“Ah, then how about a small act of rebellion? Buy the round ones.” He lifted his glass a fraction. “You either need to hold the phone tighter against your ear or turn down the volume.” His face looked…tight was the best way to describe it.
“Are you angry?” I asked.
“No.” He looked down for a second and then back up. “Disappointed that you didn’t tell me the situation had changed, I guess.”
I stiffened. “I didn’t think I had to. I didn’t know this was a date.”
He gave me a level look. “Really?”
Since I’d blogged about it being a date to the entire universe, I didn’t have much of a leg to stand on. “OK, I sort of did, but I didn’t trust myself that it could be. It seemed incomprehensible to me that you could want a date with me, so I convinced myself that it probably wasn’t. And the intentions of lunch are so hard to read.”
He laughed. “And here I was trying to be subtle.”
The waiter put our food down.
“I didn’t blog about him coming back because we were worried it would blow my anonymity,” I explained.
He smiled. “I have a confession.”
“What?” I was not at a point in my life where those were words that made me happy.
“I stopped reading after I asked you out.”
“You did? Why?”
“Because I didn’t want to make it lopsided. And because it’s part of the fun of dating, unwrapping someone else, getting to know them slowly, don’t you think?”
“I wouldn’t know,” I confessed. “The last time I dated it pretty much boiled down to Your dorm room or mine? But I have to say, that’s some pretty stunning self-control on your part. If you had a blog, I’d have read it.”
“Once,” he said. “I’m not that interesting.”
“I don’t know,” I looked at him. “You seem pretty interesting. In fact, I keep wondering why on earth you would want to date me anyway. I’m, well, to put it bluntly, an accident in progress.”
“To put it bluntly back, it tends to be sort of a complex thing, figuring out the mysteries of attraction or the lack of it, but I thought you were funny and sarcastic when you saved that horrible dog and screamed curses at me on the phone.” He paused to take a bite and chew it. “And I like the way you are about your niece. Is that enough?”
“I don’t know.” Although maybe it was, because I felt warmed all over. “But it’s nice anyway.”
“I can come up with more. Just give me a sec.” He took another bite. “I thought you looked wrung out but still attractive in Esta, and I think you look a whole lot more than that right now.” He gave me a frankly appreciative look. I’d forgotten how good that could feel. It had been a long time. Rick’s grope in the closet had clearly been lust of some variety but in the end hadn’t felt like it was much to do with me. “So I think it’s safe to assume there’s some chemistry, on my part anyway.”
Oh, mine too. “I like that you’re a man who knows how to deal with an almost certainly rabid animal bite.”
“So that’s as good as it’s going to get for me?”
I laughed. Despite his flattering words, I could not understand what anyone could possibly see in me at this point in my life. “I’m not supposed to meet someone normal who likes me so soon,” I said. “Dumped middle-aged women are supposed to spend years dating losers before meeting anyone else, if they ever do.”
“I guess I didn’t realize quite how recent it all was,” he said, leaning over and helping himself to a bite of my fish. “It’s too soon. I’m sorry. I know you need to spend some time dating married losers posing as single guys on match.com.”
Don’t say that I wanted to wail but, of course, did not. “So, um, you know the basics about mine, what happened with your marriage?” As soon as I’d said it, a knot of depression and anxiety tied up my stomach, replacing the fizzing almost-lust of a moment ago. Rick and I went so far back, it just wasn’t possible that I’d ever again know a man as well as I knew him. Everyone I met from here on out would know a smaller piece of me.
“My marriage,” Jamie said slowly, and I wanted to turn away before he could tell me how broken life had left him.
I wasn’t necessarily right, I told myself fiercely. Knowing Rick long hadn’t added up to knowing him well. If it had, I wouldn’t be sitting here now.
“We shared a passion for our jobs.” Jamie looked sad, too, and I wondered what was really going through his head. “And not enough else.”
“You screwed around.” Disappointment in him sunk through me.
“Why would you assume that? Maybe she screwed around?”
“Did she?”
