He shrugged. “Some short-term girlfriends, nothing serious.”
“Did they all dance tango?”
“Of course.” He grinned at me. “That’s a non-negotiable requirement for any woman I date.”
“You really are a tango junkie.”
“What can I say? It’s tango night at the Mercury Cafe tonight. Shall we go?”
We went and danced until the ballroom closed at 2:00 a.m. When he walked me to my door, he said, “Let me stay with you.”
“Not yet.”
“Not yet? Come on.”
“No. We’ve only known each other for a little over a week.”
“A week and five days.”
I couldn’t help smiling. “A week and five days, yes. But that’s not really very long. If this is going to last, we have time. And if it isn’t—well, then it’s better not to.”
“I want you, Clara.”
“I want you, too. But not yet.”
He sighed, kissed me deeply, and left me standing on my doorstep wondering how I could have said not yet.
For the next two weeks we saw each other every night for dinner and dancing. During the weekdays when he was at work, I saw my clients, took long walks, planned dinners in a way I never did for myself alone. I marveled at his energy, that he could dance until late at night, get up in time to be at work at eight o’clock, work all day, and be ready to dance again when evening came. I also marveled at my own energy, that I could keep up with him, though I did not start work as early as he did and still gave myself the luxury of an afternoon nap. Each night he asked to stay, and still I steeled myself to tell him not yet.
In my saner moments I had reservations and seriously considered at least some of the red flags. Our pace was different. On our weekend walks, he had a goal in mind and became impatient if I wanted to stop and watch the magpies or admire the way the ice changed on the lake. He always had his cell phone on him and frequently interrupted our conversations to talk with one of his colleagues or text friends and family in Seattle. That annoyed me. When I started to speak to him of my children and grandchildren, he became uncomfortable and changed the subject. In many ways he was quite self-absorbed, as young men often are. At times he seemed to want me to mother him. I knew that was a bad idea. The biggest red flag was that he wanted to be married and have children, and I could not imagine taking on that long commitment again.
I called Anne and we walked and talked together. “Look,” she said, “maybe it won’t last, but you’re really having fun with him now. Why not enjoy it?”
“Should I sleep with him?”
“Do you want to?”
“God, yes. But—”
“You won’t get pregnant, will you?”
“No. I didn’t get that part back.”
“Is he clean?”
“I’d have to ask him that.”
“If he’s clean, why not?” She sighed. “I wouldn’t mind a gorgeous young man hungering after my body.”
I told Robin I had a boyfriend, a tango dancer, a beautiful young man. In no time word spread through my family. Greg called.
“Tell me about this guy.” He had the energy of an old-fashioned father checking out his daughter’s suitor. Never mind that I was his mother. “How old is he?”
“Thirty-four.”
“What kind of car does he drive?”
“I don’t know. It’s blue.”
“No, Mom, what make?”
“Greg, I don’t notice those things. It’s a nice car.”
“What kind of shoes does he wear?”
I started laughing. “I don’t notice that either, except for his dance shoes. He has elegant dance shoes. He probably has a good income, if that’s what you’re getting at.”
“Doing what?”
“He’s a software engineer at IBM.”
“Hmm.”
“I’m just dating him, dancing tango with him. I’m not going to marry him.”
“Maybe you should consider that. Sounds as if he’s solid, not like some of those flakey hippy guys you used to date. You’ve got a long life ahead of you. It might be nice to have a husband. I know you’ve been lonely.”
I shuddered. I didn’t like to think about that long life. “Don’t rush it. I’ve only known him a few weeks.”
Alice called. “We’d like you and Zachary to come over Sunday for dinner. The kids have been missing you.”
“I’ve been missing them, too. I’m sorry I haven’t come to visit recently. New love is very absorbing.”
Alice laughed. “We’re so happy you have someone. Of course Robin wants to check him out. And then Greg wants to know what Robin thinks.”
“I’ve already talked with Greg. He had a lot of questions.”
“I bet he did. How about it? Will Sunday work?”
“I think so. I’ll check with Zachary.” It felt strange to have to check with someone else after all the years of making my own decisions.
Zachary could come, though I sensed a reluctance in him. “I think you’ll enjoy the children,” I told him. “And you and Robin have a lot in common. He’s just finishing his Ph.D. in computer science.”
We had a pleasant afternoon and evening at Robin’s home. Katie and Colin were glad to see me and gave me their usual warm and rowdy welcome. Zachary related well with the children, complimented Alice on her cooking, and talked a long time with Robin. But under his poise and graciousness, I could feel his discomfort.
On the way home I asked, “How was that for you?”
“Okay,” he answered. “You have a beautiful family. The kids are amazing. Your son is very intelligent, and Alice is a great cook. But…” He trailed off.
“But what?”
He hesitated, then burst out, “It’s just so weird to hear the kids call you grandma, and Robin—he’s older than I am—calling you mama.”
“It kind of puts it in your face that I’m really not as young as I seem.”
“Yeah.” He drove a while in silence. “It’s okay,” he said finally. “You’re you and you’re beautiful. You’re great with those kids, the way you make them laugh. And you’re the most fabulous tango partner ever.”
