“Are you Andy’s new girlfriend?”
A nine-or ten-year-old girl with limp blond hair and a long, thin nose was staring at me. Her eyes were on my cleavage. She had the wariness of a girl who was picked on a lot. I sensed she was headed for a gawky phase that would be hell but that she’d end up exotic looking.
“Um, well, I don’t know,” I said, forcing a big smile. “I haven’t even met him yet.”
“So what are you doing here?” she asked.
Good question, kid.
“Uncle Andy had a girlfriend,” the child said, “but they broke up. She dressed like you. Always wearing tight stuff and showing her boobies.” Jenny pushed out her flat chest and did an exaggerated little dance.
Janice Mackelroy rushed into the living room, apology on her face. “Jenny, I thought you were Nana’s helper. Come on back into kitchen. Don’t bother your uncle’s nice friend.” Janice Mackelroy grabbed the little girl’s hand and escorted her away. A few minutes later, the woman returned, a glass of wine in her hand. “Here you are, dear. I wish I could sit and talk, but I’ve got a kitchen full of pots simmering. I hope Jenny didn’t bother you.”
“Um, no, of course not. She’s so cute,” I said. “Reminds me of me at her age.” That was an outright lie. When I was a kid, if I’d even dared to comment on a guest, I’d have been lectured for a half hour and denied television and Devil Dogs for a week. But Mrs. Mackelroy seemed to be working so hard on dinner that I couldn’t bear to cause her any more trouble. “I’d be glad to help,” I added. With what, I had no idea. Was Andrew Mackelroy’s thing dinner at his parents’?
“No, I wouldn’t hear of it,” she told me. “You’re our guest. Andy said you loved Italian food—I’m so glad. You’re going to get quite a lot of it tonight.”
I smiled—sort of. And Mrs. Mackelroy disappeared into the kitchen.
Several framed photos lined the top of the television. The plastic cover on the sofa crackled as I got up to peer at the family snapshots. The girl, Jenny, was in several, along with a slightly older boy, and a couple in their thirties or forties who I assumed were Jenny’s parents. In the other photos were Janice Mackelroy, a man around her age and a younger man, blond, and woman, also blond. Was the younger man Andrew? The younger woman his sister? The mother of Jenny?
I felt Portrait Man’s eyes on me and sat back down on the sofa. Another bead of perspiration rolled down my cleavage. If only I had my jacket with me. I was so inappropriately dressed for a family dinner. What would Andrew think? What would his family think? Who came to dinner at a guy’s parents’ house dressed for a nightclub? Well, that was Andrew’s own fault, I reminded myself. He could have mentioned the thing was at his folks’.
“Why can’t I go in the living room with Andrew’s new girlfriend,” I heard Jenny whine. “It’s hot in here, Nana.”
I plastered a smile on my face and ventured toward the sound of Jenny’s voice. I stood in the doorway to a very warm kitchen. Mrs. Mackelroy stirred a gigantic pot on the stove top. Jenny sat at the square table, her head bent over a loose-leaf binder, her tongue sticking out in concentration.
“Um, Mrs. Mackelroy?” I said, “Are you sure I couldn’t help? I feel guilty sitting in that lovely room doing nothing.”
“Aren’t you sweet,” she said with a smile. “Well, if you’re sure you wouldn’t mind…Jenny, why don’t you ask Andy’s nice young lady friend if she’ll be kind enough to look at your math homework?”
Um, that wasn’t exactly what I meant. I didn’t know what I’d meant. Setting out napkin rings, maybe? Wineglasses?
Jenny shot up off the chair, the loose-leaf binder in her hands. “Come on, I’ll show you in the living room.” She grabbed my hand and marched me back to the sofa, where she plopped down. I did the same. She opened the binder onto my lap. “Are you good at geometry or are you a total airhead?”
Before I could even register that, a key jangled in the door.
“Ma? I’m home. Ma?”
I shot up, which sent Jenny’s loose-leaf binder to the floor. “Sorry,” I said, bending down to pick it up.
“Airhead,” Jenny announced. “Just like I thought.”
I sneered at the ugly child as I handed her the binder.
“She here, Ma?”
I assumed he meant me. I also assumed that was the voice of Andew Mackelroy.
