The New Yorker Stories - Ann Beattie [202]
“I can remember being that age,” I say.
“I don’t think I was ever that stupid,” Howard says.
“A different thing happens with girls. Boys don’t talk to each other all the time in quite the same intense way, do they? I mean, I can remember when it seemed that I never talked but that I was always confiding something.”
“Confide something in me,” Howard says, coming back from flipping the Bach on the stereo.
“Girls just talk that way to other girls,” I say, realizing he’s serious.
“Gidon Kremer,” Howard says, clamping his hand over his heart. “God—tell me that isn’t beautiful.”
“How did you find out so much about classical music?” I say. “By asking and getting told?”
“In New York,” he says. “Before I moved here. Before L.A., even. I just started buying records and asking around. Half the city is an unofficial guide to classical music. You can find out a lot in New York.” He pours more wine into his glass. “Come on,” he says. “Confide something in me.”
In the kitchen, one of the girls turns on the radio, and rock and roll, played low, crosses paths with Bach’s violin. The music goes lower still. Deirdre and Becky are laughing.
I take a drink, sigh, and nod at Howard. “When I was in San Francisco last June to see my friend Susan, I got in a night before I said I would, and she wasn’t in town,” I say. “I was going to surprise her, and she was the one who surprised me. It was no big deal. I was tired from the flight and by the time I got there I was happy to have the excuse to check into a hotel, because if she’d been there we’d have talked all night. Acting like Becky with Deirdre, right?”
Howard rolls his eyes and nods.
“So I went to a hotel and checked in and took a bath, and suddenly I got my second wind and I thought what the hell, why not go to the restaurant right next to the hotel—or in the hotel, I guess it was—and have a great dinner, since it was supposed to be such a great place.”
“What restaurant?”
“L’Étoile.”
“Yeah,” he says. “What happened?”
“I’m telling you what happened. You have to be patient. Girls always know to be patient with other girls.”
He nods yes again.
“They were very nice to me. It was about three-quarters full. They put me at a table, and the minute I sat down I looked up and there was a man on a banquette across the room from me. He was looking at me, and I was looking at him, and it was almost impossible not to keep eye contact. It just hit both of us, obviously. And almost on the other side of the curve of the banquette was a woman, who wasn’t terribly attractive. She had on a wedding ring. He didn’t. They were eating in silence. I had to force myself to look somewhere else, but when I did look up he’d look up, or he’d already be looking up. At some point he left the table. I saw that in my peripheral vision, when I had my head turned to hear a conversation on my right and I was chewing my food. Then after a while he paid the check and the two of them left. She walked ahead of him, and he didn’t seem to be with her. I mean, he walked quite far behind her. But naturally he didn’t turn his head. And after they left I thought, That’s amazing. It was really like kinetic energy. Just wham. So I had coffee, and then I paid my check, and when I was leaving I was walking up the steep steps to the street and the waiter came up behind me and said, ‘Excuse me. I don’t know what I should do, but I didn’t want to embarrass you in the restaurant. The gentleman left this for you on his way out.’ And he handed me an envelope. I was pretty taken aback, but I just said, ‘Thank you,’ and continued up the steps, and when I got outside I looked around. He wasn’t there, naturally. So I opened the envelope, and his business card was