Rules Get Broken (22 page)

“Yes, I did. Because this is a date. Just not that kind of date.”

I decided to call this latest exchange with the voice a draw. It was time to pick up Nancy.

Nancy stood in front of her closet in her bra and panties and pushed one outfit after another aside, trying to find something “appropriate” for a night like this. She characterized each outfit out loud to herself as she slid the hangers from right to left.

“Too somber.”

“Too cheerful.”

“Too sexy. God, I can’t wear that!”

“Too frumpy.”

“Too old.”

Finally on the fourth pass through everything she owned, she settled on a maroon velvet dress.

“Not too cheerful but not too somber either,” she said, holding the dress out in front of her. “A little sexy but not too sexy. And I look good in it.”

She took the dress off the hanger, stepped into it and reached behind her to pull up the zipper. She turned around and looked at herself in the full-length mirror on the wall opposite the closet, smoothing out the material as she turned. She stood in front of the mirror for several seconds, and she liked what she saw.

I should have another Tom Collins
, she thought.
He’ll be here in twenty minutes.
Panic started to rise again in the pit of her stomach.
But if I do that, I’ll be half in the bag when he gets here. But, God, I am so scared. What if I can’t think of anything to say? What if I say the wrong thing? I wonder if it’s okay to talk about what happened? Or should I wait until he brings it up? I better wait until he brings it up.

The hell with it. I’m going to have another Tom Collins before he gets here.

She was on her way back from the kitchen, her drink in hand, when the telephone rang.

Don’t tell me he’s not coming
, she thought as she picked up the receiver.
Not after all the worrying I’ve done.

“Nan?”

She let out a sigh of relief. “Hi, Mom. How are you?”

“I’m calling to see if you’re okay.”

“I’m okay. Just a little nervous.”

“I hope you know what you’re doing, Nancy.”

“Me too.”

“I still can’t believe he asked you out on a date.”

“This isn’t a date. He just needs someone to talk to.”

“Yeah, right.”

“Mom, he’s going to be here any minute. I have to go.”

“Be careful, will you? Promise me you’ll be careful?”

“I will. I promise.”

“Call me tomorrow, and let me know how everything went.”

“I will. But now I gotta go.”

“I just hope you know what you’re doing.”

“Gotta go, Mom. Bye.”

Nancy hung up the receiver and rested her head against the wall for a few seconds with her eyes closed. She gave a sigh and went into the living room to put a James Taylor album on the stereo. She turned the volume down so her landlord wouldn’t pound his cane on the floor upstairs, then walked back to the mirror one last time. Satisfied that she was ready, she sat down on the couch and took a sip of her drink.

Nothing to do now but wait.

At two minutes to seven, I turned onto Elm Street. True to its name, large, old elm trees lined both sides of the street. A few were healthy and strong, but most were either dead or dying or badly damaged by lightning strikes and hurricanes. Most of the homes on the street were old and large as well, some brick, some clapboard, one of stucco, but a few were modest, middle-class split-level houses built in the fifties and sixties, probably on property that had once belonged to the owners of the larger, older homes.

Nancy lived in one of these split-levels. The owner lived on the second floor and had converted part of the ground floor into an apartment to supplement a retirement income. Nancy was his tenant. Her landlord’s home, like most of the other homes on the street, was well kept. The lawn and shrubs did not appear to be professionally maintained, but were nevertheless well manicured. To the right of the steps leading up to the front door was a one-car garage, to the left a narrow concrete walk from the sidewalk to a ground level side entrance. According to Nancy’s directions, that was the door to her apartment.

The house was on the left as I came down the street, so I turned into the driveway to turn the car around and park in front of the house. As I backed out, I noticed that a man cutting his lawn across the street was watching me, as was a woman watering some flowers next door. By the time I pulled up next to the curb behind Nancy’s car, both had stopped what they were doing, and neither of them made any attempt to conceal their interest in me. I got out of my car and gave the man across the street a quick smile and a quicker nod, the attention I was getting reminding me that I didn’t belong here. I pushed the thought aside and started up the walk to Nancy’s apartment.

