What Was I Thinking? (11 page)

He did his imitation of a fish again, and then
he spoke quietly. “I am most dreadfully sorry for having humiliated,
embarrassed, and confused you. I meant everything I said and did, but I now
realize that it was not clear to you what I meant.”

He swallowed hard, and looked around, as if
searching for rescue. I gave him a narrow look and waited. “It does not seem
right to speak of such things, but I was truly moved by affection and desire
when we kissed. You
are
quite
beautiful, you know, and the revelation that you actually believed in my work…”
He trailed off and swallowed again. What was wrong with him?

I rolled my eyes and waited. “I-I think I might
be in love with you.”

Whatever.

“I did not think you attacked me, or forced
yourself on me in any way. It was just that your—” he looked around, as if
checking for eavesdroppers, and lowered his voice “it was just that your
response, shall we say, was so warm, that it, while quite pleasant,” Pleasant!
I suppressed a snort. I didn’t know what it would take to get him moving again
if he stalled out.

“While quite pleasant indeed, its extreme
warmth, uh, woke me up to the realization of how improperly I had behaved. I
felt that my only choice was to return you to your home and leave you as
quickly as possible, lest I lose control behave even more like a cad.”

I looked at him in silence for a moment. Was he
nuts, or had he just had an extremely isolated life? The jury was still out. It
was also still deliberating whether he was worth all this trouble and
confusion.

“And that’s your explanation? You were rude to
me, rejected me, and dumped me off at home to avoid being a ‘cad’?”

“Well, yes. Though it was not at all my
intention to be rude to you or reject you. I thought—” apparently my icy stare
was still working at full strength, because he stopped again and swallowed
hard.

“I thought that you would be glad I had been
gentleman enough to stop myself before you did anything you would regret.”

“Uh huh.
Well, thanks for the favor,
Bert.”

“Oh, you are quite welcome, quite welcome
indeed.” He wiped his forehead with a spotless, white handkerchief and looked
relieved. Apparently they didn’t have sarcasm on his planet.

I leaned back, looked at the sky, and thought.
On the one hand, he had apologized, and seemed honestly to have meant well the
whole time. On the other hand, he was at least slightly nuts, and he really had
hurt me. Back on the first hand again, he was smart, polite, charming,
extremely good-looking, liked me, thought I was beautiful, and sent flowers and
poems. And I was lonely. I could put up with a little weirdness, if it didn’t
get any worse.

I blew out a breath at the sky, straightened
up, and looked at him. “I see where you’re coming from. I still think it was
completely weird and you hurt me a lot, but I do see that you meant well. Do
you still want to see the zoo together, or are we finished?”

He revived like a flower under a watering can,
straightening and smiling immediately. “Oh, yes, let’s definitely go to the
zoo. You won’t regret it, I promise.”

Weird again.
I just barely restrained myself
from shaking my head as I got up.

“I promise you I won’t regret it twice, Bert.
If you get upset again, you
talk
to
me about what’s going on, you don’t just dump me, do you understand? Behave
like that again, and that’s it.”

“You aren’t happy that I…that we…that I stopped
us before anything more improper happened?” He looked very confused and
unhappy.

I shut my eyes and took a deep breath. Opening
my eyes again, I said evenly, “No, I am not happy about that, Bert. You take
responsibility for your own behavior, and I’ll be responsible for mine. If you
feel the need to stop something you’ve started, speak to me right then, and
explain clearly. No more weirdness. Do you understand?”

“Yes?” he said. “Yes, I um, I do think so. It’s
just that you’re so…so very different from any other young lady I’ve…”

He looked truly miserable and I took pity on
him. “Let’s just go look at the zebras, Bert.”

We went to the zoo. The zebras were lovely.
Everything was. We strolled slowly along the old, paved paths of the zoo,
walking in and out of shadow, looking at the animals when they caught our
attention, and walking past unhurriedly when the view was obscured by the
throng, or when we just weren’t interested in the particular animals. By common
consent, we skipped the indoor exhibits, shunning the noise and smells of the
enclosed spaces.

We watched the people as much as the animals,
smiling at the toddlers and their excitement, chuckling over family groups
acting out familiar mini-dramas. I felt as if I’d known Bert forever. There was
no pressure of any kind. What I did for a living didn’t matter, we didn’t talk
politics,
there
was no schedule we had to keep. It was
just a sunny afternoon in a well-run zoo, with easy chat and easy silences.

I felt the tension melting away from my neck
and shoulders, as if I were sinking into a bubble bath, or getting a great
shoulder rub. It made me realize how much of the time I spent tense, either
dealing with problems or braced against the coming of the next.

It seemed natural to tell him about my problems
at work. I didn’t think it through, or consciously decide to ask for help—I
just started telling him about my week. He seemed interested, so I kept going.

“Mr. Frazier is sticking to his theory that a
Gibson Girl would be a suffragette,” he shuddered a little here, “and that this
should somehow be appealing to purchasers of cosmetics?”

“Yep.
That’s it, in a nutshell. Pete
and I wear old-fashioned clothes and argue about my ‘right’ to use cosmetics,
then I wave that big sign about votes for women, he makes a speech about how
I’ve made him realize the error of his ways, and, as long as I use only
TAPI
cream, it’s okay with him. And then I say
something about only a fool would use any other brand, because
TAPI
is the highest quality, and
TAPI
Company has always supported the suffragette.”

“They haven’t, have they?” Bert was still hung
up on the suffragette/suffragist dichotomy. “Surely they never advocated
violence!”

“Probably not.
And, in fact, they probably
didn’t support women’s rights in any way until the laws changed and public opinion
changed so much that they would have lost customers if they hadn’t at least put
on a front of believing women are equals.”

