Byron's hackles were up - he had never in his life seen an elder so rudely treated by her family.
Sunday noon in San Diego, at a large, inexpensive "soup-salad-bread" restaurant, he was sitting alone in one of the big horseshoe-shaped booths, dressed in shorts, running shoes, and the tee-shirt from the morning's 10k race. His flight back to the east coast wasn't until late Monday afternoon, so he'd entered for the exercise, run a decent pace. And was now ravenous.
He had just opened his menu when the family entered – boisterous, argumentative, and radiating ill-concealed animosities and tensions. Several kids, mostly girls. Multiple generations.
The man was short, seriously overweight, nearly bald, red-faced and belligerent, ordering the others about mercilessly.
The end result, unbelievable to Byron, was Grandma (perhaps Great-Gram?) being relegated to sitting by herself in the booth next to the family. Grandma looked both resigned and upset. And lonely. But she bore the situation with something like good grace – far better self-control than Byron would have been capable of!
A waiter brought menus to the mob. Byron studied the group discreetly over the top of his own menu, but most particularly 'Grandma'. Now SHE was ignoring the rowdy bunch. Quite bluntly.
"'Good for you!"' he thought, studying her. She was, in fact, the only interesting-looking person in the swarm – maybe they were excluding her for THAT?
She verged on elegant: medium height, both slender and quite busty (in a semi-secret, discreetly-hidden way, rather ala QE-II) and ramrod straight. Even from twenty feet away her skin looked like parchment, almost transparent but smooth rather than crevassed, and her hands didn't have an "ancient withered rose" look. No old-lady simian vertical lines in her upper lip – in fact, she had pretty white teeth and rather full lips.
She must have been a real beauty in her heyday. Today, she was undoubtedly over seventy, but whether just seventy or an extremely well preserved eighty was moot, although odds were bound to favor the younger. Still genuinely pretty, too – striking dead-white hair done up in a tight bun, held with a single lacquered chopstick. No old-woman's makeup – not even nail polish, no rouge, no lipstick. Single strand of pearls, a dark navy blouse and white pleated skirt that looked as if it really ought to be out of place on her, but somehow wasn't.
Shapely calves, and what appeared (in the few seconds he'd had to watch her stride across the restaurant) to be a solid and well-exercised body. Certainly no great breadth of hips, nor over-thickness at the waist. Unlike the woman who was obviously her daughter – details of facial substructure proved it. And THAT woman looked to be actual "Grandma", hence the excludee, pariah for whatever stupid reason, must be Great Grandmom. "Not THAT's an impressive woman!" he thought.
It truly pained him to see anyone ostracized like that, but especially such a distinguished, attractive older woman. When she had had a few seconds with her menu, he impulsively stood, pulled his wallet out and extracted a business card. "What the hell," he thought, "...an adventure."
He stepped up to her table: the family chatter next door ceased abruptly as they all stared at him. He gave the entire family one slow, sweeping, glacially disdainful look, and then utterly ignored them – they might as well have been on the dark side of the moon. And they knew it.
She looked up, surprised, then puzzled, but interested. He handed her his card, said "Pardon me... but we both seem to be dining alone, and I was wondering if you'd mind my introducing myself, and inviting you to take lunch with me. As my guest. I'm Byron – I'm an oceanographer, just visiting from the east coast. I'd greatly enjoy your company, if you're free."
One of the older kids blurted "She's not alone, she's with US!"
Byron glanced at the speaker, said quietly, "I completely disagree, Miss. She is quite alone in here." He returned his gaze to Grandma.
The Man's jaw worked as if talking, but no sounds issued. His face reddened even more.
"There!" thought Byron – "Fuck the fucking fucker!" and kept his full attention squarely on the lady.
She looked at him with the most astonished expression, which slowly morphed into a sly, self-confident smile. She studied the card for a second, then extended a hand, shook his, and said "What a perfectly lovely idea! I'd be delighted, Doctor Byron the Oceanographer. I'm Theo. Doctor Theo, MD, retired. And I most certainly do accept your offer!"
