refuse, I came back to managing again.”
“An offer you couldn’t refuse? Let me guess…equity?”
“I’m impressed. Equity and the rent-free use of the duplex upstairs. You read tea leaves, too?”
“Not tea leaves—coffee grounds.”
“You’re kidding.”
He shrugged his broad shoulders. “My grandmother taught me tasseography when I was just a little kid.”
“Mine, too.”
“No way,” he said, skeptical.
“Way.”
We both smiled that disbelieving smile two people smile when they share something special—something so few people share that it seems to bond you together, at least for the moment.
Bing!
Nan’s kitchen timer.
Damn, I thought. Damn. Damn. Damn.
It was the first time in this entire evening I hadn’t wanted the thing to bing.
“Wrap it up, everyone!” called Nan. “Say your goodbyes.”
I shrugged. “Our playgroup leader has spoken.”
“Playgroup,” he repeated with a laugh. I liked his laugh. It was deep and genuine and reflected its bright energy in his eyes. “Yeah, you know, you’re right. This whole thing is sort of one big sandbox, isn’t it?”
“That or a Hopper painting,” I quipped.
He glanced around. “Yeah, I can see it. The crowded yet lonely scene of couples not connecting in the stark light and shadows of the hearth’s dying fireplace.”
“An urban study in oil on canvas,” I added. “Very Room in New York.”
“Or Excursion into Philosophy,” he said with a raised eyebrow.
Excursion was an odd choice, I thought, remembering Hopper’s desolate couple: the man sitting fully clothed on a narrow bed, indifferent to the beautiful, half-clothed woman stretched out behind him, facing the wall, her red hair on the white pillow, her naked round bottom sunwashed, looking like ripe fruit ready to be enjoyed. Beside her, the man’s face remains in shadow, full of angst. He ignores the fruit within his reach, staring instead at the floor, lost inside himself, possibly contemplating the book laying open next to him.
Did it represent the isolation of modern life? The depressive folly of the intellectual, brooding instead of living? Was Hopper laughing as he painted it? I used to wonder.
“I always saw that painting as the end of the road,” I said. “No longer being able to connect. You know, years after the marriage vows. When disillusion sets in.”
“Not for me,” said Bruce. “I see it as the morning after the one-night stand, waking up with the wrong woman. He’s tasted the fruit, and he’s suddenly dejected, maybe even feeling a little fleeced, because she’s not what she seemed. And he’s no longer interested.”
“You’ve seen the Whitney collection, I take it?”
“Maybe twenty times.”
“You won’t believe this, but my duplex includes two framed original charcoal Hopper sketches. They were done right here, too. It’s amazing—one of the perks of living upstairs.”
“I can’t imagine a better one.”
We smiled that disbelieving smile again—like we’d both found a three carat diamond in a Cracker Jack box.
“All right, gentlemen, and that means all of you!” Nan called in our general direction. “Please move along to your next Ms. Right. The clock will soon be ticking down!”
“Run, runner,” I murmured.
Bruce laughed. “I hope I’m not ready for ‘Carousel’ yet.”
My god, I thought. He actually got my Logan’s Run joke.
As a Goth twenty-something with black lipstick and a tattoo approached us, Bruce rose from the chair. I held my breath as he extended his hand.
“Would you like to go to dinner with me tomorrow, Clare?” he asked.
OH, YES.
“Uh…tomorrow…yeah, sure. That would be nice.”
I placed my small hand in his large one. To my unending delight, he didn’t just shake and release—he held on.
“Bowman. That’s my last name.”
“And mine’s Cosi. Clare Cosi.”
“You have a nice smile, Clare Cosi,” he said quietly.
“Thanks. So do you.”
“Tomorrow then.”
EIGHT
“MOM! I cannot believe these notes of yours. They are, like, so out there.”
As Joy flipped through my notepad’s pages, I hung a blue Village Blend apron around my neck, brought the long strings to the front of my waist, and jerked them into a tight bow.
After the Cappuccino Connection had officially ended and most of the customers had departed, I had tried to “casually” discuss the evening’s McMeetings with my daughter, but truthfully all I could think about was Bruce Bowman.
Bruce Bowman. Bruce Bowman. Bruce Bowman.
After shaking his warm, strong, slightly callused hand, I’d been on what felt like a super caffeine high, reciting his name like a New Age chant—until it hit me that every woman sitting on the Blend’s second floor tonight was tracking Bruce’s movements around the Cappuccino Connection circle.
Obviously, Bruce was the big Kahuna, the catch of the night, and Nan Tulley, the evil witch, had insisted all of us make three