him. So terrific that he’d taken her to the most fashionable restaurant in town for the pleasure of dumping her in public. Her eyes blurred, and she stepped out into a cross street without seeing that the lights had changed.

  A clash of car horns made her jump. Automatically Freya responded with a rude gesture and kept walking. She sniffed fiercely and swiped the heel of her hand across her cheeks. She was not crying. She began to sing loudly in her head to drown out the voice that told her she was alone, that she would always be alone, that no one wanted to be with her if they could help it, that she’d been a vain, ridiculous fool to think Michael could want to marry her. It was always the same tune, she couldn’t have said why. She didn’t even know the words.

  Land of hope and glory, mother of the free

  Dum dum dum-dum dum-dum dum

  Dum dum diddle-y dee . . .

  Sure enough, as she marched up the street in time with the music, Freya felt the steel reenter her soul. Tough, tough, tough, she reminded herself. She hadn’t cried in front of anyone since she was fifteen years old, when her little sneak of a stepsister had peeked through the keyhole of her bedroom door and run to tell the household that Freya was a crybaby. Well, not anymore. Freya had chosen this city because it was the toughest in the world. Manhattan wasn’t like a European city where people wandered hand in hand, stopped to kiss in the middle of sidewalks and bridges, and took their children and grannies to restaurants. This was a place where you walked fast and avoided eye contact, where you got your Christmas tree delivered already decorated and threw it out on Christmas afternoon, where you told your cabdriver he was a fucking cretin, and developed that don’t-mess-with-me glint in your eye. Freya liked it; it suited her.

  Okay, so she was back to square one. So what? She’d been alone before. She was used to it. It was better than staying with a man who didn’t love her. She wasn’t doing that, not even for one night.

  For after itemizing the reasons why she wasn’t right for him—psychobabble about mutual trust and compatible life goals—Michael had been insensitive enough to suggest that she stay on in his apartment until she found a new place, and then accused her of being “emotional” when she refused. That’s when she’d gotten up and left the restaurant—just cut him off in midsentence. There was no way she was going to let anyone see her get emotional. Anyway, she didn’t need Michael’s charity. There were alternatives to hanging around like Little Miss Grateful, sleeping on Michael’s couch and demurely passing him the skim milk at breakfast time. “I have plenty of other friends,” she’d told him pointedly.

  The bad news was, they were all out. She’d made some calls from the gallery when she returned to take off that stupid dress and change back into her work clothes. But it was still only ten o’clock on a Friday night. Most normal people were out having a good time—even Cat, her best friend, who had complained to her this very week that she hadn’t been on a date in months. So, where was she? Freya shrugged. It was no big deal: she would try later from her cell phone. If the worse came to the worst, she could check into a cheap hotel. Freya pictured the desk clerk’s leer as she arrived in some seedy, ill-lit foyer, a lone woman with no luggage. Her scorching pace faltered. Where was she?

  Union Square opened up ahead of her. Instinctively she crossed Fourteenth Street to get away from the traffic, climbed the steps into the square, and began to circle it aimlessly. It was a warm night, the first of June with the first promise of real summer, and the place was bustling. People streamed out of the subway, some pausing at the news kiosks, others heading for the trendy restaurants that ringed the square. On one of the benches a group of teenage girls rocked back and forth, helpless with giggles, while two boys on in-line skates swooped around them in complicated patterns, showing off. An old man was leading his big collie from tree to tree, softly urging it to perform. By the fountain in the middle of the square some guys had set up an ad hoc band—saxophone, double bass, guitar, a singer in a worn top hat, a cardboard box laid on the grass containing a pathetic sprinkling of coins. Behind them the city reared into the night sky, sparking like a perpetual fireworks display. The husky voice of the singer drifted out across the square: “. . . but I’m broken-hearted/’Cause I can’t get started/With you.”

  Freya came to a halt and wrapped her arms tight, tight across her chest. Under her fingers, she could feel the delicate beading of the pink dress. New York might look like the most romantic city in the world, she thought; just don’t go there expecting to find love.

  Abruptly she turned her back on the music and the view. Her eye fell on a large metal garbage container on which someone had crudely painted, “Jesus loves you.” She strode over to it and in a sudden, savage gesture stuffed the dress inside, between newspapers and crushed Styrofoam cups and cigarette butts, pushing it deeper until the delicate chiffon began to rip and red goo from pizza cartons smeared across the fancy beadwork. So much for her foolish female fantasies. She brushed her palms clean and stepped back to survey the mess. It occurred to her that certain art dealers she knew would transport that garbage can straight to their gallerys and display it with a five-figure price tag, as “Study with pizza carton No. 25.” Hmm, pizza. Now what did that remind her of?. . .

  Twenty minutes later she was in Chelsea, standing outside the basement door of one of the seedier-looking town houses, a paper bag clasped under her arm. The window overlooking the narrow front yard was barred and curtained, but a light shone from inside and she thought she could hear the hum of voices. It was the first Friday of the month, right? Some people never changed. Freya pressed the doorbell.

  She heard an inner door open, a casual male shout, the sticky tread of sneakers on bare tiles. A shadow loomed behind the panel of colored glass. Then there was the click of a lock, and light streamed onto her face. Standing in the doorway was a tall, loose-limbed man with a haystack of blond hair, holding a drink in one hand.

  Freya pointed two fingers at his chest. “Stick ’em up,” she said. “It’s a raid.”

  His eyebrows rose in surprise. Had she done the wrong thing? What if he was holed up with some babe? Then he shouted, “Freya! I don’t believe it!” and drew her inside with an easy hug. He smelled of bourbon.

  “Hiya, Jack.” She stepped back from his embrace. “You’re still running the game, aren’t you?”

  “Sure. Come on in.” He grinned at her. “We can always use another sucker.”

  “Sucker yourself!” She followed him across the checkerboard floor, squeezing past a bicycle propped against one wall. “Who tricked you out of a full house that time with a lousy pair of nines?”

  But Jack was already pushing open the door to the living room with his foot. “Hey, everybody, look who’s here!”

  T
he scene was so familiar she didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. In the center of the room was a big round table covered with a stained cloth and littered with beer bottles, cigarette papers, pretzels, colored poker chips, dollar bills, overflowing ashtrays, and—yes!—pizza cartons spattered with dried tomato and coagulated cheese. Smoke hung in a visible cloud below the globular ceiling lamp. And there they all were, the old crowd—Al, sitting backwards astride his chair, rolling a joint; Gus, doing his fancy double-shuffle; Larry, counting his chips and totaling the amount with a pocket calculator. There was another man, too, a stranger in a black shirt, with dark eyebrows and a challenging stare. The tableau held for a split second, then jerked into life as if her entrance had broken a spell.

  There was a general hubbub of greeting. Someone went to the kitchen to get more ice. A glass was pressed into her hand. Larry bounded over and gave her a bear hug, his springy hair tickling her chin. “My, how you’ve grown,” he teased. Everyone asked her how she was and where she had been all this time, and she thought of Michael with a fresh burst of resentment. How dared he try to trap her in his persnickety routines and domestic demands! These were her real friends.