By Margo T. Krasne
“Do you or do you not want to meet new people?” a friend asked. Well, more like pushed.
I took a deep breath. “Of course I do, but the damn thing is on the roof and it’s 86 degrees out!”
My friend gave one final shove. “Margo, go!”
“All right! All right! I’m going, I’m going!” I said and hung up the phone totally aware that I was already dressed, had done my makeup and “coifed,” as they say, my hair.
Who was I fooling? I had no choice but to go. My business had slowed to a halt. Two more friends had moved away. One, goddamn her, had died. And there hadn’t been a man in my life since, well, let’s just say for far too long. But still, to expend all that effort in the hopes of what? Plugging holes? (Pun totally intended.) I hated cocktail parties. Especially those filled with people I didn’t know. And thanks to Evite’s listing of attendees other than the hosts whom I’d only just met, I’d know no one.
“Just do what you told me to do,” another friend advised. “Pretend you’re the host and find someone who looks like they need rescuing.” I’d forgotten that I used to give that piece of advice along with, “Pretend you’re a gossip reporter and have been assigned to come back with interesting tales,” adding for clients, “Just don’t hopscotch around gathering cards. Better to establish a relationship with one or two people.”
It being too hot to walk, I bussed down. At least the food was laid out in an air-conditioned office. There were a number of guests digging in, but their ravenousness turned me off. I settled for some cubes of cheese and headed outside. I stopping to say hello to the hosts who were seated in a cubicle that normally would house the secretaries. They said they were dealing with a sound system problem.
“Go outside!” one said. “Enjoy!” Clearly, there’d be no introductions. I was on my own.
I have no doubt he’d noticed me when I stepped onto the roof—he along with everyone else—as I missed the small step and barely managed to remain upright as the cheese and crackers flew all over. I put on a show of laughing it off and bent down to pick up the pieces which was not an easy feat as I’m all legs and had opted for two inch heels instead of my usual flats. Only one person reached down to help. It wasn’t him.
Once upright, I surveyed the scene. Thankfully all eyes were elsewhere. To my left was a table set up as a bar with a young, probably an unemployed actor, as bartender. To his left, a turntable, and amps, and next to those, facing me, three scruffy men of 70’s vintage, white hair, open white shirts, unpressed black pants holding various brass instruments. He sat next to them, no instrument in hand, looking as if he’d just danced out of a Broadway musical in which he played a French sailor, his sinewy body clad in a striped long-sleeved tight-fitting tee, tight pants, and striped socks. All that was missing was the beret. I didn’t know what to make of him.
Well, it was billed as a Bastille Day party though he was the only one to dress the part. Our eyes caught for no more than a second but even then there was something vaguely familiar about him. With the cheese tossed in a bin, I went to the bar. A tip jar with dollar bills was in full display.
Not wanting to appear cheap and having come with only a twenty and my MetroCard, I settled for water. Surveying the scene, all I could see were various sized groups in animated conversation. Thankfully there was one woman, a corporate type, standing alone. I headed
towards her. The first few minutes were pleasant enough and while I would have been happy to move on, there was really nowhere to go. So doing my best I asked a few more questions which she was more than happy to answer. At length. Suddenly, like a jack-in-the-box, he appeared.
“I love the way your glasses match your shoes,” he said.
“And those socks are quite something,” I said feeling like a total idiot at my inane response.
“Really great,” he said and took off.
I laughed mostly out of embarrassment. I mean, what idiot goes up to two women and only compliments one? Look, I know I’m attractive. Especially when made up. Had even modelled. But that was years ago.
“Crazy,” I mumbled to the woman.
The men started blowing their horns. They were surprisingly good. People started to dance mostly by themselves. He remained seated. I didn’t move. Was it the heat? Dancing had always been my thing. Had danced my heart out at a nephew’s wedding only a few weeks before.
At last one of the hosts came over and introduced me to two people standing close by. But that conversation died quickly and corporate lady who had stepped away to get some food, came back.
Suddenly he was back again. “You are such a happy person,” he said.
“Not really,” I said.
“Well, from what I see you certainly are. Look, you’re laughing now.” And once again he disappeared.
I can assure you that’s not how any of my friends would describe me. Oh, I can laugh with the best of them if something strikes me as humorous. But no one would say that I possess a lightness of being. I shook my head almost as an apology and said something to the woman about the heat getting to me and that I might leave.
“Let’s go inside,” the woman said.
I had no choice but to follow. She sat down herself where the hosts had been, and I realized he was in the office across from us on his phone. He did not look up. I had put in enough time.
“Going to say good-bye to the hosts,” I told the woman.
“I’ll come with you,” she said.
On the way out, I waved through the office glass a goodbye. He ran out.
“I was going to get your number,” he said.
“Oh?” I laughed again. How ridiculous this all was.
“So how do you know the hosts?” he asked.
“We did some work together. And you?”
“Known Anne for ages.”