“No. But maybe our interests diverged. Maybe she hated the kind of mattress I liked and maybe I got tired of living with someone whose idea of dinner was a poached egg white and some steamed broccoli.”
“I’m a newly minted cynic,” I said. “Or maybe a newly out of the closet one.”
“All right. I had an affair,” he said as he met my gaze.
“What happened?”
“She left me. She’s remarried and very happy.”
“So it’s fine because it all turned out in the end?” I told myself that this wasn’t personal. That he wasn’t Rick.
“It was awful.” He looked very resolute, like he was going to refuse to drop his gaze first. “But after a while Lisa moved on, met someone else who did deserve her. She goes to sleep at night knowing she trusted and got burned but with a clean conscience. I have to live every day with knowing what I did and who I was. And believe me, it’s not easy.”
“My father cheated,” I heard myself saying. “A lot. It was awful, maybe the most soul-destroying thing one person can do to another.”
“I’m not saying you’re wrong, but it’s not the only way to betray someone. And at least I never called her up and asked her to run errands for me after I’d trashed her and our marriage.” This time when he leaned over, he speared a bite of my salad.
“That’s not very nice,” I said. “And I think Rick’s cheating too, in addition to the Advil calls. And don’t eat my tomatoes.”
“Cassie.” He started to laugh but left the tomatoes alone.
The wine and maybe other things too were fizzing in my brain, and the cool blue of his eyes was going right through me. “Don’t do that,” I said.
“Do what?”
“Laugh, eat my food, make sense. It makes me feel things I shouldn’t. I’m too messed up.”
“Cassie?”
“Yes?”
“I still like you.”
“You do?”
He nodded. “But until and unless one of you is taking steps to get out, you’re still married as far as I’m concerned. When I asked you to lunch with, I admit, the idea it might lead to more, I was doing it under the impression that he’d left you.”
“He did.”
“But he came back, and you, at least for the moment, are letting him stay.”
“Believe me, he’s on the way back out. And it has nothing to do with anything but him and me.”
He nodded. “Then call me when he’s gone and you’re ready. Considering my past, I tend to be pretty cautious. And besides”— he took a drink—“you might write about it afterwards.”
“I’d never do that,” I said with some indignation.
He raised a disbelieving brow.
“I’d change your name.” What if I was getting addicted to chronicling my personal life for the world? “If there’s no sex, can I write about lunch?”
“Go ahead.” He was laughing. “I’ll hope the amount you’ve drunk will encourage you to be kind to me in memory.”
“You mean you want me to forget that you implied you wouldn’t under any circumstances shag me senseless?” (I’d read Bridget Jones’s Diary—I could speak British.)
“I’m not sure I said that. Since I’d gladly shag you senseless if you weren’t married,” he said as he leaned closer, “that doesn’t exactly quali
fy as not under any circumstances.”
I held my breath against the sharpness of my precarious balance. There was the memory of Rick, of all the times we’d been out, secure in the knowledge that we’d go home, together, to our shared life. And then there was this other exciting, terrifying world, which seemed to tilt from one extreme to the other moment by moment.
“And in case you’re wondering,” he said, “I do mean senseless. And you can quote me on that.”
I looked away, down at my hand on my fork. Almost scared by how true I suspected that was. The diamond eternity band (okay, so eternity had turned out to be a bit shorter than I’d imagined) reflected back a million times. “Without Rick, without this ring”—I looked up at him—“I don’t know who I am. Your ex-wife had a life, a career that was hers, that you leaving or her leaving, whoever left in the end, couldn’t take away. I’m a wife and mother and that’s it.”
“Really?” He turned his fork over in his fingers. “Here I am, wining and dining you, plying you with drink and encouraging you to think about dumping your husband, and you’re only listening with half an ear because you’re trying to remember it all so you can write about it. Seems like you might be something else, too, when you allow yourself to kick off the sensible wife and mommy shoes.”
I glanced at my watch. “Oh my God! I had no idea how long we’ve been here. I hate to say it, but I have to go back to those shoes.” I wondered if we needed to have an awkward I’ll get the bill, no I will, let me pay half moment.
