Chapter 2: A Real Date

Bruce called me the next morning at nine-thirty. I could hear Mindy in the background giving him instructions on what to say to me, and that made me laugh. Bruce was being the dutiful husband.

He said in an instructional tone, “You are supposed to call Edie and ask her to dinner. The ‘powers that be’ have decided that you two made a good couple last night, and that it would be a shame for you not to see her again – soon, especially without the rest of us around to divert your conversation.”

“Dinner? I barely met the woman, attractive as she is. What makes you think she’s even interested in going out with me?”

“Look,” he said, “I’m just the messenger. Do it or we’re both toast with Mindy and Rita.”

I gave my passive-aggressive response, “I’ll think about it.”

Just thinking about calling Edie gave me mixed emotions. On the one hand I found her exceptionally engaging and probably the most beautiful woman on the planet. On the other, I might just as well call the White House and invite myself to dinner. I felt so intimidated by her: her beauty, her intellect, and her persona.

Finally, about six o’clock that evening, I pulled out the scrap of paper that Mindy had forced into my pocket the night before with Edie’s phone number on it. I took one last glug of liquid courage from my wine glass and then dialed the number.

Edie answered on the third ring.

“Errr, Edie, this is Jim. We met last night at Bruce and Mindy’s.”

“Oh, yes, I was hoping you’d call. I had such a nice time talking to you.”

I thought, ‘Oh my god, she’s friendly and inviting, and she apparently liked me.’

“Well, I was wondering if you’d ... like to have lunch somewhere next Saturday. We could meet anywhere you’d like.”

“Oh, yes. That’d be perfect.” I thought I detected a tremor in her voice. Maybe she was as nervous as I was. She went on in a tentative tone, “How about at Lloyd’s Restaurant at noon. They have outdoor seating if the weather is nice, otherwise we can eat inside.”

“Perfect. I’ll see you there – noon on Saturday at Lloyd’s.”

We rang off, and I sighed in relief. I’d done it. It had taken me all day to work up sufficient courage. My knees turned to Jello, and I had to sit down. I backed away from a dinner date because I’d have to plan something for the whole evening. Lunch was much less committal – only forty-five minutes if things turned out to be painful. Further, I’d suggested that we meet there instead of me picking her up. That way, we could leave and go in different directions without further recriminations. Meeting there made it seem like less of a date. I sure was avoiding commitment.

A date? My god, I hadn’t had a boy-girl date with anybody but my late wife in almost forty years. What was I thinking? This was not like high school or college. I knew what was expected of me back then, but now ... I wasn’t so sure. I had no idea how a nearly sixty-year-old male was supposed to behave on a ‘date.’

I texted Bruce, ‘Lunch on Saturday with Edie.’

He immediately texted back, ‘Good. I’ll let the authorities know.’

A few minutes after that I got a text from Mindy. ‘Coward. You were supposed to ask her to dinner and make an evening of it ... even ending up back at your house for romance. Oh, well. Next time.’ A moment later I got another text from her, ‘Seriously, congratulations. I know that took courage. We’re behind you on this. M and B.’

I didn’t respond to Mindy because I thought there was a gentle prodding there that I was choosing to ignore.

I saw the Caller ID on my cellphone light up with Jim’s name and number. My heart leapt into my throat, and I’m sure my body went into a state of shock. I had to cough a couple of times to be able to speak before I pushed the answer button. I felt tears of panic hit my eyes.

A couple of sentences later, and I’d agreed to go to lunch with him at Lloyd’s, my favorite place. What was I thinking by accepting? What does he want from me? He was so suave last night, but then here and there I detected some nervousness. He’s an oxymoron – nervous yet confident. He was so nice. I liked him.

I immediately started second guessing myself. I hadn’t been on a real boy-girl ‘date’ for decades.

