See Jane Date (16 page)

Perhaps that had been the reason why Blind Dates One, Two and Three hadn't been interested. It wasn't the smoking, after all. It was my Hip Issue. And just my luck that Blind Date Four was with a doctor, whose business it was to notice such deformities.

“M
e too!” I said for the fourth time in twenty minutes to Timothy Rommely.

He smiled, revealing one perfect dimple in his left cheek, which I wanted both to pinch and kiss. “I can't believe how much we have in common,” Timothy said, taking a sip of his sangria. “I've never said or heard ‘me too' so many times on one first date. Jeff must have really put some thought into fixing us up.”

I laughed. If only he knew.

Timothy Rommely was, in a cliché, the man of my dreams. And for the past half hour, he'd been as perfect a blind date as you could get. Amanda hadn't been lying when she'd told me he looked something like Greg from
Dharma and Greg.
Six feet, lanky yet broad shouldered, with a shock of semi-short dark, dark hair and dark, dark eyes. We had similar coloring, actually, except that I was fair skinned and he was more golden. He wore cool black
pants and a black T-shirt and black shoes. Way too cool for a doctor, I thought.

A
doctor.
This perfect specimen sitting across from me at the bar of a Spanish restaurant, this guy with the sparkling almost-black eyes and irresistible dimple and sweet smile, was a certified M.D. And he hadn't even brought it up. In fact, we hadn't even gotten to the subject of our careers. We were still on favorite movies we'd seen recently, favorite books and favorite foods.

Timothy Rommely didn't glance around the bar to check out other women. He didn't belch. He didn't order cheap carafes of wine. He didn't treat me as though I weren't worth his time or energy.
Au contraire.
Timothy Rommely was gazing at me as though I were a beautiful princess.

“So, how about we head over to the restaurant? I made reservations at Café des Artistes, if that's all right.”

Café des Artistes. Only one of the most romantic restaurants in Manhattan.

I peered into those dark, dark eyes of his and wondered when he was going to reveal his Fatal Flaw. I was being set up, literally; at any moment, he would either insult me, emit a strange sound from his body, start crying, or run out of the bar. Or, he'd tell me he forgot to mention to Jeff that he'd gotten married last weekend.

Please, please, please let me have this guy,
I prayed to the Fates of the universe. Eloise and Amanda had said you
knew.
Sometimes you had to wait to find out. But right now, I
knew.
For the first time since I'd seen the movie
Jerry Maguire,
a guy had
me
at “hello.” I'd known right then and there that Timothy Rommely was a keeper.

The good doctor and I had played phone tag for the past couple of days; eventually he'd left a message asking
me to meet him at a new Spanish restaurant downtown at seven-thirty for drinks. I'd liked his voice immediately. There was warmth in his voice, and not a trace of impatience. I'd expected the opposite from a doctor.

I still had half a glass of sangria. I sipped the sweet, fruit-filled wine, a very pleasant buzz beginning to come over me. I was sure that a half glass of sangria hadn't relaxed me; my date had.

“You have really sexy toes,” he said playfully, peeking down at my Jackie Onassis red-hot toenails.

I
had sexy toenails. Who knew there was anything remotely sexy about me? My cheeks turned pink. That earned a delighted small laugh from my date. I had a feeling that if Timothy did notice my uneven hips, he'd find them interesting.

“So did you grow up in New York?” Timothy asked as he signaled the waiter for our check.

I nodded. “Queens. Forest Hills.”

The dimple appeared. “I can't believe this—another
me too!
I'm from Bayside.”

This perfect specimen of manhood had grown up in Bayside, Queens?

He sipped his sangria. “So are your parents still in Queens, or did they—like mine—move to Florida the minute you graduated from high school?”

Ah. There it was. The Date Destroyer. There would be no Café des Artistes. He'd suddenly pretend he got beeped and had an emergency at the hospital.

