Starting from Square Two (13 page)

Now he looked perplexed.

“This is something worth worrying about,” she said. “Not something you can just smile about and it goes away!”

He held up his hands. “But if there's nothing you can do…”

“Maybe there is!”

“Do you want me to call Information?”

“Right. A top executive keeps her home number listed.”

Todd took out his cell phone. “What's her name?”

“Hathaway. But she won't be in there.”

He dialed. “First name?”

“It might be under Dennis.”

He asked the operator and waited. “There's a D. Hathaway on Central Park West,” he said.

“That's them! Call them.” She handed him a pen from her pocketbook.

He scribbled it on a slip of paper and dialed. Then he handed her the phone. Gert listened.

“Hi. We're not home,” said the machine. “Please leave a
message with your name and number and we'll get back to you.”

“Missy, if you're there, I found your FedEx,” Gert said. “I forgot to tell you. I put it in my top drawer at work. I hope that's okay. If you have any problems, call me, all right?” She left her cell and home numbers, hung up and handed the phone back to Todd.

He lowered his head as she looked at him.

“I guess I overreacted a little,” she said softly. “I'm sorry.”

“It's okay.”

“I just got worried for a second.”

“It's fine,” Todd said, shrugging.

But she thought
he
should concede a little, too. He had told her to calm down when she was talking about something important.

How would he act in a crisis?
Gert thought.
What if someone he loves was in an accident? Is he one of those people who's never experienced real tragedy, and he always assumes everything is naturally going to work out just fine?

Can I really be with someone who doesn't worry about anything? Maybe when I tell him about Marc, he'll just stare at me like everyone else does, not knowing what to say. Maybe he'll try to make
that
seem all right, too.

“Are you okay?” Todd asked her.

It seemed pointless to argue now. “Yeah,” she said.

But she still thought he should apologize, too.

 

During dessert, Gert started to feel a bit better. She carefully carved the strawberry crème torte with her fork. She looked up and saw Todd smiling.

“What?” she said.

“Nothing,” he said. “You just look happy. I'm glad.”

They finished and retrieved their coats from the back. Gert turned to look back as she was leaving. She saw Todd hand the coat check guy a five.

“That was nice of you,” she said when he got to the door.

“Oh,” he said, looking at his coat. He seemed a little embarrassed. “I did coat check one summer during college. People don't give you anything, because they resent having to check their coats.”

“I would think they'd give a lot.”

“No. They don't. And he probably was a student, so he needs the money.”

Todd could be frugal, but he could also spend money when the situation called for it. Gert was pleased. She decided she'd been too hard on him tonight. So what if he'd been slow to catch on to her concern about the FedEx? He'd also been intuitive enough to save her day. She thought about what she'd be doing right then if he hadn't called. She'd probably be sitting on the couch at home, her feet up, watching horrible TV sitcoms and crying.

He didn't know everything about her yet, but at least he was trying to be nice. He put his hand on her back for a second as they went out the door. His hand felt warm.

“You know, it's still early,” he said as they walked past some boutique stores.

“It is,” Gert said. She looked at him. “You know, you really helped me feel better tonight. Thanks.”

He stopped under a streetlight, then leaned in and kissed her.

It felt warm, wonderful. She looked up at him.

He stood there. “Can I do that again?” he asked.

“Only if you promise never again to order me to calm down when I'm upset.”

He looked at the ground. “I'm sorry,” he said, shifting his feet. “I shouldn't have done that. It just, it upset me to see you so worried.”

“Sometimes it's okay to be worried,” Gert said pointedly. Even if she was still tingling from the kiss, she had to make sure he got the point.

“You're right,” he said. “You're absolutely right. I wanted to make the problem go away, and that was stupid.”

“It's okay.”

He looked across the street, and so she did, too. There was a small theater showing an old Hitchcock film.

“You want to go see that?” Todd said.

“I've seen it,” Gert said. “It's my father's favorite.”

“The 39 Steps?”

“Yes,” she said.

“You know what I always wanted to see?” Todd asked.

“North by Northwest!”
Gert said.

“Yeah!” Todd said. “How'd you know?”

“I've always wanted to see it, too. It's strange that neither of us has.”

“We could rent it,” Todd said.

Gert thought about it. She wasn't worried about sitting next to him on his couch anymore. Their dates normally ended so early that it might actually be nice to be physically close to him for more than two seconds.

She thought about what it would be like to say no. He'd leave, and she'd be on the subway heading back to Astoria alone. The thought of it pained her. In fact, the need to not be alone right then gripped her.

Todd said, “My roommate's probably home. We have separate rooms, but we'll hear him walking in and out of the apartment.”

“I don't have a roommate,” Gert said. “But I live in Queens.”

“I don't mind,” Todd said.

Of course he didn't.

 

Sitting next to Todd in the subway, Gert looked up at the ads. The cartoons with AIDS were at it again. There had been an ongoing serial in the New York subways for years about two cartoon characters who had AIDS. There was a Spanish version, and in that one, AIDS was called SIDA.
Sindroma Inmuno Definiciencia Adquirida.

Not the most romantic thing to read on a date.

Gert felt shocked. She
was
on a date. No denying it. And now
she was bringing a guy back to her apartment. Her and her husband's place. A guy she'd only known for a few weeks.

But they were just going to watch a movie, right? It didn't have to mean anything more.

Marc was on her mind though. This was disrespectful. And unfair to him. Why should she get to have fun when Marc couldn't?

She remembered the photos of Marc all over the condo. And all the other things that would tell Todd abruptly that she'd been married before.

She'd have to tell him as they were walking toward the condo. It was ridiculous that she'd put it off for this long, anyway.

No more stalling.

