Date with Amos Loewenstein -- Part Two

I promised to tell you about the second part of my date with Loewenstein sooner, but I was busy recovering from the trauma of getting my taxes done. I could not erase from my mind -- try though I did -- the agonizing memory of my little tax lady with her bindi, staring at my receipts from the Daily Scum and saying, as she shook her head, "Great God Ganesh!"
But I am determined to forge onward with my tale.
Remember, it is June 2nd, 2005 -- and part one, if you have not read it, is here.
It didn’t seem to be much of a date yet, as for the first part of the evening we had to listen to a maniacal French-Canadian libertarian trash George Bush and declare privatized sidewalks to be the manna from heaven all of us were waiting for, and for the second part, it seemed we would be joined by Charles Taylor, Canada’s pundit extraordinaire. And all of a sudden, things got even worse. Amos announced that three other people would be joining us. Three young males, of course, because we were in a Conservative Party venue, so there were 56,000 males per female present (another reason it was very easy for me to be the hottest tamale in the room). I only knew one of them, and even then only by reputation...such as his reputation was. His reputation was that of a high-achieving, politically ambitious (and therefore law school-attending), humourless nerd. None of their names much matter, and anyway, to me they will always be fondly recollected as "ToryToadyOne," "ToryToadyTwo" and "ToryToadyThree."
Off we marched, Amos, me, Charles Taylor and the ToryToadies three. Everyone was clamouring for Charles’ attention, as we trundled along, and trying to keep up with his gait, one worthy of the Preakness. I couldn’t figure out why. I just found him dull, and, as I have stated before, reminiscent of a horse or a fly. And not even in a good way. Yet others did not see him this way. He was like the captain of the football team and Amos and the ToryToadies were the Jewish nerd and the Debate Club, respectively, desperately trying to get the Big Man on Campus to like them. For the ToryToadies I didn’t care. But for Amos, I cared. Amos was so head and shoulders above Charles, I could already tell, that it was tragic to see him fawning all over the likes of Charles Taylor. The opposite should have been happening. The great irony was, that you could tell that Charles had probably been a Debate Club geek in high school. He was probably head of the Debate Club and never had a date, and got called "faggot." He had "recovered geek" written all over him, and now he was overcompensating by being the ultimate cool kid.
Oh well, all of us have our insecurities, yes? Yes.
The evening continued as Charles Taylor unilaterally decided we would go for our drink (would it be a collective one, I wondered?) at a place called the Irish Embassy. In we went to the dark, loud place and shoved ourselves, chasing after Charles, into a booth where we did not fit. Amos and Charles sat across from each other on the booth’s inside, two ToryToadies sat in the middle and I sat at the end across from another ToryToady. Or rather, I clung desperately to the table trying to not get shoved out of the booth by the heavy young gentleman to my left...and by cute, though plump, little Amos.
We ordered our -- thankfully not collective -- drinks, and looking over at the ToryToadies, I realized they all looked about 12-years-old. So I made a joke, suggesting to the waitress that she ask them for their ID. She laughed, Charles and Amos laughed, and the ToryToadies looked indignant, to a ma...boy. To a boy. Defiantly, they all ordered brandy, as though to say to me, "See? We’re sophisticated!" When the drinks arrived, ToryToady sitting diagonal from me swished his around in his glass, sniffing it, as though he were at a whisky nosing or something. "See? See, lady?" He seemed to be saying, "I am worldly! I am not twelve!"
Whatever. The next hour was spent desperately trying to make chitchat with ToryToady across from me. It was agony. All he wanted to talk about was Canadian politics. All I could think, as the names of various Tory MPs came out of his mouth, was, "Who on earth is he talking about?"
Mercifully, there was movement in the booth, and all talk stopped. Amos Loewenstein had decided to go back to his hotel. He shook hands, finally getting to mine. "Well, we’ll be in touch, okay?"
"Um..." I was panicking at the thought of being left alone with a bunch of people I had no interest in and didn’t know anyways, while the one person present I was actually interested in left the pub. As I grabbed Amos’ hand, I pulled him towards me, whispering in his ear, "You’re not going to leave me alone with a bunch of people I don’t know, are you? Especially when you’re the one who invited me!"
He looked surprised. "Oh," he chuckled, gesturing in their general direction, "they don’t bite!"
"Well, I..." I stammered... "Well I guess I’ll just leave, too," I finally said.
"Oh sure," said Amos. "Hey, let me give you a lift home."
"Great!" (Ka-ching! Perhaps I would get some smooching with Amos after all!)
