Grand Central, Daff thinks of Sam’s last e-mail to her, and smiles. She is new to this world of computer dating and is only just starting to dip a tentative toe back into the pool of potential partners. She joined match.com last month, and Sam was the first person to “wink” at her.
They have been corresponding now for three weeks. He is in his early fifties, a little older than she would normally have gone for—Richard and she were both the same age, forty-one—but he was fit, and handsome, and funny, at least in his e-mails.
She is first to arrive. She looks expectantly at the men standing around the bar, hoping to recognize him, hoping he will recognize her, but there is no spark of recognition in anyone’s eyes, and she takes a seat, ordering a vodka and tonic to sip until he shows up.
She feels someone looking at her and turns, catching the eye of a nice-looking man in a suit. He smiles at her and she gets up. “Sam?” she says. He doesn’t look anything like the photo, she thinks, but nice.
“No. Sorry.” He shrugs with a smile, and she sees he has a female companion.
“Oh God,” she groans quietly as she sits back down, wanting the ground to open and swallow her up.
"Daff ?” He is late. Daff looks up from where she has been buried in her book the last twenty minutes, and frowns.
“Yes?” Do I know this man?
“Hello!” Delight is written all over his face.
“I’m sorry,” she is confused but polite. “Do we know each other?”
“I’m Sam!” he says, pulling out a stool and perching next to her.
But you can’t be, she wants to shout. Sam is fifty-one, and handsome, and tall. You are eighty-five and look not unlike my grandfather.
“Well, you are gorgeous.” Sam leers at her. “You never know what to expect when you meet these women. Let me tell you, some of those pictures they post up look like supermodels, and then you meet them and they’re dogs.”
Are you kidding? Daff wants to say this, but doesn’t. Instead she thinks she might burst into tears.
Sam orders a vodka martini, then looks her up and down, running his tongue over his lips as he grins at her, not noticing her suppressing a shudder of horror. “We’re going to have a good time tonight,” he says lasciviously, pressing a knee against hers. “I’m a very energetic man.”
“I’m sorry.” She jumps up. If he had been a sweet old man she might have humored him, but this? This is a horror that no woman should have to put up with. “I’m actually not feeling well. I have to go.” She fumbles around in her purse and throws a twenty on the counter. “Here,” she says. “I’ll get the drinks.” Sam looks down at the guilt money and sneers.
“You’re all the same,” he starts, and without hearing whatever else he says, Daff turns and runs out.
One day I will laugh at this, she tells herself on the train going home. But right now, all she wants to do is cry.
Chapter Nine
Michael raises his hand and stands up, squeezing past Jordana to give Leo a huge bear hug, then turning to Wendy and wrapping her in his arms.
He may not see them that often, but they are among his oldest and dearest friends, and whenever they make it in to New York from their home in Woodstock he always makes sure he finds time for them.
Tonight he had plans with Jordana, but when Leo phoned and said, laughing, they were in town with no kids, Michael canceled his plans and arranged to meet them for dinner.
Jordana is thrilled. Meeting Michael’s friends—not the ones who pop into the shop from time to time, but his real friends, his old friends whose opinions he values—must mean this relationship is as important to him as it is to her.
For Jordana never expected to fall in love at the ripe old age of thirty-nine. Not to mention that she’s married, and up until a few weeks ago had assumed she would stay married, to Jackson, for the rest of her life.
Michael doesn’t know what this is, this . . . relationship he’s having with Jordana, but he does know he feels more alive than he has in years. He who has always been the passive one in relationships, who has always been chased rather than the chaser, has suddenly found himself falling head over heels for Jordana.