The October List Part 23

'You mean from my 'hood,' Daniel called over the ocean-roar of the patrons. 'The TriBeCa?'

'We're thinking of requiring pa.s.sports for you people to cross Fourteenth Street,' she said.

'That's profiling,' Daniel said.

They returned to their food.

She thought it curious that Daniel wore a suit on the weekend gray like yesterday, though a different cut and a dress shirt of blush pink. No tie. Had he planned to attend a meeting later? Or was he simply more comfortable not wearing casual clothes? Gabriela was in tan stretch pants, a burgundy sweater, pearls too. Ankle boots. He'd looked at her figure once when he thought she wasn't paying attention. The sweater was tight.

The table was small and she adjusted the distinctive turquoise Tiffany bag on the corner. 'Thanks again for this.'

'The least I could do.'

Daniel asked where exactly she lived, relative to the deli, which was on Broadway, near 75th.

Gabriela grimaced. 'About four blocks away. I come here way too often. The hips I have, I have Irving's to thank for.' Her eyes swept around the counter, piled high with every imaginable taste. 'Kosher, I've learned, does not mean low calories.' She paused, frowning. 'I'm waiting.'

Daniel tapped his forehead with a palm. 'What hips?'

'Too little, too late.'

'But obviously you work out.'

'I'll give you a few points for that,' she said.

Daniel looked philosophical. 'You notice when men say to women, "Oh, you work out," it's a come-on line. When women ask it, they want to know if he's going to cuddle in bed on Sunday mornings or get up at dawn for a date with his Adidas.'

'I'd have to think about it. Was that a come-on line?'

Daniel asked, 'You want some jam?'

Breakfast was coffee, pumpernickel bagels and smoked salmon. No onions. 'Onions are a fourth- or fifth-date thing,' Gabriela announced.

'Is this a date?'

She was thinking about last night. Her response was, 'I don't know that we need to overthink it.'

'Fair enough. But you manage an investment house and I run a venture capital firm. We're professional overthinkers. No?'

'True,' she said.

'But it's not overthinking it to say we survived a completely excruciating last night.'

'No, that's accurate.'

He frowned. 'You're picking at your food. Can I have that piece of salmon? The lonesome one on the side?'

'Yours.'

He speared and ate it. 'What're your plans for today?'

'I pick Sarah up at one from dance cla.s.s. And we spend the rest of the weekend together.'

'You two have a great time. I can tell.'

'Oh, we do.' Her eyes grew wide. 'We go to American Girl and FAO, naturally. But MOMA and the Met too. Sarah asks to go to the art museums. She's so smart. I have to keep reminding myself she's only six.'

'Smart. So she's got your genes.'

'She got my temperament genes. Ah, I think I just sniped at my ex again. I told myself I wasn't going to do that.'

They nodded to the young man server for coffee refills. And thanked him. Daniel looked her over with a coy smile. 'Is this where you tell me about the complication?'

Gabriela laughed hard. 'You make your clients a ton of money, I'll bet. With that kind of insight.'

'No engagement ring,' Daniel said, glancing toward her finger. 'You're beautiful which by the way is less of a come-on line than "Wow, you totally work out." I just have a feeling there has to be a complication.'

'Okay. There's this tiny complication.'

'How tiny?'

'Stop it!' She laughed again. 'His name's Frank. Frank Walsh.'

'What an awful name,' Daniel said, wrinkling his perfect nose.

'Are you listening?'

'Tell me about Frank,' he said, thumping the last word with his lips. 'I'm dying to know about complicating Frank.'

'You're mean! We date some.'

'Are you going to marry him?'

After a pause: 'Fact is, he's a little more interested in me than I am in him.'

'Never heard of that happening before,' Daniel said sardonically. 'I actually got proposed to by a woman on a first date. She popped the question as soon as she heard I had a job. I'm not making that up. But I should add that there was some tequila involved.'

'Did you say yes?'

'To what?' Daniel asked with feigned innocence.

