by Nic Tatano
“You look spectacular,” he said, keeping his eyes on the traffic. “Huge improvement.”
“You lied to me.”
“Like I said, Rox told me to say that. Besides, you should be used to it in your line of work.” He hit his horn as another car cut him off. “And you never would have talked to me if I said I was a cab driver.”
“I don’t judge people by their profession.”
“Not what Rox told me.”
My jaw tightened, then I noticed the meter wasn’t running. “You forgot to start the meter.”
“No charge for one of her friends.”
“You’ll get in trouble with your boss. They monitor those things.”
“Pffft. I’m pretty tight with the boss. That’s why I got the new cab. Don’t worry your pretty little head about it.”
“I don’t want your charity.”
“Well, I can see charm school isn’t in session yet. When you get to the class on saying thank you, let me know.”
My eyes narrowed as I stared daggers into the rear-view mirror. He looked into it, locked eyes with me for a moment, and smiled. “Don’t you laugh at me!” I said. I was getting a lecture from a damn cab driver!
“Why not? You’re funny.”
“This is not funny.”
“Let’s see, gorgeous woman gets into my cab, I tell her she looks nice, she proceeds to bite my head off. Funny, don’t you think?”
“Just drive.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“And don’t call me ma’am. I’m not old.”
“Fine.” Long pause. “Cupcake.” The sonofabitch continued to smile at me.
I grunted and folded my arms in front of me as my blood pressure spiked. A quick look out the window told me we only had ten blocks to go.
And then the cab came to a sudden halt.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“Traffic. Maybe you’ve heard of it. It’s a concept involving too many cars and not enough road, which dictates that two pieces of matter cannot occupy the same space at the same time.”
“Wow, you got an ‘A’ in high school physics. Congratulations.”
I was trapped in taxicab confession hell. Last week I would have jumped out and hoofed it, but ten blocks in these heels when I’m only on week one as a five-nine woman would’ve killed my feet.
The silence was deafening. “Wanna listen to the radio?” he finally asked.
“Anything’s better than listening to you.”
He didn’t respond and turned on the radio. Sports talk. My pulse slowed down. I’m actually a sports junkie and listen to this station all the time.
The current caller with the Jersey accent was ripping the Mets ownership after making yet another ridiculous trade. “You tell ‘em,” said Vincent. “Worst trade in years.”
I suddenly forgot my anger. “No shit,” I muttered.
He looked at me in the mirror as traffic began to slowly move. “You follow baseball?”
I nodded.
“Football too?”
Another nod.
“Giants or Jets?”
“Giants,” I said, before hitting him with the old line designed to take any Jets fan down a notch in case he was one. “There are no Jets fans, only Giants fans who can’t get tickets.”
“You’re right about that. I’ve got season tickets for the Giants. Had ‘em ten years. Forty-yard line. Great seats.”
“Good for you.”
The cab sped up and the blocks began to pass quickly. I saw my building through the windshield and opened my purse as he pulled to the curb, put the car in park, then turned around. “Nice seeing you again, Belinda.” I pulled a ten-dollar bill out of my purse and handed it to him. He waved it away. “I told you, no charge.”
“Consider it a tip for the sparkling conversation.” I tossed the ten through the little window that separates the front seat from the back and got out of the cab on the driver’s side. I headed for the front door of my apartment building.
“Hey, forget something?”
I stopped. I saw that my purse was over my shoulder and my satchel was in my hand. “No,” I yelled. I didn’t want to turn around, so I started walking again.
“Oh. I thought this broom was yours.”
My jaw dropped while my eyes caught fire. I stopped in my tracks and spun around to face him. “What did you say?”
“You know, Belinda, next time your friends take you shopping, you might stop at a store that sells manners.”
He sped away so fast I couldn’t even get my middle finger up.
