Assisted Loving by Bob Morris Page B

have Chinese,” he is saying.
    â€œI had Chinese last night,” she replies. “How about Japanese?”
    â€œI don’t care for Japanese,” he says. “What about Italian?”
    Italian is fattening, and she’s on a low-carb diet, but she doesn’t want to get into it now. Too early for conflict. She’s aware of the fact that she’s not the easiest person. Her kids tell her that all the time. She wonders if that’s why they’ve chosen to live so far away. She does wish she could be less specific in her demands. But she knows what she likes, and why is that so wrong? Men that way are considered decisive. Women are considered picky and difficult. It doesn’t win points on a first date to be particular.
    Why not try to just go with the flow, Ann? she tells herself.
    Because he has the air-conditioning on high in his car, that’s why, and it’s not just freezing her arms, it’s blowing her hair to kingdom come.
    â€œWould you mind turning it off?” she asks.
    â€œI like it on high,” he says. “For my allergies.”
    â€œI prefer to ride without it” is all she can say.
    He turns it down to medium. “How’s that? Better?”
    Barely. And not her idea of accommodating at all. And why would he have the ball game on the radio? And why is he going on about the Mets when he hasn’t even asked if she’s interested in baseball? What kind of conversation is that for the first few minutes of a first date? Her only response is to clam up. Well, she’s never been a bubbly person. But a particularly dark mood starts coming over her now, before they even get out of the car, which is amess, and smells rank. At a stoplight at Little Neck Road, when he changes topics from the Mets to bridge, she wonders about the gurgling in her stomach. Is it the reflux? Did she take her Nexium? Is she going to make it through this dinner date without having to keep running to the powder room?
    And then she wonders what she’s doing here anyway. She doesn’t want another man. But without one her social life is so barren. Articles she’s been reading in the AARP magazine and Long Island Newsday keep suggesting that widows are far more self-sufficient than widowers. But her friends are all in couples. It’s awkward, always needing a bridge partner, being the single person at the dinner party. Her kids worry that she’s lonely. She tells them she isn’t. But in some ways she is. So she tries her luck and puts in a listing and gets this Joe Morris. A total stranger. As he pulls off Northern Boulevard to the restaurant—Villa something or other; not one she’d heard anything good about—she wonders if she should just say she’s not feeling well and have him take her home. Dinner ahead looms longer than a High Holiday service.
    She endures. As does my father. But just barely, I find out later.
    â€œShe was a total dud,” he tells me. “I could have kicked myself for following through with her. From the moment we spoke on the phone, I could tell she wasn’t right for me. She sounded so morose about her husband’s death. And it’s a cardinal rule of dating that you don’t talk about your ex right away, whether deceased or divorced.”
    I understand. But I also sympathize with her. I mean, I know I’m never my best self on dates. And besides, how do you erase the imprint of decades of marriage?
    â€œShe got in the car and immediately started hocking me about the air-conditioning,” he says. “I knew I had a problem personality on my hands.”
    So he discards her, like an old plum. And there’s not even a moment to sympathize with the poor woman, or give her a second chance, not with all the options he has to choose from. In fact, the moment I threw out the bait for him by responding to those Personals ads, he’s gotten very busy, pulling in one thing after another