Who Do You Love(54)
Author: Jennifer Weiner

“What time is it?” I asked, and then, before he could answer, I looked up at the digital clock on his dresser that was flashing 7:12.

“Are you late?”

“Oh, God,” I said, pulling my dress over my head, looking around for my panties. “I have to be back at the hotel at eight. Can we make it?”

“I guess we’ll see.” He found his own clothes as I put on my boots and we ran down the stairs, leaving the bed unmade, the blankets tangled, the sheets stained.

Andy took the stairs up to the train tracks two at a time, then turned around and ran back down, holding my hand and helping me to the top. On the train, he offered his seat to a pregnant lady. “God bless you,” she said, and sank down with a sigh, putting her grocery bags between her legs. Andy held on to a steel pole, and I held on to Andy, pressing against him every time the train sped up around a curve or lurched to a stop. There was a little bit of pain still, an unfamiliar soreness between my legs, and I welcomed it as a reminder of how we’d been together.

At almost eight o’clock, it was completely dark, the air soft and warm, and Rittenhouse Square Park was as crowded as it had been in the afternoon when I’d left. We ran past a violinist, a beautiful girl in a black dress that showed most of her back, playing something sweet and sad, her bow dancing over the strings, her velvet-lined case open in front of her, half full of coins and bills. Beside her, a homeless man slept on a bench. On the bench next to him, a young couple sat, holding hands, the girl with her head resting against the guy’s shoulder.

The cool air and the hushed stillness of the Rittenhouse Hotel’s lobby were a shock after the crowded bustle of the park. The air smelled like lilies, from the enormous arrangement on an octagonal-shaped table in the center of the room. I turned my head when I heard my voice, and there was Nana, dressed for dinner in black pants and a beaded jacket.

She pressed her cool, powdered cheek against my heated one and looked at me, smiling. “Introduce me to your friend.”

“Nana, this is Andrew Landis. Andy, this is my nana Faye.”

Andy shook her hand gently. “It’s nice to meet you.”

“The pleasure is mine.” Nana was looking at him, taking his measure. “Did you two have a nice day?” She looked at me, then put a finger under my chin and turned my face toward hers. “It looks like you got some sun.”

I felt myself flush even more deeply. “We had lunch at the Reading Terminal, and then we walked around for a while. Andy showed me where he lived.”

“Sounds perfect,” Nana pronounced. “Young man, would you like to join us for dinner?”

Andy shifted from foot to foot. “Are you sure I’m dressed all right?”

Nana studied his T-shirt and jeans. “If you aren’t, I’m sure they’ll be happy to give you a jacket. I should warn you, it will most likely be an awful jacket.”

I clapped my hands. “Oh, yes! Yes, please!”

Andy gave me a mock-angry look, then smiled and took my hand. I felt like I was melting as I leaned against him. When Nana wasn’t looking, he leaned down and gave me a kiss.

The maître d’ at the restaurant did make Andy wear a jacket, and it was hideous, a blue-and-yellow plaid thing made for someone much shorter and wider than Andy was, but he put it on without complaining, and followed the hostess to a table by the window that looked over the park. I was worried that he’d never been in a place like this—not that I’d spent much time in fancy French restaurants, either—but when the waiter asked what we wanted to drink, Andy said that water would be fine, and then when he came back to take our orders, I asked for the sea bass, and Andy said, very politely, “I’d like the burger, please,” which was the least-expensive thing on the menu.

“And how would you like that prepared?” the waiter asked.

Nana lifted her hand. “Young man, are you sure you wouldn’t rather have the steak?”

When he smiled, his white teeth flashed. “I never say no to steak.”

“French fries?” asked the waiter, his pen hovering over his pad.

“Can I just have steamed spinach?”

“Of course.”

“Watching your weight?” asked Nana, looking surprised.

“No, ma’am. I just try to eat healthy. Not a lot of fried stuff. Coach wouldn’t approve.”

“Disciplined,” Nana said, and smiled.

I sat there, glowing, feeling pretty and content, with my tanned shoulders beneath the thin white straps of my sundress and my handsome guy beside me, as Andy and my nana talked—about her childhood in Newark and his in Philadelphia, how they’d both lived in row houses and both had jobs as teenagers, she in a candy store, Andy with his paper route and part-time job at the bowling alley. She told him all about her travels, and how, in 1960, her husband had taken her to the Olympics in Rome, where she’d seen Wilma Rudolph win the one-hundred-meter and two-hundred-meter races, and her team take the four-by-one-hundred relay. When the bottle of wine she’d ordered came, she asked the sommelier to pour each of us a taste, and Andy swished it around in his mouth the way she did, before swallowing and saying, “Not bad.”