Chapter Thirty-Three
From Brewer’s The Dictionary of Phrase and Fable:
"Prudent Tree: Pliny calls the mulberry the most
prudent of all trees because it waits until winter is well
over before it puts forth its leaves."
Leaving is never easy, she told herself over and over, but proving that leaving is never easy is even harder. She had decided once her long love affair with Mikhael had ended that she would leave New York and start again somewhere else. It was a clear and straightforward decision, an inevitable conclusion to a sordid liaison. His abuse of her after the newspaper debacle, his revilement of her after their twin visits to Max had been the axe-drops through her heart and her brain. It was obvious to her and to Mikhael as well, that they couldn’t go on together any longer. What was difficult was the leaving and the leave-taking.
It should have been a no-brainer, actually. Mikhael had disappeared from their apartment almost immediately. He had walked out, taking little or nothing - she wasn’t sure - and she had been alone to do whatever she chose to do with her life. Freddy’s only problem was in the choices.
She could leave him and their life together and move back in with her mother. That was one idea.
She could strike out on her own, find a place to live and a new life to go with it. That was an alternate.
She could leave New York and find an entirely new existence elsewhere, perhaps in Europe or Canada or California. She somehow couldn’t imagine such an idea bearing fruit.
She could find Max, marry him and set up a new defense system against all she had known in the past. That one seemed impossible, not to say silly.
With no clear vision of her own future she hesitated. She stayed on in the apartment, went to her office every day, came back home every night worried that Mikhael would have returned and been waiting for her, seeking some sort of revenge. Each morning she woke with dread of the day ahead and each night, on entering her apartment, her heart leapt into her throat as she snapped on lights and quickly searched cabinets, closets and rooms for any sign of Mikhael. Every morning dawned bright and clear, however, and every night provided no evidence of his handiwork.
The lack of anything dire worked in the favor of no decision making. Freddy could kick off her shoes, make herself a drink and relax for one more night. A fifth alternative presented itself in the course of all this fear and uncertainty: she could wait until spring to make a change and leave when the leaving was easy.
"When the leaving is easy," she would sing to herself to a Gershwin tune from Porgy and Bess, and the spring thaw extended itself, in her mind, from spring to summertime.
"Summertime, when the leaving is easy," went her positive refrain. Her life continued as though nothing had happened and only the sudden pangs of fear, the anxiety connected with Mikhael, kept her vividly alive.
Hardest of all to deal with was the idea that she was alone. She had never been alone before. The lack of a body to lean against, an arm to touch and a mind to reason with over the smallest concepts was hard for Freddy. She and her mother had been such constant contenders. Her double friendship with Max and Mikhael had always given her great joy as one or the other was always at hand. Finally the years of living with Mikhael had given her daily contact with a man who challenged her and brought out her best and worst qualities in equal measure. But "alone" was so different. The challenges were smaller, less interesting. There was no "other" wall, no opposite, no negative to her positive. There was only her own voice, her own thoughts. She was not accustomed to such privacy and she didn’t think she liked it very much.
When a man at her office asked her out for dinner she accepted instantly even though she didn’t like the man at all. It would be someone to talk with, to argue with perhaps. That was what she missed, not Mikhael and certainly not Max or Momma. It was that wrestling arena of the minds that had evaded her for weeks that she missed.
He took her to a nice restaurant on the West Side, a Greek cantina with excellent food and imported wines. She met him there, rather than just going there together after work. She wanted time to transition from one concept - work, to another - play. She needed to make the leap over the stream of everyday life. When she got to the address he had given her, he was waiting for her on the sidewalk outside the place.
"Good," he said, "you found it with no trouble."
"I know New York. You tell me a street number and I can usually find it, Bert."
"Ah, Freddy, you’re a peach!"
Bert Grogan was a simple man with simple, ordinary tastes. Born and raised in Passaic, New Jersey, he still lived across the Hudson, though now he was dwelling in the town of Elizabeth. Divorced, with no kids, he was similarly alone. He lived in a one-bedroom apartment with a view of another one-bedroom apartment in the next building. It was decorated in IKEA’s best and barely resembled a person’s home - it was much more a showroom for the import chain store. Bert had assembled most of the pieces himself from the kit versions he invariably purchased. His clothing came from New Jersey shops that advertised their wares, and low prices, on television. His education came from the schools that profited from grants from the sales of furniture and clothing that those stores made to people just like him.
