Hotel Living

by Ioannis Pappos

  “This is Larry, the maître d’,” Alkis says, introducing me to a man who’s obsessing over a touch screen built into a podium. “Stathis is my favorite ex-colleague,” Alkis adds.

  Larry pivots his head between screens. He’s cornered by a guy in a leather racing jacket and a Partner from McKinsey I’ve seen around the biopharma conference circuit. Alkis touches Larry’s shoulder, and I understand the drama: everyone waiting is in desperate competition for a table.

  Kevin, six-four, stands by the fireplace at the end of the bar. He has a martini in his hand and is talking to Helen, a brunette who’s been hanging on to him since before I met him three years ago. His gray suit, his black turtleneck, and the circles under his eyes project success and unhappiness.

  “I’ll get us a drink,” I tell Alkis, and make my way toward them.

  “Captain Stathis!” Kevin tries to hug me, but Helen stops him and takes his martini out of his hand. The moment gone, we shake hands. He has Erik’s curved-down eyes.

  “Kevin!” I say. “You found your way downtown.”

  “For you, Captain, anywhere. You remember my girlfriend, Helen?”

  Helen smiles coldly. I haven’t seen her since Kevin’s party, the night Erik and I broke up. She looks aged, in a forced, Stepford-wife way.

  “Helen and I are old friends,” I say, trying to break the ice.

  She is in a printed horsehair suit, and her necklace looks like the Dow Jones Index of the last ten years, engraved on a bar of gold. Could I be seeing things? I haven’t even had a drink yet.

  “Alkis mentioned that you live in the neighborhood,” Helen says.

  “I live down the street,” I say, still stupefied by her necklace. “But I’ve been out of town for quite a while. This is my first time at the Waverly Inn, actually.”

  “We love it,” Helen says. “John is a genius. His food is so hearty, so winter! You’ll become a regular.”

  “I’m sorry, but is your necklace, ah, what I think it is?” I ask.

  “You better believe it!” Kevin jumps in. “US equities! Helen recently changed jobs. She is now the senior VP of public relations for—”

  “And communications,” Helen corrects him.

  “And communications,” Kevin echoes, “for a fashion house.” He touches his gray suit. “Easy tailoring,” he says, showing it off to me.

  Helen rolls her eyes.

  “What are you drinking?” Kevin asks me.

  “Vodka dirty, up. And let’s get Alkis whatever he was having.”

  Kevin turns to the bar.

  “Are you celebrating Tuesday’s rally?” I ask Helen, nodding at her necklace.

  “Excuse me?” she says.

  “Last Tuesday, we had the biggest market gain since 2002.”

  “Oh, no!” She laughs. “It’s just conversation jewelry.”

  “It worked,” I say, but she opens a malachite-embellished clutch and checks her cell phone.

  Fuck you and your iPhone; we used to trade notes on the brothers.

  The Disney girl walks in. She is flanked by two guys in rap-boxing outfits, and there’s an androgynous creature behind her. She must have lost ten pounds since I last saw her. She’s barely standing. Her lips, bigger, injected, match the color of her red-hooded dress. Larry takes them right into the main room.

  “Stathis, here.” Kevin hands me a martini.

  “Thank you.” I point at Alkis, who’s now stalking the new person behind the podium. “I thought we had a reservation,” I say.

  “We do, but Alkis likes to drive,” Kevin explains. “He’s a New Yorker that way. Plus, I think he’s been a bit jumpy since he’s gotten back with Cristina.”

  “Where is Cristina?” I ask.

  “Oh, she’s on her way,” Helen says with a dismissive gesture. “Something came up with the Four Seasons nanny.”

  “I never met Alkis’s ex, but I’ve heard stories,” Kevin says, raising his eyebrows. “She was a friend of yours, right?”

  “Still is,” I say, almost proudly. “Though I haven’t seen her for a while. She moved to France.”

  “Alkis was pretty shaken by all that,” Kevin continues. “She was a troublemaker.”

  “Who isn’t?” I say, ready to bring up Constantine, but I see some connection in Kevin’s eyes, and I let it slide. “She is just young,” I say, and notice Alkis leading Cristina our way.

