by Lynda Curnyn
“Wonderful. Yourself?”
“Great, great. Sorry I took so long to get back to you. I—”
“Long? I hadn’t noticed. Been so busy and all,” I fibbed. “Working on a proposal for a special issue of the magazine. Writing a novel. You know how it is.”
“Oh, I do,” he said with a chuckle. “So, you up for a little entertainment?”
“Depends on what you have in mind,” I replied, though I knew in my heart even if he suggested watching football with a roomful of his beer-swilling fraternity brothers, I’d go.
“Well, the new Bart Freely movie is opening this weekend— The Lone Lover? Freely’s one of my favorite directors.”
A shiver went through me. Bart Freely was Derrick’s favorite director, too. But this thought was erased by Max’s next words.
“It’s playing at the Beekman Theater, right by my apartment. Thought you might want to try the Upper East Side for a change. Besides, the Beekman is a great old theater and it’s been renovated recently.”
He was inviting me into his ’hood. My antennae were raised. He wants to show me his world. Maybe even…his apartment. Gulp. “That sounds like fun,” I replied, as if the sexual implications of his suggestion didn’t even faze me.
“I could pick you up at your apartment, if you want…” he started.
Amazed and flattered that he would suggest something so insanely chivalrous as coming all the way downtown to pick me up for a movie all the way uptown, I quickly replied, “Oh, that’s not necessary. How about I meet you at the theater?”
“Great. Great,” he replied, relief evident in his voice. “There’s a nine-fifteen show. Maybe we can meet there about eight-thirty? You know how crazy it is getting seats on a Friday night.”
“Oh, yeah,” I said, remembering how anal Derrick had been about getting to the movies early to insure himself a center-screen, midtheater view that hopefully wouldn’t be impeded by some pituitary case. Since I had already lived with this particular neurosis for two years, I knew I could handle it. “That’s fine.”
“Then it’s settled. See you at eight-thirty on Friday.”
“See you then,” I replied.
Then he added, “I’m really looking forward to it, Emma.”
“Me, too.” I replied. And I was. If I didn’t have an anxiety attack due to sheer nervous anticipation.
Confession: I finally understand why sex is a four-letter word.
“You don’t have to sleep with him, Emma, just because you’re in his neighborhood,” Jade said when I called her later that night to tell her about my big date plans.
“I know that,” I replied, though I had already mentally picked out my whole outfit, right down to my black lacy underwear.
“In fact, I changed my mind. I don’t think you should sleep with him just yet,” she said.
“Look’s who’s advocating celibacy!”
“Yeah, well, I don’t like how he’s maneuvering things. You need to keep him reminded of who is in charge. If you don’t sleep with him, he’ll realize he can’t run things his way. Believe me, they will always try to run things their way. Even Enrico, dewy youth that he is, likes to think he’s the one running the show. I humor him sometimes, only to keep the peace. But I’m really the one calling the shots.”
“So I gather you and Enrico are going strong?”
“Going strong?” she said defensively. “We’re not going anywhere. We are having sex.”
“Okay, okay. No need to get so touchy.”
“Who’s touchy? I’m just tired of reminding everyone, including him, that we are not having a relationship. We are having sex. Amazing sex, I might add. In fact, the other night, I’m getting ready to go out and he’s waiting for me in the living room. Or so I thought. Next thing you know, he’s in the bathroom with me as I’m putting on my lipstick, yanking my skirt up and shoving me against the mirror.” She sighed at the memory. “He took me right there on the bathroom sink. All my hair products and cosmetics flying everywhere with one swipe of his beefy forearm. Totally fucking amazing.”
I tried to picture Max and me having a wild moment of passion in my bathroom. Then I realized the sink was a little too close to the toilet in that tiny space to make it anything but a rather awkward affair. I tried to picture Max naked, and it wasn’t a bad image. It was so good, in fact, I had to force myself to refocus once more on the conversation at hand. “Good sex is important to a relationship—not that you’re having a relationship,” I added quickly before driving my real point home. “It’s too bad Enrico isn’t a little older. And more your type. You guys might have something.”
