Starting from Square Two Read online

  She wanted to think of something. But she couldn’t. He’s going to think I’m boring, she thought. This is hard. Think of something.

  “I…I haven’t really done anything,” Gert stammered.

  “Come on,” Todd said. “I’ll bet you’re one of those people who does lots of great things and never tells anyone.”

  Gert smiled.

  “It seems like you’re very, very patient with your friends,” Todd said. “Treating people with respect is something a person should be proud of.”

  It had been a long time since anyone had complimented Gert on just being herself. “Thanks,” she said.

  “What about your boss?” Todd asked. “You said she’s hard to deal with. Did you get through the week without her yelling at you?”

  “She was away.”

  “So, yes.”

  “No. She called to yell at me. But other than that, work was fine.”

  “Well, here’s an accomplishment,” he said. “You were willing to see me again, goofy train guy.”

  “You’re not that goofy,” Gert said.

  “Sure I am.”

  “Come on,” Gert said. “I’ll bet that what you said about me is true of you—you do lots of nice things and never tell anyone.”

  Todd said, “I do.” He reached across the table, took her hand, and kissed it. “I’m not going to tell anyone about that.”

  “So that was our secret?” she asked.

  “Yes.”

  The waitress appeared and startled them. But Gert was a bit relieved, because she was unsure what to do next. What if he wanted to give her a real kiss, later? Could she do it?

  What scared her a little bit was, she thought she could.

  As they ate, Todd told her about his hometown—Emporia, in southern Virginia near the North Carolina border. It had train tracks running through it, which maybe had been the first thing that made him like trains. When he was a kid, he’d found a cache there of old receipts from a railroad company. He still had them. They were on very thin forms, filled in by a typewriter. He liked collecting old train memorabilia.

  Gert told him what it was like to go to high school in the suburbs of L.A.

  “There must have been a lot of competition for school plays,” Todd said.

  Gert said there was, but she wasn’t into acting, although she had been in the chorus in West Side Story. She asked Todd if he’d ever been in a school play. He said he’d been in Oliver! in seventh grade.

  “I had no lines,” he said. “Everyone in my music class was in the play. So I told my parents not to bother coming. But they came anyway. And you know what? When I looked out and saw them there, for some reason, I was really glad they were there. Is that weird?”

  “No,” Gert said.

  “I think it’s one of the biggest signs of caring,” Todd said, “when you tell people not to do something for you, and they do it anyway. We did this other thing in school that year, a trip to Williamsburg, and both my parents agreed to chaperon…”

  Gert liked watching him talk. She didn’t even hear everything that he was saying. She just liked the way he said it—always so full of enthusiasm, so unaffected. When he got into a story, he’d start talking faster, full of intensity, and then, when he finally stopped, he’d look a little guilty—as if he’d taken too much liberty. But he was clearly moved by the little things.

  “It’s interesting that both of us have parents who are still together,” Gert said.

  “I know,” Todd said. “I guess we must be better adjusted than most kids.”

  Gert smiled. “I wonder what the secret is for people to stay together.”

  “I’m not sure,” Todd said, “but it probably has to do with finding someone who really, really amazes you.”

  As they were walking back to the subway, he stopped her and gave her a quick kiss on the cheek.

  “I’m glad I met you,” he said.

  “Me, too,” she said.

  “Do you want…I mean, if you’re not busy…to do something next weekend?”

  “Sure.”

  “He just gave you a quick kiss?”

  Gert was having drinks with Hallie and Erika at the small café that was attached to the Cinema Classics theater in the East Village. It was the theater that showed The Wizard of Oz once a month at the same time as it played Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon album, to allow people to decide if the rumor was true that they were in sync. Gert and Marc had gone one time when Gert’s brother was visiting, and Gert hadn’t been convinced, but the guys liked the music so they’d stayed for the whole thing. Three hours of watching The Wizard of Oz with no dialogue at all, just Pink Floyd music, was a little much for Gert. She knew that Floyd was high in the male music canon, but that didn’t mean she wanted to listen to it for three hours while watching a bunch of dwarves wave their lollipops.

