Philadelphia Freedom

One night about a month ago I was talking on the phone to Jack and he said, apropos of nothing, "I haven't been on a date in years."

"Thanks a lot," I replied.

That anecdote says just about all there is to say about our relationship. Or, at least, all there is that I'm going to say to you, Gentle Reader.

He'd been mentioning bagels a lot lately, too, and I don't mean the kind that come with cream cheese and lox. I mean the kind that come with toenail polish and greed, and that have names like Lauren.

I know Jack well enough to know why he does this. It happens periodically, and always when things seem to be going well between us. He does it when he feels we're getting too close, and it's his way of slapping me down, metaphorically. Of putting me in my place, you might say. and it works, because it makes me want to tear his head off and shove it down the hole in his neck which I don't do, because I remember we're not in highschool any longer, and besides, I don't want to be that girl. You know the one. The clingy, jealous, crazy bitch.

So I say nothing. Pretend I didn't hear. Wait for him to mention something that allows for a smooth segue into a more agreeable topic, like what's happening on 24.

This approach works every time, except that last time. We talked for over an hour, during which time I counted three bagel references. He was on a roll.

So I let him talk, and he told me a story about... I don't remember, anymore, and it wasn't important, really; it was just a tale of something that had happened at work, or at Big Ass American Software Company's annual sales kickoff that he'd attended the week before; nothing unusual, nothing out of the ordinary, until he uttered the following sentence mid-story: "You know what I mean, don't you, Catherine?" and then it was as though time had stopped, and his words hung above both our heads, a hundred miles apart, like a lead zeppelin that had run out of hydrogen.

Oh yes, he apologized. He's made a point of apologizing every time we've talked since then. Profusely. Until I told him to please stop apologizing, because I really didn't need to be reminded again and again of the unfortunate slip of the tongue, and to wonder continually what prompted it, and no, he has never slipped like that before, not in the sixteen years I've known Jack, and yes, I do know who Catherine is and no, it's not this one and no, I'm not going to tell you about her, not now, not ever.

He stopped apologizing, then, and instead offered an olive branch. Last week he called and told me about the car show that would be happening in the City that weekend, and asked if I wanted to come up on Saturday, and I said oh, sorry, I'd like to, but actually, well, I'm already planning to come up there for something else, and even though it is unlike me to be deliberately vague, and even less like him to pry, he asked, for what? So I told him.

"I have a date."

Yes, I'll get around to it, Gentle Reader, but first I have to tell you what happened on Mardi Gras.