Jade sighed. “That’s the problem with you, Emma. You’re always thinking a man and a woman together has to equal happily-ever-after.”
“I do not!” I said, suddenly defensive. “I was just thinking how nice it could be. Me and Max. You and Enrico. Alyssa and Richard.”
“You’re assuming way too much there, Emma. I mean, even Alyssa and Richard aren’t sure where they’re going….”
“Oh, yes they are,” I replied happily, then proceeded to fill her in on all the heartwarming details of Alyssa and Richard’s reunion.
By the end, I could tell she was pleased for them. How could she not be? I knew Jade saw Alyssa and Richard as soulmates, just as I always did. Of course, she couldn’t help but turn the tide of the conversation from warm and fuzzy coupledom back to sexually adventurous femaledom before we hung up.
“Does this mean that Dr. Doggie is free?” she asked.
“You are insufferable,” I replied.
“That’s why you love me,” she said.
“It’s true. What would I have done after Derrick without you to remind me of all the other fish in the sea?”
“You mean vermin in the basement, don’t you?” she replied. “This is New York City, after all.”
“Jade!” Her sexually adventurous side I could accept. It was her cynicism I worried about.
Confession: Cynicism might be my only protection right now.
Friday night came way too fast for my taste. I only had time for one gym session, and even that was somewhat halfhearted, as Alyssa and I spent most of it dawdling in the steam room and talking about her and Richard’s relationship revival. A surprise bouquet of roses sent to her office on Monday. A full body massage when she got home on Tuesday. He’d even shut off the Yankees game last night so they could spend some quality time together. All this plus Lulu was back to her perky self again. I was amazed at how far a little personal trauma could take a relationship.
I had also barely had time to recover from two jarring bits of news I received during the week. On Wednesday I learned my proposal for the Older Bride issue had ultimately been nixed by Patricia. Though Caroline did suggest, in her usual soothing tone, that I could do an article on the older bride for Rebecca’s special issue on second marriages, I didn’t respond warmly to the idea. Especially since Rebecca, Marcy Keller and anyone I happened to strike up a conversation with at the office these days couldn’t help but inform me how beautifully Rebecca’s special issue was coming along.
The second bit of news, which I received via voice mail on Thursday, was considerably more disturbing. My father’s wife, Deirdre, had called me at the office, and finding me away from my desk, left three menacing words after the beep for me to return to: “He’s drinking again.” Then, in a voice somewhat more resigned, “Call me when you get a chance.”
I will confess up-front that I did not call back right away. I couldn’t go there, couldn’t descend into my family’s particular brand of madness while I was trying so hard to make my life resemble something normal, if not fairytalelike. It wasn’t as if I could do anything anyway. I’d had such messages before over the course of the past few years. I knew the drill. Three or four days of drinking, lack of appetite and sleeplessness. Two days where he attempted to sober up. One day of helplessness and self-pity. Then, if things got really bad, rehab.
I just wasn’
t ready to deal with it.
So I avoided it for the time being. Even managed to mercifully blot it out of my mind completely as I blew out my hair on Friday night and slid on my best pair of jeans. After throwing on my slides and a sleeveless, funky orange T-shirt that Jade had discovered at a sample sale and given to me after having worn it only once, I was ready to face my date with Max Van Gelder. As ready as I would ever be, anyway.
Max was waiting in front of the theater when I arrived, much to my satisfaction. Jade had advised lateness, and though it was a struggle for me, I managed to make myself a full five minutes behind our scheduled meeting time. “Hey,” I said, as I approached.
“Hey, yourself,” he said, his eyes roaming over me. Then he kissed me, hard and fast, on the lips.
Well, I thought. Things were certainly getting off to an…interesting start. That kiss felt awfully like the kind of casually intimate kiss one received from a…a boyfriend.
Then he grinned at me. “You look great.”
More points for Max. “Thanks. You’re not so bad yourself,” I replied.
Another smile, while his eyes studied mine for a few moments, almost as if he were measuring something. It made me vaguely nervous, but in a shivery, exciting way.
