Assisted Loving

by Bob Morris

  He picks up his phone and says, “Not that Bob Morris!” He has my name on his caller ID. It throws me. He knows of me, and I know of him. He’s a book agent. We set up a date for the next night, but it bothers me that we know of each other. I like to keep my dating life private. That way, when it doesn’t work out, I don’t have to worry about word getting around. Repercussions and reverberations.

  I choose my outfit carefully on Saturday night. Leather pants and a pleated shirt. Very avant-garde, I think. My cheeks are burning from the cold when I walk into a downtown restaurant. I’m anxious. Part of me is already trying to think of a nice way to make it just drinks rather than dinner. The restaurant is noisy, everyone with a cell phone and BlackBerry at the ready so they don’t have to commit fully to being where they are. I don’t see anyone I know, and that’s a huge relief. I hate introducing dates to friends. So awkward. Is that him at the bar, face glowing in the light?

  “Ira?”

  “Bob?”

  We shake hands and sit down at a corner table. I order a vanilla martini. He orders a Diet Coke. He’s handsome, but I think he kind of looks like me. And I am not my type. He’s small, with wavy salt-and-pepper hair—a Jewish Richard Gere is how people might see him. Edgy tortoiseshell glasses. Brown eyes. Good skin. Strong-looking hands. Bold yellow turtleneck sweater that only a very confident man in his early forties could pull off. Attitude to spare. And that voice. How do I describe it? It’s definitely New York, but with an almost plummy English overlay that doesn’t quite erase his nasal Bronx accent.

  I don’t know anybody from the Bronx. It’s enough that I still know people from the Islips, where I’m from. This is only one of many toxic thoughts I bring to the table. (And later I find out that he almost writes me off for my leather pants and vanilla martini.) But there is an instant rapport. We are both so opinionated.

  “I can’t stand how gentrified this neighborhood is,” he says about the West Village, where I’m proud to have a rent-stabilized apartment among the wealthy.

  “Doesn’t bother me at all,” I say. “In fact, it feels validating to have an Olsen twin living around the corner.”

  “The whole city I knew as a kid is gone,” he says.

  “Which means there are no more heroin addicts?”

  “Yes, but now we have fashion editors,” he says.

  We shouldn’t laugh, but we do. Maybe two abrasive personalities are better than one. Neither of us seems to see the need to be careful. Our conversation is the least-strained first-date conversation I’ve ever had. We argue about books and movies and magazines. We gossip about people we have in common. I feel so comfortable with him that I let down my guard and do something I would never do on a first date: I talk a little about my father and his dating travails. Instead of changing the subject (could there be any less-attractive subject on a first date?), Ira just listens and laughs. He appreciates that I’m concerned about my old man, and then he tells me that his mother is a widow, too, and in Great Neck, no less. My ears go up like a dog who has just heard the food hit the bowl. “Hey! My father lives in Great Neck!”

  “Oh yeah? Where?”

  “The Centra, assisted living.”

  “I know that building very well.”

  “So what’s your mother like? How old is she? Is she attractive?”

  He describes her as a small, youthful eighty-two-year-old with a big SUV. She still drives, runs around to her senior groups and lectures—an upbeat, lively woman. Okay, she’s a finger-wagging socialist who has no interest in involving herself with another man. No matter. She could be good for my father, I’m thinking, especially if Florence fails. Someone for the spring, when he’s back from Florida. Ira dismisses me with a brush of his hand. He’s tough.

  “Why don’t we table this topic for now?” he says.

  “Why? Just ask your mom if she’d be up for meeting him!”

  “Maybe I should have brought her along on this date,” he says.

  As we eat our meal and then pay the bill—Dutch—I realize that the hour has sped by. This man with the name that makes me cringe could easily be a friend.

  But boyfriends?

