Two women bowed before us, tending to our feet. All I could see were the tops of their heads, and I was too ashamed to carry on a relaxed conversation in their abject, silent presence. Harris, however, seemed perfectly comfortable, asking away about my job, telling me all about his. Then he produced a cocktail shaker and two glasses, poured me a drink, and raised his glass. Christ, a toast! “To the Mets winning,” I said quickly.
“To toe sucking,” he said.
Oh no. Oh, dear me, no.
So he had a foot thing. Which was fine. Fine. Not for me to judge. Just don’t include me in it.
Not that he planned to. As soon as we’d finished and paid, he said to me, quite nicely, “We didn’t click. Have a good life.” Then briskly he strode away on his freshly buffed feet.
Bloodied but unbowed, I prepared for my date the following evening with Greg, the baker from Queens. Although it was October and far from warm, he’d suggested a picnic in the park. I had to hand it to them, these New York guys had really raised their dating game.
We were meeting straight after work because Greg went to bed very early on account of having to get up in the middle of the night to make bread. Also, after seven-thirty, it would be too dark to actually see each other and what we were eating. As I marched along to the park, I insisted that I felt hopeful. So this was a little unusual, but so what? Where was my sense of adventure?
At the park, I saw Greg waiting with a rug over one arm, a wicker picnic basket on the other, and—with a thrill of horror—some sort of fool panama hat on his head.
It’s a terrible thing to say but he was a lot fatter than I remembered from the speed dating. That night we’d been sitting down with a table between us and I only really saw his face and chest, which had been bulky but not noticeably tubby. But, seeing him at full height, he was…he was…diamond-shaped. His shoulders were normal size, but he really sort of exploded around the waist area. His stomach was massive—and although it kills me to say it because I hate when men say it about women—he had a ginormous arse. An arse you could play handball against. But curiously his legs weren’t too bad and sloped down to a pair of neat little ankles.
He spread out the rug on the grass, then tapped his basket and said, “Anna, I promise you a feast of the senses.”
Already I was afraid.
Reclining on the rug, Greg opened his basket, took out a loaf, then closed the basket quickly, but not before I’d seen that all that was in it was loads of bread.
“This is my sourdough,” he said. “Made to my own recipe.”
He tore a bit off, in a real bon vivant’s way, and approached. I could see the way this was going: he was planning a seduction via bread—once I’d tried his creations, I’d go all swoony and fall in love with him. I was dealing with a man who’d seen Chocolat once too often.
“Close your eyes and open your mouth.” Oh, cripes, he was going to feed me! God, how excruciating, how 9 1/2 Weeks.
But he didn’t even let me eat the damn thing. He rubbed it around inside my mouth and said, “Feel the roughness of the crust on your tongue.” He moved it back and forth and I nodded yes, I was feeling the roughness.
“Take your time,” he urged. “Savor it.”
Oh God, this was a public place, I hoped no one was looking at us. I opened my eyes and shut them again quickly: a woman walking her dog was in fits. Her hands were on her knees, she was laughing so much.
When Greg felt my tongue had been sufficiently cut to ribbons by the rough crust, he exclaimed, “Now taste! Taste the salt of the dough, the sourness of the yeast. You getting it?” I nodded yes, yes, saltiness, sourness. Anything to speed this up.
“Taste anything else?” Greg asked.
I couldn’t say I did.
“A sweetness?” he prompted. I nodded obediently. Yes, a sweetness. Make this be over.
“A citrus sweetness?” he said.
“Yes,” I mumbled. “Lemon?”
“Lime.” He sounded disappointed. “But close enough.”
Next up was an aged-cheddar-and-red-onion focaccia, which I had to smell for about half an hour before I was permitted to eat any. Followed by a French yoke—perhaps a brioche—where I had to admire its many airholes, which apparently gave it its delicious lightness.
The pièce de résistance was a chocolate bread, which he made me crumble, so that little nuggets of chocolate went all over my skirt and, despite the cold evening, managed to melt.
Over the course of ninety long, chilly minutes, Greg made me lick bread, smell bread, watch bread, and caress bread. The only thing he didn’t make me do was listen to it.
And there was nothing else to eat: no coleslaw, no chicken legs, no turkey slices.
“We live in carb-phobic times,” Jacqui later remarked. “Does he know anything?”
Bloodied but, at this stage, quite bowed, I was in no mood when, the following day, the cute bartender rang me at work and said, “Got a great idea for our date.”
I listened in silence.
“I’m part of a project where we build houses for some poor folks in Pennsylvania—they provide the materials, we provide the labor.”
A pause for me to praise him. I didn’t. So, sounding a little confused, he continued: “Going down this weekend. Be great if you’d come along. We could really get to know each other and…you know…do some good for our fellowman.”
Altruism: the latest fashion. I knew all about these projects. Basically a group of young New York pissheads descend on a poor rural community in Pennsylvania and insist on building some misfortunate bastards a house. The city folk have the time of their lives, running around, playing with power tools, and staying up all night, drinking beer round a campfire, then effing back to New York and their lovely level-floored apartments, leaving the poor rural community with a leaky, lopsided house, in which all furniture sits on a slope, and if something has wheels, it rolls across the floor until it bangs into the wall.
“You gotta give something back” is the mantra of these guys. But what they really mean is “Ladies, see what a wonderful human being I am.” And sadly, many women fall for the ruse and sleep with them at the drop of a nail gun.
Weariness washed over me.
“Thank you for asking,” I said. “But I don’t think so. Nice to meet you, Nash—”
“Nush.”