I reached over to touch him. “You are, too.”
Our dancing became more and more like making love. He would stroke my back, sandwich my feet, step boldly between my legs, brushing my inner thighs. All quite acceptable tango moves, but now loaded with invitation. I would respond by caressing the back of his neck, nestling my head against his cheek, burning with unacceptable fire that I knew he could feel.
At last I surrendered. On a Sunday evening after a milonga that ended at ten, I invited him into my home, into my bedroom.
He was as sensitive and skillful a lover as he was as a tango dancer. For years I had thought that never again would I be touched like that, lie skin to skin, feel my breasts cupped, my nipples kissed, experience the insistent pressure of being entered, the merging, the light exploding. I lay in his arms washed in bliss.
Once we’d opened the door, we couldn’t get enough of each other. We slept together every night and made love before sleeping and again when we woke. It was like springtime in my body, all my cells pulsing with new life, the best sex I’d ever had. The inhibitions that had haunted my earlier relationships melted away. As for the red flags, I banished them.
Even so, finally I wanted some space. “I need a night off,” I told him as I kissed him goodbye one morning.
“Why? Is something wrong?”
“No. I just want to sleep alone tonight. I’ve been so absorbed in you, I’ve forgotten myself.”
“Okay.” He looked disappointed. “I guess I could clean up my apartment. I’ve just been dumping stuff when I go through. Hey. You want to spend night after next at my place? We can bless it with our passion.” His mu
stache curled with his smile, his blue eyes crinkled at the corners. “But be prepared. I’m going to love you all night long, to make up for missing tonight.”
I leaned back against the closed door, listening to Zachary’s car pull out of the driveway. Two days and a night of solitude. Oh, I was ready. My young body was able to keep up with Zachary, but my old spirit sorely needed a slower pace.
I had clients but already felt the day to be more spacious, knowing I had the night to myself. I finished my last client at four, made myself a cup of tea, and sat down in my rocking chair with a novel Lisa had given me for Christmas. I had just gotten started on it before I met Zachary, and hadn’t gotten back to it since. It was an absorbing tale and I got lost in it, leaving behind all the drama of my own story. The February afternoon lengthened into dusk. When I reached up to switch on the light, I realized I was hungry.
There were leftovers crowding the refrigerator from all the dinners I had prepared for Zachary. I pulled out a few, heated them up, and took my book to the table to continue reading while I ate.
A quiet evening. Around eleven o’clock, I finished the novel and sat a while, thinking over the story and how it had touched me.
Then a long, hot bath. Zachary and I always showered together, which was fun, but I had missed lying in the bathtub with fragrant bath salts, relaxing until I dozed.
I had a double bed, the same size I’d shared with both my husbands in the days before larger beds were fashionable. After Jon moved out, I had grown used to having it to myself. Sharing it with Zachary was sweet but crowded. Now I stretched out on my back, arms and legs spread wide.
Around two a.m. I woke. Luxury to turn on the light. I picked up the novel and reread a few favorite scenes, then slept again. In the morning, I got up late and moved slowly into my day with meditation and yoga. Blessed solitude.
After a quiet day, two clients, and a long walk at my own wandering pace, I was looking forward to seeing Zachary again.
Zachary’s apartment was a two bedroom on the second floor of a big complex at the intersection of two main streets. It was only a little more than a mile from my house, but I hadn’t been there before. I was curious to see how he lived.
We met that evening at the tango class we took together on Wednesdays and I followed him home. He came to my car window as I drove into the parking lot. “I’ll go ahead and turn the lights on.” I gathered my purse and overnight bag and followed him up a flight of metal stairs on the outside of the building.
When he opened the door to let me in, he had his phone in his hand. “Come on in. I’m just checking my messages.” He kissed me, took my coat, and turned his attention back to his phone.
I sat down on his couch. His living room was simply but elegantly furnished. There was a glass-topped coffee table in front of the couch, two matching lamps with stained glass shades on tables at either end, a leather recliner, a television, and a whole wall taken up with a stereo and shelves of CDs. Sliding glass doors, draped now, opened onto a balcony I had noticed as I came in. A counter separated the living room from the kitchenette.
Zachary looked up from his phone. “I just need to return one call. Go ahead and look around. I got it all cleaned up for you.”
I stood up and wandered into the kitchenette, peeked into the cupboards. Only the bare essentials, but what was there was high quality. Everything was clean and orderly.
Zachary was still standing in the entryway, talking computerese on his phone. I could feel my irritation rising. When he finally closed the phone, I asked, “Who in the world are you talking business with at 10:30 at night?”
“Oh, that’s Alex. He’s such a geek, he never sleeps.” Zachary put his phone back in his belt. “Come on, let me show you the rest of my place.”
He had his office set up in one of the bedrooms, a large computer monitor on a big, cluttered oak desk. The other bedroom was filled with a king-size bed.
It looked huge to me, for one person. “A king-size bed!” I exclaimed. “It takes up the whole room. You can get lost in one of those.”
