Me for You

by Lolly Winston

  “Sure.” Rudy took out his wallet to pay the tab. Slow down, cowboy. Was he going to take Babs square-heeled pumps shopping?

  “Well, really I love Talbots best,” Barbara confessed with relish. “But I just may take you up on that sometime, dear.”

  Somehow, Rudy was touched by this term of endearment. It indicated they’d made a platonic bond. Frankly, the date hadn’t been nearly as frightening as Rudy had imagined.

  People, all people, needed connection, Rudy thought, opening the leatherette bar tab holder.

  Rudy shooed away the credit card Babs tried to slip inside the check holder with Rudy’s. She allowed for the treat and they exchanged personal email addresses so they could work out the details of attending Figaro together.

  “Your kindness means so much to me.” She said this without a touch of irony, squeezing Rudy’s arm. “I’m so sorry for the loss of your wife. Too young,” she said. “Too young.”

  “And your husband,” Rudy added.

  “You are going to find a nice new wife in no time,” Barbara told him.

  “I, well . . .”

  “It’s so much easier for men.”

  What an unfair truth, if this were the case, he thought.

  Then he felt that invisible string again—the commonality of grief and loss a fly-fishing line arcing from one stranger’s heart to another’s, uniting him with Sasha.

  “And I bet that ‘senior dating site’ is going to provide you with a dashing opera buddy much sharper than me,” he assured Barbara.

  She blotted her lips, stood, straightened her skirt, and assumed a locked and loaded demeanor. “Okay, then!” she chirped. “As my granddaughter would say, send me the deets!”

  With that, Barbara was gone, up the padded stairs of the sunken bar, disappearing through the lobby of the hotel.

  At home, the phone rang before Rudy was barely in the door.

  “So?” CeCe said, bursting with vicarious excitement.

  “So. I just had drinks and sandwiches and opera chat with a seventy-seven-year-old woman.”

  “What! She lied about her age!”

  “She did not lie. She thought I chose her, knowing her age, thank you very much. Maybe the dark underbelly of dating isn’t as dark as the underbelly of dumb dating technology.”

  “Well, open the site,” CeCe insisted, her manager mode setting in. A grieving widowed father wasn’t a project to be left unfinished!

  “I don’t want to open the site, sweetheart. I’ll be opening the site tomorrow, when I take down my profile.”

  Rudy heard the clacking of CeCe’s keyboard in the background. He laid his sport coat over the stool at the breakfast bar. He crossed the room to flip on another kitchen light, reached into the fridge for his favorite ginger ale.

  “Ohhhhhhh. Oh, Dad.”

  “Yes, my electronic matchmaker?”

  “I made an error. I missed it when I proofed your profile. Oh, Dad.”

  “Did you enter me as a woman? A seventy-five-year-old woman in need of a bridge group?”

  “No,” CeCe’s seriousness gave way to laughter that burbled with hysteria and ended in a snort. “Dad, I put that you’re seventy-four. Not fifty-four. I typed a seven instead of a five. Oh. My. God.”

  “Well,” he took a sip of his ginger ale, “despite wishing for the first time in my life that I were color-blind, I actually had a fine time. And, I have a date, not a date date, but a friend, with whom I will attend the opera. At least one show, we decided.”

  “Oh, noooo. She’s way too old for you. You have to cancel. You’ll get right back on there tomorrow and find someone in your age group.”

  “Nope, I found my opera date. It’s a friendly outing, with a nice older lady who wants both of us to find buddies closer to our age.”

  “Buddies?”

  “Sweetheart, lighten up. I just drove all the way to an airport bar to breathe enough disinfectant and mildew to give me Legionnaires’ disease. I’m going upstairs to put my feet up before the respiratory infection sets in.”

  “Okay, but I’m fixing your profile right—”

  “Oh, nooooo,” Rudy told his daughter, kicking off his shoes, excited to tell Sasha this whole story. “I have done my due diligence. No more online dating.” The only woman he wanted to take on a real bona fide date date was Sasha. And with any luck, that spoiled kid he sat next to at the opera would one day be replaced by her.

  “But Dad, I just saw in the community college catalog that there’s an adult education class Tuesday nights for online dating. You get all the latest hot tips and then get coached by an expert.”

