A Place I've Never Been

by David Leavitt

  “Well, Charlotte’s a sweetheart,” Ted said. “After our initial hostilities, we got to be great friends, right, Charlotte?” He ruffled the top of her head, and she looked up at him adoringly. We were both looking at Charlotte. Then we were looking at each other. Ted raised his eyebrows. I flushed. The look went on just a beat too long, before I turned away, and he was totaling the bill.

  Afterwards, at home, I told Susan about it, and she got into a state. “What if he sues?” she said, running her left hand nervously through her hair. She had taken her shoes off; the heels of her panty hose were black with the dye from her shoes.

  “Susan, he’s not going to sue. He’s a very nice kid, very friendly.”

  I put my arms around her, but she pushed me away. “Was he the boss?” she said. “You said someone else was the boss.”

  “Yes, a woman.”

  “Oh, great. Women are much more vicious than men, Paul, believe me. Especially professional women. He’s perfectly friendly and wants to forget it, but for all we know she’s been dreaming about going on People’s Court her whole life.” She hit the palm of her hand against her forehead.

  “Susan,” I said, “I really don’t think—”

  “Did you give him anything?”

  “Give him anything?”

  “You know, a tip. Something.”

  “No.”

  “Jesus, hasn’t being married to a lawyer all these years taught you anything?” She sat down and stood up again. “All right, all right, here’s what we’re going to do. I want you to have a bottle of champagne sent over to the guy. With an apology, a note. Marcia Grossman did that after she hit that tree, and it worked wonders.” She blew out breath. “I don’t see what else we can do at this point, except wait, and hope—”

  “Susan, I really think you’re making too much of all this. This isn’t New York City, after all, and really, he didn’t seem to mind at all—”

  “Paul, honey, please trust me. You’ve always been very naive about these things. Just send the champagne, all right?”

  Her voice had reached an unendurable pitch of annoyance. I stood up. She looked at me guardedly. It was the beginning of a familiar fight between us—in her anxiety, she’d say something to imply, not so subtly, how much more she understood about the world than I did, and in response I would stalk off, insulted and pouty. But this time I did not stalk off—I just stood there—and Susan, closing her eyes in a manner which suggested profound regret at having acted rashly, said in a very soft voice, “I don’t mean to yell. It’s just that you know how insecure I get about things like this, and really, it’ll make me feel so much better to know we’ve done something. So send the champagne for my sake, O.K.?” Suddenly she was small and vulnerable, a little girl victimized by her own anxieties. It was a transformation she made easily, and often used to explain her entire life.

  “O.K.,” I said, as I always said, and that was the end of it.

  The next day I sent the champagne. The note read (according to Susan’s instructions): “Dear Ted: Please accept this little gift as a token of thanks for your professionalism and good humor. Sincerely, Paul Hoover and Charlotte.” I should add that at this point I believed I was leaving Susan’s name off only because she hadn’t been there.

  The phone at my office rang the next morning at nine-thirty. “Listen,” Ted said, “thanks for the champagne! That was so thoughtful of you.”

  “Oh, it was nothing.”

  “No, but it means a lot that you cared enough to send it.” He was quiet for a moment. “So few clients do, you know. Care.”

  “Oh, well,” I said. “My pleasure.”

  Then Ted asked me if I wanted to have dinner with him sometime during the week.

  “Dinner? Um—well—”

  “I know, you’re probably thinking this is sudden and rash of me, but—Well, you seemed like such a nice guy, and—I don’t know—I don’t meet many people I can really even stand to be around—men, that is—so what’s the point of pussyfooting around?”

  “No, no, I understand,” I said. “That sounds great. Dinner, that is—sounds great.”

  Ted made noises of relief. “Terrific, terrific. What night would be good for you?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. Thursday?” Thursday Susan was going to New York to sell her mother’s apartment.

  “Thursday’s terrific,” Ted said. “Do you like Dunes?”

  “Sure.” Dunes was a gay bar and restaurant I’d never been to.

