The Black Widow

by Wendy Corsi Staub

  “That depends on what you like to read.”

  “Novels. No particular genre. I like just about anything as long as the characters are strong and the plot isn’t convoluted,” he adds.

  Well, naturally, she finds herself thinking. Who enjoys weak characters and convoluted plots?

  Ryan claimed to be an avid reader in his online profile and listed an eclectic mix of favorite authors, but that doesn’t mean he’d actually read them.

  For all they had in common, Ben was never much of a reader. Early in their relationship she tried to get him interested in whatever novel she was passionate about at the time. He would gamely read a few pages and then hand it back, saying he couldn’t get into it.

  He balked when she was pregnant and longing to name the baby after one of her favorite literary characters. She suggested Heathcliff for a boy, or Hermione for a girl.

  “Herman?” He lit up.

  “Hermione,” she repeated. “For a girl.”

  “What kind of name is that?”

  “It’s from Harry Potter.”

  He shook his head. “I like Herman a lot better.”

  “For a girl?”

  “If you want.”

  “I don’t want! For a girl or for a boy.”

  “It’s Babe Ruth’s middle name.”

  “I don’t care. There’s no way we’re naming our son Herman.”

  “Well, there’s no way we’re naming our son Heathcliff,” he countered. “The kids will tease him.”

  “They won’t tease Herman? Anyway, we can call him Heath, or Cliff—”

  “Or a regular name.”

  “Like?”

  “Like—I don’t know—Josh or something. Josh is a good name.”

  It was a good name. A great name. Maybe even better than Heathcliff, although Ben almost, almost gave in to that during her grueling labor. As a compromise, he agreed to consider a literary name for their next child, and even promised to read Emily Brontë and J.K. Rowling for inspiration. Of course, he never did.

  It might be nice, Gaby tells herself now, to be in a relationship with a fellow bibliophile.

  Then again, Ryan might just be feigning interest.

  Right. The way you did when he was talking about last night’s ball game?

  It’s not that she doesn’t like baseball. She grew up watching the Yankees in the Bronx; she’s just not a fanatic like Ben.

  Ryan roots for the Yankees’ archrivals, the Red Sox. He might live in New York, he told her, but he’s technically from New England—the Connecticut suburbs.

  Greenwich, he mentioned—but only when she asked where. He wasn’t trying to brag.

  Still, “Greenwich” speaks volumes. Ben’s friend Peter had been married to a woman who’d grown up there. Gaby attended her wedding shower at a bridesmaid’s stately mansion set behind brick walls, the couple’s engagement party at a bigger, better stately mansion set behind brick walls and a guard house, and of course the wedding itself at a fancy country club.

  To his credit, Ryan doesn’t mention whether his family is part of the polo-playing, yachting set, but it’s safe to assume they’re at least fairly well off. Not that it matters to Gaby.

  “What are you working on now?” he asks, and she tells him briefly about the manuscript she’s editing, a cold war spy thriller set in the United States.

  At least, she intended to be brief. But he has questions. Intelligent ones.

  He in turn tells her about the book he just finished reading, a historical mystery that’s currently sitting atop the vast to-be-read pile on her nightstand.

  Convinced he wasn’t just showing polite interest in her literary world, she relaxes a little bit more and asks him what else he’s read recently.

  Talking about books, sipping cold white wine, nibbling a piece of nutty whole grain bread from the basket on the table, Gaby finds herself firmly pushing Ben to the back of her mind every time he tries to intrude.

  Tonight is about forgetting, not remembering. It’s about the future, not the past.

  It’s about her, and about Ryan; about giving him a chance; about daring to believe that if she found happiness once, she might actually find it again.

  It’s no accident that the woman seated across the table from Ben Duran looks nothing like Gabriela.

  He’d chosen the petite blonde for that very reason.

  When he first joined InTune, he’d found himself gravitating toward tall, shapely brunettes, preferably those who, like him—and like Gabriela—had at least a splash of Hispanic blood running through their veins.