She continued, 'Frank's quirky he's a computer nerd. And reclusive. But he knows movies which I love and he's funny and considerate. You don't find that a lot nowadays.'

'Here's my guideline,' Daniel said. 'The sweet factor.'

'Sweet?'

'If you describe your present love interest as infuriating and exasperating, then you're in love. If you say he's sweet, it's doomed and you need to ditch him p.r.o.nto for somebody who infuriates you.'

'I'm withholding all future adjectives about Frank for the time being.' She glanced at her watch. 'I don't have to be at the dance school for a while. Want to walk me back to my apartment?'

'Good idea,' he said, 'it'll help work some of that excess weight off your hips.'

'Nice try. But you're not infuriating me. Yet.' She took his fork, which contained his last piece of salmon, dunked the pink cube in sour cream and ate it fast.

II.

CHAPTER.

7.

10:00 p.m., Friday

11 hours earlier

'You know, I have to be honest,' Gabriela told Daniel Reardon. 'This's been about as bizarre an evening as I can remember. Are you offended? I didn't mean to offend you.'

He made no comment about her a.s.sessment. Instead he asked, 'But was it a date?'

She thought for a moment. 'It was date-like.'

'Date-lite?'

'Like,' she corrected.

'Ah.'

They were walking north on Broadway from Battery Park through the cool September evening. A checkerboard of windows in the nearby office buildings. Many illuminated, some dark. The worlds of law and finance never rest, even Friday night. The streets were still busy with traffic if dwindling of pedestrians. Limos queued in front of the posher buildings.

'Bizarre,' he repeated quizzically. 'The restaurant, you mean?'

Well, that was part of it. They'd eaten in a dive of an Indian place, curry and tikka and Kingfisher beer. The air had been tropically humid and heavy with sandalwood, the canned sitar music corny and the food perhaps the best South Asian cuisine she'd ever had. The feature dominating the room was a ma.s.sive salt.w.a.ter aquarium, easily ten thousand gallons. Gabriela had been captivated by the colorful fish, which eased, or darted, throughout the tank. Shrimp was on the menu, she noted, but no other seafood was represented. ('Good thing,' she'd told him, nodding at the aquarium. 'Just wouldn't be right.') 'Mostly by "bizarre,"' Gabriela said, 'I was actually referring to what happened before dinner.'

'Oh. That.'

And thinking back to those hours, while there were many memories, most prominent was Daniel's touch as he lifted a silk handkerchief and wiped the moisture from her brow. Once again she now felt the tumbling within her, low, as she had then.

Silence for a time as they walked toward subways her station first. Daniel finally asked, 'When you called your ex, I wasn't listening, but I noticed you didn't talk to your daughter for very long. Is everything okay?'

'Oh, she's fine. Sometimes, when her dad has her and he's nearby, she clams up. They get along fine. He's good with her. But you know how it is: exes.'

Daniel's wryly twisted smile said that he knew all too well.

A mid September breeze encircled them.

'You cold?'

'A little.'

'Take my jacket.'

'No.' She pulled her own light tweed around her more tightly. 'I'm fine.'

He didn't persist; he'd probably sensed that once she'd come to a decision it would remain made. Which was largely true of Gabriela.

She gave a grimace, pointing to a plaza near Wall Street they were just pa.s.sing. Bankers' Square. 'See that building there?' She pointed to a squat structure situated next to the new stock exchange facility, still bustling with construction work, even at this hour. On the other side was a medical center a branch of a major Uptown hospital.

'I have that to thank for my ruined weekend.'

'It doesn't look that intimidating.'

'If you only knew.'

In a few minutes they were at the subway station where she'd catch the train to the Upper West Side, the Eighth Avenue line. Daniel would walk home.

'Look,' he said and fell silent.

Gabriela turned to him. She stepped aside so that the beam from a streetlight was not in her eyes.

'Look?' she prompted.

Daniel spoke like a patient saved by an emergency room surgeon: 'I really owe you. For the Princeton Solution.'

'It would've worked out,' she said gravely.