Chapter 15 #3
As they follow Jackie back, Ben should be looking at the art crammed onto every inch of the dark wood-paneled walls, or craning his neck to take in the who’s who of New York ringing the various tables.
But he can’t stop staring at Mrs. C in absolute astonishment, to the point that she rolls her eyes at him and says, in a pointed tone, “Jackie, can you tell me, is there any tongue on the menu tonight?” When Jackie apologizes that there is not, Mrs. C leans over and whispers in Ben’s ear, “There you go: no tongue served tonight. So maybe you’d better roll yours back up into your head and close your mouth, hmm? You’d think you were raised in a barn!”
Ben, realizing at this point that he has been looking at her semi-agape this whole time, snaps his mouth firmly shut.
Then he waits patiently as they are seated, poured water, and given menus, and as he orders himself a gin and tonic and a strip streak, and Mrs. C, with absolute relish, orders herself a Cosmopolitan and the prime rib.
When their waiter departs and they’re truly alone, he turns to her, eyebrows up, meaning to ask a dozen questions.
He only gets as far as, “Mrs. C, what—” before she interrupts him.
“It was my Harry, you know,” she says, her eyes going distant.
“That’s why I can do that, even now. That was Harry: People remembered him.
He was a financier”—she gives Ben a bit of a hairy eyeball at this, as though daring him to make a comment—“but most of what he did was finance restaurants. He had a real eye for which places would hit and which would bust. Lillian’s wouldn’t be here without him, and plenty of others wouldn’t be either. ”
“Is that why,” Ben says, his eyes widening, “you’ve met so many famous chefs? Julia Child, and—and James Beard, and—”
“Oh, James was a dear friend,” Mrs. C says, putting one hand on her chest at the memory even while waving the other dismissively at Ben.
“My friend first, in fact, I’m the one who introduced him to Harry, not that I ever got any credit for it.
But the rest, yes, generally. Harry and I met late, you know, married late—he was in his early sixties, and I’d just turned forty-five—but for twenty years we had a ball.
” She sighs and then occupies both hands with cutting and buttering a roll as she adds, “And then, you know, for three years we had more of a nightmare than a ball, and then I lost him. But that’s how it goes, at the end.
Wouldn’t trade it, and until then, oh, it was parties and dancing and theater and music and the most delightful, delicious food—I wish I could take you back in time and show you around.
Harry had this way of making everyone around him have fun, like his good mood was contagious.
Everywhere he stood, the light shone a little brighter. ”
This is the most Mrs. C has ever told Ben about her lost love; he should be touched, honored that she trusted him.
Instead, he’s suddenly neck-deep in the mire of thinking of Pete—of the way he, Ben, would have described Pete much like this only a week ago—of how Pete had always seemed to make more space unfold for everyone in any room he entered—
“All right,” Mrs. C says, rapping her knuckles sharply against the table. “That’s enough of my nattering, and enough lollygagging from you! Tell me your troubles. I insist.”
“Oh,” Ben says, badly wrongfooted. “Look, you don’t want to hear my troubles, Mrs. C. They’re stupid, for one thing, and not that interesting, and I’m such a disaster that hearing about it would probably be like watching a car crashing into a train—”
“Benjamin, my dear boy,” Mrs. C says, fixing him with such an affronted look that Ben can’t help but fall silent, “if you say another word like that about yourself, I’ll have to scream.
You are, if nothing else, quite an excellent cook, and atypically kind to the elderly.
As for boring, I’ll have you know that you are at least as interesting to follow as half my soap operas.
” She glances at him and then adds, “The other half, I must tell you, are more compelling, but you could up the stakes for me if your current issues happen to be about that hot young thing you brought up with you a few weeks ago—”
“Mrs. C,” Ben gasps, scandalized. “That was the middle of the night! Are you up there watching from the window twenty-four seven like a Hitchcock character?”
Mrs. C cackles but then abruptly drops into a serious manner and fixes him with an intense look.
“You should be glad I do! If I didn’t, you’d still be out on those steps, wouldn’t you?
Flirting with freezing to death? Come on.
” She fixes him with a crooked smile. “Indulge an old woman. It’s been so long since anyone told me a really juicy story. ”
Ben takes a long sip of his drink and a deep breath. Then, figuring it can’t hurt, he gives the woman what she wants.
