Reality Check

by Leslie Carroll

  F.X. removed his glasses and squinted at me. “Are you saying that you didn’t have an idea for a third Snatch campaign? You do recall that your mission was to come up with not two, but a minimum of three separate and distinct campaign ideas.”

  I nodded. “Oh, I knew what you expected. But I didn’t even have a clue for a third campaign—and it wasn’t for lack of trying, believe me. I spent many sleepless nights agonizing over how to sell that electromagnetic dustrag with the dirty name to the American consumer. And clearly I made something of a miscalculation by not confessing to you guys in advance of the pitch session that I’d hit a brick wall. I guess I was hoping for some eleventh-hour divine intervention in the inspiration department.”

  “You’ve had tougher assignments,” Jason said. “Your ‘Am I Blue?’ campaign for the Second Opinion Home Pregnancy Kit is a perfect example.”

  “Jase, did we neglect to tell Liz that Lord Kitchener is Lillian’s lover?” F.X. asked his partner.

  “I hate it when you call me that. My name is Jason. Liz, did we neglect to tell you that Lord Kitchener is Lillian Swallow’s lover? As in the man who sleeps with the other partner of Seraphim Swallow Avanti advertising?”

  If they were implying that I should have done an extra terrific job on the Snatch ad campaigns, it still wouldn’t have made my ideas any better. Frankly, I kind of liked the first idea I had pitched to Kitchener.

  “Does that mean that I blew the entire account for you guys?” I asked.

  “Let’s put it this way,” F.X. answered, absentmindedly twirling his eyeglasses by one of the ear stems, “it’s safe to assume that the only reason Kitchener is letting us still hold onto the Snatch account is . . . well—”

  Jason interrupted him. “Because Lillian’s letting him hold on to her—”

  “I get the picture, gentlemen. In Technicolor. So what’s the next step? Am I fired?” I asked with tremendous trepidation.

  “Jason is going to handle the Snatch account and write all the copy on his own from now on. You’re too valuable to let go due to this incident alone—”

  Jason interrupted F.X. again. “But we’ve got to put you on some kind of probationary period, because, well, Kitchener told Lillian about what happened in here yesterday afternoon and Lillian gave us hell for it. The guy’s got money up the yin-yang, Liz. Queen Elizabeth knighted him back in the mid-nineties because his product empire contributed so greatly to the upswing in the British economy. We understand that not every commodity is going to be your favorite kind of thing, or one you would necessarily buy or use yourself. I can’t believe I’m even giving this speech to such a seasoned veteran of the profession, but this is your job and we hired you because you’re damn good at it. Liz, you could sell Stouffer’s frozen entrees to Martha Stewart. You’re a terrific copywriter and we don’t want to lose you, but . . . well . . . basically, F.X. and Lillian and I are warning you to get your shit back together. We’ve got something else for you to work on. A print campaign for a new low-calorie snack food.”

  Jason swiveled his chair to face the credenza behind him and brought out a colorful box, which he handed to me.

  “Numbers Crunchers,” I read.

  “It needs new copy on the box as well,” Jason said. “Something catchy, of course.”

  “What’s the demographic?” I asked him. “Kids? Teens? Barflies?”

  “Funny you should mention that,” F.X. replied. “The client envisions the product everywhere. As an educational tool in school lunchrooms, in vending machines at gyms and fitness centers, behind the counter with the peanuts and crackerjacks at ball games . . . you name it. So come up with some slogans by next Monday.” F.X. rose and opened Jason’s door.

  “Back to work, now,” Jason said cheerily.

  I let the two of them know how appreciative I was of the second chance they were giving me. It had been extremely unprofessional of me to walk out of a pitch session. No one expects a copywriter to have a vested emotional interest in the products she writes about. And sometimes the most creative element of the job is to come up with memorable things to say about something you find thoroughly useless, in order to convince the consumer that they can’t live without it. I took the box of Numbers Crunchers back to my office and placed it on my desk where it would remain perpetually in my sight and, therefore, always on my mind.

