Uptown Girl

‘What color do you think I should do for bridesmaids?’ Bina asked.

Kate repressed a groan. Bev had them all in silver and Barbie had picked a pistachio green that not even a blonde could wear without looking sallow. ‘How about basic black?’ Kate asked, but she knew there wasn’t a hope in hell. She sighed. She and Bunny would be the last of their high school crowd not to be married – at least there was still Bunny. Kate would try not to mind, but everyone else would. No one at Bina’s wedding would leave the naked state of her left finger unnoted. ‘Please, Bina! Don’t make me walk down that aisle again. Why not just make me wear a sign that says “unmarriageable”?’

‘Kate, you have to be my maid of honor. Barbie was always closer to Bunny and Bev … well, Bev never really liked me.’

‘Bev has never liked anyone,’ Kate informed Bina, not for the first time, and took her arm. ‘Hey, I’m really touched.’

The pair came up to the door of the salon. Kate held the door open for Bina, who nervously stepped inside.

4 (#ulink_8e605ae1-e366-5777-8dfc-102e3862e782)

Kate knew the spa was unlike any place Bina had ever seen in her life – a sort of post-industrial French boudoir with Moorish touches. That was exactly why she had chosen it. Not to show off, but to make it very special for her friend. ‘This is,’ she informed Bina in a dramatic stage whisper, ‘the most expensive spa in the city of New York.’ She studied Bina’s face to make sure what she was telling her was sinking in. ‘And I mean the entire city,’ Kate continued.

‘Wow,’ was all Bina could manage, looking around at the sheer curtains, the concrete floor and the Louis XVI bergère armchair.

Kate smiled and walked up to the counter. A chic young Asian woman smiled back and, without speaking, raised her perfectly shaped eyebrows. They did a good brow wax here. ‘Kate Jameson,’ Kate announced. ‘There are the two of us here,’ she added, because Bina had disappeared shyly behind Kate. ‘For manicures, pedicures, and toe waxing.’

From behind, Bina whispered, ‘Toe waxing?’ but Kate ignored her. ‘We have a reservation. I have the confirmation number.’

‘It will be just a moment,’ said the beautiful receptionist. ‘Please, have a seat.’

Of course, that was difficult with just the one antique armchair, but Kate motioned for Bina to sit and she did, albeit gingerly.

Then she looked up at Kate and grabbed her hands. ‘Oh, Kate. I’m nervous. What happens if I go through all this and it jinxes me. What if Jack doesn’t …’

‘Bina, don’t be silly. You can’t “jinx” things.’ Kate sighed. ‘I just spent an hour trying to convince an eight-year-old that magic won’t work. Don’t make me repeat myself.’

‘Look, I know all about you. Little Miss Logic. But I’m superstitious, okay? No black cats, no hats on the bed, no shoes to friends.’

‘Shoes to friends?’

‘Yeah. You give shoes to a friend and she walks away from you,’ Bina said. ‘Don’t you know that?’

‘Bina, you are truly crazy,’ Kate said. ‘Anyway, this is your big day and I want to be a part of it. So relax and enjoy. Everything will be fine, and tonight with Jack will be wonderful.’

Bina still looked doubtful. She craned her neck and looked around again. ‘It just must be so expensive,’ she said. ‘You know, I can have all of the same thing done in Brooklyn at Kim’s Korean place for about one quarter the price. And I bet it’s every bit as good, too.’

Kate smiled. ‘Maybe – maybe not. But here you have ambience.’

‘Well, my mother would say “ambience, schmambience, paint my nails”.’

‘You know I love your mother, but sometimes she’s not up-to-date. And by the way, how do you spell schmambience?’ Kate asked with a smile.

‘You don’t,’ Bina told her. ‘It’s Yiddish. It’s a spoken language.’

Kate laughed. This was typical of the verbal exchanges Kate and Bina had been having since Kate first entered the Horowitz household, and Mrs Horowitz pronounced that Kate’s father knew ‘bupkis’ about raising a ‘shana maidela’.

Kate, at the time, didn’t know that ‘bupkis’ meant virtually nothing or that ‘shana maidela’ meant pretty little girl, but she figured it out from context. She learned what ‘putz’ and ‘shnorrer’ and ‘goniff’ meant, all words that sounded better, more accurate, than their English equivalent. And from that time on she had been asking Bina for Yiddish spellings and translations.

Kate had celebrated every holiday at Bina’s house – even if they weren’t Kate’s holidays. And the cultural expansion wasn’t just limited to Jewish events. When Christmas and Easter rolled around, Mrs Horowitz made sure Kate got a Christmas tree and an Easter basket, complete with a chocolate bunny, and just for extra, sweet noodle kugel (which had nothing to do with Easter but was a dish Kate loved). When the time came for Kate’s first Holy Communion, Mrs Horowitz sewed up Kate’s white dress and bought a headpiece. (When Bina wanted a white dress and headpiece too, she got one, though Mrs and Dr Horowitz drew the line at allowing Bina to get on line with the little Catholic girls for the ceremony.) And, though Kate didn’t take the weekly ballet lessons Bina did, she did get a pink tutu just like Bina’s. Not to mention a dozen Halloween outfits over the years. Kate sometimes thought of it as the Costume School of Child-rearing but she was always grateful.

