See Jane Date (10 page)

“Dinner's ready, everyone!” Mrs. Mackelroy called. “Come and get it!”

The boys tore into the dining room. If twelve-year-old boys had to choose between food and girls, they always chose food. I was never so grateful for that fact.

“It's all right, isn't it?” Andrew Mackelroy whispered. “I figured I'd get my nephew's birthday party out of the way, then we'd go to Little Italy for drinks.”

“Sure, um, yeah,” I said, good-sport smile on my face. “It'll be fun. I just love kids.”

Ten minutes later, the first slimy, cold tortellini from the pasta salad was flung from a spoon into my cleavage. Much to the delighted laughter of seven or eight twelve-year-old boys.

 

“Yeah, so let's just go with the carafe,” Andrew Mackelroy told the grim-faced waiter at Tutelli's Italian Ristorante. The ancient, gaunt man in a stiff shirt, vest and bow tie nodded and disappeared. Andrew had just finished explaining to me that a carafe and a bottle of wine both offered four glasses of wine, yet a carafe was ten bucks cheaper.

We were seated outside, on the sidewalk, at a table for two smushed between two square parties of four. Up and down the block and across the street were dozens of such restaurants, packed to overflowing inside and out, with lines snaking into the street. I noticed lots of couples at the tables, lots of families.

As Andrew glanced around the restaurant for good-
looking women the way guys always did, I checked my lap and the front of my borrowed dress for stains. Luckily Mrs. Mackelroy had had a good supply of club soda, which I'd spent a good fifteen minutes dabbing onto my dress in the hot, steamy, smelly kitchen of the Mackelroy home. A faint orange-tinged smear remained on my lap. Eloise was going to kill me.

The waiter returned with the carafe of red wine and two old-fashioned wineglasses. He poured and left.

“So I guess you can tell I'm really family oriented,” Andrew said. He raised his wineglass, gave it a little half lift at me and took a sip. I did the same. “We're pretty tight.”

“That's nice,” I said, for want of anything more original.

“How about you? You see your folks often?”

I never knew how to answer that question. If I said no, which was the truth, the guy immediately thought I was a parent-hating neurotic freak. If I added a quick “They're gone,” the guy immediately asked, “Where?” If I said they'd passed away, it killed the evening. Guys never knew what to say after that or how to change the subject.

Generally I answered depending on whether or not I'd ever see the guy again. If I knew the date was a one-shot, I might say, “Yeah, a few times a month. They're just over the bridge in Queens.” I loved saying that. For one evening, my parents would be alive again, just a subway ride away. They'd be dancing to Bruce Springsteen's “Glory Days” the way they did when I was young, singing the chorus at the top of their lungs.

My heart constricted in my chest and I sipped my wine.

“Oh, bad question, huh?” Andrew said. “I'm down with that. I know not everyone's close to their family. I
was lucky, I guess. I'm, like, the only person I know who had a good childhood.” He laughed, sipped his wine and glanced at the attractive blonde two tables over.

I envisioned sitting next to Andrew Mackelroy in a mini-ballroom of the Plaza Hotel. Andrew telling Natasha Nutley's houseboat-dwelling boyfriend that he was “down with” whatever Mr. Santa Barbara happened to be saying. Natasha, whispering a condescending “He's so endearing!” in my ear.

Suddenly a small noise erupted out of Andrew's mouth. A belch. “Sorry,” he said. “All that soda at the birthday party, I guess.” He let out an embarrassed laugh. “I have to say again, Jane, you really were a good sport back there. My ex-girlfriend was such a bitch. Every time we went over to my sister's and Stevie threw something at her or said something dirty, she'd start screaming her head off. He's just a kid, you know?”

I smiled. I wasn't nuts about Andrew Mackelroy, but he was a person like me, trying to find a little happiness in this world, this city. Who was I to judge him so fast? So the guy was family oriented. Since when was that a strike against him? Just because I'd lost my parents didn't mean that he couldn't have a good relationship with his own. Maybe we weren't each other's immediate types, but did that mean we couldn't go out again, see if there was some chemistry underneath all the snap judgments and expectations?

