Pain came from the mail almost every day. From a bill addressed to Peg. Or from a needlepoint catalog she had ordered. Or from her issue of
Better Homes and Gardens
. Or, worst of all, from a letter to her from someone who didn’t know she had died.
Pain came from Loretta because she was there and Peg wasn’t. Every morning when I came downstairs and saw her standing at the stove. Every night when I rounded the turn in the driveway and saw her standing at the sink through the kitchen window.
Pain came every night when the children and Loretta were in bed. When I sat at my desk alone in the family room and listened to the silence of a house asleep.
Pain came from Peg’s garden, now overgrown, and from her roses, now stalky, with petals pale from lack of food and ragged from hungry insects. From the circus lamp in Jennie’s room that Peg had assembled herself and painted shortly before giving birth to Jen. From the entries in our check register, so many of which reflected an outlook forward-looking and full of hope and yet so ignorant of what was to come. From her cookbooks, her crepe pan, her crystal, her makeup.
Pain came from everywhere, it seemed. No matter where I looked, I was reminded of Peg. She was everywhere but nowhere.
So whenever I could, I escaped. I ran away. Somewhere. Anywhere.
“John, an Elaine Weisman from London Personnel is on 2,” my secretary announced.
I was surprised to be hearing from Elaine, and I was immediately concerned. Loretta had started working for me on October 1st. Today was October 15th. Elaine Weisman’s call, I reasoned, could only mean bad news—either Loretta didn’t like some aspect of living with us, or she wanted substantially more money. Or, God forbid, she wanted to quit. I punched 2 and picked up the receiver with more than a little apprehension.
“Hi, Elaine,” I began in my most cheerful voice. “How are you doing this morning?”
“I’m fine, Mr. Herbert. How about you?”
“I’m good. But then it’s still early.”
Elaine laughed. A nice laugh.
“What can I do for you?” I asked.
“Well, first of all, I called to see how things are going with Loretta. I wanted to find out if you like her and if she’s working out for you and the children.”
I inwardly breathed a sigh of relief. “She’s great, Elaine. Very conscientious. Very interested in doing her job well. Very concerned that I might not be happy with her. So far things couldn’t be better, but I appreciate your follow-up.”
“I’m just doing my job,” Elaine replied. “Now assuming everything continues to go smoothly, Loretta’s fourth week with you will end on October 28th.”
“Correct.”
“Please remember our fee is fully refundable until the 28th if for any reason you’re not satisfied with Loretta’s performance. But only until the 28th. Not any time after that. So if you decide you’re not happy with Loretta over the next two weeks, you must let me know right away.”
“I will, Elaine, but fortunately I don’t think we have to worry about that.”
“Well, that’s great, Mr. Herbert.” She hesitated a moment before continuing. “May I call you John?”
“Of course,” I answered, momentarily taken aback by the question. “Just don’t call me late for dinner.”
Elaine laughed again. “I probably shouldn’t say what I’m about to, but…oh, this is embarrassing…you have a very nice voice over the phone, and I can’t help but think that you must be a very nice man.”
“Umm…thank you,” I stammered. “That’s…very nice of you to say.” I suddenly realized I was smiling.
“Anyway,” Elaine continued, “I was wondering if by any chance you might like to come into the city some night and have a drink with me.”
“Uh…wow…I don’t know what to say.”
“Say yes.”
I shook my head in amazement at what was transpiring. “Okay. I mean, yes. I’d like that. Uh…when? Where?”
“What are you doing tomorrow night?”
“Nothing, really. Tomorrow night will work.”
“Great. There’s a cocktail lounge on Lexington and 38th called the Quiet Corner. It’s a really nice little spot. Why don’t I meet you there at, say, six? Is that all right?”
“That’s fine,” I said, my mind swirling. “I’ll see you tomorrow night at six then.”
“Great. Bye.”
I hung up and found myself wondering what the hell had just happened. Apparently a woman I didn’t know, except for having had a few telephone conversations with her, had just asked me out on a date.
“Unbelievable,” I muttered to myself, as I tried to remember what I was doing before Elaine’s call. “Absolutely unbelievable!”
