went to a hibachi restaurant. Brian had been there before. It was fun, watching the guys in the white hats toss the steak in the air, slice it when it hit the grill. Entertaining. He would have gone there more. But he’d learned the hard way that if you showed up at the same restaurant with too many different dates the waiters made cracks. Anyway, the place was busy. The guys behind the counter gave them the big bow and the Hai! greeting and clanked their knives.
Rebecca looked a little thrown.
“Ever done hibachi before?” he said.
“I’m more into sushi.”
“Yeah?” He’d never tried sushi.
“I’m always kinda suspicious of restaurants where they give you a big show when you walk in. Like they’re trying to distract you from the food.”
“Never thought of it that way.”
Those were the things you knew when you’d grown up going to lots of restaurants, he realized. He’d never been so conscious of class before. Not because Rebecca was super-rich, she wasn’t. At least Brian didn’t think so. But she had that combination of education and money that was more intimidating than money all by itself. He had a way easier time thinking about having a million dollars than going someplace like Harvard. The Ivy League. Rich was just about money. The other was about a whole way of looking at the world. Of being a snob without trying to be. He could see that Rebecca had that gift.
If gift was the word.
The knowledge of the gap between them intimidated him a little. Turned him on, too. Maybe he’d been looking for a woman like her without even knowing it.
Or maybe he was full of it and trying to psych himself up to pay eighty bucks for dinner when she’d basically told him the place sucked.
“You okay with this—”
“Of course, totally.”
They sat side by side at the counter, watching the chefs slice and dice. Even before the food came they finished a beer and she loosened up. He got her talking about her family. She had a relationship with her parents that Brian couldn’t even imagine. She talked about them like they were her friends. Not like they were perfect. She said they were ridiculous at times. Her mom thought documentary films actually mattered and her dad barely knew how to shovel snow, which was weird considering that his brother—her uncle Ned—was a cop, a genuine tough guy. But she liked them.
“You’d tell them if you had a problem? A real one.”
“Of course. They’d probably give me terrible advice though. You wouldn’t tell yours? Because they’d judge you?”
“Judge me, hah. Eff them.” He saw her surprise. He’d been more honest than he’d meant to be. He tried to walk it back. “It’s just, we don’t have much in common.”
He didn’t want to think about his parents. He wanted to think about Rebecca. He leaned close, kissed her. No warning. She hesitated, then gave in, kissed back, open-lipped, soft. Their mouths gentle but his hand tight in her hair and her fingers digging into his arm.
Finally they broke off. Stared at each other, the restaurant disappearing into the ether.
“That was unexpected,” she said, finally. She looked behind the counter, where the chefs had taken a break from cooking to check them out. “Gentlemen? Our food?”
“Hungry?”
“I’ve acquired an appetite, yes.”
* * *
Toward the end of dinner Rebecca told him how she’d played the piano growing up, played a lot. More proof she’d grown up with money. But the way she talked about it she’d taken it seriously.
“Why’d you quit?”
“I don’t know.”
“Lying. So you don’t play at all?”
“Even if I wanted to, and I don’t, I don’t know where to find a piano. I was good but I wasn’t good enough, and then I got mad about it, and then I got mad at myself for being mad. Couldn’t get out of my own way.” She paused. “Have you ever really wanted anything?”
“Aside from right now?”
“I’m serious.”
She kept making him think about his life. “Not off the top of my head. I don’t know if that’s good or bad.”
“I don’t either,” she said. “But for me, the piano, you know all these guys who think they’re gonna play pro basketball, but they’re three inches too short or whatever, they’re not good enough no matter how hard they work? There’s just not enough spots for everyone. It was the first time in my life I realized I was gonna die, if that makes sense, that some things will or won’t happen and