I found I was irresistibly drawn back to look at Luke. This time he held my gaze and smiled. It began slowly and spread out into a great, big warm beam. So admiring, so loving was it, I felt as if I had my own personal sun.
Shake intercepted the smile. ‘What?’ he asked anxiously, looking from me to Luke and back again. ‘Don’t tell me you’ve got “quincunx” again?’
50
Summer in New York moved into fall, a much more humane season. The killer heat abated, the air became crisp and the leaves on the trees turned every colour of red and gold. I continued to see Luke every weekend and most of the week too. While I still lived in fear of certain people’s scorn, it was getting harder and harder to deny to both myself and others that he was my boyfriend. After all, wasn’t he with me the historic day I bought my new fall coat, a chocolate-coloured, Diana Rigg-type, belted raincoat? Didn’t I hold his hand in the street? (Although I let it drop when we went into Donna Karan.) And on the way home, didn’t he insist on stopping in front of every shop, pointing things out in the windows and declaring ‘Hey, Rachel, babe, that’d look blinding on you’?
I kept having to drag him away, while saying sternly, ‘No, Luke. That’s way too short. Even for me.’
But he continually protested, while trying to pull me into the shop, ‘No such thing as too short, babe, not with your legs.’
In October Brigit met another little Hispanic, this time a Puerto Rican called José, who proved as elusive as Carlos ever had. Her new job ensured she didn’t have as much spare time as she used to. But what little she had, she spent hanging around waiting for Josie (as Luke and I called him) to ring. Plus ça change…
‘Why can’t I ever meet someone nice?’ she demanded tearfully of me one evening. ‘Why can’t me and Josie be like you and Luke? José, I mean. What’s wrong with you and Costello, that you can’t call Josie by his right name?
‘José, I mean!’ she shouted in exasperation.
I was delighted that Brigit was miserable. It meant that while she was pissed-off with Josie she’d forget to be pissed-off with me. It made a welcome change.
‘What do you mean, “Me and Luke”?’ I asked.
‘You know.’ She flailed around with her hands. ‘In love.’
‘Ah, hardly,’ I protested, filled with warmth at the suggestion that Luke was in love with me. But I wasn’t sure whether he was or not, although he was very generous with the ‘I love you’s. The trouble was he told everyone he loved them, even Benny the bagel man. Whenever I did something nice for him he said ‘Thanks, babe, I love you.’ And it didn’t have to be a big something nice, something as small as making him a toasted cheese sandwich would do. If other people were there he’d stick out his arm, point at me and say ‘I love this woman.’ In fact, he sometimes did that when it was just the two of us.
Brigit watched my confused face. ‘Are you seriously trying to tell me that you’re not in love with Luke Costello?’ she demanded. ‘Are you still holding out on him?’
‘I like him,’ I defended myself. ‘I fancy him. Isn’t that enough for you?’
It was true. I did like him, I did fancy him. I just couldn’t help thinking there was supposed to be more.
‘What do you want? Some kind of celestial messenger to come along with a bugle and tell you you’ve fallen in love with him?’ she demanded viciously.
‘Easy, Brigit,’ I said anxiously. ‘Just because Josie’s late ringing you, there’s no need to humble me for not feeling the right way about Luke.’
‘If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, then the chances are it’s a duck,’ Brigit said darkly.
I looked blankly at her. Why was she calling Josie a duck?
‘I mean,’ she sighed, ‘you like Luke, you fancy him, you keep buying new bras, you can’t stay away from him. You come home here every evening and say “We’re forcing ourselves to take a night off from each other tonight,” then at five to nine you ring him, if he hasn’t rung you first. Next thing you’ve put a toothbrush and a clean pair of knickers into your bag and you’re off round to his place, like a hare out of a trap. Don’t try telling me you’re not in love with him.’
She paused. ‘You haven’t been taking your toothbrush lately, you scuzzy article. Don’t you clean your teeth anymore?’
‘I do.’ I blushed.
‘Aha!’ she exclaimed. ‘AHA! All becomes clear. You’ve got a new toothbrush that lives in Luke’s. A special luurve toothbrush.’
I shrugged, embarrassed. ‘Maybe.’
‘I bet.’ Brigit shrewedly watched my reactions. ‘I bet you’ve got a lovely new deodorant and a lovely new jar of face-cream over there too.
‘I KNEW IT!’ she bellowed triumphantly, when I couldn’t deny it.
‘Cotton wool?’ she asked. ‘Make-up remover?’
I shook my head.
‘Not yet at the stage where you take off your make-up when you’re with him,’ she sighed. ‘Ah, love’s young dream.’
‘You’ve cooked for him,’ she continued. ‘He’s taken you away for a weekend, he rings you every day at work, you smile your head off each time you open the door to him, you haven’t had a hair on either of your shins since last June. He’s so thoughtful and romantic. DON’T try telling me you’re not in love.’
‘But…’ I tried to protest.
‘You’re too contrary,’ she complained. ‘If he treated you like shite and broke it off with you, then you’d decide you were mad about him.’
I watched Brigit biting her nails and pacing up and down and tried to get a handle on how I felt about Luke.
I couldn’t deny that most of the time with him it was wonderful. I fancied him violently. He was sexy and macho, sweet and handsome. Sometimes we spent entire days in bed. Not just having sex. But talking. I loved being with him because he was so funny, such a great entertainer. And he made me feel as if I was too. He asked me questions and got me to relate anecdotes and laughed at all the funny bits.
Brigit was right when she’d said he was thoughtful and romantic. For my birthday in August he took me to Puerto Rico for the weekend. (Brigit tried to stowaway in my holdall and when she couldn’t fit she begged me to kidnap a youth for her. ‘All I ask,’ she’d pleaded, ‘is that he’s over the age of consent.’)