She had not been alone with a man like this since before her husband died. It was nice. They each ordered, she limiting herself to a Caesar salad, he to sole, and exchanged gossip about shared current and former workmates and she discovered that she was having a good time, a very good time. And now when she said how nice it was to have seen him and how they should keep in touch she said it with sincerity.
Kerry was at the house in a village just north of the City when Eileen came through the door and, as happened a couple of times a week, dinner was ready for her after she washed up and changed. The two fell into their typical relaxed conversation until Eileen dropped the bombshell that she’d “had a lunch with a former colleague.” As soon as Kerry understood that the former colleague was a man, her interest in this lunch rose exponentially. Her Mom told of his calling to her on Main Street, of how attractive he “still is,” and how nice it was to just sit down in a quiet restaurant with a man with no pretenses or expectations and how much she enjoyed it.
“Mom, was this a date?”
“Honey, it definitely was not. Just—”
Eileen was not so sure. How was it not a date? The only thing not-a-date about it was the happenstance of running into him on Main Street.
“He just happened to see you come out of the office where he once worked and happened to take you to lunch?” This was Kelly, interrupting Eileen’s thoughts, which now veered to wondering whether he had been waiting for her. Things she hadn’t noticed then she noticed now. Whether his meeting ended long before he let on and he loitered about until she showed up. Was there even a meeting? What if he was stalking her? Why had he emphasized his inability to find anyone after his divorce? That he was now in a position at the fund where he did not have to travel as much as he had, travel he had long since tired of?
Now Kerry interrupted this train of thought. “Are you going to see him again?”
“I doubt it. Although I wouldn’t be unhappy if he asked.” and Kerry simply said, “Well then, let’s hope he does” before clearing away the plates. Kerry in fact was far from calm in all of this, her thoughts quickly ratcheting up for her Mom’s future, but it was best to keep a low profile.
And he did ask. After a decent interval—two days—he called her while she sat in her office at mid-afternoon on Thursday.
“Eileen. It’s Simon. Look, there’s a thing here in Greenwich on Saturday night. I wondered if you’d like to accompany me.”
“A ‘thing.’ Simon you are such a wordsmith.”
“It’s a gallery opening,” he confessed, “I get these invitations all the time but almost never go. I don’t want you to think I’m some kind of art connoisseur. It’s really just a convenient excuse for me to ask you to go out with me.”
“Always the charmer. Let me see how free my calendar is.” And then after a decent interval—two seconds—she said, “I’d love to.” and when he offered to come down to pick her up, she insisted that she could drive herself the half-hour up, and back, and so they met outside the gallery at 7:30 on Saturday. The exhibit was a bit too modern for the tastes of either of them, but it was fun to stop in front of each and ask each other, in turns, “what do you think it is?”
There was no question. This was a date, the gallery-visit followed by dinner, and Eileen enjoyed it and enjoyed each of the ones that followed. She felt comfortable enough that on the third or fourth date, while having dinner in Greenwich, the one that led to their first kiss, she told him of the unhappiness of her marriage, especially towards its end, of her becoming dependent on alcohol to try to bridge a gap to happiness, and of having stopped drinking after her husband died.
Simon had by then told Eileen many of his own stories, unknown to her when they worked together. He had married young and they both realized the mistake before kids came along. He’d been on a roller coaster with women forever, stretches of ups and stretches of downs, near-engagements and narrow-escapes. He was tired of it. The efforts he put into work had long since paid off for him and as one of the firm’s old-guard—at the ripe old age of 46—he had easily slipped into the elder-statesman role at the fund and leaving it to younger people to do what he, when he was a younger person, did.
With the settling of his job-life, he wanted to settle his love-life. He stumbled across an old report from the bank and it reminded him of her and he admitted that, yes, he lingered around Eileen’s building after he met with the lawyers on the chance that she’d be going out to lunch. He had nothing planned but just thought to say hello, how-are-you?, what-have-you-been-doing? And see what happened and now they were both in the seeing-what-is-happening phase. They had a nice, soft kiss after he walked her to her car.
Simon had by then met Kerry, stopping in when he picked her Mom up for dinner at a nice tavern in Tuckahoe. The two chatted briefly in the living room while Eileen was getting ready, an intentional delay meant to give her daughter the chance to meet him and then give Eileen her impressions. Kerry liked him immediately. Handsome, rich, and charming and clearly fond of, and probably a lot more, her Mom. When Simon dropped Eileen off after the date, Eileen nervously awaited her daughter’s verdict, and Kerry was simple and direct: “What’s not to like?”