I have a date with Parenthetical Man [PM]

(Parenthetical Man (PM--Jack Manning))
[incognito]

Going back to Manhattan for Presidents' Weekend to meet up with Helen, my producer. I'm working hard on drafting  two alternate endings to the script. I wasn't serious about the Thelma-and-Louise-suicide-by-sheep finale [http://tinyurl.com/4vbtdox]. Will have the revisions to her by Valentine's day. I'm not indulging myself in any high-principled academic self-recriminations about modernizing Hardy's novel in this fashion. If I could make enough money to compensate for the financial package I was supposed to get from Jamie's biological father [http://tinyurl.com/6596vjk], I'd end the script with Bathsheba modelling Stella McCartney in 5 inch heels on a runway in Paris. 


Last night made dinner for Miriam, whose offering was a  really fine bottle of cab [ok, she brought a fine cab and a decent tempranillo but two full bottles were not were not entirely consumed]. The great red loosened my tongue, apparently, and I told her the story about meeting Jack Manning--the man with the parentheses smile-- at L'Express after my working dinner with Helen. [http://tinyurl.com/4kprd34]. How we flirted but then how he made a fast exit to call London shortly after a very attractive woman sat across from us at the bar. How I just found his card in my makeup bag, though gosh, I thought I'd tossed that thing out with the Xmas tree. 


"Email him," she said. "You'll be in the city. Ask him out."


I demurred; we went back and forth. I said there seemed to be some "thing" between him and this woman at the bar, and Miriam said, "like what, they're CIA operatives? or she's his wife?" Miriam's strong willed. Her persistence called for strong measures: the truth.


"Confession: I told him my name was Mary Gordon."


"No offense but Mary Gordon's kind of a dull choice. You should have said 'Isabelle Huppert.' Anyway, what's the big deal? Tell him you were being cautious, you enjoyed your conversation, you'll be in the city, and suggest a reprise at L'Express."


"Can't do L'Express. Had a scene with the bartender the next day."


"Whatever. Wait: a scene? Forget it. I don't even want to fucking know. Email Jack Manning, tell him your real, beautiful name, and ask him to suggest a place for drinks."


I promised I would. And  I did email him after she left, and this afternoon I told Miriam I'd done as she suggested and that I  had a date lined up, and this satisfied her greatly. "I told you it would work out. Oh, so excellent!"


I did not tell Miriam that I did not tell Jack Manning my actual name. That kind of admission seemed tonally wrong for a "hi, remember me" email, which, as I experienced it, was hard enough to write at 11:46 PM. So I created a new gmail account, "marygordon" followed by a string of numbers. I think it'll just be easier in person to cop to the initial--albeit now slightly perpetuated--lie. I mean, if this date thing even happens and if it even happens, if we are mutually inclined toward a second date, and so on and so forth with the "if" clause qualifiers. It could end up just as well that he thinks my name's Mary Gordon and we let it go at that, you know?


Oh, and for the record, "Manning" is not Jack's actual last name. "Manning" is a nom de blog to protect his privacy. I chose "Manning" as this man's fictional last name. Not wildly inventive on my part, but it has a kind of a Dickensian flair to it, nonetheless.


I was going to reprint some of the  email exchange between Mary Gordon and Mr. Manning--he emailed me back at 12:07 AM--but it doesn't show me in my best writerly light. It reveals too much of the me that bumbles and fumbles with men [if perchance you haven't figured that out yet]. I'll merely say that we agreed to meet the Friday night of Presidents' Weekend, and he suggested  the oyster bar at Penn Station. I told him I'll be wearing a large, flaming red, raw silk scarf.


He told me he'll be wearing a pale blue sweater. Lambswool.