Lynda Curnyn - Bombshell

“How are you really, Grace?” Angie said as we sat over drinks the following evening at Bar Six, a little bistro in the West Village.

“I’m fine,” I assured her for the third time since we’d sat down, martinis before us. I didn’t want to get into an analysis of the demise of my recent relationship, knowing full well that Ethan had likely not even given it a second thought himself. That was the annoying little difference between men and women. When a man exited a relationship, no matter who ended it, it was as if the woman was erased from his mind. Women, on the other hand, could be borderline obsessive, measuring every perceived slight, every phone call or lack thereof, and coming up with a complex analysis of his emotional makeup.

I decided to take the male tack, effectively erasing Ethan from my own mind and turning the conversation to what I hoped would be a more fruitful subject. Angie. “So what’s going on with the show?”

Angie was an actor and had, a year earlier, gotten her first big break when she’d landed a primetime drama on Lifetime, playing Lisa Petrelli, single mom and NYPD cop. Though the show hadn’t garnered huge ratings, Angie had gotten a nice bit of critical notice for what Entertainment Weekly had called her “endearingly anxious” portrayal of a woman struggling to raise two kids and save the world, or at least the New York City precinct that was her beat, from crime. The funny thing was that all of that endearing anxiety came from the fact that Angie herself had never encountered child-rearing first hand and was mostly struggling to keep from being railroaded by the two child actors who played her kids.

“The network is reviewing its programming as we speak. But it’s looking like a second season might be too much to hope for,” she said, fresh anxiety washing over her features. With her large, dark eyes, heart-shaped face and deep brown shoulder-length locks, my friend Angie is almost a dead ringer for Marisa Tomei. Not that I ever would say that to her—she’s heard it often enough over the years. But she made her peace with it once she earned some critical acclaim of her own as Angie DiFranco, obsessive-compulsive-yet-utterly-charming actor. That boost to her career has resulted in a subsequent boost to her self-esteem. I have known Angie since we shared secrets and sorrows at Marine Park, where I lived until my parents decided that Brooklyn was turning me into too much of a bad-ass teen and dragged me off to Long Island at age sixteen. Angie and I stayed friends, spending our summers together on the beach, then once I got my driver’s license, weekends filled with shopping, club-hopping and, when we both managed to have boyfriends at the same time, double-dating. In all the years I have known her, I have never seen Angie look so radiant. It was as if her life were finally coming together, though the nervous frown now marring her pretty features suggested otherwise. Sometimes my friend Angie, who had an acting career on the rise, an amazing boyfriend and a rent-stabilized two bedroom in the East Village, needed to be reminded of just how magnificent her life was.

“Maybe that’s for the best,” I said. “Aren’t you supposed to start working on Justin’s film in the spring?” Her boyfriend was a screenwriter who had received much critical acclaim himself for the feature-length film he’d made as a film student years ago. Now he had a brand-new screenplay and a leading lady, as he’d written a part especially for Angie.

“Yeah, we’re starting in April….” she said, beginning to gnaw at her lower lip at the very thought.

It wasn’t that Angie didn’t believe in her talented boyfriend. It was just that, despite the steadying assurance his love gave her, she was given to panic over anything that she didn’t know the outcome of beforehand. Which was just about everything, I supposed.

“Well, then, there you go,” I said. “Your future’s so bright, you’re gonna have to go out and purchase a pair of Ray•Bans.”

“I guess,” she said, unconvinced. I had known Angie so long, I could practically read her mind. See the little hamsters of anxiety on the wheel of her thoughts, running frantically on those “what ifs” that plagued her. What if I can’t carry the role? What if I get some life-threatening disease? Her father had died of cancer and like her equally neurotic mother, Angie seemed to think her own death by malignant cell growth was a foregone conclusion. And, most importantly and probably the real source of her anxiety, what if I’m a complete and utter failure?

“You’re going to do great,” I said, picking the anxious thought out of her brain before she could voice it. I had heard the spiel one too many times: It happened whenever Angie embarked on a new gig.

She gave me a sheepish smile. “But what about you, Grace?”

“What about me?” I said. “I have a new campaign at work,” I said, reminding her of Roxanne Dubrow’s new mission, which I had filled her in on earlier. “And since Claudia’s in denial about the whole younger, brighter, better schtick the powers that be are on, I may have to shoulder a lot of the burden of developing it myself.”

“I mean what are you going to do about Ethan?”

“What’s to be done?” I replied with a shrug. “It’s over.”

She pursed her lips, as if aware she was treading on territory I didn’t want to traverse. “I mean, don’t you think you guys should talk? For closure?”

“I got all the closure I need,” I said. Like Ethan, I was capable of walking away without a backward glance. Which was why I was sure Ethan was doing just fine without me. Just like Michael Dubrow was apparently, I thought, the reminder of Claudia’s suggestion that he had moved on to his next “piece of ass” sending a surprising flood of anger through me. I shrugged it off. I guess that was just the kind of man I was attracted to: independent or, as all the self-help books Angie had tried to foist on me of late put it, “emotionally unavailable.”

“Well, what does Shelley think?” she asked. Now I knew Angie was desperate to probe my inner state. Because in the months I’d been seeing Shelley, Angie had acted a bit like my therapist was the enemy, siding with me whenever I found fault, which was often, with the woman I was paying 140 bucks a session to cure me from whatever she believed ailed me. I secretly thought Angie was a bit jealous of Shelley. I guess she figured I should be able to confess all to her and get the advice I needed. She was, after all, my best friend.

“Oh, you know her,” I said. “She’s always trying to tie everything back to Kristina. Some perceived slight she thinks I’ve suffered from a woman I’ve never met.” I waved a hand in the air, hoping to communicate the blandness I felt inside. “I thought I was safe from all that crap when I went to a psychoanalyst. Maybe I’m not remembering my Freud right, but isn’t it my father who’s supposed to fuck up my emotional life?” I sputtered out a mirthless laugh. What father? The original birth certificate I had managed to track down hadn’t listed one. And the father who raised me was probably a candidate for Man of the Year, judging by the way everyone—my mother, his students, even the neighbors—worshiped him.

Now Angie was studying me as if, for a change, she thought my therapist might be on to something. “Another martini?” I said, downing the last of mine.

She frowned.

“C’mon, Ange,” I said, trying to rouse her. “This is New York City. There are plenty of men—” I waved a hand at our waiter, who I noticed was a particularly fine example of the breed “—and Stolichnaya to go around.”

And plenty of work to do, I realized. But I was feeling more than up to it. It was a good thing, too, because Claudia had picked up the smoking habit she had given up months earlier after she had discovered a new line in her upper lip. Apparently she had bigger things to worry about now that Roxanne Dubrow had ruined her life, as she alleged whenever she returned reeking of smoke from the handicapped bathroom. I didn’t mind her frequent absences, seeing as I felt like I could run this campaign single-handedly, with the assistance of Lori, of course.