Dating Game (28 page)

“What if you're passing up the opportunity of a lifetime? He's a banker, and an extremely decent person. He's not some kind of swinging singles wild man.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I've met him,” Meg insisted. “And he's even handsome.”

“I don't care. You haven't dated him. Men turn into sociopaths when they date.”

“No, they don't. Some are just weirder than others. Like Peace.” Paris grinned, and Meg laughed.

“Exactly. How do you know this man isn't Peace's father?”

“Trust me. He looks like Dad. Same type. Shirt, tie, pin-striped suit, good haircut, nice manners, polite, smart, and he's a good father. Everything you like.”

“I'm not doing this, Meg.”

“Yes, you are,” her daughter said with a wicked smile.

“No, I'm not.”

“The hell you aren't. I told her we'd have dinner with them tonight. She was coming home for the weekend too, to see her dad.”

“You
what
? I can't believe you did that! Meg, I won't!”

“You have to, or you'll make a liar out of me. This is how nice people meet. They get fixed up. This is what parents used to do, now kids do it, they introduce their divorced parents to new mates.” It sounded sensible to Meg.

“I don't intend to ‘mate’ with this man.” Paris was incensed, but Meg wouldn't budge an inch, and Paris didn't want to embarrass her, so under great protest, in the end, she agreed. “I should have my head examined,” she muttered as they drove downtown. They were having dinner at a steakhouse Meg's friend had suggested. His name was Jim Thompson, and apparently he liked steak. At least he wasn't a vegan. And Paris intended to make it the shortest evening possible. She had worn a grim black suit, her hair in a ponytail, and no makeup.

“Can't you at least try a little bit?” Meg had complained while she watched her dress. “You look like a funeral director, Mom.”

“Good. Then he won't want to see me again.”

“You're not helping things,” Meg chided her.

“I don't intend to.”

“This is how a lot of women meet their second husbands.”

“I don't want a second husband. I haven't gotten over my first one. And I am positively allergic to blind dates.”

“I know. I remember the last one. He must have been an exception.”

“No, he wasn't. Some of Bix's stories are worse,” she muttered darkly, and on the way downtown, Paris sank into a sullen silence.

Both Thompsons were there when they got to the restaurant. Jim was a tall, thin, gray-haired man with a serious face, in gray slacks and a blazer. He was with his very pretty, very pregnant daughter, who was Meg's age. Her name was Sally, and Paris remembered her as soon as she saw her. She didn't even let herself look at Jim, until they sat down. There was something very kind and decent looking about him, Paris had to admit, and she thought he had beautiful, sad eyes. You could tell that something terrible had happened to him, just as it had to her, but you could also tell that he was a very nice man. And without meaning to, Paris felt herself feeling sorry for him. And halfway through dinner, they started to talk. They spoke quietly while the girls caught up on old times, and laughed about their friends. And all the while, Jim was telling her about when his wife died. And before she knew it, she was telling him about Peter leaving. They were trading tragedies like baseball cards.

“What are you two talking about?” Sally asked, as the two elder members of the group looked suddenly guilty. It wasn't exactly cheerful dinner conversation, and they didn't want to share it with their children. Sally and his son always told Jim he had to stop talking about their mother, particularly to strangers. He did it often. She'd been gone for nearly two years now. And to Jim, it seemed like minutes.

“We're just talking about our children,” Paris said blithely, covering for him, and herself. Sally's brother was a year older than Wim, and was at Harvard. “What rotten kids you are and how much we hate you,” Paris teased, with a conspiratorial look at Sally's father, for which he was grateful. He had liked talking to her, more than he'd expected. He had been as reluctant as she to come to dinner, and he had done everything he could to dissuade his daughter. But now that he was here, he was delighted he hadn't succeeded. Both girls were very stubborn, and loved their parents.

They talked about their respective Fourth of July plans then. Sally and her husband were going away for the weekend, probably their last one alone before the baby came. Jim said he was in a sailboat race with friends, and Paris said she would be working, on two holiday picnics. Jim thought her job sounded like great fun, although he admitted that personally he wasn't fond of parties. He seemed like a quiet, somewhat withdrawn person, but it was hard to tell if that was from circumstance or nature. He admitted to Paris that he had been depressed since being widowed. But he also had to admit that once he was out, he felt better.

