Just Lunch

by Nia Forrester

  “Yeah, that’s what I’d call it,” he said. “What is it? He’s taking you to dinner?” He sounds bitter now, and suddenly my mistake is beginning to unfold before my eyes.

  “No. Lunch. Just lunch.”

  “Oh,” Rand says, nodding. “Well. That’s much better.”

  “Rand, I …”

  “Nah,” he says, his voice a little louder. “Don’t explain. You’re single, right? You’re … free. So, if you want to go to lunch with some dude who asks you, you should definitely be able to do that.”

  “Rand,” I say again. “I didn’t know … I wasn’t sure that …”

  I’m struggling, because I don’t know what to say. I don’t know how to explain that I was just carried away by the newness of it all, by knowing that there was someone—someone like Eric, no less—who might see me, and want to take me out.

  Everything with Rand seems like such a fluke. Everything about us was almost orchestrated by events largely outside of my control—from the way we got together to the way we’ve seemed so perfect since then, that I almost can’t let myself believe I … earned it.

  But Eric, is earned. He saw me, he wanted me, he picked me. Rand seems to have happened across me like a tarnished penny on the sidewalk, which he later polished and realized might be something more like gold. Eric, on the other hand, saw only the gold.

  “What weren’t you sure of?” Rand asks. But his tone is that of a demand.

  I say nothing. As each moment ticks by, and I watch his anger grow, so does the scale of my mistake. Suddenly, I care nothing at all about Eric, and I know that if I never see him again, it will register as an occurrence worthy only of a few moments of regret.

  “Rand …” I begin again.

  And then I fall silent again, because I can’t think of what else to say.

  “Look, it’s cool,” he says, suddenly brisk. “You don’t have to explain. And you’re right. We’re in Manhattan, and we’re on nobody’s timeline, so let’s go find something to do until they tell us they’re ready to come fix the car.”

  My son is all hopped up and excited, running around like he’s in Heaven. Danielle remembered some article she saw in a magazine about Dylan’s Candy Bar, a mega candy store that has three floors of sweets, and a kid-friendly and colorful café where even adults can get something to eat, and a cocktail if you’re frazzled after chasing kids high on sugar.

  We walk in the front door, and Little Rocket’s eyes light up immediately. I can’t lie, this place is cool as hell, and reminds me of an old movie I liked as a kid, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, except that there is a lot more than chocolate here. Every kind of candy you can think of is displayed in transparent Lucite cases, along every single wall and atop just about every surface.

  Wherever we look, there are bright colors—pinks and blues, yellows, oranges and greens. It reminds me of when Little Rocket was a baby and Faith got a consultant in to decorate his nursery. I remember looking at her like she had lost all touch with reality.

  Who the hell needed someone to consult with them on how to decorate a baby’s room? Little Rocket’s eyes had barely begun to focus, so what the hell did he care about the color scheme?

  But this woman had come in and chosen a palate of bright and vivid colors for the walls, the furniture, his bedding, and every single one of his toys. She claimed that the bright colors would catch his eye, and that they would stimulate brain development.

  Once the room was done, it was a riot of hues, almost too stimulating to bear. Little Rocket, still an infant, looked around, his eyes darting back and forth, his little fists and legs pumping in excitement; and I thought there might be something to that woman’s theory after all. A few months later, Faith swapped all of that stuff out for more muted shades, claiming that the room got Little Rocket too excitable, and made it more difficult for her to settle him down.

  Now, the way my son is turning in circles, his head whipping left and right as he tries to decide what to look at next, reminds me of that room.

  To keep him from getting too out-of-control, Dani is holding fast onto his hand, and he is straining against it, pulling her because she isn’t moving quite as quickly as he would prefer. Occasionally, she sees something and crouches down next to him to point it out. She leans her head in close to his, and lowers her voice, speaking to him with the utmost seriousness about juju beans, gummies, chocolate drops and lollipops. I watch her, and I think about how incredible she will be when she has kids of her own.

