The Neallys Ch. 02: Eileen Meets Tom

This is the second part of a multi-part story. The first five parts are the initial book. I am adding parts as things develop with these characters. Note that although this story is in the Lesbian Sex category, it is a straight, mature romance, which is part of the larger arc of the story.

Simon Douglas

"Eileen? Eileen Neally." She was walking for lunch on Main Street in White Plains when she turned to see Simon Douglas rushing up to her. "Eileen? I thought that was you. How are you?"

Simon and Eileen had worked together in her small bank until he left for a job in New York City about five years earlier and since then, she'd heard, he'd done well for himself, ending up with a small hedge fund with its office along the water in Greenwich.

"Simon. My goodness. How long has it been? Four, five years?"

"From when I last saw you? Five years, three months, six days and"—a glance at his watch— "13 hours, eight minutes, and...32 seconds. Far too long." It was a completely arbitrary figure but he said it with such flair that she almost believed it, down to the second. He was a charmer this Simon. A solid five-ten with the build of a rugby player and thick, short hair, a bit weather-beaten; it was clear that whatever else might have happened in his life he had not given up on staying in shape.

"Such a tease. What are you doing here?"

"A meeting with our bankruptcy counsel. We're looking to get involved in the auction of assets of a firm in Chapter 11 that filed up here. I confess I hoped I'd see you. And I did."

It was mid-September 2017. Were it a year earlier, Eileen would have left it with a curt nice-to-see-you-again/keep-in-touch but she was different now. After her husband, Michael, died in 2010, she threw herself into her work and her daughter. She had neither the time nor the inclination to do anything for herself. Now her daughter Kerry was living at home while going to law school in the City and through Suzanne, Kerry's girlfriend, Eileen met other women her age and started enjoying being social again, emerging from her self-imposed shell.

So when Simon asked if they could go to lunch, she readily agreed and in ten minutes they were sitting in a small Italian place on quiet side street near the courthouses and she was sipping on her water and breaking off a piece of bread.

She had not been alone with a man like this since before her husband died. It was nice. They each ordered, she limiting herself to a Caesar salad, he to sole, and exchanged gossip about shared current and former workmates and she discovered that she was having a good time, a very good time. And now when she said how nice it was to have seen him and how they should keep in touch she said it with sincerity.

Kerry was at the house in a village just north of the City when Eileen came through the door and, as happened a couple of times a week, dinner was ready for her after she washed up and changed. The two fell into their typical relaxed conversation until Eileen dropped the bombshell that she'd "had a lunch with a former colleague." As soon as Kerry understood that the former colleague was a man, her interest in this lunch rose exponentially. Her Mom told of his calling to her on Main Street, of how attractive he "still is," and how nice it was to just sit down in a quiet restaurant with a man with no pretenses or expectations and how much she enjoyed it.

"Mom, was this a date?"

"Honey, it definitely was not. Just—"

Eileen was not so sure. How was it not a date? The only thing not-a-date about it was the happenstance of running into him on Main Street.

"He just happened to see you come out of the office where he once worked and happened to take you to lunch?" This was Kelly, interrupting Eileen's thoughts, which now veered to wondering whether he had been waiting for her. Things she hadn't noticed then she noticed now. Whether his meeting ended long before he let on and he loitered about until she showed up. Was there even a meeting? What if he was stalking her? Why had he emphasized his inability to find anyone after his divorce? That he was now in a position at the fund where he did not have to travel as much as he had, travel he had long since tired of?

Now Kerry interrupted this train of thought. "Are you going to see him again?"

"I doubt it. Although I wouldn't be unhappy if he asked." and Kerry simply said, "Well then, let's hope he does" before clearing away the plates. Kerry in fact was far from calm in all of this, her thoughts quickly ratcheting up for her Mom's future, but it was best to keep a low profile.

And he did ask. After a decent interval—two days—he called her while she sat in her office at mid-afternoon on Thursday.

"Eileen. It's Simon. Look, there's a thing here in Greenwich on Saturday night. I wondered if you'd like to accompany me."

"A 'thing.' Simon you are such a wordsmith."

