Saturday Night
My movie date with Alex began with dinner at his place, a freshly painted one-bedroom carved out of a tall Victorian on Irving Street. Off-street parking, yes; landlords Dominican, nice couple, on the premises and handy; roommates, none.
He seared steak expertly in a cast-iron skillet, narrating at my request: “Salt in the pan, as hot as you can get it. Cook one minute; flip; another minute; flip; four minutes total”—smoke alarm going off but handled with aplomb.
He’d made a salad with what I considered advanced ingredients—pears, blue cheese, walnuts, homemade vinaigrette. ‘Impressive,” I said.
Mid-tossing, he pushed back on that: no big deal.
“Why so modest?” I asked.
He pointed to the oven window, to the crinkle-cut French fries baking inside. “See. From a package. Nothing to brag about. Frozen.”
I said, “Steak frites. Perfect. And by the way, I grew up on Tater Tots. I loved them. Did you know that the name is trademarked?”
“I did not. Interesting.”
I sat down at the round table, silently vowing to do better at small talk. His place mats made me smile: plastic, white on black, giant spiderwebs. One iris in a tall water glass. Black linen napkins. There were candles in brass candlesticks. He brought the steaks to the table on an oval platter commemorating the hundredth anniversary of the Wright Brothers’ flight at Kitty Hawk. “They should rest,” he said, back-tracking for matches, then dimmed the overhead light, returned, and lit the candles. The wine, of course, was red, served without fanfare, without swirling it in his glass, without inhaling pretentiously, without lecturing about notes of this and notes of that. “Italian,” was his only comment when I said, “Delish.”
The rested steaks were served. As I cut into mine, I paused, suddenly reminded of a blind date with an unhappy outcome.
“Everything okay?” Alex asked.
I told him: I’d suddenly flashed back to a regrettable dinner where my date cut everything on his plate into little pieces before he took one bite, probably like his mother used to do for him.
“And did that mark the end of him?”
Was he asking how judgmental I was? “Nothing was good,” I said. “We hardly talked.” I skipped that we’d accidentally chosen a cash-only restaurant and only I had cash, which would’ve been okay if he hadn’t reacted as if he’d just scored a free ribeye.
Alex volunteered that he’d dated a woman who always had to ask the waiters if the Szechwan chicken or the Kung Pow chicken or the Moo Shu chicken or the chimichanga was made with white meat. If the answer was no, she’d change her order. Or worse—she’d offer to pay an upcharge for the preferred white meat. Excruciating.
“Even the chimichanga? Very bad. She was not the woman for you.”
“Plus . . . I hate to even say it . . . she claimed she was allergic to wine.”
I took another sip, pronounced it the best red ever, and the steak delicious, just the way I like it.
“I know, medium.”
“Always a safe guess.”
“No. I remembered our burgers.”
How many men would remember what someone ate on a first date, let alone its internal temperature? I said, “They were memorable—named after the chanteuses. I think I had the Billie Holiday.”
“There was a Billie Holiday, but you had the Ella Fitzgerald and I had the Herbie Hancock.”
“Let’s toast those greats,” said I, the jazz ignoramus.
We did, pausing between clink and sip to exchange smiles that felt to me like declarations.
I’d brought dessert, a lattice-topped apple pie. When he claimed it was his favorite pie, I asked, “Are you being polite? Because if you invite me back, I want to bring what truly is your number one pie.”
“You’re definitely invited back . . . but . . . Okay. If under oath: lemon meringue. My mother used to make it, and it looked like it could go on a magazine cover. She was a really good baker.”
Was. No wonder his tone had gone from teasing to solemn. “Is your mom . . . no longer with us?”
“She died in June.”
“June! Last June? That’s practically yesterday. I’m so sorry.”
“It wasn’t sudden.”
“Cancer?”
He nodded.
“What was her name?”
“Alice. Why?”
I said, “That’s the kind of question girls ask.”
“Better than most questions I get.”
“Such as?”
“How am I doing? Is your dad going to keep the house? Is he down-sizing? Moving to Florida? And how about this: a so-called good friend of hers asked if she could keep, i.e. get back the earrings she’d given my mother on her last birthday.”
I put my fork and knife down. “Someone actually asked you that?”
“A neighbor she played tennis with.”
“Okay to ask how your dad is doing?”
“He gets up. He goes to work. He goes home. He goes to the cemetery. My older brother has two kids that my dad is crazy about.”
He changed the subject back to the pie; asked where I got it because the crust was excellent. I told him about the non-profit bakery on Grace that helped veterans. I should’ve picked up ice cream—
He cut off my apology by going to the fridge, came back with a half-gallon of supermarket vanilla, and a metal ladle. The scooping seemed to dispirit him. I said no, just pie, neat. He helped himself to another slice, neglecting to ask me. I knew what was distracting him: thoughts of his mother or, at the very least, her pies, beautiful ones undoubtedly topped in bronzed meringue. I leaned closer across the table and said, “I’m going to kiss you now, okay?”
He smiled, wiped his mouth in swashbuckling fashion and said, “I don’t want no mercy kiss.”
I said, “Not even close.”
He kissed me back, then went straight to the question of whether I had my heart set on seeing Little Women.
I said, “Beth dies. Do we really need to go through that tonight?”
“Can’t now, not after that spoiler.”
“I thought everyone knew that! Maybe it’s just girls. We were raised knowing one sister dies. Sorry!”
“Apology accepted. We’ll watch something uplifting here.”
“Dishes?” I asked. “It’s the least I can do.”
He didn’t say “No, I’ll do them after you leave”. He said “I’ll do them tomorrow.”
Most obligingly, he agreed to a romantic comedy after a search under—my suggestion—Hugh Grant. It was after 9 p.m. A movie would end around 11. Not very late. But then what? On and off through Notting Hill I wondered, what now? At what point would I confess that I’d thought a sleepover was a possibility and I’d come prepared, contraceptively. Would that be pushy? Or clinical? What if he said, “I’m sorry. There’s been a misunderstanding. This is only our second date, and didn’t your Southern-Belle college suite-mates drum the three-date rule into you?”
After Julia Roberts found her way back to Hugh Grant and his flat, Alex asked if I’d like to watch another movie. Or an episode of something I’d been binging on?
“If it won’t be too late . . .”
He checked his watch. “Maybe midnight. I could order an Uber. Or not order an Uber. Your call.”
I asked if he remembered my roommates.
“Of course. Very subtle, those two.”
“I know. Like the Mack trucks of matchmaking. When I was leaving tonight, one of them yelled ‘If you don’t come home, we won’t worry.’”
He asked, “Where’s your phone?”
I retrieved it from my coat, on his tightly made double bed, and returned to the couch.
He dictated. I texted, Having a wonderful time. Don’t wait up.