  “Cristina!” Helen shouts.

  “I don’t believe we are here for a second time this week,” Cristina complains. “I’m a vegetarian,” she says, explaining herself, and kisses us. Same big smile and teeth. She still sounds, looks, and smells like Italy.

  “Have you settled up at the bar?” Alkis asks Kevin.

  Kevin nods and hands Alkis a whiskey, neat, and we follow the maître d’ into the main room’s glow. Candlelike lights reflect on fruit-red banquettes and an autumn-colored mural, filled with caricatures of bohemians turned household names. I recognize Dylan, Pollock, Kerouac, and Brando, all of them doing their signature unhealthy but sainted activities, drinking and writing or smoking and drawing. I’m fixated on them—they make me feel better about the coke I have with me—and I stumble on a table in the middle of the floor. A tall waiter grabs me before I land on a plate of truffled mac and cheese.

  “Thank you, John,” Alkis says.

  “Thank you, John,” I repeat, dazed.

  People clap and cheer as John politely bows.

  Our table is a room with a view—a banquette walled between the main room and the bathroom, with an internal window on the central tables. I sit at the edge of the bench, close to the bathroom, which is handy. Helen shares the far end with Cristina, Alkis sits next to me, and Kevin is directly across.

  “Stathis, if this is your first time here you must try the tuna tartare,” Helen says. “It’s the strongest of the small plates.”

  I pick up the preview menu in front of me, which is odd; I’m pretty sure Alkis and Tatiana called me from here when I was in LA. “Preview? Didn’t they open last year?” I ask Alkis.

  “They opened in the 1920s,” Alkis says, wolfing down a biscuit. He is stress-eating.

  I browse the menu and waver between a line-appetizer-line combo and a quick entrée followed by a couple of lines. But the plates are described in pie-and-mash words—Amish chicken, clam chowder, lardons—which means large sizes, which means it could be tricky to choke it down fast.

  “There is only one vegetarian plate . . .” Cristina sighs.

  “How long have you been a vegetarian?” Helen asks her.

  “Since I saw War of the Worlds,” Cristina replies, and we all look at her oddly.

  “Why?” Kevin asks.

  “It made me aware of speciesism,” Cristina says.

  “Who wants wine?” Alkis asks, grabbing a second biscuit, but everybody stays with Cristina.

  “What if aliens came to Earth and treated us like stock, like fuel?” Cristina says. “We would go: ‘No!’” She shakes a finger. “We would be like: ‘You can’t do that!’ And the aliens would say: ‘But we are only treating you the way you treat less intelligent species.’ What if that happened?”

  “Oh, totally,” someone spurts, and I have bite my lip so I don’t burst out laughing.

  “Cristina is taking a class on voluntary social systems in London,” Alkis says quickly, and people nod. “Where’s the bloody sommelier?” he murmurs.

  “John the Savior,” I say to the waiter who spared me from the macaroni crash.

  “My pleasure, sir,” John says.

  “Actually, it is the savior and the sinner from John,” Kevin says contentedly.

  What if I fucked you harder than I fucked your brother? Made you scream my name while I screamed: Fuck you, Erik.

  “May I briefly interrupt to tell you about our specials tonight?�
� John says.

  “I’m good to go, John. Tuna tartare and a burger. Medium rare,” I say, getting up and heading to the men’s room.

  Ten minutes later, everyone is talking.

  “This trend for compulsory fun at work is becoming ridiculous,” Helen tells Alkis. “We are a step from having departments of fun.”

  “Paul’s website says that people go from one inn to the other,” Cristina says.

  “Is there another Waverly Inn?” Kevin asks.

  “Oh, no!” Cristina laughs. “They go from the Waverly Inn to the Beatrice Inn.”

  “I haven’t been there,” Kevin says. He turns to me and asks slyly, “Have you been to the Beatrice Inn, Stathis?”

  I stare back and lie: “I have not.”

  Alkis gives me a knowing look. Whatever. I owe him nothing; I owe them nothing. I’m only here ’cause I fell for someone five years ago.

  “So, what’s up with you guys?” Kevin asks Alkis. “What’s Lehman’s story? What’s up with O’Meara? Why is he moving to risk management?”