  After work, feeling somewhat euphoric that I still had a place to work at at all, I headed up to the Chelsea Market to treat myself to some fresh bread from one of its several gourmet bakeries. I had an inexplicable craving for a cheddar-and-fennel loaf.

  The Chelsea Market is wonderful, like a giant food court for gourmet palates. Bakeries, butchers, confectionery shops, and one of my favorites—a kitchen supply place with wholesale prices for everything from pots and pans to stemware, the culinary equivalent of a penny candy store. On today’s excursion I found some martini glasses with a zigzag stem that looked sort of like a lightning rod. I’ve only had one martini in my life, and it was too strong for me to finish, but these cocktail glasses were stunning. And only $4.25 per stem. A steal. I placed a half dozen of the zigzag glasses in my red plastic shopping basket, and stopped enroute to the cash register to admire several different pairs of lacquered chopsticks. They were too pretty to eat with, but I figured they’d make terrific hair ornaments.

  I was ready to pay for my purchases, but found the narrow aisle to the register blocked by a tall man with a jar of prepared salsa in each hand. He seemed to be comparing the labels, ingredient by ingredient. “Excuse me, mind if I get by?” I said to the man’s back.

  The man turned around. “Very little gets by me. Hey, hey, it’s you!” Jack exclaimed. “I hope you weren’t offended just now. I’ve been told my sense of humor is an acquired taste.”

  I barely remembered what he had just said. He could have been speaking in tongues for all it mattered to me at that moment. I was too busy staring at his face—his dark eyes and his dazzling smile. He really was quite gorgeous. “Jack Rafferty, hi! Well, it certainly is a small world. What the hell are you doing here?”

  “That’s kind of a rude question, Liz. I could ask the same of you.”

  “But you’re not a New Yorker, so this isn’t an obvious place to run into you.”

  “And you told me you don’t cook. So ditto.”

  “Touché, I suppose.” I bit my tongue. “But what are you doing in this store?”

  Jack showed me the two salsa jars. “This one,” he said handing me the jar he’d been holding in his right hand, “is my product. My restaurant’s house brand that’s now being sold all over the country. It’s my own recipe. This other one, and I apologize if I sound like a commercial, is the northeast’s other leading brand. My meeting this morning was with my distributor up here; we were figuring out how to market Tito’s, so we can overtake the competition.” He put the other jar of salsa back on the shelf and surreptitiously moved jars of his own product in front of it so that all you could see on display were jars of Tito’s Famous South Beach Salsa, the caliente, mas caliente, and muy caliente varieties.

  “Look, I’m sorry about last night,” I said. “I really did want to see you again, but we would have ended up getting together so late by the time you actually made it into town, and I had to be up early for work.” I didn’t feel it was somehow right to mention the little fact that my roommates thought it was the worst idea since Little Red Riding Hood admitted the wolf into her grandmother’s cottage.

  “Well, you did agree to my offer of a raincheck, so whaddya say we do dinner this evening? How do you feel about lobster?”

  “Do you mean from a moral standpoint? A dietary one? I’m not kosher if that’s where you’re fishing,” I told him as I paid for my purchases.

  “Are you always this literal, Liz? I was only asking if you liked lobster.”

  “I was kidding, Jack. What girl could resist the offer of a lobster dinner with you?”

  “Terrific!” he said, relieving me of my p
ackage from the cookware store, tucking it under one arm. He stood still for a few moments regarding me, his countenance a mixture of sweetness, curiosity, and amusement. “I feel like I want to hold your hand,” he said finally. “May I?” I offered mine to him. “Did you know that the very first Oreo cookie was made right in this building?” Jack asked me. “In March of 1912, to be precise.”

  “I had no idea,” I laughed. “So how does a non–New Yorker know such local trivia?”

