“I was just putting it away!” Matty said. He thrust the gown at him and ran, frantic to escape his uncle, the room, and his body.
2 Teddy
Teddy Telemachus made it a goal to fall in love at least once a day. No, fall in was inaccurate; throw himself in was more like it. Two decades after Maureen had died, the only way to keep his hollowed heart thumping was to give it a jump start on a regular basis. On summer weekends he would stroll the Clover’s garden market on North Avenue, or else wander through Wilder Park, hoping for emotional defibrillation. On weekdays, though, he relied on grocery stores. The Jewel-Osco was closest, and perfectly adequate for food shopping, but in matters of the heart he preferred Dominick’s.
He saw her browsing thoughtfully in the organic foods aisle, an empty basket in the crook of one arm; signs of a woman filling time, not a shopping cart.
She was perhaps in her mid-forties. Her style was deceptively simple: a plain sleeveless top, capri pants, sandals. If anyone complimented her, she’d claim she’d just thrown something on, but other women would know better. Teddy knew better. Those clothes were tailored to look casual. The unfussy leather bag hanging to her hip was a Fendi. The sandals were Italian as well. But what sent a shiver through his heart was the perfectly calibrated shade of red of her toenail polish.
This is why he shopped at Dominick’s. You go to the Jewel on a Tuesday afternoon like this, you get old women in shiny tracksuits looking for a deal, holding soup cans up to the light, hypnotized by serving size and price per ounce. In Dominick’s, especially in the tony suburbs, your Hinsdales and your Oak Brooks, it was still possible to find classy women, women who understood how to accessorize.
He pushed his empty cart close to her, pretending to study the seven varieties of artisanal honey.
She hadn’t noticed him. She took a step back from the shelf and bumped into him, and he dropped the plastic honey jar to the floor. It almost happened by accident; his stiff fingers were especially balky this afternoon.
“I’m so sorry!” she said.
She stooped and he said, “Oh, you don’t have to do that—” and bent at the same time, nearly thumping heads. They both laughed. She beat him to the honey jar, scooped it up with a hand weighted down by a wedding band and ponderous diamond. She smelled of sandalwood soap.
He accepted the jar with mock formality, which made her laugh again. He liked the way her eyes lit up amid those friendly crow’s-feet. He put her age at forty-five or -six. A good thing. He had a firm rule, which he occasionally broke: only fall in love with women whose age, at minimum, was half his own plus seven. This year he was seventy-two, which meant that the object of his devotion had to be at least forty-three.
A young man wouldn’t have thought she was beautiful. He’d see those mature thighs and overlook her perfectly formed calves and delicate ankles. He’d focus on that strong Roman nose and miss those bright green eyes. He’d see the striations in her neck when she tilted her head to laugh and fail to appreciate a woman who knew how to abandon herself to the moment.
Young men, in short, were idiots. Would they even feel the spark when she touched them, as he just did? A few fingers against his elbow, delicate and ostensibly casual, as if steadying herself.
He hid his delight and assumed a surprised, concerned look.
She dropped her hand from his arm. She was ready to ask what was wrong, but then pulled back, perhaps remembering that they were two strangers. So he spoke first.
“You’re worried about someone,” he said. “Jay?”
“Pardon?”
“Or Kay? No. Someone whose name starts with ‘J.’ ”
Her eyes widened.
“I’m sorry, so sorry,” he said. “It’s someone close to you. That’s none of my business.”
She wanted to ask the question, but didn’t know how to phrase it.
“Well now,” he said, and lifted the honey jar. “Thank you for retrieving this, though I’m sure it’s not as sweet as you.” This last bit of corn served up with just enough self-awareness to allow the flirt to pass.
He walked away without looking back. Strolled down one aisle, then drifted to the open space of the produce section.
“My oldest son’s name is Julian,” she said. He looked up as if he hadn’t seen her coming. Her basket was still empty. After a moment, he nodded as if she’d confirmed what he suspected.
“He has a learning disability,” she said. “He has trouble paying attention, and his teachers don’t seem to be taking it seriously.”
“That sounds like a tough one,” he said. “A tough one all right.”
She didn’t want to talk about the boy, though. Her question hung in the air between them. Finally she said, “How did you know about him?”
“I shouldn’t have brought it up,” he said. “It’s just that when you touched my arm—” He tilted his head. “Sometimes I get flashes. Images. But that doesn’t mean I have to say everything that pops into my head.”
“You’re trying to tell me you’re psychic?” Making it clear she didn’t believe in that stuff.
“That’s a much-maligned word,” he said. “Those psychics on TV, with their nine hundred numbers? Frauds and charlatans, my dear. Con men. However…” He smiled. “I do have to admit that I misled you in one respect.”
She raised an eyebrow, willing him to elaborate.
He said, “I really have no need for this honey.”
Her low, throaty laugh was nothing like Maureen’s—Mo’s rang like bells over a shop door—but he enjoyed it just the same. “I didn’t think so,” she said.
“It seems you’ve loaded up as well.”
She looked at the basket on her arm, then set it on the floor. “There’s a diner in this strip mall,” she said.
“So I’ve heard.” He offered her his hand. “I’m Teddy.”
She hesitated, perhaps fearing another joy-buzzer moment of psychic intuition. Then she relented. “Graciella.”
Teddy became a convert to the Church of Love at First Sight in the summer of 1962, the day he walked into that University of Chicago classroom. A dozen people in the room and she was the only one he could see, a girl in a spotlight, standing with her back to him as if she were about to turn and sing into a mic.
Maureen McKinnon, nineteen years old. Knocking him flat without even looking at him.
He didn’t know her name yet, of course. She was thirty feet from him, talking to the receptionist sitting at the teacher’s desk at the other end of the big classroom, which was only one chamber in this faux-Gothic building. The lair of the academic made him edgy—he’d never recovered from two bad years in Catholic high school—but the girl was a light he could steer by. He drifted down the center aisle, unconscious of his feet, drinking her in: a small-boned, black-haired sprite in an A-line dress, olive green with matching gloves. Oh, those gloves. She tugged them off one finger at a time, each movement a pluck at his heartstrings.
The secretary handed her a sheaf of forms, and the girl turned, her eyes on the topmost page, and nearly bumped into him. She looked up in surprise, and that was the coup de grace: blue eyes under black bangs. What man could defend himself against that?
She apologized, even as he removed his hat and insisted that he was the one who was at fault. She looked at him like she knew him, which both thrilled and unnerved him. Had he conned her in the past? Surely he’d have remembered this Black Irish sweetheart.
He checked in with the receptionist, a fiftyish woman wearing a young woman’s bouffant of bright red hair, an obvious wig. She handed him his own stack of forms, and he gave her a big smile and a “Thanks, doll.” Always good policy to befriend the secretary.