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“And can we have the cheese course?” she asked Winston. “And the drinks you have after you finish eating, the espresso and the booze, too? I want to do it up right. I don’t get to eat at places like this. Ever.”
“Of course.”
He instructed the Cleese-bot waiter on various intricacies of the meal, and Allie settled back in her red plush throne-chair to examine the decor in more detail. Winston hadn’t been kidding—the Imperial Club was England in New York, in precisely the same way that Pulvermacher’s was Wisconsin in New York. Sadly, Wisconsin suffered by comparison. Where Pulvermacher’s had Milwaukee’s best on tap, cheese-head lights, and a lot of green and gold, the Imperial Club was all burnished wainscoting, tasteful drapes, and a wine list so extensive it made Allie’s wrists hurt.
Even if she hadn’t been wearing a black World War II naval uniform complete with jaunty Donald Duck hat, she would never fit in a place like this.
Winston, on the other hand, looked right at home: just as handsome and expensive as the decor, but when she studied him now, she didn’t notice the polish as much as she noticed the smile lines at the corners of his eyes and bracketing his mouth, how deft and competent his hands were, and how comfortably he inhabited his own life.
He’d uprooted himself to be with his daughter. He’d made significant mistakes and watched his life buckle and break apart because of them. In New York, he was drifting and uncertain, but he was also good and kind and human, and she liked him.
She liked him a lot.
“How old are you?” she asked.
“Why, how old are you?”
“May thought it was insane I hadn’t asked you. She told me to guess, and I guessed you were somewhere between thirty-five and fifty.”
“Fifty, really?”
“Some men age really well, and plus you use all that fancy European spa stuff. You could be a lot older than you look. May pointed out you probably weren’t thirty-five, since your daughter is, what, nineteen?”
“Nearly.” He frowned. “Dear God, when did she get so old?”
“And you’re not really teen dad material, so we guessed forty at the young end.”
The server returned with a bottle of wine in a silver sleeve that served no purpose Allie could discern. He and Winston performed a ritual involving bottle presentation, intense study of the label, uncorking, and making a very serious face after swallowing a minute quantity. The wine was approved, poured, and the server sent away.
“I’ll be forty in December.”
Allie sipped her wine. It tasted like dark forest fruit and truffle-hunting pigs, but in a good way. “Nice.”
“I’m not sure.”
“Are you one of those people who freaks out about getting older?”
“It’s not that. It’s more…I think perhaps if I’m freaking out, it’s because I got old too young. Now that I am, in fact, old, I don’t feel as though I’d like to stick here. But I’m not sure what the options are.” He swirled the wine around in his glass, watching her over the rim. “Obviously, there are no options, speaking realistically. One simply gets older. Is the wine all right?”
“It’s great. You know you’re just whatever age you are, right? It doesn’t mean anything except that it’s taken you this many years to be the you who you are right now. Which is the correct you, and someone who I really like. I’m sure you’ll only get better.”
“That’s a nice perspective. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
“There’s also the perspective that I’m considerably closer to death than you are.”
“See, you think so, but you don’t know. Any of us could die at any time.”
“You still haven’t told me your age.”
“What’s your best guess?”
His forehead furrowed. “I’m afraid to guess.”
“How come?”
“If I guess too old, you’ll be insulted. If I guess too young, I’ll start to feel as though I’m robbing the cradle.”