“Let’s don’t.” He had clearly read me on that one. “It’s my pleasure.”
“Thank you.” I stood, feeling stiff and formal now. Like now that I was stepping back into the real world, I’d revealed too much. “I enjoyed it.”
He stood too. “Me too,” he said, “very much.”
I picked up my coat check tag. I wanted to ask him if we could do it again, but he’d made his position on that pretty clear.
“Cassie?” he said suddenly.
“Yes?”
“Does Rick have a sensitive stomach, by any chance?”
“A little.” I admit, I was confused here. “Why?”
“The request for the gel-coated Advil.” He grinned. “If you’re interested in trying on some distinctly un-wifely mental stilettos, you might want to accidentally buy the cheap uncoated ibuprofen. I’m guessing he’ll pick up his own next time.”
We were both smiling when I left.
www.carpoolconfidential.blogspot.com
Unfortunately, the moment is here. I am standing outside the loft that contains the orgy. I look around at the people going in, and truthfully, not all of them look entirely trustworthy.
I check my watch and wait for my date. My brother’s description—“he’s, you know, okay, kind of average”—has somehow failed to paint me a vivid mental picture. I scan the sidewalk again. A tall guy in a stained trench coat is headed for me. Light brown hair. Nice straight, white teeth. Okay smile. In short, moderately attractive. Except for that coat, which is too large, too long, and way too dirty. He’s also holding it closed at the front in a rather suspicious manner.
My date or a flasher-slash-sex criminal? Yet another conundrum of the dating world I’ve managed to avoid for quite some time by retreating behind that marriage thing. I eye him warily in case he’s about to whip the trench open and offer me a surprise.
“Delphine?” He extends his right hand. “Joe. I recognized you right away from Kevin’s description.”
I shake his hand. Has Kevin led him to believe that I ordinarily dress like a hooker? Or was that just part of extorting him to go out with me?
“Hi.” I do my best to summon a warm smile, just as my cell phone rings. Talk about an awkward moment for a phone call. But what if it’s the babysitter with a crisis at home? A thousand nightmare mom scenarios thunder their practiced way through my brain. The sitter, tearful at the hospital, “I tried to reach his mom for permission for the emergency [appendectomy, brain surgery, tracheotomy; you choose], but I couldn’t reach her. I think she’s, like, at an orgy or, like, something.”
I smile again, this time apologetically. “Sorry, I hate to be rude, but it could be my sitter. The kids…” I trail off.
“No problem, go right ahead.” He pushes his hands into his pockets. “No worries. Kevin told me that you had, like, spawned.”
Yeah right, no worries.
“So what do you think of the coat?” he asks as I flip the phone open. “I borrowed it so I could look like a pervert! You, know, fit in.”
“Um. Very nice.” I hit the answer button. “Hello?”
“Delphine? Hi! Trudy, here. Listen, sorry to interrupt when—”
No emergency surgery. I slide another apologetic look at Joe.
“Don’t worry about it. Take your time.” He looks around. “Isn’t this great? Being a pervert is, like, so cool!”
“I’ll be as quick as possible,” Trudy says.
Joe’s talking, too. His gaze follows a peroxided blonde in a skirt that makes mine look like an ankle-length sack. “I can’t believe all these hot babes are going to be naked soon! Oh, and look what else I borrowed—”
“Listen, Trudy.” I press the phone closer to my ear, to prevent her from hearing Joe.
“—from the same guy who lent me the trench coat.”
“—there’s disagreement about the parameters of PTA involvement in—”
“Damn. Where are they?” I watch as Joe fumbles around in his trench coat pocket.
Trudy is continuing, “—these issues. There’s no precedent and if we need to go back to the charter to—”
“Found ’em!” Joe pulls out a set of…small jumper cables?
I frown in incomprehension. Trudy says, “—make it clear that it’s within—”
“NIPPLE CLAMPS!” Joe bellows as Trudy says,“—the jurisdiction of the PTA to—”
“Oh, God,” I say, faintly, to Joe.