Traffic through the Queens Midtown Tunnel was heavier going into the city than I had expected, and finding a parking garage took longer than I had expected, so I didn’t arrive at the Quiet Corner until five minutes after six. No one was standing out front, so I assumed Elaine had either not yet arrived or was already inside.
I pulled the Quiet Corner’s heavy wood door towards me and stepped out of the late afternoon sunlight into almost total darkness. Before my eyes could adjust to the lack of lighting, a voice to my left addressed me.
“Good evening, sir. Welcome to the Quiet Corner. Will you be sitting at the bar or would you like a booth?”
“I’m not really sure,” I replied, still barely able to see. “I’m supposed to meet someone here, but I don’t know what she looks like.”
“Ah,” the maitre d’ answered, as if he’d had a revelation of sorts. “You must be Mr. Herbert.”
“That’s me.”
“Right this way, Mr. Herbert. The lady is waiting for you.”
He flicked on a little pencil light which he held at his side, and I followed the tiny circle of light next to his foot down a narrow hallway. On either side, I was now able to discern what appeared to be booths, each one separated from the next by floor-to-ceiling partitions with floor-length beaded curtains across the open side to provide privacy from intruding eyes. We walked past five or six of these booths before the maitre d’ stopped and pulled back a beaded curtain to reveal a U-shaped banquette and a large table. A woman sat in the back of the booth facing me. With his free hand the maitre d’ indicated that I should enter.
“Mr. Herbert has arrived, ma’am,” he said.
“Elaine?” I asked.
“Yes. Hi.”
“It’s nice to meet you.”
“Nice to meet you face-to-face,” Elaine replied.
I extended my hand and sat down. “This is quite the place,” I said, hoping my discomfort with the Quiet Corner wasn’t apparent.
“It is a little over the top,” Elaine admitted, “but it’s a great place to have a quiet drink without having to put up with blaring TV’s or loud drunks.”
I noticed Elaine didn’t have a drink in front of her. “Have you ordered anything yet?” I asked.
“No. I was waiting for you. If you know what you want, just pull that string over your shoulder. That turns on a little light outside the booth and lets them know you want service.”
I reached up, pulled the string, and then looked at Elaine. She was in her early thirties, I guessed, probably Jewish, had short black hair and impeccable makeup. She was quite attractive. A waiter arrived, and Elaine ordered a daiquiri. I ordered a scotch and soda.
We talked a little about Peg and the kids at first, then a lot about what I did for a living and her different experiences living in the city. I was nervous—nervous about being with her, and nervous about the Quiet Corner—so the first scotch and soda went down very quickly. As did the second and the third. By the time my fourth drink arrived, I had breezed past relaxed and was well on my way to whatever they call the next level of intoxication. We stopped talking as the waiter placed my drink in front of me, but as he withdrew Elaine looked at me and smiled.
We were now sitting right next to each other and, not surprisingly, Elaine had become much more attractive since the first scotch and soda. I gently pried her fingers off the stem of her glass and brought her hand to my lips. I kissed each of her fingertips for a moment or two and then after running my tongue up and down the sides of her fingers, I began to suck on her fingertips, one by one. Elaine watched me intently with wide-eyed amazement.
Suddenly the voice broke through the haze of scotch.
What the hell do you think you’re doing?
it asked.
Trying for a repeat? It was sexy with Nancy, so why not see what happens with this one? Is that it? Jesus Christ, John. What’s the matter with you? Is nothing sacred? Special? Knock this shit off, will you?
I stopped kissing Elaine’s fingers and slowly placed her hand back in front of her.
“My God!” Elaine exclaimed. “That was sexy.”
“Sorry,” I said with a sigh. “Shouldn’t have done that.”
“No, to the contrary. You can do that any time you want,” said Elaine. She slid closer and began to run her fingers through my hair just above my ear. “Know what we should do?” she asked.
I shook my head.
“We should get a check, and you should come back to my apartment with me—it’s in Brooklyn, but it’s just a few subway stops away—and I’ll make us dinner. We’ll have some wine…and we can make an evening of this. What do you say?”
I sighed again, the voice’s words lingering in my mind. “I’d love to, Elaine. I really would. But I should get home. Tomorrow’s a work day, and I’ve already had too much to drink. But thank you for the invitation. I really appreciate it.”