“Want to go in and find seats? I already got us tickets,” he said, taking my hand.
He led me into the theater, and I thrilled at the way we must look together, he in dark denim with a groovy camouflage T-shirt, me in matching denim and funky orange. We looked more the part of the hip New York couple than Derrick and I ever had, I realized with satisfaction. After all, Derrick was from New Jersey. And there was no hiding that fact, no matter how many black turtlenecks you owned.
But then my brand-spanking new beau did a perfectly Derrick thing: He started obsessing over the seating arrangements.
First, he buzzed me past the snack bar, muttering something about finding seats first before the crowds got there. Then, once he opened the door to the theater, I saw him survey the room. “Okay, looks like some strong possibilities in the center aisles still, though some of them may be too close to the screen. Wait—” With a firm hand to my back, he escorted me to an aisle that was completely filled, except for two seats which still remained empty midrow. “Can you excuse us?” he said to the burly guy on the end, who looked down the row first, almost in disbelief that there were still any seats left. After we plowed through the left half of the row and took our coveted position, Max sat down carefully, inspecting his view from every angle, even slumping down a little bit to see if the somewhat short person in front of us might obstruct his view at any angle other than the straight back position. Once through with his routine, he turned to smile at me. “Perfect,” he whispered. “How are you? Comfortable?”
“I’m fine,” I said, smiling dumbly at him, amazed at how similar he suddenly seemed to Derrick. It was almost as if I were experiencing déjà vu. Were all men like this? Maybe it was just a New York thing. Overcrowded theaters and all.
“Want anything from the snack bar?” he said.
“Uh…” I gazed at the row of people to our right, hoping he would choose to disturb them this time, rather than push past Burly Guy and his group of disgruntled friends once more. “Okay. A Diet Coke?”
“Sure. And I’ll get us some popcorn.” With that, he made his way down the right half of the row, thank God, leaving me to openly gaze upon his beautiful posterior. I sighed. Suddenly the night felt full of promise once more.
Max came back about fifteen minutes later, gallantly juggling two sodas and a giant vat of popcorn. Once settled in beside me, he handed over a soda and gave me another one of his toe-curling smiles. “I’ve been waiting all week to see this movie,” he said, then positioned the popcorn strategically between us as the lights dimmed and the first preview lit up the screen. After a few barbs passed back and forth concerning the ridiculous quality of the three movies previewed, we settled into silence as the opening credits rolled. Judging from what I remembered about Derrick’s movie fanaticism, I knew a word uttered during the feature film could be damning when on a date with a true film buff, so I kept my mouth shut.
During the course of the movie, which followed the life of a young urbanite torn between his love for his impossible neighbor and the woman he has lived with for seven years, I became painfully aware of two things. First, that Bart Freely, director extraordiniare according to Derrick and Max, seemed to structure all his films around the utter impossibility of two people ever finding each other on any sort of emotional level. And second, that there seemed to be a somewhat jarring amount of physical space between Max and me for the entire duration of the movie. His eyes were forward, knees a careful yet relaxed distance from mine, his arm embracing the popcorn like a lover. Plus, he took over my armrest, as did the other male movie-goer to my right, leaving me with no other option but to keep my hands folded on my lap. We weren’t even touching shoulders. It was as if I were at the movies by myself, so cut off from him was I.
By the time we got to the final scene in the movie, which closed on a shot of our young hipster hero reading Nietszche in a dimly lit restaurant mere weeks after having been thrown out by his live-in and abandoned by his lover, and looking incredibly content in his solitude, a strange, ominous feeling began to pervade my system. I risked a glance at Max, who was completely engrossed in the movie, his handsome features highlighted by the flickering screen. It was as if he had completely forgotten I was there.
This felt suspiciously like a bad sign, though I couldn’t—or wouldn’t—put my finger on why. Instead I closed the distance between us by grabbing his hand as the credits rolled up.
And when he flashed me that killer smile, all my fears faded away.
“What did you think?” I asked, gazing up at him.
