Authors: Katia Lief
“Sounds good,” I said. “Meet you at one o’clock in the lobby?”
He smiled. I swear his eyes even widened a little, and I thought,
Cute kid
. I put him at about twenty-two, twenty-three years old. At thirty-nine I wasn’t quite old enough to be his mother but maybe his mother’s younger sister.
“I’ll be waiting,” he said.
And he was. He was standing against the wall near the security guard when I reached the lobby five minutes late. When he saw me he smiled and stepped forwards. He was a nice-looking young man, with pale skin, dark brown hair and those riveting eyes. We were about the same height but a kind of intensity, you might even say charm, compensated for his smallish stature and made him seem taller than he was until you were standing right next to him.
As we walked through the lobby he wove his arm through mine, a move I escaped by stepping into a diminishing opening in the revolving door. He was forced into the slot behind me. It had been an inappropriate gesture, a sign of his immaturity I assumed, and on the sidewalk I made a point of keeping a good distance between us.
No matter what people say, anyone who sees a single man and a single woman out together assumes it’s a date or at least acknowledges the possibility. This was not, of course, but I had to recognize how it might look to a passing colleague and the thought made me cringe.
Dating
. Never in my wildest dreams had I ever thought I’d be back to that. But I had been a widow for nineteen months and loneliness worms its way into you. I had already accepted that I would never replace Hugo, whom I loved and
love
and would always love. But I was still a youngish woman with, presumably, half my life ahead of me. Even Nat, my son, had encouraged me to “move on”, in his words, and facilitated an obvious attraction between myself and his eighth-grade art teacher Rich, a divorced father, by hinting to the man that his “single mom” had a lot of free evenings. I was never really free; I had Nat, and I had work. But just to please my son I had accepted an invitation to meet with Rich for what I thought of as a parent–teacher conference over dinner. And then another. I liked Rich the more I saw of him. Period. That was where my social life stood at the moment. As for Joe, I hoped he didn’t think of this as a date – though the arm-weaving indicated he might. I would simply never have considered dating a man so much younger than me. And it was flat-out inappropriate, taking my arm like that in the lobby of our workplace. The more I thought about it, as we navigated the lunchtime crowds along 43rd Street to the deli on the corner of Seventh Avenue, the more annoyed I felt. But I didn’t want to be rude and so I hid my reaction.
We entered the bustling store and took our place in line alongside a refrigerated case of prepared foods and cold cuts. “This is my favorite deli,” I said. And as if to prove I wasn’t lying, one of the sandwich makers, Brian, looked at me and winked.
“Tuna on rye, lettuce and tomato?” Brian asked. It was my lunch whenever I ate at my desk, which was most days.
“Bingo.”
“And for your friend?”
I resisted an urge to explain that Joe was not exactly my friend.
“I’ll have the same thing,” Joe said. Then, to me, “What do we drink with this perfect sandwich?”
“I drink grapefruit juice.” I stepped aside to pull a small carton from the refrigerated display.
“Mind reaching one for me while you’re in there?”
I got Joe his drink and stood back in line next to him to wait for our food. His insecurity – ordering everything I ordered, agreeing with whatever I said – annoyed me. But I didn’t want to make this more awkward than it already was so I hid that, too.
“I didn’t see you this morning,” Brian said to me as he handed Joe our paper-wrapped sandwiches.
“I had breakfast at home with my kid today.”
“Poppy bagel, chive cream cheese, coffee regular!”
“Actually, at home I usually have cereal.”
Joe tipped his head slightly forwards as if awaiting more information, such as what
kind
of cereal I had eaten at home. Behind us, the line was getting longer. I carried our juice cartons to the cash register.
Joe
set down the sandwiches and got out his wallet. I got out mine.
“It’s on me,” he said.
“Thanks, but absolutely not.” I handed the cashier a ten-dollar bill, saying, “We’ll pay separately.”
“Next time, then,” Joe said. I didn’t want to openly contradict him in front of the cashier, fearing he’d feel emasculated because I earned so much more than he did, or because I’d never date him and didn’t want him to act as if I would. Why I should care what this guy felt about any of that, I had no idea; gender reflex, maybe. Like so many women, I had been raised to be a
nice girl
and couldn’t seem to shake the habit.
