an Act of Mercy

BY ROBERT MARKOWITZ

Having fled my lawyer job several years back, I was not provider material. At 38, the only job I really wanted was playing music for children, and few gigs were coming my way. The last thing I bargained for was for a stunning woman to tell me on a first date that she was looking for a man to support her as a stay-at-home mom. But after a Sunday service at Unity Church on the West Side themed “What you want may not come the way you think,” a woman jostled past me, her satchel slamming against my knee.

“Ouch!” I cried, a potent pick-up line if there ever was one. She had blue eyes and long blonde curls, was clad in jeans, a lace top. Silver bracelets dangled on one wrist. I stood, looking down at her from 6 feet, 5 inches, wearing my rust-colored hair longer than in my lawyer days.

“Are you OK?” she asked, stopping.

“With a few weeks of physical therapy I’ll be fine.”

Smile lines surfaced on one side of her mouth, an engaging, crooked grin. We started talking, and I told her how I had left law for teaching kids but was no happier in that profession. She had a diagnosis ready.

“Law killed your creativity. This teaching job sounds worse. In your world, is it possible to make money and be creative at the same time?”

I made a show of bending my head forward, cradling my face in mock dejection. But her repartee made it clear that she was really listening, and I liked that.“I’m sorry,” she said, reaching out for my hand. Her fingers were warm and soft. “So you want to be a teacher but this job isn’t for you?”

“Yes,” I said, flustered. I was about to tell the truth but stopped myself. If I let on that I wanted to be a children’s musician, she would see the true extent of my confusion, and peg me as broke.

“It’s important to know what you want,” she said after a silence, echoing the theme of the sermon. But her thin tone gave away that she smelled a rat. It was crummy to lie to sympathetic eyes. But I didn’t want to disqualify myself by showing how strapped I was teaching at a second-rate private school.

“Hey,” I said, noticing that the crowd was thinning out, “why don’t we take a walk in Central Park?”

“Sure, I’d like that,” she said. I offered to carry her satchel and she let me.

We entered the park at Tavern On The Green and peeked in on couples dining al fresco. There was a celebration, balloon centerpieces, waiters in yellow shirts and black trousers serving patrons in the warm fall weather.

As we strolled on, her eye caught an artist sketching the portrait of a little girl. “If you had a child, wouldn’t you love to get her picture drawn in Central Park?” she asked.

From the passion in her voice, I took in that the portrait would be a symbol of how much she would love her future daughter. “That would be special,” I said.

After that we strolled in silence for a while, our paces matching nicely. When we got to Strawberry Fields there were some cut flowers scattered around the psychedelic tiled circle with the word “Imagine” in the center. Orange leaves littered the blacktop.

“Wanna get a bite to eat? I’m hungry,” I said.

“Sure,” she said, “I know a place.”

We exited the park and she pointed out a small bistro. Before we sat down, I asked for a menu, and looked at the prices. It was going to be an $80 lunch. Was this a test? If I flinched, would I fail? I really liked this woman. But I was no longer an attorney, and I suspected she sensed the truth about my state of affairs. What was the point of pretending otherwise?

“A little rich for my blood,” I confessed. “Can we go Dutch?”

She looked at her cell phone. “You know what? I’m late,” she said, taking back her satchel.

“Wait,” I said, “what’s going on?”

“Do you really want to know?” she asked, keeping up her forward pace.

“Yeah,” I said, following her out the door, “I can see that you’re leaving my life in about eight seconds. Tell me.”

“Well, you asked.” She stopped grudgingly.

“I’m 37. I’m looking for a guy who wants to settle down and support me while we have a family. You seem nice, but you’re not him. Remember the sermon at Unity? It’s fine to know what you want.” She smiled, spun the corner north, and was gone.

She had been easy to talk to, and beautiful. I kicked myself for balking at the price of the restaurant. Then, standing on the street corner, I hastened through a mini five stages of grief. Denial — No big deal let her go. Anger — What woman of this generation is looking for a cash cow? Bargaining — God, bring her back and I’ll spring for it. Depression — I’m a failure! Acceptance — I didn’t quite make it to acceptance.

As I walked home, I was still angry. When days went by, and the anger didn’t abate, I began to suspect the real reason for my lasting burn. She was acting on her clear goals and I had ceased taking steps towards being a children’s musician. How dare she go for what she wanted while I wallowed in defeatism? And frankly, she had scared me with that talk about a fantasy daughter posing for a street artist in Central Park. I balked more from the terror of fatherhood than the $80 lunch. She read me from across the table. Abandoning me on that street corner was an act of mercy. It pointed the way for me as clearly as a street sign. If she were prepared to find a man who would court her, marry her and support her, before her biological clock ticked down, and I was betting she could, then why shouldn’t I be able to launch my music career?

A musician who lived a couple of hours north of the city had offered to show me how to land gigs. It had seemed like a long drive up there to consult him, but that weekend, I got up early, loaded my guitar into my Impala wagon, and set off for the Catskills.