43
There is a feminine protocol to these things.
Before we slid into the banquette of the restaurant on Fourteenth Street, before we settled in at all, Constance held out her hand, and Amy and I gave out the obligatory girl squeal.
Amy grabbed Constance’s hand and held it close.
“Get out of town! It’s beautiful,” she said, examining it. “Classic setting. Platinum, right? Not white gold. Oh, it’s beautiful, Constance, just beautiful. An Empire cut?”
All of this happened on our way to the table. I couldn’t believe the stars had aligned to bring us all together. Constance had returned from Australia ten days before—engaged!—and Amy had arrived from Ohio on a job-search swing through New York. Our get-together had happened almost by itself, which only went to make it seem even more miraculous. It also made me feel surprisingly adult. Here I was, a denizen of New York City, having lunch with girlfriends in the middle of my working day. It gave me a kick. I knew the other girls felt the same way.
The ma?tre d’ tolerated us and held the menus while we slipped into the green banquette. It was a Vietnamese restaurant named something Crab. The Beautiful Crab or the Enchanted Crab. Constance had read about it in The New Yorker and suggested it. We had arrived at the door almost at the exact instant, Constance and Amy sharing a cab over from Penn Station.
We put Constance in the middle. Amy and I took turns passing Constance’s finger and hand back and forth.
“Okay, I want the whole story,” Amy said. “Did he propose cute? What happened? And we’re going to need a scorpion bowl for this. Three straws, please.”
The waitress—a petite Vietnamese woman in black trousers beneath an olive tunic—hadn’t even fully arrived at the table, but Amy had already given her a mission.
“Three straws,” the waitress said, confirming.
“Three straws,” Amy agreed.
Then for a second, before Constance started, we went silent. It felt so good to be back together, to be one group again, that we all felt—I guessed—a little shy. We looked around the restaurant, pretending greater interest in the furnishing than we probably felt. But Amy saved us by snagging a busboy and asking for water.
“You have to ask for water in every damn restaurant now,” Amy said. “Are they trying to save dishwashing fluid or water or what?”
“I guess in case of a water shortage,” I said lamely.
“This is New York! There’s no water shortage here, is there? Not that I’ve heard of, anyway. Okay, Constance, give us the story. You know we want to hear it. Don’t leave anything out.”
Constance blushed. She hated being the center of attention.
“We were out checking the fences on the station,” Constance began. “And Raef—”
“Wait, how big is this station?”
“Big. Very big. Hundreds of acres, but the land is dry and not very useful. I guess you can still get big parcels of land up in the desert for next to nothing in Australia. Raef’s family owns a lot of the land around those parts. He has an extended family, so everywhere you go, there’s an uncle who has this plot, an aunt who has this one, a cousin … you get it.”
“So you’re out checking the fence?” Amy said. “I can’t believe our prissy Constance is out checking fences in Australia.”
The busboy came with our water. He poured out three glasses. Constance paused while the busboy finished. Then she continued.
“He leaned against the fence, and he looked out at the desert, and he asked me if I could imagine spending my life here. It wasn’t dramatic. He said he would make sure we traveled and that we could spend time in the United States, but that he wanted me to consider being his wife and living in Australia with him. That was all.”
“Did he get down on a knee?” Amy asked.
“No. We’re not like that.”
“You mean sort of…”
“Just those outdated roles. I don’t know. Raef doesn’t go in for much in the way of formality or tradition. I’ve never met anyone who lived more for the day. He doesn’t stand on ceremony. Most of the Australians I met despise ceremony. They have a bit of a hangover from the British rule, but most of it is pure Aussie.”
“What did the desert look like?” I asked.
“Oh, beautiful colors. Red, mostly, but that doesn’t do it justice. All the doors to the house are kept open, screened, but opened. And you spend a lot of time on the porch. You visit different porches depending on what time of day it is. It’s a farming society, really, although I guess herding is more accurate. They run thousands of sheep. Everywhere you look, you see sheep.”
“And his family?” Amy asked.
“Sweethearts. Very welcoming. They made sure to tell me Raef had never brought any other girl home. It was comical how each one pulled me aside and told me that. Pretty funny.”
“Have you set a date?” I asked.
“Spring,” she said. “In Paris.”
She reached quickly and took my hand. It was typical of Constance that she would not want her happiness to bring me sadness of any kind. She smiled and made sure she caught my eye. I nodded. It was okay. Everything would be okay. Paris was fine.
*
“No word from He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named?” Amy asked me after a second scorpion bowl arrived. “Is that’s what we’re still calling him?”
“We call him asshat, mostly,” Constance said.
“Constance!” Amy laughed. “You calling someone an asshat? All that Aussie stuff is rubbing off on you. Well, my stars and garters!”
“I don’t care,” Constance said, sipping the straw that angled into the scorpion bowl. “My friends’ enemies are my enemies.”
I leaned over and kissed Constance’s cheek.
“Nothing,” I said. “Gone into the wind.”
“He’s removed everything, Raef said,” Constance said. “Facebook, Instagram, even his cell. He’s disappeared from everything.”
“What the fuck?” Amy said. “Who does that?”
“Next topic,” I said.
“Wait, who are you dating these days?” Amy asked me. “Anything cooking?”
I shook my head.
“I am a celibate priestess,” I said. “I could be sacrificed to a volcano.”
“Girl, you got to get back in the game.”
“That’s what I tell her,” Constance agreed, nodding and sipping.
“I mean,” Amy said. “I mean, just even a little ride ’em cowboy. Your ginny is going to dry up like an old pumpkin.”
“Ginny?” Constance asked and laughed.
“I work,” I said. “That’s what I do.”
“So that’s going well?” Constance asked. “You like that?”
“It’s … interesting. I keep hearing He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named’s voice in the back of my head. New York is a prison we build for ourselves,” I said in a monster voice. “It’s not a prison, but it’s not a picnic, either. He was right about that.”
“You need to get out more,” Amy said, sipping and talking, talking and sipping. “You need to join something.”
“All these hipsters playing dodgeball and joining bowling leagues,” I said. “It tires me out just to think of it.”