Her date does nothing. You stroke her hand, then you let her cry, untouched, unloved, in public. You son of a bitch. I’ll love you, I think suddenly. I rise, squeeze between the two tables, and pat the woman on her shoulder. Makeup streaming, lashes fluttering, bloodshot lines threading her eyes. I’ve wept in public before, like this, not in the daylight, though, only at night, in a dark corner of a bar. “Do you want to come with me to the restroom?” I say. She nods.
We walk through the restaurant, my hand on her back, guiding her gently through the tables, past the front entrance and a concerned hostess and the beautiful old bar with the wine bottles lining the walls, and downstairs, to the ladies’ room, where neither one of us has to pee. I sit in the lounge while she washes her face, pats it with a towel, then puts on some lipstick. Her silk skirt is expertly fitted, and she’s got a precise, sexy figure, tiny waist, big hips, slender shoulders: a structurally strong, shapely human being.
“I’m fine, honey,” she says. “I know it looks like I’m not. He’s just crazy, is all, like crazy obsessed in love with me, and this is what comes with that.” She hoists herself up on the counter, crosses her legs, and pulls a cigarette out of her purse. Smoking indoors has been illegal in New York City for more than a decade. “You can’t do that,” I say. “Can’t I,” she says, and she lights it. Already I want to leave. I’ve chosen the wrong hill to die on. But I cannot go. Because she has a story to tell.
Her name is Dominique, and she is from Atlanta, and she hasn’t lived there in five years, but since her parents still live there (she actually calls them “Mommy and Daddy” and it is not ironic; to her, that’s just their names), she will always think of Atlanta as home. She won’t be in New York forever, no matter what the man upstairs says, and by “man upstairs” she means the man she is having an affair with, not God, though she could see my confusion if I had any. She was a summer intern at his consulting firm, one I probably would have heard of, she whispers, and I tell her that I don’t know the names of any consulting firms because that’s not really my deal, and she ignores me because she doesn’t care what my deal is. This child. She was supposed to go home to her daddy’s firm, which she might inherit someday if she feels like it, but he wouldn’t let her, the man upstairs, and she’s been here in New York for two years now. She stays with him when she feels like it, she goes when she pleases. He’s too old for her. He’s never met her parents. It’s not their first fight and it won’t be their last. “You two are a nightmare,” I say. “You think?” she says. “All this time I thought I was living the dream.” She lights another cigarette. The hostess enters the lounge, and I exit. “You can’t smoke here,” says the hostess. “Can’t I,” I hear Dominique say behind me.
Upstairs, I slide back into the banquette. The man to the left of me is now gone, his paper left behind, and the man to the right of me is on his phone, texting. Greta has the check, and now she’s crying. “I’ve got it, don’t worry,” she says. “I’ll pay it, just get me out of here.” I grab it from her. “Greta, no. I’m not going to sit here and listen to you talk about how broke you are for an hour and then let you pay this bill.” “Oh, so sorry I’m broke,” she says. “Forgive me for feeding your family.” “That’s not my family,” I say without thinking. “Andrea. It is,” she says. I’m immediately mortified. I put my hands flat on the table and steady myself. “Let’s just both calm down here,” I say. “OK,” she says. The man to the right of me offers to pay our bill and we both snap at him, “Fuck off.” He gets up and leaves.
“I was telling you about me and my problems and you walked off with a complete stranger,” she says. “I’m sorry,” I say. “Could you just stop pretending we don’t exist?” she says. “You’re the ones who left town,” I say. “Because we had to,” she says. “I didn’t really know you needed me,” I mumble. “Andrea, what do you think is going on in our lives? Can’t you see what’s happening?” she says. “It’s all hands on deck.” She’s pissed, she’s furious. “And—I can’t speak for David because he’s on his own planet half the time but I can certainly speak for myself—it hurts my feelings. Everything, everything we’ve been through together, you and me together, and you check out now?” “I call,” I say. She snorts. “Your phone calls are appreciated but they are certainly not enough. We need you to show up.” I say, “OK, well, I didn’t think it mattered.” “Of course it fucking matters,” she says. “You matter to us. You matter to me.” She takes my hands and squeezes them and her eyes are full of so many emotions and she forces me to accept them and I am momentarily winded by them all.
Across the room a waiter drops a glass and it shatters. A smattering of people applaud. They must be from out of town, I think. No real New Yorkers would clap for that.
Later I call an Uber to get Greta to Grand Central. It would be faster for her to take the subway, but I like the idea of her collapsing into the back seat of a car, being alone with her thoughts for a while, watching the city fly by her one last time, because who knows when she’ll be back again? She grasps me as she leaves, kisses me hard on the cheek, tells me she loves me, that I’m her sister whether I like it or not. “That’s not even a question,” I say. “I’ve always loved you.” “Then come for Thanksgiving,” she says spontaneously. “Could you?” She steps into the car, blows me a kiss, tells me not to forget her when she’s gone.
I always reel for a few days after I witness someone’s personal truth. I walk around feeling like I’m wearing their essence like a tight sweater. With Greta, it’s a wetsuit. It takes a week until I can finally peel her off me, but I wake up one morning, naked in my apartment, and it’s all me again, and she’s gone. No more Greta, I think. No more sick babies, no more sad brothers, no more lost mothers. They’re there and I’m here. I’m free. And then I buy a train ticket up north for Thanksgiving, because I miss them all so goddamn much, and if I don’t see them again soon, touch them, and talk to them, I’ll never survive this life.
The Actress