“In the living room. She’s helping Jenny with her math.”
“Ma!”
“She’s pretty,” I heard Mrs. Mackelroy whisper. “A little overdressed though.”
“Shh, Ma, she’ll hear you.”
A tall, muscular guy with dirty-blond hair, blue eyes and a large nose appeared in the living room, carrying a briefcase. He looked Scandinavian. He was cute. Very cute. I even liked the suit, which had subtle pinstripes.
“Hi, I’m Andrew.” He shook my hand and stared at my cleavage, then raised his eyes north. “I’m really sorry I’m late. Hey, hot stuff,” he said to Jenny, ruffling her blond hair.
“Stop it! You know I hate when you do that,” Jenny shouted, smoothing her hair back into place. She glared at Andrew. “Did you bring me something?”
He put down his briefcase and crossed his arms over his chest. “That’s what you say to your uncle? You haven’t seen me in, like, two days, and that’s how you greet me?” A smile tugged at his lips. He snapped open his briefcase and pulled out a small paper bag. Jenny snatched it and stuck her nose inside. A huge smile split her sullen face. She pulled out a purple lollipop in the shape of a cat.
She ran off into the kitchen. “Nana, look what Uncle Andrew brought me!”
Andrew smiled at me. “Sorry I was late. It’s nice to finally meet you in the flesh.” The eyes traveled south again.
“No problem,” I said, offering him a good-sport smile. “And it’s nice to meet you, too.” I was waiting for the explanation.
Keys jangled in the door again.
“There they are!” Mrs. Mackelroy exclaimed. “How’s my little birthday boy, huh? How’s my big boy!”
“Nana! Stop treating me like a kid!” demanded the cracking voice of a preteen. “Ewww! What’s Jenny doing here? It’s supposed to be me and my friends only!”
“Stevie, apologize to your sister right now!” A woman’s voice.
“Go see your uncle Andrew,” Mrs. Mackelroy said. “He’s in the living room.” She lowered her voice. “He brought a date.”
“Andy?” The woman’s voice. A female version of Andrew appeared in the living room, a friendly smile on her face. She and Andrew embraced, then she held out both hands to me and clasped my right hand. “So who’s this?” she said, eyeing Andrew with a gleam in her eye.
“Jane, this is my sister, Danielle. Danielle, this is Jane. And this big kid here is my nephew!” He swept up the kid over his shoulder. Delighted shrieks as the two played pretend wrestle. “Happy birthday, Stevie!”
I stepped back and plastered my sort-of smile on my face, which I could tell from the reflection on the television screen expressed half horror, half you-never-know.
Danielle stuck out her hand. “Nice ta meetcha.”
Knocks on the door. Bursts of childish voices.
“Wait till you see Stevie’s birthday cake, kids!” Mrs. Mackelroy exclaimed from the kitchen as a horde of boys rushed into the living room. Suddenly there was complete silence as the boys stopped dead in their tracks.
I very slowly sat down on the sofa, the sort-of smile draining from my face.
Seven or eight twelve-year-old boys stared at me. I should amend that. Seven or eight twelve-year-olds stared at my breasts.
It seemed safe to surmise that the thing Andrew Mackelroy had been referring to was prepubescent Stevie’s birthday party.
“Dinner’s ready, everyone!” Mrs. Mackelroy called. “Come and get it!”
The boys tore into the dining room. If twelve-year-old boys had to choose between food and girls, they always chose food. I was never so grateful for that fact.
“It’s all right, isn’t it?” Andrew Mackelroy whispered. “I figured I’d get my nephew’s birthday party out of the way, then we’d go to Little Italy for drinks.”
“Sure, um, yeah,” I said, good-sport smile on my face. “It’ll be fun. I just love kids.”
Ten minutes later, the first slimy, cold tortellini from the pasta salad was flung from a spoon into my cleavage. Much to the delighted laughter of seven or eight twelve-year-old boys.
“Yeah, so let’s just go with the carafe,” Andrew Mackelroy told the grim-faced waiter at Tutelli’s Italian Ristorante. The ancient, gaunt man in a stiff shirt, vest and bow tie nodded and disappeared. Andrew had just finished explaining to me that a carafe and a bottle of wine both offered four glasses of wine, yet a carafe was ten bucks cheaper.
