Extracurricular Activities (10 page)

The next day, I taught my classes, ran interference with Sister Calista—who was still holding out on me—and visited with Kevin for a few brief minutes before heading home. I got home with an hour to kill before I had to take the train into the city. On top of everything that had been going on, tonight was my blind date with Jack McManus.

On the drive home from Ray's, I had made a decision: the sex tape was mine. If Crawford or his colleagues ever found out that I had been in Ray's apartment, I was toast. And what did a barely viewable sex tape have to do with anything anyhow? Maybe Miss Blurry Tattoo Ass was a suspect and maybe not. That was for me to find out.

So, I focused on the event at hand: I had a date. With a single man. Is there any law on the books—either legal or moral—that says you can't go on a date shortly after your ex-husband has been murdered? As I brushed my teeth for what seemed like the seventeenth time in the past hour—it was the oral version of the clean underwear edict uttered by every mother in America—I justified my decision to go out with Jack. At first, all I had to feel guilty about was cheating on my married boyfriend; now, I had the added pressure of thinking about a handless and footless Ray (an image that was seared in my brain). I finally came to the conclusion that a diversion with a man, even one who potentially loved Madonna and loved to vogue, would be an acceptable way to spend my time. I hadn't been on a date since Ray first asked me out nearly ten years earlier; Crawford didn't count. We had never been on an official “date” and he still had that…well, wife.

Jack and I had spoken on the phone not too long after my dinner with Kevin, but we all know what happened in the interim, and that made my life extremely complicated. Jack had been so kind and understanding that I thought perhaps he was the vogueing brother, sensitive enough to “strike a pose” and caring enough to respect my feelings after losing my ex-husband to a crazed, knife-wielding maniac. He had called back earlier in the week, equally kind and persistent, and had asked if I could meet him at Madison Square Garden, home of the New York Rangers, that evening. He sounded like a very nice guy indeed and that gave me hope. Kevin told me he was very attractive, but being as Kevin has been celibate for at least the last fifteen years and maybe more, I didn't put too much stock in his assessment. And what was he supposed to say? “My brother is a troll. Have fun!” I assumed that he looked like Kevin—myopic, about my height, blond, and rumpled. Imagine my surprise when a man an inch or two over six feet with jet-black hair peppered with a little bit of gray and the most gorgeous blue eyes approached me at the ticket window at Madison Square Garden, our appointed meeting place. The Rangers were playing a preseason game and Jack had invited me to go. I had met Kevin's parents—also blond and myopic—and could only conclude that there were some most excellent recessive genes in this clan.

See, here's the thing with blind dates, in my experience: they never involve anyone remotely handsome. The handsome guys are usually married or gay and not interested in a blind date with me. The blind-date guys are usually guys you wouldn't consider spending the rest of your life with, never mind the two hours it takes to eat dinner. Or, the fifteen minutes it takes to drink the cup of coffee that you agreed to because you overheard your date taking a puff off his inhaler while you were scheduling said date. Rather, you are usually subjected to the guy wearing the “Bikini Inspector!” hat who lives with his mom, is lactose intolerant, or has some other not immediately obvious medical condition that would, under normal circumstances, make him ineligible for you to accept a date from. Jack McManus was not wearing the “Bikini Inspector!” hat and, while not drinking from a huge glass of milk or eating a hunk of cheese and simultaneously having an allergic reaction, did not look lactose intolerant. Or deathly allergic to bees. Or suffering from Dutch elm disease. In other words, he looked like a winner.

I looked at his shoes to see if he was trailing toilet paper from his heel, another dead giveaway. Nope. And when he smiled, all I could see were two rows of the straightest, whitest teeth ever to reside in one man's mouth. This guy was a veritable poor woman's George Clooney. If you find that kind of thing attractive. Which I don't, I reminded myself. I like Crawford. Crawford is the guy I like. I repeated that mantra over and over while I stared at this gorgeous man in front of me, steeling myself for “the catch” that I hoped would reveal itself early in the evening so that I wouldn't get my hopes up.

He approached me tentatively and held out his hand. “Alison?”

