Good Riddance(38)

“How so?”

“They’ll assume you’re seeing a movie with me because there isn’t a wife or girlfriend in the picture.”

“Not on the market,” he said, shushing me with a finger to his lips.

“Because of Kathi?”

“It seems so.”

On the walk home, under too much scaffolding, past skyscrapers under construction on West Fifty-seventh, I brought up my own social life, thinking it would encourage him to mine a similar vein. “You remember Jeremy—across-the-hall neighbor? It’s a nice thing. And you can’t beat it for convenience.”

“And that’s okay with you? Just convenience?”

“A little more than that. I’m having fun. And he’s good company. Isn’t that what we’re all looking for?”

“If you say so.”

We reached Ninth Avenue. I told him that here on this corner, come spring, there would be a farmers’ market Wednesdays and Saturdays. No bargains, but he’d like it. Then, in as airy and neutral a voice as I thought was needed, I asked whose idea it was to invite me to dinner.

“Kathi suggested it, which I thought was very nice, especially since she isn’t much of a cook. But who in New York City is? So many restaurants. I’ve heard people say they eat out every night or get food delivered. A woman in my building told me that it’s cheaper to go out than to cook at home.”

I said I didn’t know how eating in restaurants could be cheaper, especially with a glass or two of wine.

“Well, by the time you buy a package of chicken, or a couple of lamb chops, a bag of onions, potatoes, a stick or two of butter; or have you noticed that every hunk of cheese costs seven dollars? And maybe a carton of eggs, a green pepper—”

“Dad—I get it.”

“Look around”—he gestured to an empanada take-out joint as we passed it—“a world of cheap food. I mean when you think about Chinese places in Pickering, just that one on Highland.”

He sounded so contented, so enthusiastic. I said, “Yup. And the miracle of delivery.”

“Even my dry cleaning gets delivered!”

“I bet your clients say, ‘And I don’t even have to walk my own dog!’”

That made him beam, effectively granting me permission to return to the subject of number one client, Kathi. I asked if their friendship had gone beyond sherry and tea.

“We’ve had a couple of dinners, and we went to a chamber-music concert at Alice Tully Hall. I think I told you she’s a pianist. Did you know you can go to rehearsals of the Philharmonic for hardly anything?”

Topic hijacked again, I said, “I was hoping to hear something more relationshippy.”

“Such as ‘I enjoy her company very much, and she seems to enjoy mine’?”

“No. More like ‘After the concert, we go back to her apartment and take off our clothes.’”

“Daphne! You’ve gotten very bold. Is it the actor’s influence? Or you think it’s how a sophisticated New Yorker talks?”

We’d reached my corner. “None of the above. It’s just that you and I never spent this much time together so you didn’t know what a badass I am.” I kissed him on one cheek. “See you Thursday. I’m bringing dessert. Any requests?”

“Yes! No smirking. No jokes or questions that have a sexual connotation.”

“I’ll try!” I was walking backward, smiling and waving.

He motioned Come back. I did, to where he was pointing at a menu board in front of a dingy bar, “happy hour 5 to 8.” He checked his watch. “Are you in a hurry? There may be something I should mention before Thursday. Nothing bad, just a possibly sensitive topic.”

I said sure. I even had time for—I checked the board—truffle fries. We sat at the near-empty bar and ordered two glasses of the house red. “This might come up,” he told me. “Kathi lost both her parents within a short time of each other, and it’s still raw. The mom went first and the dad had a heart attack driving down to Florida, where he was going to start his new life.”

“Just since you’ve known her?”

“No. But recently enough. The dad about a year ago. He might’ve survived the heart attack except for the crash. Or maybe it was vice versa.”

“Siblings?”

“A brother who lives in Hoboken. Commutes to the city by ferry.”

“Nieces? Nephews?”

“Does he have kids? I don’t think so. Never met him. But you can ask him yourself on Thursday.”



Oh dear. I worried until the night arrived that it would be a setup. But the brother, Denny, brought his fiancée, whose name I had a hard time catching, which turned out to be Alissa after I asked her to spell it. I gathered from the congratulations being offered that the engagement was new. He’d lived at home with his parents and suddenly had a house, its contents, no rent, no mortgage. The engagement ring had been his mother’s, in need of a professional polish, but I still faked an admiring gasp.

Kathi’s apartment was a loft in what was once a soap factory, with charmingly scarred floors and the biggest grand piano I’d ever seen except on a stage. Doors off the main room suggested a bedroom, maybe two. There was a giant worn Persian rug, two mismatched couches that were clearly dog-friendly, and a wall of pretty sunsets and crashing waves painted by her mother. “I was lucky,” she confided. “Not Denny’s taste.”