We said our goodbyes, and all three ToryToadies sipped their brandies proudly, thrilled to see me leave. "Goodbye, old hag, goodbye," they seemed to be saying. "We are not twelve! We are drinking brandy!"
Amos and I walked to his car, and along the way I noticed how nicely he was dressed. Pin stripe suit, pink tie, and what I call "gangster shoes," i.e., dark, pointy, lace-up, leather with an Oxford cut out pattern. Very smart, very stylish.
All of a sudden he said, "Would you like to go get another drink?"
"Sure!" (Double ka-ching!)
The next few minutes were a near-death experience, as Amos, driving like a madman, managed to nearly hit three other vehicles, take several wrong turns and talk non-stop all the while, barely noticing he had brought both of us so close to the Grim Reaper in the primes of our lives. "Is there somewhere you’d like to go in particular?" he asked, foot on the gas, swerving to avoid something or other, I couldn’t see what because he was driving so fast.
"Well, I kind of enjoy..."
"What about Sassafraz?" he asked, turning onto Bay Street and heading directly for Sassafraz.
"Sure!" I hate Sassafraz. It was crass, pretentious, over-priced, glassed-in and lit up like an ant farm. The only reason to go was to spot whatever celebrities might be stuck in Toronto making a movie. But I was so happy to be with Amos. In we went. I excused myself to the ladies’ room (really just to check myself out and reapply lip gloss), and came back to find Amos, nose to his Crackberry, barely looking up as I sat down.
"Oh, sorry," he said, sheepishly. "I’d better put this away!"
"Well, yeah," I laughed. "You kinda better!"
We ordered drinks -- the waiters all seemed to know Amos and his preferences, offering him his "usual," like we were in a 1950s movie or 1970s sitcom, and one of them asking me if I would like a caviar martini. (I said "no.")
The conversation began. And it was amazing. Somehow we got onto the topic of the Seven Deadly Sins. Amos asked me which I was most prone to. Oh easy, I said. "Pride and anger." He told me his, "Gluttony, lust, anger, pride..." he kept listing them till we both started laughing.
"I have no impulse control," he said.
"Happens to the best of us."
I told him about my experiences at Canada’s Most Boring Magazine. In particular, I mentioned how much I disliked working with the fundamentalist Christians there, because they were constantly trying to "save" me.
"That’s a compliment," he said. "It means they think you have a worthwhile soul." He was a glass-half-full guy, I remember thinking. But I wasn’t sure I agreed with his interpretation.
"I don’t think they thought I had a worthwhile soul," I said. "Christians have at least one thing in common with Muslims -- they’ll take any wretched soul they can get their hands on! No standards, no standards whatsoever. That’s why I like Jews. You guys have standards. You force people to make some effort to convert -- that’s very important. I mean, what’s that Groucho Marx line? I would never want to belong to a club that would have me for a member."Amos really laughed.
And then somehow, we got onto the topic of dating and he mentioned...or rather, he said the magic words. The magic words were: "I’m divorced." It seems Rahel with her snood and her elegant hats was gone. And Amos was available. Or rather, he was out and about in the dating world. But he mentioned no one serious, no one special, no committed situation. Yay! I was thrilled.
We talked for another hour at least, until he looked at his watch and said he really had to call it a night. It was already nearly 2 a.m.
We left the restaurant and got into his car, which he had parked about three feet from the curb, on an angle. I was surprised it hadn't been towed. He drove me home and along the way I wondered if he would invite me to fool around with him at his hotel, or at least give me a goodnight kiss (on the lips, of course). When we got to my building, he got out of the car and opened my side -- sweet!
Outside the car, he abruptly said, "Ooh, I forgot." He opened the trunk and pulled out a box of Red Deer Reports. "Here, Jane. Would you be interested in reading these?"
"Oh, sure," I said. And I actually meant it. I liked Amos. I wanted to read his magazine. I wanted to know him.
I stood there with the box he had given me, and he began to back away, saying goodbye and mentioning what fun he had and that he would email when he was back in Toronto.
"Sure," I said. And then I did it. I leaned forward, box between us, and did the kiss on the cheeks thing. Only twice. Not four. Didn’t want to overdo it.
He blushed. Those little, fat, rosy cheeks got rosier, as did the rest of his face and his neck. It was visible even at 2 in the morning.
"Goodnight, Jane," he said. I thought he said it nervously, but maybe I was projecting. "And," he added, "thanks for making my visit so fun."
"Oh, same here," I said.
"Oh, and I hope you find the magazines fun."
"Sure."
"Fun" was one of Amos’ favourite words, I would learn in the following months. "Fun."