This is a continuation of
Becoming Hers Pt. 01
. In the first part, Steven, a young "master of the universe," fall heavily for Sally.
Chapter 8
Since my invitation was spur of the moment I first had to contend with the fact that I had no food at my place. At least none that I would dare to serve her. And my place was a mess.
I ran first to the grocery store to pick up things for dinner. Although I usually do not have much time to cook, I've always enjoyed it and have been good at it. Standing in the aisles I settled on a menu with an Italian theme. We would start out with artichokes, followed by a salad. Then some pasta with pesto and a small piece of sole. We would end with fruit, coffee, and, well, who knows....
It was 4 PM and I invited her for 6:30. I returned to my place with the groceries and saw that my place actually needed far more cleaning up than I originally imagined. I began the artichokes and quickly began straightening and cleaning. I even wiped down the bathroom (which, truth be told, really should have been done a month ago) and changed my sheets. Dinner was easy (I had bought prepared pesto) so I just had to prepare the sole so I could pop it into the oven and get a pot of salted water boiling for the pasta. I whipped up a sauce for the artichokes and took a shower. I shaved and decided to wear fairly new jeans and a white shirt that stretched just a little over my muscular chest. A black belt and black slip ons. A spritz of a musky aftershave. And some mouthwash.
My apartment was cozy and furnished sparsely. While it was not technically I student apartment it looked a lot like one and I never bothered to make it homey. It had a small bedroom, a bathroom with a stall shower, and a single open living area. At one end was the kitchen and at the other I set up a living room set with a sofa and armchair perpendicular to each other. There was a lamp and a couple of coffee tables. A female friend who visited once told me that it reminded her of a hotel, or the apartment of the George Cloony character in
Up and Away
. Anyway, it was all I had to work with tonight. It's saving grace, and it was a big one, was the view. There were large windows looking out over the Hudson and New Jersey beyond.
A small dining table stood between the kitchen and living areas. I did not own a tablecloth but I was able to dig out some candles. I set the table with matching dishes, a feat for which I complimented myself. I told Alexa to put on some mellow jazz.
As usual, Sally was punctual. I buzzed her into my building and a minute later she was in my apartment. I was unsure whether I should kiss her hello but as I was deciding she leaned forward and gave me a kiss on the cheek. She had on a white skirt and a tight green blouse, accentuating her curves in all the right ways. She looked great, and she seemed happy.
"You do this often? Make dinner for women you just met?" she teased.
A few snappy comebacks went quickly through my mind. But what I really wanted to do, and what I did, was to tell her the simple truth.
"Actually, no. Never. I just really wanted to see you and to do something special for you."
She took that in for a moment. I offered her a glass of white wine, which she took.
As I mentioned, the best feature of my otherwise sterile, small apartment was the view. I lived on the 23
rd
floor and I had two windows in my living room with a great view of the Hudson River and New Jersey on the other side. I figured three quarters of the outrageous amount I paid for rent was due to that view. Sally was immediately drawn to the window, her wine in her hand.
"This is a beautiful view," she said as she looked out at the sun just beginning to set over the river. I resisted the urge to say that it was her, framed against the yellowing gauzy light streaming into the window, that was the beautiful view.
We sat on the sofa, which faced the window, and I lowered the blinds slightly to keep the sun out of our eyes. We sipped our wine and watched the sun set, chit chatting about this and that. She was upset with her roommate who left dirty dishes in the sink. An item in the news this morning about the collapse of an enormous glacier from the ice cap caught my attention. We talked about living in the City with both its great pleasures and its frustrations. I welcomed the opportunity to not talk about anything serious, but just to be.
As the sun's orb descended out of sight we sat down to eat. I lit the candles, pulled out her seat like a gentleman, and brought the artichokes as our first course. She looked uncomfortable.
"Everything okay?" I asked.
"I've never eaten an artichoke," she said.
I knew that this was a critical moment. I had made her feel insecure and vulnerable and worked quickly in a matter-of-fact manner to make her more comfortable.
