“We met cute” sounds pretty corny, but that’s really how it was, for Jennie and me. Exiting a lecture hall on the campus of our West Coast college, she managed to drop her handbag, and in trying to retrieve it also spilled the clutch of books she was hefting. I stopped and stooped to help her. She thanked me sheepishly and suggested we might take time out for coffee. It was late morning, and neither of us had another class till early afternoon.
Right off, it was clear that we enjoyed each other’s company. We talked at length about our families and our upbringing—mine in Southern California, hers in central Colorado. She had recently moved west and was already seeing someone, so we didn’t actually date but saw each other in the one class we shared and continued to enjoy occasional coffee breaks that semester, particularly after one or more of our professor’s more challenging lectures.
We were both theater majors who, together, managed to sustain an agreeable measure of enthusiasm for our History of Theatre course, which had lapsed into tedium. If we happened to sit together, in that vast lecture hall, we would shamelessly nudge each other to keep from dozing. Our class met twice a week, right after lunch—our bodies each considered that nap time, I guess.
Time passed, and suddenly Jennie was dating one or another of our classmates, and, as I remember, we double-dated at various times over the next couple years, with neither of us developing strong or lasting relationships. If we happened to spend an evening together, according to the language of that era, we were “just going out”—and hoping to have a good time. I guess you could say that Jennie and I were pals.
I lost track of her after graduation because, at the time, I was facing service in the U.S. Army. When it finally ended, and I was home again—and at sixes and sevens regarding my future—Jennie invited me to dinner. It was the first time I ever came to her apartment, which was actually the first of several residences—in California and beyond—that I remember visiting, over the next several years.
As I recall, Jennie had achieved only modest success acting in plays on campus and, to my knowledge, never entertained any desire to become a professional actress. Mainly, she was focused on backstage aspects of the entertainment world and, in her first years out of college, worked in little theater and eventually connected with a producer of syndicated TV features. Her hope, which ultimately became clear, was to become a production assistant, which was about the only plausible goal for a woman bent on launching an entertainment-industry career other than the classic secretarial slot, in those disheartening years before *MeToo.
Eventually, I wearied of the jobs I’d been landing at local p.r. firms, each with fragile links to Hollywood enterprises. So after a seemingly endless amount of head-scratching, I decided to aim for a career in magazine publishing and knew that—back then, at least—New York was where most of that action was. So when it was suggested that I apply to the Columbia Journalism School, I jumped at the chance—not so much because I was aware of the school’s august reputation but because of its Manhattan location.
To my surprise, my application was accepted and I was admitted to the school, ultimately facing a tough year of high pressure and modest expectation. I’d come from literally nowhere in terms of journalistic lore and experience, and I clearly lacked the passion imbued in most of my classmates, each lusting to become an accomplished and much-lauded reporter. Magazines were my target, and I ultimately did make that connection and built a respectable career.
From my earliest days as a young working man in Manhattan, I was visited often by old school chums passing through New York on trips to Europe or on the cusp of travel to other East Coast locales. Jennie herself visited the city now and then, finally confessing that though there was “a ton” of TV work in L.A., she longed to land a gig in New York. We talked a lot about what one would have to earn to survive in this city, but it ultimately became clear that money was a lesser concern—or need—for her than having the opportunity to work in some aspect of East Coast TV production.
Finally, she did land a secretarial job with a West Coast TV producer and packager, toiling long hours and professing extreme dedication, until eventually becoming a production assistant, which she considered a landmark career achievement. Thus when her company decided to pack up its gear and transfer operations to Manhattan, Jennie was understandably delighted, when invited to make the move east with them.
At first, she had roommates but eventually could afford to live on her own. I remember her place, a tiny apartment high over an access route to one of those East River autos-only tunnels to Queens, Long Island and the airports. It was a cozy place, just right for someone eager to settle in and be a homebody. I remember the place as having one narrow bedroom into which she’d managed to squeeze an oversize bed, but the living room was big enough to accommodate a sofa bed that could be accessed and opened when friends or relatives happened to be visiting or just passing through. Although the place itself seemed small and compressed, the kitchen was surprisingly spacious, and Jennie really flourished there, expanding the culinary skills I’d never known she possessed.
We continued to see each other now and then, though I can’t say we actually dated. Our get-togethers didn’t feel like dates, more like reunions, especially when one or another former classmate came to town. One of them was Dylan, who had been a terrific comic actor during our student years. I hadn’t known him well but recalled that, soon after graduation, he’d married a non-actress and moved to a Chicago suburb. Eventually, he took a sales job with a big company that sent him out on the road—to nearby cities and towns and, occasionally, also to New York.
