I am a hopeful person, I think. Hope doesn’t require belief, or even confidence. I hope the world will not explode into annihilation and self-immolation, and I ground that hope in the growth of international economic dependencies, so it seems to me reasonable. On that Sunday afternoon in April, I stood at the top of the steps of the Metropolitan Museum in a windy sunlight, full of hope. But not greedy: I hoped only that she would arrive.
When I saw her getting out of a taxi, I started down. The staircase stretched between us, a descent of shallow steps, impossible to run down. I don’t know what I thought would happen if I didn’t get to her on time.
She wore a pale, flowery yellow skirt and matching blouse, more little-girl Liberty prints. She stopped a few steps below me. Her expression gave me warning. “Hello,” she said.
“It’s good to see you.” I was openly eager.
“I almost didn’t come.”
Despite my effort, she had gone ahead and done it, leaving me no choice but the truth. “I was afraid of that.”
“But I decided it wouldn’t be right just to stay away. Just not show up.”
“I would have wondered,” I said. People moved around us but we stayed as we were, with the steps between us. “If I’d gone too far.” I gave her the opening.
“I didn’t want you to think I’m the kind of girl—woman, person—who is frightened off by reality. Sex. Or whatever. You know, that old cliché, the person who just wants some daydream. Or just to tease. I don’t think I am. But I thought I ought to come and say I wasn’t going to come.” Her hand shaded her eyes. Her skirt snapped against her calves. She had something more to tell me. I didn’t know what it would be, so I spoke with unmitigated neutrality. “That was thoughtful of you.”
She took a breath. “There’s a man, Gregor.”
And he wasn’t me. The Someone Else had entered the scene, and there was too much I didn’t know about her. It never crossed my mind that she might be lying in order to brush me off gently. It took me a while to ask, “Do you love him?”
“I used to.” Remembering made her smile, a little ironic lifting of the corners of her mouth.
I tried to understand what she was telling me. That her one true love still burned in her heart so that whatever she had to offer me was ashes from that fire? Or—she had used the past tense—that she was somehow still committed to the man? “Do you love him now?” I asked.
She thought of her answer, thought it over. I thought of what I knew about her: she was truthful, she was compliant.
“I don’t know,” she said, finally.
That was all I needed to hear. I moved down the steps.
“But it’s not as simple as that, you know it’s not.”
I knew then that she found me as attractive as I hoped.
“What’s your last name, Gregor?”
“Rostov.”
“Rostov like in War and Peace?” That amused her.
“Rostov like in War and Peace,” I agreed. If she wanted to ask questions, that was a good sign.
“Do you have brothers and sisters?” The wind blew her hair into her eyes and she raised a hand to hold it back.
“I’m one of four children.”
“Which one?”
“The youngest.” Lest she run out of questions, I gave her information: “I haven’t seen any of them for years.” Fifteen years, now I thought of it: a long time. An awfully long time, now I thought of it.
“Why not?”
“I left home.”
She was gathering information about me. “So you’re a self-made man,” she concluded.
“Yes.”
There was a long pause.
“I don’t know what to say,” she said.
“I don’t think expressions of sympathy are in order.”
And she smiled. “No.” The smile faded. “I know it sounds dumb but—I know I’m naive, and a cliché and—You aren’t a criminal of some kind, are you? I’m serious.”
I stopped laughing. “I’m not. Honestly.”
“Because I’m not very good at judging people. I live a fairly narrow life, and I’m never sure of my opinions. Or sure of myself, for that matter.” This worried her. “I sometimes think that’s why I keep going to school, because as long as I’m in school I don’t have to…But even there I’m not sure. I’m not so sure I’m smart enough. It could be just because of who my family is. Schools do that, hoping for bequests, and I don’t blame them. Everybody does it.”
I couldn’t, in conscience, argue the point.
“So I never know…”
It was time for me to make it easy for her. “You’re not married, are you?”
“No.” A quick answer for a silly question.
“Well then, we could go see this exhibit.” I gave her a little time to follow the non sequitur backwards. “Or,” I offered, “if I make you uncomfortable, you could go home.” I looked into her face. “I do like the way you lift your chin when you laugh, Alexis.”
She was relaxed again and would fall in with my plans. “I’m not uncomfortable with you,” she said.
Whatever the crisis was, I’d maneuvered her past it. “Then, after, we could have dinner and—I’ve been wondering what it would be like to dance with you.”
The wind pulled at her blouse. “I can’t—”
I interrupted her. “Not a disco,” I promised. “But foxtrots, and anything else based on the box step. Remember the box step? We might go as far as a waltz.”
I put my hand out to her, a gesture she could ignore if she wished to. She took my hand. “Yes,” she said to me. “I’d like that. Yes.”
We went back up the steps together, hands clasped. I didn’t mind if there was another man. I was looking for marriage, not love.