Widow suddenly thrust back into dating world
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We left the bar a couple of hours later, pleasantly buzzed and blinking in the late afternoon sun. Hungry, we decided to pick up dinner at Michael’s, a kosher-style, take-out chicken joint down the street from my apartment. The place, no larger than a walk-in closet, was buzzing with activity and redolent with the smells of grandma’s cooking. Display cases on the right side were jammed with trays of raisin-studded noodle pudding, stuffed cabbage in tomato sauce, chopped liver, and cherry-red Jell-O. The left side of the store was at least ten degrees warmer and featured three large rotisserie machines filled with roasted chicken and crispy duck, their juices dripping rhythmically into the pans below. Customers at the front of the line shouted out their orders while, pressed close behind, a sea of tired and hungry people, mouths watering, stood waiting to be served
“Maybe we should just get a pizza,” I said loudly, eyeing the masses.
“Check ... behind ... counter,” Phoebe mouthed, looking over in said direction.
“What?” I hollered back above the din.
“The guy behind the counter. Check out the guy behind the counter.”
“Cute, but isn’t he about seventy?” I followed her gaze to the elderly gentleman quartering what looked to be a capon.
“Not that guy! The one with the pierced ear standing next to him.”
He was about 5-8, strong arms, beautiful hands, eyes the color of a cloudless blue sky. I had noticed him during my regular chicken run the week before. As he answered to the name Michael, I assumed he was the owner of the establishment.
“Well, he is handling a knife,” I told her, watching as he cut up a chicken, “but I doubt he makes as much money as an orthopedic surgeon.”
We waited our turn, the crowd parted, and we stood — Phoebe a head and a half taller than me — at the front of the line.
“What’ll it be, ladies?” Michael asked. His eyes took in Phoebe and then fell onto mine. And, surprisingly, they stayed there. And then he smiled. A sweet smile.
His sudden attention made my skin burn.
“A rich husband,” answered Phoebe, smiling mischievously.
“Come again?” he asked, confused.
“Half a chicken, please,” I said, shooting Phoebe what I hoped was a threatening look. It slid off her impossibly high cheekbones and landed on the dirty linoleum floor like a pile of creamed spinach.
When Michael turned his back to retrieve our chicken from the grease-splattered machine, Phoebe — perhaps due to her elevated alcohol levels — couldn’t hold back. “He likes you!” she blurted. “Ask him out!”
“I told you ...” I said, turning to face her. Phoebe was about 5-8 in heels, and my eyes landed somewhere in the vicinity of her collarbone.
“I know,” she said with exasperation. “You have bigger things planned. But he is cute, you’re not dating anyone, you can’t cook, and I think you’d look adorable together.” And before I could stop her, she asked him if he would deliver.
“I can do that,” said Michael, nodding in my direction. “But I need your phone number in order to arrange it.”
He took a pen from behind his ear and offered it to me, along with a menu and the plastic bag that contained my order. Cornered, I took the bag and the pen and scribbled my number on the menu, even though we all knew that I was already holding half a chicken and a quarter pound of cucumber salad in my sweaty little hands.
Excerpted from “Manless in Montclair” by Amy Holman Edelman Copyright © 2007 by Amy Holman Edelman. Excerpted by permission of Shaye Areheart Books, a division of Random House, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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