The girls kissed each other good-bye when they left, and Jim asked Paris quietly in a discreet aside if he could call her. He seemed very old-fashioned, and very formal, and she hesitated for a moment, and then nodded. If nothing else, maybe she could help him. She wasn't physically attracted to him, but he obviously needed someone to talk to, and he wasn't unattractive. His circuits just seemed to be disconnected at the moment, and she wondered if he was on some kind of medication. They shook hands when they separated, and Jim whispered to her that he'd call her, and then he walked briskly down the street with his daughter. He looked like a man without a country. Even the slope of his shoulders suggested that he was unhappy.

“So,” Meg asked, as they got in the car, “what did you think?” She had the feeling her mother liked him, even if she wasn't willing to admit it. And Sally had whispered to Meg as they hugged good-bye that she hadn't seen her father so animated since her mom died.

“I like him. Not the way you think, or the way you and Sally plotted, evil children that you are.” Paris smiled. “But he's a lonely man who needs someone to talk to. And obviously a very decent person. His wife's illness and death were very hard for him.”

“It was hard on Sally too,” Meg commented, and then looked sternly at her mother. “He doesn't need a psych nurse, Mom, he needs a girlfriend. Don't be so codependent.”

“I'm not codependent. I feel sorry for him.”

“Well, don't. Just enjoy him.” But there wasn't much to enjoy yet. He had spent the entire dinner talking about her doctors, and her disease, her death, her funeral and how beautiful it had been, and the monument he was still building for her. All roads had led to Rome, and whatever subject she brought up had led right back to the late Phyllis. Paris knew he needed to get it out of his system, just as she had needed to with Peter. And obviously it took longer to mourn a death than a divorce or a betrayal. As far as she was concerned, Jim was entitled, and she was willing to listen. Besides, she could relate to a lot of it. In some ways, she still felt less divorced and more widowed, because of the suddenness of Peter's departing, and the fact that she had no voice in it. He might as well have died.

“He said he'd call me,” Paris volunteered, and Meg looked pleased. Particularly when she answered the phone and it was he the next morning. After saying hello pleasantly to Meg, Jim asked to speak to her mother. And Paris took the phone from her quickly. They chatted for a few minutes, and Meg saw her mother jot a note down, nod her head, and say she'd be delighted to have dinner with him.

“You have a date?” Meg asked with a look of astonishment. “Already? When?” She was grinning from ear to ear as Paris looked nonplussed, and insisted it wasn't romantic. “Tell me that in three weeks when you're sleeping with him,” Meg teased. “And don't forget, this time remember to ask if it's exclusive.” Although they both agreed that with Jim Thompson that wasn't likely to be a problem, at least not for the moment. Sally said he hadn't even looked at another woman since his wife died. And Paris believed it. She wasn't sure he was looking at her either. He just needed someone to listen, while he talked about his late wife. “So when are you seeing him?” Meg asked anxiously. She felt like a little mother. She wanted this romance to work. They all did.

“Tuesday, for dinner.”

“At least he's civilized, and won't take you to the kind of places mine take me. I either get to go to bottom-of-the-barrel sushi places where I get food poisoning, vegetarian, or diners so scary I'm afraid to walk into them. The men I go out with never take me anyplace decent.”

“Maybe you need someone a little older,” Paris suggested simply, although Meg had never liked older boys even when she was growing up. They just didn't appeal to her. She always liked them her own age, and once in a while, a year or two younger. But then she had to put up with all the immature games that went with it.

“Call and tell me how it goes with Mr. Thompson,” Meg reminded her when she left, and Paris spent the rest of the evening doing laundry, which wasn't glamorous, but useful. And on Monday she and Bix got in high gear over the Fourth of July picnics they were doing that weekend. By Tuesday night Paris was up to her ears in details, and almost forgot she had a date with Jim Thompson. She ran home from the office at six, after flying out of a meeting with Bix, and telling him she had to go out for dinner.

“Do you have a date?” He looked startled. She hadn't said a word about meeting someone new, and she'd been emphatic lately about not dating. She was still bitching about the blind date from Santa Fe, and used him as ample reason to remain a born-again virgin.

