West (Bank) Side Story

Almost 14 years ago, a musician friend of mine called to ask if he could crash at my Brooklyn apartment that coming Sunday night. It seems he had an afternoon date with a girl in Manhattan, but he needed to pop into his grandmother’s Brooklyn apartment first thing Monday morning to help her with some things.

Of course I said yes.

Sunday evening found the two of us sitting in my place, with him going on and on about what a great girl he had gone out with… and what a great time he had had… and how pretty she was… and how nice… and how I needed to go out with her.

Um…excuse me?

I’m no idiot, I asked the obvious question: “If she’s so great… pretty… nice… whatever...why the hell aren’t you going out with her again?”

He went on to give me some song and dance about how all he could think about during the whole date was how perfect she’d be for me.

Yeah, right.

Guys think about a lot of stuff on dates. But I can honestly say that I never - not even once - thought about one of my friends while on a date. I wouldn’t even let him finish with his story after that one. I mean, c’mon… guys lie to each all the time (especially about dates), but this had clearly crossed a red line. And if he was telling the truth, it meant he had spent his entire Sunday afternoon in Central Park thinking about nothing else except which one of his friends he could inflict this girl on.

Either way, I couldn’t think of one compelling reason to say yes.

After about an hour of watching TV and eating ‘guy food’, curiosity got the better of me and I asked him what the girl’s name was.

I’d never heard of her, so that was that. I told him that after 14 blind dates, I was retiring. End of story.

A week went by, and I’d completely put the whole thing out of my mind when the phone rang. It was an old girlfriend (most of my old girlfriends had a habit of morphing into friends after we stopped dating) who I hadn’t seen in several months.

The conversation went something like this:

Old Girlfriend: Hi David, are you busy?

Me: Not really, what’s up?

OGF: Can you come over to my apartment?

M: Sure, what’s up… you need help moving something (not an unreasonable assumption)?

OGF: No, I want you to meet my roommate.

M: [suddenly on guard] Uh…No thanks, I appreciate the gesture, but I’m not doing blind dates anymore. Thanks anyway…. It was really sweet of you to…

OGF: Will you stop talking for a second… I never said anything about dating her…you’re going to marry this girl. So come over and meet her!

M: [silence}

OGF: David?

M: Yeah, I’m here. You know that’s not funny. [long pause] What’s her name?

OGF: [says same name that I’d heard the previous week]

M: I’ll be over in an hour (I lived in Brooklyn and they lived on the Upper West Side of Manhattan).

When I got to the apartment, my old girlfriend met me at the door and invited me in.

There were actually 4 women living in the apartment at the time, but to clear up any confusion, she gestured with her eyes towards ‘the roommate’ and made the introduction.

I may not be the sharpest tool in the shed, but one thing was immediately clear to me. This roommate was an unwilling participant in this little game. I mean, when you’re expecting to be introduced to a guy and you have an entire hour (maybe more, since the call had originated in this apartment) to prepare, you probably clean yourself up a little bit, right?

Nope.

This young lady was dressed in a ratty denim skirt… an old faded work shirt… her uncombed blond hair was tied up in a bandana… she didn’t have on a lick of make-up… and on top of all that, she was studiously ignoring me while she busily went about doing just about everything except talking to me.

I was intrigued.

After an excruciatingly uncomfortable half hour of chitchat I started hinting that I had to get back to Brooklyn, and my old girlfriend nearly hip-checked this poor girl into walking me to the door.

I must have mumbled something about ‘nice meeting you’… and ‘maybe you’d like to get together some time’, because by the time I was out the door, we had made a date to go out.

Our first date was brunch on the beach in Connecticut (it was January!!!) On the way home in my car... with the heater blowing full blast... she put her feet up on my dahsboard.

I was smitten.

Three months after we first met we were lounging on the balcony of my suite at the Fontainebleau Hotel in Miami Beach (I was the bandleader at the hotel for Passover) watching the stars rise over the ocean when I heard someone who sounded just like me, popping the question!

Although there was initially some doubt as to whether she had heard me correctly… and had in fact understood the question… she ultimately said yes.

A little over six months later we were married… and exactly thirteen years after that, I feel like I’ve won lotto as we've finally made it to Israel with our three wonderful kids.

Happy anniversary Zahava. I can’t wait to see how the rest of the story turns out!

Postscript: That old girlfriend and her husband live within walking distance of our home here in Efrat… and their oldest daughter and Ariella are inseparable friends.