“Ecstasy. Sheer filmmaking ecstasy. Freely never disappoints. I mean, how he manages to convey the beautiful, yet painfully nihilistic quality of human relationships, it’s just…pure genius!”
Shoving that warning voice deep into the basement of my brain, I tried to look suitably pensive and responded with the ever-ambiguous “hmm.”
Fortunately I was saved from expressing my true feelings, as Max seemed to have fallen in love with the sound of his own voice, and went on and on about the “genius” of Bart Freely as we strolled away from the theater together. He waxed poetic on everything from the loneliness of the human condition to the sad state of Hollywood, which had no place for such a diverse (yeah, right) and unique (to whom, men?) filmmaker as Bart Freely.
Finally we arrived at what I discovered was to be our next destination for the evening. A bar on East Seventy-First Street which seemed to be called simply Bar, either because the owner couldn’t afford to fix the half-torn-down sign, or he was attempting to be clever.
“You up for something to eat? Maybe a few drinks?” Max asked hopefully.
Apparently Bar also had food. “Sure,” I replied, somewhat relieved he hadn’t made any presumptions and led me straight to his apartment.
Once we were seated, shades of our first date came back to me. As I looked at Max seated across from me once more, I remembered why I was attracted to him in the first place: a) he was hot b) he was intellectual and most of all c) he was a writer—a successful writer. And he looked it, I thought, studying him as he scanned the menu thoughtfully.
“Why don’t we start off with a couple of drinks?” he suggested, “Then, if we want, we can have a couple appetizers. Unless, you’re hungry for dinner…?” he continued, eyeing me speculatively over the top of his menu.
Like I would really admit I was hungry enough for a four-course meal with him looking at me like that—as if food was so beside the point for us intellectual types. Suddenly I wondered why I never seemed to get dinner when I was out on a date. “That’s sounds good,” I replied.
“Well, I know what I’m having,” he said, shutting the menu with a smile. “My beloved Bombay martini.” Then he half squinted, as if try
ing to pull out a memory. “And what was that you were drinking last time? Some kind of tequila drink?”
Suddenly his parting words on our first date came back to me, and an image of my father, four drinks lined up in front of him and a grin on his weary face, flashed before me.
“You know, I think I’ll go with a glass of Merlot tonight.” After all, I didn’t want him to think I had some sort of…problem.
He seemed somewhat disappointed in this selection, though he cheerfully ordered for both of us once the waiter showed up.
“So how’s the book coming?” he asked once we were alone again.
“Fine, fine,” I replied, but inwardly cringed when I realized I had barely looked at it since Max’s call on Sunday night. It was as if I suddenly redirected my efforts from the moment I had heard his voice on my machine. “And you? Have you finished the article for Rolling Stone?”
“Oh, yeah. It was just a book review. Nothing I couldn’t handle,” he replied with a shrug.
I ignored the fact that this simple task had previously been the excuse for why he had been too busy to call me for over a week. “That’s cool. Good book?”
“Nothing special. I was rather glad to get back to my own writing,” he said, a gleam in his eye.
As our drinks arrived and we talked more about writing, I realized I was performing a dance I had performed once before, two years earlier. It was as if I weren’t talking to Max, but to Derrick. The nuances were the same—two writers struggling to show each other what their true passions were and maybe not hearing each other at all, judging by what had happened between Derrick and me. But I didn’t want to feel that gap, didn’t want to see it. And so I pushed it away, focusing on the moment instead, on the way Max got animated every time he felt the conversation was feeding whatever point he was making. And he always had some brilliant point or other. I was becoming enamored in spite of my doubts. How I could I help it, with the Merlot warming up my veins and taking a heavier toll on my senses than I expected, probably because we never did order any food and it had been a long time since I’d ingested anything solid enough to absorb alcohol. I wasn’t drunk, not by a long shot. I’d barely even touched the second glass Max insisted I order, probably out of some vague desire to keep myself a safe distance from the ominous memory of Deirdre’s phone message. I can only assume it was my vulnerable, post-Derrick haze that had me positively glowing with a wealth of warm feelings toward Max as he called for the check and ushered me out the door a few hours later.