Kate, told by a priest in her catechism class that trick or treating on Halloween was a mortal sin, felt tremendous disappointment. When she shared this with Bina’s mother, the reassurance Kate got was, ‘Sin – schmin! Do your best with that meshugana in a dress and go out to get your candy. Don’t worry about it.’

‘But I don’t want to go to hell after I die,’ Kate told her tearfully.

‘Hell – schmell,’ Mrs Horowitz had responded. ‘Trust me, there’s no such place except here on Earth before you die.’ She raised her voice. ‘Norm, can you believe the chutzpah of these priests and what they say to children.’ She drew Kate onto her lap and held her close. ‘There’s only heaven, honey,’ she whispered. ‘And that’s where your mama is.’

Somehow, Mrs Horowitz’s complete conviction sank in. A few months later, after catechism, when Vicky Brown told Kate and Bina that Bina’s Jewish mother was going to hell after she died, Kate turned to Vicky and declared, ‘Hell – schmell! What do you know?’ Then she pushed Vicky into a pile of garbage cans and made a very satisfying mess of her. ‘Yeah!’ Bina had declared. ‘And if you say that again, we’ll turn you into a toad. And I mean it.’ After that, Kate and Bina made a pact to stick up for one another.

Maybe it was from that day they became known as the ‘Witches of Bushwick’. As teenagers, their posse grew, with Bev and Barbie and, later on, Bunny, but they stayed the same, though in the neighborhood their nickname changed to ‘Bitches’.

Bina was still holding onto Kate’s hand. ‘Oh, Kate,’ she said and squeezed it hard. ‘I’m so excited! Tonight’s the night I get proposed to by the man I love.’

‘Don’t forget to act surprised,’ Kate warned her. ‘You don’t want Jack to know you already knew.’

‘I wish Barbie hadn’t told me that he bought the ring,’ Bina sighed. ‘I’m so nervous. Why couldn’t she just let it be a surprise for me?’

‘Oh, honey,’ Kate laughed. ‘You don’t want surprises. You want to look your best.’

Just then another Asian woman, even more beautiful than the receptionist, walked into the waiting area. ‘Kate Jameson?’ she asked. Kate nodded. ‘We have your room all ready. Follow me, please.’

‘A room?’ Bina repeated, sticking behind Kate as they followed the woman down the pristine hall.

‘Highest luxury,’ Kate told her and led her into their own private boudoir. Bina looked around her, clearly in a state of confusion.

‘Take a seat,’ Kate told her. ‘And just relax.’

Kate sat down in one of two facing chairs. Each was throne-like, with a built-in foot Jacuzzi already filled with delightful-smelling bubbling water. The softly lit room, all in soothing sea blue, also had two glass tables on wheels prepared for hand pampering. Two young Asian women knelt on blue silk pillows on the floor beside the foot baths. They helped their clients out of their shoes and indicated that they should plunge their feet into the fragrant Jacuzzis, in preparation for the pedicure. Bina looked across at Kate in amazement. Kate merely smiled at her. Her plan was working. This would be something Bina never forgot.

The air smelled of freesias and Kate took a deep, appreciative breath. If she had to pay half her salary check for the ‘ambience-schmambience’, it was so worth it.

Bina, still a little dazed, turned to the shelf beside her left elbow and stared at the almost endless rack of nail polishes. The second beautiful Asian woman came back into their blue heaven and asked the pair, ‘Would you like bottled water, coffee, tea, juice or champagne?’

‘You’re kidding!’ Bina almost squealed.

‘Champagne, I think.’ Kate replied as if Bina hadn’t reacted. Bina didn’t usually drink but, ‘This is a big celebration,’ Kate told her.

The woman nodded, smiled, and walked out of the room.

‘Kate, this is so nice of you,’ Bina began. Kate was pleased to see she was beginning to relax. ‘But how come a pedicure? Jack isn’t going to put the ring on one of my toes.’

‘No, Jack would never think of a toe ring,’ Kate agreed. Jack was nothing if not conservative. ‘I just thought it would be a nice treat.’

One of the two pedicurists began to massage Bina’s feet. She giggled, pulled them away, and giggled again.

‘Oh, just relax, Bina,’ Kate told her. ‘Breathe.’ For a moment the two were silent. Kate closed her eyes and let herself feel the strong hands work her heels and instep. It was delicious.

‘This is great!’ Bina leaned forward to whisper across the small room. ‘It’s better than when we both earned the Brownie badge for First Aid on the same day!’ Kate looked at Bina in disbelief. ‘Is this really where Sandra Bullock, Giselle and Gwen Stefanni get their manicures?’ Bina continued.