THE YEAR I RAN AWAY FROM HOME; AN ADVENTURE (also see ineedamom.com) - THE DAY I RAN AWAY FROM HOME; AN ADVENTURE - Part 102

(c) susan rhoades, 2006

Part 102

A WEEK OF DRAMA

Italian class on Tuesday - what fun this is turning out to be - challenging to be a student, though....trying to get one's tongue and brain around something at the same time - with a whole week in between to forget and to feel self-conscious once more. But a class with plenty of adults, who have a very light-hearted feeling about all of this - which is catching. I'm so glad I'm here!

Then after class, a novelty for me - an expense account dinner hosted by a charming, boisterous, younger man who I met at the Bull and Bear bar at the Waldorf Astoria a week and a half ago. I was minding my own business, I'll have you know - had exchanged pleasantries with a couple of "regulars" at the other end of the bar - one of whom asked if I was a judge when I responded to his query about a problem at work! - when this fellow in his early 50's? bursts in, and introduces himself and sits down beside me. We chat about inconsequential things, like the war in Iraq; the similarities between the Belfast of the IRA and modern arab youth; our country's own underclass....how I believe that a solution for that is bringing back the draft!!!! (I hear you gulping hard - and in another entry I'll talk more about my thoughts)....light stuff like that. And he is all complimentary and says stay and talk some more - but I don't want to drink any more -and besides....This is my first time here-to have a quiet drink and maybe talk to other middle-aged locals who find this place a comfortable after-work spot. I didn't imagine I'd be picked up by a traveling salesman - which is what he turns out to be - albeit a senior vice-president of some big company and, I take it, quite well off financially as he subsidizes underprivileged children attending Catholic schools).

After more protests, we exchange cards and I leave. He emails me the next day with niceties and wants to get together for dinner when he's back in town next week - to continue our conversation. But I have Italian on Tuesday, and tickets for a play Wednesday and Thursday. No is not an option - let's have dinner after your class. Ok. It's over at 7:30 and I'll be hungry.

I have already told him I'll be dressed casually as I'm coming from class....let's make it easy and informal. Sure, he says. So we go to an Italian place that he says, as we're walking toward it, is almost like Tony's in St. Louis only better. I gulp. Bart had taken us there for Elizabeth's graduation dinner - and it's not only amazingly expensive (albeit delicious), but they don't give you a menu - I guess if you have to ask how much it is, you're in the wrong place. And this place is just like that! Oops...I had hoped to avoid this scenario. I tell him I'm not a big eater, but I'm an omnivore and to please order for me - sharing a dish would be perfect (hint. hint) But he's a very big eater, AND DRINKER. We begin with a bottle of wine, then a glass more for me - while he's drinking limoncellos as a digestif....and then some port...then some more wine (for him...I'm nursing my wine). After a couple of hours of eating and talking (it is lots of fun in a retro kind of way and he has an interesting world view - and he's so gallant towards me), I say I think we should go. So we do....just walk me to the near subway stop I say. LET'S HAVE ANOTHER DRINK, he says. Only if you let me pay, I protest. Sure, he says. Then we go to the bar at a steakhouse up the block and he orders a glass of wine for each of us, with a wink to the bartender whose name he knows (he knows everyone's name in both places we've been in) and the bartender says that he can't take money from a lady at HIS bar, but says to me, in all seriousness, how gracious of me to offer.....then he and my date talk and I discover to my dismay that this bon vivant is only 45 years old - which isn't the end of the world - but dating a traveling salesman who drinks too much and is 18 years younger than I doesn't seem like relationship material. Am I being too picky here?

So now I'm very very serious about leaving and heading to the subway. He says it's too late for me to take the subway. I say that I have my umbrella and am an old lady and can fend anyone off like Ruth Busey in "Laugh In" He insists on putting me in the taxi that's waiting outside and pre-paying the driver. Then he calls 15 minutes later to see if I've gotten home okay. I feel that it's New York, 1965, all over again!

Bright and early the next morning he calls and asks if I'd like to have lunch the following day. I'm not fully awake and mumble where are you? Long Island he says...He'll call back. I decide to write an email thanking him profusely for the dinner and then tell him how old I am and that I don't think this is a good idea. He calls back later in the day and leaves a message stammering a little, about how that's okay and my age makes it interesting but whatever I think is best. I think his last line is "it is what it is". And who can argue with that? I'm left feeling that I didn't handle this very well.

On Wednesday I go to Lincoln Center's Beaumont Theater to see Tom Stoppard's play "The Coast of Utopia" Part I. I'd seen this in London several years ago - and been strangely moved by it so this'll be a treat. It starts and I know that while it's still an early preview, it's not coming together very well - it's talky and static and....oh my god! The older actor who plays the head of the family is exiting and collapses in a thud on stage right. I don't remember this. The other two actors on stage, Ethan Hawke and Martha Plimpton look over, dismayed and rush to him. The lights go up...there's a deadly silence in the audience - someone says, is there a doctor in the house? Please! And several people from the audience go onto the stage....and still silence and worry - some of us begin to cry. Then we're asked to go into the lobby and wait - and after about 10 minutes, with the sounds of sirens out on the street - we're told the play is canceled for this evening and we can reschedule or get a refund. The last I've heard from the NYTimes is that he's recovering in intensive care after a heart attack!

Gee, that's more drama than I paid for...

Thursday finds me at the Manhattan Theater Club looking forward to a frothy thing by Paul Rudnick of "I Hate Hamlet" fame - Christine Baranski is in it with George Grizzard and it should be be very chirpy. Christine Baranski is totally beautiful - more so in person...statuesque, graceful, lovely....And George Grizzard is the seasoned actor you'd think he'd be. And the set is quite stylish. But the play is lame....a not funny treatise for Gay Marriage that is an ill thought out polemic couched in a sit-com Neil Simon-like comedy that has pathetic dialogue and worse character development. You guys know that I'm so for gay marriage and gay rights and equal opportunity for all - it was embarrassing to see that this was the best that they could come up with. Thank goodness most of the run is on a subscription basis and they'll not go bust with this production. But what a missed opportunity.

I did, however, see Charles Busch in the lobby. You probably don't know him....an openly gay actor who did a wonderful bit of interviews on a documentary about Greta Garbo which is in the DVD collection Andrew and Lena gave me for Christmas. So I went up to him since he was standing alone, and thanked him for his comments on that and he seemed so pleased - especially since no one seemed to recognize him. So I think I made his day. Surely the play didn't.

More soon.
love
s