He helped her rise: the whole family was gob-smacked into staring silence. The man sputtered, as if to start saying something, but at the last moment gave it up, glaring futile daggers at Byron. There was something approaching frank admiration on several of the female faces – perhaps even envy? One of the sub-teen girls giggled, "Hey! Our Great Grandma has a DATE, you guys!"
Byron escorted Theo to his table, seating her so she didn't have to receive more of the baleful familial stares: personally, he would find it exquisitely easy to ignore the whole damned little zoo.
He retrieved her menu, handed it to her. She smiled at him – and was every bit as pretty up close – even better, actually.
"Interesting situation you found yourself in, M'Lady Theo."
She smiled again, sighed, shrugged. "My daughter's choice of husband, not mine. That man – loosely speaking - certainly rates several British adjectives that we in the USA don't use nearly often enough – boor, cretin, and martinet among them. Plus of course the ubiquitous 'flaming asshole'".
"But enough of that unpleasantness!" She loosed her first unconstrained smile, and it dazzled him. "I certainly do appreciate your riding to my rescue, mister doctor White Knight Byron. It was very kind, and frankly quite an astounding intervention. Tres gallant! And now, sir, sitting at table with you, I find myself in yet another 'interesting situation' as you put it. But I infinitely prefer this one to that! It has indeed been a long time since I've been 'on a date' as the girl put it. A whizzer idea, too!"
She patted him briefly on the arm, then scanned him, read the tee-shirt: "Goodness – if you ran that thing this morning, you must be ravenous. We'd better get our order in the queue." She sighed, "You do have a nice runner's body. So did I, back a ways. That is to say, quite a ways! But I still do my yoga and the gym. Now, what to eat?"
With parallel backgrounds in biology, plus an obvious instant mutual attraction that puzzled each privately, they found one another amazingly compatible – the conversation was fast, covered enormous ground in very little time, and was densely larded with innuendo and puns. Each quickly managed to one-up the other several times, to the foil's delight.
By the end of the main course they were knee-touching beneath the table. Plus she was frequently patting his arm and holding his hand momentarily to emphasize some talking-point, her eyes sparkling. The first knee-touch was (perhaps?) accidental, followed quickly by semi-permanent contact: shortly, Theo winked at him and muttered "God but aren't we being fresh with one another!? Physically, too! You are a very strange man, Doctor Byron. But I like it."
It had been decades since she'd had this much attention from such an attractive (and so much younger!) man. Byron, while thoroughly enjoying Theo's company, also kept a sly watch on her familial herd – the younger girls were overtly watching their tête-à-tête, and were clearly fascinated by seeing their ancient ancestor so engaged by an unknown man less than half her age, perhaps only a third of it. The Man was not amused at all, grumping at food, service, and company indiscriminately. His wife cast their way only an occasional sidelong glance, one of which Byron intercepted: she looked embarrassed, almost fearful, and her gaze darted away.
The conversation included mutual explanations – Byron's trip brought him to town for a long scientific conference now completed. He'd lived in the area for many years two decades ago, and would be returning home –now the east coast- on a late flight tomorrow afternoon. Not an unusual junket – his science brought him hither several times per year.
Theo had lived in the city most of her life, been a successful MD, then moved into admin and wound up as the institution's director, from which she'd retired to her nearby condo some years ago.
As they contemplated dessert, she asked, very casually, whether he was actually free for the rest of the afternoon? She did have an ulterior motive in asking, she explained – she was thoroughly taken with the company, had no Sunday social obligations, would love to take Byron on a stroll around the small lake at her condo –- if, of course, he wasn't too tired after the morning's run. Perhaps it could be a warm-down? But that would require imposing on him for a ride home after they'd finished this impromptu and unexpectedly nice lunch date. She'd arrived in the family's van, but she could – if Byron were willing – simply tell them to 'Bugger off and leave me with my new friend'. Would he be interested?
He was both interested and available. In fact, he thought it a marvelous plan. Meanwhile – back to dessert, which he was going to insist upon – so long as it included plenty of dark chocolate.
Theodora's pack ate rather like wolves in midwinter, plowed through "free seconds", then finished dessert just when Byron and Theo were contemplating ordering theirs.