Harry used to remind me that I intimidated people because of who I’d been and what I did in my career. I’d been a top fashion and photography model, pulling down tens of thousands for a single photoshoot, and then I’d even been on the cover of some well-known magazines. Even now my older photos were splattered all over the Internet, some of me in the nude – not porn, mind you, but more artistic studies by one of the leading photographers of the time – over thirty years earlier. Oh, my god, had Jim seen those? Was that why he was after me? If I intimidated him, how come he was so ‘smooth’ and poised most of the evening? I was pretending to be that way myself, when I really wanted to kick off my shoes and go barefoot.

Saturday! Shit, that’s only six days away. Why was I swearing? I need to wear something that will signal to him that I’m past all those years in my life where I was in demand and intimidating and sexy. I was pretending back then to be so sophisticated. I’m just a country girl blessed with good looks.

Hell, even now I’m getting signs of old age that take the edge off what I looked like in my youth. I’m broader in my hips. I have crow’s feet at my eyes and wrinkles in my neck and forehead. My skin is a little blotchy with what my mother called liver spots – not many, but a few. My breasts sag. My butt sags even more – I think. I have cellulite forming on my thighs. My eyelids droop. I dye my hair. I’m a complete mess, why would Jim even think of being seen in public with me?

As I wandered around the house I suddenly stopped in a panic. What will we talk about? Oh, crap. I need to brush up on the latest movies and books, and ... the news. I wonder what his politics are ... his religion? That’s it; I’ll watch the news. I can’t just veg out all day long watching Home and Garden TV like I’ve been doing since before Harry died. I’ve got to get back into the real world. When did I travel last? Oh, it was last year and I went to Rome for a few days with Rita. Do I still have the photos on my iPhone to show him? Am I trying to upstage him by talking about that trip?

What if he’s a sports nut? Does he have a favorite team? Should I memorize batting averages or football scores or something? He looks in good shape. Does Jim do tennis or golf or something else? Does he run? Might he jog with me some day? I wonder if he likes yoga.

I paced around my living room with my heart beating fast, my brain in a truly spastic condition, and in a near panic. I couldn’t hold onto one thought for more than half-a-second. I could feel the adrenalin surging through my veins. Another wave of panic washed over me. What will I wear? Lloyd’s can be anything from very casual to practically formal attire. If I dress down and he wears a suit, I’ll feel like a tramp. If I dress up, and he’s in jeans or shorts he’ll think I’m a snob and trying to upstage him – that intimidation factor again. Maybe I need to go through my closet and see what jumps out at me. I love colorful, but what if he has a favorite color like blue, and I show up wearing red. Will that turn him off?

Why am I trying to impress this man? I only just met him, although Rita and Mindy both assure me that he’s a rare catch and that we’d be perfect together. What does that mean? Do I even want to live with another man ... or get married again? Wait! Why do I suddenly have us married? We haven’t even been on a date yet. Is Saturday a date? He’s not picking me up; I’m meeting him there; it’s just a casual lunch. Right?

The weekdays passed with agonizing slowness. As each day passed, I worked myself into a frenzy of worry about my Saturday ‘date’. I talked to Rita twice daily during the week, and she calmed me down each time. She even had Mindy call me -twice – to give me more details about Jim. The more I learned about him, the more impressed I was with who he was, what he’d done with his life, and how he thought. How would I remember everything the two of them told me, not only about Jim, but also about how to behave on my lunch date?

I lost sleep Thursday night. I ended up pacing around my living room at five in the morning talking out loud to myself. In a stern voice I said to no one, “Edie, you’re almost sixty years old. You have faced all sorts of demons, devils, bitches, and bastards in your life and career. Jim is a nice man, and he just wants to have a casual lunch with you. You are working this date thing into a huge deal, and it’s not. Just roll with it. Relax. Get a grip.”

I sat beside my backyard pool as the sun came up meditating, but my monkey brain was all over the map. When I stopped meditating, I sort of woke up to the thought, ‘No, this is an important date. If everyone sees us as so great together, maybe there’s really something there.’ I found I had tears running down my cheeks. I was so confused.