  Women like that turned out to be plentiful on the dating Web site. Online, they seemed exactly right for Ben. In person, they were all wrong.

  Either they were too outgoing or not outgoing enough, too affectionate or not affectionate enough, too intellectual or not intellectual enough . . .

  In short, they weren’t Gabriela.

  But of course he didn’t realize that was the problem until his friend Peter—long-divorced and an online dating veteran—pointed it out to him.

  “You’re supposed to be trying to meet someone new and move on, son.” Peter always called him—called everyone—son. “You’re not supposed to be recapturing what you had with Gaby. That’s not possible.”

  Yeah. No kidding.

  He’d tried. He really had. Tried hard to reach her during the last year of their marriage. He was convinced the real Gaby, the woman he loved, was still there, hidden away behind the emotional barrier she’d constructed after they lost their son.

  But he couldn’t permeate those walls. Finally, he concluded that the only way to lure her out was to leave, hoping she’d be shaken enough to come after him.

  She didn’t.

  Ben wasn’t accustomed to failure.

  He’d done everything within his power to avoid it. He’d excelled in high school, both in sports—he ran track and was captain of the swim team—and academically. He’d won acceptance, with partial scholarships, to M.I.T. He worked his way through, emerged with an engineering degree, and left Co-op City behind for good, landing a structural engineering job and his own apartment a few miles—and a world—away in Manhattan.

  He fell in love with and married the woman of his dreams, moved to a bigger, better home where they could raise a family, had a son . . .

  Lost it all. Everything that mattered.

  Gradually, he’s rebuilt his life. But it hasn’t been easy—and he sure as hell doesn’t want to spend the duration on a self-imposed exile. Not after watching his widowed father make that mistake, consumed by grief and misery.

  Ben found that the dating scene had changed drastically since he was last single in the city. Back then you counted on meeting other eligible singles at parties and in bars. Now everyone seems to be making those connections online, and Peter convinced him to give it a try.

  After dating several women whose profiles reminded him of his ex-wife, Ben took Peter’s advice and shifted gears. Essentially, that’s meant looking for women who aren’t his type.

  Women like Camilla, who’s sitting across the table from him tonight. She’s sipping a cosmopolitan—served, as is tradition, in a martini glass—through a straw.

  “I don’t like to drink out of a glass when I’m wearing lipstick,” she explained to the waiter and to Ben when she asked for the straw.

  They both nodded, as if it made sense.

  Maybe it did to the waiter.

  For his part, Ben decided she was wearing too much of that pink lipstick in the first place. Too much eyeliner, too, and too much perfume . . . too much everything. Except clothing.

  She has on a skimpy little black dress that was probably meant to entice him but just shows that much more of her fake tan and skeletal body. The more flattering description she used to describe herself on her Web site was “svelte,” but to Ben, she’s just plain scrawny. There’s nothing wrong with that, per se. Some men probably appreciate a female figure that’s not particularly—well, femi
nine.

  Ben has always preferred flesh to bone, curves to angles.

  Camilla takes one last sip from the straw, leaving a slick pink smudge at the top, and pushes away her empty glass with a jangling of bracelets. “That was yummy.”

  “Do you want to order another one?”

  He expects her to decline. Their meals are on the way.

  “Are you twisting my arm, Ben?”

  “Nah, I’d never do that,” he assures her. No, because it would snap like a twig.

  “Well, it is the weekend. Why not? TGIF, right?”

  “Sure. Right.” Ben signals the waiter.

  “Another round, sir?”

  “No, I’m fine. Just the cosmopolitan.”

  The waiter walks away, and Ben sips his beer as Camilla goes back to the long, involved story she’d been telling him earlier—one he’d hoped she’d forget she was telling.

  Something about her sister—or maybe her roommate? and a dog—or a cat—named Foo Foo. Every time she says the name, she punctuates it with a tipsy giggle.

  As first dates go, this isn’t the worst he’s had since the divorce, but it’s not exactly the best, either.