  Jack grinned. “It was a Jeopardy question a few months ago. I have a weird memory when it comes to food facts.” He led me across the tiled concourse, and I smelled our destination before I saw it. The scent of Superior Seafood permeated the entire atmosphere at its end of the market. The store didn’t have a door; it was in a corner location that opened entirely onto the concourse. I could see that the owners gated it shut at night. Wooden display tables painted a deep shade of forest green supported mounds upon mounds of shaved ice, on which rested the catch of the day: whole fish, their silver scales glinting in the fluorescent glare of the overhead fixtures, their eyes and mouths gaping open as if the fisherman’s hook had caught them by surprise. I don’t like to look at whole critters on my plate. That’s when I tend to agree with Nell, who is an ovo-lacto vegetarian. She doesn’t do critters at all; not even fish as some vegetarians do. I prefer my fish to arrive already filleted so I won’t choke on any nasty little bones and so I can pretend that that’s how fish always comes—all flat and innocuous salmon pink or sole pale, with a light lemon and white wine butter sauce, instead of bulging yellow eyes, iridescent scales, translucent fins, and those open, indignant mouths.

  As I was grossing myself out by anthropomorphizing Superior Seafood’s merchandise, Jack was talking in my ear about the best ways to prepare lobster. I have to admit, I wasn’t listening too hard. I was too busy enjoying his proximity and the sensation of his warm breath on my neck. I asked him about that high-pitched whining sound they make when you toss them in the pot. He looked a bit annoyed with my question, then assured me that the lobsters were not in fact crying. “Well, I don’t see why not,” I said. “I’d cry if someone dumped me, alive and kicking, into a pot of boiling water.” He was trying to acclimate me to thinking of the thing as dinner as opposed to a Disneyesque pet; so I let Jack talk me into picking out my own lobster. I told him I felt sorry for the culls, the lobsters that only have one claw left. “Are they the ones that get picked on the most in the lobster school-yard?” I asked Jack. “Or do they lose a claw because they get it caught in a trap and have to chew it off in order to free themselves?” By the time I was done speculating about it, he was ready to suggest we go for cheeseburgers instead.

  But we did leave Superior Seafood with two live lobsters in a grocery bag. Jack steered me back to the cookware store. “Why are we going back here?” I asked.

  “How am I supposed to cook us lobsters without a lobster pot? Are you going to be okay holding these?”

  I nodded. I was lying, but he didn’t know it, so he thrust the bag of crustaceans into my hands. In a matter of minutes, while I trailed after him like an infatuated puppy, trying to keep pace with his long stride and determined agenda, Jack had amassed a pot large enough to contain several gallons of water and a couple of live lobsters, an electric hot plate, two metal cracking tools for the shells, a raft of bottles of various seasonings, a container of bread crumbs, a corkscrew, a starter set of melamine plates and flatware, a pair of royal blue placemats and matching napkins, and a couple of wine glasses. White wine stems to be exact. He was a whirlwind of organized activity. Very impressive. I found him quite a pleasure to watch. I love a man with a plan.

  In the produce shop toward the other end of the Chelsea Market concourse, Jack selected a couple of lemons and limes, some fresh herbs, and found some butter in the dairy section. Then he zipped across the tiled floor to the liquor store and came back with a chilled bottle of California chardonnay. Meanwhile, all this time I’d been left holding the bag, so to speak, enjoying Jack making Olympic time in the food shopping trials.

  It was an exhausting sport, so I decided to rest for a few minutes. I sat on one of the wooden park benches strategically placed throughout the Chelsea Market to wait for Jack to finish making his purchases. After a minute or so, I felt a tapping on my wrist. I didn’t realize how loudly I had screamed and that the tile floors really amplified the volume in the marketplace. It’s just that one of the lobsters must have figured out his—or her—fate and was trying to escape from the grocery bag. The lobster’s contact with my arm certainly surprised the hell out of me, and the creature got its wish, because I was so startled that I dropped the bag and the rosy critters started to make a getaway out of the brown paper and onto the tile floor.

  My scream brought Jack running over to my bench. I sat there, paralyzed, watching them try to make a run for it. He handily corralled the lobsters before they had gotten more than a couple of feet away. By now I felt incredibly guilty and was beginning to think that Jem was absolutely right and that my getting together with Jack Rafferty was indeed jinxed in some way.

  “We don’t have to do this, you know,” he said to me.

  “I don’t think you can return a lobster to the store on the grounds of recalcitrance,” I replied. “Its or ours.”

