“Oh, yes.” She nodded eagerly, her words blown away by the wind. Jonny dropped the bags, and then they were kissing. Pandy forgot about the snow and the wind and the cold, her entire being embodied in this ancient exchange. Soul recognized soul, and for a moment, she was sure she knew everything about him.
The kiss might have gone on forever, if not for the wind. The air screamed as it roared down Fifth Avenue gathering energy, and then hit the open space of the park like a giant wave.
“Fuck!” Jonny said as the wind tore them apart and sent them spinning backward.
“Get down!” Pandy shouted, tugging him to his knees. “Put your back to it with your hands over your head.”
There was another terrible blast, and then the air suddenly went still.
Pandy and Jonny rose to their feet, staring up at the sky in astonishment. The sun was flickering behind a heavy black cloud, turning it shades of an eerily beautiful iridescent green.
“Whoa!” Jonny said.
“Incredible, isn’t it?”
Their eyes widened as they took in each other’s appearance. They were both mortared in snow, covered head to toe like two plaster-of-Paris models.
Pandy began laughing. In the next second, Jonny was laughing, too; once they started, they couldn’t stop.
And then they both took a deep breath and came back to their senses.
Exhaling a reassuring cloud of steam, Jonny began picking up his bags of groceries. “Let’s go, Wallis,” he exhorted, tossing her one of the bags. Pandy caught it in her arms like a baby. It was heavy; possibly a ham. Or even a whole prosciutto.
Pandy smiled at the thought of the paper-thin pink flesh with its frosting of creamy fat. Jonny was a famous chef; he probably had whole prosciuttos lying around all over the place.
“You got anyone else I need to feed besides you?” Jonny called out.
“Henry,” Pandy said. “He probably doesn’t have a thing in his house.” Carefully she tucked the prosciutto—for it was a whole prosciutto after all—under her arm like a linebacker with a ball.
“He’s on Gay Street. Let’s pick him up and then go back to my place.” She hurried to catch up with Jonny, leading him past a redbrick wall that led to a tiny, curved street.
The snow was nearly to Pandy’s knees. Her feet felt the way up the small stoop of a three-story brick house with a shiny black door. She lifted the heavy brass knocker and banged three times.
Henry opened the door. He hadn’t been lying about the smoking jacket, Pandy noted, suddenly annoyed.
“Can I help you?” he asked drolly, eyeing Jonny, who was heaving behind her.
“Oh, come on, Henry. Move aside,” Pandy said. She pushed past him into the tiny kitchen. “The internet’s gone out. And Jonny has a prosciutto.”
“And lots of other food as well. We were going to go to Pandy’s place and I was going to cook. We came to pick you up,” Jonny said, in a voice that displayed his willingness to please.
“We didn’t want you to be alone,” Pandy added coyly.
“No. You didn’t want you to be alone.” Henry gave Jonny a strange look, as if he couldn’t quite believe what he was seeing.
“Come on, Henry,” Pandy said, grabbing Henry’s cashmere coat off the hook and handing it to him. “And you, too, Jonny. You need something on your head.”
“I insist,” Henry said, handing Jonny an old wool cap. “I refuse to be the only man wearing a hat,” he added.
Back at Pandy’s loft, they had a magnificent meal involving figs, tiny langoustines, and an herb-infused cheese soufflé that was so good, Pandy made Jonny promise to make it for her again.
And after more wine, they began playing cards. Poker, Jonny’s favorite game. He took a hundred dollars off Henry, but graciously returned it. Henry, however, wouldn’t think of taking it back.
The storm blew out to sea around midnight. Henry was still trying to clean up when Pandy was finally able to shoo him out.
Pandy could tell that Henry wasn’t as enamored of Jonny as she was. And vice versa: At one point during the evening, Jonny had pulled her aside and confessed that Henry was the strangest man he’d ever met. “It’s like he’s from another era,” he said. “Like he learned how to be a man from watching old black-and-white movies.”
Pandy had laughed.
“You know what your problem is?” Jonny whispered in her ear as the door closed behind Henry.
“What?”
“You like everyone.”
“Oh, Jonny,” Pandy said. She had a feeling he was referring to Henry, but she brushed it off. Besides, what Jonny said was true. She liked most kinds of people, although she didn’t often admit it. Jonny, she realized, was already making her see her best self.
She had been wrong about him, she thought as he laid her down on the old leather couch and began removing her clothing. He was not an evil scumbag intent on hurting women. He was the opposite: a worshipper of women who lived only for the woman’s pleasure.
And then she found out what that “never having a dissatisfied customer” comment was all about.
It wasn’t about Jonny’s penis, which was perfectly adequate. It was about the vagina. And how Jonny knew exactly what to do with one.
When he stuck his tongue inside her, it felt like her soul had flown straight up into the universe.
And after that, like a little slave girl, she’d willingly done whatever he requested.
Jonny spent the night, and basically never left.
On their fourth evening, Pandy convinced him to skip out of Chou Chou early so she could make dinner for him.
“Should I have brought a doggie bag?” he asked jokingly, eyeing the ingredients she’d put out on the counter.
“Not unless you consider yourself a dog,” she replied, breaking the tips off a pile of French green beans.
“What am I having? Besides you?” he asked, coming up behind her to wriggle his hands down the front of her jeans.
She leaned back into him. “Lamb chops,” she moaned. “With mushrooms. In a heavy cream sauce.”
“Sounds French,” he murmured into her ear, turning her around to face him.
“It is. I learned it from my French roommate.”
“When did you have a French roommate?” he asked in between kisses.
“When I was in school. In Paris,” she added, as if somehow he should have known this.
“You went to school in Paris?” Jonny sounded impressed.
“Only for a couple of months,” she said, pulling his shirt over his head. “My sister was in Amsterdam, so I went to France to be near her. I learned one recipe while I was there—”
Jonny lifted her onto the counter and pushed her legs apart. Pandy fell back like a rag doll.
Fifteen minutes later, legs still slightly shaky, Pandy went back to her cooking. She browned the lamb chops, then added butter and sliced fresh mushrooms to the juices in the pan. When the mushrooms were browned, she poured in half a cup of heavy cream. She stirred briskly and poured the mushroom cream sauce over the lamb chops.
The meal was, as her Parisian roommate had guaranteed, what was known in France as “le closure.” Meaning it was the meal that closed the deal between you and your potential husband.
Sure enough, the next morning Jonny shook Pandy awake.
“What?” Pandy gasped, suddenly afraid. Jonny was glaring at her as if she’d committed some heinous crime.
“I can’t keep doing this,” Jonny said, with real irritation or fake, Pandy couldn’t remember. Because all she could remember was what he said next: “I think I’m in love with you. We’re too old to live together, so we’re going to have to get married.”