tells me how much she loved music and that he has endowed an annual concert in her name at the local high school. He was a manager of retirement funds. He is active in his Universalist church. He is the head of many committees. I am Jewish, I tell him. He says many Universalists are Jewish. Were Jewish, I think but don’t say. Could I ever be with a man who sits in a pew in a church? I who once wanted to live on a barge by the Seine and quote T. S. Eliot until the dawn, could I live in a suburban home and go to church on Sundays, even a church that makes less of Christ than most? I must not slam doors, I say to myself. I need a new world, I remind myself. He tells me that he is on a committee that purchases art for the local university. I am impressed. He asks me about my work, about my children. He listens carefully. We agree to meet again. He is off to an appointment at some bank. As we part, he kisses me on the mouth. I was just kissed by a strange man, I say to myself. It makes me want to cry, this kiss. It’s the wrong kiss, the wrong man.
• • •
Some years ago we formed a dinner party group with four other couples. We met once a month at one of our houses and the host made a dinner, set the table with the best dishes, and we did this so that we could know each other better, become closer and closer. In a city, friends whirl about, one can go from month to month without speaking to those one holds dear and then you slip from their lives as they slip from yours. We had our dinners to hold on to each other. H. enjoyed cooking his best meals when these dinners were at our house. A week or so before the date he would take all the cookbooks and spread them out on our table and read through them, until he declared his menu. Now we are nine. I go alone. At the first dinner after H.’s death I did my best to join in conversation. The nineness of us was obvious. No one said anything, no one mentioned his name. I managed the evening well enough. I decided to cook myself for our next meeting, which was to be at our house—no, my house. I am not a cook. I haven’t the patience or the skill or the interest. H. loved cooking because he said it was like chemistry, his first passion.
But I take out the cookbooks. I make a list and gather my ingredients. I cook the meal. Everyone says it is wonderful but they would say that even if I had served peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. I look around the table. My friends are here, which seems right, good. A toast to H. is proposed. I join in lifting my glass. I am glad that I can say his name in public again. Not saying his name was unnatural. He did not vanish. I remember him. I need my friends to remember him too.
Some months go by and we are having our group dinner at a nearby house. But this time my friends are talk-
ing about the various remarkable trips they are taking or have just taken. One couple has just returned from a town in Mexico. They walked the cobblestone streets and visited the charming churches and took a course in Spanish. Another is off to the Caribbean to spend a week on the white beaches of Turks and Caicos. They spoke of other trips to Rome with their children, to Paris where the best restaurants were named. Another couple is going to the Arizona desert. The wife spoke of the trip she and her husband had taken a few years ago to South America where because of her work they were greeted at the airport by a chauffeur-driven car and treated as celebrities. There is talk of trips taken to Sicily and weeks spent in Asia and one man tells the story I have heard before of his journey on a private railroad car (provided by a famous judge) to the great Hindu sites and palaces in India. I sit silently. I have no trips planned. Someone is going to Istanbul in the fall. Someone else tells the story of a summer in Tuscany twenty-five years ago. I have heard this story before. I do not want to travel without H. I do not want to go out in the world alone at least not
• • •
Some years ago we formed a dinner party group with four other couples. We met once a month at one of our houses and the host made a dinner, set the table with the best dishes, and we did this so that we could know each other better, become closer and closer. In a city, friends whirl about, one can go from month to month without speaking to those one holds dear and then you slip from their lives as they slip from yours. We had our dinners to hold on to each other. H. enjoyed cooking his best meals when these dinners were at our house. A week or so before the date he would take all the cookbooks and spread them out on our table and read through them, until he declared his menu. Now we are nine. I go alone. At the first dinner after H.’s death I did my best to join in conversation. The nineness of us was obvious. No one said anything, no one mentioned his name. I managed the evening well enough. I decided to cook myself for our next meeting, which was to be at our house—no, my house. I am not a cook. I haven’t the patience or the skill or the interest. H. loved cooking because he said it was like chemistry, his first passion.
But I take out the cookbooks. I make a list and gather my ingredients. I cook the meal. Everyone says it is wonderful but they would say that even if I had served peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. I look around the table. My friends are here, which seems right, good. A toast to H. is proposed. I join in lifting my glass. I am glad that I can say his name in public again. Not saying his name was unnatural. He did not vanish. I remember him. I need my friends to remember him too.
Some months go by and we are having our group dinner at a nearby house. But this time my friends are talk-
ing about the various remarkable trips they are taking or have just taken. One couple has just returned from a town in Mexico. They walked the cobblestone streets and visited the charming churches and took a course in Spanish. Another is off to the Caribbean to spend a week on the white beaches of Turks and Caicos. They spoke of other trips to Rome with their children, to Paris where the best restaurants were named. Another couple is going to the Arizona desert. The wife spoke of the trip she and her husband had taken a few years ago to South America where because of her work they were greeted at the airport by a chauffeur-driven car and treated as celebrities. There is talk of trips taken to Sicily and weeks spent in Asia and one man tells the story I have heard before of his journey on a private railroad car (provided by a famous judge) to the great Hindu sites and palaces in India. I sit silently. I have no trips planned. Someone is going to Istanbul in the fall. Someone else tells the story of a summer in Tuscany twenty-five years ago. I have heard this story before. I do not want to travel without H. I do not want to go out in the world alone at least not
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