  Since we’ve been here, Rocket has been on the edge of over-excitable at least twice, and each time, Dani skillfully redirects his attention, and gets him to calm down.

  “Look!” she says to him now, pointing out a long tube filled with candies in blue, red and brown. “Trains! Want to get some of those?”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah!” Little Rocket chants, jumping up and down.

  He and Dani already have a basket, with cellophane bags, filled with candy. And because everything in this joint is overpriced, I’m sure we’ve racked up a bill of about two hundred bucks in crap I have no intention of letting Little Rocket eat.

  “What’s that?” he tugs her away from the trains, already moving on.

  “Little bears, I think,” Dani says. “In white chocolate.”

  “I don’t like white chock-lick,” Little Rocket says, his face balling up in disgust.

  “Me neither,” Dani says smoothly. “Let’s keep going.”

  I follow them, saying nothing, then look down at my phone, wondering when the roadside assistance folks will call. I want to get to Bristol before dark, and get the townhouse set up.

  For a moment, Dani releases Little Rocket, and then ambles back to me. I look up at her. I am still trying to manage what I’m feeling about what she only just confirmed to me about an hour and a half ago—she is going on a fucking date.

  “C’mon,” she says to me now. “You’re not participating. It’s more fun for him if you look like you’re having fun too.”

  “Nah, he’s cool.” I shrug and nod in the direction of where Little Rocket is looking over a pile of plush toys.

  “Rand,” she says.

  I sigh and wander over to Little Rocket, squatting next to him and reaching for one of the stuffed toys.

  “You like this?” I ask him.

  He surveys the brown bunny and narrows his eyes. “I already have Clarence,” he says, referring to his favorite stuffed animal. “I need a unicorn.” But he pronounces it ‘ooni-corn’, and I smile.

  “No ooni-corns here,” I say with regret. “Maybe we’ll go to another place and see one there.”

  “Nah. Another time maybe,” he says. And I hear my sister’s voice in his choice of words.

  He wanders past me, and begins to look at some toy guns, which the packaging tells me are ‘marshmallow shooters.’ He holds it up, and turns to me and I shake my head.

  “Nope,” I say before he asks. “Guns aren’t toys.”

  “But this is a toy,” he whines. “It’s in a kid store so it’s a toy.”

  “No, Rocket,” I say again, more firmly.

  His lower lip sticks out a little but he moves on.

  I feel Dani sidle up next to me.

  “Any news from the repair people?”

  “Not yet, no.” I’d asked them to call me when their repair person was on the way. “But I’m sure we can still make it to Bristol tonight. And you can be back home tomorrow in time for your … appointment.”

  “Rand, I don’t care about that.” She sounds exasperated.

  “You cared enough to say ‘yes’ when he asked you.”

  “I didn’t … it wasn’t like that.”

  I turn to look at her. “What was it like, then?”

  She purses her lips for a few moments, thinking.

  She’s wearing jeans and a white t-shirt topped with a long, tan cardigan and a light scarf around her neck with pink and white flowers printed all over it. The jeans are rolled up to her shins and
with them she’s got on pink Converse without socks.

  She’s cute, as always. But now that she’s been running so much, her face and body are leaner, her features more angular—less cute, more womanly. Sexier. She is transforming physically before my eyes, and if I don’t see her for a week, when we are next together, I notice the changes right away.

  Now, I know there are other changes that I don’t see. Now I know she is curious about other men, and maybe wants to branch out. I wonder, with a stab of jealousy if that ‘branching out’ will include sex.

  “I see him almost every day. We run at the same time, and he told me about a half-marathon. And one day after we worked out, we went to have a smoothie, and …”

  “Ah, so y’all are already dating,” I say. The knife twists a little deeper.

  “No. It’s not like that.”

  “Danielle, this inexperienced, virgin shit … it’s starting to get old. You’re not stupid. You can figure out when a man is trying to crack on you. You know when a man is into you.”

