The View From Penthouse B

30





SWWF Seeking No One


I REUPPED WITH MATCH.COM by accident, an automatic renewal I forgot to nip in the bud. When invited out, I tended to accept. Thus there was the date with the man who said he was a cultural anthropologist, but whose actual job was driving a double-decker sightseeing bus. There was the ex-academic who, after being denied tenure, spent his days pounding out op-ed rants, unpublished, on a manual typewriter. Civilization, he advised me, was going to end sooner than I realized.

There was the date who proudly counted Weight Watchers points—not just on his plate but on mine. There was one who said he didn’t eat salad because it gave him gas. There was the first and last date with the handsome ex–baseball player who stuck his Nicorette gum under his chair when the appetizers arrived. There was the dentist who excused himself after pecan-toffee pie to floss in the men’s room.

And finally, a fix-up arranged by Olivia’s boss. He was her next-door neighbor, and his name was Geoffrey, the spelling of which suggested good breeding and a whiff of the British Isles. The scouting report by Olivia: I’ve seen him in the elevator. We’ve never talked. I think the baby makes him nervous. Nice-enough looking. I can’t tell his age. I’m not good at that. Fifty? Midfifties? No bums live in this building, that’s for sure. What have you got to lose?

His overture came in the form of a voice-mail message. He’d chosen the restaurant, one of his favorites. Seven-thirty on Monday. He’d swing by and get me at seven-fifteen.

“No ‘Looking forward to meeting you,’” I noted to Margot.

“He’s a guy, probably a businessman. They’re all like that. He’s making an appointment.”

When I expressed something less than optimism, Margot said what she always said. “But this could be the one. Call him back and accept. Sound enthusiastic. He may not be your cup of tea, but maybe he has friends.”

Monday was six days away. And I confess that by the time that evening arrived, Olivia’s bland description of the stranger/neighbor had upgraded itself to “attractive, child-friendly, and kind.” Margot agreed on my wardrobe choice: the cute black cocktail dress I chose for those occasions I faced without foreboding or a sinking heart.

As ever, I timed my ablutions so I’d be at my freshest and best arranged, made up and blown dry very close to the departure time. So when the phone rang at approximately six p.m., I had just stepped out of the shower. It was Geoffrey, and he was neither confirming nor canceling. He was waiting downstairs.

I stammered something close to an apology. Had I misunderstood that our reservation was at seven-thirty and that he’d be picking me up at seven-fifteen?

No, I had not misunderstood. But he’d called to change the time and unfortunately I hadn’t picked up.

“When?”

“I don’t know! Fifteen minutes ago? Ten? I left a message. I have a car and a driver. My daughter wants it later. I had to move us up.”

Did I say “Too f*cking bad?” I should have. I should have barked back “Does no one in your family take taxis? Or “What are you? A man or a mouse?”

But it was I who was mouselike. I said, “I’ll be down as soon as I can.”

“It’s a black Town Car with Jersey plates, double-parked. We might have to circle the block.”

I rushed in a way I would later chastise myself for. I zipped myself into my dress, wobbled into my heels, cut minutes off the time I would have spent with hair dryer, blusher, and mascara, and grabbed my everyday pocketbook instead of transferring the essentials to a chic little evening purse I’d found on eBay. I even thought about running down eleven flights of stairs when the elevator dawdled.

The black Town Car was double-parked and my date was sitting in the back seat, frowning into his phone. What might have been dark good looks in another situation was, behind tinted glass, now suggesting villainy. I rapped on the window, waved a pathetic little wiggle of five fingers; smiled. Did he open the door? No. He said something to the driver, who scurried out of the front seat to open the very door that was at my date’s elbow. I said, before stepping in, “Hi, I’m Gwen. Stephanie’s friend.”

How would a blind date answer in such a situation if this were, let’s say, a romantic comedy and not a nightmare? “Nice to meet you”? “Sorry for the confusion”? Or “That was quick, I appreciate it”?

What he said was “Get in.”

I hesitated. Did “Get in” sound gruff no matter the context or the tone? “Okay,” I said. “But move over.”

His next words were not to me but to the driver. “Twenty-first between Lex and Third.” And then to me: “Another two minutes and I wouldn’t have been here.”