  “Oh, for the love of God.” Rudy had imagined taking an adult-education course at the college in intermediate or advanced Italian, in order to better enjoy the opera.

  “But, it’s only two nights. You can do anything once, right? That’s what Mom always said.”

  “And I went on one online date and I love you for helping me and I am going up to bed now. I’ve got to shower the maraschino cherry vapors out of my hair.”

  Rudy made a kissing sound for his daughter and hung up the phone.

  The next morning Rudy would email Barbara, then take down his dating profile. He knew he enjoyed Sasha’s company more than anyone else’s. He didn’t want to go on ten coffee dates or get ghosted. (CeCe had explained this kooky term to him, which she’d learned from a recently divorced girlfriend.) He was a widower. Permanently ghosted!

  As he crept around the house, turning out the last few lights, making sure the front door was locked, he realized that he felt buoyed by his crazy Internet meet-up. By the fact that he’d potentially made a new friend and that he felt ever confident to move forward with getting to know Sasha. More than as a friend, work comrade, and coffee date. As a date date.

  10

  Making dinner for Bee every night after he’d been downsized had become one of Rudy’s great pleasures. Now he found himself cooking for Terry Gross on the radio. Although he loved Terry, she wasn’t going to tuck into a gourmet shepherd’s pie with him. He’d discovered there was no joy in eating by himself. No matter what bottle of wine he opened or what record he put on the stereo, he wanted to fix food for others. CeCe appreciated his Tupperware-packed dinners for three, which she would always say she was going to freeze. “Freeze! Eat it tonight or tomorrow night,” Rudy would insist. But his daughter had an obsession with freezing food. Everything in their stuffed freezer was neatly packed and labeled for flavor loss, freezer burn, and a sea of spoiled food in the case of a prolonged power outage.

  No, he wanted to make dinner for Sasha. Two nicely set places, with candles and courses and wine and dessert. They’d dine at the kitchen table, to make the meal cozier and less formal. All he had to do was march over to the watch counter the next day (no skulking, he confidently told himself), and ask her. He would not tell Sasha that he hadn’t been on a dinner date since college. As college sweethearts, he and Bethany didn’t go on dates as they first got to know each other. They spent hours at the same table of friends in the college cafeteria, drove into town in carloads for tuna melts and french fries, toiled in the same study group. Eventually, Rudy and Bee drifted apart from their group and became a real couple. Yet it was so incremental and organic and without anxiety that Rudy wondered if he’d ever even been on a proper date. But he and Bethany had entertained—had had plenty of dinner parties. So this would be that sort of date. Having someone over for supper. In fact, he’d bill it as supper, to make the meal seem less formal and date-like. Call him old-fashioned, but he now hated the word date. Dating websites, Dating the Second Time Around!—CeCe had forwarded one such audiobook to him to listen to.

  “I’m listening to Madame Bovary currently,” he’d texted her back.

  “NOT a happy story, Dad,” she’d replied.

  In the last month, Rudy and his adult daughter had begun texting like teenagers. He liked the method of communication. It meant brevity and immediacy, without the nagging feeling of ne
eding to call her back and assuage her worries about him.

  “Well, I loved listening to Anna Karenina,” Rudy texted back. He had. The characters’ troubles, the narrator’s dulcet reading voice—audiobooks had become a salve since Bee died. Someone in the night. A cast of people in the night. A ballroom dance floor, a Russian winter, a dropped handkerchief.

  “!!!” CeCe replied to the mention of Anna Karenina. Okay, so both stories ended in suicide. Did she think he hadn’t thought of this? Rudy was not going to harm himself. He just craved literature. Heft. Meaning out of the senseless world.

  “Well-told stories,” he replied. “More importantly, company. That’s not depressing.”

  “Not depressing?!”

  “That’s right, I find the greatest novels of all time—their beauty and grace and tragedy less depressing than DATING books at MY age. Especially to listen to. Blech.”

  “I’m just trying to help.” Frowny face.

  “I know, sweetheart. I love you.” Hearts. Kisses. Emojis made expressing emotions by text less treacherous.

