That afternoon it was my turn to pick a place for lunch, but because Al was so down I let him pick. We went to the deli for his Reuben. I had my egg salad, and this time I broke out the ketchup. I brought up the idea of a date with Adele again.
“How about I drive you on your date?” No. Too much like a prom.
“A taxi?” No, same thing and Al thought they were unreliable.
“What about a bus?” We decided that was a possibility. Château Lorraine was right on a bus line that ran regularly till 11 pm.
“What if she won’t go out with me?”
“She’ll go out with you, I know she will. And she’ll have a great time.”
“I guess you’re right about that.” He smiled. “I had quite a few lady friends in NYC when I was selling paper cups.”
Then he told me a few stories to prove it. They didn’t leave me speechless, but if the phrase “too much information” had been in popular at the time it might have come in handy.
“Where will you take her?”
“You going early bird?”
“No way. I got too much class for that.”
After lunch, Al asked if we could stop at Sears on the way home so he could get brown pants to go with his tan blazer. Sears always had his size, 40” x 30” in stock. He got a nice pair on sale and we ended the trip on a high note.
At the pool the next day Al told me he and Adele had a date to go to the Steak and Ale that Saturday night. I couldn’t wait to get the feedback on it. The whole next week I looked for him at his regular spot, in a chair near the deep end of the pool, but he wasn’t around. And since it was August most of his doctors, even his chiropractor, was on vacation so we didn’t have an appointment lined up till September, almost three weeks away.
So I went back to looking for a job full time. I saw an ad for a salesperson for Marquee Lovely Automatic Beds; the kind of bed that goes up and down, like Al was going to buy. I gave them a call and asked if I needed to speak Spanish to get a job with them. They said I could speak Spanish or English, it didn’t matter, as long as I spoke something, and to come in and talk to them. It struck me their hiring criterion was a little lax.
I’d never sold to people before, only to businesses, so I really wanted to run the whole idea past Al before I met with them. I kept my eyes open, but it was another week before I spotted him wheeling his garbage can out to the curb.
“Hey, Al! How’d it go?” I shouted across the parking lot. “How was the date? Tell me about it!”
He acted like he didn’t hear me. I never liked that old guy trick. “Al!! Come on! How did it go?”
Finally, he acknowledged me. “Oh yeah, the date.”
“Oh yeah, the date!”
Al poured me a wine cooler, and bit by bit I pieced together what kind of evening it had been. First off, the bus driver thought they were cute. He’d picked up on the fact they were on a date, and made a big deal out of it, telling them to be good, and not to do anything he wouldn’t do.
Apparently, this statement embarrassed Adele, and for the rest of the evening, Al was scrambling to get things back on an even keel.
He said the waitress was just as bad.
“What do you mean?” I asked. “What did she say?”
“She was insulting. She even said I’ll leave you two love birds alone. It was humiliating.” Al had downed two coolers by now and was doing a decent imitation of the waitress’s high pitched voice. “Then she asked me if I needed her to go over the check with me.”
“How’d that go over with Adele?”
“Not good. She got all quiet and suddenly had to get right home to her cat.”
We finished our wine coolers and Al turned on the TV to catch the second half of Matlock. By the time it was over he’d fallen asleep in his chair, so I let myself out.
Continued in Chapter III- Revolting Developments
