I'm Just a Girl Who Cain't Say No

My social week continues. To recap: On Sunday I had brunch with Lee and dinner with David and LaVerne; Monday was breakfast with Maggie, a working Pi Phi dinner with Klaire, Maureen and Judith, and a late drink with Eric, during which he sorted through and relieved me of old choral scores. Yea, less to pack and move. Tuesday was lunch with fiber cyberfriend Ginny and a working Pi Phi database dinner with Judith. Yesterday I had breakfast with my beloved Jill, lunch with best guy Frank, fifteen minutes of sitting quietly, chatting with Donna, and dinner with Todd. Today is lunch with Taralu and dinner with Gail. And then the party's over.

I was working around the house around 12:30 yesterday afternoon when the doorbell rang. I thought it would be Donna, come to pick up a couple of pieces of furniture she was buying. When I opened the door, there stood Frank with his characteristic smile on his face. Tears came to my eyes immediately. I will miss him horribly.

He helped me move some things around and took two lamps off my hands. Then he let me take him to Rio Café for lunch. I was delighted to be able to spend a couple of hours with this man who has been such an important part of my life for the past eighteen months. Frank is one of the easiest guys to get along with I've ever known. Both conversation and quietude flow easily with him. He and I were together when we discovered Rio Café and have spent many pleasureable hours there together, so it was quite fitting that our Last Lunch be celebrated there, sitting at the bar, chatting with Eduardo whenever he could take a break from his kitchen duties.

Todd, the real estate investor/retired attorney whom I dated for four months in 2004/05, had e-mailed me several weeks ago saying he'd like to take me to dinner before I left town. He was traveling to the Bay Area to pick up a car from his 18yo son, but would be back before I left and suggested we go to dinner at Fiorito's, the site of our first date. I didn't really want to, but am horrible at saying "no." So I pixeled it into my calendar.

When I was lunching with Frank yesterday, I told him I hoped Todd had been drinking when he asked me to dinner and would have forgotten it. Alas, that's the problem with dates made via e-mail rather than by phone: the conversation trail is right there in your inbox. One quick search will bring up all the details, including time and place. Yesterday I had an exchange of one-line e-mails with Todd that went like this:

He: You still here?
Me: I'm here.
He: Call me.

I picked up the phone and called him, asking if he had lost my number. Of course he hadn't, although he said he had. He was just too damned lazy to pick up the phone and scroll down to my number. Maybe he forgot my name. Oh, I can hope, can't I? He said he was just back from California and had spent so much money taking care of things for his kids that he couldn't afford to take me out to dinner. Thinking the subject would be dropped right there, I silently breathed a sigh of relief. But no. He followed that statement by saying he could bring a box of wine over and we could share a couple of glasses. Um, do I look like the kind of girl who drinks wine from boxes? I don't care what the Wall Street Journal wine critic says about wine in boxes, I ain't goin' there.

So, knowing this man wasn't going to be deterred in his desire to see me once more before I left town, I suggested that I take him out to dinner at Rio Café. Amazingly, he agreed. (That was sarcasm, okay. Read back about how I had to drive everywhere when we were dating.) We agreed that he'd come to my house at 6:30. At 6:30, rather than hearing my doorbell ring, I heard my phone ring. I answered and he said, "I'm here." WHAT?! You come to pick me up for dinner, you pull into my driveway, and you CALL me on the phone for me to come out. That's only one step better than honking the horn for me to come out. WTF is wrong with these men??!!!

I grabbed my keys and walked out to meet him. He got out of his car and hugged me hello, reeking of liquor. I asked whether he wanted to drive or if he wanted me to drive. He said something about he always wanted me to drive. Of course. There's the classic story, which I thought I had chronicled in this blog but cannot now find, about my suggesting to Todd once that he could drive to my house instead of my picking him up and dropping him off every time we spent time together. His response? "I don't want to put the miles on my car." Za-zing! It was on my retelling of that statement that my darling Jaci said, "Jan, he's just not that into you."

Anyway, I took him to dinner with the sole purpose of my having a salad and his seeing Rio and meeting the owners and, just maybe, throwing some business their way in the future. If he can find other people to take him to dinner.

The food was, as always, wonderful. I was able to keep the conversation going. Anytime it lapsed, we could just look at the television. He kept looking at me and saying, "You're so cute. You're so beautiful. I'm going to miss you." Trust me, I may be pretty, but that, my friends, was the alcohol talking.

After dinner I promised Richard and Eduardo that I'd come see them again before I drove off into the eastern sky. I drove back to my house and poured Todd back into his messy car, breathing a sigh of relief.

Note to self: Learn to say "no." Quit worrying about hurting people's feelings. Just Say No!