Acadian Waltz (5 page)

John chuckled.
“You’re more like your uncle than your mother.”

“Thank God.” I
rolled my eyes. “You’ve never met anybody like my mother.”

He shifted down
and the car slowed. “I’ve met your mother many times before. I know the type
too well. Doctors are on their husband-hunting list. You would be amazed at how
many women out there are like your mother. I think I’ve dated most of them.”

“How can you be
so sure I’m not one of those women on the hunt for a doctor-husband?” I joked
as he pulled into a parking spot about a block from the restaurant.

He turned off
the engine and then smiled at me. “Because you’re more impressed by a man’s
handshake than the size of his wallet. I‘m also a very good judge of
character.”

“Ever been wrong
about someone?”

John opened his
car door. “Never. I can size people up pretty fast.” He exited the car and came
around to my door. “I like to figure out early on how someone will fit in my
life,” he told me after opening my car door.

I stood from the
car. “Shouldn’t you get to know someone before you make such a decision?”

John placed his
arm about my shoulders. “I don’t like to waste my time with people who will
never matter. I’m sure you’re the same way.” We started toward the restaurant
entrance.

I didn’t bother
to enlighten John as to my true feelings. Normally, I would have expressed my
opinion without reservation, but suddenly my mother’s voice popped into my
head, warning me about my ticking biological clock and my limited prospects for
a desirable husband. It was the first time in my life I could remember holding
back my thoughts. That night marked a turning point for me. I realized that my
wants and my desires had finally been usurped by my need to please another.

*     *     *

After we had
dined on shrimp and pasta, and strolled along the broken sidewalks of the
French Quarter, John pulled his car up in front of my Lakeview cottage. When he
turned off the engine, he reached for my hand.

“I had a great
time tonight,” he said with a bright smile.

The electricity
rose up my arm as his hand squeezed mine.

“Tell me, Nora
Kehoe, why hasn’t some guy swept you off your feet?”

I shrugged.
“Probably the same reason you dropped out of the dating scene. There aren’t a
lot of interesting people out there to date. At least, I don’t find them
interesting.”

“There must have
been someone special.”

I thought back
to the roller coaster of dating that I had endured for the last fourteen years.
There had been great first dates that turned into horrible second dates. First
dates that had me grabbing at my cell phone wanting to call a cab. Third and
fourth dates with men who had turned from Dr. Jekyll into Mr. Hyde, and one
steady boyfriend in high school named Thomas. He had been sweet, and always
insisted on kissing me good night only on the cheek. Following graduation we
parted ways. A few years later, I heard Thomas was gay.

“No, the past
couple of years I’ve devoted to furthering my career and little else.” I nodded
to him. “What about you?” I asked, itching with curiosity.

“A few
girlfriends here and there. The last relationship I had was in medical school
before I began my residency. Her name was Monique and she applied to a
residency program in Florida. I never pursued the relationship after
graduation.” He reached for the handle on his car door. “It wasn’t the right
time to commit to anything long-term.” 

I remember
thinking how peculiar that comment sounded to me. There never was a right time
for most of life’s curveballs, but where would the game of life be without
them?

When John walked
me to my front door, he was holding my hand in his and moving very slowly, as
if trying to squeeze in a few more seconds together.

“I’m off
Thursday night. How about we have dinner again?” he inquired as we climbed the
three steps to my door.

“I’d like that.”
I reached into my purse and pulled out my keys. He was standing right next to
me, and I motioned toward the front door. “Do you want to come in?”

A shadow of
apprehension rose in his eyes, and I found the change in his features
disturbing. I began to question what I had done wrong, and then the look
quickly disappeared.

“I’d better not,
not tonight anyway.” He leaned over and kissed me very gently on the lips.

But before I
could respond to his kiss, he pulled away. “I’ll call you later to talk about
Thursday,” he whispered as he took a lock of my blond hair in his fingers. “Go
to bed, Nora Kehoe. I’ll see you again Thursday.” He turned and headed down my
walkway to his car.

I pushed my
heavy front door open, and no sooner had I stepped into my living room, when I
heard the sound of his car starting.

