Learning to Flirt

You're never too old to explore your fun-loving side.

The party Thomas Hart Benton painted in “The Twist” was way more fun than the staid affair I remember.

“Flirting is fun!” said my mother, brandishing a stub of lipstick in a bloody red worn only by the matronly and clueless. Oh, please. I was not about to make nice with the pale do-gooders of Liberal Religious Youth, whose party was about to begin. Let them take me as I was or not at all. Classmates never invited me to their parties, but Liberal Religious Youth would not leave one of their own in the cold. There would be Coke. And chips, maybe even pigs in blankets if someone’s mom was feeling inspired. There would be sedate sashaying to Chubby Checker’s “The Twist,” which you couldn’t escape that winter of 1962. So what if those boys—all three of them—did not want to twist with me? Not yet 13, I had my principles.

I never learned to whistle, didn’t see the need. I felt the same way about flirting. Why settle for a pretense of spark instead of the real thing? Flirting was phony, as my hero, Holden Caulfield, said of everything he despised. At 20 I met a man who took me as I was. He told me, early on, “I get the feeling you’d be hard to love.” That sealed it. We vaulted in a matter of months from heart-baring revelations in a greasy spoon to arguments over who washed the scrambled-egg pan. Here’s the deal with loving someone’s real self. You see the spikes that drive you mad with frustration, but you don’t withdraw your love. After 53 years with a man who saw my spikes from day one, I’d choose him again. The coupled grownup me needs flirting even less than the preteen did.

Men can tell at a glance that I’m not keen to puff them up. You know those women who attract male attention while crossing the parking lot at Costco? They look like they could put a guy at ease over a couple of beers. I look like I’d correct his grammar and ask if he really needs that side of fries. Unless my rescue mutt, Casey, is beside me.

Casey likes anyone who likes him, and has a strong preference for men. Raised in a men’s prison, he doesn’t care if the new pal scratching his bum lives in a penthouse with a view or a tent in the park. Designer fedora or baseball cap fished from some charity’s bin, it’s all the same to him. I was 65 when he joined us and proceeded to unkink me. I’ll never be an Olympic cyclist (first I’d have to learn to ride a bike). But thanks to Casey, I’m now something of a man magnet.

One evening in St. Petersburg, Florida, where we’ve spent our happiest winters, Casey and I approached a brick bungalow that stood out on its genteel block like paper plates at a Junior League tea. Odds and sods of plastic furniture lay scattered on the lawn. On a table sat what looked like the dregs of a yard sale. Beside it stood a ringer for Steve Buscemi in loser mode. He was talking to his dogs, a peppy Chihuahua who took a shine to Casey, and a pitbull mix with malevolent eyes. I listened for their names, Taco and Pirate.

Would you flirt with this man? Buscemi as Lenny Wosniak of 30 Rock.

Chihuahuas are the one small breed that Casey deems worthy of notice. As he offered his hind end to genial Taco, Pirate got his hackles up. I’d have to keep an eye on Casey or things could get ugly.

Music drifted from the house. The Buscemi ringer yelled, “Hey! You like Stevie Ray Vaughan?'“

I didn’t know Stevie Ray Vaughan from Stevie Nicks. “Not sure. Why don’t you hum me some Stevie Ray Vaughan?”

This didn’t win me any points with him, but neither did it knock me off his prospect list. He had the twinkly eyes of a man who trusts he is charming, if a few years away from hot. “Stevie Ray Vaughan’s a jazz guitarist.”

His buddy shuffled out of the house. Big guy with a paunch some decades in the making and a gray bird’s nest of a beard. Baggy shorts exposed the knotted veins in his legs. Thirty years ago he must have resembled Jeff Bridges in The Big Lebowski, but in his current state he made The Dude look like Prince Harry. He took his sweet time getting to the curb. “You know Ida Lupino?”

When he still had the bloom of youth, my guy must have looked like Jeff Bridges in The Big Lebowski.

“Of course.” Here I was on firmer ground. After school my sister and I used to to watch old black-and-white movies on TV. I vaguely remembered credits with Ida Lupino’s name in that swirly 1940s script. She had sultry eyes and a dangerous vibe. Ida Lupino wouldn’t take any guff.

“Most ladies today don’t have a clue about Ida Lupino. You don’t look old enough to remember.”

Nice try, Dude. I could have set him straight: “I’m 69.” Could have kept walking.

“Here’s the thing about Ida Lupino. In her day she was bigger than Katharine Hepburn.”

How much of The Dude’s patter had any connection to the truth? His expression turned languorous. “You know about Ida Lupino’s brother?”

Pirate had begun to snarl. He stared at Casey as if working on a plan. While Buscemi held him by the collar, Pirate dug his paws into the ground and pulled. I drew Casey closer. His trainer had a rule for challenging situations: Move on. But I was too busy thinking about Ida Lupino’s brother. The Dude grinned. He had me stumped. “She had a brother?”

“Sure did. Her brother Hal.”

Buscemi gripped Pirate’s collar with both hands. “You two better wrap this up ‘cause I can’t hold him any longer.”

Buscemi had a point, but any second I’d remember Ida Lupino’s brother. If I said his name, rolled it on my tongue, it would come to me. “Hal Lu…”

The Dude laughed until his belly shook. “Gotcha there! None of the ladies see that coming!”

Back at my computer, I Google-checked the conversation. Stevie Ray Vaughan played blues, not jazz. Ida Lupino made her name as an actress but her breakthrough as a director, all but unheard-of for a woman of her time. If she had a brother, I found no mention of him. The whole exchange was the opposite of real. Still, I had to give those pranksters credit: They showed me a good time. In their eyes I was not the kind of woman who’d correct a fellow’s grammar, just one of the ladies who’d let him treat her to a Miller and fall for his joke. At 70, I had learned to flirt. I’d be up for more if I got the chance.

After that I made a point of walking Casey past The Dude’s place. The tub chairs still lay hither and yon, but the pranksters were nowhere to be seen. One February morning I noticed a chair at the curb, heaped with star fruit for the taking. Ripening fruit hung from every branch of a nearby tree. The neighbors could feast on star fruit for a week. How real it was, that green and gold abundance. The call deserved a response. The words wouldn’t matter; they were only code for “I see you and I like what I’m seeing.” A seasoned flirt would have whistled.

The movie screen in my head served up To Have and Have Not. Lauren Bacall to Humphrey Bogart: “You know how to whistle, don’t you? You just put your lips together and blow.”

How old I was at almost 13. I’m younger today than I will ever be. There’s still time to whistle.

Star fruit, anyone? Fresh from the tree, yours for the taking.

Cribbing from yourself is considered bad form, so I’ll come clean: a chunk of this essay appeared in my memoir Starter Dog. And while I’m owning up to the truth, “I’m younger today than I will ever be” was inspired by Sari Botton of Oldster, who says that every contributor to her gift of a magazine is the oldest they have ever been. Okay, on to the fun stuff: your comments. What’s your take on flirting, or exploring buried parts of yourself as you age? Is there some thoroughly ordinary thing you never learned to do? Whistling tips welcome. Lauren Bacall’s never worked for me.