When I reached the side entrance, I found the inside door open, and through the outer screen door, I heard music coming from inside the apartment. I rang the doorbell, and the music stopped almost immediately, followed by the sound of high heels on a hard floor. And then Nancy appeared.

“Hi,” she said as she pushed the screen door open and pulled the inside door closed behind her. She stepped out into the early evening light. “You’re right on time.”

I smiled and attempted to appear at ease. “I try to be,” I answered. “Don’t always succeed, but I try to be.”

She turned away for a second, locked the inside door and let the screen door close by itself. Then she faced me.

I was momentarily speechless. To begin with, I was struck by how young she looked. She couldn’t have been more than twenty-four, twenty-five at most. She was a kid compared to me. But I also couldn’t believe how attractive she was. She was about five-four, had beautifully smooth tanned skin, deep green eyes set far apart, and soft, short brown hair tinged with gold from the sun. She wore a deep maroon velvet dress with a scoop neck and short sleeves, and black heels. She had broad shoulders and broad hips, and she was big-breasted. She wasn’t thin, but she certainly wasn’t fat. She was shapely, quite shapely, and she looked…soft. Wonderfully soft. But most of all, I was taken aback by how wonderful she smelled. Even though we were standing probably four feet apart, she exuded the smell of soap, shampoo and perfume. So for that first second or two, I just stood where I was and savored her smell.

“Did you have any trouble finding me?” Nancy asked.

“No, none whatsoever. Your directions were fine,” I stammered, trying to regain my composure.

“So where are we going?”

“A place in Locust Valley called Caminari’s,” I answered. “I think you’ll like it. If you like Italian food, that is.”

“I do,” she responded enthusiastically. “I’m part Italian.”

“Then I guessed right. Shall we?”

Nancy said yes with her smile, and I followed her down the walk to my car.

As I opened the car door for her, I saw that my new friend across the street had not yet resumed cutting his lawn, but rather had watched everything Nancy and I had done up to that moment.

“Quite a watchdog you’ve got across the street,” I said as I slid behind the steering wheel.

“What do you mean?” Nancy asked.

I indicated the guy with a nod of my head. “He stopped cutting his grass the minute I arrived, and he’s been watching me ever since.”

“I guess he’s not used to seeing a man come to my apartment,” Nancy suggested.

I looked over at her as I pulled away from the curb to see if she was serious, but she was staring straight ahead, so I couldn’t tell for sure.

The scent of soap and shampoo and perfume filled the car while I waited for traffic to allow me to turn onto Roslyn Road.
This is crazy
, I thought.
Here I am, thirty-four years old, sitting next to a woman probably ten years younger than I am—admittedly a very lovely woman, but still probably ten years younger—and a perfect stranger, and I’m taking her out to dinner, and my wife died two weeks ago this morning. I must be out of my mind!

I made my turn onto Roslyn Road and began to accelerate.

I don’t believe I’m doing this. I really don’t. But it’s too late to worry about it…so I won’t.

A quick look over at Nancy again, then back to the road and the traffic in front of us.

God, she smells good.

Caminari’s was the perfect spot for the type of evening I had planned—an upscale restaurant with thick carpet, heavy draperies, starched white tablecloths and soft lighting—known for good food, attentive service and, most importantly, the kind of quiet, subdued atmosphere that the locals demanded and that was ideal for conversation. Caminari’s was located on the northeast corner of the only intersection in Locust Valley, a delightful little village where employees of the wealthy came to shop for their employers, and where the wealthy came to browse through its antique shops, dress shops or saddlery—or to eat at Caminari’s.

This was a Sunday night, so the restaurant was even quieter than usual. The maitre d’ showed us to a table for four in the far left corner with a window on either side looking out onto the streets that formed the intersection. He pulled out a chair for Nancy in front of one of the windows, and I took the chair in the corner. He unfolded our napkins for us, placed them in our laps, welcomed us to Caminari’s and asked if we would like something to drink.

“What’s your pleasure?” I asked Nancy.

“I don’t know,” she answered tentatively. “What are you going to have?”

