“What’s up?” I said.
“Reservations,” she said. “I just scored us one.”
“Reservations? To where? What do you know about this neck of the woods?”
“That’s my little secret,” she said. “Just tell me you’re hungry, Mike.”
“Okay. I’m Hungry Mike,” I said, smiling back.
“Yay,” she said, grabbing my hand and opening the door of her Jeep. “I think you’re in for a happy surprise.”
She wasn’t kidding. She took me fifteen minutes west on I-84 to a place called the Back Yard Bistro, in the town of Montgomery.
But as it turned out, I had a surprise for her.
Before we got out of her Jeep, I started laughing.
“What’s so funny?” Tara said.
“I cannot tell a lie, Tara. I’ve been here before. And you do have excellent taste. I should know. My cousin owns the place.”
“So much for my surprise,” Tara said, deflated.
“Not to worry,” I said. “I don’t think we’ll be disappointed.”
The Back Yard Bistro was a tiny, intimate restaurant. So cozy that Tara and I were almost touching knees under the small table. The waitress couldn’t have been more pleasant, and the food was mind-blowing.
The kitchen kept sending out course after course. Tidbits of tuna tartare, foie gras, some rye-crusted pork loin, a truly amazing duck breast. All of it matched with wines. My head and taste buds were spinning.
As we ate, Tara regaled me with family stories of her cousin and my dearly departed pal, Hughie. My favorite was when Hughie and the rest of his ADD-afflicted Irish clan visited a cousin’s farm in Ireland. Finding a tiny, deserted-looking house back in the woods, the Yank punks commenced firing rocks through the windows until the tam-o’-shanter-wearing pensioner living there came out with a double-barreled shotgun.
“Wow,” I said after our waitress, Marlena, dropped a humongous slice of maple mascarpone cheesecake in front of me and a crème brûlée in front of Tara. “This was fantastic, Tara. I hope you forgive me for ruining your surprise,” I said.
“If anyone needs to be forgiven, it’s me,” Tara said. “After all, I made such an ass out of myself at the St. Regis. Pretty much bare-assed, too, if memory serves me right.”
“Were you?” I said. “When was this?”
“Very funny, Mike. I haven’t forgotten that night. I probably never will. At least the parts I can remember. You tucked me in. That was so sweet, so genteel. Cary Grant couldn’t have been more … Cary Grant. But even now, part of me wishes that you hadn’t, Mike. Is that wrong to say? Part of me wishes that you had stayed.”
I took a sip of the Champagne at my elbow. Low on the speakers, an opera diva was singing a beautiful aria.
The woman in front of me was pretty much flawless. Dark and voluptuous, smart as a whip, tough, and yet caring and kind. There are women you meet in life that you know you could—and probably should—fall deeply in love with. Tara was exactly that. She was a keeper. One ripe for the keeping. All it would take would be for me to reach across the table through the candlelight and take her graceful hand.
And yet, I didn’t do it. In the end, I couldn’t. My hand stayed on my glass, the aria ended.
“Ah, Mike. Whoever she is, she’s lucky,” Tara said, putting her head down and digging into her dessert hard enough to make the plate clink. “Luckier than she’ll ever know.”
CHAPTER 78
TARA DROPPED ME off in front of the lake house half an hour later. It was pin-drop quiet on the way back. I wanted to explain that it wasn’t her. That it wasn’t about attraction. But even I knew how lame that would sound. I wisely kept it zipped, for once.
“Thank you for dinner,” I said as we stopped in the gravel driveway.
Somewhere between rage and tears, Tara sat motionless behind the wheel, staring dead ahead as her motor ticked. I took the half minute of her complete silence as my cue to get out. Gravel flew as she peeled back out onto the country road. A tiny piece of it nailed me in the corner of my right eye and became pretty much embedded. Then there was just me and all my friendly chittering cricket friends as I stood there in the dark.
“Way to go, Mike,” I mumbled to myself as I climbed, half blind, up the creaky wooden steps to the front door. “Way to win friends and really influence people.”
As I reached for the front door, something funny happened. It opened by itself as the porch light came on. I blinked in the light with my left eye as I rubbed furiously at the right one. My crazy day wasn’t over, apparently. Not even close.