Rules Get Broken (32 page)

I nodded as if this made perfect sense. “Well, that’s smart,” I said. “If you don’t have to drive after a party, don’t.”

“They didn’t go to a party. They’re just spending the night there.”

I nodded again, not certain what to say next.

Sally took a step towards me. She looked directly at me, her eyes unwavering. “They knew I was going out with you tonight…and they thought maybe…we’d like to have the house to ourselves.”

“I see,” was all I could manage to say.

And I did. Suddenly I saw everything. All too clearly. I saw Sally, a truly nice person, but already in her thirties, living with her parents, very much aware she was running out of time. And I saw her parents, conservative as they probably were, ready to help her obtain the husband she wanted…any way they could. But exploitation was never something I did well.

“Wow, Sally…uh…I don’t know what to say. Uh…I just don’t. I do know that…although it’s not really late, I’ve got sixty-five, seventy miles to do before I get home, so…I probably shouldn’t stay.”

She smiled sadly.

“I hope you understand,” I added. “Maybe a rain check?”

“Of course. Some other time. You have my number.”

“I do. And…I’ll call you. In the meantime, thanks for a wonderful evening. I really enjoyed meeting you. I mean that.”

Sally nodded and walked me to the front door. “Get home safely,” she said.

I stepped out into the cool November night. Dry leaves crackled under my feet as I walked to my car. The basic part of my brain, the crude male part, was wondering what the hell was the matter with me, but the other part, the part where the voice lived, was pleased.

I started the car and backed out of the driveway.
Lots of lonely people in the world
, I thought as I drove down Sally’s street. I stopped at a stop sign and made a right turn.
I’m sure glad I’ve got Nancy
.

Yet you’re here
, the voice said from somewhere in the dark recesses of my mind.
Why is that?

“Don’t know,” I answered. “Don’t know.”

Word gets around fast about some things. My date with Sally was on Friday, November 7th, and on Saturday, November 8th, Amy Bennett, the woman who lived behind me, called to ask if I remembered her husband’s cousin, Kate McPherson.

“Yeah, I think so,” I replied. “I met her at your Christmas party last year, right? Tall redhead? Very attractive, as I recall.”

“You recall right,” Amy said with a laugh. “Well, anyway, Beth told me you went out with a woman she knows from work, and I was wondering if you might want to go out with Kate. I know she’s not seeing anyone, and who knows? Maybe the two of you’ll hit it off.”

“Oh, I don’t know, Amy. We hardly know each other. And it’s been almost a year since we met. She probably won’t even remember who I am.”

“I’ll bet she does. But let me call, and we’ll find out.”

“She was very nice,” I admitted, recalling that evening which now seemed so long ago.

“So can I call her?”

“You want an answer now?”

“Why not?”

“No reason, I guess. Except I’m not completely comfortable with the idea. But supposing I say yes. What’s your plan?”

“I’ll give her a call sometime this weekend. See if she’s interested. If she is, the rest is up to you. How’s that sound?”

“Sounds simple.”

“Good. I’ll talk to you soon. Bye.”

I started to ask her to say hello to her husband for me, but she’d already hung up. Preoccupied by troubling thoughts, I went back down to the basement, where I’d been painting storm windows.

I wonder what’s going on?
I said to myself as I dipped my brush into a can of exterior white.
Why am I such a hot commodity all of a sudden? Why are all these people trying to fix me up with someone? Are they that interested in my wellbeing? Or
…I stopped painting for a moment.…
are they just trying to get me away from Nancy?

I shook my head in frustration.

No way to tell, John. No way to tell.

Kate McPherson remembered me and told Amy Bennett she’d “love” to hear from me. So Monday night, November 10th, before I called Nancy, I called Kate, and after several minutes of pleasant conversation, I asked her out for the evening of Friday, November 21st.

Her apartment was on West 73rd Street, she said. Apartment 3B. I told her I wasn’t familiar with the west side of Manhattan and asked if she would mind making dinner reservations for us. She assured me that wasn’t a problem. A new restaurant had opened a few weeks ago around the corner from her apartment, and she’d been anxious to try it out. We could go there if that was all right with me. I told her that was fine.