"It's a gallery opening," he confessed, "I get these invitations all the time but almost never go. I don't want you to think I'm some kind of art connoisseur. It's really just a convenient excuse for me to ask you to go out with me."

"Always the charmer. Let me see how free my calendar is." And then after a decent interval—two seconds—she said, "I'd love to." and when he offered to come down to pick her up, she insisted that she could drive herself the half-hour up, and back, and so they met outside the gallery at 7:30 on Saturday. The exhibit was a bit too modern for the tastes of either of them, but it was fun to stop in front of each and ask each other, in turns, "what do you think it is?"

There was no question. This was a date, the gallery-visit followed by dinner, and Eileen enjoyed it and enjoyed each of the ones that followed. She felt comfortable enough that on the third or fourth date, while having dinner in Greenwich, the one that led to their first kiss, she told him of the unhappiness of her marriage, especially towards its end, of her becoming dependent on alcohol to try to bridge a gap to happiness, and of having stopped drinking after her husband died.

Simon had by then told Eileen many of his own stories, unknown to her when they worked together. He had married young and they both realized the mistake before kids came along. He'd been on a roller coaster with women forever, stretches of ups and stretches of downs, near-engagements and narrow-escapes. He was tired of it. The efforts he put into work had long since paid off for him and as one of the firm's old-guard—at the ripe old age of 46—he had easily slipped into the elder-statesman role at the fund and leaving it to younger people to do what he, when he was a younger person, did.

With the settling of his job-life, he wanted to settle his love-life. He stumbled across an old report from the bank and it reminded him of her and he admitted that, yes, he lingered around Eileen's building after he met with the lawyers on the chance that she'd be going out to lunch. He had nothing planned but just thought to say hello, how-are-you?, what-have-you-been-doing? And see what happened and now they were both in the seeing-what-is-happening phase. They had a nice, soft kiss after he walked her to her car.

Simon had by then met Kerry, stopping in when he picked her Mom up for dinner at a nice tavern in Tuckahoe. The two chatted briefly in the living room while Eileen was getting ready, an intentional delay meant to give her daughter the chance to meet him and then give Eileen her impressions. Kerry liked him immediately. Handsome, rich, and charming and clearly fond of, and probably a lot more, her Mom. When Simon dropped Eileen off after the date, Eileen nervously awaited her daughter's verdict, and Kerry was simple and direct: "What's not to like?"

Knowing Your Customer

In the waning stretch of the day's final panel on a sunny mid-October Tuesday when everyone wanted to be somewhere else, Tom Doyle found his gaze wandering to the neck and left ear of the woman in front of him. The speaker was droning on about know-your-customer regulations, and every now-and-then Tom glanced at whatever PowerPoint slide was being displayed as he stifled a yawn. His gaze kept doing its wandering.

She looked nothing like Wendy, his late wife. Wendy was blonde and short and this woman was brunette and medium height and well-curved with a perfect perfectly-round face and thick lips. While he thought Wendy was beautiful, this woman was gorgeous. He noticed that she had no ring on her left ring-finger.

When the final "thank-you"s were offered by the conference's host, Tom gathered his things and hurried to the woman. "Excuse me," he looked at her name tag, "may I call you Eileen?" He was stumped, not having formulated what he would next say. He'd never approached a stranger in this way and had no idea how it should be done.

"Of course," and she looked at his name tag, which showed him to be a senior vice president at the Manhattan-headquartered bank hosting the conference, "Tom. What can I do for you?"

"I, er, noticed how attentive you were during the final panel and I was wondering whether you could let me know about some things I think I missed." Lame, but the best he could come up.

She saw that he was wearing a wedding band and when he noticed that, he quickly added, "actually I wondered if you might like to get a drink or something. And," he turned his left hand towards her, "I am a widower and have never had the heart to take this off."

He did not look like a philanderer to Eileen—as if she'd know what one looked like—and she said she'd like that, Simon's existence silently thrown over the side. She, her own nametag revealed, was a generic vice-president in a small suburban bank.

