Truth in Advertising Page 0,60
like the inside of a ski hat after a long day, her face pale, her breath horrid? Will we have pet names, use baby talk? Will I sit in shops and watch her try on clothes? Will I meet her friends and family, try and impress them, make them like me? Will I find her friend Tracy, the yoga teacher, sexy? Will Rachel see me looking at her lustfully? Will we argue on our wedding night? Will she cry? Will this be the woman I go to sleep with every night of my life? Will I watch her grow pregnant? Will I watch our child emerge from her body, bloodied, crying, sweat on my wife’s face? Will I comfort her when her father dies of a massive heart attack on the golf course? Will I be patient with her grief, months later? Will I say, instead, “Get over it!” as I wonder what has happened to our marriage, each of us growing distant, building walls. Will I think of taking a rental car and driving to Phoenix, where I will hide inside a Best Western for months? Will she cheat on me on a business trip, with a man twelve years her junior named Chad? “You really want to know? Yes, his penis was much larger than yours.” Will I cheat on her? Will she say, in the fight we have in the kitchen, after the affair is found out about, during the long, drawn-out argument where things are said that can never be taken back, when all our energy is sapped, “I wish I had never married you”? Will we sit in plastic folding chairs on the lawn of a university, exchange a look that cannot be put into words, one of deep connection and understanding, a pure human moment between two people who love and respect each other, a powerful cocktail of pride and melancholy and awe at time itself (“We were changing her diaper yesterday.”) as our daughter accepts her diploma? Will I stand over my wife’s grave and mourn, cry like a baby, wish myself dead? Will she do the same for me, if I die first? Will she remarry? Will anyone remember me twenty years after I die?
“Does it make me anti-Semitic if I don’t want to date Jewish guys?” she asks through a mouthful of sea bass. I open my mouth, as if to answer, but she continues.
“I was seeing someone for a while. Not Jewish. Whatever. I told him he could have a Christmas tree, a small one, but he wouldn’t do the Chanukah thing. Can I try that creamed spinach? Another Jew hater, right? My curse in life, being attracted to Jew-hating men. What is it about Irish guys and Jewish girls? Have you ever been to Israel?”
“No,” I say. “Have you?”
She nods, vigorously, gravely, over the lip of her wineglass. Big swallow.
“Mmm. Yeah. I’ve been. Every Jew has to go once, Fin. Gorgeous. The people, the country. Gorgeous. Paradise. If there were no Arabs. I’m kidding. Sort of. So angry, those people. Let’s split a dessert.”
Then, the crucial moment that comes on every first date in New York. A litmus test. The post-dinner drink or coffee or walk. Neither of us suggests anything. It’s over. I’m relieved. And I’m sure she is, too.
We leave and walk to the corner of First Avenue. The cold air feels good. I am not the kind of man she is looking for. I meet very few of the criteria on her checklist. She stamps her feet a few times to keep warm.
“Thank you for dinner. This was fun,” she lies.
“It was my pleasure,” I say. “I enjoyed it.”
A cab sees us and honks. I raise my arm and it pulls to the curb.
“I’m sorry,” I say, without realizing that I was going to say it.
“For what?”
“I didn’t try very hard.”
A smile spreads over her face. “No. You didn’t. Maybe I tried too hard. I hate these things.”
“Me, too.” We’re both smiling. Finally, a real moment. She kisses my cheek. When she pulls back to look at me again, something clicks, a neuron fires. She needs to double-check something. She leans forward and kisses me on the mouth, puts her hand on my shoulder. It is a passionate kiss, sexy and deep. It surprises me, delights me, confuses me. I think of Phoebe. Why do I feel like I’m cheating?
“Okay, then,” she says.
“Okay,” I say, opening the door to the cab for her.
“I’ll speak with you.”
“Definitely,”