'Steak, red wine, and a small tangy salad.'
'Done.' Jonathan leaned forward and told the driver to turn south to an address on Fourteenth Street.
'How about making up your mind, buddy?'
'Drive.'
When the taxi pulled up in front of the restaurant, Jemima touched Jonathan's sleeve. 'I saved you from melting. You are going to buy me a dinner. And that's it, right? After dinner everybody goes home. Each to his own home. OK?'
He took her hand and looked earnestly into her eyes. 'Gem, you have very fragile faith in your fellow man.' He squeezed the hand. 'Tell me about it? Who was he—the man who hurt you so?'
She laughed, and the cab driver asked if they were going to get out or not. As Jemima dashed into the restaurant, Jonathan paid the cabby and told him he had been a real brick. Rain and traffic obscured the last word, so the driver stared at Jonathan for a moment, but he decided it was wiser to drive off in a wheel-squealing miff.
The restaurant was simple and expensive, designed for eating, not for gazing at the decor. Partly because he felt festive, and partly to impress Jemima, Jonathan ordered a bottle of Lafite.
'May I suggest 1959?' the wine steward asked, with the rhetorical assumption that his guidance was impeccable.
'We're not French,' Jonathan said, not taking his eyes from Jemima.
'Sir?' The arch of the eyebrow had that blend of huff and martyrdom characteristic of upper echelon servants.
'We're not French. Prenubile wines hold no fascination for us. Bring a '53 if you have it, or a '55 if not.'
As the steward departed, Jemima asked, 'Is this Lafite something special?'
'You don't know?'
'No.'
Jonathan signaled the steward to return. 'Forget the Lafite. Bring us an Haut-Brion instead.'
Assuming the change was a fiscal reconsideration, the steward made an elaborate production of scratching the Lafite off his pad and scribbling down the Haut-Brion.
'Why did you do that?' Jemima asked.
'Thrift, Miss Brown. Lafite is too expensive to waste.'
'How do you know, I might have enjoyed it.'
'Oh, you'd have enjoyed it all right. But you wouldn't have appreciated it.'
Jemima looked at him narrowly. 'You know? I have this feeling you're not a nice person.'
'Niceness is an overrated quality. Being nice is how a man pays his way into the party if he hasn't the guts to be tough or the class to be brilliant.'
'May I quote you?'
'Oh, you probably will.'
'Ah-h—Johnson to Boswell?'
'James Abbott McNeill Whistler to Wilde. But not a bad guess.'
'A gentleman would have pretended I was right. I was right about your not being a nice person.'
'I'll try to make up for it by being other things. Witty, or poetic perhaps. Or even terribly interested in you, which, by the way, I am.' His eyes twinkled.
'You're putting me on.'
'I admit it. It's all a facade. I just pretend to be urbane as an armor for my vulnerable hypersensitivity.'
'Now I'm getting a put-on within the put-on.'
'How do you like being on Flugle Street?'
'Help.'
Jonathan laughed and let the con lie where it was.
Jemima sighed and shook her head. 'Man, you're really a social buzz saw, aren't you. I like to put people on myself by skipping logical steps in the conversation until they're dizzy. But that sort of thing isn't even in your league, is it?'
'I don't know that you could call it a league. After all, there's only one team and one player.'
'Here we go again.'
'Let's take time out for dinner.'
The salad was crisp, the steaks huge and perfect, and they washed them down with the Haut-Brion. Throughout the meal they chatted lightly, allowing the topic to pivot on a word or a sudden thought, ranging from art to politics to childhood embarrassments to social issues, clinging to a subject only so long as there was amusement in it. They shared a sense of the ridiculous and took neither themselves nor the great names in art and politics too seriously. Often it was unnecessary to finish a sentence—the other predicting the thrust and nodding agreement or laughing. And sometimes they shared brief, relaxed silences, neither feeling a need to keep up conversation as a defense against communication. They sat next to a window. The rain alternately rattled and relented. They made ludicrous guesses about the professions and destinations of the passersby. Without recognizing it, Jonathan was dealing with Gem as though she were a man—an old friend. He drifted with the stream of conversation honestly, forgetting the pre-bed banter that usually constituted the basis of his small talk with women.
'A college teacher?' Gem asked incredulously. 'Don't tell me that, Jonathan. You're undermining my stereotypes.'
'How about you as a stewardess? How did that ever happen?'
'Oh, I don't know. Came out of college after changing majors every year and tried to find a job as a Renaissance Woman, but there wasn't a heading like that in the want ads. And traveling around seemed like a possible thing to do. It also struck me as kind of fun to be the first black stewardess on the line—I was their public relations
'Oh, I came out of college and tried to find a job as a Renaissance Man, but...'
'All right. Forget it.'
In the course of the chat, Jonathan discovered that she would be in New York for a three-day layover, and that pleased him. They drifted into another easy silence.
'What's funny?' she asked in response to his slight smile.
'Nothing,' he said. 'Me.'
'Synonyms?'
'I just...' He smiled gently at her over the table. 'It just occurred to me that I am not bothering to be clever with you. I usually make it a point to be clever.'
'How about all that Flugle Street business?'
'Hustler talk. Dazzle talk. But I don't think I'd care to dazzle you.'
She nodded and looked out the window, giving her attention to the random scatter of light where the rain danced on the puddles. After a while, she said, 'That's nice.'
He knew what she meant. 'Yes, it's nice. But it's a little disconcerting.'
She nodded again. And they both knew she meant that it was a little disconcerting for her, too.
A series of non-sequitur pivots brought them to the subject of houses, and Jonathan waxed enthusiastic about his own. For half an hour he described details to her, trying hard to make her see them. She listened actively, letting him know through small movements of her eyes and head that she understood and shared. When he stopped suddenly, realizing that he had been talking steadily and probably boorishly, she said, 'It must be nice to feel that way about a house. And it's safe too, of course.'
'Safe?'
'A house can't lean on you emotionally. Can't burden you by loving you back. You know what I mean.'
He knew exactly, and he experienced a negative twinge at her emotional acumen. It occurred to him that he would enjoy having her at his home—passing a day sitting around and chatting. He told her so.
'It sounds like fun. But we couldn't go now. That wouldn't be good. I pick you up in a cab, we have dinner, then we run off to your house. Technically speaking, that would constitute a 'quickie.' It doesn't sound like our sort of thing.'
