Aftermath of Dreaming(30)

“That table there is for parties of four or more.” A waiter was striding toward us, delivering his directive to Andrew’s back. “You’re gonna have to move to—”

Andrew slowly turned his head. It was like being inside a cartoon; the waiter was immediately defeated by seeing who our superhero was.

“Oh, I’m so sorry, Mr. Madden, awfully sorry, sir, I couldn’t see it was you, sir.”

Andrew didn’t say a word.

“Let me get you some menus, sir, and anything you’d be wanting to drink?”

“She will have a vodka…” Andrew paused for me to finish my request.

“Tonic with a lemon twist.”

“Any particular vodka that would be?” the waiter asked.

I had never ordered a brand drink before. When I went to bars in New Orleans with my friends, I’d bring enough money for one drink, figuring that by the time it was empty, I’d have met someone who’d buy me more, but those guys only bought house brand. Andrew and the waiter were waiting.

“Smirnoff.”

“And I’ll have a Pellegrino, no fruit.”

The waiter walked over to a large wooden stand, selected two menus, came back, and laid them with a flourish on the red and white checked tablecloth. Andrew put his reading glasses on before opening his.

I wished the restaurant were busy, wished there were people everywhere, on dates, in groups, to further cement my togetherness with Andrew. To make us a solid couple by being gazed upon as a unit. I figured the waiter’s eyes would have to do.

I wondered if the waiter could tell I was underage. I had started going to bars in Pass Christian when I was fourteen, but everyone always thought I was twenty-eight. And that really is rather odd for them to all, but separately, pick that particular age to think I was. Unless I really looked thirty and they were all just trying to be nice. Though, actually, I did feel twenty-eight back then. At fifteen, I was drinking and having sex with a man seventeen years older than me, but in terms of my bar age, only what, four?

When I moved to New York, suddenly everyone could tell what age I truly was, as if some sort of regression had occurred as I traveled north—the years I had lived that counted for double in the South now did not in the brutality of urban reality. Any mature-beyond-my-years swagger I once possessed remained so firmly behind that I began to doubt it had ever been mine, and I thought of it as a Southern condition, like relinquishing to the heat.

The waiter deposited our drinks before us, then stepped back, holding his pen and pad protectively in front of his chest.

“And what would you like?” He had put a little smile into it, but I could feel the exhaustion underneath. I knew there were career waiters in the city who regarded the profession as solid and respectable, the filigree in New York City’s culinary crown jewels. I also knew, after almost three months of working alongside them, the imprisonment they could feel in the locked servitude of the customer’s meal. I wanted to tell him he was holding up well.

The choices on the page had barely registered on me, so I glanced quickly to find something.

“Pasta primavera, please.”

“Very good, and sir?”

Then commenced a lengthy discussion between them of the shrimp scampi, and another even more detailed one about veal scaloppine. Andrew brought up the chicken marsala; all were deemed excellent choices with accompanying persuasive nods of the waiter’s head. A silence ensued.

“Cheeseburger, medium rare, and a green salad.” Andrew said, closing the menu, and allowing the waiter to pick it up from the table before he withdrew.

I turned my chair toward Andrew’s and rubbed along the top of his thighs. I had read in a magazine once that you can tell how a man will treat you years past the honeymoon by the way he orders his food. Andrew hadn’t really been rude. Just thorough and exacting. But it was like watching a dance instructor and a student on a floor where the tiles light up whenever the student misses a step. Though Andrew did leave an awfully nice tip.



The Monday morning light reaching into Andrew’s hotel room high above Central Park exuded a richer glow than the rays that circulated down through the alley and air shafts that my apartment windows faced. The sky unfurled itself toward Andrew’s bed. It reminded me of being at the Gulf, standing at the water’s edge and seeing only the blues of sea and sky that were allowed by the yellow of the sun. Andrew was lying on his stomach, his head turned toward me, his face illuminated by sleep. I edged sideways off the bed, letting my weight gradually ease, not wanting to end his slumber. In the bathroom mirror, I unmussed my hair, and used his toothpaste on my finger to brush my teeth. I was back in bed, reliving the night before, when he awoke and looked at me.

“Are you going to take care of my back?”

“What?” I wondered if he had pulled it during the night.

“My back. I haven’t woken up without pain in my back for years. Whatever you did last night when you rubbed it…Are you going to take care of it for me?”

“Oh, yeah, I will.” I was thrilled.

“Good. Are you completely all mine?”

“Yes.”

“Good.”

I started to move against him, but he kissed my cheek, then jumped out of bed.

“C’mon, we’re getting up. I want to see the slides of your work.”