The buildings on Kate’s end of West 73rd Street were all five- and six-story turn-of-the-century brownstones, ranging from exquisite to neglected, each with high ceilings, tall windows and a flight of steps leading up to the front door. Kate’s apartment was in one of the better ones.

I arrived promptly at seven-thirty, climbed the steps to a set of wood and glass double doors, and stepped into a small vestibule. I pressed the buzzer for Apartment 3B and heard Kate’s voice on the speaker. She’d be down in a minute, she said. She’d ask me up, but two of her roommates were still getting dressed and, well, I understood, she was sure.

A minute later, Kate McPherson stepped out of the elevator.

Kate was different. I think she was a year or two older than I was, and she was a big woman, solidly built and at least five-ten in her heels. She worked as a personal shopper for wealthy women at one of New York’s leading department stores, and as a result she was high fashion—very stylishly dressed, very well made up. With shoulder-length, deep red hair, she was stunning.

Kate was different, and so was our evening. We had dinner at the new restaurant, a dark, quiet establishment that did as nice a job on the food as they did with the atmosphere. After dinner, Kate suggested we have a drink at a lounge around the corner, and for the next hour and a half, we sat bathed in soft blue neon light, drinking Grand Marnier, listening to a jazz trio. When the trio took their second break, Kate said she had a surprise for me.

We walked five blocks south and then turned onto a side street. Midway down the street Kate went up to a steel door belonging to what I thought was a warehouse. She slapped hard on the door twice, and an imposing fellow pushed the door open. Kate said something to him, and within seconds we were walking down a long flight of stairs to a huge basement, easily the size of a basketball court, jammed with people dancing to a live hard rock band playing at earsplitting volume. We had a drink and danced to a couple of numbers as best we could, given the crush of people, until I signaled to Kate that I wanted to leave. We climbed back up to street level and stepped out into the quiet darkness.

“I hope you don’t mind,” I apologized, “but that was a little too loud and a little too crowded for me.”

“No, that’s all right,” Kate said, taking my arm. “It’s not that bad normally. I don’t know what the deal was tonight.”

We headed for the lights of 9th Avenue and then started to walk uptown towards Kate’s apartment.

“I hope you enjoyed tonight,” Kate said.

“I did. Very much. Tonight was the kind of night a guy like me from the suburbs could never pull off on his own. This was cool.” I gave a little bow. “And I thank you.”

“You are most welcome,” Kate replied, returning the bow in exaggerated fashion. “Now, on to more important things. Can I buy you a drink when we get back to my apartment?”

“Are your roommates dressed yet?”

Kate laughed. “They’re dressed and out for the rest of tonight, I’m sure. They’re stewardesses, so they’re not around much, but when they are, they really try to pack everything in they can.”

I looked at my watch. “God, I can’t believe it’s almost one-thirty.”

“Is that a no to the drink?”

“No, it’s not,” I said, feeling quite relaxed and happy at that moment. “Yes to the drink. To hell with the hour.”

We reached Kate’s building within a few minutes, and I followed her into the elevator. She punched 3, and a moment later we stepped out into a short, tiled hallway. She unlocked the door to her apartment, and I followed her inside.

From where I stood, I could see a living room and a hall onto which several doors opened, presumably from the bedrooms, the kitchen and the bathroom. The living room was sparsely furnished, with only a sofa along one wall and a bookcase and two armchairs along the other. Floor-to-ceiling windows at one end of the room afforded a view of the street below.

“If you need to use the bathroom, it’s the first door on your left,” Kate said, as she took off her coat. “Make yourself at home while I get comfortable, okay?”

“Will do,” I replied.

I took off my coat and jacket and looked around for someplace to hang them. Finding none, I laid them on one of the armchairs.

I walked down the hall to the door Kate had pointed to, opened it tentatively and confirmed it was in fact the bathroom. I quietly locked the door, lifted the toilet seat and took in the room around me. Shampoo bottles, hair spray cans, lipsticks, toothbrushes, toothpaste tubes, hairbrushes, combs, and every other imaginable beauty product or hygiene product occupied every available horizontal surface. I was putting the toilet seat down when I noticed a red rubber bag hanging over the bathtub faucet and connected to a long rubber tube with a nozzle of some sort on the end.