  “It’s just internal. Reshuffling. No blame game attached. If anything, it shows that we can deal with a storm,” Alkis says, playing with his glass. “How are things on the buy side?”

  “We’re living in a Harry Potter movie. Don’t say Voldemort. Don’t say the R-word. Recession! Boo!” Kevin makes the stop sign with his hands. “It’s a joke. You can bag a recession just by fetishizing it.”

  A bottle of red arrives, but I sip my second dirty martini—they come cloudy and strong. I look through our window to the main floor. The waiters, all men, attend editors, High Line heavyweights, writers, and painters seated in the central banquettes. They dine in tracksuits and pajamas, and scold their children for playing with their gadgets and food. People at peripheral tables do not gawk but are not oblivious to them either. Rather, they seem to have mastered the art of quick, semicontemptuous scans. Food here is an aside, an accessory. A woman in a man’s tuxedo at the main banquette lights a cigarette. She sits under her very own image in the mural behind her: also portrayed in a tux smoking. I watch this weird person-mural, theater-Inn scene, and God’s Ceauşescu footage pops into my mind: everyone dancing in a collective paranoia, transforming a whole country into an inane stage. “You know you’re close to the end when theater becomes life,” Demosthenes preached to the ancient Athenians.

  “. . . because at the end of the day it’s all about expectations management. Right, Stathis?” Kevin says.

  “I’m sorry about your friend Constantine,” I respond instead.

  “What?” Kevin spits. “Well, yes. That was a shame.” He is annoyed. He goes for his red.

  “He spoke highly of you,” I go on.

  “I don’t want to discuss it,” Kevin says firmly.

  “Fine. Let’s talk about expectations management,” I say. “Is that your brother? His take on management consulting’s stupid jargon?”

  “No more martinis for you,” Alkis says, and moves my drink away.

  I take out my smokes and light one.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Alkis is mortified.

  I point at the woman at the central banquette, smoking. But Alkis is furious: “That’s the owner’s table, Stathis! And we want to be able to make a reservation again. Go outside!”

  I put it out. As I stand up, I notice myself trembling.

  “Jesus!” Alkis shakes his head. “How do your clients put up with you?”

  I’m fucking sick of everything about him. “Save it for Lehman,” I say. “But maybe you won’t have time to play smoking–witch hunt anymore.”

  I’m halfway through the main room when I hear a laugh I recognize. My jaw is shaking so much that I don’t want to turn. But after Andrea shouts my name twice, I have no choice but to deal with her. Sitting pretty beside her fat man-friend–CEO, Andrea keeps waving me over. She stands up—she’s wearing clothes she could have worn to work, though her jewelry is smaller—and introduces us. She does the grateful-Partner thing: I am “simply indispensable,” a “committed consultant.” And “Oh,” they are waiting for “Carolina and Reinaldo,” but I “must” have a glass with them.

  John appears out of nowhere with a folding chair.

  I give him an are-you-stalking-me look and sit down, but my legs won’t stay still and I rattle the table; the wineglasses look like they’re in an earthquake. I wonder how bad my jaw’s shaking.

  The CEO is in a black turtleneck that promotes his nipples. He looks younger than his age, the way very fat people often have no age. I notice his watchband, which is so tight on him, so ready to snap; if I stabbed his palm with a fork right now no blood would come out. I’m this close to laughing in the faces of the whale and the prostitute opposite me, but a string of questions crosses my mind: Is he going for BioProt next quarter? Will he dump Andrea after the deal? Will they throw a BMW onto my bonus at the end of the year?

  Andrea wants to know if I’m enjoying my “much-deserved beach time after Los Angeles.” She smiles as she stabs my knee with her nails so I’ll stop rocking the table.

  “Ouch!” I yell. “Er, well, it’s good to be back in New York.”

  “Command would never have added so much value without Stathis,” she tells the fatty. “Champagne!” She motions to John.

  “It was a team effort,” I say, and I begin to slowly rock their table again.

  “Stathis has integrity,” Andrea says.

  “That is the most expensive virtue,” the CEO adds.

