Dear Diary, I'm In Love Page 6

  Several blocks north of Di’s, and three rooms smaller, the apartment was every bit as luxurious and perhaps even more of a challenge for Celia’s talents. But it was obvious Anthony’s interests lay elsewhere than in Celia’s decorative skills. While she would have preferred to get back to the shop to work on some minor unfinished jobs, it seemed only civil to accept his offer of lunch. Besides, there was something to be said for basking in the admiration of a not unattractive male.

  It was at that lunch that Celia began to evaluate her companion. A brief sketch of his life came out after a good deal of prompting. Celia rated that in his favor. Too many men seemed incapable of doing anything but talking about themselves, with no prompting whatsoever. Her own career as a designer and single mother of an eight-year-old boy was exchanged for his brief description of growing up in a poor Italian family, of getting into college on a baseball scholarship and of majoring in architecture.

  The architectural background explained Anthony’s knowledge of, and interest in, design. His very obvious wealth needed much more explanation, but Celia wasn’t about to pry. Her mind toyed with various possibilities. Perhaps some lucky investments in the stock market. She’d heard of such happenings. Or was he sponging off of his rich brother-in-law? His relationship with his sister was obviously a comfortable one, but was it comfortable enough to account for his luxurious life style, his outlandishly costly apartment, the London Fog raincoat he’d carelessly draped over an empty chair at the table, or the rest of his casual but obviously expensive clothes?

  “If you’re not doing anything this evening, could I persuade you to take in a Broadway show? Your preference.”

  It took her moments to respond. David was a good excuse to avoid the invitation. Last-minute babysitters and all that. “Some other time perhaps.”

  Anthony didn’t disguise his disappointment, as they rose and he helped her on with her coat. On the way to the parking lot and her van he said, with good humor creeping back into his voice, “I’m not going to give up that easily, you know.” The tone of the good-natured warning forced a smile to her face, and already she was beginning to regret her refusal of his invitation.

  The next few days were filled with repeated visits to Di’s apartment, with Anthony showing up only once, and then staying discreetly out from “under foot” as the contractor went over each proposed change in minute detail. On Friday, the first hammer was taken to the first wall.

  That evening, Anthony called. “Any possibility of that show this weekend? Name the evening. It will include dinner and an iron-clad promise to get you home before the babysitter gets bored with TV.”

  The offer, the pleasant voice, were difficult to resist. David would be only too pleased to spend Sunday night with Leslie and Gina. Why not?

  The evening went surprisingly well. Anthony was attentive, spoke intelligently about music and art—Celia’s first love—and drew enough attention from other young women to make Celia begin to seriously evaluate her companion’s appearance. The one glitch in the evening was somehow related to that appearance.

  Between acts at the theater they went out into the crowded lobby, and Celia excused herself to go the ladies’ room. As she came out, she could see Anthony surrounded by what were obviously adoring females. She hesitated as she caught a glimpse of Anthony handing something to one of his admirers. At that moment, he looked up and saw her. Excusing himself, he broke free and crossed over to her. In answer to her unspoken question, he smiled and said, “Fans.”

  Slightly annoyed, Celia wondered what Anthony meant by the one-word non-explanation, but the question was lost as this apparently extremely desirable man took her elbow to lead her back into the second act.

  Anthony did get her home to her apartment early, and she toyed with the idea of inviting him up, then rejected it. She now knew she was attracted to him. She was also aware the situation was far too complex to launch abruptly into an affair with someone she still knew so little about.

  Without naming names, Celia decided to sound out Gina’s opinion. At the very least she owed Gina some satisfaction of her curiosity, since it was unusual for Celia to ask her friend to house David overnight.

  “What’s he like?” Gina asked when Celia called from work.

  “Nice. Not a groper. He hasn’t pushed.”

  “That might be good or it might be bad. Single, good-looking and nice? Sure he isn’t gay?”

  Celia burst into laughter. “Why would he want my company if he were gay?”

  “Maybe he just likes company. Any sign he’s lusting after you?”