***
Several women stopped dead in their tracks and parted like the Red Sea as he walked to the corner table in our usual watering hole, which was crowded and noisier than usual. His eyes locked on mine like a heat-seeking missile. He slid his hand along the brass rail of the bar until he reached the empty chair next to me. “Can I buy you a drink?” he asked, as he arrived. The man was perhaps forty, dark-haired, about six-two, very attractive. Okay, he’s beyond attractive. Looked like a marine recruiting poster in a thousand-dollar suit.
Didn’t matter. I held up my wine glass, which was full. “Isn’t it obvious I already have one?” Sheesh. Some guys are so dumb.
The guy’s smile disappeared instantly. He shook his head and walked away. I caught the word “bitch” under his breath.
“Excuse me?” I yelled.
He put up his hand and kept walking.
“Real nice,” said Roxanne. “I can see we’re makin’ progress on playing well with others.”
“I’ve already got a glass of wine.”
Ariel rolled her eyes. “Good God, were you raised by wolves? He was just interested in you and being polite.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “But after a week of men hitting on me constantly … none of them even recognize me from TV any more. They just want to sleep with me.”
“Your point being?” asked Serena.
I took a sip of my wine. “Look, before all … this … ” I waved my hands down my body, channeling Harry. “Before all the hair and the makeup and the heels and the short skirts and the jeans that make my spunky ass pop, men used to come up to me because I was the credible girl from television news who they knew was intelligent. Now nobody even mentions it. Now I only attract men because of how I look.”
“Again … wolves?” asked Ariel.
“So,” said Roxanne, “you’re in this pissy mood because you’re suddenly hot and hordes of men are asking you out?”
“No, that’s not it. Not totally. It’s because I ran into your cousin an hour ago. The cab driver?”
“Bus-ted,” said Serena.
“Fine,” said Roxanne, putting up her hands in surrender. “So I told Vincent to embellish the truth a bit. Where’d you run into him?”
“I got into his taxi. You know, he’s related to you so you should say something to him about the way he talks to people.”
Roxanne looked puzzled as her face tightened. “Why, what’d he say?”
“He said I look spectacular and I’m a serious babe. And then we got into an argument and he said I obviously hadn’t been to charm school.”
“Let me get this straight … first he said you looked spectacular and were a serious babe,” said Ariel.
“The nerve,” said Roxanne. “I can certainly see why you were so offended.”
“Let’s back up a bit,” said Serena, ever the lawyer, “and ask the court reporter to review the transcript. You said you got into an argument after he gave you two very nice compliments, referring to you as both spectacular and a serious babe. Were said compliments the cause of the verbal altercation that followed?”
I put up one hand as a stop sign. “You had to be there. And stop badgering the witness.”
A waiter dropped by and slid an order of mozzarella sticks into the middle of the table. “Sorry for the delay on your dinner reservations. We should have a table for you in ten minutes. I brought you an appetizer on the hous
e.”
“Great,” I said, not even looking at the guy. I reached across the table, grabbed a piece of fried cheese and shoved most of it in my mouth.
“I never noticed that before,” said Serena, as she watched me eat. She then turned to Ariel. “You?”
“No. It kind of went with the total package and I guess it all blended together. I can’t believe I missed it, considering my mother and all.”
“Noticed what?” I asked, my words garbled a bit as I talked through the cheese. I swallowed, licked my fingers and wiped them on the tablecloth.
“Your table manners,” said Serena.
I had a piece of cheese stuck in my teeth and tried to fish it out with one finger. “What about ‘em?”
“The waiter didn’t leave four forks as a garnish,” said Roxanne. She turned to Ariel. “You know what you gotta do.”
Ariel sighed and pulled out her cell phone. “I’ll call my mother immediately.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Ariel’s mother, Cassandra Baymont, is a best-selling author and magazine contributor. Not because she can weave words into a clever plot. Nope, her forte is non-fiction. Specifically, she’s America’s foremost expert on etiquette. You see where this is going?
