They would be reading each other's stories to the class tonight. She couldn't...what ifshe started to cry in front of all those people? It made her lips tremble just thinking about it.
When class was over, she decided to walk across town to the office before calling Nicole. None of the booths were working. Severed telephone cord after another appeared on the crowded sidewalks. It was taking forever to get across town. She descended into the subway. When she climbed up the stairs, she realized she still had several blocks to go. How could it take an hour or two just to walk across town?
She dialed Nicole from her office phone. It rang twenty, now thirty times. No answer. She slammed the phone down and left the darkened office, dragging her heavy suitcase with the bottle of Frexchenet and the Coco Chanel wrapped and tissued and cushioned within it. She walked up Sixth Avenue. She wanted to take a bus, but it was a pain. Finding the stop, digging for change, waiting. She wanted a taxi, but she needed to save her money. No lit cabs were going her way. She walked up and down the hilly avenue in back of the highrise apartment building overlooking the East River. The streets were deserted. Why was she doing this? Her suitcase was heavy. She marched up the canopied sidewalk and announced herself to the doorman. She spied a cardboard box with the aroma of pepperoni pizza narrowly escaping.
She followed the pizza man up to the 14th floor. NIcole had obviously given up on going out. Nicole greeted them, in a neat white turtleneck, her long blond hair brushed neatly away from her face.
"Did you still want to go out?" Debbie said.
"Not really. It's late," she said. She frowned gravely.
"Weren't you...wondering where I was?" Debbie said over the counter.
"After ten o'clock, I said, hey, it's too late," Nicole stated firmly as she reached for a couple of dishes.
Debbie had left class at 8:30. It had taken her two hours to walk from her uptown class, and to go across town to her office. And another forty minutes to walk back uptown to their apartment.
"I didn't realize..." Debbie said. But she did. She had been mad at Nicole for the annoyance in her voice, mad that she never returned phone calls, and now she was mad because Nicole had not picked up the phone.
But she joined Nicole for pizza.
"Are you tired?" Nicole said.
"No! I feel relaxed, invigorated," Debbie smiled, thinking of all the racing around today, of the flowers and champagne and perfume, of the controversy her story had caused her classmates.
"One thing, I hate, more than anything, is when he says he'll call and then he doesn't!" Nicole exclaimed. "I meant, just with boyfriends," she added.
"Oh, my God. This is a mess," Debbie mumbled.
"Don't worry about it," Nicole said. And then they were laughing and joking like little kids, likesisters. But when Debbie left the next morning, she did not awake Nicole to say goodbye, but instead, slipped quietly out of their apartment with the view of the East River.