  The answer to that took some thought. “I think so. It wouldn’t be hard to find out.”

  “So find out. You’re a big girl, now.”

  “I might do just that. But there’s still something that really bothers me.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Money.”

  “Ah, hah! You’re going to be his sugar mommy. He’s broke—just like your ex. They say women are attracted to the same kind of man over and over again. Looks like it works with you.”

  “Wrong! He’s rolling in the stuff and that’s the problem.”

  “Hah. I’d like to have that problem. Why is it bothering you?”

  “I don’t know how he makes his money—or made it. He doesn’t seem to have a job. No office or anything. But his credit cards go through without a peep, his apartment must cost a fortune, and he sure isn’t buying his clothes from a thrift shop.”

  “I still don’t get it. What’s the problem?”

  “He’s never told me how he makes his money. It could be illegal. Drugs or something. How can I find out?”

  Gina sounded exasperated. “It’s none of your business. If he likes you, and if he isn’t going to sponge off of you, what difference does it make how he’s come by his money? Besides, you aren’t living in a Hollywood movie. Legitimate fortunes are the norm. Maybe he was one of those lucky ones who invested a few thousand in Amazon.com when it first went public. Who knows?

  “Besides, drug dealers go around with bodyguards, most certainly don’t live alone, and they don’t court eligible women. They make use of high-class call girls, instead. Grab him!”

  “There’s something more serious than that. David!”

  “I thought we settled that. Didn’t we decide David needs a father?”

  “Well…” Celia sounded dubious. “Anthony did say he likes kids.”

  “There you are. What more do you want? He has looks, money, likes kids, isn’t gay, sounds very masculine and would be a hell of a good role model. So, again: What’s the problem?”

  “Will David like him?”

  A snort at the other end of the line. “Easily resolved. Take David along to dinner. It’s a good test to see if your boyfriend really can tolerate kids. And David’s initial reaction should tell you reams.”

  Mission accomplished. Celia heaved a sigh after speaking over the phone to Anthony. He seemed genuinely pleased at the prospect of a threesome, but Celia still had her misgivings—so much so that she had proposed taking a taxi to the restaurant with David rather than having Anthony pick them up. If the atmosphere became too charged, she could gracefully exit without requiring Anthony to drive them home. And, she warned herself, the worst could happen. David was becoming even more withdrawn and almost sullen. The evening could be a disaster.

  When the two of them entered the restaurant lobby, Celia immediately caught sight of Anthony’s broad shoulders as he was talking to the receptionist. More full of trepidation than she’d ever felt before, she walked toward him. He turned.

  Horrified, she felt the sudden tenseness in the small boy at her side. It was going to be a disaster. Perhaps she should excuse herself and her son on some pretense and leave immediately. But introductions were still necessary. “David, I want you to meet Anthony Morelli.” Before she could go any further, she heard a small voice, full of disdain, saying, “Anthony? Mom! This is Tony Morelli.”

  The disdain turn
ed to awe. “Gee, Tony, you mean you’re going to eat with us? Wait ‘til Leslie hears about this! And the kids at school!!” The words came tumbling out, followed by an accusatory tone as he turned to Celia. “You never told me we were coming to see Tony Morelli. He hit over three-eighty for the Mets two years in a row. And that backhanded catch you made in the series, Tony. That was fantastic.”

  Celia had no problems eating her dinner, but David needed a lot of urging, since food took second place to all of his questions. Celia’s own questions didn’t need asking. Even with her scant knowledge of sports, she was aware that a star major-league baseball player made a sizeable income, didn’t work in the winter, and could serve as a superb role model for an eight-year-old boy.

  ____________________

  CULTURAL RELATIVISM

  I told myself I should have seen it coming. Beth’s daughter had suffered through bouts of anorexia and still wasn’t fully recovered. Cecilia’s two kids were deep into drugs. Just about everyone I knew had problem children, but Dicey had been as near to perfect as any child could be. Warm, loving, considerate, talented, intelligent, attractive. Even as a teenager, she’d been everything a mother could ask for. And when Warren got into that terrible car wreck, ended up in the hospital for days and then died suddenly just when he seemed to be on the road to recovery, Dicey’s own grief took second place to her concern for me.

