The next Friday—the day of our date—I came in early and worked a transfer car for eight hours so I could get off by three in the afternoon.
“What’s the big occasion?” Ned Martinson said when I handed him the keys and radio for 462. “It’s not like you to get off early.”
“Check please?” I said, holding out my hand.
He sat at his desk and flipped through the stack of payroll checks. “Rumor has it that you actually have a date.”
I wasn’t commenting. “Dame, por favor,” I said, when I saw him pull my check out.
“Let me give you some advice,” he said. “Women will do you in every time. Enjoy it while it lasts.”
I snatched the check from his hand. “I intend to,” I said.
“Good luck, just be sure you’re on time tomorrow.”
I took the check straight to the bank, and instead of depositing any of it, I asked for it all in cash. The teller counted out seven hundred dollars, fifty-seven cents.
My first stop was the Tuxedo Store off Sisson Avenue, where two days before I had been measured and fitted for a black tuxedo, cummerbund, bowtie and cufflinks. At first they had tried to sell me the certain latest style they were pushing, but I said I wanted to look just like Dean Martin, and it cost me more, but I wanted to do it up right. The old Italian guy at the store got a kick out of that. “Say hi to Sammy and Frank,” he called after I’d paid out the eighty-nine bucks, and took the wrapped tuxedo off the hanger, and the box of shoes under my arm. “Don’t forget to bring it back before you turn into a pumpkin.” I just smiled and nodded. I heard him say to his wife, “That boy a gotta class.”
I went to the florist and paid forty-five dollars for the white orchid corsage I had them specially make at the florist’s suggestion. “This is a classy girl,” I told her. “I want something beautiful, but not overbearing, something that she’ll tell her friends about and her mother, and they’ll think, wow, what a thoughtful, sweet guy.”
“I have just the thing,” the florist said. “A white orchid.”
I had never been to a prom. I know that had disappointed my mother, so I called and told her I had a date, and could she help me get ready, make certain I had everything in order. She had the Polaroid out again. “When are you going to introduce me to her?” she asked. “She could come over for dinner on Sunday.”
“Not yet, Mom, I don’t want to scare her away.”
“Are you embarrassed about me?”
“No, no, It’s just this is our first date. Eventually, sure, but I don’t want to rush anything.”
“I’ll do that meatloaf, and make a chocolate pie, and if she doesn’t like dogs, we’ll just lock them up in the backyard. You look so handsome, I know I say that all the time, but you are and I’m so proud of you.”
“He looks like a freak,” my sister said.
“He does not.”
“Watch it,” I said. “I’ll freak your butt all the way up to your room.”
“I’m scared.”
“You know I wouldn’t hurt you, unless you really pissed me off.”
She laughed. “You do look okay, just strange seeing you in a suit. Where are you taking her? McDonald’s?”
“Carbones,” I said.
“Carbones,” my mother said. “I’ve always wanted to go there. The food and the service. That’s classy.”
“I figure go first class or don’t go at all.”
I looked at the clock. It was seven. On cue, I heard a knock on the door, and it was an older gentleman in his chauffeur suit. My limo.
“I’ve got to run, Mom.”
“Are you forgetting something?”
“Your slot money. I’m still going to give you that on Sunday.”
“No, no, a kiss for your mom.”
But of course, and I gave her a quick twirl like she was a dancing girl, and kissed her on the cheek. “Wish me luck.”
“What kind of luck do you mean?”
“Don’t worry, I will be a gentleman.”
“She’s going to think you’re rich. You have to have protection.”
“Please.”
“I just worry. I know what young women are like, I was one.”
On the limo ride over to Carrie’s house, I thought maybe I should have covered that angle. I laid out everything I might need, and I never even thought about condoms. No, I wasn’t expecting that anyway, not on the first date. I didn’t want her to get the wrong idea about my intentions anyway. That would come in time, when she was ready.
The limo was great. I had wanted a stretch, but then I thought that would be ostentatious, not to mention more per hour. As it was, the three hour-rental was going to cost nearly three hundred bucks with the tip thrown in.
I directed the driver to the address she had given me, a condominium complex, where she rented a room in her friend’s condo.
I had told her to dress up, but I think she was overwhelmed at my tuxedo. She stood there with her mouth open. “My god, look at you.”
I smiled and pinned the corsage on her red dress. “Nothing but the best for you,” I said. “I’m taking you out.”
She looked pretty good herself. She wore a strapless dress that showed ample cleavage, and her perfume enriched my nostrils that had too rarely smelled such a scent in the circumstances of a date.
The limo driver held the door for us, and Carrie was incredulous at it all. I had a bottle of champagne on ice in the back, and we drank it on the ride, with the sky roof open, although with all the city lights you couldn’t see any stars.
“What, do you know someone who works for the limo company?” she asked.
“Don’t you worry about the arrangements. I just want you to have a good time. A toast to a beautiful woman and to the evening. Here’s to being young and alive.”
And we clinked glasses and drank, and with each growing moment, I saw her begin to look at me in a way no woman had ever looked at me before, like I was a man with real class.
At Carbone’s they gave us a booth near the kitchen, and I ordered Steak Diane for us, which they prepared en flambe at tableside. And as we ate and drank our wine, she opened up to me about her life. She told me that night that her old boyfriend, Jimmie Winslow, had told her he was working overtime to save up to buy her a ring, but she’d found out he’d really been cheating on her, so she had kicked him to the curb.
“His mistake,” I said.
She cried some, but said it was good to be back dating.
“I’m surprised you didn’t have a line of gentlemen callers at your door.”
She nearly spit her wine out. “There’s always guys who will go out with you,” she said, “but guys who want a relationship is a different story.”
“It’s a shame,” I said. “They’d be crazy not to see you for more than that.”
“It just hasn’t been my luck.”
I raised my glass and clinked with her as I said, “Well, here’s to your luck changing.”
For dessert we had Bananas Jubilee. The preparer set the flame so high that, for a moment, I thought it would hit the sprinkler and douse all of us, but we made it. I spooned some of the dessert and Carrie ate it from my spoon. I paid the bill by laying two one hundred dollar bills on the waiter’s bill holder without even checking to see the price. I had in fact earlier, added up what it would cost so I knew, with tip, the two hundred would take care of it.
“What, do you own a diamond mine?”
“No, I just believe in enjoying life. Some things are worth spending money on more than others.”
She sat close to me on the limo ride home, and rested her head on my shoulder. I walked her to the door, and I was set to just kiss her good night, when she looked back at the limo driver, and said, “Are you going to send him home?”
“Huh?”
She reached for the back of my head and moved my head toward her, and she kissed me on the lips, a soft lingering kiss with just a touch on tongue. “Send him home,” she said.
I walked back out to the curb, my hand shaking as I gave the driver the last of my money, three hundred and fifty bucks. He winked at me, and cracked his first smile of the evening. Instead of a handshake he offered me his closed fist to bump.
***
I left Carrie’s at three in the morning, and walked the two miles to my apartment. It was quiet; a half moon illuminated the night sky. While I knew that like everyone born, I would one day die on a day not of my choosing, I felt that I had much to live for. It didn’t matter that I didn’t have a penny left in my wallet. I had the scent of a woman on my skin.