“I wish I were.”
As I sat there stewing, the waiter brought our first course. The tartare looked phenomenal, but I had suddenly lost my appetite. Devin, however, dove right in. He took a first bite, closing his eyes and moaning in rapture. He was doing nothing more than enjoying his food, but at that moment, nothing could be more annoying to me than watching him chew. He looked at me then, could see my arms crossed against my chest, the scowl on my face. I hated myself for pouting, all whiny and Veruca Salt, but I hadn’t yet gotten over the slight.
“Hon. What are you waiting for? You should really try this.”
When I didn’t make a move, he acquiesced, put his fork down and said, “Okay, you’re mad. I get it.” He placed both hands on the table and looked right into my eyes, giving me his undivided attention to continue. “It was a stupid mistake on my part to forget something so important to you. I wish I could change things, and you have every right to be angry with me that I can’t. But truly, I’m very, very sorry.”
At that small acknowledgment, my icy veneer started to crack just the slightest bit. It was a genuine apology, a rare and treasured event coming from him. And seriously. Everybody makes hare-brained mistakes from time to time. Lord knows I was certainly no exception.
I could have prolonged the argument, really dug my heels in and made a big stink about it. I was justifiably miffed, but it wasn’t worth ruining our entire night over one little human error. Devin was normally so incredibly good to me. He’d never try to deliberately hurt my feelings. I decided to just let it go.
I grabbed my fork and dove into the plate between us. The tuna was perfectly prepared and practically melted in my mouth.
Devin was treading lightly, trying to gauge my mood as well as my opinion on his appetizer choice when he asked, “Well?”
I sighed heavily, conceding, and answered in a flat, expended breath, “It’s delicious.”
Devin laughed out, “That is probably the least enthusiastic enthusiasm I’ve ever heard in my life!”
Even I had to admit that my words sounded funny. I started laughing along with him, which managed to defuse the last of our confrontation.
We had a whole wonderful night ahead of us. I decided that there wasn’t any point in going out of my way to try and sabotage it.
Chapter 5
SUBCONSCIOUS CRUELTY
Do you remember that song, “Summer in the City”? There used to be a 4H or Young People’s Day Camp commercial or something with that song in it that played all the time back in the seventies, advertising their summer program, showing all these blissful, New Yorkian children playing in the sun. It was supposed to be happy and fun and showing what a city kid could do with their summer vacation, with a little help from their organization.
But I used to watch that ad from the confines of my refrigerated suburban living room thinking that I had it way too good. The kids in that commercial always looked like they were about to melt into the scorching, steaming blacktop. They spent their summers cooling off at a busted fire hydrant, while I had an entire swimming pool at my disposal right in my own backyard. I used to break out into a heat rash just from watching that commercial. Plus, I could never get the lyrics about the back of my neck getting dirty and gritty out of my head.
I mean, that line pretty much summed up the entire seventies. Just take a look at any Norman Lear TV show, and you can see what we were surrounded with. All in the Family, Sanford and Son, Good Times... So much of the seventies was just so dirty. Men wore their hair too long and nobody’s clothes matched. It was like everyone was suffering from the effects of all those drugs they took in the sixties. Porn ‘stache, Scotch plaid pants and a purple turtleneck? DYN-O-MITE!
I’d lived in New York for close to nine years at that point, but still, a hot day never passed without The Lovin’ Spoonful’s song invading my brain.
During late August in New York, the heat was practically a solid. A thick, squishy, gelatinous muck rising from the blacktop of the street and the grates in the sidewalk, only to be inhaled into its inhabitants’ tired lungs. The car exhaust and pollution would settle over everything like a sprinkling of gothic fairy dust, sticking to the beads of sweat on my skin. There were days when I could swipe my face with a tissue, and I would actually see the ashy residue evidenced right there on the Kleenex.
New York City was the most awesome place on Earth.