I was suddenly dying for a cigarette. And if Andrew Mackelroy and I were to get to know each other, if we were really going to give each other a chance, then it wouldn't be right if I tried to hide my smoking habit. As Andrew glanced around, I lit a Marlboro Light.

He immediately whipped his head to face me. “Oh, I didn't know you smoked.”

My MO on a date had always been to wait. I'd wait till I was sure the guy was interested, and then, once I knew I had him on attraction, I'd light a cigarette and hope he'd find it alluring and mysterious and sexy, rather than vile and disgusting and health-endangering.

But wasn't that game playing? I was an adult. I smoked, and I was perfectly within my rights to do so at the moment. After all, hadn't Andrew felt perfectly comfortable belching in front of me and laughing it off?

He eyed the offending cigarette as though it were a bloody knife. “I wish I'd known you were a smoker. I'm, like,
really
allergic to cigarette smoke.” He coughed for good measure.

I felt my cheeks turn red. “Oh, um, I'm sorry.” I searched the table for an ashtray.

“I'll be right back,” Andrew said. “Nature's calling.”

Watching Andrew snake his way through tables and people and disappear inside Tutelli's, I took a long, fortifying drag of the cigarette. Why waste a perfectly good Marlboro while Andrew was in the bathroom?

“Excuse me, Miss? Miss? Hello? Miss?”

I turned around, expecting to find a woman about to complain to her waitress that her eggplant parmigiana was undercooked or overcooked. But instead, the entire family sitting directly behind me was staring at me. “Could you put that out?” the mother asked me. “Joey's got asthma.”

I felt my face heat up again. There was no ashtray on the table. Now, not only had I probably caused Andrew Mackelroy to break out in hives, but I was preventing a child from breathing and about to add Litterbug to my list of habit-crimes. I dropped the cigarette under the table and crushed it out with my foot.

Joey glared at me, then broke out into a series of ex
aggerated coughs. His mother immediately fussed over him. The father was shaking his head back and forth, and suddenly I was the basis of a family argument.
“We're changing tables.” “She put it out, calm down.” “Well who knows if she's gonna light it again? I wanna change tables right now, inside, where there's a nonsmoking section. Get the waiter.” “You're talking crazy, there aren't any tables. Look around, it's packed.” “Okay, stop yelling at me.” “I'm not yelling.” “Miss, are you going to smoke more? Miss?”

I turned around. “Uh, no. Sorry.”

“Yeah, she's sorry,” I heard the father mutter. “Joey, are you feeling okay?”

I was feeling like a leper—it went with the territory for a nicotine addict. Some smokers got indignant and refused to put out their cigarettes when faced with dirty looks and demands. They went on and on about how smoking was their right, and tough noogies if nonsmokers didn't like it. But I always felt guilty. In a crowded city like New York, someone was always waving away cigarette smoke on the streets. I hated to be the cause of someone's disgust.

Andrew Mackelroy returned, sat down and sipped his cheap wine. His attention was either thankfully or annoyingly diverted by the longest legs I've ever seen. My gaze started at the woman's strappy sandals and headed up the long, tanned legs to the slinky dress in swirling pale colors to the blond, straight hair, to the man she was walking with hand in hand.

Jeremy Black.

Jeremy turned around and laughed at something an older couple behind him had said. And once again, it was as though he were walking in slow motion; his entire entourage seemed to be, as well. I figured the older ones
were either Jeremy's parents or the woman's. The four of them seemed too good for the gaudy, touristy streets of Little Italy. Their physical beauty, grace and perfection didn't belong here. I could just imagine Jeremy and his girlfriend humoring the parents and assuring each other that Little Italy would be
charming.
For the Jeremy Blacks of the world, Little Italy was a barely cute version of “slumming.” I was grateful that at least Jeremy hadn't noticed me, looking, I was quite sure, the worse for my evening at Casa Mackelroy.