  He’s kind of affected, if not a little flamboyant. And I mean, not to harp on it, but come on—Ira Silverberg. Can I date such a Jewish-sounding name? With cold wind on our cheeks and clouds of condensation coming out of our mouths, we walk through the Village after dinner, chatting away, with endless topics to cover and more still untouched. I should not have had that last martini. He had only Diet Cokes. And okay, I’m not on my best behavior because I’m not intimidated by him, or even concerned that I’m making a good impression. He isn’t quickening my heart the way a good date should. But what the hell? It’s cold. He’s cute. Or cute enough. Outside my building, with take-out menus swirling around our feet, I kiss him good night. He doesn’t pull away. But he also doesn’t egg me on for more. He just smiles. He has a slightly crooked tooth. His eyes are squinty, and if they’re pools, only lap pools. They’re also brown when I prefer blue. But they are full of light and life. “Good night,” he says. “Let’s do it again.”

  He walks away in a chic black shearling coat, all posture and dignity.

  Amusing guy. And compelling on a level that isn’t superficial.

  On our second date, I meet the dog. I have come to pick Ira up in his Soho apartment. The place is a well-designed walkup with midcentury furniture in bold colors. Most impressive are his shelves of books. Books by friends. Books he published, edited, sold as an agent. On the one hand he’s a flip city boy into clothes and design. But on the other hand, there are all these books he is absolutely passionate about, that he championed, and I’m impressed. His heart is in the world of serious authors and artists. There are black-and-white photographs of him as a teenager hanging around with William Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg. This Ira Silverberg of the Bronx has lived three times as many lives as I have. He was even a doorman at Limelight, the nightclub. He’s younger than me by five years. Yet he knows so much more than I do.

  The only thing he doesn’t know, apparently, is how to control his dog, Byron, a high-strung cairn terrier. As we are leaving his apartment to go to a holiday party, I am putting on my coat when I feel something at my ankles, and I jump when I look down. This little dark cloud of fur is trying to sink his teeth into me to keep me from leaving.

  “Hey! Your dog’s biting my legs!”

  “Byron! No!” Ira says as he pulls him away. The dog tries to snap at him. It is an alarming display of domestic doggy discord. In fact, it’s rather like seeing that the child of someone you’re dating is an out-of-control hellion. What to think about it?

  After he locks his front door, he tells me, “Byron has abandonment issues.”

  “Meaning he doesn’t like to be left?”

  “Exactly.”

  “Does he bite a lot of people?”

  “Not enough, if you ask me. This neighborhood is overrun with tourists.”

  I laugh. We laugh the whole night, and he’s great at the party I’ve been invited to. Even though it’s more a style crowd than a literary one, he knows people and fits right in. He’s witty and attractive, animated to the point of antic. But then, a little while into the evening, I start to worry that he’s talking way too loud. And I wish that his Bronx accent wasn’t quite so pronounced. I find myself fighting the impulse to interrupt what he’s saying to people—isn’t he going on a bit too long? Of course, everyone is finding him wonderful. I rarely have dates who fit right into my pushy little party world. At the end of the evening, he asks if I’ll walk Byron with him.

  “Is he going to be biting anyone?” I say.

  “Only men in bad shoes,” he says.

  So on a cold December night—our second date—we walk Byron together, his little Toto dog, whose tail is wagging sweetly as he pulls Ira on his leash past the well-dressed evening-outers on the streets of Soho. The dog is twelve years old.

  “But he has puppy energy,” Ira sa
ys.

  Puppy energy. I like that, it’s a kind of adorable, straining-at-the-leash quality, a quality I am seeing in Ira, too. For better and for worse, he is nothing if not high-strung.

  When it comes time for our third date the next weekend, I am very anxious.

  I dress carefully, in a black cashmere turtleneck that will hide my love handles. I shave twice. I can’t really tell what he thinks of me, but I get the sense that we’re both trying to make it work.

