6: I have a date
Originally emailed on Nov. 21, 1997
Last weekend, Sam and his new boyfriend Michael took the boys again, for the whole weekend, and once again I had a nice two days doing entirely non-mom things. On Saturday, I hosted a coffee in the afternoon for members of the "Non-Trads," or, as we are more formally known, "The MSU Non-Traditional Students Club." It's mostly women like me, over thirty and with a kid or two, but a few men attend meetings as well. I had about a dozen at the house. Harriet helped me plan it, and we served coffee, tea, and desserts. Harriet lent me both her and Nona's coffee makers (they have spares of a lot of things, the result of combining households) so I had regular coffee and decaf as well as some fancy flavored blends. I usually buy grocery-store coffee but Harriet even insisted we grind coffee beans fresh.
On Friday night, we made apple and blueberry pies and a chocolate layer cake, and on Saturday morning we baked three kinds of muffins and a poundcake to serve with fruit and whipped cream. I also bought croissants--Harriet wanted to make them from scratch as she had never tried it before but I couldn't face getting up at four a.m. to butter a hundred fine layers of flaky pastry dough. We set a very pretty table with a tablecloth, my good wedding china, and Miriam's silver coffee and tea service.
Harriet and Miriam handled childcare during the coffee, since several of the moms and one dad had their kids that weekend. They walked to the park, where Flopsy did all of her tricks for the kids and Miriam did a short seminar on responsible pet care before they turned the kids loose to play on the swings.
The coffee was very successful. I haven't given such a formal party since I had to entertain clients for Sam--and I've never given one where most of the food was home-made. I was always a bakery-and-caterer kind of hostess. All the Non-Trads had a good time; most of them are as overworked as I am and a pleasant afternoon of sipping coffee and eating sweets while we complained about our lives and talked about the future was good for everybody.
Everyone cleared out about 4:30, except one guy, Ed, who offered to help clean up. "Oh, no," I said, "you're a guest. Please don't feel you have to help do dishes. Besides," I added, smiling at Harriet, "I have a helper."
"Oh, I insist," Ed said, and headed into the kitchen. Water began running.
"What's up with that?" I said. "This is really awkward. How do I tell him to leave?"
"He won't leave until after I do," Harriet said.
"What do you mean--Oh." I said. "You don't think--."
"I do think," Harriet said. "He wants to be alone with you. Should I go, or do you want me to stick around?"
I thought about it for a minute. I'd never given Ed a thought before. He's a big flannel-shirted belly-hanging-over-his-jeans bear of a guy in his early 40s. Quiet--comes to meetings and events but never says much. During the coffee, I worried he wasn't having a good time because he just sat drinking cup after cup of black coffee and didn't talk to anyone, but I hadn't been able to draw him out. "Anything I can get you, Ed?" I would say, and he'd say, "I'm just fine, Louella, thanks," and just keep sitting.
But you must be familiar with the phenomenon that as soon as you think someone is attracted to you, they become attractive, at least a little. I had never noticed before, but Ed is handsome in a burly way. And he has always seemed gentle and sweet. So I told Harriet, "No, you go on home, unless it offends you to be booted out for the sake of a man. I'd like to find out what's up."
"OK by me," Harriet said. "Can I use your phone to call Nona to pick me up? If she leaves right now we can still catch a cheap showing of 'Starship Troopers.'"
"Yeah, sure," I said. "And thanks for everything."
Harriet hugged me. "Louella, this was so much fun. It's good for us to be able to play some grownup games once in awhile. Call me and let me know what happens with the big guy."
I headed into the kitchen, where I found Ed up to his elbows in the sink, washing cups and saucers. "This is some nice china," he said.
"It was my wedding china," I said. I picked up a dessert plate. "These big blue flowers aren't much to my taste anymore, but I sure liked them when I was twenty-two."
"Oh, they're pretty," he said. "And old-fashioned, which is better than trendy. You know, they don't scream mid-80s. You can use this china forever. And it looked nice on that pale blue tablecloth. I was admiring your silver coffee service as well."
"That's not mine. It belongs to Harriet's grandma, Miriam. You don't get silver as a gift until the 25th anniversary, and Sam and I didn't make it that far. It was sweet of her to lend it to me." The conversation lagged as he washed dished and I put the cloth napkins and tablecloth into the washing machine. Finally, I said, "So, you're studying elementary education. What brought you back to school? Displaced autoworker?"
"No, I was a stockbroker. I was raking in money, and all the gastro-intestinal upsets and imminent hypertension that went with it. Finally decided I had to do something else, something that meant something, something less stressful."
"And you think teaching little kids is less stressful than stockbrokering?" I gave him what I hoped was a devilish grin. "Have you spent much time with small children?"
"Nieces and nephews," he answered.
"But you don't have any kids."
"No."
"It's not the same, you know, being an uncle. As a teacher, you'll be with the kids day in and day out, dealing with all their bad behavior."
"I'm doing my student teaching now," he said. "I think I have a pretty good idea what I'm getting into. And I like it."
"I didn't mean to argue with you," I said. "It's interesting to meet a representative of the much-touted trend toward simplicity and a more meaningful life."
"I am looking for a simpler life," he said, "and I don't care if that's a trendy thing to do. Didn't the same desire have anything to do with you coming back to school? And didn't I hear you say you recently moved here from a much bigger house?"
"Yeah," I said, "and my decisions had everything to do with simplicity: I simply couldn't afford the mortgage after my divorce, and I simply can't support my children and send them to college if I don't earn more money."
This is not going well, I thought. Here I've got Ed talking, saying more than I've heard him say every other time I've seen him put together, and I keep arguing with him and making fun of him. "It's sweet of you to help clean up. Harriet was hoping to go to a movie this afternoon and was glad to be able to skip out on me."