  Sometimes it takes longer for him to figure out that he has no intention of ever seeing the woman again. This time it was almost instantaneous.

  Which means that at the end of the night, he’ll have to figure out whether to come right out and say that to her, or let her think he’ll be in touch.

  He’s always believed honesty is the best policy. He doesn’t necessarily believe that anymore. Not when it comes to dating. Not after having had one woman burst into tears when he told her he didn’t think they were compatible, while another lashed out at him in a screeching, angry tirade on the street in front of the restaurant.

  Sometimes he wonders why he’s even doing this at all. Meeting strangers online, asking them out . . .

  “You’re a single guy. It’s what you do,” Peter told him. “Unless you want to be a recluse.”

  No. He doesn’t want that.

  That’s what happened to his father after his mother died of a fast-growing cancer about ten years ago, not long after their retirement.

  Pop used to be a vital, interesting guy. Plenty of friends, and an active social life that revolved around their sizable, vibrant Puerto Rican family . . .

  “They’re all couples,” he said when Ben urged him to accept invitations to dinner and parties. “They don’t need me hanging around.”

  “They care about you, Pop.”

  “That’s fine. They can care. But nobody wants to be a third wheel.”

  “You’re not a—”

  “Benito. Stop. Leave it alone.”

  What Pop meant was Leave me alone.

  Ben’s brother had done just that, and tried to convince him to do the same.

  “He’s a stubborn old man. He’s been a stubborn old man since he was young. Why try to change him now?”

  “I’m not trying to change him. I’m trying to encourage him to keep things the way they’ve always been. He’s always had people around him.”

  “Yes, because Mom was a people person. He wasn’t. All he ever needed was her.”

  It was true, Ben realized. He’d never thought about it before. Looking back at the way his parents behaved in social situations, he remembered that his extroverted mother could work a room like nobody’s business. Pop mostly stayed by her side, focusing on her while she focused on socializing.

  “Now that she’s gone, Pop doesn’t need anyone,” his brother said. “Just let him be.”

  “Let him be? You want me to wash my hands of him? Is that what you’re planning to do?”

  “Of course not. We’ll both check in on him, visit him—but we can’t drag him out and force him to live again. It’s never going to happen.”

  Ben realized his brother was right.

  It was Gaby who wouldn’t let him give up. She never stopped trying to coax Pop back to the land of the living.

  Ironic in so many ways . . .

  Years after he stopped living, Pop finally died of a heart attack. He was alone in the apartment, of course. It happened not long before Gaby got pregnant with Josh. She was the one who found him that morning when she stopped by to drop off some homemade meals.

  Pop never met his grandson. But Ben’s devout Catholic mother had instilled a firm believe in the afterlife, and he found comfort in the fact that his parents were waiting to greet Josh in heaven.

  Gaby took no comfort in that; no comfort in anything he or anyone else had to offer. She cried about Josh being alone and afraid in a cold, dark place. She lost her grasp on her own faith and retreated into grim isolation after losing their son, much as Ben’s father had after losing his wife.

  Well, that’s not going to happen to me. I’m not spending the rest of my days alone and miserable.

  The waiter arrives at the table with the second cosmopolitan on a tray, trailed by a busboy with their salads.

  Camilla puts a straw into the fresh drink and lifts the glass toward him. “Cheers.”

  “What are we drinking to?”

  “To us.”

  He obliges, echoing her toast though he knows there will never be an us that involves the two of them.

  But somewhere out there—in this vast city, or in cyberspace—there might be a woman he will eventually love the way he loved his wife. Sooner or later he’s hoping to find her. He just has to keep on looking.

  “Okay, you have got to try this.” Ryan holds out a forkful of warm apple tart, topped by a dollop of vanilla bean ice cream. “It’s amazing.”

  Gaby leans over to taste it and nods. “It is amazing.”

  “Here—share the rest with me.” Ryan slides the dessert plate toward her, but she shakes her head.

