Was that a compliment? He didn’t say “off you,” but it was implied. Wasn’t it? It’s been so long since I’ve heard genuine flattery that I can’t be sure. Jake tells me I’m beautiful, but it’s a rote response. “How do I look?” “Beautiful.” “Beautiful as always.” “You know you’re beautiful.” I can’t believe him. He lies about everything.
Tyler returns with a shy smile. I ask him if I’m spoiling the game. He swears that it was over anyway and fills me in on the history of the bar. Thursday nights are for the expats, particularly the British that the banks are constantly shipping over. The owner, an Irishman, has a satellite dish propped on the back of the building. Tyler spreads his arms, displaying his impressive wingspan. “Thing is bigger than my apartment.”
I glance at his hand. There’s no ring or visible tan line around the finger, though I’m not positive I’d notice, given his darker complexion. Not that it matters. It’s just a drink, and he’s only agreed to it because he thinks I’m a fragile soon-to-be-divorced patient who might do something drastic. This is pity date, courtesy of the Hippocratic oath.
I ask him about the game, even though I’m not interested in soccer and only have a vague sense of how it’s played. Clearly, he’s a fan. He boasts about a Trinidadian “right-back” who plays on Arsenal and came very close to scoring in the recent match. I like hearing him talk. His baritone is deep and comforting, a good voice for his profession. Moreover, it’s taking much of my concentration to keep pace with his stride without wrenching my ankle in my stilettos. Instead of looking at him, I’m forced to eye the ground for subway grates.
The wine bar reminds me of the inside of a barrel. The ceiling is wooden with exposed beams that arch toward a line in the center. The floor is cork. It’s dark, lit only by electric candles on the tables and three hanging pendant lights above the bar. The counter is a slab of unfinished wood staffed by a young man in a black apron and button-down. Behind him are rows of exposed shelves alternately topped with bottles and bell-shaped glasses of various sizes.
The bar is nearly full. I start toward the only visible free stool, figuring that we’ll both hover around it for our drink. Tyler’s fingers brush my bicep. He gestures to a table in the corner. “It’s seat yourself here.”
I follow him and perch on the inside stool, back against a brick wall. He straddles the outside seat, closer to the door, and waves over one of the waitresses. She brings a menu and asks what kind of wine we like. I’m about to say Cabernet but think better of it. Red makes me weepy. Instead, I ask for a dry white. She suggests a sauvignon blanc from New Zealand with herbal, peppery notes, which I say sounds great, though I never taste anything in white wine besides pear and acid. Maybe the postpregnancy senses will change that. When Tyler says he’ll have the same, she recommends that we buy the bottle. It’s ten dollars more and we’ll get two additional glasses for the cost of one.
“Sure.” I glance at Tyler to see if his expression disagrees.
He gives a noncommittal shrug. “Good value.”
I watch her head off to the bar and then return my attention to Tyler. He’s out of place here in his soccer jersey, jeans, and sneakers. But he’s so handsome that he makes the button-down set look overdressed.
“What brought you here from Trinidad?”
“Am I from Trinidad?”
“Aren’t you?”
“What gave it away?”
The answer is his accent coupled with the nationality of his favorite “footballer.” But I smile rather than say any of that. He’s playing defense, making me work for small answers so that our conversation stays on the surface. He knows my most humiliating secret. Is it wrong to want to know something real about him in return?
He nods slowly, acknowledging that I’ve figured out the game. “Ex-wife. She was a general manager at the Hyatt down there and got offered a dream job to run one of the brand’s Manhattan hotels. I came with.”
The waitress returns with the bottle. She pours a taste in my glass, which I pass to Tyler. “I don’t really know wine.”
“Not sure that I do either.” He sips anyway and then pauses a second before nodding approval. I’m relieved. Rejecting wine is something only royal pains do to look fancy. I would have thought less of him if he’d done anything other than accept it.
She splits half the bottle between our glasses. The wine sparkles in the flickering light of the flameless candle. I raise my glass, viewing Tyler for a moment through its pale-gold filter. He has such a nice complexion, smooth and dark, like a stained piece of oak.
“To you.” Our glasses clink. “Thank you for standing up for me.”
The drink tastes light and nearly nonalcoholic, though I know it must be at least 12 percent dangerous to classify as wine. I should be careful with this. “Do you like New York better than Trinidad?”
“It’s not exactly home.”
“Why stay?” I sip my wine to cover the fact that my back has tensed. This is when he’ll tell me that he left his wife for another woman who, conveniently, was also living in New York City.
“My daughter is here. She splits the week between me and her mother.” I flash back to the conversation in his office about not needing to stay with a cheating spouse for the kids. The advice may have come from personal experience. “And there’s the job. I built a pretty decent practice in the past thirteen years. I wouldn’t want to abandon my clients and start over.”
My muscles relax. “I imagine that would be difficult.”
The wine lubricates conversation. We chat easily about the city, our neighborhood, kids, the news. The latter discussion segues into my job covering crime and the courts. I share the highlight reel of my most interesting cases, happy to show off that I was not always a betrayed housewife on maternity leave. I have value, even if my marriage is falling apart.
As I talk, he seems to look at me differently. A wide smile takes shape on his face. “You have to be pretty confident to be a journalist.”
I shrug. “Not really.”
“No. I think you do. You put your words out there. Have to stand by them. Don’t sell yourself short.”
I feel a smile forming. I grab the bottle to cover it and pour another few swallows into my glass. The bottle feels light. An hour and we’ve nearly finished the whole thing.
“Of course, you have every reason to be confident,” he says.
“What do you mean?”
He looks squarely at my face and tilts his head.
My cheeks grow hot. I pick up the wine bottle and pour the last of it into his glass.
“Will you be covering that rock star’s wife who hit all those people? The one who has the case coming up next month?”
“No. I’d have to recuse myself.” I take a long sip, trying to act casual. “I know the prosecutor.”
“Your husband.”
Though his tone is matter-of-fact, the statement works like a shrill high note, breaking the glass that had blocked out reality. Again, I’m the depressed patient married to the cheating spouse. He’s the shrink. He drains the last of his drink. The waitress must see the deliberate way he polishes it off because a second later, she slides the check in the center of the table. He reaches for it.
I stand to place my hand on his. “Let me get this.” I grab my wallet from my purse and slip a fifty into the leather folder, enough for the wine, tax, and tip. I slide from the interior seat. “You can pick it up the next time I save you from a bar brawl.”
He towers over me. My eyes come to the level of his defined chest. I’d like nothing more than to walk home with my head leaning on his pectoral, his arm draped over my shoulder. But that’s not going to happen. I’m married. And though that means nothing to my husband, it means something to the man in front of me.