Read Online Blue Rose In Chelsea by Adriana Devoy - Free Book Online

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         “Well, perhaps Evan is a wolf in sheep’s clothing.  Why doesn’t the man simply ask you out?”
         Now Careen has stung me to the core with her common sense; this is the very question I’ve asked myself a hundred times.  I lay out my theories.  We rule out the struggling artist/lack of money excuse because the city is filled with free things to do: street fairs, museum exhibits, window shopping, and there’s every New Yorker’s favorite free activity: walking and talking.  I tell Careen that Brandon let it slip that Evan was in a relationship for three years with another dancer in his company, someone fifteen years older than him, a detail that is a decided thorn in my side.
         “A woman?” she asks.
         “Yes!” and then, with sudden doubt, “Well, I assume so.”
         “Well, he was a ballet dancer.”  Her tone is sewn tight with innuendo.  “Perhaps he and Brandon are lovers.”
         I laugh out loud.  “Brandon is not gay!”  I sip my tea with trepidation; now I’m wondering about Brandon.  Other than music, his shared passion with Dylan has always been the hunting and punting of women.  I do a quick tally of Brandon’s recent lifestyle changes: his sudden defection from finance to the fine arts, his wardrobe overhaul from suits to shabby chic.  Dylan says Brandon is now crashing at some dive of a pad up on One Hundred and First, and waiting tables at some joint called Exterminator Chili.  And there is the feminine way he crosses his legs lately, at the knee, rather than slinging one ankle over the opposite knee, like the lumbering Dylan.
         “That’s a European thing,” Careen assures me.  “All Englishmen cross their legs at the knee.”
         “Brandon’s not European.”  Although it would be just like Brandon to suddenly want to be European.
         She waves away my statement, having moved on.  “You ought to track her down and thank her.”  Careen resumes the topic of Evan’s former older lover who, for argument’s sake, we are assuming was female.  “She broke him in for you.  Now you don’t have to teach him about romance and compromise and female hormones and shopping and all the requirements of a relationship.  The work has been done for you.  She has laid down the groundwork.  Better to be the second significant relationship in a man’s life; the first always has too much molding to do.”
         “You make him sound like a piece of pottery.”
         Careen is nonplussed.  “Not to mention, I’m sure he now knows his way around the geography of a woman’s body.”  Careen looks ebullient at this tidbit.
         The image of Evan charting new territory on some other woman’s terrain makes me lose my appetite, even for cream tea.
         That leaves us with the theory that Dylan has, perhaps, made it clear to Evan that I am off limits to his friends.
         “Dylan glares at him anytime he comes within a six foot radius of me.”  I am tingling with hope that we have now touched upon the correct theory.  In my enthusiasm I forget to chew my scones; clumps lodge in my throat, and I try to wash them down with too-hot tea.  Careen thumps me on the back.  “Dylan recoils at the idea of me dating any of his inner circle.  He doesn’t want a repeat performance of my doomed affair with his old clamming buddy, Charlie Jerimeter,” I hack out, hiccoughing on crumbs.
         “The bloke who danced like he was punching?”
         “Pitching,” I manage, through coughs.  “Pitching softballs.”  The writer in me feels compelled to clarify the image, even while choking.
         Poor Charlie, he will never live that dance down, especially since it’s been caught on a family video of my cousin’s engagement party at a Knights of Columbus hall on Staten Island.  I’m sure he rues the day he ever accepted the invitation to that event.
         “Dylan is harmless; he’s