“Lots of room to play. I won’t let you get lost.” He stood behind me, his hands cupping my breasts. I leaned back against him, softening.
His phone rang.
“Don’t answer it,” I pleaded.
He pulled it out and looked at it. “It’s Meg. I need to take it.” He sat down on the bed. “What’s up?… Oh, no.”
I walked back into the living room, my interrupted passion becoming anger. I paced. I could be home, I thought, going to bed. I sat down on the couch, picked a Newsweek up off the coffee table and thumbed through it. Nothing I wanted to read. I slammed it back down, walked to the balcony doors, opened the drapes, and stepped out. The air was sharp and cold, the stars dimmed by the lights on the streets and in the buildings all around.
“Hey, it’s freezing.” Zachary was finally off the phone. “Get in here.” He closed the doors and put his arms around me again.
“What was all that about?” I asked.
“Poor Meg. Chris is sick and she’s worried.”
“Doesn’t she have a husband to share her worry with?”
“He’s a jerk. Sound asleep. He doesn’t understand her like I do. I got her calmed down.” He smoothed my back, kissed my neck. I sighed and rested my head on his shoulder.
His phone rang again. He pulled it out and looked at it. “Alex. Probably still having trouble with that program.”
I snatched the phone out of his hand. “No! I’ve had it with that phone interrupting us.” It kept ringing. “I’ve half a mind to pitch it off the balcony and watch in glee while it smashes into a jillion smithereens in the parking lot.” I took a step toward the balcony, the phone still ringing in my hand.
“Clara!” He caught my wrist and retrieved his phone. He looked truly shocked. “Do you know what that would do to me? I’ve got everything on there. I’d be destroyed.”
“Everything on there but me.”
The phone stopped ringing. He backed away from me, clipping it onto his belt.
“Turn it off.” I was furious. “All the way off. No rings, no vibrates, no moans, no beeps. Off! Or I’m going home.”
“Calm down.” He took his phone off his belt, punched a few beeping buttons, and closed it. “It’s off. I guess I can help Alex in the morning.”
“I guess you can.”
“Clara, what’s wrong? What’s going on?”
“I told you. I don’t like having our conversation interrupted and then sitting around waiting and waiting, as if I had nothing better to do, while you talk and talk to someone else. The way I was brought up, that’s just plain rude.”
He sighed and drew me down to sit beside him on the couch. “It’s a different world now. Everyone does that. It’s important to stay connected.”
“Connected to whom? Everyone but the person you’re with?”
“Don’t, Clara. You don’t understand.”
I sighed. I was suddenly weary. “I guess I don’t,” I said. “Are you okay with leaving your phone off for tonight?”
“Yeah, I’m okay.”
He put his arm around me, but I didn’t melt. We made love, but I didn’t come. After he fell asleep, I slid over to the other side of his huge bed and curled up with my back to him, pressing a pillow against my belly.
We worked through our spat over the cell phone and made some agreements. He would check his messages at the beginning of our time together, handle anything urgent, then turn his phone off. Also we agreed to sleep separately one night a week. I knew I needed an occasional break from our all-consuming relationship, and he admitted he’d gotten behind on his work and could use that night to catch up.
He didn’t give up on trying to persuade me of the necessity of virtual connection. One night after dinner, he showed me all the wonders of his smart phone, how he could take pi
ctures, text, connect to the Internet, talk with his two hundred plus friends on Facebook. “You should join Facebook. I can set you up.”
“No,” I said. “I don’t need two hundred friends, just a few good ones that I can talk to face-to-face, see their expressions, hear their voices, touch them. I don’t want to communicate on a silver screen. Imagine what we’d be missing if our relationship were only on Facebook.”
“Of course. But Clara, look at this. I have my whole calendar here with reminders, like this one to call my mom on her birthday. And look at this. I can just enter the address wherever I am and it will show me all the restaurants within a mile of my location.” He touched his screen rapidly and held it out to show me. “There’s all kinds of apps I can put on here.”
“Apps?”
“Yeah, apps. You know.”
“No, I don’t.”
“Apps. Short for applications. All different kinds of programs. See here.” He took his phone back and touched the little screen again. “Here’s a note-taking one, where I can draw data from all kinds of sources—Wikipedia, YouTube, texts and emails people send me, and it automatically organizes it all for me.” He showed it to me. I couldn’t make any sense of what I saw.
“You can even watch movies on it.”
“Kind of a small screen.”
“And you can text. It’s very efficient. With texting you can surf the web, play video games, and talk to as many people as you want all at once.”
I was outraged. “How can you pay attention to all of that? I don’t want you playing video games when you’re talking to me.”
He sighed. “Clara, you need to get with this. It’s how everyone’s connecting. And it’s going to get more so. How are you going to manage for the rest of your life if you don’t learn this stuff?”
“I don’t know. Let’s not talk about it anymore.” I bit my lip. The thought of a long life stretching ahead of me full of ever more complex smart phones and people that depended on them was overwhelming.
“Hey.” He touched my cheek in that tender way he had. “It’ll be all right. You’re smart. You can learn. It’s not that hard. I’ll teach you. It’s not as hard as tango.”
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