  Inspired by this thought, Rudy decided to text Sasha. “Feel like having supper at my house this weekend?” He used the emojis for wine and the dinner plate, which he felt added a whimsical and casual touch. Thirty seconds later, she wrote back “Sure!” Smiley face.

  Rudy got up early the Saturday Sasha was coming to dinner. She had said yes! He had cut the beef into chunks and soaked it in red wine the night before—prepping for the beef bourguignon. Now he drained the meat, reserving the juices, rolled the pieces in flour with salt and pepper, and fried them quickly, just to sear the outside of each piece. It was best if you didn’t cook too many chunks at a time, allowing for more space to turn and brown each and every side. For this he used tongs. Rudy began to hum as he worked—a song from The Fantasticks, from his repertoire at work—which always made him think of parenting their unique daughter.

  “Plant a carrot! Get a carrot! Not a Brussels sprout . . .” He belted out the rhyme with Tourette’s vigor. ARGH! Would these songs be stuck in his head forever? He had nothing against musicals, but Rudy was pretty sure he’d never attend one again. Unless Sasha had her heart set on them. He’d go with her. Hell, he’d go to an Amway meeting with Sasha. As he plucked the meat from the pan and set it aside for the stew, juices running onto the plate, he knew that this conviction wasn’t just a first-blush-of-love feeling. Couples seemed willing to do anything with each other at first. But as the years wore on they became set in their own ways, less open to their partner’s likes and whims. Bethany always teased Rudy—giggling, yet pleased—because he was a husband who would still go clothes shopping with his wife after all their years of marriage. Not that they’d launch out on trips to the mall for Bee’s spring wardrobe, but if they were out and she saw a sale, he’d go into the store with her, sink into one of those armchairs outside the fitting rooms, happy to read the paper, a book, or listen to music on his phone. The thing was, Rudy always told her, he never got bored, only lonesome.

  Since living alone, he’d learned that there were actually people who didn’t understand the difference. And it turned out that loneliness was an embarrassing thing to speak of. (Why? It was like telling people the intimate bathroom details of food poisoning—the word lonely akin to diarrhea.) It implied that you personally were deficient. And after you’d gone to all the trouble to work up the courage to mention the pain of living alone, people were often quick to suggest activities. Not even activities with others! Computer solitaire! These fill-in-the-hours ideas were always posed by those in a couple or with family close by or living at home.

  Rudy had mentioned lonesomeness to the wife of one couple friend of theirs who laughingly told Rudy a bit later in their conversation, “We’ve got a terrible ant problem. Oh, my word! You would not be lonely with all these ants!” She laughed at her own joke, and Rudy was instantly mortified that he’d even divulged his isolation without Bee. But his dinner hosts and people he’d run into at the supermarket constantly asked how he was doing! Maybe people just wanted to hear about your casserole count right after the death, then fast-forward to your dazzling dating life. They didn’t want to hear lonely quietly confessed near the kale. In fact, Rudy had even imagined that CeCe’s setting up his online profile had provided a vicarious rush for her. Was his own daughter harboring dating fantasies? Did people think being single midlife somehow was fun? They certainly didn’t want to hear that the king-sized bed had become as big as an aircraft carrier and cold as the sidewalk in winter.

  The house phone rang out, startling Rudy. With his hands deep in meal prep, he let it go to voicemail. When he heard the caller ID identify the police station, a flash of panic distracted Rudy from the dinner. He needed to call Detective Jensen back. He needed to deal with the possibility that his wife had been murdered. How could he procrastinate over such a task? The problem was he couldn’t absorb the wretched possibility.

  Rudy snapped on public radio assuring himself he’d return Jensen’s call the next morning. He would get to the bottom of everything. Eventually. But his head was a traffic jam this morning.

  I’m making dinner for a woman at work, he wanted to tell Bee. He loved his dead wife. He always would. But Sasha was special, too. Even Bee would have liked her. She would have liked her lightheartedness, her ability to laugh at herself—that unpretentiousness—her genuine interest in Bee herself, and her deep, deep, varied love for music. Rudy hoped that Sasha and CeCe would get along. He frankly couldn’t imagine anyone not getting along with Sasha. Maybe this traffic jam was good. There simply wasn’t a lane open for date anxiety.

