“Oh,” Ben says, badly wrongfooted. “Look, you don’t want to hear my troubles, Mrs. C. They’re stupid, for one thing, and notthat interesting, and I’m such a disaster that hearing about it would probably be like watching a car crashing into a train?—”
“Benjamin, my dear boy,” Mrs. C says, fixing him with such an affronted look that Ben can’t help but fall silent, “if you say another word like that about yourself, I’ll have to scream. You are, if nothing else, quite an excellent cook, and atypically kind to the elderly. As for boring, I’ll have you know that you are atleastas interesting to follow as half my soap operas.” She glances at him and then adds, “The other half, I must tell you, are more compelling, but you could up the stakes for me if your current issues happen to be about that hot young thing you brought up with you a few weeks ago?—”
“Mrs. C,” Ben gasps, scandalized. “That was the middle of the night! Are you up there watching from the window twenty-four seven like a Hitchcock character?”
Mrs. C cackles but then abruptly drops into a serious manner and fixes him with an intense look. “You should be glad I do! If I didn’t, you’d still be out on those steps, wouldn’t you? Flirting with freezing to death? Come on.” She fixes him with a crooked smile. “Indulge an old woman. It’s been so long since anyone told me a reallyjuicystory.”
Ben takes a long sip of his drink and a deep breath. Then, figuring it can’t hurt, he gives the woman what she wants.
It takes Ben long enough that they’re about halfway through their entrees by the time he finishes talking. Or, Ben is halfway through his entree; Mrs. C has eaten exactly six bites of prime rib, seeming to relish every one. He’d been planning to ask her why she’d ordered the prime rib, a slab of cow nearly the size of her head, but given the intensity with which she savors each forkful she eats, he’s decided to leave it alone. He’s a little afraidshe might turn the steak knife on him if he asks her too many questions about it.
Also, he’s been busy laying out the excruciating details of his personal life for her like so many slices of carpaccio, so. It’s not as though he’s had the time.
“Well, that certainlywasmore compelling than my soap operas,” is her conclusion, when Ben realizes, to his mild surprise, that he has run out of story to tell. “I have a few things to say, but to start with: Don’t worry about rent, dear. I’ll take care of it until you’re back on your feet.”
Ben feels his eyes bulge out of his head as he stammers, “Mrs. C, I—that’s—it’s so generous, but I couldn’t possibly—theexpense?—”
“Wouldn’t matter to me either way, and wecouldcall it a Christmas present, but it’s moot,” she says, and pats him lightly on the hand. “It was Harry’s building, you know; that’s why we chose it as a hideaway, back when we were sneaking around. It’s been mine since he passed.” She pauses and, scowling at him, adds, “Oh, don’t look so shocked. Why do you thinkyougot your apartment, and at such an oddly reasonable rate, too?”
“I…thought it was a testament to my talent for stalking real estate listings?” Ben says, feeling stupider about it with each word.
Mrs. C shakes her head, chuckling now. “No, no, though Iamsorry to burst your bubble. I never set out tobea landlord, but I’ll die before I sell Harry’s building off to anyone, so. To balance things out, I try to choose tenants who wouldn’t get a shot otherwise.” Smiling, she adds, “I believe what I liked best about you was a note you wrote on your rental application; it was something like, ‘I know that on paper I may not look like your best candidate, but I promise if you let me move in, I will never bother anyone, and cook you whatever you’d like to eat.’ Harry would’ve liked that, I thought. Gumption.”
This is flattering, in a way, but Ben is still processing the realities of the situation, and he’s drawn back to pointing out: “But you never said!”
Settling back in her chair and sniffing haughtily, Mrs. C says, “You never asked.”
For a moment Ben is engulfed in a wash of guilt—the elderly reallyaren’tappreciated enough, are they? So many precious memories, such deep wells of important wisdom to share, all lost to the seas of time because selfish young people never think to?—
Abruptly, Ben’s brain catches up to his emotions, and he crosses his arms over his chest. “Oh my God, yes Ididask! I can’t believe you almostgotme like that—I asked yousomany times, Mrs. C! To tell me about your life and your past and your husbands and everything, and youalwaystold me that it’s gauche to ask a lady for hersecrets!”
There’s a beat, and then Mrs. C lets out another cackle. Eyes twinkling, she says, “All right, all right—that usually works on people, you know. I never told you because I never wanted you to know before. It’s fun, being mysterious. I have to take my thrills where I can get them.”
“Well,” Ben starts, and then, suddenly realizing that hehasn’tyet: “God,thank you, if you really don’t mind waiving the rent?—”
“No, no, none of that,” Mrs. C says, waving a hand. “It’s done, I’ll handle it, no need to discuss it further. We have more important topics to get into, like your man problems.”
Ben groans. “I don’t have manproblems. I have a problem, one, that, yes, okay, does happen to be a man?—”
“In fact, Benjamin, darling, you’re half-right,” Mrs. C interrupts. “You do have one problem. But that problem isyou.”
“Me?” Ben can’t help the outrage in his voice as he demands, “What didIdo? I mean, sure, I ruined Pete’s life a little byposting the first video, but other than that all I’ve tried to do ishelphim andsupporthim and?—”
“Yes, you’re like that, aren’t you?” Mrs. C cocks her head and peers at him, curious. “You’ll help and support anyone but yourself.”
Ben can’t think of a single thing to say in response to that. She’s right, of course, but he hadn’t known it about himself until it slipped out of her mouth.
“Do you know,” Mrs. C says, as she slices a seventh sliver-thin piece from her prime rib, “how I knew Harry was the one for me? The only man who would ever make my heart beat that fast?”
“I don’t,” Ben says, his tone jokingly grouchy, “because you’ve nevertoldme even when I’veaskedyou.”
“Well,” Mrs. C says, “he was with someone else, when we met. The connection was there right away between us, that spark, but the spark can lie. After all, I felt a strong pull to my first two husbands, too, not to mention a number of partners in between, and they were brutes and liars, the lot of them. So even though Harry started taking us seriously right away—hell, even after Harry left Suzanne and moved me into his place in Westchester—I was jealous, insecure. Waiting for the moment he’d decide to trade me in for a younger model.”
Ben nods, understanding but not wanting to interrupt her flow. Then he ends up having to wait a minute anyway while she pauses to eat the piece of prime rib that’s been absently waving around on her fork as she talks. He’s used to this from years of dining with her, though, and knows better than to interpret it as an invitation to offer a reply.
Sure enough, when she finishes, she continues as though she hadn’t paused: “So one night, we’re out at this benefit, all these hoity-toity rich people milling around, gathering gossip like their lives depended on it. And Harry and I were fighting—I wasupset some woman had been flirting with him, I think? Oh, who can remember now. In any case, we went back and forth a while, and then he said he was going to get a drink. And suddenly I heard someone tapping the microphone, and I looked up to the podium the evening’s speakers were supposed to use, and there was Harry!” Her eyes go a little misty, her face softer than Ben’s even seen it before. “And do you know, he pointed right at me, and he said, ‘Hello, good evening! Eligible bachelors and bachelorettes, I want to let you know: that woman there? She’s my lady, and I’m with her. So if you’re hankering for a slice of this balding, middle-aged pie, you’d better keep your filthy mitts to yourself, you hear?’ And then he sang the first two verses of ‘The Way You Look Tonight,’ before he was escorted off the stage.”
“Wow,” Ben says, after a moment’s pause. “And he pulled that off?” When she glares at him, he holds up his hands and says, “No, no, listen, it’s very romantic! I’m not knocking it, it’s just that if I tried to do that, it…wouldn’t go well. But I guess maybe he was a good singer?”
