By the time Julian called the following Sunday to say he was in the cab on his way home from the airport, she was beside herself with excitement. At first she laid out all the new purchases in the living room, draping the couch with jeans and the dining room chairs with T-shirts and hanging the knit caps from lamps and bookshelves around the room like ornaments on a tree, but just moments before he was due to arrive, she changed her mind and gathered everything back up again. She quickly folded the goods and returned them to their rightful shopping bags, which she tucked into the back corner of their shared closet, imagining how much more fun it would be for them to go through the pieces one by one. When she heard the front door open and Walter begin to bark, she ran out of the bedroom and flung her arms around Julian.
“Baby,” he murmured, burying his face in her neck and inhaling deeply. “My god, I missed you.”
He looked thinner, even more gaunt than usual. Julian outweighed Brooke by a good twenty pounds, but she was never really sure how. They were the exact same height, and she always felt like she was enveloping him, crushing him. She looked him up and down, leaned over, and pressed her lips against his. “I missed you so much. How was your flight? And the cab? Are you hungry? I have some pasta I can heat up.”
Walter was barking so loudly it was almost impossible for them to hear each other. He wasn’t going to quiet down until he’d been properly greeted, so Julian collapsed onto the couch and tapped the spot next to him, but Walter had already jumped onto his chest and begun bathing Julian’s face with his tongue.
“Whoa, ease up there, good boy,” Julian said with a laugh. “Wow, that is some wicked doggy breath. Doesn’t anyone brush your teeth, Walter Alter?”
“He’s been waiting for his daddy,” Brooke called merrily from the kitchen, where she was pouring them wine.
When she returned to the living room, Julian was in the bathroom. The door was slightly open and she could see him standing in front of the toilet. Walter stood at his feet and watched with fascination as Julian peed.
“I’ve got a surprise for you,” Brooke sang out. “Something you are just going to loooove.”
Julian zipped up, made a halfhearted attempt at running his hands under the faucet, and joined her on the couch. “I have a surprise for you, too,” he said. “And I think you’re going to love it.”
“Really? You got me a present!” Brooke knew she sounded like a child, but who didn’t love gifts?
Julian smiled. “Well, yeah, I guess you could call it a present. It’s sort of for both of us, but I think you’ll like it even more than me. You go first. What’s your surprise?”
“No, you first.” Brooke wasn’t going to take any chances of having her clothing presentation overshadowed; she wanted his full attention for that one.
Julian looked at her and grinned. He stood up, walked back to the foyer, and returned with a rolling suitcase she didn’t recognize. It was black, Tumi, and absolutely gigantic. He rolled it right in front of her and waved his hand.
“You got me a suitcase?” she asked with a bit of confusion. There was no denying it was gorgeous, but it wasn’t exactly what she was expecting. Plus this one looked packed to the point where it was ready to pop right open.
“Open it,” Julian said.
Brooke hesitantly leaned down and gave the zipper a little tug. It didn’t budge. She pulled a little harder, but still nothing.
“Here,” Julian said, hefting the massive thing onto its side and yanking open the zipper. He flipped the top open to reveal . . . piles of neatly stacked clothing. Brooke was more confused than ever.
“Looks like, uh, clothes,” Brooke said, wondering why Julian appeared so happy.
“Yeah, they’re clothes, but not just any clothes. You, my dear Rookie, are looking at your husband’s new and improved image, care of his brand-new, label-provided stylist. How cool is that?”
Julian looked at Brooke expectantly, but it was taking time for her to process what he meant. “Are you saying that a stylist bought you a new wardrobe?”
Julian nodded. “Completely and totally new—a ‘fresh and totally unique look’ was how the chick described it. And, Rook, let me tell you, this girl knew what she was doing. It only took a few hours and I didn’t have to do anything but sit in a huge private dressing room at Barneys, and all these girls and gay guys kept bringing in hangers full of clothes. They put together, like, outfits and showed me what to wear with what. We had a couple beers and I tried on all these crazy things and everyone was weighing in on what they thought worked and what didn’t, and when all was said and done, I walked out with all this stuff.” He motioned toward the suitcase. “Just look at some of this stuff, it’s outrageous.”
He plunged his hands into the piles, yanked out an armful of clothing, and tossed it on the couch between them. Brooke wanted to scream at him to take better care of it, to mind the folds and the piles, but even she realized how ridiculous this was. She leaned over and held up a moss green cashmere hoodie. It had a waffle knit to it and felt as soft as a baby blanket. The tag read $495.
“How sweet is that one?” Julian asked with the kind of excitement he normally reserved only for musical instruments or new electronic gadgets.
“You never wear hoodies,” was all Brooke could manage.
“Yeah, but what better time to start than now?” Julian said with another grin. “I think I could get used to a five-hundred-dollar hoodie. Did you feel how soft it is? Here, check these out.” He tossed her a buttery leather jacket and a pair of John Varvatos black leather boots that were a cross between motorcycle and cowboy boots. Brooke wasn’t quite sure what they were, but even she knew they were cool. “How much do those rock?”
Again, she nodded. Scared she would start to cry if she didn’t do something, Brooke leaned over into the suitcase and pulled another pile of clothes onto her lap. There were heaps of designer and vintage T-shirts in every imaginable color. She spotted a pair of Gucci loafers—the ones with the sleek dress sole and without the telltale logo—and a pair of white Prada sneakers. There were hats, so many hats, chunky knit caps like the ones he always wore, but also cashmere ones and Panama Jacks and white fedoras. Probably ten or twelve hats in different styles and colors, each one different but stylish in its own unique way. Handfuls of whisper-thin cashmere V-necks, slim-cut Italian blazers that screamed casual cool, and jeans. So many jeans in every imaginable cut, color, and wash that Julian could probably wear a new pair every day for a fortnight and not have to repeat. Brooke forced herself to unfold and look at each of them until she found—as she knew she would—the same pair her mother had first selected at Bloomingdale’s that day, the ones Brooke had deemed perfect from the start.