  “So I’ll make a reservation. Eight o’clock? We’ll meet there?”

  “That’s fine.”

  “I’m so glad,” Ted said. “I’m really looking forward to it.”

  It may be hard to believe, but even then I still told myself I was doing it to make sure he didn’t sue us.

  Now, I should point out that not all of this was a new experience for me. It’s true I’d never been to Dunes, but in my town, late at night, there is a beach, and not too far down the highway, a parking area. Those nights Susan and I fought, it was usually at one of these places that I ended up.

  Still, nothing I’d done in the dark prepared me for Dunes, when I got there Thursday night. Not that it was so different from any other restaurant I’d gone to—it was your basic scrubbed-oak, piano-bar sort of place. Only everyone was a man. The maître d’, white-bearded and red-cheeked, a displaced Santa Claus, smiled at me and said, “Meeting someone?”

  “Yes, in fact.” I scanned the row of young and youngish men sitting at the bar, looking for Ted. “He doesn’t seem to be here yet.”

  “Ted Potter, right?”

  I didn’t know Ted’s last name. “Yes, I think so.”

  “The dog groomer?”

  “Right.”

  The maître d’, I thought, smirked. “Well, I can seat you now, or you can wait at the bar.”

  “Oh, I think I’ll just wait here, thanks, if that’s O.K.”

  “Whatever you want,” the maître d’ said. He drifted off toward a large, familial-looking group of young men who’d just walked in the door. Guardedly I surveyed the restaurant for a familiar face which, thankfully, never materialized. I had two or three co-workers who I suspected ate here regularly.

  I had to go to the bathroom, which was across the room. As far as I could tell there was no ladies’ room at all. As for the men’s room, it was small and cramped, with a long trough reminiscent of junior high school summer camp instead of urinals. Above the trough a mirror had been strategically tilted at a downward angle.

  By the time I’d finished, and emerged once again into the restaurant, Ted had arrived. He looked breathless and a little worried and was consulting busily with the maître d’. I waved; he waved back with his bandaged hand, said a few more words to the maître d’, and strode up briskly to greet me. “Hello,” he said, clasping my hand with his unbandaged one. It was a large hand, cool and powdery. “Gosh, I’m sorry I’m late. I have to say, when I got here, and didn’t see you, I was worried you might have left. Joey—that’s the owner—said you’d been standing there one minute and the next you were gone.”

  “I was just in the bathroom.”

  “I’m glad you didn’t leave.” He exhaled what seemed an enormous quantity of breath. “Wow, it’s great to see you! You look great!”

  “Thanks,” I said. “So do you.” He did. He was wearing a white oxford shirt with the first couple of buttons unbuttoned, and a blazer the color of the beach.

  “There you are,” said Joey—the maître d’. “We were wondering where you’d run off to. Well, your table’s ready.” He escorted us to the middle of the hubbub. “Let’s order some wine,” Ted said as we sat down. “What kind do you like?”

  I wasn’t a big wine expert—Susan had always done the ordering for us—so I deferred to Ted, who, after conferring for a few moments with Joey, mentioned something that sounded Italian. Then he leaned back and cracked his knuckles, bewildered, apparently, to be suddenly without tasks.

  “So,”
he said.

  “So,” I said.

  “I’m glad to see you.”

  “I’m glad to see you too.”

  We both blushed. “You’re a real estate broker, right? At least, that’s what I figured from your business card.”

  “That’s right.”

  “How long have you been doing that?”

  I dug back. “Oh, eight years or so.”

  “That’s great. Have you been out here the whole time?”

  “No, no, we moved out here six years ago.”

  “We?”

  “Uh—Charlotte and I.”

  “Oh.” Again Ted smiled. “So do you like it, living year-round in a resort town?”

  “Sure. How about you?”

  “I ended up out here by accident and just sort of stayed. A lot of people I’ve met have the same story. They’d like to leave, but you know—the climate is nice, life’s not too difficult. It’s hard to pull yourself away.”

  I nodded nervously.

  “Is that your story too?”