Did I see a little twitch from the front seat, a concerned, backward half glance as if the driver were sharing my shock?

I managed an offended “Excuse me?”

“I was here at six! It’s twenty past! It’s gonna take half an hour to get there in this traffic.”

I said, “Our date was for seven-fifteen! You came more than an hour early.”

“I called! You didn’t answer.”

“I was in the shower—”

“I left a message!”

I didn’t reply. And it was a silence best described as incredulity mixed with white-hot anger of a sort I hardly recognized. We were only two or three blocks from the Batavia, inching east in traffic. The traffic light ahead obligingly turned yellow.

When we came to a full stop, I opened my door, jumped out, and slammed it behind me, but not before I heard “What the f*ck?”

I had expected no pursuit, but Geoffrey was beside me, a hand on my arm. I said, loud enough for passersby to hear, “Let go or I’ll scream.”

“Are you okay?” a tattooed woman with a half-shaved head asked me. “Do you need help?”

“He’s a blind date. The worst! Would you believe he came an hour early and it’s my fault! But thank you, I live right up the street.”

“If I upset you—” Geoffrey began.

“Scram,” my new friend growled. “I have mace and don’t think I won’t use it.”





The phone was ringing when I got back to the apartment. It was Geoffrey, sweet-talking my answering machine. “C’mon. Let’s get a bite. I was agitated because my daughter needs the car. She and her friends are seeing—”

Anthony picked up, midsentence. “Don’t call here again,” he said. “And by the way, you’re an a*shole, and your daughter’s a spoiled brat.”

“You need anger management!” I yelled.

Even though Anthony was going out, he boiled some pasta for me, poured us glasses of wine, and kept me company while I ate.

That was the night I took stock of my life and recognized that it was very full. Or full enough. I had companions and champions. I had memories, a roof over my head, and a journal that was getting daily devotions in a dear-diary kind of way.

Who needs complications in an otherwise simple, happy life? Not me. Clearly, my white-hot anger had forged an ironclad new rule: no more looking and no more disappointments. Farewell, rude men, blind dates, and Match.com!

What a smart decision—and what a relief.





I avoided my e-mail, quite sure that Geoffrey would send a message of some sort, either an apology, a critique, or another overture. As I ran a bath, I did glance at my in-box. Something caught my eye, the subject line “RE: your ad,” forwarded by the New York Review of Books. It read:





Dear “Nervous”:

Hello! I am writing on behalf of my son, a single man of fifty-plus, who is also nervous about dating. He shouldn’t be! He is smart and nice looking and very kind. His wife died approximately 2 yrs and 5 months ago from a quick kind of cancer, so it’s time.

He is an engineer who works for a good company. His two daughters are grown and not underfoot, 21 and 24 years of age, and they know I’m doing this. What else should I tell you? He is tall, with a master’s degree, and owns his own apartment on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. Your ad appealed to me. I have a picture of him but don’t know how to send it. Are you still available, and are you by any chance of the Jewish faith? He doesn’t care.

Sincerely,

Myra Offenberg

Queens, New York





After a five-minute meditation on how soon to answer, I pressed REPLY and wrote:





Dear Mrs. Offenberg:

Thank you for your inquiry. My main concern is that your son might not be okay with your playing matchmaker. Does he know and does he approve? I’m sure your granddaughters could help you upload a photo of their father. I am also widowed, a college graduate, and live in Manhattan. Not of the Jewish faith or much of any other kind.

Sincerely,

Gwen-Laura Schmidt





I sent it. I wasn’t reneging on my decision to forsake men and dating. I was being polite. I’d placed an ad, and an elderly mother had answered it with hope in her heart. Good manners dictated that I acknowledge receipt of her inquiry. I wouldn’t tell Anthony or Margot that my personal ad had found a reader because they would get their hopes up and misinterpret the fact that I wrote back. They’d hover around my laptop, waiting for a reply, all the while discussing my hair, its roots, and the most efficacious first-date attire. Days would go by. And in a week, when Mrs. Offenberg’s nice-looking widowed engineer son failed to materialize, I’d have to push back against their pity.





Time2Heal to MiddleSister: I am a very confident and successful person in all aspects of life and work with the exception of where I am now. Patience, Please. Thank you.