  Jack took the bag of lobsters and handed me back my own purchases from the cookware store plus a safer package: the wine and the produce. He placed a protective hand on my shoulder and steered me out of the marketplace and onto Ninth Avenue, where he hailed a cab.

  The driver popped the trunk and Jack deposited all the parcels, including those he’d given me to carry, into the well. Then he held the door for me to get into the taxi ahead of him.

  “Where are we going?” I whispered after he closed the car door.

  “Where else? We’re going back to my place to make dinner.” Jack leaned forward to speak to the driver through the Plexiglas partition. “The Waldorf-Astoria, please.”

  8/

  The Dinner from Hell

  The taxi slowed to a halt in front of the Park Avenue hotel entrance. Jack got out first and went around to the trunk to retrieve our packages, as the driver, his tush firmly rooted to the upholstery, had clearly abrogated any responsibility for coming to the aid of his passengers.

  Something about the configuration of New York cabs makes them conducive, when you’re the person sitting farthest from the curbside door, to exiting them feet-first. I was in the process of executing just such an ungainly maneuver when a kamikazelike bike messenger sped past the cab. The messenger thumped the open car door with his fist just as I was kicking my leg out, practically closing the door on my foot.

  As the bike messenger passed me and raced up the street, I kicked back with greater force—the unfortunate result being that one of my turquoise slingbacks— the ones that refuse to cooperate and stay on my feet in the best of circumstances—went flying past several surprised pedestrians, landing in a decorative stone planter adjacent to the Waldorf’s entrance. “Jack,” I cried out, wiggling my bare leg and naked foot. Laden with our parcels, he responded to my alarm.

  “What the . . . ? How did . . . ?” His baffled look made me laugh out loud. “Where is it?” he asked me.

  I pointed to the potted ficus.

  Jack looked from left to right, unsure of how best to handle the emergency.

  “You wanna pay me now?” the cab driver demanded. Some people have no patience. If he’d helped Jack take all our stuff out of his trunk, he’d have been well on his way ages ago. Juggling the bags, Jack took a bill from his wallet and tossed it at the cabbie. Then he motioned for the doorman to send out a luggage cart. While the hotel staffer loaded up the rolling golden gazebo with our dinner ingredients and accoutrements, Jack lifted me, still half-shod, out of the cab. What a prince he was. I’ve known plenty of guys who would have made an insulting quip about my impractical footwear and let me limp around on the pavement playing hunt the slipper.
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br />   It was silly and wildly romantic, and the gesture sent me into convulsions of laughter. Jack carried me over to the planter and retrieved my slingback, stuck the shoe in his pocket, and we followed our luggage cart into the hotel. I looked for a convenient place to stop so I could sit and put my shoe back on. When we passed a couple of armchairs I pointed one out to Jack and suggested that he’d already been chivalrous enough. “Besides, people are staring at us,” I added, still laughing.

  “Does that bother you?” He smiled at me and shifted my weight in his arms.

  “See, I’m too heavy for you.”

  “Nonsense, you’re as light as a popover.”

  I confess I was rather delighted that he hadn’t yet put me down. “Are you sure I’m not too heavy?” I asked, giving him a second chance to back out. “At least put me down there and wheel me to your room,” I suggested, pointing at the spacious platform on the luggage trolley.

  “You think people won’t look at you then?” Jack said. By now, he was laughing, too. And he’d made no move to put my shoe back on my foot. I liked the idea that he didn’t mind the spectacle we were making. In fact, we both were rather enjoying it. And there’s nothing like shared laughter to shave the ice off an embarrassing situation. As my Aunt Cecilia—who had an ecstatically happy forty-five year marriage— used to say, “Laughter is the glue that brings people together. You bare your teeth, you bare your soul.” I found our mutual mirth very intimate. It was our joke, our way of communicating to one another a sense of collective ease—not simply about the way we both handled the episode of my flying slingback or even our little secret that we were smuggling live crustaceans into a room at the Waldorf—but an indication of compatible personalities. I had a feeling that life with Jack Rafferty might be an endless string of fascinating adventures.