moving in together. In fact, I had finally worked up all my nerve to broach the subject with him one night after much input from Kate and Raphael—but before I could open my mouth, he told me about finding Nerissa.
So let’s take a step back and assess the situation as it now stands.
One gorgeous, buff, commitment-phobic actor blowing out of town.
One overweight, insecure, commitment-obsessed secretary left behind.
I just don’t have a good feeling about this.
But that doesn’t stop me from ordering the bacon cheeseburger with onion rings at the coffee shop around the corner from Will’s building.
And it doesn’t give me the courage to ask him if I can go with him.
Three
Raphael has a sprawling birthday party every year.
He always throws it for himself, and he always holds it at his apartment in the meat-packing district. A Manhattan Realtor or an optimist or a blind moron might call it a loft in a converted warehouse, but basically, there’s nothing converted about the place. It still looks and feels like a warehouse—a cavernous, dank, virtually windowless, virtually unfurnished place that not even Martha Stewart, armed with a glue gun and yards of chintz and rolls of Persian carpet, could transform into anything remotely homey.
But it’s a large dwelling, and in Manhattan, large dwellings are notoriously hard to come by. Raphael makes good use of his; he always invites everyone he ever met to his birthday parties, and he tells them to bring everyone they ever met.
According to Kate, who’s known Raphael a year longer than I have and has therefore been to his birthday parties before, the crowd is typically comprised of incredibly gorgeous, hip, fashionable gay males and their incredibly gorgeous, hip, fashionable straight female friends.
This year, because it’s a milestone birthday for Raphael, the crowd is expected to be even larger than usual, and also more gorgeous, more hip and more fashionable than usual.
Raphael told me that there’s always a theme.
Last year, it was a jungle theme. Buff men in loincloths and animal prints.
The year before that, it was a beach party. Buff men in Speedos.
This year, it’s an island theme.
Spot the trend? Raphael’s motifs are designed to allow for minimal clothing—not to mention maximum alcohol consumption by way of fun, fruity drinks.
This year, he’s rented fake palm trees. He wanted to have blazing tiki torches, but I talked him out of that one. His friend Thomas, who is a set designer for Broadway shows, created this shimmering blue waterfall and lagoon out of some kind of slippery fabric. Frozen cocktails are being served in fake plastic coconut cups.
I arrive almost two hours late, with Kate in tow. She’s the reason we’re tardy. She went to a salon to have her lip waxed shortly before the party was supposed to start, and we had to wait for the blotchy red swelling to go down.
Now, as we walk into Raphael’s jamming party, she tugs my arm and asks, “Are you sure I look all right?”
Actually, she doesn’t. In keeping with the island theme, she has what looks like a Hawaiian Punch mustache above her upper lip, despite her futile attempts to cover the welt with pancake makeup. The lighting in her apartment was so dim that I didn’t realize how much it shows until we were on the subway.
“You look fine,” I lie.
She cups a hand at her ear. “What did you say?”
“You look fine,” I shout, to be heard above the blasting Jimmy Buffet tune and the din of voices. “I just can’t believe you waited until just before the party to get your lip waxed. Why didn’t you do it earlier in the day, or yesterday? You know you always have a bad reaction to the wax.”
“I didn’t realize my mustache had come back in until tonight,” Kate shouts back. “I mean, what did you want me to do, show up here with five o’clock shadow? I can’t believe you didn’t tell me I had stubble when we were together this morning.”
“I didn’t notice, Kate. Guess I was too wrapped up in my own trauma.”
“How bad do I look?” She takes a few steps toward the television set and strains to catch a glimpse of herself reflected in the darkened screen.
“Tracey!” Raphael materializes with a shriek, umbrella-bedecked frozen strawberry daiquiri in hand, and gives me a big kiss.
He’s a beautiful man, with jet-black hair, mocha-colored skin and the longest eyelashes I’ve ever seen. People sometimes mistake him for Ricky Martin, and he invariably goes along with it, signing autographs and waxing nostalgic about the good old days with Menudo.
“Happy Birthday, honeybunch,” I say, squeezing him.
“You didn’t dress up, Tracey!”
“I didn’t?” I feign horror and look down, as though expecting to find myself naked. “Don’t scare me like that, Raphael.”
He swats my arm. “I mean you didn’t dress in keeping with the theme.”
“What did you expect me to wear? A bikini? Trust me, Raphael, it’s better this way,” I say, motioning at my black turtleneck beneath a black blazer, worn with trendy black pants I splurged on in French Connection. Hopefully, the monochromatic effect is more slimming than funereal. “Great outfit on you, though.”
“You like?” He does a runway twirl, modeling his tropical print shirt, short shorts and Italian leather boots. “You don’t think it’s too gay, Tracey?”
In case you haven’t noticed, Raphael is a frequent name-user. He likes to think of it as his conversational trademark.
“Since when are you worried about being too gay, Raphael?”
“Since I saw the man Alexander and Joseph brought with them. Tracey, he’s delicious, and incredibly understated. You’d never suspect he’s a homo like the rest of us.” He motions over his shoulder at the reasonably good-looking, straight-looking man deep in conversation with Alexander and Joseph, who tonight are wearing matching sarongs with their matching gold wedding bands.
“The rest of us? Speak for yourself,” I tell Raphael, and add, eyeing the guy’s not-in-keeping-with-the-theme blue crewneck sweater and jeans, “Anyway, maybe he’s not a homo.”
“Oh, please. Kate!” Raphael screams her name as she rejoins us. He grabs her and plants a big kiss on her—his standard greeting—then steps back, tilts his head and frowns, wiping at her upper lip with his thumb. “Sorry, I slobbered my daquiri on your face.”
“Oh, hell.” In her accent, which is suddenly full-blown, it comes out hay-ell. “That’s not daquiri, Raphael. Tracey!” She turns on me, asking darkly, “It does not look okay, does it? It’s still all raw and red, isn’t it?”
I hedge. “It’s not that bad.”
“It’s
