All Right Ch. 02

"Juliet, actually," she grimaced. "Dad was a Shakespeare nut. My sisters are Rosalind - she goes by Rose - and Viola."

"I hope your brother's not Romeo!"

"No, no brothers. If there had been a boy I suspect he would have been Hamlet."

"So, your Dad liked Romeo and Juliet, As You Like It and Twelfth Night?"

"Hey, not everyone can name the plays. Not bad. No, Dad liked anything Shakespeare, pretty much."

"Your Mom have any say?"

"No, well it was her idea, too. Especially since she taught English literature and was as bad as he was. She'd have gone for John for a boy, which would have made life easier for him, at least until people found out that John was for Sir John Falstaff."

We chatted on while our hostess made sure everyone was connected with someone else. I caught Sarah's eye. She nodded at Julie and gave me an okay sign, quite subtly, approving of my current companion. I was sorry I couldn't do the same for her. I didn't know the guy but he seemed to be oozing insincerity out of his pores. Must have been in sales. I returned my attention to Julie.

"I didn't have nearly as interesting a family," I told her. "Dad's a mechanic, can fix anything. He got our appliances working with almost no trouble. Mom was mostly stay-at-home, but got into retail after we left. Had to do something when Dad was at the garage."

Julie turned out to be quite charming. Our hostess wasn't going to mess with success, but she broke up a few of the most inappropriate pairings. I noticed Sarah managed to get a soft spoken but good-looking guy. It occurred to me as I escorted Julie about the room that our hostess was really quite clever. Out of ten potential pairings, seven, maybe eight, were working quite well. Everyone seemed to be having a good time.

About eleven the party started to break up. For people who essentially didn't know one another in any social sense, though the people who worked for Barbara's company all had at least a passing acquaintance with each other, our hostess had done very well. She seemed to want to allow some time for further feelings to develop later that night, if they were going to, and gently pushed us out the doors. Julie and I were among the first to leave.

"I walked over," she told me. "My apartment's not that far, just a few blocks."

"Let me escort you home."

Julie had told me that she'd been married for a couple of years, but was now divorced, no children. Her ex had been a bit of a stalker, so she was a little afraid of the night. It had still been light when she'd walked over. I wasn't about to let any woman walk home alone in the dark, afraid or not. It was just far enough to justify taking the car. Barbara had told me that taking the truck to the kind of party I'd been invited to was not the done thing. Maybe later I'd be prepared to flout the customs, but not at the start. I kind of thought I was getting to be a truck kind of guy, and she had actually told me to just be myself. I caved in when she said there was no point in scaring off the woman I was with simply because of a vehicle.

Stacey just smiled at it all, a touch confused by everything that went into the dating game. She'd never had to play it, and I'm sure thought some of the rules were insane.

Julie was a sweet little handful, quite attractive in a slightly understated way. I stopped by her apartment and got out to open her door, a little courtesy my dad had hammered into me when I was young. I bowed her to the walk.

"That's sweet, Rob," she murmured, and caught my hand as I closed the car door.

"Come in for a moment?"

"Sure." It wasn't like I had a curfew.

We went hand in hand up to the security door. Julie pulled out a ring of keys and opened the outer door. There was an inner door, as well, that opened with a different key. We walked up to her apartment on the second floor. Julie said there was no point waiting for the elevator when it was such a short climb.

We opened the door from the stairwell into a well-lit hall. Julie's apartment was about three doors away. I stayed close by her shoulder when she unlocked the door, simply because one night her ex-husband had actually found a way into her apartment and had been waiting for her. He scared her badly, but didn't do anything to her. It was after that that she arranged for the peace bond. That was the most that could be done if you didn't have mob contacts.

There wasn't anyone in the apartment, though I noticed Julie had a quick look in all the rooms. It was a standard one-bedroom: sitting room, dining nook, kitchen, bedroom and bath. There must have been a thousand like it. There was a small dining table. Half the table was loaded with books and papers; an eating area was clear on the other side. Obviously there weren't many shared meals. The sitting room had an armchair and a three-place couch, matching but not expensive. There was a coffee table and a set of end tables for the couch. I hated coffee tables, though Stacey had insisted on one.

"Robert, were you raised by wolves that you refuse to have a coffee table?"

"No, I break my shins on them, every time."

"Well, learn to look where you're going."

So I learned to get along with coffee tables. It was sort of an armed truce. Every now and again one would get me.

Julie came up to me, quite close, and offered coffee.

"I haven't anything alcoholic, I'm sorry."

"Don't worry about that. I'm driving and I don't think the police need my help making quota."

I sat on one end of the couch while Julie went into the kitchen. After a couple of minutes she came back and I could hear the coffee machine starting its burbling. She sat down in the middle of the couch, next to me. She leaned a little my way. I leaned over towards the arm of the couch to give her room.

Julie started to talk.

"So, Robert, what don't you find attractive about me?"

"Excuse me? You are very attractive, Julie."

"I've invited you into my home. I gave you an opportunity to kiss me. I tried to get close to you and you scurried away. What don't you like about me?"

"There's nothing to dislike. You're quite an attractive woman and we seem to get along. If you think I'm cold to you, maybe it's because I'm not up on the signals. I'm sorry."

"What do you mean you're not up on the signals? You're an attractive man. You're warm and breathing, which makes you attractive to most women our age. You must have been hit on dozens of times. So what makes you afraid of me?"

"Actually, I don't think I've ever been hit on. Look, let me lay it out for you. I've just been ditched by my wife of five years for a woman. A sweet, loving woman, which makes life really hard. I can't get mad at my wife or the other woman. Hard to work off your resentment without a little hate. Tonight is the first time I've ever been out in a mixed social scene without my wife. I've never tried to hook up with a woman since high school. It was always just us. If a woman is telling me she's interested without coming right out and saying so, well, I probably won't catch on."

"Really? Seems the sort of thing guys know by instinct."

"Not me, sorry. Though I'm interested if you are. You look good. You smell good, though maybe I shouldn't say so, and so far you've been very comfortable to be around."

"Comfortable doesn't sound very exciting, Rob."

"I don't know. Comfortable is good for long term. A mad passion is just that, runs as long as the hormones hold up, dies pretty fast, I think. You're comfortable to be with. I can't see anyone ever getting tired of you. I think that's something to be proud of, Julie. Not many women can be as attractive as you are and still be comfortable to be with. There don't seem to be too many sharp edges."

"Would have been an uncomfortable birth for my mother if there were, I suppose."

"No, lots of women pick them up, the sharp edges, I mean. Men are likely even worse. There's too much ego tied up in how you look and who you go home with, or even if you go home with anyone at all."

"Let me give you a little roadmap, Rob, a hint or two. I'm very definitely interested."

"Funny, so am I."

To be continued.