It takes Ben long enough that they’re about halfway through their entrees by the time he finishes talking.
Or, Ben is halfway through his entree; Mrs. C has eaten exactly six bites of prime rib, seeming to relish every one.
He’d been planning to ask her why she’d ordered the prime rib, a slab of cow nearly the size of her head, but given the intensity with which she savors each forkful she eats, he’s decided to leave it alone.
He’s a little afraid she might turn the steak knife on him if he asks her too many questions about it.
Also, he’s been busy laying out the excruciating details of his personal life for her like so many slices of carpaccio, so. It’s not as though he’s had the time.
“Well, that certainly was more compelling than my soap operas,” is her conclusion, when Ben realizes, to his mild surprise, that he has run out of story to tell. “I have a few things to say, but to start with: Don’t worry about rent, dear. I’ll take care of it until you’re back on your feet.”
Ben feels his eyes bulge out of his head as he stammers, “Mrs. C, I—that’s—it’s so generous, but I couldn’t possibly—the expense—”
“Wouldn’t matter to me either way, and we could call it a Christmas present, but it’s moot,” she says, and pats him lightly on the hand.
“It was Harry’s building, you know; that’s why we chose it as a hideaway, back when we were sneaking around.
It’s been mine since he passed.” She pauses and, scowling at him, adds, “Oh, don’t look so shocked.
Why do you think you got your apartment, and at such an oddly reasonable rate, too? ”
“I… thought it was a testament to my talent for stalking real estate listings?” Ben says, feeling stupider about it with each word.
Mrs. C shakes her head, chuckling now. “No, no, though I am sorry to burst your bubble. I never set out to be a landlord, but I’ll die before I sell Harry’s building off to anyone, so.
To balance things out, I try to choose tenants who wouldn’t get a shot otherwise.
” Smiling, she adds, “I believe what I liked best about you was a note you wrote on your rental application; it was something like, ‘I know that on paper I may not look like your best candidate, but I promise if you let me move in, I will never bother anyone, and cook you whatever you’d like to eat.’ Harry would’ve liked that, I thought. Gumption.”
This is flattering, in a way, but Ben is still processing the realities of the situation, and he’s drawn back to pointing out: “But you never said!”
Settling back in her chair and sniffing haughtily, Mrs. C says, “You never asked.”
For a moment Ben is engulfed in a wash of guilt—the elderly really aren’t appreciated enough, are they? So many precious memories, such deep wells of important wisdom to share, all lost to the seas of time because selfish young people never think to—
Abruptly, Ben’s brain catches up to his emotions, and he crosses his arms over his chest. “Oh my God, yes I did ask! I can’t believe you almost got me like that—I asked you so many times, Mrs. C!
To tell me about your life and your past and your husbands and everything, and you always told me that it’s gauche to ask a lady for her secrets! ”
There’s a beat, and then Mrs. C lets out another cackle. Eyes twinkling, she says, “All right, all right—that usually works on people, you know. I never told you because I never wanted you to know before. It’s fun, being mysterious. I have to take my thrills where I can get them.”
“Well,” Ben starts, and then, suddenly realizing that he hasn’t yet: “God, thank you, if you really don’t mind waiving the rent—”
“No, no, none of that,” Mrs. C says, waving a hand. “It’s done, I’ll handle it, no need to discuss it further. We have more important topics to get into, like your man problems.”
Ben groans. “I don’t have man problems. I have a problem, one, that, yes, okay, does happen to be a man—”
“In fact, Benjamin, darling, you’re half-right,” Mrs. C interrupts. “You do have one problem. But that problem is you.”
“Me?” Ben can’t help the outrage in his voice as he demands, “What did I do? I mean, sure, I ruined Pete’s life a little by posting the first video, but other than that all I’ve tried to do is help him and support him and—”
“Yes, you’re like that, aren’t you?” Mrs. C cocks her head and peers at him, curious. “You’ll help and support anyone but yourself.”
Ben can’t think of a single thing to say in response to that. She’s right, of course, but he hadn’t known it about himself until it slipped out of her mouth.
“Do you know,” Mrs. C says, as she slices a seventh sliver-thin piece from her prime rib, “how I knew Harry was the one for me? The only man who would ever make my heart beat that fast?”