In answer to his question, Paris looked vague and said, “Not really.”

“What does that mean?”

“I'm acting as a psych tech to the father of a friend of Meg's who lost his wife to breast cancer two years ago.”

“That's tough,” Bix said, looking sympathetic. “What's he look like?”

“Proper, uptight, nice looking. Normal.”

“Excellent. How old?”

“About fifty-nine or sixty.”

“He sounds perfect. We'll take him. Go.”

“Don't get yourself excited. All he does is talk about his late wife. He's obsessed with her.”

“You'll change all that. Steven was just like that when I met him. I thought if I heard one more time about how his lover had died in his arms, I would scream. It takes a while, but eventually, it goes. Give him time. Or maybe Prozac. Or maybe Viagra.”

“Never mind that. I'm just having dinner with him. This is grief counseling, not sex therapy, Mr. Mason.”

“Whatever, have fun. G'night!” he called after her as she hurried down the stairs, and half an hour later she had washed and blow-dried her hair, woven it quickly into a braid while it was still damp, and put on charcoal-gray slacks and a matching sweater, and she had just put on shoes when the doorbell rang. She was still breathless when she opened the door and invited Jim in.

“Am I early?” Jim Thompson asked hesitantly. She had that look of what-are-you-doing-here-so-soon?, but she was just harassed and in a hurry, and tried to relax as she smiled at him and he walked in.

“Not at all. I just got home from work a little while ago. It's a crazy week, it always is. If it isn't Fourth of July, it's Valentine's Day, or Thanksgiving, or an anniversary, or a birthday or a wedding or ‘just a little dinner party’ for forty on a Tuesday night. It's fun, but it keeps us on our toes.”

“It sounds like a happy business you're in. Lucky you. Banking isn't a lot of fun, but I suppose it's useful too.” He sat down on the couch in the living room, and she poured him a glass of wine. It was a beautiful night, and the fog hadn't come in that afternoon, so it was still warm. Often it was colder in the summer than in the spring. “What a lovely house you have, Paris,” he said, looking around. She had beautiful antiques, and obviously excellent taste too. “Phyllis loved antiques. We used to go antiquing in every city we went to. She preferred English, just as you do.” As she had the first night, Phyllis had joined them once again. And Paris tried to steer the conversation toward their kids, by asking him about his son. Like Wim, he had just left for Europe to travel with friends. “I don't see enough of him, now that he's on the East Coast,” Jim complained. “He doesn't seem to like to come home anymore, and I can't say I blame him. It's not a very happy place.”

“Are you taking any trips this summer?” Paris asked, determined to turn the conversation around, and genuinely trying. If she could just get him off the subject of his loss, he might actually have a good time, or even be one. There was nothing obviously wrong with him. He was solvent, intelligent, educated, employed, good-looking, almost handsome, and he had children the same age as hers. It was certainly more than enough to go on, if she could just get Phyllis out of the room. It was becoming something of a challenge to her, and Paris was determined to win, for his sake as well as her own. As Bix had guessed from her thumbnail sketch, he was the most likely candidate she'd seen. And the most like Peter in some ways. All they had to do was ease Phyllis gently back into her grave, where she belonged.

They chatted for a while, and then Jim drove her to dinner, at a little French bistro with a sidewalk café. It was an adorable place, and brought back a flood of memories for Jim. He and his late wife both loved France, and had spent a lot of time in Paris. In fact, Phyllis had spoken nearly flawless French. It seemed hopeless to stem the tide as they limped awkwardly through dinner, and not knowing what else to do, Paris found herself pulling out memories about Peter. What their marriage had been like, how close they had been for all those years, and the immense shock it had been when he left. They seemed to alternate war stories with each other, and by the time Paris got home, she was exhausted. She hadn't talked about Peter that much since he left her.

“I'd like to see you again,” Jim said cautiously when he took her home after dinner. Paris didn't ask him to come in. She just didn't want to hear another story about Phyllis, nor to talk about Peter yet again. She wanted to bury them both. And she was dying to make a pact with Jim that if they saw each other again, neither of them could speak of their previous spouses. But she didn't feel she knew him well enough to say that to him. “I'd love to cook you dinner,” he volunteered.