By Friday lunch, some internal clock started to count down to Saturday’s lunch – twenty-four hours to doomsday – the casual lunch where I’d fall apart and blubber uncontrollably. I seemed to be looking at the clock every five minutes. I’d had an appointment in the morning to get my hair done, and in the afternoon to get a pedicure and manicure. I’d been to Saks Fifth Avenue the day before and bought a new outfit to wear – designer jeans and a lightly flowered top that looked mostly off white except for the delicate and muted rainbow pattern; I though the combination made me look feminine, played up by best parts, and ducked the favorite color issue I’d worried about on Tuesday.

I also tried on every pair of shoes I had, trying to find the pair that was ‘just right’ to wear to our lunch. Should I wear some three or four-inch heels, or just sandals. The former was more formal, but gave me a younger and sexier look. The latter were comfortable, convenient, and would show off my new pedicure. In the end I chose my sandals – the ones with a few rhinestone studs to decorate the straps. I easily had sixty pairs of shoes and I’d tried on every one of them.

Saturday morning, I was up early again, and dressed and ready to go at nine o’clock. Lloyd’s was only a ten-minute drive from my house. Why was the clock moving so slowly? I kept touching up and retouching my makeup, at one point removing it all and starting over again to emphasize the more natural me. This wasn’t a photoshoot; we were just having a casual lunch. I couldn’t remember ever being this nervous.

I sat in my car just outside my garage at eleven-forty-five, starting the engine and checking to be sure I had enough gas to get to the restaurant. I had a full tank because I’d filled the car the day before to be sure. I didn’t want to arrive early. I waited, playing with the radio. I wondered what kind of music Jim liked.

At five minutes of twelve, I drove to Lloyd’s. I found a parking space and as I walked past the patio, Jim intercepted me. He said in a friendly tone, “It’s such a nice day, I got us a table outdoors. I hope that’s all right. We can go inside if you think it’s too chilly or sunny or anything.” He sounded very solicitous.

I was generating heat like the back of the sun I was so nervous. “Oh, no. Outdoors is good. Thank you for getting us a table. I’m sorry I’m a few minutes late.” I wasn’t really sorry.

“Not a big deal.” Jim held the chair for me as I sat. Why had this custom fallen by the wayside?

As he sat opposite me, all I wanted to do was stare at him and soak in the details of this man. He exuded all the things I liked in Harry ... and then some. I was truly enthralled with Jim.

Oddly enough we chatted about the Florida weather for a few minutes until a waitress brought us menus. I wondered about our slow start on meaningful conversation, but it felt comfortable making small talk. I glanced at my watch, and it read twelve-ten.

At four o’clock that afternoon, Jim suggested we take a walk on the beach. We’d been talking nonstop for four hours and were the only customers left at Lloyds – inside and out – until their dinner crowd started to arrive. I was feeling unbelievably comfortable with this man. We had so much in common, and yet there were huge areas about each other’s lives that we found refreshingly wonderful to explore about each other. There were surprises too, for instance, we’d both been to a couple of the same rock concerts, and we had the same dentist.

Where did four hours go? We ate. We found each other fascinating. Jim admitted to feeling intimidated by my beauty, my Miss Iowa award, and my modeling career. After we talked about the pluses and minuses about that side of my life, he understood that his image of the profession was a little one-sided. We also talked about the curse of being born beautiful: how I’d sat home for some of the school proms because no one dared ask me out, or how I’d get hit on everywhere I went – even now occasionally, and how I often tried to hide away to avoid some of the negatives.

I talked about how his career at NASA had intimidated me. He described the work and how he happened to get ahead, and it all just seemed like a normal progression from when he was interested in science in high school, through being a reasonably smart man with an engineering degree, and then getting the government job with NASA after graduation. He made it seem like he was nothing special, and that helped me accept him for who he was.

We had a long talk about God, and how we were spiritual but not religious. We’d both moved past the vengeful God in the sky wearing a big white robe with a gold ‘G’ on the pocket and admitting only a chosen few into some heaven within the clouds, to something more akin to Nature or the Universal Energy where we were all connected as spiritual beings having a human existence.

My home was on the way to the beach. Jim followed me there as I drove home and waited outside while I ran inside and did a quick change into a bathing suit and a light-weight hoodie. Somehow, by the time I got outside to ride with Jim, he’d dispensed with his long pants and was wearing cargo shorts. He smiled and explained that he’d changed in the car. He must have planned ahead.

