More friends arrived, and our group reshuffled around the bar. I kept ending up next to John.
I watched him. He didn’t say much, but his eyes sparked with life as he followed the conversation. When it was time to walk over to the House of Blues for the concert, again, John and I fell into step. His style was simple: blue sweater, jeans, lace-up black dress shoes with a rounded toe. His jacket was warm, but neither trendy nor businessman serious. I didn’t sense any dark secret stash of shame in him—no well of loneliness or hint of a dark side that would be tempting and maddening to try to fix.
In my purse, my phone buzzed with a text from Rory checking to see if I’d made it home. From the bathroom, I texted her back: Still out and almost having fun!
The House of Blues was jammed with sweaty drunk people in sweaters and boots. John bought me a bottle of water. I found myself actively hoping he wasn’t gay. He reminded me of someone, but I couldn’t place who. A vague connection tickled at my consciousness. I didn’t mean to grill him. It was just a question. A harmless question to a guy I was enjoying talking to.
“Do you have a religion?” I have no idea why I asked that question in those words.
He raised his brows in amusement. “I didn’t see that question coming.” He took a swig of his water before answering. “I was raised Jewish.”
Everything went still and silent: The dance floor. The bar area. The people setting up the stage. In an instant that stretched into the next day, I froze too. This guy, whom I had blown off months before, then wrote off as gay, but now wanted to kiss, reminded me of Dr. Rosen. It was the Jewish thing that pushed me into revelation. Suddenly it was so obvious. They were both introverts with sharp senses of humor and a gentle but solid masculinity they didn’t have to flaunt. Simple style that didn’t flash their status or the current trends. Both had an air of confidence that, at times, bled into cocksureness. And their directness—they were not men who would ignore an elephant in the room. Good God—standing before me was a young, single, age-appropriate, gainfully employed man who reminded me of my therapist.
The rest of the concert was a blur of sweating, dancing, and losing myself in the music. John stood off to the side taking in the whole scene. At two o’clock in the morning, he walked me home. The city streets, dotted with snow flurries, were empty except for a nocturnal dog walker. I felt something I’d never felt with a man before: calm, quiet, happy, and excited. I wanted to be close to him. I wanted to fall asleep listening to his voice. I wanted to hear what he thought about all the people we knew in common and where he’d traveled. I liked him, and it felt like a secret power collecting under my skin. We laughed again that we’d both bought new beds in the past forty-eight hours. It meant something—the two of us with our new beds. A good omen.
The next day John left a voice mail: “I don’t know if you’re single, but if you are, then we should hang out.”
The excitement I felt about John was a steady pillar of hope, one that could guide me, not distract me and obliterate everything else in my life. It was quieter than the gale-force winds of the Intern and Reed. It was brighter and rose higher than the flat line of my desire for Brandon. But it wasn’t overwhelming. I still had an appetite. I slept normally. I wrote briefs at work and went to 12-step meetings.
“He’s Jewish, single, handsome, gainfully employed, liberal, kind, and just bought a new bed.” I ticked off all John’s positive traits to the group. “We’re going out tomorrow night.”
“And he took you to the opera,” Max said. “I’m calling it now: John’s the one.”
“Don’t do that.” Too much pressure. “It’s just dinner.”
I sat back in my chair and matched Dr. Rosen’s smile, beam for beam. “He reminds me of you.”
Dr. Rosen rubbed his chest.
La Scarola looked like a dive from Grand Street, but inside it was bright, smelled of garlic frying in butter, and bustled with waiters running trays of lasagna and fried calamari through its haphazard aisles. Dozens of people loitered by the front door, but John spoke to the host, who showed us right away to a quiet table in the corner. We split the angel hair pasta with shrimp and the pasta arrabiata. The conversation drifted from the stuff we did in college, how we felt about the partners we worked for, how often we went home to visit our families. My gaze never once drifted beyond the world of our table for the next three hours. I was genuinely surprised when the houselights came on and the music stopped. “I’m sorry,” our attentive waiter said, “but we must sleep.” I’d just spent almost three and a half hours with John and hadn’t called any of my group members from the bathroom. My heart still held the steady joy I first felt when he walked me home the other night.
At the end of the date, John squeezed my hand, which sent a jolt straight through my whole body. Back at home, I didn’t send a long e-mail debriefing to my groups or call Rory about my food. I climbed into my sleigh bed and drifted off to sleep with a smile on my face.
The next day at work I focused on the brief I was working on and ended the day with a 12-step meeting. I’d had the best date of my life and was still able to function. Before
