Table of Contents
For Debra and Noah
Introduction
Lets be honest. My parents werent thrilled when I first brought Charlie home to meet them. His hair was long, his jeans were torn and faded, and his Marine-issued combat boots had seen better days. I was nineteen, deeply in love, and very confident this relationship signaled the end of my dating. But nearly twenty years and two children later I found myself suddenly single, the awful consequence of Charlies untimely death.
I used to think the biggest challenge that dating presented was concealing a less than perfect guy from my parents. Now, as middle age loomed and I prepared to reenter the dating world, my parents were no longer waiting up for me.
Instead, my children were.
Fourteen months after I was widowed, I went on my first date with a man I had barely noticed at a bat mitzvah. I had been seated at the lavish pink-and-purple affair with Charlies fraternity brother Simmons, his wife, and several strangers. The massive, round banquet table and unrelenting music had prohibited any conversation, so I was unaware that one of the men, Marty, was single until he asked Simmons for my number.
The prospect of dating had crossed my mind with greater frequency, and I thought this was probably a good place to start since Marty was a friend of a friend. Also, this date, I told myself, didnt qualify as blind since I could vaguely recall Martys face through the fluffy ballet-motif centerpiece.
The first lesson I learned: If an unemployed (as it turned out) accountant takes you to dinner, cuts his salmon into neat little squares, devours them in sequence so as not to upset the grid, and speaks about how well his ex-wife has remarried, its perfectly okay to let him pick up the check and never see him again.
Second lesson: I was not ready to date yet.
Third lesson: A guy who talks about his ex-wife with explicit emotionwhether it be with fondness or hateisnt ready to date either.
Fourth lesson: Shoes reveal so much more than youd expect.
Any man, even one who confuses red with pink and polyester with silk, can walk into a mens clothing store and be fitted with a decent suit and dress shirt. The true test comes when hes left on his own to buy shoes.
Take, for instance, cool-looking suede slip-ons. These mean hes fashion-conscious, youthful, and interested in trends. Hell probably treat you to some neat restaurants.
Outdoorsy, well-worn docksides show a less creative sidehes not a risk taker. Expect occasional regional theater and a lot of movies and quick bites to eat.
Spiffy Italian leather loafers indicate success, a willingness to spend money, and a pride in personal appearance. Hell favor the symphony orchestra to prove hes cultured and a hockey game to show he isnt.
Marty was wearing scuffed, pointy dress shoes. Oh, well.
When friends learned that I had gone out on my first date, they insisted I meet two other men who had been kept waiting in the wings. Pleasant, pony-tailed Joseph drove up in a bright green pickup truck, his arms laden with flowers and two small toys. Smart man. My ten-year-old daughter, Debra, and six-year-old son, Noah, responded to him immediately. That is, after they unwrapped the gifts, took note of his pierced diamond earring, and discovered he also owned a motorcycle.
Lesson Five: Expect your kids priorities to differ from yours. Children crave attention, and the one thing they fear when you begin dating is the loss of it. A man who dotes on them will help satisfy their needsthough not necessarily yours.
Around the same time I went out with Joseph, I received a call from a well-to-do divorced stockbroker, Al. I was unnerved, having been told ahead of time he was extremely good looking, younger than I, and very wealthy. I opened the door to a barrelchested, gray-haired man who was not particularly handsome and not young, and his presence left me silently questioning the credentials of the person who fixed me up.
Poor Al. He no sooner climbed out of his Mercedes and entered my house than he had to run to the bathroom. Goodlooking, my foot, I said to my baby-sitter, thinking Al was securely ensconced in the powder room. How was I to know hed taken a wrong turn? We were both embarrassed when he finally emerged, and although we said nothing about my errant comment, an apparent nervous stomach drew him back to the bathroom three more times before we ever left my driveway. I had little doubt this would be another one-time date. It was, and when it ended I recalled Lesson Two. For the next five months, I took a hiatus.
Then suddenly one day in late spring, when I was outside planting my annuals and dragging my heavy terra-cotta pots to the porch, it dawned on me that life was still unfolding and I wanted to share mine again.
Now there was no one in the wings.
I complained to my girlfriend Frani, whose husband had fixed me up with Joseph. Without my knowledge, she began scouring the personals. At the same time, I shed some of my pride and told parents on my sons soccer team, friends through work and in the neighborhood, and even family that I was ready to date.
Among those who rang my doorbell was a widower in his mid-thirties and a divorced forty-year-old artist. The widower, a tall, nice-looking man who worked in a manufacturing plant and had a five-year-old son, plunged head over heels into our relationship and by the third date had asked me to marry him. Not feeling quite as enthused, I chose to end it instead. The artist? Lets just say that when he drove up to my house in his tiny convertible Karmann Ghia with his shirt off, thus exposing his sun-kissed chest not only to my neighbors but also to my kids, I figured he was finished, too.
Hearing of these disappointments, my more experienced friend Sandra encouraged me to accompany her to a singles event at a trendy outdoor bar on Philadelphias waterfront. Most women were dressed in fashionably revealing short skirts or shorts. I was wearing a lovely silk three-quarter-length dress, perfect for afternoon tea.
I had a lot to learn.
A couple days later, I arrived at Franis house to find her on the telephone answering a personal ad. Tired of hearing me complain about being single, she had selected an ad that admittedly sounded intriguingsomething about his, mine, and ours. She decided to answer it on my behalf. Okay, Frani. I was outwardly annoyed, but inwardly curious and pleased that she had taken an interest. Hang up, Ill answer the ad myself.
I did, and I met a divorced father of four who swept me off my feet. Within three months he proposed and I accepted. I was so caught up in the ensuing whirlwind that I became oblivious of my childrens feelings. While I thought I was providing them with a replacement for their father, they saw a man as different from their own dad as Ozzie Osbourne is from Ozzie Nelson.
A few years later my divorce attorney, privy to all the messy details, told me she couldnt understand what had ever possessed me to marry him. Its the way he proposed, I said. Any woman would have said yes.
It was Halloween night and my forty-first birthday. I answered my door to find him standing there dressed in a tuxedo, his appearance further enhanced by a clump of adorable trick-or-treaters. A long white limousine sat majestically in the driveway, ready to drive us to the city to see a show.
