Through the Heart (12 page)

I also didn’t want to look around the restaurant, because I was afraid to find that everyone was watching. I looked anyway. There were a couple of people who were so intently not looking at us that I knew they’d been trying to follow the little scene, but the rest were busy with their children, trying to get them to sit down, to eat, to stop hitting each other, that they had no time for someone else’s drama.

Then I looked over at Timothy. I was expecting to share a smile over the ridiculousness of what had just happened. But he wasn’t looking at me either. He was still studying the menu—in a way that let me know he was angry.

I waited a moment, and he still didn’t look up.

“Are you okay?” I finally asked.

He shut the menu and finally looked up at me. Suddenly I felt the reverse of what I felt with Dan. Not that I was with a child, but that I
was
the child.

“You told me no husband, no boyfriend, but you should have mentioned that you had a lover.”

“Okay, how about this—I have no husband, no boyfriend,
and
no lover,” I told him.

“Someone doesn’t act like that unless you’re sleeping with them.”

He sat back in his chair and crossed his arms. It was as if he were erecting a barrier between us.

“Not only am I not sleeping with him, before Saturday night I hadn’t even spoken to him in three years.”

There was no hint in his face that he was softening.

He said, “I don’t know if I believe that. And even if it’s true, he wants you back.”

I leaned forward across the table, trying to make him believe me when I said, “I don’t care what he wants.”

“You’re not going to go back to him?”

“Not tonight anyway.” I was too used to being sarcastic with Tammy and getting her to laugh. It didn’t work with Timothy at all.

He gave me a withering look, and it was all downhill from there.

I think the way he acted during our dinner was his version of my leaving the day before. The only difference is that he didn’t get up and walk away from the table. At least not in body. I tried asking him questions, but he gave me yes or no answers, or ignored the questions altogether. Eventually, I gave up, and we finished the meal in silence.

We were done faster than some of the families who had been there when we arrived. At the end of it, he paid. I tried to offer, but he just made a little brushing motion with his hand, like he was sweeping crumbs from the tablecloth. Then he drove me back to the store, walked me back to my car, opened the door for me, and said good night.

I didn’t ask him if I would see him again. He didn’t ask to see me either. There wasn’t even a kiss on the cheek.

I think it might have been the worst date I’ve ever had. Not that I’ve had that many, but it was still a doozy—even without many others to compare it with. So you’d think I would be relieved that I wouldn’t have to suffer through another date like that. But “relieved” is not the word I’d use to describe what I felt.

It was barely past ten when I got home, but the lights were all out in the house. Just to be safe, I pulled on my jeans, changed my shoes, and then put on my jacket and went inside.

I shut the door softly behind me and leaned against it for a second. Back here. Again.

Always back in this house.

It was just a house. Dark. Quiet. So why did I feel like I couldn’t breathe in it?

After a moment I turned on the lights—and discovered that my mother was sitting there on the couch. She had been sitting there in the dark, no TV, no music. Just sitting there.

“Mom, what are you doing? Are you okay?” I asked her.

It was as if I hadn’t spoken. I know she heard me because she shifted on the sofa, but she didn’t even turn her head to look at me.

“I’m going to bed,” I said. “I’ll see you in the morning, okay?”

Still nothing.

“Do you want the light on or off?”

No answer. But I knew what she wanted all the same.

I turned the light off and left her sitting there in the dark.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I was stunned when she got out of her car.

Really.

I had no idea. She’d looked like an average pretty girl in her uniform in the coffee place. And she’d acted like an average pretty girl, and I mean that in a good way. Really beautiful women have a self-consciousness about them: they’re always aware of the effect they have on people. It’s not their fault—they really do have an effect on people. So it’s just something they learn to expect, to defend against, to use, to deflect. Sometimes they get savvy, and they try to cover the fact that they’re aware of your reaction to them, but I can always spot it. It takes one to know one, after all.

This girl had none of that about her. And yet when she stepped out of the car, she was something out of myth—a creature so beautiful, and yet somehow, amazingly, unaware of her beauty. The important element isn’t the beauty. It’s the being unaware of it. How could she have existed in the world without knowing?

I can’t describe to you her hair. I had noticed it before, and I thought I knew what it would be like when it was down. But it transformed everything. Her face, her eyes, her body—everything changed with the hair. I thought I had such a good eye for spotting beauty, and it had been right in front of me and I hadn’t even noticed it. It humbled me. And I have to be honest, that was a new experience for me. Humble gets a bad rap. I’m here to tell you, if I could live that way, I think it’s all I’d need to be happy.

I always compliment my dates. Always. I try to find one true thing that I like. And if I can’t, I compliment the thing that I dislike the most: Gold lamé shoes. A fuzzy purse that looks like a hair ball. Orange lipstick. There is a certain admiration in my horror. So I draw on that.

But this time, I swear to you, I couldn’t say a word. So I just opened the car door and helped her in.