They're still in Queens, and in fact, when you propose marriage, my dad will throw us a wedding at the Plaza Hotel. He said he would if he could, honest.

“I lost my parents,” I said, staring at my sangria glass. I didn't know where to look. I tried to envision the expression on my face and hoped it wasn't too unnatural.

I felt his gaze on me. “I'm so sorry,” he said. “I can't begin to imagine how hard that must be. How old were you? How did it happen?”

I looked up at Timothy Rommely and fell in love.

 

Timothy Rommely had a deep, real laugh, the kind of laugh that told you he really found funny what you just said. I'd been telling him about Posh and my job, and I'd gotten up to Morgan Morgan. He hadn't gotten past her name.

“There's a Morgan Morgan with a similar name and attitude in every job,” Timothy said, that dimple taunting me. “I've got one on my rotation—Phillip Phillips the third. He actually has the stupid roman numerals on his hospital ID.”

The waiter appeared with dinner. Timothy had ordered the mahi-mahi, and I'd ordered the grilled salmon. He forked a piece of mahi-mahi and reached across the table with it to my lips. “Ladies, first.”

He'd surprised me. My lips parted and he slid the mahi-mahi into my mouth. His eyes were on my lips. My eyes were on
his
lips. “Mmm,” I murmured. “That is so good.”

I forked a piece of salmon and held it up to his lips.

“Ladies first,” he reminded me, flashing that dimple.

His expression darkened just slightly as he watched me slip the salmon into my mouth. I closed my eyes for a second, savoring the perfect flavor and texture. “Incredible.”

And then we dug in, eating, drinking, talking, laughing, sharing bites. Timothy Rommely had graduated—barely—from Princeton. He'd been premed, but he'd really wanted to be a rock star, well, a star rock bassist. His band had been named Anatomy; all the guys were premed
and headed for different medical schools, so Anatomy had broken up. He'd gone to med school in New England, and now was doing his residency at New York Hospital, which was on the Upper East Side.

“I've got my own personal William—” He paused. “What was his last name, again. Something funny…”

“Remke,” I said.

He snapped his fingers and laughed. “William Remke. That's it. The William Remke of New York Hospital is an Attending named Mark Lashman. Intimidates the hell out of everyone. Yesterday, one of my fellow residents got his head bitten off for asking a question thirty seconds before he was allowed to.”

“How did you know you wanted to be a doctor?” I asked him, sipping one of the best glasses of red wine I'd ever had. “Was it because of Sardine?” Timothy had told me that his only personal experience with loss had been the death of his beloved dog, a Border collie named Sardine. He'd had the dog since he was three years old, a Christmas present from his parents. He and his older brother had been at summer camp in the Catskills when Sardine had been hit by a car. Timothy was fourteen, his brother twelve. They'd been summoned to the camp office in the middle of a regular, average day, in the middle of lunch, which meant that something bad had happened. His parents had driven up to tell the boys about Sardine face-to-face.

Timothy nodded. “You're probably wondering why I didn't become a vet. That had always been the plan, actually. But when my brother heard about Sardine, he ran off into the woods, and no one could get him to talk for two weeks. It was really weird. We had to leave camp. After that, I'd planned to become a psychiatrist, but when
I started my internship, I found myself more interested in internal medicine. So here I am.”

Here he was indeed. “So what made your brother start talking?” I asked, spooning the tastiest, softest rice I'd ever had into my mouth.

Timothy smiled. “My dad promised my brother and me he'd help us build a tree house with separate small rooms for the both of us. That was going to be our summer project. And we built it, but we forgot to leave an opening for the doors. My brother was the one who'd told us there was no way to get in. He hasn't shut up since.”

I laughed, and so did Timothy. We smiled at each other. I suddenly wanted to tell him everything, about my last day with my father, about the Plaza and the ballroom and my wedding and the guy I was supposed to find. But I couldn't.
That
you didn't tell a guy no matter how connected you felt to him.

