infectious diseases was not appealing first-date conversation. I finally took a breath and he looked uncomfortable.
“What do you do?” I asked, my whole person collapsing in weary resignation as I asked this ridiculously boring question. This was exactly why I stopped dating. This was why I wanted to stay with my husband long after I realized he was unhappy. So I wouldn’t have to ask and answer these sorts of questions.
“I’m a teacher,” he said.
“Oh, that’s great. What do you teach?” I said. To me, asking and answering these questions implied a false promise about the future. Telling your life history meant you were throwing it out for someone’s perusal, and how optimistic could you feel? How could anyone “get” me at this point? I made no sense, especially in light recitation.
“I teach art history. And sometimes film. At Wake School. Do you know it?”
I shook my head.
“It’s a private high school for rich industry kids. Mostly. They do give some financial-need scholarships to gifted kids.”
It was my turn, and I found myself speedily talking about Ada and her life in New York. And I knew I now sounded like a woman who lived through her daughter, but I guessed that was better than the woman I was a minute earlier who loved to talk about SARS. I was just about to launch into describingmy dying mother and her approaching dementia and my own fears of age-related memory impairment when I stopped. I just stopped myself. I took a sip of water, a deep breath, and I let the silence hang there. I even stopped smiling.
At last he said, “You have the loveliest hands,” and he put his hand, or just the fingers of his hand, very gently on top of the fingers of my hand. I could feel my cheeks getting warm. I stared stupidly at our hands on the table. At last I looked up, and he was looking right back at me. I made myself hold his gaze for a second, and I could feel an unmistakable wave of desire move through my hand and across my body. I had to shift a bit in my seat, even, and I was amazed at how a man who didn’t seem sexy at all could suddenly become starkly erotic just by plainly admitting his desire. Was it always like that? I didn’t think so. I think it had a lot to do with the many pointless bad dates I had after my second husband, Will, left me (I refer to him as my second husband, but I never actually married Ada’s father, Chris, so Will is in fact my one and only husband, or he was before he left me). I went through setups and contrived dinner parties and even an online dating service. How difficult and humiliating it was to discover a man wasn’t really attracted to you. There was a time when a man’s attraction was a given, and that time had passed. I stopped trying to date after barely a year. It had, I’m afraid, been a long time. Sitting there, with his hand on mine, staring me into desiring him, felt good—quietly, dizzily good.
I would have liked to do something then, but. “I have to go back to work,” I said. I gently pulled my hand back toward me. He let go.
“What work do you do?”
“I’m a personal secretary. Or assistant. An office manager for Greer Properties. A sort of personal assistant to Jack Greer.” The Greer family had real estate holdings all over Los Angeles. They owned land from pre-Hollywood time, orange-grove time. They were even related to Henry Gaylord Wilshire on his mother’s side. Wilshire used to own property from West Hollywood down to what would become Wilshire Boulevard, which he planned to develop from a barren field into a grand street named after himself. He donated the property to the city in the 1890s. Henry Gaylord Wilshire frequently ran for office as a socialist and eventually lost everything; Jack’s money came from his father’s unsocialist grandfather, Lymon Greer.
I have been working for Jack Greer for fifteen years. I do everything for him, from making lunch dates to getting his dry cleaning. I answer letters and return
“What do you do?” I asked, my whole person collapsing in weary resignation as I asked this ridiculously boring question. This was exactly why I stopped dating. This was why I wanted to stay with my husband long after I realized he was unhappy. So I wouldn’t have to ask and answer these sorts of questions.
“I’m a teacher,” he said.
“Oh, that’s great. What do you teach?” I said. To me, asking and answering these questions implied a false promise about the future. Telling your life history meant you were throwing it out for someone’s perusal, and how optimistic could you feel? How could anyone “get” me at this point? I made no sense, especially in light recitation.
“I teach art history. And sometimes film. At Wake School. Do you know it?”
I shook my head.
“It’s a private high school for rich industry kids. Mostly. They do give some financial-need scholarships to gifted kids.”
It was my turn, and I found myself speedily talking about Ada and her life in New York. And I knew I now sounded like a woman who lived through her daughter, but I guessed that was better than the woman I was a minute earlier who loved to talk about SARS. I was just about to launch into describingmy dying mother and her approaching dementia and my own fears of age-related memory impairment when I stopped. I just stopped myself. I took a sip of water, a deep breath, and I let the silence hang there. I even stopped smiling.
At last he said, “You have the loveliest hands,” and he put his hand, or just the fingers of his hand, very gently on top of the fingers of my hand. I could feel my cheeks getting warm. I stared stupidly at our hands on the table. At last I looked up, and he was looking right back at me. I made myself hold his gaze for a second, and I could feel an unmistakable wave of desire move through my hand and across my body. I had to shift a bit in my seat, even, and I was amazed at how a man who didn’t seem sexy at all could suddenly become starkly erotic just by plainly admitting his desire. Was it always like that? I didn’t think so. I think it had a lot to do with the many pointless bad dates I had after my second husband, Will, left me (I refer to him as my second husband, but I never actually married Ada’s father, Chris, so Will is in fact my one and only husband, or he was before he left me). I went through setups and contrived dinner parties and even an online dating service. How difficult and humiliating it was to discover a man wasn’t really attracted to you. There was a time when a man’s attraction was a given, and that time had passed. I stopped trying to date after barely a year. It had, I’m afraid, been a long time. Sitting there, with his hand on mine, staring me into desiring him, felt good—quietly, dizzily good.
I would have liked to do something then, but. “I have to go back to work,” I said. I gently pulled my hand back toward me. He let go.
“What work do you do?”
“I’m a personal secretary. Or assistant. An office manager for Greer Properties. A sort of personal assistant to Jack Greer.” The Greer family had real estate holdings all over Los Angeles. They owned land from pre-Hollywood time, orange-grove time. They were even related to Henry Gaylord Wilshire on his mother’s side. Wilshire used to own property from West Hollywood down to what would become Wilshire Boulevard, which he planned to develop from a barren field into a grand street named after himself. He donated the property to the city in the 1890s. Henry Gaylord Wilshire frequently ran for office as a socialist and eventually lost everything; Jack’s money came from his father’s unsocialist grandfather, Lymon Greer.
I have been working for Jack Greer for fifteen years. I do everything for him, from making lunch dates to getting his dry cleaning. I answer letters and return
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