The pair crossed Madison Avenue to one of the many Irishy pubs in midtown, this one on the north side of 47th Street. It was too early for there to be many patrons. When the hostess asked whether they wanted a table or to sit at the bar, they exchanged glances and after Eileen said a table would be fine they were led up a flight of steps to an empty dining room. When the waitress arrived, he ordered a Guinness and she a club soda with a lemon twist.

When the waitress was gone, she said, "I'm a cheap date."

"Is this a date?" he laughed.

"Not yet. Right now, it's just drinks." She paused. "If it is a date, I have to warn you that I am not very good at it. And the club soda. I haven't had a drink since the day of my husband's funeral. So, I've been on the wagon since 2010."

When he asked whether it was okay for him to have ordered the Guinness, she said, "that is not a problem. It is my choice and I deal with my temptations but I don't push them on others." It had in fact been something of a struggle but with the support of her daughter and other members of her and Michael's families, some AA meetings, and some therapy Eileen had put it behind her. She wondered why she was so quick to tell him about it. It, in fact, just slipped out much as the cheap-date line had. For some reason, it was something she felt comfortable saying to this man.

When they were about half-way through their drinks, they agreed to order dinner. It was still on the early side and only a few of the other tables were occupied, but neither was in a hurry to leave and both were hungry.

Eileen quickly told Tom about herself. She was a widow—she'd already let that be known when she mentioned her husband's funeral—who lived in Tuckahoe, with her only child, Kerry, living at home, and in her second year at Columbia Law. She had a brother and sister who lived in Fairfield County and a bunch of nieces and nephews who she saw now-and-then.

She worked at a White Plains bank, which explained her presence at the conference. "And that," she finished with a smile, "is me."

"I'm sure there's a lot more of you than that," Tom said, and Eileen blushed a bit at the innuendo implicit in how it was said. After a brief pause Tom—he was Tommy only to the kids he grew up with—told his story, about being born and raised outside of Boston, going to Boston College, and working for State Street. His eyes got a bit distant when he remembered having run into Wendy Riordan, a New Yorker, with whom he'd had a fling in college, at a BC football game in 1987 and how she had induced, "or should I say 'seduced,'" (he smiled) him to try for a job in a New York. In a just-the-facts-Ma'am manner, he got a job at a big commercial bank in midtown and worked his way up to become a Senior VP in the risk-assessment department, his current position.

After living, separately and then together, in Astoria, Queens for a few years, he and Wendy married and after their second, and last, child was born moved first to Irvington, on the Hudson, and then up to his current house in Chappaqua in northern Westchester. It was almost horse country but better known as where the Clintons live.

Of course, with Eileen he dwelled on his kids. Andrea, the older, was born in 1992. She was a resident doctor at a hospital in northern Manhattan and lived alone in a walk-up even further to the north. His son, James, two years younger than his sister, was in his second year as an Assistant DA in New York County and living with his girlfriend, Jennie, another lawyer, in Brooklyn. "How they can afford it I don't know," he laughed. "For me," he said after a sip of his Guinness, "the Chappaqua house may have gotten too big and too empty and I'm thinking of getting a condo in the City."

"Did I mention that my Kerry lives at home?," Eileen said, to which Tom replied with a mocking head-shake, "that ain't happening with my kids. I'm lucky if one of them comes up once a month. They have their own lives now."

"I'm not looking forward," Eileen responded, "to when Kerry flies the coop. I know I embarrass her by having her live at home, as she did in college—Fordham—but she knows how much I need her. She's very close to someone and there may be wedding bells in her future. I hope." She was wary of saying that the "someone" was a woman.

Tom said he hoped his kids appreciated how he needed them. "But what are you gonna do?" Any Boston accent had been rubbed into a New York one. "Andrea's too busy for anything serious. Yet busy as he is James is living with someone so there's hope."

Then for some reason he felt compelled to go deeper. Wendy, he softly said, died of breast cancer three years before. It wasn't caught early enough and it was a long, difficult end. "I still wear the ring because I don't have the heart to take it off. I twirl it now and then, and I know I don't need it to remember her. It just makes me feel that I still have a part of her." He paused, and Eileen reached for his hand. "Sorry," he said, a bit choked up, "I don't go there often. And I'm sorry I went there with you."