“A gentleman,” I
whispered as I closed my door. “I’ve never been out with one of those before.”

I leaned back
against the thick oak door and smiled, intrigued at the prospect of seeing the
kind Dr. Blessing again.

*    
*     *

“So you like
this boy, for real?” Uncle Jack asked as we sat on the deck of his boat,
enjoying the cool spring breezes from Lake Pontchartrain the following
afternoon.

I nodded my
head. “Yes, I do, Uncle Jack.”

“Too bad.” Uncle
Jack took a sip from his beer.

“Why do you say
that?” I stood from the deck.

“‘Cause when you
realize that this boy ain’t right for you, you’ll break his heart.”

I hovered over
him. “What makes you think he’s not right for me? You’ve never even met him.”

“He’s a doctor,
right?”

I shrugged.
“Yes.”

“Come from
Texas, you say. From money?”

“I guess.”

“Took you to a
nice place in his nice car and was a real gentleman to you last night?”

I glared at him.
“What’s your point, Uncle Jack?”   

“No spark. When
sparks fly, girl, there ain’t no nice dates and no gentlemanly ways. There’s
only passion.”

“He’s polite,” I
assured him.

Uncle Jack
scowled. “He’s afraid.” He put his beer down on the boat deck and stood up from
his chair. “A gentleman is only a man afraid of doin’ what he really wants to
do. I’ve seen it time and time again. You just wait and see. I’m right.” He winked
at me.

“But you don’t
even know him.”

He frowned at
me. “Yep, but I ‘spect I’ll meet him soon enough.”

“You’ll change
your mind when you meet him. I know you will.”

“Will I? We’ll
see ‘bout that.” He turned away and headed to the wheelhouse.

Chapter 4

Monday morning,
Steve Seville was waiting at my office door with a playful grin on his face.

“How did it go?”
he inquired, standing behind me as I struggled to open my office door.

“Fine,” I told
him as I pushed my door open.

Steve leaned
against the doorframe. “Fine? Honey, I want to hear more than fine.”

I turned on the
lights and headed to my desk. After placing my brown bag lunch and purse on the
desk, I turned back to him. “We had a good time.”

“Good time?”
Steve snorted. “Good time as in he was sweet and kind, or a good time as in we
screwed each other’s brains out?”

I took my seat
behind my desk and frowned “You sound like my uncle. For your information,
there were no intimate relations between Dr. Blessing and myself. We had
dinner, went to the Quarter, and then he brought me home. My clothes never left
my body at any time during the date.”

Steve hurried to
my desk. “Oh, Lord! At least tell me the twins made an appearance.”

I nodded. “They
got some air. It was a rather low cut dress.”

“Well, at least
you followed my advice in that department. As for the rest….” He rolled his
eyes.

“He was a nice
guy, Steve. A real gentleman.”

Steve lowered
his gaze to me as his sharp blue eyes intently analyzed my face. “Nora, there
are no gentleman in the world. There are only two kinds of men: the kind who
want to sleep with you and the kind you’ve already slept with. So either he
wants to sleep with you or he’s gay.”

“Now you
definitely sound like my uncle.”

“Your uncle
sounds like my kind of man.” He paused and folded his arms across his chest.
“Are you going to see him again?”

“Thursday. We’re
having dinner.”

“When will you
tell Claire?”

I sat back in my
chair and sighed.

Steve shook his
head. “That’s what I thought.” He stepped back from my desk. “I don’t blame
you. If she were my mother, I would have become a serial killer.”

*     *     *

Three weeks
later I broke down and told my mother about John.

“A doctor!”
Claire screamed into the speaker of my cell phone. “You’re seeing a doctor!”

“Mother, please.
It’s just been a few dates,” I said, trying to calm her as I fumbled putting on
my mascara in the bathroom mirror.

“How many dates
have there been?”

“Tonight will
make four dates. John is taking me to an Indian place in the Quarter for
dinner. He says he loves Indian food.” I paused and made a face, trying not to
smear the mascara as I applied it to my lashes.

“Is that
unofficial or official?” she persisted.

“You’re
kidding?” I put the mascara wand down on my vanity.