“Delphine? Are you all right? Did I hear someone say something about nipples?” She giggles like this is a joke.
“No,” I say, really fast.
“And look, a battery pack! They vibrate! Isn’t that awesome?” Joe’s face is alight.
“Wanna try them?” (Joe)
“Oh God. No!” (Me)
“I agree. I’m distressed by it too but don’t worry: we’ll fight for our right to have a say. Are you sure you’re all right?” (Trudy)
“Um, yes, fine.” (Me)
“You do!” (Joe looks like he can’t believe his luck). “Awesome! And Kevin said you were no fun.”
Inside, I decline my complimentary robe in favor of keeping my bondage babe outfit. Uncomfortable as it is, it seems preferable to disrobing in any way, shape, or form. I am not a huge drinker, but I suck down about five cosmos in quick succession. And thank God I do, because if it wasn’t for that, I have no idea how I would have handled the sight of a man who looks alarmingly like my ex-accountant, i.e., balding, bearded, flabby, and pale with the aura of someone who wears double wide shoes and drives a minivan, being “serviced” by six women.
Joe exchanges his stained trench for a short robe. His legs aren’t bad. People are dressed in everything from bathrobes to street clothes to lingerie to totally naked.
We kind of hang back, going from room to room, checking things out while I down cosmo after cosmo. The whole thing is oddly like a cocktail party. And Joe and I are oddly like an uncomfortable blind date at a cocktail party. Except that no one approaches us (okay, so am I not attractive enough to get come-ons at a sex club?) and there are people doing odd sexual things everywhere. I like to think at a cocktail party, people at least would have the good grace to lock themselves in the guest bathroom if they are going to do this kind of stuff.
In one room there is a little grouping of two men, one woman and a carrot from the buffet. Is it just me, or does the carrot seem superfluous? I resist the urge to ask her if she’s sure it was properly washed and to suggest that in the fut
ure she might want to make sure she buys organic.
“So,” Joe says, after a while, “This is cool. Are you into it?”
I grab another cosmo off the bar. “Not so much.” I look around. Despite the occasional accountant lookalike and a few guys in toupees with tall blondes who just might not be their wives, it’s a fairly attractive crowd, but no, it’s not doing a lot for me.
And, OK, the pathetic truth is that I don’t think it’s my long hiatus from the dating scene that’s making me grossed out here. I’m pretty sure it’s just a that’s-the-way-I-am issue and I’m not cut out to be a public sex kind of girl under any circumstances. In fact, the whole thing smacks of that moment in kindergarten when I realized that the reason we’d been fiercely engaged in memorizing “You Are My Sunshine” was because we were expected to sing it onstage. In front of other people. Performing for the audience took all the pleasure out of it as far as I was concerned.
I debate this parallel while polishing off my fifteenth cosmo. A couple in robes approaches us. She’s cute. He’s cute. We chat. It turns out he’s a banker, she’s an artist and they live on the Upper West Side. After a little chitchat they suggest adjourning to the spanking room. I’m trying to find a polite way to decline, when she mentions it’s always been Armand’s fantasy to see her spank another man.
They mean Joe, not me. He’s watching a naked blonde in a cowboy hat with implants the size of Texas and shakes his head. Apparently, he’s not all that interested in being flogged by a strange woman while her husband watches. They leave to find another candidate.
“So,” Joe says, “you’re not really what I was expecting.”
“Sorry,” I say. “I hope Kevin didn’t mislead you.”
“It’s not like I asked him if I could do his sister.” He looks at me. “I just figured given the meeting venue there might be more to you than he knew.”
“I see your point.” I’m interrupted by loud groaning from the corner of the room. It sounds more like someone being murdered than someone having sex. All I can see is a big pile of limbs, but I’m guessing there are about ten people involved. There’s also a little group watching.
Joe looks at them and then at me. His disappointment is palpable. “It’s just that I thought, you know, sometimes older, divorced chicks are up for stuff.”
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