  “Oh—well, sort of,” I said. “I was born in Queens, and then—I was living in Manhattan for a while—and then we decided to move out here—Charlotte and I—because I’d always loved the beach, and wanted to have a house, and here you could sell real estate and live all year round.” I looked at Ted: Had I caught myself up in a lie or a contradiction? What I was telling him, essentially, was my history, but without Susan—and that was ridiculous, since my history was bound up with Susan’s every step of the way. We’d started dating in high school, gone to the same college. The truth was I’d lived in Manhattan only while she was in law school, and had started selling real estate to help pay her tuition. No wonder the story sounded so strangely motiveless as I told it. I’d left out the reasons for everything. Susan was the reason for everything.

  A waiter—a youngish blond man with a mustache so pale you could barely see it—gave us menus. He was wearing a white T-shirt and had a corkscrew outlined in the pocket of his jeans.

  “Hello, Teddy,” he said to Ted. Then he looked at me and said very fast, as if it were one sentence, “I’m Bobby and I’ll be your waiter for the evening would you like something from the bar?”

  “We’ve already ordered some wine,” Ted said. “You want anything else, Paul?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “O.K., would you like to hear the specials now?”

  We both nodded, and Bobby rattled off a list of complex-sounding dishes. It was hard for me to separate one from the other. I had no appetite. He handed us our menus and moved on to another table.

  I opened the menu. Everything I read sounded like it would make me sick.

  “So do you like selling houses?” Ted asked.

  “Oh yes, I love it—I love houses.” I looked up, suddenly nervous that I was talking too much about myself. Shouldn’t I ask him something about himself? I hadn’t been on a date for fifteen years, after all, and even then the only girl I dated was Susan, whom I’d known forever. What was the etiquette in a situation like this? Probably I should ask Ted something about his life, but what kind of question would be appropriate?

  Another waiter arrived with our bottle of wine, which Ted poured.

  “How long have you been a dog groomer?” I asked rather tentatively.

  “A couple of years. Of course I never intended to be a professional dog groomer. It was just something I did to make money. What I really wanted to be, just like about a million and a half other people, was an actor. Then I took a job out here for the summer, and like I said, I just stayed. I actually love the work. I love animals. When I was growing up my mom kept saying I should have been a veterinarian. She still says that to me sometimes, tells me it’s not too late. I don’t know. Frankly, I don’t think I have what it takes to be a vet, and anyway, I don’t want to be one. It’s important work, but let’s face it, I’m not for it and it’s not for me. So I’m content to be a dog groomer.” He picked up his wineglass and shook it, so that the wine lapped the rim in little waves.

  “I know what you mean,” I said, and I did. For years Susan had been complaining that I should have been an architect, insisting that I would have been happier, when the truth was she was just the tiniest bit ashamed of being married to a real estate broker. In her fantasies, “My husband is an architect” sounded so much better.

  “My mother always wanted me to be an architect,” I said now. “But it was just so she could tell her friends. For some reason people think real estate is a slightly shameful profession, like prostitution or something. They just assume on some level you make your living ripping people off. There’s no way around it. An occupational hazard, I guess.”

  “Like dog bites,” said Ted. He poured more wine.

  “Oh, about that—” But Bobby was back to take our orders. He was pulling a green pad from the pocket on the back of his apron when another waiter came up to him from behind and whispered something in his ear. Suddenly they were both giggling wildly.

  “You going to fill us in?” Ted asked, after the second waiter had left.

  “I’m really sorry about this,” Bobby said, still giggling. “It’s just—” He bent down close to us, and in a confiding voice said, “Jill over at the bar brought in some like really good Vanna, just before work, and like, everything seems really hysterical to me? You know, like it’s five years ago and I’m this boy from Emporia, Kansas?” He cast his eyes to the ceiling. “God, I’m like a complete retard tonight. Anyway, what did you say you wanted?”

  Ted ordered grilled paillard of chicken with shiitake mushrooms in a papaya vinaigrette; I ordered a cheeseburger.