I remember Jennie’s sharing snapshots of Dylan and the family—his wife, Sally, and two strapping sons —after she’d paid them a visit and, I think, once spent vacation time at their lakeside summer rental. Thus I was not surprised that whenever Dylan happened to hit New York, on one or more of his sales rounds, Jennie would plan a special dinner, and because Dylan and I had been classmates, too, though not quite friends, I was always invited to join them.
In truth, Dylan and I had little in common, other than our longtime regard for Jennie. But being a fairly successful sales rep—and also, yes, a former actor—he could effectively hold the floor and regale us joyously with tales of his “adventures” with nuisance clients and recalcitrant prospects. At some point, during each of our Manhattan dinners together, he would phone his wife, back home in Illinois, tell her that he was having a fabulous dinner at Jennie’s place and that one of their college classmates was also visiting.
On one or more of these special occasions, Dylan would insist that I take the phone and say hello to Sally. I never knew her, of course, so there was little for me to say beyond “Hi there, how are you?” and “Your husband and I are about to enjoy a terrific meal.” But, like her spouse, Sally possessed a great gift for gab. It seemed there was always something for the two of us to talk about, if only briefly.
“Our mutual friend will be in town next week,” I’d hear occasionally on my answering machine. “He’s coming to dinner next Wednesday. I hope you can join us. Dylan is looking forward to seeing you.” Really? I guess I felt flattered—we had so little in common. But, of course, I would always assure Jennie that I’d enjoy seeing Dylan again and looked forward to another evening built around her own cooking flair. And the event always proceeded along the same pattern: drinks, dinner, table talk, and a phone call to the Midwest. Late in the evening, when I felt the need to get myself home to Brooklyn and my modest fifth-floor walkup, Dylan himself would always suggest that he, too, should get to wherever he was staying that night but first felt a desire to help Jennie—ever the career-minded working woman—get the dishes done and the kitchen back in order, so that Jenny’s irascible cleaning person wouldn’t fume or fuss when visiting the apartment the next day.
As I recall, Dylan was using the bathroom when, on one occasion, I informed Jennie that I had an early appointment the next day, thus had to leave her place sooner than usual. I heard Dylan shout, while noisily brushing his teeth, “Good to see you, pal!” as I was giving Jennie a good-night hug. I thought nothing of this. We were loose, the three of us, good companions by then. I’d come to know them both pretty well and had evolved at least a long-distance link to Dylan’s wife, Sally.
It wasn’t too many years later, after I myself was married and had become a parent, that I learned—through a rather tenuous post-collegiate grapevine—that Dylan and Sally had split. I heard this from more than one former school mate who, like me, had assumed that Dylan had evolved from scruffy-haired geek to solid Midwestern family man devoted to his wife of, by then, some twenty years.
The real shocker, for me, was when it was made clear that what had caused the split involved Jennie, whom Dylan had been seeing and, apparently, sleeping with, perhaps as far back as our own college days. I had obviously not known this; I think no other classmate had, either. And then it came clear to me what my particular role had been, at various times during the course of their relationship.
There’s no way of describing it other than that I’d been their “beard,” that essential third party whose seat at the dinner table and voice on the phone were contrived to ensure the seeming innocence of Jennie and Dylan’s get-togethers. It all seemed rather tawdry, when I examined the pieces and recognized my own key part in the charade. Since then, I’ve never managed to learn any details of the split—I knew that Jennie remained in New York, but did Dylan consider moving east or continue to stay put? None of my classmates had viable clues.
What I did know, of course, and what has stayed with me ever since, is the undeniable fact that I’d been used, often and over time. Frankly, I really did feel duped—repeatedly—and undeniably unclean. My long-term friendship with Jennie had become a convenience for her and, yes, also for Dylan, who had used his actor’s skills and salesman’s gifts to play along convincingly. What if all the cards had been laid on the table—that is, if Jennie had said, “Look, Dylan and I want to spend time together here, not at some hotel.” Would I have said, “Fine. Great. You can count on me.” Well, possibly—and maybe once, for old times’ sake, but I certainly wouldn’t have wanted to make long-distance chit-chat with a cheated-on wife.
In retrospect, though, I hope that, even at the risk of upending a decades-long friendship, I would’ve had the spine to shun the experience and declare outright, “Uh-uh, not me.” But, of course, I was never given that chance. Frankly, I think the only positive factor I gleaned from this experience was the knowledge, which I would share with anyone who’d listen, that one should avoid, at any cost, ever being a second man—that third person at the dinner table— no matter how good I knew the meal would probably be.
Note that all names have been changed.
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