  “I’m so full. I can’t eat another bite.”

  “Sure you can.”

  “Well . . . maybe one more. Or two . . .”

  He laughs as she lifts another forkful to her mouth. “I love a woman who loves to eat.”

  The apple confection turns mealy and sour in her mouth. She forces herself to swallow it, puts her fork down, sips the herbal tea she ordered in lieu of her own dessert.

  Ryan is oblivious, dredging another wedge of tart through the rapidly melting ice cream on his dish and telling her about the pies his mom used to bake after they all went apple picking in the fall when he was a kid. He painted such a cozy scene that Gaby was willing to forgive him for consistently referring to Greenwich as if it were some far-flung New England town. It might lie within those geographical boundaries, but really, it’s a New York suburb largely populated by wealthy white-collar commuters.

  Until now she’s been having a great time with him, but . . .

  I love a woman who loves to eat.

  Ben said those same words—or something very similar—on their first date years ago. They’d gone to a twenty-four-hour diner at four in the morning after a night out on the town. It was Labor Day weekend, early September, but August’s swampy heat lingered in the air.

  He’d ordered a BLT. She’d ordered half a roast chicken, which came with soup and salad, her choice of two sides—she got the mashed potatoes and string beans—and a Jell-O square for dessert.

  “What?” she asked, seeing the look on Ben’s face after the waiter who’d taken their order walked away. “Aren’t you starving after all that dancing?”

  Ben teased her about it for the rest of the night. Well, morning. After the diner, they went to the beach to watch the sunrise. In fact, he teased her about her appetite for years afterward, especially when she was pregnant and insatiable.

  I love a woman who loves to eat . . .

  “You haven’t taken your second bite,” Ryan tells Gaby.

  “I really am stuffed.” She sets down her fork.

  “You know what? So am I. How about if we go walk off some of this food? It’s a nice night. We could head down toward the Village, see a late movie or stop off someplac
e for a glass of wine . . .”

  She looks at her watch, pretending to calmly contemplate that idea as her mind screams, No way!

  “It’s almost ten. I’d better not,” she tells him, hoping she sounds sufficiently reluctant to say no. “I have an early morning tomorrow.”

  “On a Saturday?”

  “I have to work—you know, at home. Still trying to catch up after the long weekend. And being outside wouldn’t be good for my allergies, with all the pollen in the air right now. You know . . . the trees are in bloom . . .”

  “We don’t have to walk. We can take a cab.”

  “No, really. I should get home.”

  “You sure?”

  “Positive,” she says, although suddenly she isn’t.

  Can she take it back?

  Why not walk to the Village on a warm, beautiful night and have a glass of wine?

  Ryan is a great guy. She’s just spent the last couple of hours laughing and talking with him. She never mentioned her marriage, and he—also divorced—didn’t mention his. Naturally, she didn’t tell him she’d had—and lost—a child. For a little while she’d actually forgotten that, too.

  “Next time, then,” Ryan says with a shrug.

  “Next time,” she agrees.

  Maybe it’s guilt that makes her stick with the lie about having to work in the morning. Maybe it’s fear.

  Five minutes later they’re out on the street. She’s planning to take the subway uptown, but Ryan insists on putting her into a cab. They’re plentiful, eliminating the need to prolong the date a moment longer.

  “I had a good time,” he says, leaning in the open back seat window after handing the driver a twenty. “I hope you did, too.”

  “I did.”

  “We’ll do it again.”

  “We will,” she agrees.

  As the cab races away up Tenth Avenue, she refuses to allow herself to look over her shoulder.

  You did it, she tells herself, leaning her head back against the seat and closing her eyes. You met a stranger, and he turned out to be halfway decent.

  Halfway decent?

  Ryan Hunter is exactly the kind of man she should be looking for—and she’d actually found him online.

  So she was wrong. Jaz was right.

  But I’m not admitting that to her, Gaby thinks, as the cab speeds toward her apartment sixty blocks north. Not yet, anyway.