“Dessert?” asked the waitress as she wheeled a cart piled high with the most exquisite sugary creations I'd ever seen.

Timothy leaned close. “I know an amazing dessert place in the Village.”

Our date was going on its third round. Drinks, then dinner and now dessert. And perhaps afterward, a long walk. I couldn't imagine leaving Timothy's company. At the end of the night, when it was time to say goodbye, someone was going to have pry me away with a crowbar. Or pinch me. Because this had to be dream.

 

As Timothy and I walked north along the East River promenade, even the ugly Triborough Bridge managed to appear romantic. The Roosevelt Island tram was swinging its way high above our heads toward the little island between us and Queens. We moved out of the way of a
pack of nighttime joggers wearing reflective socks. A few couples walked slowly in each direction.

And now I was one of them. I was one of the couples that I used to look wistfully at, wishing I could be walking hand in hand down the street, down the promenade, in the park, wherever.

Timothy and I weren't holding hands, of course. Not yet, anyway. I suddenly wished I had telepathy. I wanted to know what he was thinking—of me, of our date, of whether he wanted to see me again.

The couple in front of us had lit cigarettes; we were hit full in the face with the heavy stink of exhaled smoke. Timothy grimaced and waved it away. All I could do was smile. I wasn't a smoker. Not anymore. And not once had I twitched tonight.

“I asked Jeff if you smoked,” Timothy said. “But he told me he wasn't sure. I usually wouldn't go on a blind date unless I knew for sure the woman wasn't a smoker, but something about the way he described you made me think there was something there. Something, I don't know…”

I wanted to finish his sentence. Something
special.
I hadn't been a special anything to anyone since the days when Max Reardon had still loved me.

And I wouldn't be anything to Timothy had Jeff been either unkind enough or aware enough to recall that I smoked. Or used to. Last night's decision to quit might very well get me much, much more than a date to a wedding.

“So this is you, right?” he asked as we neared the steps leading up to the 81st Street crossover.

I nodded. How had we gotten here so fast? It wasn't time for this date to end. It would never be time. But it was two o'clock in the morning.

“Are you free Tuesday night?” Timothy asked. “If you want to see me again, that is,” he added, the dimple flashing.

I felt like doing cartwheels. “Tuesday?” I repeated, pretending to mentally consult my datebook. “Yes. I'm definitely free.”

That was actually a lie. Blind Date #5, the very last one, was scheduled for Tuesday. Driscoll Something. But he could be unscheduled. Pronto.

“Tuesday, it is, then,” he confirmed. He reached out his hand and I slipped mine into his. His hand was soft and warm and big, his fingers strong and steady as a doctor's should be.

We stood on the concrete overpass between the East River and East End Avenue, the FDR Drive and its nonstop traffic whizzing directly underneath us. Timothy looked at me. And then, ever so slowly, he tilted his face and kissed me, in front of everyone who was driving south. Then he took my hand and we walked across East End Avenue to my apartment building. And with one more warm, sweet kiss, Timothy Rommely was gone, speeding away in a yellow taxi.

 

“Ooooh! Oh yeah! More, more! Yeah, Ooooooh!”

As Opera man gave it to his
Oh
Moaner, I envisioned taking a shower with Timothy Rommely. Envisioned his thick, dark hair wet against his head, his golden chest glistening and soapy, his—

“Harder. Harder! Oooh! Yeaahhhhhhh!”

I stretched out, my hands behind my neck and strained to hear Opera Man's girlfriend over the opera.

“Ooh! Yeah! Yeah!”

The phone rang and I snatched it. It had to be Eloise. Or maybe it was Gnatasha. I wouldn't put it past her to
call this late. She probably wanted to let me know she'd be five minutes early for our meeting on Monday morning to go over her revisions.

Nope. It was Eloise. “How'd it go?”

“I'm in love,” I breathed into the receiver.

“Tell me everything!” Eloise said. “Serge is sleeping, and I'm wide-awake.”