The Last Lovely City by Alice Adams Page A

Supposed to be excellent food, and also attractive. Hard to get reservations, but he would try, and call her back. They settled on a night. He did call back, to say that he could get a table only at seven, too early, but worth a try. He would pick her up at six-thirty; he would very much look forward to seeing her.
    Like a nervous girl, Lucretia wondered what to wear. She was tempted to buy something new and wonderful, but she did not like the styles of that year. She settled on her best old black dress that everyone liked.
    At about six her phone rang, and Lucretia’s heart sank as she thought, It must be Burt, or worse, it’s Simon, canceling.
    It was Simon, not canceling but apologizing: A meeting was holding him up, could they possibly meet at the restaurant?
    Driving down Broadway, through all the mess of lights and traffic, it occurred to Lucretia that she should have taken a cab; this way they would have to part publicly in some parking lot.
    The restaurant was in an old wharf building, remodeled: low, dark ceilings, low lights, a long, rich bar and spectacular view of the bay and the Bay Bridge, Oakland. Black water and huge, dim, looming boats.
    At first, coming in, Lucretia could not see Simon, but then she said his name, and she was directed: there, he could have been no one else—tall, lean, fair Simon, with his narrow face, long nose, sardonic mouth. He was standing, smiling, and then coming toward her, hands outstretched to her.
    They both said, “Oh, I’m so glad—” and stopped, and laughed.
    Their dinner was much in that key, enthusiastically friendly, with good laughs. And relatively impersonal. Simon gracefully deflected anything verging on the personal, did not discuss his two marriages. Instantly sensitive to his mood and needs (this was one of her major skills), Lucretia was amusing. She told funny stories about the paper, about people she had interviewed. And they exchanged travel notes; they both loved the South of France, the North of Italy, and they laughed at the unoriginality of their tastes.
    Simon’s hair, though still thick, was actually white, not blond, as Lucretia had remembered. But, as she sat with him there, she was seeing not the elderly man whom another person might have described as distinguished but rather a young, blond, athletic Simon, with his fair hair and dark-brown eyes, his high, white intellectual brow, and his clever, sensual mouth. She was seeing and responding to a very young man, but also to an aging man, with white hair, whom she hardly knew. With whom she had an animated, no-depth conversation. But to whom she responded, deeply.
    As she had imagined, and feared, they parted at her car,though, bending down to her, Simon asked anxiously, “Should I follow you home? See that you get there safely?”
    “Oh no, I drive around all the time. I’ll be fine.”
    A brush of mouths on cheeks. Good night.
    Lucretia
knew
that she was much too old to wait for the phone to ring, and yet the next day, a Saturday, she found that that was what she was doing. Despite the fact that her answering machine was functioning, she kept herself within range of her telephone, postponing the small weekend tasks that would make enough noise to drown it out. Postponing neighborhood errands.
    Until she thought, This is absolutely, utterly ridiculous. And she went out for an extended walk, doing errands, and even appreciating the beautiful day.
    Coming home, though, and noting her machine’s nonflashing light, no messages, she experienced a sinking of her spirits: he had not called.
    This was crazy, she knew that; she thought, I cannot let myself do this. I will simply have to take charge. I’ll call him. This is the nineties, no matter how old we are.
    “Simon, it’s Lucretia. I just wanted to thank you for dinner. It was really terrific. I had a marvelous time, so lovely to see you, really. I wondered, could you come here for dinner, do you think? Maybe next Friday? Well, actually