Elaine looked down at her empty glass and then at me. “Well…you don’t know what you’re missing. And I’m a great cook. But I understand. Let me give you my number, though, so you can call me. Okay?”
“That’d be great,” I said, at this point anxious to leave.
She fished in her pocketbook for a pen, wrote her number on a cocktail napkin and handed the napkin to me. “Call me,” she said. “Promise me you’ll call.”
“I will. I promise.”
I paid the check, and we left the beaded booth. A minute later we stepped out onto the sidewalk and into the bright lights of Lexington Avenue. I extended my hand, but Elaine gave me a light kiss on the cheek instead.
“Call me,” she said, and she began to walk to her subway stop.
I nodded, gave her a wave and started to walk in the opposite direction down Lexington Avenue to my car. And as my head cleared, I thought of Nancy and her fingers, and I felt ashamed.
S. Anne Burnett was Dave Clayton’s contribution to my new life as a single man. Sally Evans was Beth’s.
S. Anne Burnett came first, the result of a conversation with Dave one Saturday afternoon. He knew I had taken Nancy out several times and asked if I were still seeing her. When I told him I was, he volunteered the opinion that if I were going to date, I shouldn’t be dating just one person but rather should “see what’s out there,” as he put it. He then proceeded to tell me about a woman in his office, single, attractive, who might like to go out with me if I were interested. I wasn’t, but I must not have made that sufficiently clear, because Dave called Monday night to say he’d spoken with the woman, and she was expecting to hear from me. So I called S. Anne Burnett and invited her out to dinner on Friday, October 24th.
S. Anne Burnett, I soon learned, came from money. Big money. The kind of money most of us only dream of. The kind of money that paid for an apartment on the forty-first floor of a brand new building in midtown Manhattan. A building with a doorman who brought me to the concierge, who escorted me to the elevator and, with his key, selected Miss Burnett’s floor for me. The kind of money that paid for a Spanish maid who greeted me at the door to the apartment and ushered me into the living room to wait while Miss Burnett finished getting ready.
S. Anne Burnett came out of her bedroom and into the living room twenty minutes later. She was tall, blond and slender, and although her facial features were plain, her stature, clothes and overall demeanor made her look regal. Shortly after we walked into the very elegant, very over-priced French restaurant I had selected for dinner, however, I realized S. Anne Burnett was out of my league. She did her best to disguise the fact, but I could tell she was bored. We ate dinner, I brought her back to her doorman, and I went home, wishing I had spent the evening with Nancy instead. I never did learn what the “S” stood for.
On Friday, November 7th, I went out with Sally Evans, a co-worker of Beth’s, who was Beth’s attempt to remedy Dave’s lack of matchmaking skills. Sally was thirty-three years old, single and lived at home with her parents in Armonk up in Westchester County. She was about five seven, with light brown hair not quite to her shoulders. She had a nice figure and was reasonably attractive. When I met her at her front door, my first impression was one of propriety. Or maybe, I thought an instant later, she was just old before her time, with her functional low-heeled black pumps, black skirt, grey mohair sweater buttoned all the way to her neck, and short string of white pearls.
But Sally was nice, and she was pleasant to talk to, her conversation intelligent, her questions sensitive, her answers thoughtful. We had dinner at a small café she had selected at my request, and we talked animatedly the whole time. When dinner was over, our waiter asked if we’d like anything else—an after-dinner drink perhaps—and to my surprise, Sally said she’d like a brandy. So we had a brandy. And then a second.
We left the café shortly after eleven and headed back to Sally’s house. As we drove down her street, Sally asked me if I’d like to come in for a drink, and I accepted her invitation. I parked my car in the driveway as she suggested and followed her up the walk to her front door. I waited while she found her house keys and then followed her inside. The house was completely dark, so I assumed that her parents had already gone to bed.
“Just give me a minute to put some lights on and to freshen up,” Sally said in a voice I thought too loud, given her parents were asleep.
“Don’t wake your folks,” I whispered.
“No need to worry,” she said with a soft smile. “They’re not here.”
“Ah,” I replied, thinking I understood the situation. “On vacation?”
She stood motionless, looking at me. “No. They’re spending the night with friends here in town.”