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“THAT’S A NICE DRESS,” a warm voice opined, and she looked up, not affronted but curious.
He was tall, slightly greying at the temples, but with a full head of well-groomed hair, and his smiling eyes were warmly awaiting her response.
Hazel drew in her breath trying to compose something appropriate in response, when all the time she knew, inwardly, that she was flattered and privately welcomed the compliment. It had been some time since words had caressed her ego so, and she felt the slight rush of pleasure from the flattery.
After forty, she surmised they would come less often and certainly with less and less conviction.
“Thank you ... can I help you find something?” She felt this was rather professional and very much ‘the thing’ after one had been complimented in such an obvious way.
He looked at her again and realized that perhaps he had overstepped the bounds of decorum, and that would be the last thing he would wish to be forgotten for.
“Oh, excuse me ... I suppose nowadays one is not supposed to comment on someone’s clothing and appearance, but I am from a time when admiration could be taken at face value for what it is ... simply that. And so I apologize if I have offended you with my honest observation. But it is a nice dress, and you do it undoubted justice.”
He stood very tall and erect and didn’t flinch from the rebuke she may decide to cast his way – if in fact she had found his remark overly familiar. But, far from resenting it, she instead enjoyed the old-fashioned gallantry and surveyed her admirer: a lean, handsome, quietly tanned man in maybe his late forties, dressed in what she could only describe as the sharpest suit she had seen in a long, long while. His clothes looked like he had been very accustomed to the best of tailoring, and the rich blue silk tie against the cream of the Sea Island cotton shirt made his blue eyes pop. Hazel was intrigued.
“We have some new Hockneys in the contemporary section over there, if you were interested.” She knew she sounded weak, but her professional persona was being assailed by the simple presence of this man. After all, when a woman turns forty, the field narrows considerably, and specimens such as the one before her were rather thin on the ground.
Hazel struggled to pull herself together, whilst still under that intensely admiring gaze that was turning her head upside down and toying with her professionalism. Good god, I’m acting like a sixteen-year-old on a first date ... how embarrassing.
She wondered if it was obvious, and how all the years of life experience had deserted her in the face of an unbeatable foe: naked charm.
She looked up again, and he was still there with those smiling eyes warmly inviting her to continue their exchange. “No, thanks ... I think I’ll just look around and see if anything catches my eye.”
She watched the smile crease his attractively tanned face as he ended his sentence, and she also caught the double entendre as his eyes lifted towards her, aware that she would know he was flirting, just a little, with her. She looked down and away from his gaze in an effort to avoid betraying her pleasure in his attention, and then as she looked up again he was gone, probably mixing with the small milieu of clients further inside the gallery.
Damn! she thought and reflected on how cruel life can be for any single lady stepping into that fifth decade; having moved past her late thirties, and with the ease of her twenties regretfully disappearing into a distant, fond memory.
Hazel had just celebrated her fortieth birthday a few weeks ago amidst teasing and light-hearted jibes stressing the passage of time. But that playful teasing had somewhat hurtfully suggested her perhaps no longer being ‘the main interest’ when entering a room, and she felt the underlying truth taint the merriment of the occasion.
Yes, there was some foundation to it all, and she had to admit that maybe her prime had passed, and she now faced the future with a fleeting whiff of despair at the cruelty of time and its ability to reduce her appeal to now merely being attractive but not the stuff of wild passion or ardent cravings.
It was crazy. Just yesterday she had felt the appreciating and fantasizing eyes follow her body as she moved about, and secretly caress every contour of her motion, but now it had all drifted away to the point where she imagined those eyes passing by her and resting on a younger, more stimulating target.
“Hi, Hazel.” The designer-clad newcomer turned, shook her umbrella from the rain, and placed it in a brolly basket. “I hear you had a birthday ... turned forty.” She rested an affectedly comforting hand on Hazel’s forearm, the weight of the gem-stoned rings making a decided impression on Hazel’s skin.
“Listen to me, Hazel” – she popped a Tic Tac and cast her eye around the room – “it’s now or never, girl ... gotta get out there and get a guy now, or it’s game over.” She leant in closer to impart her aged wisdom. “Look, I know what I’m talking about. I’m sixty-eight years old and I’ll tell you, it only lasts so long. So get out there and hook one cos the sea is drying up.” She took a sip from a small bottle of San Pellegrino before concluding, “And don’t believe any of that rubbish that there’s more fish in the sea ... cos there ain’t, they’ve all been caught.”
Hazel smiled a somewhat forced acknowledgement out of politeness and felt the worse for the fact that the nonsense of it all did have some basis in reality. She knew that.
She was on her own, and she was forty. The prospects didn’t look exactly rosy.
She tried to refocus on her work, but the recent birthday and the commiserations of relatives sympathizing with her unmarried state had only aggravated the issue in her mind.
People continued to come in, and she greeted them as she should, with lots of professional etiquette and small talk before ushering them through to the inner display area of the boutique art gallery where the exhibition was being held.
It was a very upmarket gallery in a very upmarket part of town; the part of town that appeared regularly in the society pages of the glossy magazines, and Hazel did enjoy the proximity to wealth and leisure and comfort. The country houses, the summer parties, the special events that would each cost more than the small apartment she lived in – but she was invited, included, and so the luxury rubbed off and made her feel almost part of this world.
Only, she wasn’t. She knew that. Inside she knew she was merely embracing and enjoying the glow from the wealth and position, but at the end of the day she was just an employee, not one of the insiders. She was the manager of an exclusive art gallery but nothing more. She was not an entitled denizen of the wealthy wonderland, and she never would be.
“I think I’ve found something I like.” Hazel looked up and he was there again. The man was even more elegant than when he had made his way into the babbling throng. In fact he had emerged with an extra lustre, it didn’t seem possible, but he had.
She gathered her wits again and pushed her musings to the back of her mind, “Oh, yes?”
“Yes.” He didn’t move at all, appearing so self-possessed. He didn’t reach for words; they seemed to volunteer to do his bidding.
“Okay ... can you tell me what has taken your interest?” Hazel reached for a pad to make a note.
“You.” He gazed at her with a twinkle in his eyes and an unabashed smile on his lips.
It was absolutely flooring in its directness, and Hazel struggled to keep up with the laser simplicity of his delivery.
“I beg your pardon?” She had heard very correctly and very well, but this was all she could manage under the weight of his charm assault.
“I said I am interested in you.” The handsome stranger smiled again, and she inwardly wanted to hug him, but instead she stood a tad stiffly, unsure of what to do.
He could tell she was pleased but could also see that she was at a disadvantage being here at work, and so he tried to alleviate her concern for her situation. “Look, I’m simply asking you to come out one evening and have dinner with me.” He glanced around casually to check that they were alone and not being overheard.
“So ... I’ve looked at the paintings, but I think I’ve decided on my choice.” He was watching her face, and he couldn’t resist ending where he had begun, “And I like that dress ... particularly the way you wear it.”
Other patrons were starting to move towards them and so, feeling the urgency of the moment, he drew out a card and jotted down a number on the back. He offered it to Hazel, whispering confidentially, “Call me when you’re free ... any time you’re free.”
As the tall figure gracefully negotiated the gallery door, standing politely aside to let in yet another pair of bejewelled Sloane Rangers, Hazel read the name printed on the card in elegant script:
What a lovely name, she thought.
