to be in Dan’s favorite color. Suddenly feeling a bit naughty and bold, she followed this purchase up with stockings and a garter belt. She would wear that—and nothing else—under her dress. She debated with herself over whether she should tell him what she was wearing ahead of time or let him discover it when he undressed her. She could imagine teasing him with it at the restaurant. But then again, the surprise when he discovered it himself would be memorable as well. She tried to make up her mind as she headed home to put on her makeup. Glancing at the clock, she realized with a start that she was actually running late.
They had agreed to meet at the same restaurant where they first met in person. Maryanne felt a strange sense of déjà vu as she rushed through the streets to get to the restaurant. Once again, parking had been impossible.
But none of that mattered when at last she reached the restaurant, cheeks flushed and a brilliant smile on her face. She felt such keen excitement that the mere sight of Dan, sitting in the same spot where she had seen him for the first time, caused her heart to flutter unnaturally and her breath to catch in her throat. But when he turned to face her, the smile died on her lips.
“What’s wrong?” she whispered breathlessly.
“Not a thing, now that you’re here,” he replied with his usual, good-natured manner. But before Maryanne could even accept or reject this, he stood up and turned toward the hostess without having given her more than a cursory glance. “Here she is,” he said to the woman apologetically. “I really appreciate you holding the table.”
And with that Maryanne was suddenly being ushered along behind the hostess, with a little nudge from Dan to the small of her back. She felt trapped between the two of them and suddenly terribly claustrophobic. In the back of her mind, she had a premonition of something tragic about to occur but she ignored it, turning her mind angrily to the moment instead, and thinking that she didn’t really care whether or not the hostess had to hold the table. That was what hostesses were paid to do, after all. Why must Maryanne be flung around like a rag doll, without even so much as the courtesy of a greeting just to make life easier for the restaurant staff ?
Maryanne kept walking but she turned her head toward Dan as she went, prepared to toss a flip remark along these lines in his direction. But the remark instantly died in her throat. She saw that his eyes were glued on someone else, and she knew without even following his gaze who it was that had captured his interest. It was a woman that she had barely noticed a moment before, except perhaps in that way women do tend to notice other women. She suddenly remembered her in vivid detail. She could almost visualize each and every feature at the same moment that Dan was seeing it, just by watching his eyes move up and down over the woman with keen interest.
And then Dan’s eyes met Maryanne’s.
They arrived at their table. The woman in question had passed by and was gone. Maryanne fumbled with her chair and clumsily seated herself. She felt awkward and ridiculous. She dug her nails into her palms and tried her best to appear nonchalant.
She noticed with another wave of humiliation that Dan’s eyes were full of remorse.
“I’m sorry,” he said solemnly. Maryanne merely looked at him with a confused expression, as if she had no idea what he could possibly be sorry for. Her lips were formed into a small, humorless smile. She wanted to brush the matter aside but she didn’t trust herself to speak. “Look, I know that you’re upset. You saw me looking at that woman, right? I’m sorry. It was like…I didn’t even realize I was doing it until I saw your face.”
“You have nothing to be sorry for,” she told him, praying he would drop the subject. But she could hear that her voice held that tone; the tone was a dead giveaway that there was something to be sorry for. She tilted her head to hide her face and pretended to examine the menu. Above all, she desperately hoped that he wouldn’t humiliate her further by patronizing her with some perfunctory compliment. She far preferred him to continue to not notice her at all. She tried to think of something to say to change the subject.
“You look beautiful tonight,” he said, immobilizing her in horror. Every word he uttered drove her further away from him. “You’re the most beautiful woman in the room.”
“I worked late so I didn’t even have time to change,” she lied. “I almost didn’t show up at all, so you see your compliments only make you appear less sincere.” She definitely didn’t want him thinking she had gone to any trouble.
“Well, what I mean is that you look beautiful without having to lift a finger.”
She was in turmoil, but the smile remained stubbornly fixed on her lips. Inwardly she was comparing this night with their first date, when he had been indulgent over her tardiness and took note of every detail about her with keen interest. But this was really no surprise, she reminded herself. Hadn’t she predicted this very outcome that first night?
“You’re thinking that this is a sign that I am beginning to do the guy thing and lose interest in you.”
“What I was thinking was that I wish you would change the subject.”
“You see!” he exclaimed. “That’s what I mean. If this didn’t really upset you, your eyes would be flashing with excitement right now while you pointed out how right you were.”
Maryanne was momentarily taken aback. He was perfectly right. And she was impressed with him all over again in spite of what had happened. She sighed. It was so disconcerting to know that as she grew more attracted to him, he would only grow less attracted to her. The waitress came and they ordered drinks.
Maryanne was becoming more composed.
“Okay,” she conceded, pulling her thoughts together. “Although I am hardly upset, as you suggest, I will admit that I was thinking that the disenchantment has already begun. Just as I predicted that it would. Just as I knew it would. I never for an instant believed it would be otherwise. So why should I be surprised or upset?”
“All because I looked at another woman?”
She shrugged. “That and other things.”
He looked at her sideways, confused. “Other things?”
She was careful to phrase her words so that she didn’t give her true feelings away. She would discuss it with him—she found that she was intrigued by the prospect of doing so—but she would never let him see how much he had hurt her. She could never let him know that she’d been fooled by him, even for a single moment. That would be the worst thing she could do.
“When I met you here tonight, every detail of our meeting was precisely the same as it was the first time, right down to how late I was.” Except that I worked ten times harder to impress you tonight, she added to herself. “I planned it that way so that I could compare how you behaved tonight with how you behaved back then. Suffice it to say, you were more considerate, attentive, and much more intrigued with me when I was a stranger. So yes, I would say that it’s already starting.”
He stared at her, momentarily speechless. In the meantime, their drinks arrived. He sipped his thoughtfully.
“Maybe this…thing that happens with guys isn’t what you think. Maybe it seems one way to you, but that’s not the way it really is. I know, for example, that I have been thinking about you nonstop all day. Every minute that I waited for you in the front of this restaurant tonight was pure agony. My feelings for you are stronger than a month ago, so the only thing I can think is that somehow my behavior is not showing you how I really feel.”
“That