Depression, as hot and humid as the air, slapped me against the chest. I wanted that cigarette back. I wanted to be the woman Jeremy was walking with. I wanted those older people to be my parents, alive and well. I wanted to be the kind of woman who Jeremy would date, the kind of woman who schlubs like Andrew Mackelroy turned around to stare at, even when they were on dates with “adorable” women.

I had on strappy sandals and a sexy dress. But I looked nothing like Jeremy's date. And I never would.

“So Jeff mentioned you were an editor,” Andrew said, once Jeremy's date's body was blocked from his range of vision.

“Assistant editor,” I corrected, watching Jeremy and his group hail a taxi. They were probably headed for drinks in some club in Soho that didn't have a sign on the door. I drained my wine. Andrew immediately filled my glass.

“Actually, um, Andrew, I think I've had enough. Tell you the truth, I've got a raging headache.”

“Oh. I could get you some aspirin or something.”

“That's okay,” I said. “I think I should get home.”

“Should I put you in a taxi?”

“Um, no,” I said quickly. “I'll just take the subway. I'll be okay.”

“Uh, okay, so I guess I'll just stay to finish the wine.”

I stood up and slung my little beaded bag's long, skinny strap over my shoulder. “So, bye.”

Andrew Mackelroy stood up and awkwardly air-kissed me. “I'll, uh, give you a call.”

I smiled my sort-of smile and fled.

This was an
I'll call
I was grateful for.

I turned the corner and lit a cigarette. I smoked it fast and didn't even appreciate it, then hailed a cab. I had no idea where the nearest subway station was or which train would connect me to the IRT. Which meant I was about to be out seventeen dollars. Considerably more than Andrew Mackelroy had sprung on the entire night.

 

Opera Man was listening to his favorite Verdi masterwork,
Aida
.

Eloise's dress was scrunched in the bottom of my take-to-the-dry-cleaner's bag, which was hanging off the doorknob.

And I was giving myself a homemade oatmeal facial, which, according to the
Allure
magazine I bought at the newsstand on the way home, was the newest cure for stress.

“Tell your nice friend I said hello,” the cute Indian clerk behind the kiosk's counter had said.

The minute I'd gotten home I'd listened for sounds of silence from the cabinet under the kitchen sink, which would mean that Eloise was alone. But I'd heard the unmistakable sound of Eastern European male laughter. I'd wanted to talk to someone. Someone, anyone. Eloise was busy. Amanda was off-limits, since I couldn't complain to her about Andrew. Aunt Ina was also off-limits, since
I wasn't supposed to be on a terrible blind date. The sound of Dana Dreer's voice would only make me feel worse.

Why didn't I have anyone to call?

The oatmeal mask hardening on my face, I pulled my address book out of my tote bag. The answer lay on each page I flipped through. I didn't know anyone I used to know. Why wasn't I friends with the people I was friends with before? Lisa and Lora, my only two friends from childhood, were across the country, leading their marriage-and-baby-filled lives. The few girls I'd hung around with in college had scattered too, and we'd lost touch the year after graduation. Eloise and Amanda were my only friends.

Why had I been so willing to let my friendship with the Miner twins dwindle away? I could call them right now, ask how they were, listen to cute stories about their children, cute complaints about their husbands, cute remarks about the San Francisco hills. I could breathe new life into a friendship that never should have petered out. I picked up the cordless, prepared to punch in Lora's number, but I noticed I had three messages blinking. I'd been so upset when I'd gotten home that I hadn't checked the machine. I pressed Play.

“I want to know who you think you are, young lady,” came Aunt Ina's angry voice. “How dare you be rude to Karen on the telephone? She's your cousin's maid of honor, and she's been a godsend with the wedding plans. You'd better shape up that attitude, Jane, and—”

I pressed Skip. Hadn't I already been punished enough this evening? If dinner at the Mackelroys hadn't been enough, seeing Jeremy with his date certainly had been.