Come Pour the Wine by Cynthia Freeman

small word could make—a no or ayes might have changed the direction of her whole life. If she’d said no that evening, chances were she also would not be on this magnificent voyage today. Twenty-seven years had passed, and yet she recalled each and every detail of that event as if it were yesterday.
    It was the night she met Bill McNeil for the first time …
    When she walked into Kit’s exquisite apartment it seemed as if most of the population of Manhattan was there. She looked around uncomfortably at the unfamiliar faces and searched for Kit, but there was no sign of her. People stood huddled in close groups, talking about whatever it was that people huddled in small groups talked about. Ten minutes later, Janet was still standing alone and feeling so ill at ease that she was tempted to leave, but just then she caught a glimpse of Kit, who waved “hello” from across the room.
    Janet accepted a glass of champagne from a server and started across the room to join her friend, but her progress through the dense and shifting crowd was slow.
    Suddenly someone backed into her, jostling her arm, and she was dismayed when she realized that the champagne that had been in her hollow-stemmed glass a moment before was now dripping down the front of a Brooks Brothers suit. She began to apologize, but as she looked up into the man’s face she broke off mid-sentence, stunned by her overwhelming awareness that he was the most handsome man she had ever seen. All she could do was to stand mute as he took out his handkerchief and began to wipe the front of his jacket. Finally, she said, “I’m so sorry … I … I really am …”
    “Forget it,” he answered, mopping up the remains. Without looking at her, he went on, “I’m going to give this damned suit away. It’s a jinx. Three times I’ve worn it and three times I’ve had it cleaned. I don’t know what there is about it, people just don’t seem to like this suit.”
    “I … I know what you mean. I have a white dress like that … I’m really so sorry—”
    “It’s okay. Think nothing of it,” and the next thing she knew he was gone.
    She was so embarrassed and surprised by the effect he’d had on her that, without stopping to say goodnight to Kit, she promptly left the party.
    In the lobby she asked the doorman to call a taxi, then walked out of the building to wait. Her heart thumped. He was standing there, also apparently waiting for a taxi. They looked at each other. He nodded almost imperceptibly, as if he only vaguely remembered it was she who had rained on his evening—or rather his suit—and then looked away. When the taxi arrived and he was about to get in, he hesitated and looked at Janet with some annoyance. “You take this one.”
    “I wouldn’t think of it, but thank you. Mine will be here any time now.”
    “Oh, come on, we’ll share this one.”
    In a semitrance, she found herself sitting in the back seat, he in the extreme left corner and she in the right.
    It was the voice of the driver that brought her back to earth. “Where to?”
    By now she was so unstrung she couldn’t remember.
    The next voice came from the left corner of the back seat. “What’s your address?”
    “The Hotel Barbizon on—”
    “I know, lady,” the cabby said.
    After what seemed an eon of silence the man next to her said, “My name is Bill McNeil.”
    “Janet Stevens … I want to apologize for spoiling your evening—”
    “You didn’t spoil my evening, just my suit. The truth is, I wasn’t going tonight but Kit can be damned insistent.”
    “That’s strange,” she said more to herself than to him.
    “What?”
    “I didn’t want to go either. Tonight, I mean. And you’re right. Kit doesn’t take no for an answer.”
    That was the beginning and end of their conversation. As the cab stopped at the curb in front of the Barbizon Hotel, Bill asked the driver to wait, helped Janet out, escorted her to the door, said goodnight and was back in the cab