Dinner with Edward by Isabel Vincent

Author:Isabel Vincent
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Algonquin Books
Published: 2016-05-16T04:00:00+00:00

10

Pan-­Fried Cod on Steamed Spinach

Fresh Tomatoes with Homemade Pesto

Fleur de Sel Caramels

Turkish Coffee

Pinot Grigio

Edward served up the imported fleur de sel caramels with a flourish.

“They were sent from Megan,” he said, fixing me with a momentous expression to make sure I had understood.

We had just finished a simple meal, by Edward’s standards: Fresh cod, lightly sautéed in olive oil, a splash of white wine, on a bed of steamed spinach, sliced tomatoes with Edward’s nutty homemade pesto.

Ella Fitzgerald sang in the background: “Oh, the shark has pretty teeth, dear; And he shows them pearly white . . .”

There was still a half bottle of pinot grigio on the table, and now he pressed Megan’s caramels on me. They were “artisanal,” each elegantly wrapped in silver cellophane. He had just received them in the mail.

OK, and just who is Megan?

Edward gave me a mischievous look. “You know you’re not the only woman I write to,” he said, with a wink.

I was taken aback. Could he be a little bit jealous? Was he feeling neglected that I had not been able to come over as often lately? I had been consumed with work, with finding a new place to live. The lease had finally expired on Roosevelt Island and I was thrilled to be moving back across the river to Manhattan. Of course it also meant that I probably wouldn’t be seeing Edward as often.

So maybe I was the one who was jealous. I knew that Edward had other women friends, but I thought all of them were part of a couple—neighbors, mostly, whom he had known for years.

Megan was a foreign interest. Yet he must have told me where he had met her, why they were corresponding. Maybe I had been so wrapped up in my move, sorting through the detritus of my marriage, packing boxes every day before and after work, that I hadn’t paid that much attention. Suddenly I remembered that Megan was a graphic artist, that she was in her thirties. No doubt she found Edward charming.

Everyone did. Edward had no shortage of fans. There was Tad, the architect, who lived on Roosevelt Island. They had become so close that Edward once described him as the son he never had. Edward called him “darling,” which is what he called all his good friends, male or female. He taught Tad to shuck oysters. Whenever he saw Tad, a stylishly bald middle-­aged man with a cheerful disposition and a permanent five o’clock shadow, he kissed him on both cheeks.

“Remind me to teach you to shave, Tad!” he said, when he saw him at the small, community gallery that Tad ran on Roosevelt Island. Edward had taken me to the gallery to show off his own sculpture—a whimsical elaboration of human DNA that he had fashioned out of egg cartons and wire coat hangers.

“It’s just something fun, to make you laugh,” he said.

It was at the gallery, during another opening, that I was introduced to a couple, two men whom I had never met.

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