 

The first time Gert had visited Astoria, Queens, she'd been surprised. Marc had told her it was a low-cost alternative to Manhattan: just a few subway stops east, with wider streets, big diners and bigger families. In their neighborhood, the elevated subway station towered three stories high on blue metal stilts, its shadows engulfing factories and real estate offices and restaurants that served giant salads with slabs of feta and long, hairy strips of anchovy. The houses rose on sloped roads, each foundation a foot higher than the last. A few blocks west, a glistening bridge spanned the East River into the more gentrified neighborhoods of Manhattan.

The subway train came to a stop. Todd took Gert's hand when they got off. It had been so long since someone had held her hand.

They crossed the concrete platform and trotted down the stairs, past a group of teenagers who were going up with skate-boards. They headed under the station and heard loud echoes and rumblings above.

The streets were dark and cold, but there was no wind. Todd began massaging Gert's hand with his thumb. A faint sensation passed through her body.

A group of people was howling from off somewhere. They sounded like hooligans.

“I'm glad I'm not a teenager anymore,” Gert said.

“Me, too,” Todd said. “I had no idea what I wanted.”

“I do now,” Gert said.

“I do, too,” he said, and he swung her hand. “But we can still act like we're teenagers if we want.
Aaaaaoooooo!”

Gert laughed and howled, “
Aaaaaoooo!
Hey, that feels good. Maybe I have some werewolf in me.”

He stopped and kissed her quickly. “Nope.”

“You can tell by doing that?”

“Werewolves don't have soft lips.”

When they reached her block, Todd said, “Every time I feel like I've been everywhere in New York, I see somewhere new.”

“I was thinking that the other day,” Gert said. “When we met up in Little Italy.”

“You'd never been there?”

“Just near it.”

“I took the subway once for four hours, just to get to as many neighborhoods as I could,” Todd said.

Gert smiled to herself. It was an interesting thing to do—a Todd thing. Gert swung his hand, feeling daring because of the wine.

 

The condo building was four stories high, with a sloped roof. Gert wondered whether Todd could tell that it was condos and not apartments. She'd have to tell him the minute they got inside.

But when she got to her front door, she said, “Just hold on a second. I have to clean something up.”

She slipped in, leaving him in the hall, and looked for photos of Marc in the living room. Todd would just have to be kept in suspense for a few minutes more. She had to tell him before he saw the photos.

Gert spotted the picture near the TV that showed Marc smiling at their college graduation. It stabbed at her heart.

For a second, she was ready to cry. What was she doing?

Todd was in the hall.

She closed her eyes and gulped, turning the photo toward the wall.

She knew Todd was waiting. She turned over the other one of Marc standing outside their house with his friend Craig. Then she went to the door.

“Sorry,” Gert said. “I just hadn't planned on company today.”

“I know,” Todd said. “Don't worry. Wow, this is nice.”

Gert looked around the living room. It was big, square, minimally decorated. For a place in New York, it
was
nice.

She gave Todd a tour, but she left the door to Marc's trophy room closed.

She would put off telling Todd about Marc until after the movie. No sense putting that into his mind and ruining something they'd both waited a long time to see. She could tell him right afterward.

Todd sat on the couch. Gert put the DVD in. She thought about how far to sit from Todd. A few inches? What was the line between cautious and frigid? Another tough dating decision. How did Hallie and Erika do this all the time?

 

The room was dark. Gert was close enough to Todd for him to put his arm around her. She didn't stop him. She felt okay about it. In fact, after about twenty minutes, she decided it was safe to lay her head on his shoulder.

When he pulled her closer, her whole body sighed. It had been so long since she'd been held. She couldn't help it.

She closed her eyes and just listened for a while, to the movie and to Todd breathing.

They stayed like that for more than an hour. Todd didn't make any other moves, and Gert was glad. She wanted to keep it simple. No more confusing choices.

Eventually, though, Todd took her hand. He massaged the
inside of it again, slowly, his fingers tracing the ridges above her palm. Soon, she couldn't concentrate on the film. He tickled the inside of her hand, then massaged it more. It felt wonderful.

She opened her eyes and watched his hand moving. His fingers moved deliberately. He was so slow, so painstaking about everything he did.

She closed her eyes and imagined that those hands gave good backrubs. She was so relaxed that she didn't think she could ever get up.

But he was being a gentleman, so she decided she should keep watching the movie. If he was going to try to be good, she shouldn't be having impure thoughts. Even if she could blame the wine.

It occurred to her that maybe she was being selfish, since he'd been massaging her hand for twenty minutes and she hadn't reciprocated. She took his hand, then moved her fingers into the tender valleys between his.

He kissed her on her head. She liked it, but then she went back to watching. She didn't move. He didn't, either; just held her tighter. They both kept their eyes on the screen.

When the movie faded out, she didn't get up. She didn't think she could. The credits rolled but neither of them stirred. She was nervous and excited. She didn't know what might happen next.

He moved her hair back from her face, and leaned down to kiss her.

She lay on her back and looked up at him. Then she put her hands on his face and brought it down to her. She was feeling something she hadn't felt in a long time, and she didn't want to stop.

The need to not be alone clutched her as hard as anything ever could.

 

Hours later, she woke up. She was in her bedroom, and it was dark. She hazily looked around.

What had happened tonight?

Missy, Todd, wine, dessert—

She heard someone sleeping beside her.

Uh-oh.

Now she remembered.

She'd wanted it to happen. She admitted it to herself. It wasn't the wine, or being lonely, or desperation.

But had she gone too far?

“I'm glad I met you,” Todd whispered suddenly. She was startled. She'd thought he was sleeping.

“Oh.” She turned to look at him.

“You're so beautiful, and so smart….”