“No, I’m not
kidding, Nora,” she clucked. “Official dates are the dinner kind made in
advance. Unofficial are the impromptu lunches and last minute get-togethers.
So, how many official and unofficial?”

“Where do you
get this stuff?” I asked staring dumbfounded at my cell phone.

“Every woman knows
this. My God, Nora, where have you been all these years? Don’t you have
girlfriends you talk to about boys?”

“No, Mother, I
have colleagues, and, we talk about men, not boys. Right after we discuss
taxes, health insurance, IRA’S, and interest rates.”

“You’ve got to
get some better influences in your life, child. No wonder you’ve never snagged
a man.”

“He’s a man,
Mother, not a fish in a trout stream.”  

“He’s a man,
dear. All men have to be rounded up, broken in, and branded in order to be of
any use to a woman.”

“How many times
have you been down to the corral, Mother?”

“Never mind
that.” She brushed aside my rib with all the grace of a tow truck. “We are not
talking about me. This is about you.”

“When isn’t it
about me?” I muttered and proceeded to re-apply my mascara. “Look, Mother,
officially or unofficially, we have only had a couple of dates. We’ve gone to
dinner a couple of times, a movie, and had lunch once. Pretty generic dating
stuff.”

“You haven’t
slept with him then?” Her voice was harsh and flat, the way it would always get
when she was frustrated with me.

I almost dropped
the phone. “Are you kidding? Mother, you do realize that there are several
versions of sexually transmitted diseases circulating out there that can make
vital body parts shrivel up and die.”

“Obviously that
means no.” She sighed and I could hear her playing with the assortment of gold
bracelets she always wore around her right wrist. “Well, I can’t tell you what
to do.”

“Since when?” I
balked.

“But if I were
you, I would hook this man as soon as possible.” She paused as the tinkle of
ice filtered in from the background. “You know, there are plenty of other girls
who would die to have a doctor for a husband. Think of all the prestige and
free health care you could get.”

“Mother!” I
waited a beat as I tried to readjust my tone. “I don’t want to even think about
what you’re suggesting. Maybe I should play this casual and not read too much
into the situation. Besides, I don’t know much about the man. He could be a
pervert, or a workaholic, or even mentally unbalanced.”

“Darling,” my
mother purred as I heard the sound of her five o’clock bourbon pouring into a
glass. “The initials ‘MD’ behind any man’s name forgives a multitude of sins.
So don’t go off with this man and bore him to death with your opinions and your
too highly educated brain. I told your father not to try and make you so smart.
I said it would ruin you for marriage. Now look at you…thirty years old and not
even a decent marriage under your belt.” She paused and I could hear the clink
of her glass as she shot back some bourbon. “Try to wear something revealing
Nora, and act like a woman, for Christ’s sake. Don’t try to act too
intelligent. Offer to cook for him; flatter him a lot, laugh at his jokes, and
listen to his opinions, don’t express yours. That’s what a man wants…a woman,
and not some news anchor from CNN.”

*     *     *

Later that
evening, as John and I walked hand in hand along the black wrought iron fence
around Jackson Square in the French Quarter, my mother’s words came back to
haunt me, and I found myself actually wondering if the lunatic that bore me did
not have a point when it came to the desires of men.

“You’re awfully
quiet tonight,” John observed as he put his arm about my shoulders.

At six-foot-one,
John dwarfed my five-foot-four inch frame, and I often had to find ways to
adjust to his size. I curled a bit closer into his side to get comfortable next
to him.

“I was just
thinking about something,” I mumbled against his chest.

“I thought you
seemed a little preoccupied tonight. Not your usual talkative self.” 

The remark made
my stomach curl into a knot. I pulled myself free of his arm. “John, do you
think I sound….” I hesitated, trying to find the words. “Well, do you think I
talk too much, like an anchor on CNN?”

John laughed, a
deep, musical sort of laugh that made people around us stop and smile.

“Where is that
coming from?” He placed his hands on my shoulders. “This isn’t you. You’re
usually so sure of yourself. That’s what I like about you. When you speak,
Nora, you say something of value. This uncertainty is not like you.”