  “He is a purist,” Andrea flirts, handing me a glass of champagne. “He believes that companies should focus on their core competencies,” she says.

  Blow is the only thing that keeps me from throwing up the very little tuna I touched.

  “What about corporate evolution?” the CEO asks me.

  “If it makes people happy, then I’m all for it,” I respond.

  I try to take a sip, but the champagne glass is a coupe—unreal in 2007—and I spill half of it on their buttermilk biscuits. People from the next table look at us.

  “I’m sorry,” I say, embarrassed.

  John leans toward me attentively, but Andrea waves him away. “Stathis is a keeper,” she says, dabbing at my mess with her napkin.

  The CEO pushes the wet biscuits to the side. “Effective change can be uncomfortable, sometimes even disruptive.” He checks for my reaction.

  “Effective change, organic change, from within, has momentum,” I say.

  “What about just dipping in? People see opportunities, fall in love with ideas, and go for it,” the CEO says, and touches Andrea’s hand.

  I look at his nipples again and try to fathom the companies, the weddings, the divorces, the children, the court fights that this orca must have been through, and I wonder why he is still throwing himself at the game. Why would he still cross lines and take all-or-nothing risks? Do people grow up, or do they just get fat while chasing their first high?—Which reminds me, I need to wrap this up and run home for a decent line.

  “I thought that Andrea was a pure innovation gal, but I guess her interests have shifted. Oh well . . .” I say, and stand up.

  “Sit down!” the fatty orders.

  I do.

  He lets go of Andrea’s hand and points at me. “You are a consultant. All you do is look at drugs. But Andrea sees things holistically. She understands the patient experience. She knows that compliance is as important as efficacy. Women forget their cholesterol pill, but they never forget their moisturizer. Smart drugs will combine the two so they can control diseases better.”

  “Got any coke with vitamin C?” I wink in John’s direction.

  MINUTES LATER, I STUMBLE DOWN the street to my apartment. I walk in and try to turn on the lights, but my lamps are fancy Italian things Tatiana picked out, and I can’t find the switches. I’m not sure why, but
it’s freezing in here. I’m ready for a couple of lines to warm me up, but I hear voices in the corridor. I think they are calling my name. Could it be Alkis? The CEO’s bodyguards? Tom from next door? People might knock on my door at any second, so I need to do my stuff and escape to the Beatrice to pick someone up. I’m busy emptying my little plastic bag when my phone vibrates with an incoming text.

  “I hear crazy things about Tatiana. Please tell her to call me!! Teresa.”

  I grab a book by Däniken that was lying under the Iridium cell phone on the Museum of the Recent Past shelf that Tatiana curated, and cut two lines on its cover.

  Finally, I feel that sweet bitterness going down my throat. I’m better already.

  I pick up my cell and type back: “for the tenth time T, ionly speak with Tari when she calls. she nver picks up. will tel her.” I press Send and look around for my leather jacket, the one Tati picked out for me, but I can’t find it. So I put on my work coat and leave for the Bea.

  “Douche bag.” Alkis’s text stops me on my stoop.

  “Send me the check,” I text back, walking down Bank Street.

  “No worries. I’ll keep your jacket,” he responds.

  “Looks like you might need it.”

  “Fuck you very much.”

  “No, fuck YOU.”

  I make a left onto West Fourth and another left onto Twelfth, which is empty. There’s no one at the door at the Beatrice, it’s not even eleven, and I can’t think of anyone to call, so I keep walking to Hudson, and from there to Jane. I decide to hit Hudson Bar and Books, where I can do some quiet drinking and smoking, but the place is full of cocky first-year associates and their girlfriends. I order a cigar and two tequila shots and sit in a corner, where I start playing with the popcorn the bartender placed in front of me. The TV screen above the restroom shows Teresa pulling out a gun in a James Bond flick. Bond throws her onto a bed and kisses her, and I get this feeling that I might be too old to piss off powerful people or turn friends, like Alkis, into enemies. I look at the mirror behind the bar and see myself looking frantic and bloated. My forehead is sweating. I search my cell phone for the last “fuck you” that I traded with Alkis, but my hands have the shakes. I need one more line to find the Undo button on my phone, but the damn thing vibrates again.