Rabih Alameddine - I, The Divine

Joe watched the exchange, a puzzled look on his face. I saw him shudder and put his right hand in his pocket. He looked skinnier.

The reception was at a downtown hotel. As usual, the first thing I noticed was how badly most women wore evening dresses. There are a few places on the East Coast, and maybe Los Angeles, where women understand evening gowns. The rest of the country still has far to go. That night most of the women wore expensive prom dresses in all kinds of pastels. The second thing I noticed was that, other than the help, there was not one nonwhite person in the room. These were the company executives and their clients. I began to see why Joe would want me there. I had always been his defense against American gentiles, the country club set.

David stood in the center of the room surrounded by four people, holding their attention. He was unlike any of the men who usually caught my eye. He was a little over six feet, dark blond hair graying at the temples, not in very good shape, big-boned, with a slight belly. He had high cheekbones, cherubic and baby-faced, and the light turned his cheeks a Bonnard pink. He listened intently to one of the men in the group, while the others looked at him, but his full attention was on the speaker. A man who listened was an anomaly in my life.

He glanced up at me and hesitated. At first, I did not make much of it. In that room, I looked different from all the other women. I was also standing next to Joe, the guest of honor. David kept looking back at me, though. At the first break in conversation, he excused himself and walked over to Joe and Charlene. They exchanged pleasantries, and he was introduced to me as David Troubridge, senior vice-president in charge of the Western region. He was formal until he found out I was Joe’s ex.

“It’s wonderful you two are still friends,” he said. “I wish I could say the same about my ex.” That should have been my first warning, but I never listen to warnings, mine or anybody else’s.

“Actually Sarah is close to both her exes,” Joe said. “She’s good that way. No acrimony.”

“You have an accent.” David had his full attention on me. “Are you Israeli?”

Joe chuckled.

“He wishes I were,” I laughed, pointing at Joe. “Nour el-Din is a Lebanese name. I am originally from Lebanon.”

Joe had to chime in. “Technically, the name is Druze, so it could be an Israeli one. ”

“An Arab woman marrying a Jewish man,” David interrupted, ignoring Joe. “What did your family think?”

“They didn’t approve.”

“I can imagine. Do you work for the company?”

“No,” Joe said, trying to include himself one more time, “but she could. She’s a good engineer.” He stepped closer to me.

“Was,” I said. “Was an engineer, but not a good one.” I took a sip from my drink, but kept my eyes locked on David’s.

“Why did you give it up?”

“I found out I hated it. I would call myself an academic engineer. I was good at solving problems on paper, but hadn’t a clue when it came to the real world. Anyway, I could not function at all in such a structured environment.”

“And what do you do now?”

“Professional divorcée,” I said, thinking it a clever reply. His face registered confusion, followed by disappointment, which he tried quickly to mask. I lost him. He looked at Joe, wished him well in his new job, said his very-nice-to-meet-yous to Charlene and me, and withdrew.

I was sitting in the airport lounge waiting to board when I felt someone behind me. David smiled as he came around and sat next to me.

“Fancy meeting you here,” he said. “Where are you going?”

Home, I told him, to San Francisco. That was where he lived as well. We were both surprised, each assuming the other was a Dallas resident. He suggested we sit together on the plane and said he would take care of it. He returned from the counter with a new boarding pass. It was next to him, in first class.

We talked the whole flight. I did more of the talking than he did, a pattern that would prove typical. I told him about my first marriage, my second, the relationships in my life. I brought up my brother, I told him about my son. In that confined space, with an avid listener, I poured out my feelings, my fears, my hopes. I felt heard. He asked all the right questions, wanting details of the story. He told me about his marriage, his life in New England before he moved west. He spoke about his divorce. He was caught cheating. No, it was not the first time. He had no children. How did I feel about abandoning my son?

I told him about Kamal, about the crushing choices I had to make, how much pain being without my son caused. I told him about my inadequacies as a mother, as a wife. He attempted to stem my tears with platitudes and admissions that he had not been the greatest husband either. By the time we left the plane we were holding hands. We kissed in the cab. We made love on the stairs in my flat, surrounded by luggage, with my cats watching.

In bed, where we were to spend the next three years, we talked and explored each other. His caresses were gentle, intimate. He asked me the most interesting questions. He was all ears and hands. We talked as he caressed my breasts. I found out more about him, about his work, how he became the youngest vice-president, his style of management. I was captured by everything about him.

He did not spend the night, saying he was unable to sleep well anywhere but in his own bed. He also left a little frustrated because he could not bring me to orgasm. He felt inadequate, even though I told him it was the best sex I had ever had.

David was more mature than any of the other men I had loved. Whereas Fadi, my first lover, Omar, ex number one, and Joe, ex number two, were emotional, David was reserved. Physically, they all had Semitic features, while David was as waspish as you could get. But more important, while all my previous lovers could make me laugh, David could make me cry as well.

For our second date, he showed up at my door carrying a smile and two bags of groceries. He was going to cook since I had told him I was not very good at it. His unkempt hair fell on his forehead. He wore khakis, a yellow merino sweater, his brown shirt had the top button undone, the left collar tucked beneath the sweater, light brown tufts of hair sprouting from the hollow beneath his Adam’s apple.

He placed the groceries on the kitchen counter, took me in his arms and kissed me. “Won’t it go bad?” I asked. He led me to bed.

He washed the vegetables in the kitchen, standing barefoot, in his khakis, shirtless, beltless, and underwearless. “You should stock your kitchen better,” he said. He went through my cabinets. “Oh, my God. You don’t even have a lettuce spinner.”

I gave him my best helpless smile, shrugged my shoulders.

“You don’t know what a spinner is, do you?” When he admonished, his voice rose a little higher. He shook his head in consternation. “It’s a good thing I came prepared.”

I studied an arabesque of sun-induced freckles on his back, walked up behind him, kissed them, tried to connect the dots. He reached behind and spanked my butt. “Not while I’m cooking.”

“What are you making?”

“Can’t you tell?” He handed me a computer printout with recipes for tabbouleh, fried potato and coriander salad, and fatteh, a dish of minced lamb, baked pita, garlicked yogurt, and sautéed pine nuts. “A full-fledged Lebanese dinner.”

“Have you done anything like this before?”

“Nope. I just checked the recipes on the computer.” He turned on a burner under the deep fryer. “I had trouble figuring out what to choose, what goes best with what. I wanted to ask you but I thought that would spoil the surprise. I ended up choosing this. I know it’s two salads, but I thought the fried potato salad sounded more like a vegetable dish.”