The Hazards of Hunting While Heartbroken (10 page)

It can’t be
that
wrong. This is New York, after all.

“What a fantastic place. Your view. It’s amazing. No, it’s
enchanting
.” I stop myself from gushing further.

“It looks even more fantastic with you in it.” He smiles broadly at me. “Seriously though, I’m partial to it myself. I wish I had more time to spend here. How about a glass of wine?”

I follow him to the kitchen and watch as he retrieves a bottle from the wine cellar. I don’t recognize the label, as I’m sure it’s not a selection frequently poured by the glass, but I see it’s fifteen years old.

He hands me a glass and raises his. “To an utterly
enchanting
evening.”

“Don’t be mean,” I say, with mock indignation, but he’s smiling and I am, too. He produces a remote control from one of the drawers and jazz floods the kitchen from surround sound speakers. He adjusts the volume to a background noise level. Maybe my radar should start bleeping trying-too-hard, but because I’ve never dated a real
grown up
before, I give him a pass. Maybe this is what grown ups do on dates. Not eat in front of the television, like Brendan and I used to do all the time.

For the next hour I sip my wine and pick at a selection of fancy cheeses while Oscar rolls up his sleeves, chats with me about his work and whips up a three-course meal. He’s almost too comfortable, like this is date twelve and not date two. I, on the other hand, start to feel self-conscious, perched on a stool watching him work. And I start to panic silently as soon as I let myself wonder how on earth I can reciprocate. Macaroni and cheese, even if it’s my mother’s recipe and not from a box, in my shabby kitchen circa 1979 with its view of a dirty brick wall, won’t exactly measure up. And then I start to worry about other things outside my control, such as what I’ll say if I run into Carol in the elevator on the way out of here tonight.

He waves off my offers to help (I may not be a culinary visionary, but I could certainly produce a salad) and periodically pauses to top off my wine. I pace myself. He’s barely touched his glass, because he’s busy with the food. He sets two places across from each other at the breakfast bar. I notice that he sets fish knives. I’ve never seen those outside of a restaurant. He uses another remote control to dim the lights. He lights a candle and says, “Let’s eat in here, if that’s alright with you. My dining room feels too stuffy.” He ladles out two bowls of lobster bisque and watches while I taste it.

“Your talents are wasted in advertising. You should have a restaurant.”

“I’m not interested in working nights, but thank you.” He tastes his creation and looks up at me so intently that I start to feel a little uncomfortable in my skin. It’s sad to admit, but nobody has ever gazed at me with that kind of overt lust. I don’t know how to react, but succumbing to my urge to say that I really,
really
want him would be a significant mistake. Though it could lead to an unreal night.

I wimp out and make PG conversation. “Where did you learn to cook like this?”

“I’m self-taught. One night sometime midway through business school I just got sick of eating pizza and frozen dinners. So I started buying cook books. Once I realized I had a knack for the kitchen, I started tweaking some of the recipes and making them my own. I love to eat and it’s the only hobby I can fit into my professional life, unless you count exercise. Pretty sad, right?”

No, it’s pretty amazing. “It would be sadder for you to serve your dates Ramen noodles or Spaghetti-O’s,” I say, with a big smile.

He makes a face like the thought makes him gag. I take another spoonful of the to-die-for bisque. No canned goods here. We eat in silence for a moment.

“Can I ask you something?” He doesn’t wait for me to respond. “The other night you said you haven’t been married, but you came close. What was that about?”

I knew that sooner or later he’d ask. I don’t know many divorced people, but the ones I do know seem to relish the opportunity to delve into other people’s romantic misfortunes. I try to think of a positive way to couch my recent history.

“This soup really is great,” I repeat.

“Out with it!” he commands with a smile. “It can’t be any worse than what I told you on our first date, and you came back for more.”

“There’s not so much to tell. I met this guy during our sophomore year at Princeton. We hit it off, became completely inseparable, but didn’t become an official item until our senior year. We both moved to New York after graduation. He went to Columbia Law School, and his father helped me get the gallery job I told you about the other night. Pretty soon after that, we broke up for a year and a half, but stayed friends.”

I thought stupidly, that our enduring friendship was some kind of sign that we were meant for each other.

