Good Riddance(58)

“You know I’ve never done online dating.”

“I knew no such thing. You could’ve been swiping right and left next to me in bed.” I added “naked” for extra weight.

“Wow . . . Daff . . . I didn’t expect this.”

I repeated, “How’d you meet her?”

“She lives in the building.”

“Which building?”

“Ours. She keeps her bike in the rack in the basement.”

“Well, that’s convenient,” I said. “Again.”

When he looked puzzled, I said, “Like us. Geographically compatible. Only now you might have to take the elevator to have sex. What floor is she on?”

“Two. But—”

“So you ran into her one day and you welcomed her to the building—”

“Like I know who lives here and who’s new? No. She had a flat tire and she’d seen me leaving with my bike, so she gave the doorman a note asking if I knew of a local place where she could have her tire patched.”

“Patched,” I said. “How touching.”

“You’re mad. I’m sorry. Nothing’s happened yet.”

Why was I mad? Hadn’t I been using him to forget my humiliating marriage and build a case for my being a woman with big-city sexual mores?

So I made a weak effort to pivot, to show how coolly this cosmopolitan woman, me, could conduct herself. I said, “Let’s start this conversation over. You want to see other people. So do I. This doesn’t have to be awkward. Certainly not between us. And you know what? Even if I see you and Tina together, I’ll be civil. And from now on, when I ask if I can borrow a cup of sugar, it’ll mean an actual cup of sugar, not code. I’ll have my panties on.”

When that didn’t evoke anything but a pained expression, I asked, “Does she know about me?”

“Not specifics—”

“Not anything?” I prompted. “Not my name?”

“Just that I was involved with someone.”

“When’s the show?”

“Saturday.”

“Matinee?”

“Nope. Evening.”

“Well, good for you.”

“I mean it—I want us to stay friends.”

What was that proverb? Good fences make good neighbors? If it had been wise to apply that to Jeremy and me, shouldn’t the same go for Tina? I said, “I think it’s best if you gave me back the yearbook.”

“Not a good idea. It shouldn’t be in your apartment. Geneva’s crazy enough to hire some guys to turn your place upside down. Like the opening of The Big Lebowski, where these thugs ransack—”

I said I’d never seen that. But, okay, keep it. Just be sure to notify me if you’re moving.

That earned another disappointed, possibly hurt, look. I knew how I was sounding, but I couldn’t stop myself. And though the waiter had already slipped the check between us, I said I’d have another glass of the pinot.

I didn’t speak until the refill arrived. “Okay if I hate you now?”

He slipped the check to his side of the table. “You don’t mean that.”

“I want to,” I said.





29


I Thought I Knew Everything



Of course it would be now that my father suggested a double date. I accepted, opting for ma?ana to tell him that Jeremy couldn’t make it—this night or any other.

I asked if he’d like to come for dinner.

“You mean at your place?”

“Sure.”

I waited for a delighted acceptance. Instead, I heard a wary “Would that have to be on tray tables?”

I said no worries! I’d found a table on Craigslist. We’d christen it.

“Can Kathi come, too?” he asked.

I said, “Of course she’s invited. This will be my chance to get to know her better,” hoping to imply that she and I had never had a conversation about his erectile dysfunction. I added, “I guess that thing you were worried about, her cooling off, was just a misunderstanding.”

Because we were speaking by phone, I couldn’t see what I hoped was relief on his face or, still better, his blushing over where Kathi’s entreaties had led. He said, preceded by a heh-heh, “Your old man hasn’t had much experience in the dating world, don’t forget. Kathi is definitely on board. I don’t know what you said, but it must’ve helped her express her feelings.”

Oh, God: busted as sexual therapist. I said, “She didn’t need any coaxing. She hadn’t realized that maybe there was a way to reassure you that her feelings were as strong as ever.”

On my end of the phone, I was making tortured faces that only a discussion of one’s father’s love life could induce.

“Is Saturday good for you?” he asked.

I said yes. I was free. Quite. Seven? Seven-thirty?

“You know your old dad. Six?”

“Perfect,” I said.



Now I could reassure Holly, who’d been calling more than usual, that in exactly five days I’d be seeing Dad, and under the right circumstances, I might confess that the Geneva thing had metastasized into a podcast featuring an actor pretending to be him.