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“’Cause I didn’t wanna go, and I knew they had to go because of the event.”
“Where’d you go?”
“I waited in a spot where I knew they’d have to pass when they left. Once I saw the car drive by, I went back to the house.” She giggled that giggle. “So I walked in the house and, to my surprise, there’s my father sitting in his chair.”
“Uh oh. You’re in trouble now.”
“I thought so, too. I thought I had outsmarted myself.”
“So what happened?”
“I looked at him, he looked at me, and then he said, ‘You didn’t think I could leave here not knowing that you were all right?’ and he turned the television back on, and I went upstairs to my room.”
Once again, Natasha had me speechless. Her relationship with her parents was the exact opposite of mine. Her father wouldn’t leave without her; both my father and mother left us. Again, I quickly moved the conversation along before it could stray to my parents. We talked about this and that as we finished our meal and the waitress cleared the table. “Would you like another drink?” she said, and I waited for Natasha to answer.
She thought for a second, glanced at her watch, and said, “Please” Natasha said and I couldn’t help but wonder if she was having a second drink because she was enjoying my company, or if she just wanted to have another before she went home to Lloyd.
“And you, sir?”
“I’ll have another as well.”
Over our second drink, our getting-to-know-you conversation turned to the—shall we say, more trendy topics. But it was when the conversation turned that I could tell that it was stimulating her in more ways than just intellectually. I know it was stimulating me. Natasha was stimulating me.
We had gotten into an impassioned discussion about income distribution and I’m really feeling her passion for the subject, and I could only hope that she was feeling mine. Then Natasha turned her chair to get more comfortable, and then she crossed her legs. I heard the sound of her thighs rub together and I almost passed out.
“Real median household income, adjusted for inflation, was statistically unchanged,” I said.
“Yes, but my point is that median household income was eight percent lower than it was before the latest recession.”
“You’re right, it is.”
Natasha smiled. “I know I’m right.”
I liked a woman with confidence. And Natasha had not only articulated her point, but then she convinced me to agree with that point. I had to fall back on my facts.
“One economist wrote that median household income was nine percent lower than at its peak in nineteen ninety-nine, and it’s essentially remained unchanged since the end of the Reagan administration.”
Natasha smiled and leaned forward. “What does that tell you, Victor?”
“That the recovery hasn’t translated into higher incomes.”
Then we got into a deep discussion about the root causes of wage stagnation, the decline of labor unions, and globalization. How foreign-produced goods became sharply cheaper, meaning imports climbed, and production moved overseas, eroding middle-class jobs growth and suppressing wages.
“We’re getting pretty intense for first-date dinner conversation,” I said, and both of us sat back.
“This is not a date,” Natasha said.
“What is it then?” I laughed, but stopped quickly when I saw that she wasn’t.
“It’s not a date.”
“Okay, what do you call it when two friends have a fascinating conversation over dinner and cocktails?”
Natasha paused. “I call it two friends having fascinating conversation over dinner and cocktails. But it’s not a date; definitely not a date.”
Chapter Five
