Chapter 5
Café Zurich
MATTHEW IS PROUD that he didn’t throw himself at Liz’s feet and beg her to come back. He feels that he can be patient now, wait for her to come to him, and now he believes that, eventually, she will come.
I wouldn’t have been so — cool before, he tells himself. I’ve really changed.
In the past he has sometimes thought of himself as having changed, but usually for the worse. Perhaps now he has changed for the better, become the man his suits suggest: cool, sophisticated, urbane, chock full of je ne sais quoi. Perhaps he’ll find that he can say a mental good-bye to his old self and win Liz as a new man, not the one who bored her, the one she couldn’t love, but this new someone, more like BW. If sex with Belinda was electrifying after she changed her name, think what it could be with Liz after he has, in effect, changed his. Belinda. What about Belinda? I’ll have to say something to Belinda. I can’t just stop seeing her. I’ll have to make a good-bye. The thought that she may love him enough to be sad, even to cry, gives him a delicious thrill, which shames him. He picks up the phone at once and calls Belinda to make a date for dinner.
“Hello?”
It sounds like Leila, but he isn’t quite sure, and he’s been mistaken before. He’s learned to avoid committing himself until he’s sure, so he simply says, “Hi. It’s Matthew.”
“Hi, Matthew. How are you?”
It’s Leila.
“Fine. How are you, Leila?”
“Fine.”
“Good.” Why can’t I ever think of anything to say to her?
It’s because he doesn’t know what she thinks, what she knows, what interests her, or how she spends her time. He hardly ever talks with her, after all. Perhaps if he and Belinda had become more serious about each other, if they had thought of getting married someday, he would have found the time, opportunity, and inclination to really get to know Leila. Perhaps, but wouldn’t he have been likely to find that his lust kept getting in the way?
“May I speak to Belinda?”
“Mom’s not home. She’s still at work, I think. There’s some kind of push on. She’s been working a lot lately.”
“Oh. Sure, of course.” This is a false reaction. Matthew doesn’t know anything about what Belinda’s been working on lately. He’s surprised and a little embarrassed to realize how long it’s been since he’s thought about her. It had been their habit to talk on the phone together nearly every evening, even though they didn’t see each other more than a couple of days a week. After Liz’s visit Matthew let a day slip, and then another, and with his mind on Liz he has ignored Belinda for more than a week. “I’ve been horribly busy myself,” he claims. “It’s a busy time of year.”
“Yeah, I guess so.”
“Well, I wanted to ask her to have dinner with me.”
“Sure. Okay.” A pause. What is that in her voice? Lack of interest? Just distraction? “I can take a message if you want.”
“Okay. Well, how about Friday? This Friday. Since she’s been working so hard, Friday should be the perfect day, right?” There is no response from the other end. Why do I feel like such a jerk when I talk to this girl? “It’s traditional,” he says. “TGIF.”
Matthew, Matthew, says the voice of BW, calm down. Stop thinking about her breasts.
“All right,” says Leila. “I’ll tell her.”
“We’ll be going to Café Zurich, tell her. She’ll want to dress up.”
“Matthew? Hold on a minute, okay? I want to check the calendar.”
A longish wait, and then Leila is back, a little breathless. “That’s great. That should be fine. Friday. Café Zurich. That should be neat. What time?”
“Oh, seven.”
“Okay. See you.”
[to be continued]
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