Nine Women, One Dress(19)

I arrived excited to show Sherri the Four Seasons, even if she wanted to see it for reasons I couldn’t relate to. Julian greeted me with a regular’s welcome and escorted me to my date, who was sitting at the bar with her back toward us. From behind I saw the little black dress that I’d had sent from Bloomingdale’s—but the back wasn’t Sherri’s. The woman in the dress stood and turned to face me. She smiled a warm smile. She was stunning. She was Felicia.

I was speechless and doubly confused. Not only was this not who I was expecting, but she looked so different from what I was used to. She greeted me with a kiss on the cheek.

“Hi, Arthur. You look so stunned to see me!” I was silent. “I know, I look different than I do at the office.” Silent still. “It’s just a little makeup and—”

I got myself together and interrupted her. “No, you look beautiful, Felicia. It’s so nice to see you out…at night. I’m just not used to it.” I gave a quick look around the room, making sure Sherri wasn’t sitting anywhere.

“Well, you’re the one who invited me!” She laughed. “You even sent me the dress—I assumed I should wear it!”

“Of course!” I took her arm, totally perplexed but, inexplicably, not at all unhappy about the turn of events. “Let’s go to our table.”

She grabbed her purse. “Thank you. I’ve always wanted to come to the Four Seasons. You know, Jack Kennedy ate here the night Marilyn Monroe sang ‘Happy Birthday’ to him.”

“Really? I didn’t know that.” I laughed at myself again. It was nice to get the reference this time.

“Don’t worry,” she said, “I don’t expect you to sing like that to me.”

That’s right—it was her birthday. I pieced the whole mix-up together. Sherri would be furious.

Dinner was lovely, the food and wine superb, the conversation delightful, and eventually I began to ignore the constant vibrating of my phone in my pocket, which I knew must be Sherri getting angrier and angrier. We talked about anything and everything, but the thing that touched me most was the way she talked about Marilyn. “Remember when Marilyn threw you that surprise party and I couldn’t get you to leave the office?” Or, “Remember how Marilyn always called Stanley-from-accounting’s home-wrecking girlfriend by his ex-wife’s name just to irritate her?” We laughed and laughed, and I realized that everyone around me had been scared to even mention Marilyn’s name, let alone reminisce about her. Even my daughters avoided saying “Mom.” It was as if everyone thought by bringing her up they would be reminding me of her, as if I forgot about her until someone said her name. It seemed that Felicia was the only one who knew that I was always thinking about her, that her name spoken out loud was a kind of comfort. Besides the meal and the wine and the conversation, I could not get over how pretty she was. This woman whom I had seen nearly every weekday for more than seventeen years was really very beautiful. I had just never stopped to sit across the table from her and look into her lovely blue eyes. I never even knew she had lovely blue eyes.

My phone was now vibrating on an almost continuous basis. I excused myself and called Sherri from the men’s room. She was, as I expected, furious: furious over the “old lady” cashmere shawl and the “meaningless” card, furious over missing our anniversary, completely furious that I hadn’t straightened out the situation the minute I saw Felicia, and over-the-top furious that Felicia had on her little black dress. I calmed her down as much as I could and promised to make the night a short one and come right over afterward. I said that we would reschedule and that I would make it twice as special. Just when I thought I was out of the woods she said, “Make sure you tell her that I want that dress back.” Oh, boy. I could never do that.

I walked back to the table and a strange thing happened. I saw Felicia and I felt a little flutter in my stomach. I couldn’t possibly have feelings for a woman I had worked beside for years. I chalked it up to my sweet tooth—the longing I always feel after a good meal for a little sugar. Hopefully the restaurant’s signature cotton candy and the Black Forest cake we had ordered for dessert would satiate me.

“So, besides dinner at the Four Seasons, what else is on your New York bucket list?” I asked.

“I’ve never seen a show at the Carlyle,” she said.

There was a pause—one I probably should have filled with an invitation to the Carlyle, but I didn’t want to lead her on. She didn’t seem to notice the lack of a forthcoming invitation and came right back with “How about you?”

“Hmm…” I thought. “I’ve never walked across the Brooklyn Bridge.”

“Really?” she said. “Well, that’s an easy one. I know the best pizza place right on the other side—my treat!”

I smiled and agreed to her implicit suggestion. “Sounds good.”

“How’s Sunday?” she asked, her eyes sparkling. “It’s supposed to be beautiful out on Sunday.”

I should have said I had plans, but something stopped me.





CHAPTER 11


An Out-of-Borough Experience


By Albert, Jeremy’s Publicist


Age: 35 going on 60





As usual I woke up half an hour before my alarm, and as usual I ceremoniously waited in bed for it to go off. I don’t know why I do that. I’m always hopeful that I’ll doze off for a few more minutes’ sleep, but I never do. If a shrink were to enter my head for that half an hour and observe the varied thoughts, memories, and forecasts that collide erratically into one another like balls on a pool table, they would certainly find substantial material for analysis. But today I focused my concern solely on the day ahead.