Absolute Beginners(49)

Probably not.

She turned and smiled. “I can’t believe you have actual vinyl records! Most people I know don’t even have CDs anymore. All my music is on this,” she said, pulling the tiny music player from her skirt pocket.

“Oh.” Once again, I felt hopelessly outdated.

“But it’s cool,” she reassured me. “Vintage, right?”

“I guess.” I shrugged. “Did you find anything you’d like to listen to?”

“I don’t really know a lot of these,” she admitted, turning her attention to the albums again. “There’s a lot of classical and opera. Not what I’m used to.”

“Oh, sorry,” I said lamely, although I had no idea why I was apologizing about my taste in music.

“Ah, here we are,” she said happily, pulling one out. “I know this guy.”

I put on the Leonard Cohen album that she chose, smiling at her fascination with my turntable. The first track, “Suzanne,” started, and the music made Julia’s face light up.

She’s so beautiful.

I really wanted to kiss her again. Tentatively, I palmed her right cheek before leaning down to brush my lips against hers. The music flowed around us as she kissed me back, slowly and gently, and I felt the unfamiliar fluttering in my stomach again. I didn’t have time to dwell on it because Julia ended the kiss abruptly, taking a small step back.

“Wow…intense,” she said quietly. “His voice is hypnotic.”

“Yeah,” I agreed, wishing that she hadn’t pulled away. “Um, are you hungry?”

She shook her head, as if to clear it, and took a deep breath. “Starving.”

We walked over to the table, where I started to pull out her chair as she sat down.

“Oh, sorry,” she said. “Is this your usual seat?”

“Um, no,” I said. “Um” had apparently become a common word in my vocabulary since I started seeing Julia privately.

“Then why are you stealing my chair?” she asked, looking amused.

“I, uh, I was pulling it out for you?” I said, although it sounded more like a question.

“O…kay? Why?”

“It’s polite,” I said, scratching my neck.

“Really? Hmm, I never knew that,” she said, sitting down.

“You’ve never been on a date before?”

Shit! Why did I say “date”? This isn’t a date.

“Uh, not that this is a date or anything,” I added, taking a seat across from her.

She gave me a dubious look. “Look, Stephen. I appreciate you cooking, but you really don’t have to do this whole ‘wine and dine’ routine with me. You’re still going to get laid, OK?”

Does she think I have an ulterior motive?

“That’s not why I…” I motioned to the food. “I didn’t do it for…that.”

“Then why did you?” she asked, seeming genuinely curious.

“I just…I like, um, ‘hanging out’ with you,” I said, making air quotes. “Or whatever you kids are calling it these days.”

She laughed a little and the tension evaporated. “I like hanging out with you too,” she said. “And this looks delicious.”

I reached for her plate, but pulled my hand back again. I was about to ask her if I could serve her, but changed my mind because that would probably fall in the “things I would do on a date” category. I sighed. This was difficult.

“What is it?”

“I’m, um, I’m not used to spending time with a woman like this. I mean, without it being a date. I’m used to doing certain things and it’s hard to break the pattern.”

“What sort of things?” she asked.

“Pulling out your chair, serving you dinner, and pouring the wine for you. Those sorts of things,” I said, motioning for her to take some food.

“Oh, all that gentleman stuff you see on TV,” she said, helping herself to a generous serving.

I wanted to tell her that gentlemen weren’t just mythical creatures reserved for fairytales and TV shows and that, if she wanted me to, I could do a pretty good job of being one. It had always been important to me to respect women and treat them like ladies. I knew some saw that as an old-fashioned notion, but to me it felt natural. After my father died, I was the man of the house and I took pride in caring for my mom. It had just been the two of us for a while before Richard and Matt had entered our lives, and that period of time had influenced me a lot. I’d kept my mother company as she watched old Hollywood movies and told me the story of how she and my father met in college, and how he was different from the other guys she had known—a perfect gentleman and a genuinely good and caring person who always treated her right. I wanted to be just like him. But Julia wasn’t interested in those qualities, so I didn’t say anything.