We took a Saturday morning limo ride to the shores of Eastern Connecticut (I wanted to take the train but Mrs. Baymont would not hear of it. Besides, she’s loaded.) Ariel, her mother and I were seated at a posh restaurant she owns called the Hampton View. You can see the Hamptons with a pair of binoculars from the tables next to a window, hence the name. The place is only open for dinner, but because Mrs. Baymont deemed this the etiquette equivalent of DEFCON ONE she brought in a few staffers to serve us a private lunch.
And, you guessed it, to teach me how to eat.
I should mention the source of my current culinary habits. My mom died when I was two, so I was raised by a single father and four older brothers. So seeing things like people vacuuming potato-chip crumbs from their sweatshirts after a long day of watching football and shooting aerosol cheese into their mouths directly from the can doesn’t seem strange to me. Couple that with a career that often forces me to eat in the news car and wolf down whatever I can grab in ten minutes. The result is that Ariel said I resembled a starving man who escaped from a prison camp when I eat. She added that I had apparently never heard of the invention of the napkin, which no doubt accounted for my love of long sleeves.
So we were seated at the best table in the restaurant, next to the window overlooking the shore. Seagulls laughed and occasionally dove for minnows as the waves gently lapped the beach. Our round table was covered with a starched eggshell linen tablecloth. The cutlery was heavy Sterling silver. The place seated only about fifty people, but it felt like a museum, filled with beautiful antiques and framed prints of lighthouses. The walls were a deep red, while the twelve-foot ceiling was painted beige. The whole effect was soothing, rich and classy.
Mrs. Baymont was seated to my left. She’s in her early fifties and well-preserved, an older carbon copy of Ariel. Always impeccably coiffed and dressed, I can’t even imagine the woman in a tee shirt. Even though no one else was there but a waiter and a chef, she was in a lacy white blouse with her ever-present triple strand of pearls. She talked with that affected snobby lilt common to many parts of Connecticut’s most wealthy towns and old money. But she’s a sweet woman who would do anything for her daughter, and has always been very fond of me. Her manners are such that she’s never commented on my appearance, which I realized must have made her do a slow burn every time she saw me.
“Now, dearie,” she said. (She calls everyone dearie.) “Let’s go over the place setting and the various utensils.” A tall, slender middle-aged waiter in a white tux removed the large pewter plates and replaced them with bone china through which you could read a newspaper.
I raised one finger. “I have a question.”
“Yes?”
“Why does the waiter always remove the plates that are on the table when you arrive?”
“Those are called charger plates, dearie.”
“Because they’re from San Diego?”
Mrs. Baymont frowned.
“You know. San Diego? Chargers?”
She shook her head and politely smiled. “They’re decorative. The term comes from the middle English chargeour, but you don’t really need to know that for our purposes.” She pointed to the silver on the right of my plate. “Do you know why one fork is longer than the rest?”
I shrugged. “I dunno. So … you can get the food in your mouth quicker?”
Ariel snorted.
Mrs. Baymont widened her eyes and looked at me like a third-grade teacher. “No, dearie. That’s your salad fork. Each fork has a purpose. One cannot eat a seven-course meal with one utensil.”
I thought, why the hell not, I do it all the time, but I didn’t say it. (Not surprisingly, the “spork” is not among the silverware.)
So before any food even arrived, I learned more about the history, care and feeding of forks than I cared to know. And then there was the thing about the order forks are used and that you should always move toward the plate as the meal goes on. Apparently in this part of the world it would be nothing short of a scandal if you actually ate fish with your salad fork. It was like having an air traffic controller in charge of lunch. The instruction was so detailed and went on for so long I wished she simply owned a Chinese restaurant and we could deal with sticks. I began to wonder if spoons 101 would be as difficult.
My stomach growled audibly. Mrs. Baymont noticed. “Did you eat anything at all this morning?”
“No.”
“One should never dine while starving. The result is unbecoming for a young lady. A light snack before a meal can take care of that … rumble.”
I nodded as the waiter arrived and placed a steaming bowl of soup in front of each of us. I immediately grabbed my spoon but was stopped when it was inches from the bowl.