  The past year-and-a-half would have been unbearably empty without her. In spite of her father’s death and my own terrible dependence on her, she managed to graduate from high school with honors and went on with a scholarship to Boston University.

  In the meantime, I somehow gathered the loose ends of my life together. Warren had left me well off, and then some. A large insurance policy, sound real estate and stock investments, a beautiful condominium apartment on Newbury Street—in a way, the safety net made it too easy for me, too easy to sit around and feel sorry for myself. But Dicey kept after me, and I finally shook off my lethargy long enough to go back into the calling I loved, the world of art. In a few months, and beyond my expectations, I was soon half of a successful partnership in a major Boston art gallery.

  Perhaps, if I hadn’t been so caught up in my work, I would have seen it coming. But everything seemed to be turning out so well. Dicey’s freshman year had been a continuation of her successful high school years. Straight A’s in difficult subjects, rounded off by student activities and even a few boyfriends—none serious. At nineteen, she looked and sounded like a mature woman with a promising career ahead of her—one which would be of her own choosing. In the back of my mind I had rather hoped Dicey would find a home in the arts, but I did nothing to push her in that direction. Besides, I knew she was prepared for virtually any other alternative—medicine, law, even engineering—since she already showed promise of being able to succeed in whatever field she chose.

  In addition, the summer following that first college year had been wonderful. I had promised myself and Dicey that we would spend the vacation days together, and I turned the business over to my partner with strict instructions to let me bask undisturbed on the Nantucket beach where Warren and I had purchased a small but comfortable cottage.

  We did everything one is supposed to do during a lazy summer. We swam. We read endless books. We partied. And, to my amazement, Dicey was actually amused that we were frequently mistaken for sisters rather than mother and daughter. We were invited to several of the more exclusive homes and went cruising on some of the luxury yachts gracing the bay. We even double dated a couple of times and then spent the evening afterwards giggling over the shortcomings of our respective partners.

  Yes, it was a wonderful summer. And we went back reluctantly to Boston, me to the gallery, Dicey to B.U. I think we both knew, somehow, that there would never be another summer so carefree, so full of pleasure in each other’s company.

  The first cloud on the horizon should have been a warning, but I was only barely aware of it. It took the form of an unusual interest on Dicey’s part. That interest was, of all things, sociology. I remembered the subject as my college career’s most boring course, now almost twenty years behind me. Of the substance of it, I could recall virtually nothing. What did sociologists do? Teaching seemed the only possible career path, which indicated the peculiarity of the subject matter. Why teach something that is nothing more than subject matter for further teaching? As Dicey waxed more and more enthusiastic about the discipline, I did my best to listen attentively, but the material still sounded as dull as it had back in my own college days.

  What did penetrate finally was not that Dicey was simply absorbed in the subject, but that she was expressing a passion about it very much unlike her. Folkways, mores, caste and class began to seep into more and more of her language. And, instead of merely urging me on to discussion, Dicey’s contributions increasingly sounded like proselytizing.

  “What most people don’t realize, Mom, is that our tastes and attitudes and behavior are fashioned by our culture. If we’d been born in Afghanistan, we’d be wearing burkas and would cheerfully accept our inferiority to men.”

  I smiled at the intensity with which she was expressing herself. “That wouldn’t necessarily make it right,” I commented.

  “Exactly. And that’s what we don’t realize, steeped as we are in our own culture. We just accept our customary practices as being the right way of behaving, but it’s no more right than wearing burkas.”

  The second cloud was larger and well within view. Professor Lewis Fuller, who I soon realized was Dicey’s sociology instructor, began to figure into the conversation—often enough to penetrate my consciousness and to prompt a few questions. My first assumption was that Dicey had developed a crush on her teacher. That would explain the overweening interest in the subject as well. But a few discrete questions indicated there was more to it than that.

