As they sipped their drinks and studied the menu and ordered, he was more relaxed than Laura had yet seen him, and he actually proved to be a coherent, pleasant, even amusing conversationalist. But when the appetizers were served—salmon in dill sauce for her, scallops in pastry for him—it swiftly became clear that the food was terrible, even though the prices were twice those at the Italian place that they had left, and course by course, as his embarrassment grew, his ability to sustain his end of the conversation declined drastically. Laura proclaimed everything delicious and choked down every bite, but it was no use; he was not fooled.
The kitchen staff and the waiter were also slow. By the time Daniel had paid the check and escorted her back to the car—lifting her across the puddle again as if she were a little girl—they were half an hour late for the movie they had intended to see.
“That’s all right,” she said, “we can go in late and stay to see the first half hour of the next showing.”
“No, no,” he said. “That’s a terrible way to see a movie. It’ll ruin it for you. I wanted this night to be perfect.”
“Relax,” she said. “I’m having fun.”
He looked at her with disbelief, and she smiled, and he smiled, too, but his smile was sick.
“If you don’t want to go to the movie now,” she said, “that’s all right, too. Wherever you want to go, I’m game.”
He nodded, started the car, and drove out to the street. They had gone a few miles before she realized that he was taking her home.
All the way from his car to her door, he apologized for what a lousy evening it had been, and she repeatedly assured him that she was not in the least disappointed with a moment of it. At her apartment, the instant she inserted her key in the door, he turned and fled down the stairs from the second-floor veranda, neither asking for a goodnight kiss nor giving her a chance to invite him in.
She stepped to the head of the stairs and watched him descend and he was half way down when a gust of wind turned his umbrella inside out. He fought with it the rest of the way, twice almost losing his balance. When he reached the walk below, he finally got the umbrella corrected—and the wind immediately turned it inside out again. In frustration he threw it into some nearby shrubbery, then looked up at Laura. He was soaked from head to toe by then, and in the pale light from a lamppost she could see that his suit hung on him shapelessly. He was a huge man, strong as two bulls, but he had been done in by little things—puddles, a gust of wind—and there was something quite funny about that. She knew she should not laugh, dared not laugh, but a laugh burst from her anyway.
“You’re too damned beautiful, Laura Shane!” he shouted from the walk below. “God help me, you’re just too beautiful.” Then he hurried away through the night.
Feeling bad about laughing but unable to stop, she went into the apartment and changed into pajamas. It was only twenty till nine.
He was either a hopeless basket case or the sweetest man she had known since her father died.
At nine-thirty the phone rang. He said, “Will you ever go out with me again?”
“I thought you’d never call.”
“You will?”
“Sure.”
“Dinner and a movie?” he asked.
“Sounds good.”
“We won’t go back to that horrible French place. I’m sorry about that, I really am.”
“I don’t care where we go,” she said, “but once we sit down in the restaurant, promise me we’ll stay there.”
“I’m a bonehead about some things. And like I said … I never have been able to cope around beautiful women.”
“Your mother.”
“That’s right. Rejected me. Rejected my father. Never felt any warmth from that woman. Walked out on us when I was eleven.”
“Must’ve hurt.”
“You’re more beautiful than she was, and you scare me to death.”
“How flattering.”
“Well, sorry, but I meant it to be. The thing is, beautiful as you are, you’re not half as beautiful as your writing, and that scares me even more. Because what could a genius like you ever see in a guy like me—except maybe comic relief?”