“What the hell is that?” I wondered as I washed my hands. “A hot water bottle? Or…? No. Can’t be that…but I’ll bet it is.”

I shook my head and unlocked the bathroom door, feeling like I’d led a very sheltered life. Had I been sober, I probably would have felt less than comfortable.

I walked over to one of the living room windows and parted the curtains. I was peering down into the street when I heard a door close down the hall. I turned around, and a second later Kate walked into the living room—naked.

I knew my mouth was open, but I was powerless to close it and unable to say a word. So I just stared at her—first at her face, then at the rest of her—while Kate stood where she was in the middle of the room, hands on her hips, enjoying my reaction thoroughly.

Finally words came. “Jesus Christ, Kate,” I stammered. “What the hell are you doing?”

“I told you I was going to get comfortable,” Kate replied, smiling.

“Yeah, but…I mean you’re…you’ve got nothing on, Kate. And I feel a little weird standing here like this…looking at you.”

“Of course you do, silly. That’s because you still have your clothes on. Get undressed.”

I started to say something, but Kate had already turned away from me and was starting to take the cushions off of the sofa.

“What are you doing now?” I asked.

“I’m pulling out the sofa bed,” she said over her shoulder. “My bedroom’s a total disaster. I can’t bring you back there.”

She stood up and faced me, a cushion in one hand. “Are you going to get undressed,” she asked, “or do I need to help you?”

I felt like I was in another world, like this really wasn’t happening. But it was, so I started to undress. By the time I was down to my shorts, Kate had finished pulling out the sofa bed and was lying on her side, her head propped up on one elbow, watching me. As I put my shorts on the armchair, now piled with my clothes, she eyed me from head to toe, smiled and patted the bed next to her.

“Come here,” she said in a throaty whisper.

I lay down next to her and kissed her. She immediately wrapped an arm around my neck and returned the kiss hungrily, almost urgently. She kissed me once, twice, three times—deep, wet kisses—pressed her body against mine and draped one leg over my thigh.

But suddenly I was repulsed—by Kate’s nakedness, by her kisses, the smell of her perfume, the feel of her hair tumbling into my face, even by the weight of her leg on mine.

I disentangled myself from her and sat up quickly. “I’m sorry, Kate,” I heard myself saying, “but I can’t do this. It’s not right.”

“Don’t be silly,” she replied, sweeping her hair away from her eyes. “Of course it’s right.”

“No, it isn’t. But I can’t expect you to understand that.”

“I think I do, though. What you don’t understand is you’re not married anymore, which is what makes this okay.”

I exhaled sharply as I got up off the bed and walked over to the chair where I’d hung my clothes. “This isn’t about my wife, Kate,” I said, pulling on my shorts. “Should be, but isn’t.”

Kate sat up and tucked one leg under the other. “Well, if this isn’t about her, then what is this about? Have I done something wrong? Is something wrong with me?”

“No, nothing’s wrong with you. And you haven’t done anything wrong. Other than shock the hell out of me.”

“Then why are you leaving? Why won’t you make love to me?”

“I told you, Kate. I can’t make love to you because…this doesn’t feel right. I don’t know why, but it doesn’t.”

I buttoned my pants and pulled up my fly.

“You can’t be serious,” Kate said incredulously.

“I’m afraid I am.”

I tucked in my undershirt. Kate looked down at one of her hands for a second before looking up at me again.

“I guess this is where I’m supposed to say I understand,” she said quietly.

“I think so, but then…I really don’t know what the rules are any more. I thought I knew how to behave in different situations, but I’m finding out that I don’t.”

I tucked my shirt into my pants and sat down on the now-empty chair to put on my shoes and socks. Kate sat on the bed watching me, making no attempt to cover herself.

I stood up, put on my jacket and draped my coat over my arm. “I…uh…gotta go,” I said, gesturing in the direction of the door.

Kate sat perfectly still.

“I didn’t mean to put you in this position,” I said. “I really didn’t.”

“What position did you put me in?”

“Well…you know…this.” I indicated her nudity with my free hand. “Without anything happening, I mean.”

“Hey, that’s life, I guess,” Kate said with a shrug.