Landwer

Deb and I met on Bumble. I preferred using that dating app because it placed control in the woman’s hands. The man can’t communicate with the woman until she writes first. We had begun writing to one another, first on the app and then via text. After a week or two, one of us suggested meeting in person, no small thing since we lived an hour away from one another.

She wrote, “What are you doing for breakfast?”

“I’m meeting my friend Lena, or I’m supposed to. She frequently punts, though.”

“Too bad,” she replied.

“Let me check in with Lena before we give up.” A few minutes later, after Lena had shifted our get-together to dinner, I wrote back: “Where shall we meet?”

Café Landwer is an Israeli institution with two branches in the very Jewish town of Brookline, where Deb lives. We met at the one in Cleveland Circle. Deb ordered the smoked salmon benedict. I had the haloumi, a sauteed cheese in a spicy sauce of tomatoes and herbs. Sitting by the floor-to-ceiling plate glass that looked onto the patio, a parking lot, and across Beacon Street to a reservoir, we talked, our conversation flowing as easily in person as in text. She even set aside some of her benedict for me, a gesture of intimacy normally beyond a first date. But we both sensed, even then, that this might be only the first date of many.

We jabbered for a couple of hours, looking out on the frigid November day. Deb got up to use the bathroom, and I stared at her receding for in admiration. When she came back, we went for a walk up to the reservoir, where the cold wind become intolerable. We escaped down the steep embankment and I walked her to the train. I kissed her as she moved to board. She kissed me back. She had another date to get to, I learned later, but I think I ruined that second one for her, when I send her a text from the road back to Providence. “I haven’t had such an enjoyable three hours in years,” I wrote. “Thank you.”