We Are Not Ourselves(18)

She wanted a name that sounded like no name at all, one of those decorous placeholders that suggested an unbroken line of WASP restraint. If the name came with a pedigree to match it, she wasn’t going to complain.

? ? ?

It was mid-December 1965. She was in a master’s program in nursing administration at NYU after getting college done in three years, as she’d planned. Between classes, she met her friend Ruth, who worked nearby, under the arch in Washington Square, to head to lunch together. It was an unusually mild day for December; some young men had on only a sweater and no jacket.

“Well, it’s not that he needs a date, necessarily,” Ruth was saying as they walked toward the luncheonette on Broadway. “He just doesn’t have one.”

Eileen sighed; it was happening again. Everyone always believed they’d found her man for her, but more often than not he was a blarneying, blustering playboy who’d charmed her friends and the rest of the bar and whom she couldn’t ditch fast enough.

“I’m sure one will turn up,” she said. “Tell him good things come to those who wait.”

The men that stirred her—reliable ones, predictable ones—were boring by other girls’ standards. She didn’t meet enough of these men. Maybe they couldn’t get past the guys who crowded around her at bars. If they couldn’t at least get to her, though, they weren’t for her. She’d rather be alone than end up with a man who was afraid.

“You are impossible!” Ruth said. “I am trying to look out for you here. No—you know what? Fine. That’s just fine.” Ruth fastened the buttons on her coat.

Eileen could feel Ruth burning. In front of the luncheonette, Ruth stopped her. “Here’s the thing,” she said. “Frank asked me to do this favor, and we just started, so I want to come through for him. I don’t care what you do on New Year’s. You want to miss the fun, that’s fine by me. You want to be alone the rest of your life, that’s fine too. I’ve tried. I even set you up with Tommy Delaney, and look what you did with that.”

“You think you’re safe with a West Point man,” Eileen said, as though to herself. “You think he’ll have a bit of class.” She watched a cab stop at the corner and a man with a newspaper tucked under his arm pay his fare.

“Tommy’s a fine man,” Ruth said.

“Oh, I’m sure he’s swell,” Eileen said. “I have no way of knowing. He couldn’t sit still long enough to say two words to me. He spent the whole time making sure every back in the place got slapped.”

“Tommy has a lot of friends.”

“He bought everyone a round and said I didn’t know it yet, but he was my future husband. There was a big cheer. The nerve!”

The man with the newspaper got out of the cab. He was tall and handsome, with dark cropped hair and striking eyeglasses. She imagined he was a visiting professor, Italian or Greek. She took her eyes from him before he turned in her direction.

“He liked you. He wanted to make an impression.”

“An impression!”

“Look, this one is different,” Ruth said lamely. “He won’t be trying to win you over. He doesn’t want to be there any more than you do.”

“What’s the problem with him? Is he queer?”

Eileen didn’t know why she was still resisting. She would normally have done her friend Ruth this small favor, but she wasn’t in the mood for disappointment, not on New Year’s Eve. She watched the taxi launch off from the curb, only to stop again up the block to let a young couple pile in. The sun came back out from behind a cloud. Ruth unbuttoned her coat.

“He’s a grad student at NYU. A scientist. Frank’s in an anatomy class with him. He’s obsessed with his research. He never leaves the library. Frank is worried about him. He wants to get him out.”

Eileen didn’t say anything. She was trying not to believe in the promising picture she was forming in her mind, for fear of disappointment.

“So what Frank told him is that I was nagging him to find a date for my friend for New Year’s.”

“Absolutely not!” Eileen said. “I will not pretend to be somebody’s charity case.”

“He’s a gentleman. He couldn’t resist a woman in need. It’s the only thing that would have worked.”

“Ruth!”

A pair of girls pushed past them into the luncheonette. Eileen could see the counter seats filling up and could make out only one empty booth.

“Would it help if I told you he’s handsome? Frank even said it himself. He said all the girls they know think he’s very handsome.”

“Let them have him,” she said, not meaning it. She couldn’t believe she was feeling defensive about this man.

“Just do this for me and I’ll never bother you again,” Ruth said, putting her hand on the door to open it. “You can go become an old maid after this.”

“Fine. But I’m not going to pretend to be grateful he went out with me.”

? ? ?

In the interval between the setup and the date, she’d convinced herself that this was nothing more than a good deed she was doing. When the bell rang at Ruth’s, though, she was seized by nerves. She ran to the bedroom and locked the door.

“Come on! I have to answer the door.”