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We talked about him a lot after that night. I couldn’t stop thinking about him. It was this strange obsession. He pulled at me like a magnet. I… Jamie…
JAMIE:Yes?
SHAY:I’m going to tell you something that might make you uncomfortable. But I want to tell the truth about the impression Don made on me. So you understand everything else.
JAMIE:Right now, don’t think of me as your friend. Think of me as a journalist. I want to hear the truth.
SHAY:Okay. After that night at the restaurant, I started…fantasizing about him. I daydreamed about seeing him again, and what would happen. I’d never touched myself before, then all of a sudden, I couldn’t stop. I was addicted. He was handsome, and smart, and so confident, of course, but I think the biggest part was that he was Rachel’s dad and completely off-limits. I’ve always been that way. Wanted only the people I couldn’t have. I don’t know why.
JAMIE:Shay…don’t you?
(Silence.)
SHAY:Do you mind if I lie down on your bed?
JAMIE:Make yourself comfortable.
(Rustling. Creaking springs.)
SHAY:A few weeks later, probably mid-October, junior year, he invited us out again. Clem was the only one who thought it was strange. I remember her saying one dinner made sense. A lot of students’ parents came in town and took their friends out. But two dinners, that was a little weird. Except Laurel and I wouldn’t stop talking about how excited we were, and Clem didn’t want to be left out. That was a big thing with her. She’d always been the odd one out with her family, so she’d do anything to avoid it. Eventually, she jumped back on the Don train.
JAMIE:How did Rachel handle your obsession with her father?
SHAY:We tried not to talk about him around her. But when we couldn’t help it—when we slipped or we just had to ask her a question—she didn’t seem to care. It was like he was any other person.
JAMIE:Where’d he take you the second time?
SHAY:Out for drinks, at this bar he was an investor in, which was still being built. It was in the penthouse of this new building in SoHo. He said we were the first people to go up there. It was totally empty, just us and the bar, and you could still see all the piping in the ceiling. I think they ended up naming it the Old Guard.
JAMIE:Really? I’ve been there. It’s kind of famous now. They hosted the Pulitzer after-party last year. Was Don in real estate?
SHAY:He was an investor. He said his business was networking with successful people, men who had tips on what was about to make a killing. He was happy to see us that night. He told us he’d decided to settle down, buy a house, give up traveling to be closer to Rachel, and he wanted to celebrate.
I actually had to step out to the bathroom after he said that.
JAMIE:Why?
SHAY:Here was this man, you know, who actually wanted to spend time with his daughter.Rachel, of all people, had a dad who loved her.
JAMIE:Meanwhile, you—
SHAY:I just needed a minute. When I came back, Don looked at me, and he didn’t say anything, but I swear he knew what I was feeling. That’s how he was. He could look straight through my skull. He poured us wine again, and this time, we tried asking him questions about his life, but he said there wasn’t much to know, and we were more interesting. You have to understand how magnetic he was. When he said that, I really felt like I was the most interesting person in the world.
That night he wanted to know about our families. We got drunk pretty quick, and everything came spilling out, like we’d all just been waiting for him to ask. You remember being that age, right? So wrapped up in yourself, willing to bare your soul. Deep down, you think you’re the most interesting person in the world. Laurel told him all about her dad dying, how her mom collapsed into herself. Clem told him her parents had never understood her, that there’d always been this unbridgeable gulf that made her lonely. I told him the least, but still too much—stuff only Clem and Laurel had heard. When I was done talking, Don looked at me and said, “Tell me who failed you. The first name that comes to mind.” Like he was some kind of therapist.
There were a lot of answers I could’ve given. But knee-jerk, I said, “My dad.” And even Clem and Laurel were surprised, because I never talked about him.
I think it was just…Don made me feel safe. He was a father himself. And there was something about him: you wanted to answer truthfully when he asked you a question. He was so open it felt cathartic.
I didn’t want to leave that night, but Clem had soccer practice the next morning, so we had to. Don waited until everyone left for the car, then pulled me aside, just the two of us. My heart was pounding. Being alone with him was all I’d thought about for weeks. So to have it actually happen was like being under a spell. He put his hands on my face, like this—one hand on this cheek, one there—and told me he was grateful I was Rachel’s friend. He said her mom had passed away, and he was determined to be a good father to make up for it. I told him, “I admire that more than you know.”
He said, “I think I do know, actually.” And then he said, in the same breath, “Tell me the truth: how often do people tell you you’re beautiful?”
In my experience, when people said you were beautiful, it was always a power move—the moment another person let you know they’d clocked you, that you were a body they’d taken stock of, calculated and assessed. But Don was different. He was a good man who wasn’t supposed to think I was beautiful, because I was younger and his daughter’s friend. But he was saying it anyway, which meant he hadn’t been able to help himself. He was going out on a limb. That made him vulnerable and me the powerful one. It felt like a victory.
So I said, “Like that? Not often.” And he laughed and said he doubted that was true.
Then he said, “But you’d be even prettier with blond hair.”