"I'm glad you told me. I'm afraid my marriage ended well before I became a widow, and that's as much my fault as anyone's. Let's leave it at that. It did, after all give me my Kerry."

Tom signaled to the waitress and they quickly ordered some food, fish-and-chips for him and shepherd's pie for her. Plus a glass of Chianti for him—"really, it won't bother me"—and another club soda for her.

And they talked, eventually through coffee, of less-intense things as the dining room filled. Eileen got a text and after Tom said "take a look" she saw it was Kerry:

{Kerry: Mom, where are you? Do you know when you're getting home? And will you need food?]

{Kerry: I've eaten.}

"Good God," Eileen said, "it's 7:20. That was Kerry wondering what ever became of me."

{Eileen: I'm still alive. Finishing up. I'll let you know what train I'll be on in a minute.}

{Kerry: Are you alone?}

{Eileen: I'm with another banker from the conference. We had dinner.}

{Kerry: Okay, see you soon. You want me to pick you up at the station.}

{Eileen: No need. I'll walk. I'll text what train I make.}

{Kerry: CU soon.}

Heading Home

After splitting the bill, as they walked to Grand Central, Eileen said that she had a very nice time. "You know, I'd forgotten just how pleasant a quiet evening with a charming man can be."

Not sure how to respond, Tom offered, "I'm a 'charming man' in your eyes then?"

"In anyone's eyes, believe me. I do not want to scare you off. I would like to see you again, if you'd like to see me."

Tom laughed. "I think we're both a bit at sea here. I would like to see you again. May I call?"

"You may."

They got to the stairs that led to Eileen's platform. Though they were on the same Metro-North train-line, his train would not stop in Tuckahoe where she lived so she headed for her train first.

Then after pausing like two high-schoolers standing on the girl's porch, Eileen and Tom gave each other a peck on the lips and Eileen rubbed Tom's cheek and said good night and went to her train home. When she was on board waiting for its doors to close, she took out her phone and texted Kerry with when the train got to Tuckahoe.

Risk Assessment

His day job was assessing risk, and he was very good at it. Tom Doyle helped his bank avoid some of the catastrophic losses that tore through its competitors in 2008 and was well compensated for it. But this had nothing to do with risk assessment. This was, in a phrase that he would shutter to apply to other people's money, "taking a flyer." He was like someone who'd become enamored by some exotic financial instrument or high-tech start-up, lost to anything but the upside of Eileen.

Since Wendy died three years earlier, he was a frequent topic of discussion in certain parts of Chappaqua. The two were fixtures in the cocktail-party/family-barbeque/country-club-events sprinkled through the calendar. Wendy's death had hit their social circle hard, and all of them were on the look-out for someone...not to replace Wendy because they all knew she was irreplaceable but to be with Tom going forward. And their efforts always failed. Whether it was Tom or the women with whom he was set up did not matter. Tom was good natured about it and good natured about the dates he was put into, but his friends and family realized that "she" would have to come to or be found by Tom and not be foisted on him.

Two days after the conference, Tom called Eileen and asked if she would join him for dinner on Saturday. Because Eileen planned to go to brunch with Simon on Sunday at his yacht club—she did not know there really was such a thing but, well, Greenwich—she said she'd be very much like that.

On Saturday, then, Tom picked Eileen up at her house and after a brief introduction to Kerry they headed into Bronxville for dinner. It was a nice restaurant, quite full—he was glad he'd made the reservation—but neither recalled what they actually ate. Nor would either recall what they talked about. They simply ate and spoke and it, when they thought back on it, was just two people being comfortable with one another, comfortable in one another's company.

When he drove her home and offered to walk her to the door, she, feeling much like the teenager she had not been for decades, said "that would be nice." She did not wait for him to open the Audi's door for her, although she knew that he would have if she had. He reached for her hand and she relished the touch. They were quiet as they walked up the path. He told her that he'd had a "lovely time" and she said that she had as well and he gave her a kiss, a bit bolder than it had been in Grand Central, and they wished each other good night, although not before she told him that she hoped to do it again and gently rubbed his cheek again.

Kerry had been (discretely, she thought) monitoring these goings on from upstairs. She ran down and asked her Mom had it had been.