We were seated outside, on the sidewalk, at a table for two smushed between two square parties of four. Up and down the block and across the street were dozens of such restaurants, packed to overflowing inside and out, with lines snaking into the street. I noticed lots of couples at the tables, lots of families.
As Andrew glanced around the restaurant for good-looking women the way guys always did, I checked my lap and the front of my borrowed dress for stains. Luckily Mrs. Mackelroy had had a good supply of club soda, which I’d spent a good fifteen minutes dabbing onto my dress in the hot, steamy, smelly kitchen of the Mackelroy home. A faint orange-tinged smear remained on my lap. Eloise was going to kill me.
The waiter returned with the carafe of red wine and two old-fashioned wineglasses. He poured and left.
“So I guess you can tell I’m really family oriented,” Andrew said. He raised his wineglass, gave it a little half lift at me and took a sip. I did the same. “We’re pretty tight.”
“That’s nice,” I said, for want of anything more original.
“How about you? You see your folks often?”
I never knew how to answer that question. If I said no, which was the truth, the guy immediately thought I was a parent-hating neurotic freak. If I added a quick “They’re gone,” the guy immediately asked, “Where?” If I said they’d passed away, it killed the evening. Guys never knew what to say after that or how to change the subject.
Generally I answered depending on whether or not I’d ever see the guy again. If I knew the date was a one-shot, I might say, “Yeah, a few times a month. They’re just over the bridge in Queens.” I loved saying that. For one evening, my parents would be alive again, just a subway ride away. They’d be dancing to Bruce Springsteen’s “Glory Days” the way they did when I was young, singing the chorus at the top of their lungs.
My heart constricted in my chest and I sipped my wine.
“Oh, bad question, huh?” Andrew said. “I’m down with that. I know not everyone’s close to their family. I was lucky, I guess. I’m, like, the only person I know who had a good childhood.” He laughed, sipped his wine and glanced at the attractive blonde two tables over.
I envisioned sitting next to Andrew Mackelroy in a mini-ballroom of the Plaza Hotel. Andrew telling Natasha Nutley’s houseboat-dwelling boyfriend that he was “down with” whatever Mr. Santa Barbara happened to be saying. Natasha, whispering a condescending “He’s so endearing!” in my ear.
Suddenly a small noise erupted out of Andrew’s mouth. A belch. “Sorry,” he said. “All that soda at the birthday party, I guess.” He let out an embarrassed laugh. “I have to say again, Jane, you really were a good sport back there. My ex-girlfriend was such a bitch. Every time we went over to my sister’s and Stevie threw something at her or said something dirty, she’d start screaming her head off. He’s just a kid, you know?”
I smiled. I wasn’t nuts about Andrew Mackelroy, but he was a person like me, trying to find a little happiness in this world, this city. Who was I to judge him so fast? So the guy was family oriented. Since when was that a strike against him? Just because I’d lost my parents didn’t mean that he couldn’t have a good relationship with his own. Maybe we weren’t each other’s immediate types, but did that mean we couldn’t go out again, see if there was some chemistry underneath all the snap judgments and expectations?
I was suddenly dying for a cigarette. And if Andrew Mackelroy and I were to get to know each other, if we were really going to give each other a chance, then it wouldn’t be right if I tried to hide my smoking habit. As Andrew glanced around, I lit a Marlboro Light.
He immediately whipped his head to face me. “Oh, I didn’t know you smoked.”
My MO on a date had always been to wait. I’d wait till I was sure the guy was interested, and then, once I knew I had him on attraction, I’d light a cigarette and hope he’d find it alluring and mysterious and sexy, rather than vile and disgusting and health-endangering.
But wasn’t that game playing? I was an adult. I smoked, and I was perfectly within my rights to do so at the moment. After all, hadn’t Andrew felt perfectly comfortable belching in front of me and laughing it off?
He eyed the offending cigarette as though it were a bloody knife. “I wish I’d known you were a smoker. I’m, like, really allergic to cigarette smoke.” He coughed for good measure.
I felt my cheeks turn red. “Oh, um, I’m sorry.” I searched the table for an ashtray.
