Starting From Square Two. Caren Lissner
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her to do anything. And then, suddenly, Chase had stopped coming. Gert wasn’t sure why. As much as she liked the women in the group, most of them were a few years older than she. She hoped Chase would come back.
People like Chase—fiancées—had it worse than everyone, Gert thought. They hadn’t even married their loved one yet. They had had to lose someone they loved before they’d officially become related. They didn’t even get to call themselves widows. What should they be called? In this day and age, there needed to be a less clunky term than Bereaved Significant Other.
Gert noticed that the people in the group were getting up, and she realized the session was over. She’d been dazing again.
She had to stop doing that.
Todd called that afternoon.
Gert was scrubbing the house. When they’d first moved in, they had used a maid service once a week. She’d felt a little spoiled, but all of the neighbors in the condo building used the service, and it was something good to spend their money on when they were making more than enough of it. One day, Marc had been on the phone with his mother and had mentioned something about the maid coming, and his mother had had a fit, saying they were being lazy. Gert knew it was aimed at her. Marc’s mother liked Gert, but she could also be hard on her. Gert had, after all, taken over the duty of raising her little boy. Marc’s father was a big bear of a man who made bad jokes and always greeted everyone with a new dopey nickname. Marc had picked up this habit, with his own litany of nicknames. He and his father competed over who could make up the worst one. Gert missed Mr. Healy’s cheerful face.
Gert had always felt much more comfortable around Marc’s father than Marc’s mother. Mrs. Healy was overbearing. Everything had to be the best. Marc and his older brothers were driven, all in finance and real estate, all hustling tirelessly. That’s how they’d been raised. That’s what they got praised for.
Gert pushed thoughts of the Healys out of her mind and moved the mop slowly across the kitchen floor. There was a tiny rainbow near a corner where the sunlight bent through a glass candy dish, and she mopped the spot.
A shrill sound startled Gert. The phone. She stared at it for two rings, then picked it up.
“Is Gert there?” a voice asked.
Gert knew instantly who it was. She smiled. If nothing else, Todd was disarming. Even if she wasn’t going to date him, or anyone else right now, she certainly could be friends with him. She had felt incredibly comfortable talking to him at the bar. He was completely different from Marc, though. Marc was sure of himself, maybe even a little cocky. Todd was just Todd.
“It’s the Sober Guy,” Todd said.
“Ah,” Gert said. “Is that what your friends call you?”
“Sometimes,” Todd said. “They’re always saying, ‘Come on, just have one little drink.’ They don’t care that I’d lose my job. My company is like the CIA. They do drug tests when they hire you that can track marijuana you smoked two months ago.”
“Better stick to crack,” Gert joked, then winced, wondering if it was too sharp a comment to make to someone she barely knew. It would have made Marc smile, if he were there.
Todd laughed. “So how are you doing?”
Gert hadn’t had anyone ask her that in weeks, except her parents, who were still trying to convince her to move back to the West Coast. She’d confirmed their worst fears right after college when she’d married a guy from Boston and moved to Queens.
“Not bad,” Gert said.
“What are you doing today?”
“Just cleaning my place.”
“I need to do that,” Todd said. “My roommate’s a slob. Do you live alone?”
“Yes,” Gert said, balancing the phone on her shoulder so she could keep mopping. Yes, she thought. I live in a condo with two bedrooms. The second one eventually would have been the baby’s room. It’s ridiculous that I live here, but I don’t want to move.
“How was your day?” Gert asked.
“Great,” Todd said. “I ate lunch at this bar by my old job. And I just had tea, and the bartender looked at me like I was crazy, but I told her I’m not allowed to drink because of work, and you know what she guessed I must be? A brain surgeon. Do I look like a brain surgeon?”
“Anyone can look like a brain surgeon,” Gert said.
“Wow. I feel so important now.”
“What’s your old job?”
“Oh. For a little while after college I was a courier in the diamond district. My friend’s family owned a jewelry store. They needed people they trusted to do those jobs, so we both worked there for a while, walking around the city transporting jewelry and hoping not to get mugged. It was kind of fun, and I got to hang out with my friend’s family, who have this old-fashioned business that not a lot of people have anymore. One time, on a Friday after work, they took us to their apartment on the Lower East Side and they had a zillion relatives over and cooked Romanian food. It was incredible.”
Gert realized that Todd liked long answers, long explanations. He wasn’t concerned about boring her. It didn’t mean he was full of himself—just that he wasn’t constantly checking to see if he was saying and doing the right thing. He had no affectations, no pretensions.
She liked it.
The other line beeped, and Gert ignored it.
“Do you have to go?” Todd asked.
“No. But I am cleaning….”
“Okay. Well, what I wanted to ask was…do you want to have dinner some night?”
“Um…” Gert said, looking around the room. “I guess, maybe.” She realized she was being too tentative. “I mean, sure. Why not?”
“Great,” he said. “My schedule gets a little strange. I’m working nights the rest of the week, but I’m free after next weekend. Unless you wanted to get together tonight.”
Gert thought putting it off for a week would be wise. She could use the week to work up to it. But looking around again, she realized she didn’t have anything to do that night. She might as well go. Todd seemed harmless enough.
“Either way is fine,” Gert said. “I didn’t have any major plans tonight.”
“Really?” Todd said. “Do you want to do it tonight? I don’t want to push, but it might be nice to see you before my schedule gets crazy.”
Gert was flattered. She accepted.
When she put down the phone, it rang instantly.
“Hey!” Hallie said.
“Hey,” Gert said. “You sound excited. What’s up?”
“Erika knows this bar where some of the Giants hang out. Do you want to come tonight?”
Gert hesitated. “I could,” she said. “But I probably can’t.”
“Why not?” Hallie asked.
“Well,” Gert said, “do you remember that guy Todd, from the bar?”
“Choo-Choo Boy?” Hallie suddenly seemed intrigued. “Did he call you? Did he ask you out?”
“Yes,” Gert said. “He asked if I wanted to have dinner.”
“That’s great!” Hallie said. Gert was glad Hallie was excited for her. “It’s at least a start,” Hallie added. “When are you going?”
“Tonight,” Gert said.
Hallie was quiet for a second.
“Tonight?” she said.
Gert hesitated. Maybe this hadn’t been such a good