  “And,” Hallie asked, “how was the kiss?”

  “It was nice,” Gert said. “He’s just the sweetest guy.”

  Erika stirred the leftover ice in her margarita glass with a straw. “What happens if you order your drink without ice?” she asked. “There was more ice in our drinks than drink.”

  “They only give you like half the drink,” Hallie said. “It doesn’t work. So when are you going to see him next?”

  “Next Saturday, for dinner,” Gert said.

  “And after dinner what are you doing?” Erika asked.

  “Probably a movie.”

  Gert was more nervous about that, because she wasn’t sure what was expected on a third date in the real world.

  Erika raised and lowered her eyebrows.

  “Well, I know you think he’s sweet,” Hallie said, “but be careful.”

  “Yeah, Gert,” Erika said. “Have you even Googled him yet?”

  “No,” Gert said. She felt like that was intrusive.

  “I was supposed to go on a date with this guy once,” Erika said, “but first, I Googled him. I found out that there were fifteen posts on www.spankme.com.”

  “It was lucky you Googled in time,” Hallie said.

  “Why? We dated for three months.”

  Gert looked around the room. It was small and rectangular, with a few refrigerators full of bottled juices. Free weekly newspapers were piled by the window in front.

  “Hey!” Erika said to Hallie. “When are you going to tell us your top secret innovative method of meeting men?”

  Hallie looked startled. “Oh,” she said. “Well, I can tell you now, if you promise not to tell anyone.”

  Gert looked at her, interested. She hoped Hallie could use it to meet someone. Then Hallie wouldn’t be so angry.

  Hallie looked at the ceiling. “I thought of this while I was walking through Times Square one day,” she said. “This guy was about to pass me, and he was carrying a bunch of advertising storyboards, and he was just the right height, and he seemed interesting. There was just something about him I really liked. Just this instant attraction. And I thought of something to say to him, but he had walked past me already, and I couldn’t think of a way to do it. And I thought, if I was a guy and he was a girl, I’d just jog up and ask for his number, and that would be it.”

  “Exactly,” Erika said, setting her jaw, as if she’d been burned about this for a while. She tucked a wisp of her hair behind her ear. “So? What do we do?”

  “One day,” Hallie said resolutely, “we’re going to take matters into our own hands.”

  Gert cautiously sipped her Coke.

  “The three of us are going to hang out in Times Square, and if we see a man we think is attractive, we’ll go up together and ask if he’s single,” Hallie said. “Then we’ll get his number. That’s it.”

  Something honest! Gert thought. Daring, but honest. But is there a catch?

  “The reason that dating is so frustrating,” Hallie opined, “is that when men ask us out, they already know they’re attracted to us, so they’ve already gotten past a big step. We, on the other hand, are the o
nes being asked, so we’re not always attracted to them right away. We have to sit at the table waiting for some sort of feelings to kick in. And if they don’t, the guys gets mad. Why do men always get to make the choices?”

  “They shouldn’t,” Erika said, shaking her head. She wiped melted ice from the table. “You’re right.”

  “So will you guys do it with me?” Hallie asked.

  Gert didn’t really want to drag herself through it, but it seemed at least a little healthier than watching Hallie and Erika feel like victims all the time. “I’ll help,” Gert said. “As long as I don’t have to ask for any numbers.”

  “Fair enough,” Hallie said. “Erika and I will do the real pursuing. But we need your support.” Gert smiled. She felt okay about them again. She certainly did go back and forth.

  “I’m in, too,” Erika said. “There’s power in numbers….” But her voice trailed off. She was watching something near the window. There were two men at a table, discussing the weekly paper.

  Hallie followed Erika’s gaze. “They’re short,” Hallie said.

  “I don’t care,” Erika said. “They’re cute. Watch and learn.”

