Close Relations by Susan Isaacs Page B

said, as we shared a quadrant within the revolving door, “this isn’t a date.”
    “I know.” Still, I liked to think of him as my escort. People could say, “There’s Marcia Green,” and automatically look for Jerry Morrissey.
    Ever since I began working in politics, right after I was graduated from Queens College, I had an even chance of meeting him. We could have said hi at the annual fund raiser for the Queens Symphony Orchestra, shaking hands over a silver bowl of chopped liver while our employers dashed about, kissing cheeks and pounding backs and proclaiming their passion for the orchestral form, or at least mumbling that they thought music was a wonderful idea.
    We could have been introduced at the Rathskeller, a bar not far from City Hall. We could even have crossed paths when I was living in Washington. Bernard Merkin had testified before a House subcommittee that my boss, the Honorable Dave Flaherty, chaired.
    “Marcia Plotnick, Jerry Morrissey,” someone could have said.
    “Hi.” He would have offered me a hand and a flash of blue eye-light.
    “Hi.” I would have lowered my head and addressed his loafers, trying at the same time to conjure up a picture of my husband, white-coated Barry Plotnick, his stethoscope twinkling in silver, his wedding band gleaming in gold.
    I had heard of Jerry, of course. Rumors, ruminations, remarks about him had drifted through my life for years. Even when he was in his mid-thirties, he was considered one of the grand old men of New York City politics, the pro’s pro.
    A health-care lobbyist, cooling her heels waiting for Flaherty, her behind spread over a third of my Washington desk, had demanded, “Y’ever see Jerry Morrissey?”
    “No.”
    “Oh. Well, he’s gorgeous. A living dream.”
    “I think you may be sitting on my pencil.”
    “Not that he’s not smart too,” she added.
    We finally met by appointment. “Hi, Marcia.”
    “Hi.” I was looking for a job.
    “Well, let’s see. You were with Dave Flaherty….” His voice faded but his finger continued the probe, moving slowly down the page of my résumé. “What made you leave Washington?” he asked.
    “Oh, I got a divorce….”
    “I see.”
    Six months later we began having dinner together, at first every couple of weeks, eventually most nights. I assumed we were friends; we always split the check and he never tried to kiss me. We probed each other’s histories and discovered we both correlated our private lives with public events: my Grandma Yetta died on the same day as Jack Benny and Jerry first had intercourse the night before Eisenhower was inaugurated. We discovered mutually a passion for nasty Mayor Lindsay stories, a near mastery of the city’s bus and subway routes, and a strong disinclination to see foreign movies.
    I fell in love with him but forced myself to act casual, afraid of having him think me just another eager lady. But after a month of intense camaraderie, I wanted more. I spent my mornings plotting ways to make him seduce me in the evenings. By the afternoons, I was overwrought from the excitement of my fantasies, from planning traps, and from guilt at neglecting my work. I began to fear that Jerry would not only not desire me but might fire me as well. So I’d bang the typewriter passionately, until he would knock at my office door. Ready? he’d ask. I’d begin each dinner with him feeling frazzled, exhausted, and decidedly unseductive. But our conversations were fun, and by dessert, I felt so happy, so at ease, that my morning plot—to drop my coffee spoon and let my hand brush his thigh while reaching for it—was forgotten.
    We slipped into bed casually one evening when we stopped at his apartment to check the movie listings and found only Clint Eastwood in the neighborhood. We were sitting on the bed, and Jerry leaned across the
Village Voice
and gave me a cautious kiss. I responded, far less cautiously. An hour later he said softly, “I can’t believe I wasted