"Well," Ed said, "I was hoping we could grab some dinner after we're done here. Unless you have plans."
"I don't have plans," I said, "but I've eaten so much cake I doubt I'll need another meal until morning."
"Oh," he said.
"But we could go to a movie, and then have a late dinner afterward if we were hungry," I suggested. "Unless you're very hungry now."
He brightened up. "No, I could wait. What do you want to see?"
At the movie, I felt just like a high-schooler. Was he going to hold my hand? Did I want him to? I didn't know, but I left my hand on the armrest where he could find it if he wanted to. His hand was also on the armrest, and for an excruciating time neither of us moved. I suspect he had as many forearm cramps as I did. Finally, on-screen, the killer leapt out at the heroine. We both gasped and jumped, and he used the sudden movement as an excuse to grab my hand. It felt good to me, even tingly, but that may have been just the circulation returning.
After the show, we had a cheap spaghetti dinner and complained about the plot holes and bad acting, and when he drove me home he walked me to the porch. I unlocked the door but didn't go in. I was tempted to invite him in, but after my experience last fall I didn't want to move too quickly and make a mistake. So I said, "this was nice," and he said, "yes it was," and kissed me.
We kissed for awhile, and I felt more and more like a schoolgirl, kissing under the porch light, trying to feel each other up with parkas and mittens on. Fortunately, just as I was about to open the door and lead him into the living room, he whispered in my ear, "I'd like to have breakfast with you," and it was such a dumb line that I was immediately irritated with him. My irritation broke the spell of sexual desire he had cast upon me, and I was able to make a rational decision.
"Come by about nine," I answered. "I'll scramble some eggs."
"That's not what I meant," he said, "but it'll do, if you're sure."
"I am sure, Ed. Until this afternoon I hadn't thought of you--you know, as someone to date. So it's much too soon to go to bed, you know?"
"I do know," he said, "but I have to tell you: I've been thinking of you for a long time."
I was on the phone with Harriet in the morning when Ed knocked on the door. We were discussing when and how I should tell him I'm bisexual; it seems important, in the interest of honesty, but awkward to just blurt it out. "You'll know when the moment's right," Harriet said. "You might just mention an ex-girlfriend, totally matter-of-fact. And you don't have to do it today."
I thought she was wrong; I thought that the longer I waited, the more awkward it would be. He might even feel I'd lied to him. I decided I would tell him at breakfast even if I had to do it gracelessly. But, as it turned out, my family gave me the perfect opening.
Ed and I were just finishing our eggs and toast when the front door opened and the boys came running into the kitchen. "Mom," Sammy yelled, "Dad and Michael said they'd take us horseback riding if you said it was OK. Can we go? Please?"
Sam Sr. and Michael walked in behind the boys. "Oh," Sam said when he saw Ed, "I didn't think you'd have company this early. Sorry to intrude."
"But Sam refused to let the boys do something as dangerous as horseback riding without your permission," Michael said.
"But it'll be OK, Mom," Mark said. "Michael knows all about horses."
"It's true," Michael said. "I've seen Liz Taylor in 'Black Beauty' a hundred times."
"Ed," I said, "these are my sons, Mark and Sam, and their father, Sam, and Sam's lover, Michael. Apparently none of them knows that questions like this can be answered over the phone."
"We were having pancakes at FlapJack, Lou," Sam said, "and it seemed easier to drop by since we were in the neighborhood. Besides, the boys need their cowboy hats."
"The boys need to wear stocking caps so their ears don't freeze off," I answered.
Mark said, "Cool, that means we can go," but Sammy said, "Mom! Cowboys don't wear stocking caps."
"They do if they value their ears," said Michael, "and most cowboys think their ears are very important. I personally am planning to wear a nice warm stocking cap and earmuffs, because I think Santa's going to bring me a diamond stud for Christmas and I need an earlobe to put it in, don't I?" He winked at Sam.
I agreed to let the boys go riding, and didn't ask nearly as many worried questions as I normally would because I wanted to get everyone's curious gazes off Ed, sipping coffee at my kitchen table as if he'd been there all night. When they had all gone, Ed said, "So, it's probably none of my business, but is that the reason for the divorce?"
"Michael?" I said. "No, they've only been seeing each other a month or so."
"I mean, that Sam is gay."
"Well we did divorce partly because Sam wanted to be with men," I said, and then, "but partly because I wanted to be with women."
"Oh," said Ed. "Does that mean you and me isn't going to go anywhere?"
"No," I said, "it might. I'm not a lesbian, I'm bisexual."
"Oh," Ed said. "Seeing anyone now?"
"No," I said.
"Not even me?" he asked.
"Maybe you."
"OK, then," he said.
We spent the morning together, on my couch reading the Sunday paper, but he left around noon to get ready for school the next day. "When can we get together again?" he asked.
"Not soon, I'm afraid," I said. "I'm pretty busy during the week, and next weekend I have the boys."
"We could all do something together," Ed suggested.
"No," I answered, "one stranger suddenly acting like a part of the family is about all the boys can handle right now. And, given their dad's erratic behavior, you could say they have two already."
"I thought your ex seemed like a good, concerned father," Ed said.
"He does seem that way," I answered.
We agreed to get together next Friday, the day after Thanksgiving. The boys will be at their grandparents' with Sam. Ed called Monday night to say hello, and since then we've been on the phone nearly every night, and we managed one lunch together on campus Wednesday. I like him. I'm eager to spend some time with him. But we'll just have to wait and see what happens.
© Copyright 1997-2001 Su Penn. Design by David Dierauer.
