How They Met. David FriedmanЧитать онлайн книгу.
of money per plate. So she called Pat and asked if she should bring a friend or relative as a date so the table arrangements wouldn’t get messed up, or if she should just come alone and save them the cost of the extra plate. Pat said, “Come alone. We’re going to have a single’s table, so you’ll be fine.”
At the same time, Tony was having a similar problem. Tony, born and raised in New Zealand, had come to Aspen to ski for a season and liked it so much that he stayed for five years, working as a ski instructor and housesitting for the rich and famous. Chas, also an avid skier, was working in Aspen as a sommelier. Tony and Chas hit it off and became fast friends.
Fast forward a number of years: Chas had moved to New York, and Tony was now living in northern New Jersey at Great Gorge, working at the former Playboy Club which had been converted to timeshares. Tony had been dating a girl and Chas invited him to come to the wedding with her, but two weeks before the wedding, Tony and his girlfriend broke up. Tony called Chas with the exact same concern that Victoria had had. “Should I bring someone else to hold the place, or come alone?” Chas told Tony not to worry. They had a singles table and it would be fine for him to come alone.
Although Victoria had been very friendly with Pat for years, and Tony had been very friendly with Chas for years, Victoria and Tony had never met.
Tony and Victoria were both seated at the singles table, though not next to each other. (They later found out that Chas and Pat had assumed that the two of them would never get along, so they seated them next to other, more “suitable” people.) Victoria was seated next to an Italian guy who she found to be snobby and off-putting, and they put Tony across the table next to a girl who he didn’t like either.
Everyone was dancing, and suddenly, in this very fancy Park Avenue club, the air conditioning broke down. It being a formal wedding, with all the men in tuxedos and all the women dressed to the nines, it got very hot in there very quickly. The club was on the first floor, so they opened all the windows to try to at least create a cross-breeze.
Tony took his jacket off and was sitting on the windowsill to get some air. (The club was on the first floor, so there wasn’t any danger of falling out the window.) While Victoria was dancing, and really beginning to feel uncomfortably hot, Tony caught her eye from the windowsill and beckoned her to come over. Victoria gave him a look as if to say, “Me? Who? What?” since she didn’t even know this guy, but he nodded as if to say, “Yes.” So she thought, “Well, I am really hot and he’s sitting next to an open window, so I might as well partake of the breeze.”
Victoria walked over and said, “Are you talking to me?” to which Tony said, “Yeah, you.” The moment she heard him speak, Victoria said, “Oh, where are you from, Australia or New Zealand?” Tony said, “New Zealand,” and Victoria said, “Oh, where men are men and sheep are nervous.” Tony got a good laugh out of that, and Victoria said, “I just got back from New Zealand.” Tony didn’t believe her, telling her, “No way! You’re a city girl.” (She was dressed in a very dressy sequined black dress and heels, and did, indeed, look like a city girl.) Victoria proceeded to inform him that she had spent her trip driving a camper van all around the country. Tony, a country guy who rarely even came into Manhattan, still didn’t believe her, so he began to grill her. “What was your favorite place in New Zealand?” “Oh, definitely Queenstown.” Victoria began describing specific things and places she had loved, and finally Tony said, “OK. I guess you really have been to New Zealand.”
They began chatting and laughing, and in the course of their conversation—since it was so hot—they convinced themselves that there must be a pool somewhere in this fancy club and set out to look for it. They didn’t find one, but they did find a room with a pool table, and as they were leaning against it talking, Tony kissed Victoria. Victoria, feeling the sparks start to fly, said, “We’d better get back to the party.”
As the wedding started to wind down, Tony said, “Why don’t we go back to your apartment.” To which Victoria said, “Oh no. We haven’t had a proper date yet. You have to at least take me for a drink.” Tony took her to a bar across the street from her apartment, and when they sat down and ordered, Victoria said, “I’ve got to ask you at least twenty questions.” She got through about ten questions and then said, “I just met you. I have to be able to trust you. Give me your wallet. Let me go through your wallet.” Tony handed her his wallet. There were no pictures of girlfriends, no drugs and no condoms. There was something about this guy that Victoria just instinctively trusted, so she took him home with her and he never left.
They were married soon after in a beautiful wedding in Grand Cayman Island, and it’s been twenty-seven years and they’re still happily together.
While Victoria and Tony had been out of the room at the wedding, the bride had thrown the bouquet. One of Victoria’s girlfriends later told her, “I caught the bouquet.” To which Victoria responded, “Yeah. But I caught the man.”
Anne, a successful Broadway actress/singer who starred in such shows as Cyrano, Les Misérables, Victor/Victoria, and The Phantom of the Opera, suddenly found herself widowed at a young age. For a while, she and her seven-year-old daughter stayed in New York, Anne starring in “Phantom” while her daughter performed in “Les Miz” right next door. But it soon became apparent that Anne and her daughter needed a break to gather themselves, heal, and grieve, so they left New York and moved to California to live with Anne’s mother, taking Anne completely out of the Broadway environment where she had lived and worked for so many years.
After a period of time, Anne’s therapist and others around her encouraged her to start dating. As Anne describes it, “When I started dating, I used a lot of online dating services. I was very open to meeting different kinds of people, and I sort of had the philosophy that I’d been in show business my whole life, had pretty much only dated people in show business, and it would be really interesting to meet people outside of that world. So I met people who did all kinds of different things, but nothing really clicked. I’d go out on one date, a couple of dates, even date someone for six weeks or a few months, but I didn’t find anyone who seemed like they were going to be worth any sort of compromise.”
So consciously trying to meet someone and using all the tools available didn’t seem to be working.
After a number of years, Anne decided it was time to move back to the New York area, so she and her daughter flew East and settled into a home in Westchester, a suburb just north of the City. Anne was not dating anyone at the time and was no longer using online dating services, but a few friends set her up with people, and after going out on a couple of dates, Anne had a revelation. She thought, “You know what? I’m done. I’m really done. I don’t want to date any more. I’ve met so many people, some really nice people, but nothing is clicking. I’m very self-sufficient, I’m very happy being single, being a single mom, I love my life with my daughter, I have a horse, I love my horse, I love where we live, I’m able to provide for us, I don’t need more. And maybe you only get a couple of really great loves in your life, and maybe I’ve had that and it’s just not in the cards for me. So I quit. With contentment. And I was really good with it. I loved my life, my life was really great, I didn’t feel lonely, I didn’t feel compromised, I didn’t feel like I was lacking anything. I had great friends, many from show business, where I had developed incredible friendships with so many people I’d met through the years and become very close to, as well as great girl-friends and man-friends. So my life was very, very full and that’s where I was at.”
So . . . Anne often made concert appearances with symphonies, and she was invited by Marvin Hamlisch to sing for him at the New Jersey State Theatre with several other Broadway stars. The concert was about two hours’ drive from her home, and part of the evening was a black-tie reception after the concert to honor the CEO of Johnson & Johnson. Anne told her agent that since it was a two-hour drive, a sitter was watching her daughter, and since Anne didn’t like driving late at night, she wouldn’t be staying