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She looked at
him as if she found the line peculiar or she didn’t quite know what
it meant or something else but she didn’t smile or laugh, and he
said “Just trying to be funny. I don’t know why I feel I always
have to crack you up.” She said why would he want to? and reached
past him and pressed the button for the ground floor and the
elevator started moving—and he said something like “Before you think
I’m entirely ridiculous or nuts—I’m not, the second one, anyway—let
me in as adroit a manner as I can manage under the circumstances,
tell you why.” He said that what he was about to say must have been
obvious to her at the party. He’d wanted to introduce himself to
her since she got there but, and these were his exact words, “I
didn’t have the guts.” Also, “and believe me, none of this is a
line,” she was always talking to someone or several people and
looking as if she was having a good time and he didn’t want to butt
in. He must have made her uncomfortable, though, staring at her so
much, and he apologizes for that. They had to have been out of the
elevator by now and might have been walking to the outside door.
She said his staring, as he called it, wasn’t obvious to her because
she doesn’t remember seeing him at the party, and he said “Oh, you
had to have, at least my shirt,” and opened his coat. “You see, I
didn’t know it was going to be so formal an event.” His shirt was a
long-sleeved rugby type, blue and yellow stripes with a white
opened-neck collar. “I thought it was going to be a small informal
get-together of friends Pati made at Yaddo this summer. I thought
that because the day we left there, that’s what she said she was
going to do this fall. I didn’t see anybody from Yaddo there. But
I didn’t know she knew so many well-known painters and writers and
high-powered critics and book editors and the like. I didn’t get to
meet any of them but overheard people saying they were there and a
couple of them I recognized. In fact, I was talking briefly with
some writer a few years younger than I, who cut me off and said
‘Excuse me, so-and-so publishing big-shot just came in and I was
told I should meet him.’ What a schmuck.” “He was just trying to
push himself a little; that’s not so bad. But what I find curious
is that I still have no recollection of you at the party.” He
remembers she took a while buttoning her coat and wrapping her
muffler or scarf around her neck and putting on her gloves before
they went outside. “Oh, I was there, all right,” he said. “I know,
but what I’m saying,” she said, or at least something like this, “is
that I think I would have remembered you, as you said, from your
shirt. I don’t mean to make you feel uncomfortable, either—I
certainly hope I’m not; your shirt is just fine, and that it has
long sleeves, even better for a late-fall party—but it does stand
out in its own way and would have contrasted with all the jackets
and ties and dress shirts. Were we ever in the same room
together?” and he said “Oh, yeah. And by the way, you were very
diplomatic just now and I don’t at all feel uncomfortable in what
you said. At first I felt a bit odd at the party in this shirt, but
I quickly got over it. But I even got so close to you in a couple
of rooms—I’m afraid to even admit this bit of snooping, but here
goes; I’ve just about told you everything else except, maybe, how
surprised and disappointed I was when I saw you were suddenly gone
from the party—that I…where was I? That I was able to see—that’s
it—that you only half-finished your glass of red wine and left it on
a coaster on a credenza and that you seemed to favor the smoked
salmon and carrot sticks, but with no dip on them, of all the
hors d’oeuvres and crudités on the food table. I also
like carrot sticks, but with the dip. Anyway--“ They had to be
outside by now because he said something like “So, here we are.
Which way you going? I live on the Upper West Side and was going to
take the Broadway train.” “So do I,” she said, “ — Upper Upper.
But I’m taking the Lexington Avenue line to meet someone on the
Upper East Side.” “Someone important?” and she said “If you mean in
my life, a good friend.” “Which subway station, the one on Astor
Place?” “There’s a closer one near Prince. I know how to find it
from here.” “Would you mind if I walked you to the subway?” and she
said “It isn’t necessary and would take you too far out of your
way. And the streets down here on weekends are always crowded at
this time, so I feel perfectly safe going alone.” “No, I’m sure you
do. It’s just I only suggested it because I’ve enjoyed talking to
you and I’d like to—you must’ve known that was eventually coming—for
us to meet again. And not meet accidentally, at a future Pati
party, let’s say, but intentionally. Willingly. Something.
Prearranged. For coffee. Would that be okay with you? You can
check with Pati first to see what she thinks of me. But she
wouldn’t have invited me to her party—the only acquaintance from
Yaddo there, as far as I saw, though maybe the others couldn’t make
it—if she thought poorly of me. Oh, I don’t know what I’m saying.
I’ve killed it, haven’t I?” “Why do you say that?” and he said
“Because I’m just bumbling, bumbling.” “Really, you’re too tough on
yourself. Sure, we can always meet for coffee one afternoon when
I’m not teaching or busy with something else and you’re also free.”
“Afternoons are good. Mornings, too. I’m pretty much unemployed
now except for my writing and what I make off of it, so I can meet
anytime. It’s easy, and I don’t mind, breaking up my workday,
because I can easily get back to it and usually with fresh ideas and
better ways of saying what I was working on that I wouldn’t’ve had
if I just continued writing without that break. I don’t know if
that was clear, what I said, but I call them, these breaks,
constructive interruptions. Anyway, I’m holding you up. So, great,
we’ll meet. How should we arrange it?” and she said “Call, since I
won’t know till I get home what my schedule’s like the next few
weeks other than for my classes and office hours.” She gave her
last name and the spelling of it and said he doesn’t need her
address to find her in the Manhattan phone book since she’s the only
Gwendolyn Liederman in it. “Nice to meet you, Martin. You go by
Martin and not Marty, am I right?” “Always Martin. Kids called me
Marty when I was young and I never liked it. I always pictured this
tubby shlub, which I never was. Otherwise, I’m not so
formal. Then I’ll call you, Gwendolyn. ‘Gwendolyn’ and not
‘Gwen’? They’re both nice.” “’Gwen’s’ fine,” she said, “although I
like Gwendolyn better. But either. Goodnight.” She put her hand
out, he shook it and she started for the Prince Street station.
How They Met by Stephen Dixon