"Nothing to it. You just take each leaf, dip the base in the butter sauce, and use your teeth to scrape the meat off the leaf. I showed her.
"Mmm. It's good," she said.
When we got to the heart I showed her how to remove the choke and eat what was left.
I really wasn't thinking about this when I decided to serve the artichokes, but I found watching her eat it to be surprisingly arousing. Her sliding the leaves into her mouth and lightly scraping them with her teeth was sensuous, a sensuousness that was enhanced by the slight oily sheen from the butter on her fingers and lips. She was totally into the artichoke and I was totally into her.
We talked for the rest of the meal, this time about weightier things. I told her about my family and some of the frustrations of living within a kind of culture of emotional repression. I shared my lingering doubts about whether I really wanted to work in financial services. She told me mainly about her complex relationship with her mother.
"My mother is a remarkable woman. Her parents emigrated from Ireland to Brooklyn and were dirt poor. She was one of eight children and my grandfather, who I never knew, was rarely around and when he was around he was abusive. Like her brothers and sisters, after the eighth grade she went to work to support the family. She started doing sweatshop work but then, around the time she was eighteen, began to work as a maid.
"She met my father then. He was a sailor and was stationed at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. My mother was eighteen when she married. It was a small wedding in a church. Neither they nor their families had any money and the neighbors chipped in for a small celebratory meal after the ceremony.
"My parents moved in together and lived hand to mouth. Both worked long hours. Within the year my mother was pregnant with her first child. Six weeks after giving birth she went back to work, dropping off the baby with her mother and other siblings to watch. It was a really hard life.
"Over the years, my father did okay. He left the navy and worked for a manufacturer for a bit and then became a firefighter. He had a good union job and my parents moved out to Far Rockaway. My mother was having babies and soon stopped working. She stayed home to raise us.
"My mother poured herself into us. It was exhausting work. We were rambunctious and we were getting by on just my dad's paycheck. At least he isn't a drinker or gambler. She really ran the house, from the kids to the finances. She is a very strong and strong-willed person.
"She loves us all fiercely. I wonder sometimes if it isn't simply that she just loves, generally, fiercely. Underneath, there is something that seems to be churning in her. Maybe it's passion, or frustration. When I feel sorry about myself I sometimes think about her and wonder how she deals with a life of limitations and frustrated ambitions. What even are her ambitions?
"I am pretty sure that my father was her first, although she would rather die than talk about anything like that with me. She has now been with him about thirty years and I think that she sometimes wonder what it would be like to be with another man. She still looks good and takes care of herself and sometimes I think I catch her looking at a guy here or there, like the delivery man or men at the beach. Does she ever wonder what it would be like to be with someone else? For all I know, maybe she has taken lovers. But I doubt it.
"She loves me. I know that. And I love her. We talk every day. She wants to know what I'm doing, how I'm doing, and most importantly, who I'm seeing. She is constantly in my business, and it is sometimes suffocating. Here I am trying to make an independent life for myself -- precisely because my parents didn't want to invest in my education or keep supporting me -- and she won't let me go. Or maybe it is me who doesn't want to let go.
"I'm sorry. I know you didn't want to hear all of this."
"No. I'm glad you told me and that you feel comfortable telling me. Did you speak to her today?"
"Yes."
"Did you tell her about me?"
"Yes."
"What did you tell her?"
"That I met a really nice guy who wanted to cook dinner for me."
"And what did she say?"
Sally laughed.
"She said first that he must not be Irish and, second, that guys like that were rare and that I shouldn't blow it."
"Don't worry."
We sat for a moment in silence before she helped me clear the table. I brought out mangoes for dessert, which were fun and messy to eat. We turned our conversation to lighter topics.
It was dark out but the view, now of the lit-up New Jersey skyline, remained beautiful. I had made a pot of decaf coffee and we took our cups and sat on the sofa looking out of the window, the jazz still playing in the background.
"You like Springsteen?"