“That's me!” I said cheerfully. Mentally, I took a deep breath and tried to reorient myself. Okay, I told myself, pretend you're a fairly attractive, grown woman, with lots of confidence and more than your fair share of mojo. Or at least someone who can follow up a hearty “that's me!” with some intelligent conversation.

“Jack McManus,” he said. We shook. Nice hands. Not smooth like Kevin's, which were unused to manual labor, but definitely the hands of someone who knew how to hold both a hammer and a woman's hand, although preferably not at the same time.

The Garden was abuzz with people arriving for the hockey game, and Jack took me by the elbow, steering me through the throngs. In the past when I had gone to Ranger games, I had taken the escalators that wended their way at an alarming speed up through the Garden. More than once I had felt nauseous riding those escalators. I had never had great seats, so my escalator rides had always ended in the nosebleed section. But tonight would be different, from what Jack told me, because he worked in the public relations office for the team and had access to second-row, center-ice seats, right behind the home team's bench. For a French Canadian like me, it was about as close to heaven as you could get.

We arrived at our seats just as the pregame practice was ending. We really hadn't spoken on our way to the seats, so when Jack sat down next to me, I realized that it was “showtime.” He asked me if I wanted anything to eat.

“No, thanks,” I said. I had never met this man before. I wasn't going to display my chowing prowess in the first half hour of our time together. Nobody likes a woman who can inhale a foot-long hot dog in three bites. Except maybe Crawford. The guy I like, I thought, as I admired Jack's chiseled jaw.

“A glass of wine? A beer? Soda?” he asked.

I gazed into his blue eyes for probably longer than was socially acceptable. “Wine would be nice,” I said.

Jack told me that he would be back in a few minutes, so I settled into my seat. When I was sure that he was out of sight, I dug my cell phone out of my pocket and dialed Max. I wanted her to watch the game to see if she could get a peek at me; with seats right behind the bench, I was confident that I would be on television at least once or twice. I needed input on my hair. I had been going for a Barbra Streisand in
Funny Girl
look and wanted confirmation that I had succeeded. She answered on the first ring, as she normally does.

“Max here.”

“Hi, it's me,” I shouted over the crowd noise. “Listen, are you watching anything on television tonight?”

“No,” she said, chewing loudly in my ear. She mentioned that her favorite reality show wasn't on so she wasn't watching anything. Max loves reality television more than life itself and watches every single reality show with a devotion and solemnity normally reserved for religious ceremonies.

“Great.” I smoothed my hair down. “Put on the Rangers. I'm out with Jack McManus and I want you to see how I've done my hair.”

She gasped. “Cheating on your married boyfriend already?” she cried, with mock alarm. She knew about this date but wouldn't miss an opportunity to rib me about it. “Well, I never!”

“Max, seriously. I need help. I haven't been on a date in this millennium. Help me.”

She turned on the television and we chitchatted while she waited to get a shot of me. She continued eating what sounded like an entire bag of tortilla chips.

“Wait,” she said, “there's the bench…and there you are.” She paused for longer than I would have liked. I started to get nervous. “You look like Barbra Streisand in
Funny Girl
.”

“Great! That's what I was going for!” I said.

“But not in a good way,” she added. “Take that piece that you've artfully arranged behind your ear and pull it forward.”

“Like this?” I pushed some hair around.

“Got it.”

“Oh, and Max, I went to Ray's apartment yesterday and guess what I found?”

I took the massive crunching in my ear for her response.

“A sex tape.”

“Is it good?”

I rolled my eyes. “That's not the point, Max. There's a woman on there. Do you think she might be a suspect? She's awfully big. I could see her being able to overpower someone.”

“Bigger than you?”

“What's that supposed to mean?”

A hand on my shoulder interrupted our conversation; Jack was back. I pretended to be on an important phone call. “I appreciate your concern about your grade, Anne Marie, and will reassess the points you made tomorrow. Have a good night.” I snapped my phone shut.

Jack sat down next to me and handed me a crystal goblet filled with red wine. “Here you go.”