We walked about three miles or more along the beach at a slow pace. As soon as we got to the shoreline, Jim held his hand out to me and I took it. The only time we weren’t holding hands after that was when one of us saw an interesting shell or a sand dollar in the surf or along the water’s edge.

Our connection was electric. From the time our hands touched, it was like I could feel electric energy surging back and forth between us. I could tell that Jim was feeling good about our connection too by the way he kept smiling at me, and urging me to talk more about whatever subject we’d touched upon. He was so solicitous; I had a hard time not letting it go to my head.

We got back to his car and went through the task of dusting the sand from our feet. Jim had me sit in the passenger’s seat with my feet outside the car, and he dried and massaged each foot. It was so sexy and made me feel so special. I was sure glad I’d gotten a pedicure.

Then came the big moment of the day so far. Jim leaned into the car where I sat and kissed me. I was so ready and so desirous of his affection. I saw it coming. I looked up into his eyes and smiled as he leaned in, my eyes closed, and our lips met, and everything in the world came to a standstill. I didn’t want the kiss to end, but it did. That was all right because another one came right behind that one. I was into the scene. I put my arm around Jim’s neck to let him know I wanted him close, and that I didn’t want him to stop.

We kissed several more times, and then he pulled away. He made a huge sigh, obviously regretting having stopped. He ran his fingers down my face, made sure I was seated okay, and then shut my door.

As he got in the driver’s side of the car, he asked, “Hungry again?”

I nodded, but gestured to how casually we were dressed. “I should change.”

Jim shook his head negatively, indicating that I didn’t have to change for what he had in mind. He drove for five minutes to a place on the bay that looked like a dive called the Beach Shack. The building didn’t look like it would survive a modest wind, and there were a few cars around plus six large black motorcycles. I suddenly worried about where we were going. The place was a biker bar.

The week leading up to my date with Edie was absolutely painful. I wished I’d been working again, because I could have at least lost myself in my work. Being retired didn’t offer that option. I constantly thought about the date and all the ways I could screw it up.

I arrived at Lloyd’s Restaurant a half-hour early. I got us an outdoor table near the flowered gardens. I also went to the bathroom twice before she arrived. I couldn’t remember having this much anxiety, even when we were launching a new rocket into space that had cost hundreds of millions to prepare and it was My Budget of taxpayer money.

We talked about everything after we got started. She was so much fun, and went out of her way to put me at ease. I tried to do likewise, even confessing how her modeling career had influenced my thinking about her. We had a lot of coffee after lunch, and somewhere around four o’clock I wondered if we should end our lunch, except I didn’t want to leave her.

We got over what turned out to be a mutual worry about being on a date with each other. Between her flamboyant career and my work in aerospace, it turned out we were both intimidated of the other. We talked through those feelings, and put them aside.

I suggested a beach walk and Edie jumped at the opportunity for us to stay together. She even said, “Oh good, I didn’t want our date to end.” Just those words made me feel so good.

As we got on the beach I wondered if Edie felt that our burgeoning relationship was at all special. I held my hand out to see if she wanted to hold hands, and she did. Not only that, but once we’d latched onto each other, neither of us wanted to let go. I took the handholding as a special indication that something nice was happening between us.

Holding hands with a pretty girl, the prettiest on the beach and probably in the country, and walking along I felt so proud that she’d chosen me to be with that afternoon. I felt like a teenager on a first date, and it was with the prom queen.

When we got back to the car, I cleaned up her feet. They were beautiful, and all properly proportioned to her body, and smooth, with no ugly bumps or bruises. Her toes were beautiful and the nails painted a very feminine shade of pink. I wanted to kiss them but held back otherwise she’d think I was too kinky.

As I stood, I decided to be daring and to kiss Edie. If she didn’t want that, she was nearly my age and she could say something. I leaned into the car and kissed her. She latched onto me and held me close. We ended up kissing a couple of dozen times. I realized I was holding my breath, savoring each kiss. I had to stand and almost gasp for air eventually.