  Erika got up and slinked toward the front door. But at the last minute, she suddenly stopped and pointed to one of the articles in the paper the guys were reading.

  “I can’t bear to look,” Hallie told Gert, shielding her eyes with her hand. “It’s too embarrassing.”

  Gert laughed. “So, you saw Bugs Bunny Boy last night?”

  Hallie winced. “It wasn’t good.”

  “Why not?” Gert had been hoping this would work out. “Was he wearing Warner Brothers again?”

  “No,” Hallie said. “He was wearing Disney. But that wasn’t the worst of it. He had this horrendous flu and kept sneezing all over me.” Hallie shivered visibly. “I feel chilled just thinking about it. I can still picture his sweaty forehead, with his bangs sticking to it. He was wearing a black turtleneck with Donald Duck. Why would you go out when you’re that sick? He has no common sense. I could never find that attractive.”

  “Maybe you could look at it as, he was horrendously sick and still wanted to be with you,” Gert said.

  “Delirium is one excuse for his behavior,” Hallie said.

  Gert noticed that Erika was talking to the men. She focused on Hallie again. “Why don’t you give him one more chance? He doesn’t seem that bad.”

  Hallie shrugged. “I don’t know,” she said. “I need more than ‘He doesn’t seem that bad.’”

  They were both quiet for a second. Gert read the little pink movie schedule on the table. She tried to think of another topic. Work. “Has anything happened with that girl at your office?” she asked.

  Hallie lit up. She shook her head. “They wanted me to fire her on Friday for disappearing,” Hallie said. “And of course, when I went to fire her, she had disappeared. I was busy by the time she got back. I’m going to follow her Monday and see where she goes. My boss thinks it’ll be better if we have more cause.”

  Erika returned. She shielded her hand with her body and showed Gert and Hallie what she’d copped from the guys.

  It was a business card.

  It said, “Eden Youdani, Resident,” and it was from Mount Sinai hospital.

  “He’s a doctor?” Hallie said.

  “The cute one was,” Erika said, sitting down. Hallie glanced toward the men’s table, but they had just left. “The other one mentioned a fiancée.”

  “That definitely makes him uncute,” Hallie said.

  “Here’s the thing, though,” Erika said. “Dr. Youdani wears a yarmulke.”

  Hallie looked back again. “I didn’t notice.”

  “Because he was facing us.”

  “That means he’s religious,” Gert said. “Would he date someone non-Jewish?”

  “Probably not,” Erika said.

  “So…?”

  “I didn’t tell him I wasn’t,” Erika said, a sneaky expression crossing her face.

  Hallie said, “Are you going to call him?”

  “Of course. He’s a doctor!”

  “But what happens when he finds out you’re not Jewish?”

  Erika shrugged. “Why should he have to find out?”

  Gert thought that Erika was going to just keep hurling herself after impossible men. Maybe it was a way to avoid meeting anyone new. That way, she could keep dwelling on Ben.

  In some ways, Gert understood. It was hard to compare everyone to your fantasy guy—especially if he’d once been real.

  “But he will find out you’re not Jewish eventually,” Hallie said.

  “That’s fine,” Erika said. “Eventually. I’ll just avoid revealing my religion for the first few dates. People are too polite to ask. They beat around the bush with, ‘What did you get for, uh…Christmas, or Chanukah….’ I can figure my way around that. By the time he finds out, he’ll be enamored and it’ll be too late. A nice, responsible doctor is the one thing that might get my mind off Ben.” She sighed. “It’s terrible when you liked someone so much that they raise the bar for everyone else. They doom you to sky-high standards.”

  Gert definitely understood that. “Dr. Eden Youdani doesn’t know what he’s in for,” Hallie said.

  That night, Gert and Todd talked on the phone. And they began talking on the phone every day.

  “They put us up in a hotel whenever we make a late run,” he told her via his cell phone on Monday. “I’m staying in Binghamton tonight. One year we got hit with a sudden storm that dumped two feet of snow. I was stuck for three days.”