“I’ll be right back,” Andrew said. “Nature’s calling.”
Watching Andrew snake his way through tables and people and disappear inside Tutelli’s, I took a long, fortifying drag of the cigarette. Why waste a perfectly good Marlboro while Andrew was in the bathroom?
“Excuse me, Miss? Miss? Hello? Miss?”
I turned around, expecting to find a woman about to complain to her waitress that her eggplant parmigiana was undercooked or overcooked. But instead, the entire family sitting directly behind me was staring at me. “Could you put that out?” the mother asked me. “Joey’s got asthma.”
I felt my face heat up again. There was no ashtray on the table. Now, not only had I probably caused Andrew Mackelroy to break out in hives, but I was preventing a child from breathing and about to add Litterbug to my list of habit-crimes. I dropped the cigarette under the table and crushed it out with my foot.
Joey glared at me, then broke out into a series of exaggerated coughs. His mother immediately fussed over him. The father was shaking his head back and forth, and suddenly I was the basis of a family argument. “We’re changing tables.” “She put it out, calm down.” “Well who knows if she’s gonna light it again? I wanna change tables right now, inside, where there’s a nonsmoking section. Get the waiter.” “You’re talking crazy, there aren’t any tables. Look around, it’s packed.” “Okay, stop yelling at me.” “I’m not yelling.” “Miss, are you going to smoke more? Miss?”
I turned around. “Uh, no. Sorry.”
“Yeah, she’s sorry,” I heard the father mutter. “Joey, are you feeling okay?”
I was feeling like a leper—it went with the territory for a nicotine addict. Some smokers got indignant and refused to put out their cigarettes when faced with dirty looks and demands. They went on and on about how smoking was their right, and tough noogies if nonsmokers didn’t like it. But I always felt guilty. In a crowded city like New York, someone was always waving away cigarette smoke on the streets. I hated to be the cause of someone’s disgust.
Andrew Mackelroy returned, sat down and sipped his cheap wine. His attention was either thankfully or annoyingly diverted by the longest legs I’ve ever seen. My gaze started at the woman’s strappy sandals and headed up the long, tanned legs to the slinky dress in swirling pale colors to the blond, straight hair, to the man she was walking with hand in hand.
Jeremy Black.
Jeremy turned around and laughed at something an older couple behind him had said. And once again, it was as though he were walking in slow motion; his entire entourage seemed to be, as well. I figured the older ones were either Jeremy’s parents or the woman’s. The four of them seemed too good for the gaudy, touristy streets of Little Italy. Their
physical beauty, grace and perfection didn’t belong here. I could just imagine Jeremy and his girlfriend humoring the parents and assuring each other that Little Italy would be charming. For the Jeremy Blacks of the world, Little Italy was a barely cute version of “slumming.” I was grateful that at least Jeremy hadn’t noticed me, looking, I was quite sure, the worse for my evening at Casa Mackelroy.
Depression, as hot and humid as the air, slapped me against the chest. I wanted that cigarette back. I wanted to be the woman Jeremy was walking with. I wanted those older people to be my parents, alive and well. I wanted to be the kind of woman who Jeremy would date, the kind of woman who schlubs like Andrew Mackelroy turned around to stare at, even when they were on dates with “adorable” women.
I had on strappy sandals and a sexy dress. But I looked nothing like Jeremy’s date. And I never would.
“So Jeff mentioned you were an editor,” Andrew said, once Jeremy’s date’s body was blocked from his range of vision.
“Assistant editor,” I corrected, watching Jeremy and his group hail a taxi. They were probably headed for drinks in some club in Soho that didn’t have a sign on the door. I drained my wine. Andrew immediately filled my glass.
“Actually, um, Andrew, I think I’ve had enough. Tell you the truth, I’ve got a raging headache.”
“Oh. I could get you some aspirin or something.”
“That’s okay,” I said. “I think I should get home.”
“Should I put you in a taxi?”
“Um, no,” I said quickly. “I’ll just take the subway. I’ll be okay.”
“Uh, okay, so I guess I’ll just stay to finish the wine.”
I stood up and slung my little beaded bag’s long, skinny strap over my shoulder. “So, bye.”
See Jane Date Page 9