Realizing the woman, expecting me to follow, had already headed towards the elevator, I said I had to run, handed him my card, and left.
“Told you he was hitting on you,” the woman said as I caught up with her.
“So you did, but really, not my type.”
She and I walked together for a few blocks then parted. At home discomfort reigned. I couldn’t shake it off. Something about him unnerved me. I spent the rest of the evening trying to figure it out. Then it dawned. Don! He reminded me of Don. The man who had propelled me into therapy. The last thing I needed was another Don J. Craig in my life. I calmed down. Decided I’d tell him that we were on different wave lengths. Even rehearsed it out loud. Of course the next day a friend told me not to pigeonhole someone.
“I’d hate someone doing that to me,” she said.
If he ran true to form, it would be at least two days before he called and sure enough 48 hours later he left a message on v-mail.
“I think we should have brunch tomorrow.” It sounded like a line from a 1940’s movie. At least he had the sense to add, “That is if you want to.”
“It’s only a bagel and an egg!” a friend said, so I returned the call.
The phone, obviously a landline, was busy, as it was an hour later, and again the next morning. I called another friend and within seconds we imagined he’d had a heart attack, was lying prostrate on the floor unable to cry for help, the phone yards away. Knowing it would be rather lunatic for me to be the one to call the police, I texted the hosts a thank you along with a reference to the busy signal in case they wished to step in. They didn’t.
“Typical!” was the text that came back. With that I put it all to rest. It was over. Done.
He called later that day. “My phone was off the hook,” he explained. “Have phones all over the house and yet this happens a lot.”
I didn’t ask why then he hadn’t given me his cell. Still I knew I’d never forgive myself if I didn’t play it out, so when he asked for another date, which he did, I agreed to lunch five days away.
“Just be yourself,” a friend said.
Another, “You know who you are.”
And of course the age old, “It’s like getting back on a bike.” No matter that I’d probably spent more time pushing one than ever pedaling.
Friday finally came. I arrived early deliberately choosing a sidewalk table—one of four set for two and placed back to back. No way anyone could eavesdrop. At one sharp he arrived sporting his tight-fitting tee and jeans—no stripes this time.
“Keep an open mind!” was another directive I’d received. I forced mine open.
“I thought you’d be coming from a different direction,” I said.
“I was running late so I took a bus,” he said.
“I told you I would have been happy to find a place halfway between us as I needed to walk as well.”
Again he paid no mind.
“Tap or sparkling?” The bus person asked. “Tap is fine,” I said.
He ordered sparkling.
“Ready to order?” The waitress asked.
I’d had breakfast at 5 and was starving. He ignored the menu. Within minutes he learned that I was 85–not his presumed 65–four months older than him. And that I still worked, though not full-time. I found out that he stayed up very late and really wanted to talk about his writing. I shoved the menu in front of him.
The waiter returned. I ordered a salad. He the trout, a side of fries—told me I could share—and a glass of chardonnay. He did not ask if I wished one. I asked what he wrote about. Out flowed a non-stop conspiracy rant (with footnotes,) starting with how the positive review he’d written for RFK Jr’s book had been refused by all publishers. My mouth hung open. His never stopped.
The food came. His rant continued interrupted only by his taking a quick sip of wine, presumably to wet his throat, and a handful of fries that he pulled out of the small cone three or four at a time. I downed my salad while he swore that Fauci paid a lab in Quanin to produce the virus.
I asked where he got his information. He reeled off names of people telling me to look them up. I suggested he try his trout that sat before him untouched. He scooped up and shoveled down two inch pieces in rapid succession. My salad long finished, he began a story about a woman he had had an affair with whom he’d shared with another man—a well-known politician. I thought if I asked if he’d been married we could get off the conspiracies and onto something more personal.
Three times, he answered. He did not ask whether I’d been. Then the story about the politician
became sexual and I asked him to stop. He didn’t. I asked again. “I really don’t wish to hear this,” I said.
He said, “Just let me finish.”
I looked at my watch.
“Do you have to be somewhere?” he asked.
“Yes, I do,” I replied, adding, “Thank you.”
“For what?” he said.
“Lunch.” And with that I got up and walked away not realizing till later that the check hadn’t even been asked for.
I got home feeling as if I needed a shower. In less than a week I’d gone from being an energetic, mentally sound 85 year old, to encapsulating the very essence of an insecure, sleepless, advice-seeking teen.
And to think I’d actually considered buying a new nightgown.
Margo T Krasne, a dyed in the wool New Yorker, has lived many lives—often simultaneously. Trained as an actress under Sanford Meisner, she left the theater for the ad world creating the Radio Department at Doyle Dane Bernbach in the 1960’s. Her hands in clay from early days, she went from advertising to sculpting full time until, in her 50’s, she reinvented herself once again becoming a highly successful communications coach. Margo is the author of “Say It With Confidence”, “I Was There All Along, a memoir” and “What Would I Do Without You” a group of short stories about friendship.