  “Who’s Jill?” I asked after Bobby had left.

  “Everyone’s Jill,” Ted said. “They’re all Jill.”

  “And Vanna?”

  “Vanna White. It’s what they call cocaine here.” He leaned closer. “I’ll bet you’re thinking this place is really ridiculous, and you’re right. The truth is, I kind of hate it. Only can you name me someplace else where two men can go on a date? I like the fact that you can act datish here, if you know what I mean.” He smiled. Under the table our hands interlocked. We were acting very datish indeed.

  It was all very unreal. I thought of Susan, in Queens, with her mother. She’d probably called the house two or three times already, was worrying where I was. It occurred to me, dimly and distantly, like something in another life, that Ted knew nothing about Susan. I wondered if I should tell him.

  But I did not tell him. We finished dinner, and went to Ted’s apartment. He lived in the attic of a rambling old house near the center of town.

  We never drank more than a sip or two each of the cups of tea he made for us.

  It was funny—when we began making love that first time, Ted and I, what I was thinking was that, like most sex between men, this was really a matter of exorcism, the expulsion of bedeviling lusts. Or exercise, if you will. Or horniness—a word that always makes me think of demons. So why was it, when we finished, there were tears in my eyes, and I was turning, putting my mouth against his hair, preparing to whisper something—who knows what?

  Ted looked upset. “What’s wrong?” he asked. “Did I hurt you?”

  “No,” I said. “No. You didn’t hurt me.”

  “Then what is it?”

  “I guess I’m just not used to—I didn’t expect—I never expected—” Again I was crying.

  “It’s O.K.,” he said. “I feel it too.”

  “I have a wife,” I said.

  At first he didn’t answer.

  I’ve always loved houses. Most people I know in real estate don’t love houses; they love making money, or making deals, or making sales pitches. But Susan and I, from when we first knew each other, from when we were very young, we loved houses better than anything else. Perhaps this was because we’d both been raised by divorced parents in stuffy apartments in Queens—I can’t be sure. All I know is that as early as senior year in high school we shared a desire to get as far
out of that city we’d grown up in as we could; we wanted a green lawn, and a mailbox, and a garage. And that passion, as it turned out, was so strong in us that it determined everything. I needn’t say more about myself, and as for Susan—well, name me one other first-in-her-class in law school who’s chosen—chosen—basically to do house closings for a living.

  Susan wishes I were an architect. It is her not-so-secret dream to be married to an architect. Truthfully, she wanted me to have a profession she wouldn’t have to think was below her own. But the fact is, I never could have been a decent architect because I have no patience for the engineering, the inner workings, the slow layering of concrete slab and wood and Sheetrock. Real estate is a business of surfaces, of first impressions; you have to brush past the water stain in the bathroom, put a Kleenex box over the gouge in the Formica, stretch the life expectancy of the heater from three to six years. Tear off the tile and the paint, the crumbly wallboard and the crackly blanket of insulation, and you’ll see what flimsy scarecrows our houses really are, stripped down to their bare beams. I hate the sight of houses in the midst of renovation, naked and exposed like that. But give me a finished house, a polished floor, a sunny day; then I will show you what I’m made of.

  The house I loved best, however, the house where, in those mad months, I imagined I might actually live with Ted, was the sort that most brokers shrink from—pretty enough, but drab, undistinguished. No dishwasher, no cathedral ceilings. It would sell, if it sold at all, to a young couple short on cash, or a retiring widow. So don’t ask me why I loved this house. My passion for it was inexplicable, yet intense. Somehow I was utterly convinced that this, much more than the sleek suburban one-story Susan and I shared, with its Garland stove and Sub-Zero fridge—this was the house of love.

  The day I told Susan I was leaving her, she threw the Cuisinart at me. It bounced against the wall with a thud, and that vicious little blade, dislodged, rolled along the floor like a revolving saw, until it gouged the wall. I stared at it, held fast and suspended above the ground. “How can you just come home from work and tell me this?” Susan screamed. “No preparation, no warning—”