2006, Mexico City, Mexico By Susan Randolph

I’m 30 minutes late for our lunch date. There’s relief on his face as I reach his table. He stands, and we embrace each other for as long as is polite in public.

“I had a problem getting here,” I tell him. “I was afraid you’d give up and leave.” Not true. I knew he’d have waited.

“I wasn’t concerned.” His words belie his expression. “I imagined you committing hara kiri because you couldn’t get here on time.”

It’s been three years since we saw each other. His face, which in my mind always wears a beard, though he shaved it off years ago, has mellowed, his gimlet eyes have softened, and only his hawkish nose has kept its shape.

In the early days, I called him my “buccaneer,” but there are no traces of that left in this roly-poly little man. I’ve probably changed as much. I used to be his “golden girl,” and now I’m aging gracefully with the help of L’Oreal. He’s 71, and I’m - well, in my 60s.

Ours is an old love, one that hasn’t died, but it was never the right time for us. We were both married when we met. I divorced, but he stayed with his wife. I had two long relationships with other men, but I always came back to him.

By the time we were both single at the same time, we were middle-aged. Then he did what so many rich older men do: He married a much younger woman. They have three small kids.

I’ve met his wife. She doesn’t like me any more than I like her. Maybe she suspects something, knowing what a ladies’ man he used to be. She shouldn’t worry. I respect their marriage, and anyway, I’m past that. So we just have a meal when I come into town, which isn’t often.

Over lunch, we talk about his new radio program. He, a latter-life research guru, sits on a panel with a philosopher, a psychologist, a priest, an academic, and a journalist or writer.

He likes to set the panel on fire by taking a controversial view. They discuss subjects such as sex after 70 (after the show, he received 43 propositions from eager ladies), and religion and belief in God that had the priest shouting at him and the philosopher applauding. More recently, the subject was the importance of lies - and whether the truth, as most people interpret it, exists.

“Lies, even among the most honest of people, are an unconscious part of communication,” he tells me. “Research shows that 70 percent of every conversation routinely consists of some form of lies, such as exaggerations, omissions, excuses, even forgetfulness.”

“What percent would you say of our conversations is lies?” I venture. “Forty percent?”

“Less. I always try to be truthful with you.”

“Same here,” I say, thinking that I told him a whopper straight off the bat about how my as-yet unaccepted novel was on the verge of being published. I’d thought about it before coming and decided, why not? I don’t see him that often.

“I’m so happy you called me,” he says. “It’s been a while since you came to town.”

“I was here last year,” I say, not lying but omitting that it was for several weeks, and I had ample opportunity to get in touch with him.

“You didn’t call me?” He’s hurt. I can see from his expression.

“No. I decided not to.”

“Why?” He must think there was someone else.

“To clear my mind of you, get away from the idea that I have to see you every time I’m in town.” The truth is, I wanted to get away from my need to see him. To free myself of him. Not be caught in his web again.

“Why’s it different now?”

“I’m in a good place in life,” I say. “Secure, in my work and how I feel about myself.” Not some miserable woman waiting for a scrap from him.

“Hearing you say that,” he says, looking into my eyes, “makes me want to make love to you right now, here, under the table.”

“Why don’t we?” My words come out without thinking. I know I have that old devilish gleam in my eye, the one that got me into trouble so many times when I was younger. And the thought darts through my mind that it’s been a long time since we made love, and one last time with him would be worth it - even if it was under the table. This high-priced, elegant restaurant is half empty, and the long white tablecloths reach the floor.

His expression is bemused, puzzled, verging on shock that I’d agree to his flirtatious sally.

“Here?” he asks, and I know his mind is ticking as fast as mine. It’s something he’d have gone for without a second thought 30 years ago. But now, the one thing he didn’t expect was that I’d take him up on his suggestion to screw under the table.

“Yes, here,” I say lightly, the person I once was coming to the fore, egging him on, teasing him. An old demon in me that won’t let the old devil in him alone. “Why not do it here? The table is wide enough. It’s private enough. And I’ll try not to be too noisy.” What am I getting myself into? And spontaneous or not, I’ll have to go to the restroom and take off the corset that I wear for back support.

He hesitates. For a full moment. God Almighty, he’s going to say yes. Then he reaches out his hand and puts it on mine. “I would love to do it as well. But, if we’re going to make love, it should be someplace where we can take our time and enjoy it. Sadly, I have a meeting later this afternoon.”

Always before, he’d chuck whatever he had scheduled, and we’d go off on a whim. “Someday, I’ll call you and ask you to meet me somewhere, but now is not the right time. And these days, I’m faithful to my wife.”

“It was a crazy idea,” I say. For years, I haven’t wanted sex, not with him or anyone else. What made me shed my barrier robes to the extent that I was prepared to do it under the table in a restaurant, as if I were 30 years younger, and after swearing to respect his marriage?

We’d be caught and thrown out for lewd behavior. I doubt that they’d have prosecuted us. Not two elderly people misbehaving. And I’d have had my one last fling with the only man I’d want to have it with.

“It wasn’t possible,” he says, “but this was almost as good. Like having a mental orgasm.”

Oh sure. He fell into a trap of his own making. He’s lying to himself. He may be faithful physically, but not in his head. He also lied to me when he said he wanted to make love to me right here and now, when he’d already covered his escape routes. Come on, was there ever any truth in anything he said to me?

“The day I can, I’ll call you, and we’ll go somewhere,” he says. Two big lies.

I laugh all the way home. I called his bluff. I can’t believe how young that makes me feel.

Susan Randolph lives in San Diego, where she works as a freelance writer. A former columnist for Baja News, she has written two fiction novels set in Mexico and a memoir about making a new start in midlife. She is using a pseudonym.

Posted by Common Ties on Monday, December 3rd, 2007 | Email This Post

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