  We’re in his apartment. Bryon the dog is out of sight somewhere, giving us space to be alone. We finish the Japanese take-out dinner. Barry White is singing “Can’t Get Enough of Your Love.” We’ve got a shag-rug vibe going. I’ve had several drinks. He’s had several cigarettes. The lights are low, candles flickering anxiously. All around us his book collection looms. All those brilliantly convoluted minds seem to be egging us on. It’s better company than I’m used to. It’s midnight in Soho, and, while the world outside is racing around in expensive jeans, looking for love or a good party, we have arrived at this, shoes off, the third date.

  The night when sex has to happen.

  And the disturbing truth is that, because I’m unsure of our chemistry, I have not been rushing to get into bed with Ira. Apparently Byron isn’t all that eager for me to get into bed with Ira either. As I climb on in his candlelit bedroom, stomach in knots from the anxiety, the growling from underfoot that I’ve been ignoring suddenly becomes a fierce gray mass lunging at my bare feet. Grrr! Arf! The teeth just miss me as I jump, afraid for my life. “Byron,” Ira yells as the little dog pulls back under the bed. “Bad dog! No!”

  I’m in shock. What is it with me and dogs on dates? I laugh nervously at the unchecked feral energy attacking from under the bed. It’s something between Dr. Freud and Dr. Seuss. Sex as the out-of-control animal with sharp teeth menacing in the night.

  “He just attacked me! Why did he do that?”

  “I’m so sorry,” Ira says. “Cairns are cave dwellers, and when he lunges like that, he’s just protecting his lair. It’s not personal, just instinctual, something his breed does.”

  Eventually we turn out the lights.

  I want to be physically responsive, in the moment. But I can’t with my mind firing in so many directions. Do I really want to do this tonight? If I don’t really feel this, how will I do this? It ends with all the sophistication of sixteen-year-olds in the backseat of a car.

  “High school sex,” I say, as I jump up and get dressed.

  “Better than nothing,” he replies, smiling from the bed.

  “I have to go,” I say.

  “I’ll call you.”

  “Okay,” I say. Then I open the door and flee, letting it slam behind me.

  Walking home past many lovely young couples, I flail my fist in the air.

  “What is wrong with you?” I mutter. “Get over yourself!”

  I know there’s something very good in him, and I know he’s the marrying kind, an unusual trait in New York men. He’s a deep person. Funny. Handsome. Honest. Yet my impulse is to run. I always run. Why? Am I still afraid to become intimate with anyone, no matter how appropriate? By making a real effort to commit, am I making myself too vulnerable? Will I have to turn myself inside out in order to make this work? What if he decides I’m not good enough after a month? Maybe it just isn’t meant to be. That happens between people all the time. I can’t force it. He’s wonderful. But he just isn’t my type. He leaves a message the next morning. I don’t call back.

  I don’t return an e-mail either. Is he figuring out that I’m pulling away? He’s leaving for California for a week, he writes. I feel awful. We should talk.

  But what is there to say? I’m too ashamed of myself to explain myself.

  The next day, flowers arrive. He must have ordered them just before getting on his flight. They are white narcissi, delicate as they are fragrant.

  There’s a card inside. “If that was high school,” it says, “then let’s go to college.”

  I spend the week talking incessantly about Ira to my friends, saying he’s so great and so good looking, but just not for me. “So I guess I’m letting it unravel,” I tell Marisa.

  “Are you out of your mind?” she says. “Don’t you dare!”

  It’s Christmas Eve, and I’m having dinner with her family in New Jersey again. She is now completely entwined with Silvano, and they have become a flashy little It couple.

  “But I just don’t think I can make it work,” I whine. “It’s complicated.”

  Later, another friend, Amy, is dropping me off after dinner. She’s divorced and finding the dating scene impossible.

  “Why the hell would you dismiss a man like that?” she asks.

  I try to explain that, while I like Ira, I don’t think I’d like sleeping with him. She isn’t buying it. “It’s too early for you to decide if you’re physically compatible or not,” she says. “You have to sleep with a guy three times before you can make a good decision.”

  “But why? What will that prove if I don’t like it the first time?”

  “Three times,” she says. “That’s the rule. Promise you will before you give up.”