"Can we sit down, Bert? My feet are killing me." Freddy didn’t like standing on sidewalks in front of restaurants. It was something she had never done.
"Hey, sure, why not?" He took her arm and escorted her up the nine steps to the doorway of the fine eating establishment. A man greeted them just inside and seemed to know Bert, or so it seemed to Freddy.
"Table for two tonight?" the man said Bert who nodded. "You come with me, this way, please. Walk this way." He moved off, his hips swaying like Marilyn Monroe’s hips in a 1920's fringed dress.
Freddy wanted to make the usual joke over this, but restrained herself. The man led them to a table at the rear of the room, a corner table with two chairs placed so that their occupants could easily watch the rest of the small dining room if they so wished. Freddy thought she might have to do that, just to keep awake on this date.
As they sat down, the man, whose name she could now see was Stavros from the pin on his shirt, handed them over-sized menus, nodded and moved away, snapping his fingers as he did. She watched those Monroe hips for a moment, then picked up her menu.
"What’s good?" she asked Bert.
"Oh, everything is good here. It’s just like being on a Greek island, in fact."
"You’ve been to the Greek Islands, then?" she asked him.
"Me? No. Never."
"Then how would you know this is so similar?"
"Oh, you can tell, Freddy. Just look around. The checked tablecloths, the pictures on the walls and the smells?"
She was left without a reply that wasn’t smart-alecky and she was reluctant to pull one of those out of her hat at this early stage of the date. She thought she at least deserved a dinner before letting out the insults and slams. She studied her menu instead, deciding on a few things she recognized and nothing very dangerous. Stavros returned with water and bread and a bottle of ouzo, out of which he poured two small glasses of the potent liquid.
"For you, to toast," he said as he placed them in front of her and Bert.
She looked up at him with a quizzical expression, but he paid no attention to her. He was watching her companion instead. Bert picked up his small glass and gestured to her to do the same. He cleared his throat and spoke:
"To Greece, and her children," Bert said boldly, "and to the woman at the table, a Goddess in green and a darn good sport." He knocked back his Ouzo, taking it all in one quick slurp. Freddy followed suit, without a word, and found herself choking on the potent alcohol. She coughed once, then once again after a moment. Stavros patted her on the back for a moment, then reached for the two empty glasses and turned on his heels and moved off.
"Are you okay, Freddy?" Bert asked her.
"I’ll be fine," she choked out in a hoarse whisper. "I’m just not used to that stuff."
"Ouzo. Yes. It can take its toll."
"You seemed to take it in stride."
"I eat here a lot."
"Okay." She jammed her finger up against the closed menu. "So, what’s good here?"
"Avgelomono is good," he said. "Spanakopita I like and the stuffed grape leaves and the Pastitsio too." He smiled at her. They were the very items she had already chosen. Now she felt odd ordering them, as though she was doing it all at his suggestion. She knew that was stupid of her, that she should just order what she had planned on having no matter what. She was finding this dating thing hard to pull off.
They both ordered the identical menu and he made the comment that they might just as well have gone back to her place, or his, and cooked a meal. Then he laughed and Freddy did also. They ate in relative silence, occasionally exchanging an office story or an observation about something in the restaurant that caught at least one pair of their eyes.
When dinner was over and they had solved their argument over the check by splitting it down the middle, they stood once again on the pavement below. Freddy extended her hand to her co-worker.
"Bert, thanks, but I’m not a great date. I guess I’m just not ready yet."
"Same here, Freddy," he echoed her. "Not great. Not ready."
"But thanks for asking me anyway," she finished.
"Thanks for coming."
"It’s an awfully good restaurant, you were right."
"Well, thanks for that, too."
"I’ll see you tomorrow," she said, moving off a step to avoid the inevitable attempt at a good-bye kiss.
"It’s a date!" he said moving a step in the opposite direction. She gave him a quick smile and a little wave and turned to move off toward the nearby corner at Eighth Avenue. She didn’t turn to see if he was following her or going off toward Ninth Avenue instead. She just kept walking.
"Nope, not ready, not yet," she muttered to herself. "I’ll just have to adjust to this solitary thing." Two men, one of them Hispanic, turned to look at her as she passed them, muttering her minor incantation. She realized she was attracting attention and she closed her mouth and increased her pace a bit.
She decided, long before she arrived back at her apartment, that she should reexamine her options and find another way. Even if it wasn’t until summer that she took a decisive step.
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