We went inside her tiny but very tidy apartment and talked for an hour or so. She was just starting as a nurse's aide, going to nursing school at night, and sometimes doing child care for extra money. When I told her I had been having trouble finding the right person to watch my kids after they came home from school, we both sort of lit up and I swear I had no visions of romance when I asked if she might want to give us a try. It was only after a couple of weeks that I began to think about leaving early from work and then get this I-dropped-my- ice-cream feeling when it was time for her to go. Why shouldn't I have? When I'd get home she'd already be feeding the kids some delicious meal and for once since Daisy died they'd be eating all of it, and though it wasn't part of her duties she'd make plenty of extra and then pop open a bottle of beer and I'd take it to the shower with me and when I came back out dig in like Crusoe to the came and dirty rice or whatever else she'd made (the gourmet cuisine she developed later). After she'd clean up the kitchen we'd all sit around and watch a sitcom or two until bedtime for the kids. Those were good times, as good as the few Daisy and I had when she was alive, and maybe even better, full as they were with a quiet pleasure that wouldn't be sullied by sudden implosions of crying or madness.
These days, I'm feeling shorn clean by time and event and circumstance, so much so that I'm not even so hungry anymore.
But now here's Rita, in her white shoes, walking out of the ER doors. Her dark hair is straighter than before, a little shorter, devolumized of its natural kink. I have to believe this must be Counselor Coniglio's high-class influence, which I don't think in the least right, but none of it matters because she's a beautiful woman who's reached an age when her loveliness begins to haunt, in addition to the usual provoke and inspire.
Before I can wave she sees me. Halts for a beat. Finally comes forward, but not too close, staying near the front fender.
"I don't need a ride, you know"
"I know."
"Have you visited Kelly yet?" she says.
"She was asleep. I left her flowers. I'll come back later today."
"And where are you going now?"
"I was hoping to follow you somewhere. Maybe I can take you to breakfast?"
"I'm not eating breakfast anymore. Or lunch."
"What do you mean?"
"Pm on Slim-Fast."
"That shake stuff? You're kidding. You don't need to do that."
"I do. And don't be patronizing. You don't know, Jerry, what happens to a woman. How we age. You take everything for granted."
"You look great to me. Fantastic, even. Honest."
Rita just stares at me, I know rolling about that last word in her head. I am honest, certainly, and always am with her, but it's the doing more than professing that counts for the most, particularly in matters of love, especially when you've been long found out.
"I can sit with you, if you like. Just don't give me crap about my diet."
"I won't. Hop in."
"I'll follow you," she says, jangling her keys at me. "And don't try to take me anywhere near the house."
At a diner on Jericho Turnpike we take a window booth looking out onto the boulevard. It's backed up with the morning rush, as far as we can see, something that neither of us has ever had to deal with much, if at all, the sight of which makes our little square of space seem cozy and calm. Rita, looking better than great to me, her skin a summertime cocoa, orders just ice water and an extra glass. Out of sympathy I get a half grapefruit and toast and coffee, instead of my usual Mexican omelet.
She takes a can of vanilla-flavored diet drink out of her bag and pours it, and it reminds me of those supplement formulas they give my father at the assisted living home, which he rails against but drinks anyway, mostly so he can complain how no one will ever again make the dishes for him that my mother did. Rita, as mentioned, is a gourmet cook, and it actually pleases me to think that she's having a shake for breakfast and for lunch and then a sensible (read boring) dinner with Richie, and not preparing him the scallop terrines and pepper-pork ten-derloins and honey-glazed short ribs that made our years so thoroughly fine.
Or maybe she does, cooking just for him, serving it on fine china, in a sexy petite-sized uniform, nothing on underneath.
"Kelly told me you're still seeing Richie," I say, deciding that I probably don't have a lot of time (given our orders), or future chances. "How's it going?"
"I'm not sure it's any of your business. Especially since you know him."
"Only from a long time ago. Doesn't he ask about you and me? About all our history?"
"Actually he never has."
"Conceited little bastard. Even when he was a loudmouth runt who had nothing to be conceited about. That's why everyone picked on him. I was the only one who was nice to him, you know."
Rita doesn't defend him, or say anything else about it. She says, "How are the kids?"
"They're doing great," I say, for a second entertaining the fantasy that she is talking about ours, once little ones in jumpers with snot on their faces. "Theresa is engaged. To a writer. You never met Paul, did you?"
"Just once, briefly."
"You'll be there for the wedding, whenever it happens."
"I'm not sure yet."
"It would break Theresa's heart if you didn't show. You can bring Richie along, I don't mind. But I think you really can't miss it."
"I wouldn't bring Richie," she says, taking a sip from her drink "What about Jack? How's his new house?"
"They've got space like you can't believe. It's about five times bigger than our place. I mean my place. They have refriger-ated drawers in the kitchen, and a water tap right over the stove, for the pasta water. This is perfect for Eunice. She can only boil macaroni."
"She doesn't have time to cook. She's too busy with her decorating business."
"You mean too busy buying furniture and rugs. They're starting to buy art, and I don't mean poster reproductions. They went into the city last week for an auction at Christie's. I've got a feeling they brought back something grand."
"Sounds like Battle Brothers is doing well."
"Jack's expanding it like crazy. I never knew he could be such a mogul. He was always the shyest kid."
"He's like your father," Rita says. "Secret Mussolini."
"Oh God."
"Jack's not as confident as Hank. But he's a lot sweeter."
I say, "He cares too much what people think."
"Your opinion especially."
This is probably true, though I've never acknowledged it, for fear of making it forever stick. (Theresa has the opposite problem, by the way, which I have never minded, though often enough she can be a pain in the neck.) One thing I've learned as a parent is never to call a spade a spade when it comes to your offsprings' failings and defects, no matter their age. And now I remember, too, how well Rita knows my children, as she shep-herded them through their adolescence when everything fell apart after Daisy died, and I was mostly absent to them and to much all else, save the business of shrubs and mulch.
"They love you, you know," I say, despite how completely low and unfair it is to bring up the kids like this. "They'll love you to death."
Rita of course instantly sees through all my stratagems but what I've said is undeniably true, and she can do little else but avert her gaze down into her foamy parfait glass and try not to relent. If I had the guts I'd follow with the coup de grace of how I feel about her, utter the words, or at least recite a few verses from the poet, to wonder if she might accept "The desire of the moth for the star/Of the night for the morrow, / The devotion to something afar/From the sphere of our sorrow."