  Professor Fuller, soon referred to regularly as ‘Lew’, was in his late thirties—or so he said. He was married. But, according to Dicey, it was an ‘in name only’ marriage. He was a fascinating person… very intelligent… so much more interesting than the run-of-the-mill male undergraduates—as Dicey informed me at some length—and he considered her to be an exceptional student.

  Alarm bells began to go off. I’d been busy at work, and had been paying minimal attention to Dicey’s dating behavior. We had long ago discussed sex and, while I may flatter myself, I think I handled the subject well. Safe sex had figured prominently into our discussions of the topic. Dicey had gone on the pill by her eighteenth birthday, and apparently had made the transition into womanhood with a minimum of trauma. Certainly with fewer complications than I had faced, since I had a six-month old to care for at eighteen.

  The openness between us seemed to have paid off. She regularly informed me when she planned to stay out late, and I had learned to live with whatever qualms I may have had. But now it was different, and Lewis Fuller figured prominently in that difference. Dicey couldn’t merely shrug off the frankness she always exhibited with me, so I soon discovered that Lew was no mere passing fancy. Dicey was in love with a forty-two year old married Assistant Professor of Sociology, who had three grown children of his own. And I received the full brunt of cultural relativism.

  “There’s no reason, other than the peculiarities of our culture, why Lew and I can’t be in love. Besides, he’s going to get a divorce.” [I’d heard that one before.] “And age isn’t that important.” The rationalizations went on and on.

  Perhaps it’s a reflection of my temperament, or maybe it was just my awareness of the futility of argument, but I managed to mask my feelings. I did ask to meet Lew, and Dicey could hardly refuse to arrange such a meeting. After all, why shouldn’t a mother meet her prospective son-in-law?

  The place for the meeting was on near-neutral ground—on campus, at the cafeteria for lunch. As I approached the table where Dicey was sitting in open-mouth admiration of her lover, I was prepared to dislike the man. My preparations were more th
an justified. Lewis Fuller was perhaps as pompous, egotistical a man as I’ve ever encountered, and physically unprepossessing besides. Bespectacled, balding, almost chinless, with watery blue eyes—and even while he was sitting I could tell he wasn’t much over five-six. The luncheon conversation was almost entirely dominated by the achievements of Professor Fuller, and my usually astute daughter was totally unaware of the horrible impression he was making on me.

  An unexpected interruption provided welcome relief. A young man approached the table carrying a food tray. “Hi, Dad,” he said. “What brings you slumming to the student cafeteria?” Introductions were soon made. As it turned out, Marc Fuller was as much a stranger to Dicey as he was to me. A senior, living off campus, it was evident he was unaware of his father’s extra-marital affair with my daughter. It also soon became clear that Lewis Fuller was none-too-pleased at the unexpected arrival of his son.

  What was most striking about Marc was how much he differed from his father, both in physique and in temperament. At least six-foot tall, with an athletic build, he had a shock of black hair and remarkable brown eyes. His most attractive quality was a warm, genuine smile, which flashed across his handsome features on the slightest provocation. In looking back at that lunch, it’s not at all surprising I almost immediately made the decision that I did. It was so obvious Dicey had chosen the wrong Fuller, and I resolved then and there to rectify the error.

  Unlike his father, the younger Marc wasn’t eager to talk about himself, but I succeeded in ferreting out his interest in art, which of course delighted me no end. It also provided me with an excuse to give him my card, to invite him to the gallery, and to exact a promise from him that he would in fact visit. Before the luncheon broke up I had even managed to fix the date and time, and I found myself far more pleased at the end of lunch than I had been at its inauspicious beginning.

  Unfortunately, Dicey had been almost totally unaffected by Marc. Her own infatuation with the elder Fuller left her blind to the qualities of any other males. I wasn’t too surprised by her reaction, or lack of reaction. Instead, I considered it to be a challenge; one I was only too willing to take on.