“Poor, poor girl. And now you’re going blind. And you won’t even be able to see what it is that you’ve been missing.”
“That was beyond cruel.”
“It’s true. Have you ever seen a man without his clothes on? Even if by accident? Your father?”
Leonora shook her head. “What’s more, I am uncomfortable with this conversation.”
“But surely you must know what a naked man looks like.”
“I am not a nun, Leonora. I’ve seen pictures.”
“My heart is breaking.”
“It’s my cross to bear. Let’s change the subject. I may decide not to come for lunch next week if you don’t turn off the pity faucet. And you’re being rude. Not to mention lewd.”
Leonora was forced to suspend her reproach of her friend; Pavlos had returned with dessert and Leonora’s eyes were now level with his crotch, the perimeter of darkness in her narrowing glaucomatous field of vision fortuitously irising in on the waiter’s groinal contours, both to Leonora’s temporary delight and to her ultimate gloom and despair, for this was yet another reminder of what would be lost to her once her eyesight disappeared altogether.
But there was truth to what Amanda said, and Leonora knew it.
By the following week, Leonora had come to an important and rather bold decision that she felt she should share with her best friend. She could not—would not, it was now clear — lose her eyesight without having seen a man in the flesh, in all his flesh, an image that would create a lasting visual memory through all the years she would spend in darkness. She had reached the apex of this decision while watching Coquette, featuring a one-hundred-percent chattering Mary Pickford and the ruggedly handsome football-player-turned-screen-actor Johnny Mack Brown, whom Leonora would very much like to have glimpsed showering in some stadium locker room during his gridiron days.
It would be asking a lot of Amanda, but Leonora wished to enlist her best friend in soliciting some kind of viewing for Leonora’s transitory pleasure and permanent retention. Amanda knew men — men of sufficient build who might agree to give Leonora a free look. Amanda knew Detroit coppers, both those who carried guns and those who wore gloves and directed traffic with balletic grace. She knew tough-as-nails, square-jawed federal agents, some of whom chased rum runners with patriotic zeal and others who were on the take but no less sthenically appealing. Amanda might even be able to entice a strapping young Canadian Mountie to ford the Detroit River from Windsor and remove every stitch of his uniform and undergarments (while keeping the Stetson securely in place). Leonora was sure that Amanda, after some initial sniggering, would agree to her odd yet desperately articulated request.
Tuesday came and Leonora found herself sitting in a chair in the Traffic Division of the Detroit Police Department waiting for Amanda. Her heart was pounding. Leonora had never in her life attempted anything so impetuous. And yet, Leonora’s lifetime of prudence and circumspection had brought her to a point she was not proud to admit to. Men had shown interest in her. She had politely turned them down. Men had sought to bed her — she was sure of it. But she had been afraid and somewhat put off. Is this all that men think about? Leonora didn’t believe herself to be priggish, and yet their advances — the advances of most of the men she’d met — seemed boorish and sloppy and presumptuous, and she would have no truck with them.
That was the old Leonora. The new Leonora wanted to see a live naked man in all his muscular glory before time ran out.
There was a man sitting next to her — a man perhaps in his mid-thirties — a good-looking man with curly black hair, a smooth-shaven face and half dimples that revealed themselves when his ear caught the punch line of a joke being told by another man a couple of chairs away. The good-looking man said hello to Leonora when he sat down and tipped his homburg brim politely before removing the hat altogether.
The clerk at the window called his name. It was James. James Touliatos.
“Aren’t you next?” said the man, turning to Leonora. “You were here before me.”
Leonora shook her head. “I’m just waiting for a friend. She works here and we’re having lunch together.”
The man — Mr. James Touliatos, who bore a slight resemblance to Pavlos the waiter, but was, thought Leonora, even better looking — got up from his seat and carried a sheaf of papers over to the window.
Leonora could hear snatches of his conversation with the clerk. Since the clerk had the louder voice, she got only half of the exchange: “Here is the application for certificate of title. Fill this out. The fee is a dollar. Have you owned a car before? Are you aware that the receipt of registration must be carried in the car at all times? What kind of vehicle is it? No reason. I just like cars. Except Fords. Don’t tell them that in Dearborn or I might find myself out of a job.” The two men laughed. Leonora thought that Mr. James Touliatos had a friendly, engaging laugh.
Amanda came out. She said that she couldn’t get away. Someone from the Secretary of State’s office was coming over for a meeting and they needed a stenographer. She was very sorry, but perhaps they could see each other over the weekend. She’d come up to Redford and they could go to that new musical picture, Applause with Helen Morgan. Cities were banning it all over the country, so it had to be good.
Amanda returned to her office. James had overheard the conversation. He approached Leonora. “You’ve been stood up for lunch. If I might be so bold, given that I’m a total stranger to you, how would you feel if I took you to lunch?”
“I would say, sir, that you are total stranger to me and no.”
James nodded. He ruminated. “I wouldn’t be a stranger to you if you got to know me. My names is Touliatos, by the way. I’m a welder with Great Lakes Engineering Works in Ecorse. I help to put freighters together.”
He helps to build freighters, thought Leonora. He has large arms. He must have a nice physique. I’ll say no again as any proper woman would, but if he persists, I will pretend that he has worn down my resistance and agree to have lunch with him.
She said no again. The man put on his hat, tipped the brim, and walked out.
Leonora died a little inside. She didn’t get up. She sat for the next moment ruing her decision. Then something miraculous happened. Mr. James Touliatos returned. He walked straight up to Leonora and said, “I’m going to ask once more, not because I’m a rude s.o.b., but because you seem like a very nice woman, you’ve been stood up for lunch, and I feel just a little sorry for you. I also note from the absence of a wedding ring on your finger that you aren’t married, and I happen to think that you might be a charming and stimulating table companion.”
“Sir, you have won me over,” said Leonora with relief, and with a sudden feeling of reckless abandon that took her by surprise.
James had a favorite restaurant he wanted to recommend. The New Hellas on Monroe.
The two ate and drank and talked for over two hours. James loved his job, but he was getting ready to move to upstate New York and try his hand at farming. His life was a series of discrete chapters. He said this made it interesting. He had been married, but the marriage hadn’t worked out. He saw his young daughter in San Francisco twice a year.
Leonora talked of her job, a little of her mother (trying her best to couch her impatience with her mother’s all-too-mothering personality in gentle, non-critical terms), and then over baklava and American coffee, she confided to James that she was going blind.