I didn’t set out to meet a girl as young as Sherri. I met her on a double blind date, when my recently divorced college roommate asked, “This girl I’m seeing has a sister—want to double?”
I wasn’t really ready to date, but I was beginning to fear that I might never be, so I agreed. I figured it was a good opportunity to get my feet wet—starting with a table for four would prove infinitely less intimidating than starting with a table for two. When I arrived, lo and behold, my friend’s date was twenty years his junior, and her younger sister, Sherri, looked around the age of my daughters. I was a bit mortified, but I tried not to show it. Sherri didn’t seem to notice or care. The wine flowed and the conversation was light and easy. I laughed out loud, and for the first time since Marilyn’s death I was not awash in guilt about it. When the sister mentioned wanting to see Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga at Radio City and my friend offered to get us four tickets, I agreed. Sherri seemed so excited about it, and I liked them both, actually. Two dates led to a string of dinners and eventually overnights and brunches, and suddenly, without any plan or agenda, here I was, celebrating the four-month anniversary of that first date.
I arrived excited to show Sherri the Four Seasons, even if she wanted to see it for reasons I couldn’t relate to. Julian greeted me with a regular’s welcome and escorted me to my date, who was sitting at the bar with her back toward us. From behind I saw the little black dress that I’d had sent from Bloomingdale’s—but the back wasn’t Sherri’s. The woman in the dress stood and turned to face me. She smiled a warm smile. She was stunning. She was Felicia.
I was speechless and doubly confused. Not only was this not who I was expecting, but she looked so different from what I was used to. She greeted me with a kiss on the cheek.
“Hi, Arthur. You look so stunned to see me!” I was silent. “I know, I look different than I do at the office.” Silent still. “It’s just a little makeup and—”
I got myself together and interrupted her. “No, you look beautiful, Felicia. It’s so nice to see you out…at night. I’m just not used to it.” I gave a quick look around the room, making sure Sherri wasn’t sitting anywhere.
“Well, you’re the one who invited me!” She laughed. “You even sent me the dress—I assumed I should wear it!”
“Of course!” I took her arm, totally perplexed but, inexplicably, not at all unhappy about the turn of events. “Let’s go to our table.”
She grabbed her purse. “Thank you. I’ve always wanted to come to the Four Seasons. You know, Jack Kennedy ate here the night Marilyn Monroe sang ‘Happy Birthday’ to him.”
“Really? I didn’t know that.” I laughed at myself again. It was nice to get the reference this time.
“Don’t worry,” she said, “I don’t expect you to sing like that to me.”
That’s right—it was her birthday. I pieced the whole mix-up together. Sherri would be furious.
Dinner was lovely, the food and wine superb, the conversation delightful, and eventually I began to ignore the constant vibrating of my phone in my pocket, which I knew must be Sherri getting angrier and angrier. We talked about anything and everything, but the thing that touched me most was the way she talked about Marilyn. “Remember when Marilyn threw you that surprise party and I couldn’t get you to leave the office?” Or, “Remember how Marilyn always called Stanley-from-accounting’s home-wrecking girlfriend by his ex-wife’s name just to irritate her?” We laughed and laughed, and I realized that everyone around me had been scared to even mention Marilyn’s name, let alone reminisce about her. Even my daughters avoided saying “Mom.” It was as if everyone thought by bringing her up they would be reminding me of her, as if I forgot about her until someone said her name. It seemed that Felicia was the only one who knew that I was always thinking about her, that her name spoken out loud was a kind of comfort. Besides the meal and the wine and the conversation, I could not get over how pretty she was. This woman whom I had seen nearly every weekday for more than seventeen years was really very beautiful. I had just never stopped to sit across the table from her and look into her lovely blue eyes. I never even knew she had lovely blue eyes.