“I don’t,” Ben says, his tone jokingly grouchy, “because you’ve never told me even when I’ve asked you.”
“Well,” Mrs. C says, “he was with someone else, when we met. The connection was there right away between us, that spark, but the spark can lie. After all, I felt a strong pull to my first two husbands, too, not to mention a number of partners in between, and they were brutes and liars, the lot of them. So even though Harry started taking us seriously right away—hell, even after Harry left Suzanne and moved me into his place in Westchester—I was jealous, insecure. Waiting for the moment he’d decide to trade me in for a younger model. ”
Ben nods, understanding but not wanting to interrupt her flow.
Then he ends up having to wait a minute anyway while she pauses to eat the piece of prime rib that’s been absently waving around on her fork as she talks.
He’s used to this from years of dining with her, though, and knows better than to interpret it as an invitation to offer a reply.
Sure enough, when she finishes, she continues as though she hadn’t paused: “So one night, we’re out at this benefit, all these hoity-toity rich people milling around, gathering gossip like their lives depended on it.
And Harry and I were fighting—I was upset some woman had been flirting with him, I think?
Oh, who can remember now. In any case, we went back and forth a while, and then he said he was going to get a drink.
And suddenly I heard someone tapping the microphone, and I looked up to the podium the evening’s speakers were supposed to use, and there was Harry!
” Her eyes go a little misty, her face softer than Ben’s even seen it before.
“And do you know, he pointed right at me, and he said, ‘Hello, good evening! Eligible bachelors and bachelorettes, I want to let you know: that woman there? She’s my lady, and I’m with her.
So if you’re hankering for a slice of this balding, middle-aged pie, you’d better keep your filthy mitts to yourself, you hear?
’ And then he sang the first two verses of ‘The Way You Look Tonight,’ before he was escorted off the stage. ”
“Wow,” Ben says, after a moment’s pause. “And he pulled that off?” When she glares at him, he holds up his hands and says, “No, no, listen, it’s very romantic! I’m not knocking it, it’s just that if I tried to do that, it… wouldn’t go well. But I guess maybe he was a good singer?”
“Dreadful,” Mrs. C says cheerfully. “One of the worst voices I ever heard; like if Donald Duck drank acid. But that’s part of what it was for me.
His voice was awful; it was an enormously tacky thing to do in a roomful of his peers, especially since many of them had known Suzanne a long time.
Everyone, in the end, found it quite funny—Harry had that way about him—but it was the risk, you understand?
It was him caring about my opinion more than any of theirs.
He was willing to stand up and make a fool of himself for me, and so I was willing to trust him, and risk him making a fool of me.
Which, I’m happy to say, he never did. Not once. ”
“I’m glad,” Ben says. Then, looking for a way to say it that won’t offend her and not finding many good options, he goes for broke and asks, “Uh. Why are you telling me, though? Not that it’s not interesting, just—”
“This Pete of yours sounds, in many ways, like a lovely man,” Mrs. C says.
“And I’d wager there’s more to this story than meets the eye.
But whatever it is: His backbone’s weak, I’d say.
It sounds like he’s not willing to make a fool of himself for you, or for whatever is between you.
” She reaches over and places a chilly, wrinkled hand over his.
“You deserve someone who will. If this Pete won’t, well, then, he’s not your Harry, and you should go out and try to find the man who is.
” Winking at him, she adds, “Maybe he’s in California. With that job in—wine, was it?”
“Juice.”
“Same thing,” Mrs. C says, patting him twice and moving her hand away.
“Just don’t stay still, that’s my real advice.
Whatever you do, move forward. You’ve got so much left to do—you owe it to yourself not to shrivel up.
” Perhaps catching Ben’s thoughts reflected on his face, she adds, “And I do know I, of all people, have a lot of nerve saying that. But: I, of all people, know what I’m talking about. ”
Ben has to give her that; the conversation turns to lighter fare, and they have a pleasant rest of the evening, and journey home.
When Ben walks her up to her door, she kisses him on the cheek, and swats at him when he tries to thank her again for waiving his rent, and tells him maybe she’ll let him take her out again sometime, if she can muster the energy for it.
Then he goes downstairs and sits on his living room couch, holding the card Larry the juice guy gave him. He sits there for nearly an hour turning it over and over between his fingers, thinking about California sunshine and what he might find under it.