We walked the few blocks to Bryant Park, talking the whole way. It was October and getting chilly out. Soon autumn would give way to winter. Until recently I had looked forward to it, yearning for the cold and early dark as a cave-like place to crawl into. Winter was a time when a person who wanted to understand their aloneness could really dig into it, whereas the warm beckonings of spring, summer and fall were difficult, almost burdensome, when you were unhappy. The first shifting of seasons without Hugo had been agony; the second time around, the pain had been duller but still there. I was stronger now and yet I had welcomed the rigors of another lonely winter, if only to prove to myself that
I
had developed the grit to survive widowhood. I had wanted the challenge, anticipated it, until the move to New York – and meeting Rich – had jolted me awake.
“So how do you like it here?” I asked Joe.
“It’s OK. Everything’s new. I guess it takes an adjustment when you come to a new place.”
“I thought you were happy to be in America.”
“I am. Don’t get me wrong. It’s just all so different and I’m taking it in slowly. You?”
“I grew up here,” I told him. “In fact a big part of the reason I wanted to move back is because my mom’s still here.”
“Do you live with her?”
I almost laughed. I hadn’t lived with my mother for twenty-two years. “No, she’s in a home for Alzheimer’s patients. It’s on the Upper West Side.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I imagine your parents miss you on the Vineyard.”
“My mom does. I never knew my dad.”
“Any siblings?”
“No, it was just me and my mom growing up.” He stopped abruptly, which made me curious, but I let it go.
“Me too, after age nine, anyway.”
Joe looked at me, awaiting an explanation. When I was nine years old my father Karl committed
suicide
by jumping out of his office window in midtown Manhattan. He was a wonderful man, a creative director at an advertising agency, successful, loved and well off; but more than that he was a survivor of the Holocaust. A child survivor. My parents in fact had met in the camps. Both were child laborers: he, digging and burying, she, mending and ironing for the commandant’s wife. Clearly, of the two, he had had the worse job. The scars from that time ran so deep and hurt so much, the resonance was so painful – and he suffered. Finally, he stopped the pain and the noise and the memories all at once. When he died, despite aching hearts, my mother, Eva, and I agreed that we understood why he had made this terrible choice. “He couldn’t listen to it anymore,” she told me, making a familiar circling motion around her head with both hands, meaning
the echoes
. In the same conversation she assured me that she would never make such a choice; she would never, ever leave me. My mother was very strong and I didn’t doubt her for an iota of a second. She moved us from New Jersey to Brooklyn – just as I had, widowed, with my only child – and started a new life. For years she worked in the garment industry as a seamstress of couture bridal gowns – I could still see her muscular fingers negotiating a wisp-thin steel needle through bead after tiny bead – while I grew and blossomed into a regular American
kid
, hard-working and optimistic as only an immigrant’s child can be. Now we were reconvened in the city of mended lives. But none of that was Joe’s business.
“My father passed away,” I said, and left it at that.
At Sixth Avenue we entered the park. It was crowded, thanks to the lovely weather. People were perched on the round edge of the fountain, and on the Great Lawn it took a few minutes to find ourselves a spot. Joe took off his denim jacket and spread it on the grass for me to sit on. It was a sweet gesture and completely unnecessary. Even my beloved, considerate husband hadn’t done stuff like that, though I admit it was nice knowing my skirt wouldn’t get grass stains. I tucked my legs beneath me and positioned my lap to hold my sandwich. Hungry, I dug in.
“So where are you living now?” Joe asked.
I struggled to answer through a half-full mouth: “Brooklyn.”
“A realtor stuck me in Washington Heights but I’m thinking of moving.”
“Don’t you have a lease?”
“Yeah, but my landlord’s a sweet old lady. She’ll probably let me out of it if I ask her. Where in Brooklyn are you?”
“Boerum Hill. We’ve got a duplex with a big back yard. It’s really very nice. Good for my kid.” I
caught
a pickle slice as it tumbled off the wax paper spread beneath my sandwich, and ate it.