  “It. Will. Be. Fine.” He said these words aloud to the skillet of juices from the meat, turning the flame off underneath, unsure if he meant the date or the murder investigation or the rest of his life. He poured himself another cup of coffee, the last thing he needed.

  “All right?” he asked the package of frozen pearl onions he’d set out on the counter.

  “Good morning! Using a FROZEN vegetable!” he texted CeCe. He hoped he wouldn’t hurt her feelings, teasing her about the freezer business. How he wished his daughter had her mother’s sense of humor.

  Rudy had tried quartered red onions, but really nothing beat the frozen pearl onions in this dish. He scraped the bottom of the pan, working up the brown bits, flicked the flame back to low, added in the butter, then the flour, making a roux. From there he added the red wine, which he mixed with vermouth—his little secret, it made the dish smoother and sweeter and more robust. As he stirred the gravy until it thickened, he gradually added in beef broth. With his other hand he refilled his coffee again and took a bite of rye toast. The kitchen was warmer now, steam and the savory smell of cooking filling the room.

  Good thing he and Sasha had already had coffee and lunch and many talks across the watch counter. They wouldn’t be starting from scratch on their first dinner date over Pine-Sol at an airport Ramada Inn. The thing about being in your fifties was that you knew life was short and that this adage was true: On your deathbed you were more likely to regret what you hadn’t done in life than what you had.

  When Sasha arrived, Rudy was relieved to find that she was wearing jeans and little pink flats, with a cream-colored sweater set. Around her neck was a pretty necklace of pearls, which he complimented her on. She blushed, fingered the necklace.

  “My grandmother’s,” she said. “One of the few very fancy things she had back home.

  “Ahhhhhh.” Sasha tipped back her head, inhaling deeply, and complimented Rudy on the smell of the house. “Delicious!” she exclaimed.

  They made their way to the living room, which was off the kitchen. Sasha gave Rudy a gift she’d brought, a box, of some weight. Rudy opened it to discover two tissue-wrapped lumps.

  “This is from Hungary,” she told him, peering over his hands into the box with some pride in her voice.

  Rudy peeled back the wrapping and saw a beautiful matching porcelain trivet and spoon holder,
brightly colored with birds in blue and yellow and green.

  “Because you cook and I know you enjoy birds.” She clapped her hands together happily.

  “They’re beautiful,” Rudy told her. “I just love them.” He did. They were so intricately made, yet sturdy and utilitarian. He motioned Sasha into the kitchen, where he brushed off and placed the two pieces prominently on the counter.

  “Ah, see, you need,” Sasha pointed to Rudy’s stirring spoon, coated with juices from the dinner, lying on a simple plate.

  “I’ll use them soon,” Rudy insisted. “First I want to look at them. Enjoy them while they are spotless.”

  He opened a bottle of Tapestry wine—a bottle of mixed reds that was delicious but not too heavy. She tasted it then gave a smile and a thumbs-up.

  “We are so lucky to live in California,” she added. “So much delicious wine.” Sasha looked out the big picture window over the kitchen table. “And beautiful wildlife, birds.” She smiled at the feeder.

  “Aha! The brown-backed chickadee,” Rudy pointed. He feigned seriousness, trying to poke fun at himself. “Easy to confuse with the black-capped chickadee and the house sparrow.”

  Sasha giggled. “Well, they all seem happy!”

  Sasha’s cheer, her seeming inability to complain, although her life was clearly difficult, always amazed Rudy. He opened the oven, lifted the lid off the stew, Sasha standing beside him to peek in as he gave it a stir. The dish smelled flavorful, but all Rudy focused on was Sasha’s perfume—a clean, springy scent, like verbena and lemons and a little something spicy. He closed the oven and turned down the heat so that the dish could simmer while they chatted over cheese and bread.

  Everything on Rudy and Sasha’s date went brilliantly, until it became a catastrophe.

  As they sat in the living room nibbling on cheeses and paprika pickles Sasha had also brought, Rudy got up to put on his favorite Erroll Garner record. Erroll Garner and Dave Brubeck were his two favorite pianists.