  I can’t promise. I’m too afraid. And I don’t want to extend myself only to be disappointed. And isn’t there something to be said for not getting in deep with someone you are having doubts about? I don’t want to hurt him when I run. God, this is so complicated. I don’t do this! I have never known how to do this!

  Christmas comes and goes, lonely and silent in the city. I know Ira’s in town, but I don’t call.

  “It’s just too much of a strain,” I tell my friend Gillian. “I should move on, let it go.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding,” Gillian says.

  “It’s just too complicated. I don’t want to jerk him around and hurt him.”

  “He sounds like the person you’ve been searching for.”

  “I haven’t been searching.”

  “Liar! You have so.”

  “But I’ve never wanted someone like him. I don’t feel comfortable.”

  Gillian puts down her coffee cup and grabs my chin. She looks disgusted.

  “You know something?” she says. “You have to stop thinking so much. And you have to stop being so critical. But mostly, you have to stop being afraid. You’re afraid to return his affection. You’re afraid to commit to really trying with someone who is actually right for you. You’re afraid of everything, and it’s ruining your life. Call him.”

  “Call him? When? Right now? Why?”

  “Because I’m telling you to, that’s why,” she says.

  “What am I supposed to say?”

  “Tell him you’re sorry you didn’t return his calls and try to make another date.”

  I know I should. But I can’t. I don’t know why, but I can’t.

  “You’re making the biggest mistake of your life,” she says.

  At the airport on my way to Florida the next day, I bump into a dog trainer I know. I don’t know why, but I find myself telling her all about Byron, Ira’s cairn terrier. She is shocked to hear about how he attacks from under the bed.

  “But Ira says that cairns are cave dwellers,” I explain enthusiastically. “So lunging from under the bed is typical because it’s a characteristic of the breed, right?”

  She looks at me as if I’m out of my mind. “Um, I don’t know what dog books he’s been reading,” she says. “But bad behavior like that is not the breed. It’s the dog.”

  I don’t know why I find this so hilarious. All I know is that I want to call Ira and tell him, tease him, and hear him come up with the perfect response. I start to dial his number. Then I stop. I don’t want to reengage. I don’t have time. I am going to Palm Beach to see my father, who is having problems with Fifth Avenue Florence. He needs me, and I am hoping to forget my own emotional fiasco so I can focus on his. And then I’m hoping I’ll have something to do, anything to do, when I get back for New Year’s Eve.

&nbs
p; CHAPTER 5

  Tawdry Palms

  The flight to Palm Beach is on time, and within a few hours, I’m in the pleasant Florida sunshine in a rental car, a white Sebring convertible, cruising to Dad along I-95. The wind in my face is starting to blow thoughts of Ira right out of my head. Traffic is moving well. I’m playing with the radio when Dad calls. It’s hard to hear him with the top down. But I get the gist. He’s not so good. He’s happy I’m coming to see him, of course. He can use cheering up, some “moral support,” he says. He’s thinking he has to end it with Fifth Avenue Florence. It just keeps getting worse.

  “I can’t believe it, Dad,” I tell him. “She’s taking you to the Palm Beach Country Club all the time. You told me you’re compatible at the bridge table.”

  “But she’s getting harder and harder to take, Bobby.”

  “Everybody has their flaws, Dad. Don’t be so sensitive.”

  “Last night she suggested I was just filler until Mr. Right comes along.”

  “Dad, come on! She was joking. That’s what people do when they’re just getting comfortable with each other. They joke. You can’t take it seriously.”

  “Then she told me I was only after her for her money.”

  “Again, joking! Don’t you know that? What would you want with her money?”

  “I just don’t know what to say to her. She makes me feel second-rate. Do you know that last night she introduced me at a party as her walker?”

  Ouch. That’s a little much. “A walker? Really? Oh boy.”

  “At first I thought she meant someone to lean on, then I found out it’s more like a gentleman you use as an accessory when you have to go out for the evening.”

  “So what did people do when she called you her walker?”

  “Oh, they laughed. But it hurt my feelings.”