“I’d love to have children some day.” In a burst of sun his smile looked bright white but I could also see, just visible toward the back, a tooth that appeared dark and rotted. That, or it was an empty space. As a reporter I was trained to read stories in such details. In Joe’s mouth I saw that he grew up poor on an island whose economy, I knew from having lived there, was driven by tourism and high-end real estate. Full-time inhabitants without specialized educations and skills tended to scrape by. I already knew he was an only child of a single mother. Now I also knew that they couldn’t afford dental work, at least for the part of the mouth that didn’t show. “But first,” he added, “I want to concentrate on building my career.”
“A good choice. You’re young. Build your career, get yourself settled, then have a family.”
“That’s what you did, right?”
“Not exactly.” I smiled, remembering. “Hugo was just out of law school when we had Nat, and I hadn’t even started freelancing. But it worked out in the end. Sort of.” I closed my eyes for a moment and then opened them to the sun so it could burn off any intention of tears.
Joe leaned toward me. “I’m sorry you lost your husband. I really am.”
“It’s not
your
fault.” I bit my sandwich, chewed and swallowed. Mechanically, against emotion, hunger now evaporated. “You must have read about that in the
Gazette
, too.”
He nodded. “Everyone did, didn’t they? It was on the front page.”
Of course it was. Hugo Mayhew had built a name for himself as an environmental lawyer based on the Vineyard. His clients, at first mostly on the Cape and in Boston, had ultimately encompassed the whole planet. Not yet forty, he had become a treasured citizen of the island and the world – a treasure of my heart – and his death brought real sorrow to many. Nat and I had known enough about his work during his life to be proud of him –
he
was my inspiration to write about the environment in the first place – but it was his death that really opened our eyes to the scope of his work. He had toiled as a champion of environmental issues for years, on the legal front, before the world caught up to his vision and when it did he was set to ride the very crest of the wave. I often wondered if, had he lived, he might have ended up in a position of power in the government where he could have had a real impact on our country’s direction in relation to environmental issues. But he didn’t live. He died. He lost control of his car on a dark bend of road on his way to pick Nat up from a friend’s house, after which father and son were due
home
for dinner. Because of his stature there was an inquest into his death, but it was a formality. People died in car accidents. They just did. I was told his obituary ran not only on the front page of the
Vineyard Gazette
but around the world. I couldn’t read it.
Hugo and I had met in Boston right after finishing college and soon before he started law school. We called it our “fun summer”, our only piece of time together when we were really footloose and fancy-free. We’d sleep late, take trips on the spur of the moment and while away whole afternoons. I dabbled in job hunting that summer but didn’t really try that hard; I was too distracted and thrilled and absorbed by falling in love with Hugo. We’d looked like siblings, he and I, with our slightly olive skin, hazel eyes and thick auburn hair. It felt, from the very start, like a natural fit. And we loved so many of the same things: traveling, long meandering walks, ping pong, margaritas on a hot beach, milk and cookies before bed, nature hikes, morning lovemaking. We lived together throughout his law education while I tripped from job to job. After we married we settled on the Vineyard, where he opened his law practice against the better judgment of everyone we knew. Only after we had Nat and he started preschool did I discover my vocation as a journalist. I took baby steps at first, but found good subjects and had good luck. I’d liked
the
flexibility of freelancing and loved working at home. Never had I imagined myself back in New York, working at the
Times. Never
had I imagined my life without Hugo.
“So, do you have a girlfriend?” I had to change the subject.
Joe blushed. “Kind of. Not really. I’d like to.”
“Don’t worry, you will.” He
was
sweet. His innocence and hopefulness recalled the good feelings, the excitement, of that time in life when you’re young and starting out.
“So, I was wondering,” Joe said, just as a cloud opened above us and sun blasted into our faces. I shielded my eyes with a flattened hand but Joe just sat there literally taking the heat. His left pupil contracted to a pinprick against the brightness while the right pupil, off-center, stayed mostly open. “Maybe you could recommend me for the
Times
’ internship program? If you felt comfortable doing it, I mean. I know it’s hard to get into.”