  Her eyes open slightly wider, and for a moment I think I’ve hurt her feelings. I’m sure I have. But more than that, I think I’ve made her angry.

  “That’s true,” she says. “When a man is ‘into’ a woman, he takes her out. He makes plans with, and for her. He makes her a part of his life, in public, not just in private and after the sun goes down. He doesn’t act like she’s his dirty, little secret.”

  Whoa.

  ~9~

  Part of me wants to take the words back the moment they are said. But another part of me doesn’t. Because though they are an overstatement, they are not untrue.

  Rand blanches, and leans in as if he isn’t sure he’s heard right. As he prepares to speak, I cut him off.

  “Let’s go check out,” I say. “I’m sure we already have way too much candy.”

  I brush by him before he can speak.

  Once we are standing in line to pay for the basket-load of confections, I begin to feel a little embarrassed about my outburst. I don’t even know for sure where the feelings I expressed are coming from. I don’t think I’ve felt like Rand’s dirty little secret. I understand that he’s just getting back out into the world, and that he’s starting a new career; that he’s dealing with moving his son, at least part-time to a new city. I understand that he’s leery of publicity, and even more so of women who are involved with him who want to be public about it. I understand all of that.

  But what’s the use pretending? I want to be more than the woman who comforts, and satisfies him in private. I want to be his woman in public, too. Nothing dramatic, just the usual—dinner out with friends, the occasional drink at his sister’s, introducing him to my friends … And if that’s not the kind of relationship he wants, it’s safer for me to know that sooner rather than later, so I can cultivate that with someone else. Someone like, maybe, Eric.

  Just as we finally get to the register, Rand’s phone rings, and with the phone in the crook between his neck and shoulder, I hear him make arrangements to meet the repair guy while he pays eighty-seven dollars and change for all the candy that we cannot possibly allow Little Rocket to eat.

  Next to me, Little Rocket is spinning in circles, playing with another little boy, both of them hiding behind the legs of their respective adults in an impromptu game of hide-and-seek. Because Rand is at the register, I am Little Rocket’s adult. He grabs my leg and squeals as he ducks behind it and then peers right and left to see whether his playmate is looking at him. His small hand, pressed into my leg makes my heart tighten in a way I don’t recall having felt before, but which I identify immediately as maternal.

  He dodges his new friend, and in the process almost bumps into a woman standing near me, and I reach out and instinctively steer him away from her, with a hand on his head. It is the first time I’ve touched his hair, which is still baby soft. I rake my fingers through it, and smile, and he leans into my touch, while laughing with the other little boy.

  “I found you!” he sings. “I see you!” He doesn’t register my hands in his hair, or is so accustomed to the sensation that he doesn’t realize that the person who is stroking him is not his father, and not his aunt, but a relatively new entry into his life. I am pleased, and relieved that he doesn’t recoil from my touch, and that he seems just as easy and comfortable in my presence as though I have been here for a long, long time. I secretly wonder, and kind of hope that people think he is mine.

  I look up. Rand has completed the transaction at the register and he is looking at me and Little Rocket, and there is something in his eyes; something like wonder, and recognition. I sense that he is thinking the same thing I am.

  We get the car over to the repair shop near the hotel just around noon, and the technician tells us that we can return in about an hour and a half. They will replace the two rear tires and then balance and rotate them all, and then we can be on our way again. Because of the busy-ness in getting that all sorted, Rand and I have no time to talk again. And when we are on our way back to the hotel, Little Rocket begins to yawn.

  “I think we should just eat in the room,” Rand suggests. “Maybe let him get a nap afterwards and then hit the road.”

  “Sure,” I say.

  Little Rocket is walking between us, and we are each holding one of his hands. He occasionally bounces between us, and once or twice commands us to swing him, which we do. But by the time we get back to the lobby of the SoHo Grand, it is clear he won’t last much longer. The early morning getting out of bed to get in the car, and the excitement that followed has wiped him out.