“Eh-eh-eh,” said Mrs. Baymont, as she wagged her finger. “First, you’re holding your spoon like a tennis racquet.” She took it from me, then manipulated my hand to the proper form and placed the spoon in it. “Think of it as holding a pencil, like when you’re reporting and taking notes.”
Now I really did feel like a third grader. And a naughty one at that.
“Okay.” It felt funny but I could deal with it. I started to dip the spoon into the soup.
“Eh-eh-eh.” Again with the finger.
“What now?”
“Take your spoon and dip some soup into it from the back of the bowl with the side of the spoon farthest away. Your motion should be away from you, the opposite of what you normally do. This way you’ll never drip any of the soup on your clothes.” She demonstrated it for me, and it actually made sense. Since my shirts often look like painter’s drop cloths, I figured this tip was a keeper.
I dipped my spoon into the far side of the bowl, lifted it to my mouth and took a sip of creamy lobster bisque. “Oh, that’s terrific,” I said. I looked to Mrs. Baymont for approval. “Did I do that right?”
“Yes, dearie. You may continue.”
Two hours and countless lectures on silverware, china and crystal later, we were done. Mrs. Baymont pronounced me ready for everything from a casual lunch to a cotillion. Personally I would draw the line at hoop skirts and parasols, but it was nice to know I was now approved to eat in public.
***
I leaned back in the plush leather of the black stretch limo, fat and happy after devouring everything from bisque to salad to some incredible veal to something called “intermezzo,” which I thought meant I had to sing opera during my meal but was actually a scoop of lime sorbet. We sped west back to Manhattan, the Saturday afternoon traffic pretty thin on the Connecticut Turnpike. “Ariel, that was really nice of your mother to do that,” I said.
“Are you kidding? She loves doing that kind of stuff.”
“Really?”
“Yep. It’s her mission in
life to teach the entire world to eat with the proper fork.”
“It’s amazing how she knew all of the things I was doing wrong. And some of them before I even did them.”
“Well, there’s a reason for that.” Ariel pulled out her smart phone, punched a few buttons and handed it to me. “Last night at dinner when I put my phone on the table, I taped you as you were eating.”
I scrunched up my face. “You’re kidding, right?”
She shook her head. “I wanted mother to see what we were dealing with before we arrived, so I sent it to her when I got home.”
“Oh, for God’s sake—”
The video interrupted me. My jaw hung open like a trophy bass as I watched myself in a restaurant, literally shoveling food into my yap like a werewolf on a bloodlust bender, talking with my mouth full, and at one point using my sleeve as a napkin.
“Dear God, I look like that when I eat?”
“Did you ever notice you’re always finished ten minutes before the rest of us? I’m surprised sparks don’t come out of your knife and fork. If I was a guy and saw that I’d take you to that medieval restaurant in Atlantic City where you eat with your hands.”
“Sir Lancelot’s? I love that place!”
“I rest my case.”
I was riveted as I saw all the “mistakes” I was making, thanks to Mrs. Baymont’s instruction. “God, this is embarrassing. I can’t watch any more.” I handed the phone back to her. “Please delete this right now. It would get a million hits on YouTube. I can see the title. Brass Cupcake devours everything in her path.”
She punched a few buttons. “There. Gone forever. As are your previous eating habits.” Suddenly she got a gleam in her eyes. “Speaking of which, you have a lunch date tomorrow.”
***
If you had told me a week ago that I’d spend two hours getting all decked out to clean cat boxes, I would have said you were insane.
Yet here I was, after getting up at the ungodly hour of seven-thirty on a Sunday morning, finishing up my prep work for what could be a meal consisting of a hot dog from a street vendor. I felt like a teenager on a first date, eager to debut my new and improved self for a guy I’ve known all of two minutes. Last night I went out with the girls for a casual dinner and Ariel gave me a B+ on my new eating habits. She would have given me an A but I slurped up the last bit of soup by picking up the bowl. What the hell, I hate to waste food. Kids starving in India and all.