“You must have stayed more than friends if you almost married the guy,” Oscar prods.

“Yeah, we got back together. By the time he graduated and started working at a law firm, we were more like roommates than anything else. But we got engaged anyway. My friends back home were starting to get married. Maybe I felt like I was on the train, and doing what I was supposed to be doing, or something like that. A few months ago we came to our senses and called it off.”

I plow my soup around the bowl with the back of my spoon. Everything I just said is true. He doesn’t need the gory details.

“I don’t get it,” Oscar says finally.

“Get what?”

“Get why you’d spend your twenties living with someone who was no more than a nice agreeable roommate. I’m a when-you-know-you-know kind of guy myself. If something feels good but not great, I move on.”

I wince at this, and he rushes to add, “But that’s just me. Anyway, if this ex of yours was so smart, why didn’t he seal the deal sooner? Before you guys drifted apart?”

“Because he was gay.”

It comes out before I can stop it. And maybe it’s for the best. If I’m going to see where things go with Oscar, maybe I should try honesty. Perhaps not brutal honesty, but truthfulness anyway.

“It happens,” he says, utterly nonplussed. “The head of the law firm Takamura Brothers uses for almost all its legal work came out of the closet last winter.”

“I know him! He shocked everyone. His wife claims she had no idea. Even Carol Broadwick was stunned. Although in retrospect she says she should have seen it. He always sent such tasteful corporate gifts.”

“Right. But the point is, here’s a guy who’s at the top of his professional game. He’s got a wife and three kids, and he’s the head of a huge firm with a very macho culture. One day he snaps. He can’t live the lie anymore. So he explodes out of that closet and embraces an entirely new life.”

“That’s exactly what Brendan did, and I thought he was so callous about it. It was like he couldn’t believe I hadn’t always known. If I take a step back, I can see that he did what he had to do, but in the moment it was like being hit by a bus.”

I wonder whether this constitutes excessive sharing on my part, but Oscar is looking straight into my eyes, listening with what appears to be genuine concern.

“At least you didn’t marry the guy and have kids. Look on the bright side. You’re still young.”

“I wasted almost ten years on him. I’m furious with myself about it.” I’m about to go into how heartsick and furious I felt when Brendan first dropped the bomb, but the little voice in my head is screeching at me to shut up and stop volunteering too much personal, emotionally explosive information. I manage to bite my tongue, and silently applaud myself for doing so.

Oscar waits a split second, to make sure I’m not adding anything else, before weighing in. “You said this Brendan person was your best friend for at least half the years you spent together. So it wasn’t a total waste.”

“Easy for you to say.”

“I’m divorced, remember? Which tells you I’ve made my share of relationship mistakes. I’m glad you told me. It’s nice to know where you’re coming from. And this way I don’t have to hear it from some wacky aunt of yours or something, months down the road.”

Months down the road.
Could he be thinking long term already? Do men do that? I thought that was a female urge. One that should be suppressed, at that. I should ask Kevin what this means.

Oscar clears the soup bowls, deposits them next to the sink and produces a platter with a whole roasted trout and an impressive assortment of vegetables from the oven. As he starts to filet and serve the fish, he asks, “How long have you lived over in Gramercy?”

I can’t believe that’s it. He doesn’t think I’m some emotionally underdeveloped freak who couldn’t deduce her former fiancé’s proclivities. I also can’t believe that I’m about to lie about my apartment, when I just came clean about Brendan.

“Not very long. Brendan and I lived in Murray Hill when we were together.” Technically, at least, this is true, and I may be moving in with Angela and her cats if my rent increases thirty-six hours from now.

“I lived over there when I first came to the city from Colorado. Talk about culture shock. I’d been going to college, skiing a hundred days a year, and living with four guys in this huge rental house. Then I come to B-school and I move into a one bedroom, six flight walk up in Murray Hill, with incredibly loud radiators, that I shared with this classmate from Tokyo. We created a second bedroom by ripping the shelving out of the closet.”

“Who got the real bedroom?”

“He did.”

“Seems unfair.” I smile, flip my hair and bat my eyelashes playfully. It’s been way too long since I’ve flirted and it feels great. Especially since he’s flirting back, smiling, looking away, mirroring my pose. I almost forget we were discussing his student digs.