  In the room, we scan the room service options and reject them, so Rand volunteers to go grab us something from the neighborhood. I scan the choices on Yelp and we pick Chinese because it’s easy, and because nearby, there is also a place where he can get hot dogs and fries for Little Rocket. When he leaves, Little Rocket barely notices, because he is engrossed in a cartoon.

  Once Rand is gone, I reach for my phone and consider, then reject the idea of calling Eric to cancel our date. Then I think of Trudie, but the idea of calling her to confess just how horribly awry things are going with me and Rand makes me feel a little sick. I know she won’t be able to help herself. She will try for a minute or two, but ultimately, she will say that she told me so.

  Instead, I call someone I have never called before. At least not for a reason like this.

  “Hey!” Freya says, sounding bright. I assume she has my number programmed into her phone, because she doesn’t sound confused about who might be calling her, and doesn’t even sound confused about why.

  “Hey,” I say back. “I’m here with Little Rocket and thought he might want to …”

  “Put him on,” she says, sparing me from having to come up with a plausible reason for the call.

  Little Rocket takes the phone right away when he hears who it is, and immediately launches into a blow-by-blow description of his eventful morning; from his “accident” in the car seat to the tire going bust, and then the highlight, the trip to Dylan’s Candy Bar, which he describes as the “coolest place ever!”

  He is talking a mile a minute, and as I listen to him, I realize how clueless he is to the adult intrigue happening around him. From the perspective of a three-year-old, this has all been a wonderful adventure, every second of it.

  He finishes by telling his aunt that he is in a hotel, and that the television is okay, but that it is different from the television at his house, because the channels are “wrong.” When he hands the phone back to me, there is still the trace of laughter in Freya’s voice.

  “So, you guys are in a hotel?” she asks.

  “Yeah. We weren’t sure how long it would take for them to get to us to fix the car, so Rand figured we may as well. So Little Rocket could stretch out and we’d have a place to crash if we needed to.”

  “Where is he now?”

  “Getting lunch. Should be back in a little.”

  “Well, tell him we’re still planning t
o meet you all up there tomorrow so if you leave in the morning, let us know when so we can time our arrival to be around the same time. And make sure you tell him he should be careful on the road.”

  “I will,” I say.

  “What’s wrong?”

  Freya, with her razor-sharp intuition has detected something in my manner.

  “Nothing much. Just …”

  “Danielle. What is it?” she asks, in her usual no-nonsense manner.

  I tell her everything. Because of course, that was what I wanted to do from the moment I decided to call her. I even tell her about my date with Eric, and about my mini-outburst in the candy store, revealing feelings I wasn’t even sure I had.

  When I am done, Freya waits a few beats before she finally sighs.

  “By now, you’ve probably figured this out about Rand,” she begins. “But he isn’t confrontational when it comes to difficult subjects. Why do you think I had to basically trick him into talking to someone on the anniversary of Faith’s death?” she asks, referring to the almost ill-fated way that Rand and I got together.

  I was his life coach. Only he didn’t know it at first. It was a subterfuge his sister cooked up when she met me. At first, the plan was just that I tell him outright what I did when we met for coffee. But then I mentioned to Freya that I kind of knew him from high school, and that because of that, I might not make the best life coach for Rand, even if he were willing to see one.

  Freya thought the opposite, and convinced me it was an opportunity for me to meet with him without him feeling defensive, or threatened; that it would be a good idea to go meet Rand, and use our old acquaintanceship as a cover story. And later, if the time was right, I would tell him what I did for a living, and offer to continue talking things through with him if he wanted.

  Well, the time never was right to make that confession. Rand made me lose my head a little bit that day. That coffee date turned into a trip to our old high school, to have barbecue, a long walk around a lake, some hot-and-heavy kissing, a little marijuana-smoking, and an evening with me winding up in his bed, a newly-deflowered virgin.