  “That actually sounds romantic,” Gert said.

  “It might have been,” he said, “but I was stranded with only Bernie the engineer. And there’s only so much cable you can watch.”

  “What else is there to do in Binghamton?”

  “Get a drink in a bar and watch the snow,” he said. “Well, a nonalcoholic drink.”

  Tuesday, he called and said the kids at the hospital in New York had made a sign that said, Hi, Train! He said he’d smiled for hours after seeing that.

  Wednesday, he said, “My little brother has a girlfriend who he’s actually been seeing for more than two months.”

  “He sounds like my brother,” Gert said.

  “It’s weird when younger brothers start to grow up.”

  “It is.”

  Thursday, Missy gave Gert extra work at the last minute. Gert had to stay at work later than expected. She felt agitated, but she was happy when Todd called around six.

  “She was snapping at me all day,” Gert said, talking low and cupping the phone lest someone from another department walk by and hear. “I’m tempted to do a lousy job and run home, but people depend on our work. They need to know about new drugs they might need.”

  “You feel such a responsibility for what you do,” Todd said.

  “I only do what everyone should do,” Gert said.

  “You’re modest, too,” Todd said.

  The support washed over Gert like a warm massage.

  “Did anything happen on your job?” she asked, remembering again what Hallie had told her.

  “Well, not mine specifically,” Todd said. “But we found out that down in South Carolina, a conductor saved a three-year-old girl. She’d wandered out of her backyard and was crawling on the tracks and they were only able to get the train down to five miles an hour, so the conductor jumped out and ran ahead of the train and pushed her off.”

  “Wow!” Gert said. “Is that what you guys do?”

  “We hope we never have to,” he said, “but sometimes, it happens.”

  He left her feeling as if she couldn’t wait to see him on Saturday.

  First, she had to get through Friday.

  And she wasn’t sure, waking up Friday morning, if she’d make it.

  She had had another really intense dream that night about Marc. It wasn’t anything specific—they were in the car, going somewhere—but the important thing was, he was there, a
nd the future was infinite. She had woken up suddenly, before the end of the dream, and for the first few seconds, she tried to tell herself that maybe the accident was what she had imagined, and Marc’s being alive was real. She had felt so settled and happy in the dream—the way she had always been before.

  The prevalence of dreams about Marc, and her depression during daylight hours over what had happened, varied so much with circumstances. They arose depending on the weather, what she’d eaten, where she was in her biological cycle, the tasks she had before her, which music was on, the day of the week, the time of day. Usually she didn’t even know what the stimulus was, or whether there was more than one. There might be blocks of time during her day when she felt okay, even hopeful. Then she would suddenly remember how happy she had been up until a year and a half ago, and the contrast with how she felt now—empty, robbed—was almost too much to bear.

  She hadn’t even realized at the time how happy she’d been, because it was just the way she always felt. And along with it was the underlying assumption that it would always be that way. For many years she saved newspapers with important events—both she and Marc did—with the assumption that they’d give them to their kids someday. It was just a given. Now there was something missing inside of her, some inner stable core.

  Lying on her stomach in bed, Gert turned over on her side. She could call in sick today. Why not give herself a break? Toying with calling in sick sometimes helped her for a few minutes in the morning, even though, in the end, she usually decided to save it for an emergency. Her mom had once told her, “It’s okay to take a mental health day,” but she always talked herself out of it.

  She looked up at her alarm clock. It was 7:29.

  The worst time to wake up was one minute before the alarm was about to go off. Now she would have to lie there helplessly and wait for the explosion.

  The numbers hit 7:30.

  “Crappy the Clown! Crappy the Clown! Crappy the Clown!” yelled a morning DJ. This was the worst morning show in all of New York. That was why Gert kept her clock radio on it: Having to listen for one second urged her right out of bed.

  “Where’s Crappy’s lovely assistant? Abigail Van Urine, come hither!”