“I’m going to have a scotch on the rocks,” I replied.

She thought for a second, and then looked up at the maitre d’.

“I’d like a Tom Collins, please.”

He turned to me.

“And a J & B on the rocks with a twist.”

He gave a slight bow and was gone. We were alone.

I watched him walk across the dining room towards the bar and turned to Nancy. “So how long have you been living in Roslyn?” I asked.

“Four weeks as of yesterday.”

“Oh, you just moved in,” I said, immediately wondering why I had just stated the obvious. “And before that you were living at home, right?”

“Yes,” Nancy replied.

“Then this is a whole new experience for you. Living on your own, I mean.”

She nodded.

“Do you like it?”

“I do. Very much. Don’t get me wrong. I love my parents, and I love our home, but I thought the time was right for me to be out on my own.”

Neither of us said anything for a moment.

“I gather you work in Manhattan?” I asked, afraid to let the silence go on for too long.

“Yes,” she answered with a smile that I took to be tinged with a little bit of pride. “For
National Geographic
magazine.”

“What do you do there?”

“I’m the administrative assistant to the Eastern advertising manager. It’s not what I expected to be doing with my life, but it’s exciting, it’s fun and it pays well. So I’m not complaining.”

“What did you expect to be doing?”

“Well, I was a biology major in college. And my plan was to become a veterinarian. But I dropped out at the end of my sophomore year.”

Nancy looked around the dining room for a moment, seeming to consider whether or not she should continue. “Then I went to Katharine Gibbs and enrolled in their executive secretarial program. The day after graduation I had my first interview—at
National Geographic
—and they hired me. And that’s my story.”

Something about the way she said “And that’s my story” signaled that she was finished talking about her job and the path that had led her to it, so I decided to change the subject.

But before I could think of a new topic, Nancy started to speak. “My mother tells me you’re a boater.”

“Yeah. Have been most of my life, really.”

“Do you have a boat now?” she asked.

“Yeah. A sailboat.”

“That’s cool,” she said with a smile. “What kind? Not that I’d know what you’re talking about, I guess. I don’t know anything about sailboats. Our family has always had powerboats.”

“Well, mine is a sloop, which means it has one mast. And it’s an O’Day. Not the best or most expensive, but a good boat.”

“How big?”

“Thirty feet.”

“Wow, it’s a real boat then. Not a Sunfish you sail off the beach.”

I couldn’t help smiling. “No, it’s a real boat. With bunks, galley, dining area, head with shower. The whole nine yards.”

“My family’s been boating ever since I can remember,” Nancy said, “and my childhood centered around the water and boats. In fact, my parents are still boaters. But I’ve never been on a sailboat.”

“Well, maybe sometime I can take you out on mine,” I said without thinking.

She looked at me, seemed to consider saying something, changed her mind and then nodded, barely noticeably. She seemed to pull back.

Now why did I say that?
I thought.
Totally inappropriate. What the hell is the matter with me?

Fortunately, before the silence could go on for too long, a waiter brought our drinks. Nancy pulled the wrapper off the top of the straw in her glass and was about to take a sip when I proposed a toast. I raised my glass to hers, and she hesitantly brought hers to mine.

“Thanks for saying yes to tonight,” I said.

“You’re welcome,” she replied uneasily. Then, “So…how are you doing?”

I knew she was going to ask me that question at some point in the evening, and I had prepared a safe response—one that wouldn’t be totally honest, but at the same time, one that wouldn’t make me come apart in front of a complete stranger. Unfortunately, I forgot what I had planned to say.

“I don’t know, to be perfectly honest,” I said instead. “I know that sounds weird, but looking inside where I’d find the answer is too painful. So I don’t. Look inside, I mean.” I scanned the dining room slowly as I spoke. I knew if I made eye contact with Nancy, I’d lose my composure before I could answer her question.

“I go to work. I come home. I have dinner with my kids and my parents. I put my kids to bed. I look at TV with my parents. I go to bed. The next morning I get up and do it all over again. That’s the way things have been since a week ago Thursday when I went back to work.”