She didn’t even seem to notice that I didn’t say anything. When she got in the car and told me where to go, she seemed both quiet and relaxed. I don’t think I’d ever experienced quite that combination of traits—at least not in a woman. With a guy, sure. You could sit there for half an hour without saying anything, and he’d barely even notice. If that happened with a woman, you could be sure that she was either pissed at something or upset, usually both.

But she only told me how to get to the restaurant. A right and a left and we were there. The whole downtown was about the size of one New York City block. There was also the strip just outside town, off the highway, with the motel where I was staying, the McDonald’s, the Burger King, the gas station, and the Dunkin’ Donuts.

The main part of town was actually quite picturesque. It was what you imagine a small town looks like. And the restaurant looked like it was right in step with that: a green scalloped awning that said just “Mike’s” and an old-fashioned glass-and-wood door. It looked perfect for a quiet dinner—until we opened the door and walked into chaos. It was like walking into a five-year-old’s birthday party after the cake has been served and the sugar is coursing through those little five-year-old bodies. I should know: I had spent about ten minutes at my nephew’s birthday party a month before.

By this time in my life, I had come to the conclusion that I didn’t like children. It’s not a popular opinion, but I think it’s one that more people have than will admit to. What I don’t understand is how those very same people are convinced that they will like their own children. Or rather, that their children will be different. I am not so sure of either.

When we walked into the restaurant, my first thought was that this was some kind of message—she had taken me here to make it clear that she loved children and wanted some as soon as possible, and she was already picking out names for the ones she was planning we would have together. That’s what went through my head after we went through the door. It’s not exactly logical, but I have to tell you that this is the level of paranoia in the older single man going out on a first date. And it is not completely unfounded. I could tell you stories . . .

But one look at her face and I knew it was unfounded in this case. When we walked into the restaurant, she looked shocked. Appalled really.

I said, “Is this another test like the pumpkin latte?”

“It’s not usually like this,” she said. “Why don’t we—”

But it was too late. The host had spotted us and caught us at the door.

At that point I was really quite enjoying her discomfort. She seemed so composed before, but I was very happy to have her off balance. I admit, it made me more comfortable.

But then we walked across the dining room, and I swear to you every male in the place looked up and watched her. It’s not that I wasn’t used to that with the women I went out with. That was part of the pleasure of it. Half the time the women weren’t worth the bother, but the other men didn’t know that, and their envy was what I fed on. I loved having something they wanted.

But for the first time, I felt something else. She seemed so naive, and I wanted to keep it that way, but I thought all it would take would be for her to look up and notice, really see how they looked at her, and it would be gone. That innocence would disappear. And then she would be like all the other women. Something priceless would have been lost.

Maybe that’s what people love about their children. They see that pureness. That innocence. It’s irresistible. And then the kids grow up. Thinking about that, I was sure I didn’t want kids. How do you get over the heartbreak of seeing something perfect spoiled?

When we sat down at the table, I looked across at her. “You are full of surprises,” I told her.

I have always prided myself on being honest. But at that moment, I realized that I usually congratulate myself on being honest when I’m telling someone something unpleasant, something they don’t want to hear. And there is great power in that. Being honest about positive things—that lays you open. Of course, she didn’t hear it the way I meant it.

“Believe me, this was as much of a surprise to me,” she said. And she left it at that. She didn’t do the thing that women so often do when they make some mistake and then get overly apologetic.

“It’s not just the restaurant. You also had this hidden.”

I have to admit, I think I said it just to have an excuse to reach out and touch her. To feel that hair. It was as heavy and silky as it looked. Like a doll’s. “You attract a lot of attention with that hair.”

“That’s why I usually wear it up. But I think I’m pretty safe from attention here.”

“Do you?” I asked.

“In a room filled with families and screaming kids, yes.”

“A man doesn’t stop being a man when he gets married and has kids,” I told her.

It never made sense to me that this fact always seems to surprise women—that they somehow think a man will get married and then never notice a beautiful woman again, that he’ll never desire anyone other than his wife. How can you ever have a true relationship without understanding that instinct doesn’t get snuffed out by two words in a ceremony?

And, unfortunately, it looked like her opinions were the same as the others’. She frowned at me, but then I saw her glance at my hand, and I realized she wasn’t frowning at the general concept; she was thinking that I was talking about myself.

“My brother is married and has two kids. That’s how I know,” I said. But then I added, “And, just so you know, I think every man in here watched you as you crossed the room.”

I looked around at the men, and then I noticed him. I couldn’t believe my radar hadn’t picked up on him before. A big guy. Blond. You could tell that he’d been good-looking at one point, but he was starting to lose it, as men often do when they settle into career and family, start eating too much from the boredom of it all, and then compound that by watching too much television as a way of trying to escape the trap of “have to’s” and checklists their life has become.

This guy was sitting there, glaring at me like he wanted to strangle me, and I knew the girl I had sitting across from me wasn’t as free as she claimed to be. There was a man in this room to whom she belonged. I could see it in that glare. It was unmistakable.

I said, “And there’s one over there to your right who is looking at me like he wants to kill me.”