He looked at me sidelong. “In other words,
they’re not only making errors in recounting political history, but they’re
lying about their own history.”

“Yep.
That’s about the size of it.”

“You don’t seem as disturbed by it as I would
have expected.”

“Bert, I’m in marketing. A large part of the
job is lying, or at least twisting the truth to look prettier than it is.” I
felt the blues start to seep back in and sighed.

“You can’t like that. I know we’re barely
acquainted, but you are a scientist, are you not? So your natural bent must be
the search for truth. And, to the extent I do know
you,
you do not seem as if you are comfortable dissembling.”

“No, I’m not. Thank you for noticing.” I smiled
ruefully at him. “I truly regret accepting the job in marketing instead of
searching harder for work in chemistry and now I’ve spent years doing this and
getting rusty on science…” I trailed off, missing the relaxed feeling.

“And the company is insisting that you dress up
in costume and act out a play wherein you behave foolishly?” I nodded. “That’s
dreadful! Surely that’s not acceptable!”

“Well, I don’t like it, but I don’t have much
choice right now, since they have a perfect excuse to fire me after my public
outburst the evening I met you and I can’t afford to be unemployed.”

“Haven’t you an income?”

“Yes, as long as I work. If I lose my job, they
stop paying me.”

“Oh. Oh, I see. Pardon me—that was an
impertinent question. Shall we stroll along the stream and see what the ducks
are up to?”

Weird again, but perfect manners
again.
It was confusing, but I thought I liked him. And it was nice to have
someone to talk to about just how bad the situation at work was. When you talk
to co-workers, you just never know who they’ll mention it to, or at what point
they’ll stop sympathizing and start thinking you’ll ruin their jobs if you
aren’t stopped. Plus, I really didn’t enjoy finding out that people I thought
of as normal, smart, and reasonably honest didn’t have any problem with some of
TAPI’s
worst excesses. It was often
better not to talk than to find out.

He pointed out the ducks fishing for their
suppers and then he started telling me about the building of the Forest Park
canal system for the 1904 World’s Fair and I relaxed again.

The ducks weren’t the only ones looking for
supper. Evening was coming on, keepers were delivering food to their various
charges, and the crowds of humans were beginning to thin. We went to the snack
bar and paid much too much for hamburgers and bottled water, which we ate at a
grubby picnic table.

As we left the picnic area, he took my hand. I
tried not to react. I thought he might stop if I called any attention to it at
all and it was nice to have my hand held. You don’t get much handholding in a
grownup life, and it’s a shame. It’s a gesture that seems so remote from a
pass, but still so physically close, that it seems to show more affection than
a kiss or a hug.

Finally, we had revisited all of our favorite
animals and viewed the ones the crowds had kept us from and the place was
nearly empty. It was time to call it a day.

On the way back to my car, Bert asked if I
would go bicycling with him Tuesday afternoon, that is, if he could arrange to
borrow a bicycle for me.

“I have a bike of my own, Bert. But I can’t go.
I work on Tuesdays.”

“Oh! I’m sorry. I just can’t get used to the
idea that a lady such as you must work.”

There were so many things in that short
sentence that I should object to, but I was tired and I really believed that he
meant well. People always claim, “I didn’t mean anything by it,” when they say
something derogatory, and it’s usually crap, but I thought Bert probably didn’t
mean anything unpleasant, so I let it go.

“I could do a bike ride tomorrow, if you like.
I don’t have anything planned.” Too late I realized that this was awfully
spontaneous for him, but the heck with it. Whatever this was—dating,
friendship, falling in love—it wasn’t going to work if I couldn’t be myself.

He blinked a little, but mastered himself and
said Sunday afternoon would be fine. He would drive his estate wagon—whatever
that was—over with his bike in it, we would load mine in too, and we would take
them to Forest Park for a ride…if, of course, that suited me.

It did and I told him so.

We had arrived at my car, still holding hands.
I fished in my pocket for my car keys, wondering just how we were going to say
good night. He had, after all, declared that he might be falling in love with
me, but he also seemed to find kissing scandalous. I did want to be myself, but
I also didn’t want to scare him off again.

He faced me, and said, “I had a very nice day
with you, Addie. Thank you for joining me.” He squeezed my hand gently, released
it,—darn!—and took my keys to open the door for me.

I got in, shrugging internally. I didn’t have
to understand him. When I wasn’t trying to, he was a very restful guy. He
handed my keys in to me, said he looked forward to seeing me tomorrow, and shut
the door. I drove off, wondering.

I looked forward to tomorrow also and it turned
out to be another nice, calm, sunny day with a pleasant but confusing man.
Turns out an “estate wagon” is
a big, old-fashioned station
wagon. With the back seats down, it took two bikes just fine. I guess a bike
rack was another technology Bert hadn’t really noticed, but this approach got
us to Forest Park.

There was nothing at all wrong with the day,
except that I kept getting sidetracked, wondering if he was interested in me or
not. He had raised mixed signals to an art form. He saw me and my bike safely
back to our places, declined an invitation to come in for some supper, thanked
me for a wonderful day, squeezed my hand, and left without a kiss again.

What was
up
with him? Other guys think third date equals sex and here we were on third or
fourth, depending on how you counted, and he wasn’t up to goodnight kiss?

All in all, I was pleased to see Susan step
into the hall as the elevator closed behind Bert.

“I hope you don’t mind, me popping out this
way, but I realized I don’t have your phone number, so…”

“Sure. No problem. What’s up?”

“If you’re not busy tonight…” she seemed
diffident, but then it was weird making friends with the person in the next
apartment. If you didn’t have equal expectations of interaction levels, it
could get very uncomfortable.