“It worked out fine for me in the end. Seiji—that was his name—introduced me to his uncle Hideki Takamura during our second semester, and the rest, as they say, is history. I got my dream job and the first account I worked on was Rossignol. I thought I’d hit the lottery.”

The oven timer goes off. “Fifteen minute warning on the soufflé,” Oscar says, matter-of-factly. He reaches across the table to top off my wine.

Great.
In order to reciprocate, I’m going to need to produce something far superior to slice and bake, or even cupcakes from the corner bakery.

I get out of my seat and offer to help but he waves me away. “I’ll just put away the food. The maid will take care of the rest in the morning.”

Of course she will.

“Does she normally work Sundays?” It seems cruel and unusual to me to have someone, who probably slaves all week for less than minimum wage, give up her weekend so that Oscar and I don’t have to load our own dishes into the dishwasher.

“No, but I pay her double time if I ask her to come in on the weekend. She likes the extra money. She sends it home to Nicaragua. Have you been to Central America?” he asks, leaving no doubt that the subject of his overworked maid is closed.

“I went to Belize once.” I don’t add that I went there during the year Brendan and I were broken up, with this adrenalin junkie from Melbourne I’d met two weeks earlier, in a no name bar in the Village. His idea of a romantic getaway involved lots of drinking and diving, but not much in the way of spa treatments, gourmet meals or even hot showers. I stuck it out for three nights, because it was the first truly exciting sex I’d ever had in my life. By the fourth day I was so hung-over, un-shampooed, mosquito-bitten and just plain hungry, that I left him for a four star hotel ten miles and a world away. I charged four nights on a credit card. It was the best $2,600 I ever spent. We broke up for good on the plane ride home, then returned to my place for break up sex that made me cry after he left. But Oscar does
not
need to know any of this. He already knows more than I’d planned to divulge about the Brendan debacle.

So I say, “It was nice. Undeveloped, compared to much of the Caribbean.”

He says something about being due for some time in the sun this winter, then goes to fetch the soufflé. My eyes bulge in amazement as I take the first bite.

Oscar smiles, clearly pleased with himself. “I had you pinned as a chocolate lover, and I’m happy to see I guessed right.”

“You really made this yourself?” If I wasn’t so wowed by him, I’d probably seize the opportunity to say something snarky, like most women love chocolate, so you just played the odds. But I feel no such destructive impulses.

“Yes, ma’am. And I can do even better. You’ll have to stick around.” Another big smile. His eyes sparkle and the skin around them crinkles again. I now understand how sharing a great meal can qualify as foreplay. I will never again mock those articles touting the merits of aphrodisiac menus.

I’m definitely planning to stick around.

We demolish the dessert. Oscar selects a new bottle of wine and we arrange ourselves on the leather couches in his living room. His free hand—the one not holding his drink—reaches across the space between us and touches my arm. Every tiny hair on my body stands on end as he starts to rub his hand down my forearm to my wrist and back up again. There’s something skilled about the way he does it expertly, yet almost absent-mindedly at the same time.

He wordlessly takes my glass, sets it on the table, places his own next to it, cups my face between both his hands and leans in to kiss me. His lips barely graze mine and it takes an immense amount of maturity and self-control to keep from launching myself into his lap.

Evidently Oscar lacks comparable maturity and self-control. Before I have time to muster the will to re-commandeer control of the situation, his mouth is on mine and he’s easing me back into the couch. I slide down along the slippery leather until I’m more reclined than seated. He kisses my neck and ears and something inside me stirs. I suddenly can’t remember why I wasted the summer dejected over Brendan. Oscar moves my hair out of the way and his lips graze the back of my neck. His ex-wife must have been insane to leave him for another man.

He whispers, gruffly, in my ear, “Stay the night.”

“Mmmm.”

Oscar smells faintly of some cologne I can’t name and his mouth tastes slightly of the dessert wine, which now sits abandoned on the coffee table. His hand runs down my side and finds its way under my sweater. He kisses me again, and when he pauses for air, he murmurs, “Let’s move to the bedroom.”