Yes, the current housing bubble was no surprise to me or to anyone who lived in Texas at that time. How can something like this happen? people have moaned. Housing prices have never declined before!
Oh yes they have you idiots. You just weren't paying attention. I have a friend who stayed living in her house with her ex-husband for a few years after their divorce because they couldn't afford to sell it. It's a good thing it was a relatively amicable divorce.
Back to the restaurant. I was at the MoPac/2222 location.
But guess what?
The restaurant also had a Hwy 183 location near the big Whole Foods.
That's where all my friends were waiting.
I was at MoPac/2222. They were at 183.
This was back in the day before cellphones, so I couldn't call to triangulate. I just sat waiting. And waiting. And waiting.
All alone at a table for eight.
I felt like an idiot. To save face, I pulled my grocery list out of my purse and started doodling, noting that I needed eggs and milk and that I needed to change the kitty litter.
After what seemed like hours but was probably a few minutes, the waiter came over and handed me a note.
May I buy you a drink? the note said.
What? What was this? This sort of thing didn't happen in real life, at least not in my real life. I looked around the restaurant, which, fortunately, was not full, or I would have felt really bad about holding a table for eight, and saw a guy looking back. He propped his wrist on the table and waved a few fingers at me in the West Texas lone pickup on the highway fashion.
I looked back over my shoulder.
He was not looking or waving behind me.
I gave him a tentative wave in return.
He smiled, then walked over to my table.
What are you writing? he asked. Are you taking notes for a book?
Had this happened today, I would have answered that I was writing down stuff for my blog, but back then, blogs didn't exist and I didn't have such a glamorous answer. No, I told him. Just my grocery and to-do list.
We chatted. I explained that I was waiting for my friends but they were no-shows and what was up with that? That was about when I figured out that they had gone to the other location. For dumb.
He was a window designer - what a cool job! - for one of the big department stores downtown. I have gone to the google to try to help me remember which one: Was it Scarborough's? Was it Joske's? Joske's was pretty fancy in my eyes, but it didn't take much to get fancier than Sears and Penney's, which were my family's mainstays for bought clothes when I was a kid.
As a young working adult, I bought my suits at Joseph Banks, but only because I did not know there were other stores that sold women's business clothes. Maybe there weren't back then. We women were kind of stuck with the boring navy suit and the cotton blouse with the stupid stupid bow tie, thank you Mr Dress for Success in Ugly Clothes.
He asked if I wanted to have lunch someday. Sure, I said.
Wow. A complete stranger, asking me on a date. How weird was that? Usually, when I was out, the men would flock to my (married) friends. I was the sidekick - the one who got the sidekick guy, if there was one. But my (married) friends were expert flirters who had no intention of ever taking anything further than dancing and a few drinks. And OK, maybe some snogging, which I wondered about. Aren't you married? Should you be kissing other men if you're married? But I kept my mouth shut, as I did not think my comments would change the situation.
He got my number and I left.
He called a few days later. We made a date.
The day we were supposed to meet, I found out about a funeral I needed to attend. The wife of an important client had died. I wasn't so close to the widower, who was the owner of the company, but I did know the controller, who handled all the insurance, quite well. We had become friends. When Rod Stewart came to town, I got four tickets, then called Controller to ask if he wanted to attend the concert because that way, I could expense it as entertainment.
There was a long pause, then Controller said, Gold digger, I am a married man.
I laughed. It hadn't occurred to me that he would interpret my invitation like that.
No, I told him. No! You, your wife, my date and me.
He was relieved.
Shortly after his boss' wife died, Controller, who was in his early 30s with a newborn daughter, learned he had cancer. He was dead in four months. I had tried early in our relationship to get him to increase the group life insurance - $5,000 - that the company gave to its employees. Even back then $5,000 was woefully low. The standard was at least one times annual earnings and was a very inexpensive benefit to give.
But Controller demurred, saying that the owner of the company thought that $5,000 was enough - it would bury someone.
After Controller was dead, I learned that he had not bought life insurance on his own and that his wife and baby had been left with a mere $5,000. Enough to bury him but not enough to begin to take care of his family. I felt sick that I had not pushed him harder.
Depressed now? OK back to the story.
I had to attend this funeral. I called Window Decorator Guy to cancel and couldn't reach him. I called several times, leaving a message with the receptionist each time. I don't know if he got my message. Either he didn't and he waited at the restaurant for me or he did and thought I was making up having to go to a funeral.
I called him a few times after that, but he never returned my calls.
A couple of weeks later, I was at the HEB on Far West Blvd, where I had stopped after going running (back then, I really sort of ran as opposed to the brisk ambling I do now) around Town Lake. I was sweaty and oh so spiffy in my old "!Espana!" t-shirt and running shorts. All I needed was kitty litter, so I didn't have a cart. But the litter was heavy. I hoisted it onto my shoulder.
There I was, walking to the register through the pet supplies aisle, and who did I see?
Window Designer Guy.
Looking quite dandy in his pressed khakis, starched button-down blue and white striped shirt, and yellow sweater tied jauntily around his shoulders.
We stopped. Exchanged awkward hellos. He didn't offer to take me out to lunch again, probably because
Me: sweaty, old t-shirt, 25 pounds of kitty litter on my shoulder
Him: dapper, clean, starched
Awkward goodbyes. I really hadn't stood him up, but he probably looked at me in the store and thought, Whew! Dodged a bullet there!
No comments:
Post a Comment