We had already covered all of the basics of our lives on our “predate interview” as I liked to call it, over the phone: we were both single, professionals, but whereas I lived in Westchester County, Jack had stayed close to his and Kevin's Queens roots and had a condo in Long Island City, which was fast becoming the hot new area in New York. I attempted to make conversation, pretending to myself that I was out with someone in whom I had no interest, didn't find the least bit attractive, and with whom I had spent many an evening.

“So, Kevin tells me you're a Joyce scholar,” he said, and took a sip of the beer that he had brought back for himself.

“Guilty.” Nothing says sexy like someone who reads obtuse Irish writers.

“‘Love loves to love love. And this person loves that other person because everybody loves somebody but God loves everybody,'” he said, a faint blush appearing on his cheeks as it may have occurred to him that quoting Joyce was either a show-offy move or one that would give me the wrong impression of our first date.

Neither possibility crossed my mind. “I'm impressed,” I said, and it was the truth. Not only did he quote correctly, but it was a quote from well into the text. That was a quote correctly rendered from someone who had read the book from start to…well, at least the middle.

He focused his attention on the game. “I've always loved Joyce. His writing has such a musical quality, it's hard not to love it.”

We cheered as the Rangers scored a goal. I was careful not to jump up and down, spilling what tasted like a fine merlot all over my date. “So, what else did Kevin tell you about me?”

The look that passed over his face told me that Father Blabbermouth—my rather improper nickname for gossip-loving Kevin—had given Jack chapter and verse on the many sordid aspects of my life. How I had married a scoundrel but stayed married to him for seven years. And how the dead body of one of my students had been found in the trunk of my car. And how I had fallen in love with a very attractive, yet very married, detective. And how aforementioned scoundrel was found dead in my kitchen. It was all there, written on his kind face.

“He told me that you love hockey,” he offered weakly. “I hope that's true.”

Nice save. “Yes, it's true,” I said, and exhaled. “My mother and father were from Quebec and while my father was a dedicated Nordiques fan, once he moved to New York, he changed teams. I grew up a Ranger fan.”

“College professor, Joyce scholar, Ranger fan,” he said, smiling. “You don't find too many people in this arena with that pedigree.” The buzzer sounded, ending the first period. “How about another glass of wine?” he asked.

I looked into my glass and saw that it was nearly empty. “Why not?” I said, and handed it to him. The moment he left his seat, my cell phone chirped. Max.

“You're showing quite a lot of boob tonight,” she observed. “Unless that's the glare from the ice bouncing off your cleavage.”

I peered down into my chest area; my cardigan sweater was unbuttoned just enough to say “yes, I'm a college professor but, boy, have I got game.” “Am not.”

“You're doing quite well,” she said. “I've been watching your entire date on television.”

“He's cute, right?”

“He's very cute, I think. The guy sitting in front of the two of you has a huge head. It's enormous. He should get that looked at.” And with that, she ended the conversation.

Jack returned with wine and some hot dogs, one of which I devoured as daintily as I could. I stretched out my consumption to five bites this time but he didn't seem to notice. After the second glass of wine, the conversation flowed a little more easily and I found myself really enjoying his company. The game ended with the Rangers winning, leaving both of us in a great mood.

We left the seating area and returned to the lobby, where we had begun our date. “Did you drive in tonight?” he asked as we went with the crowd toward the front door. The night air was chilly even though, technically, summer had just ended.

“I'm taking the train home,” I said, and pulled my jacket tight around my body.

“I've arranged a car service to take you home. Let's walk outside; the driver should be waiting out here on Thirty-fourth Street.” He took my hand and led me out to the street. Just as he predicted, a driver was parked along the street, holding a sign bearing the name “Bergerson.” Close enough.

I turned to face him. “Jack, thank you. This was a really lovely evening.”

He leaned in and I girded myself for a kiss. But instead, he took a piece of my hair and put it behind my ear, reestablishing the look that I had so carefully constructed before I had left the house. He rested his hand on my left cheek, rubbing it slightly with his thumb, and leaned in and kissed the other one. “Good night. Maybe we can do this again?” he asked.