All I wanted yesterday was a cheeseburger. Even though I'm taking a break from dieting, I've still been eating pretty healthily. After a couple months of this, one starts to crack. The other night I went home with a burning desire to fry something, battered up in cornmeal and breadcrumbs.
Then yesterday, I don't know what it was. I wanted some beef, thinly sliced onion and crispy lettuce, a big slab of tomato, with melty gooey American cheese. I don't even like American cheese on anything else. I am a cheese snob. I like chevre and sheep's milk feta, and deutsche Braukäse. Pass the Cambozola and Camembert, s'il vous plaît. Oh, and don't you dare put American cheese on my Disco Fries!
At around 2 or 3, I began gazing at my monitor in a stupor, fingers immobile above the keyboard, daydreaming about Whopper Juniors and Big Macs.
Around 4 or 4:30, I overheard someone say the word "fried"--such as, "His hard drive is fried!"--and I started dreaming about French fries.
I had made this decadently fancy crab salad sandwich that morning. I seasoned the dressing with Creole-inspired spice blend and blended the whole ensemble with big chunks of carrot and celery. A few hours later, though, it seemed totally unappetizing to me. Half of it sat on my desk, abandoned even though I was starving.
---
After work, however, I didn't get to eat dinner. I had an engagement--at a fancy hotel bar, the company that employs my father and me was buying drinks for its workers and for a group of customers. Free drinks. Empty stomach. You can see where this is going.
Walking into the hotel, the small group of us was unsure where to go. A waitress of indeterminate age--her thin frame and wrinkled face suggested she was one of those smokers who are probably a decade or two younger than they really look--pointed and said, "Through that doorway, on the left," before we could even ask. "Y' had that look on y'r faces."
A tiny bar area was covered by a swarm of unfamiliar faces--customers--with a clump of men--the programming department--on the right, and my bosses on the left. In front of me stood my father. Behind me stood the new programmer, who recently moved here from down South and is probably still getting used to the culture shock of living in New Jersey.
The two of us stood, looking around, overwhelmed to the point of uncharacteristic shyness. Finally, I said, "I wonder where the bathroom is."
"I'm sure it's not hard to find. Just go out and walk around."
"See, the problem is that at these things, my father is here. If I go off to go to the bathroom, people notice I'm gone and say, 'Oh my God! We lost Sarah! Her father's gonna kill us!'"
"I'll cover for you."
The same waitress was on the phone, leaning against a counter. With her back to me, she was unable to see the look on my face, yet she paused in her phone conversation to say, a little loudly, "Make a right and then a left past the phones." I was startled, yet grateful. Was there something in the sound of my footsteps?
I made a left past the pay phones and pushed open the door that said "Women". Immediately, I slammed that door into another, blank wooden door. With both arms, I struggled to close the door behind me enough that I could fit into the very tiny hallway, in order to open and walk through the door that led to the bathroom itself. What a poor design! I thought. Especially at a bar!
(Later, a male customer would ask how to get to the restroom, and I enthusiastically told him "A right, and make a left past the phones!" As he walked away, I exclaimed, "Watch out for the doors!" Everyone looked at me dubiously, and I explained, quietly, that the ladies' room has these doors...and they slam...I tried acting it out, until a kindly co-worker told me, "The men's room is the same. Isn't that stupid?" I looked at him like we had just discovered something amazing in common, such as an affinity for liverwurst or the same birthday.)
However, it was not these doors, which I'm sure have posed a hazard to many a drunk in the past, that would be my downfall that night.
---
I returned to the bar feeling better, more affable. My father was surrounded by customers. My bosses had gone home. The programmers were still huddled together. A co-worker who is my age, with whom I sometimes hang out, was chatting up some young, female customers. Well, it was better I mingled, instead of shyly clinging to the one person with whom I had a friendship outside of the office. I rolled my eyes as, "I went to about twenty-seven wineries", followed by a chorus of "Woooow"'s, came up; I knocked back another gin and tonic.
I ended up standing with the programming department, eventually getting into an awkward conversation with one of my supervisors about people who ask too many questions and whether or not they are annoying.
"The question is always, 'Is it better to screw something up, or risk annoying someone?'"
"The only thing that annoys me is people who ask the same question more than once."
"I think sometimes they genuinely forget."
"Well yes, I guess--"
"It seems that the people who worry that they're annoying are the ones who aren't annoying," I said weakly, hopefully. Fortunately, somebody changed the subject.
Because I hadn't eaten, after two drinks TWO DRINKS ONLY, I was looking at myself in the bathroom mirror with that drunken grin, and then laughing at my expression, and then saying in my head, "Look how pathetic you are!", and then giggling some more. I also noticed that I looked pretty good in my semi-dressy outfit--white linen pants with a faint, very thin gold vertical stripe pattern, and a matching button-up blouse. It had a thicker stripe pattern and slightly puffed short sleeves, and it was cut unfortunately low. I safety-pinned it, but because of its color, I also had no choice but to wear the only light-colored bra, regrettably a push-up. Sober, I knew this was a recipe for disaster; gin-and-toniced, I thought I looked damn hot and the bra was the same color as my skin so who cares if my shirt slips a little?
The combination of low-cut shirt, pushup bra, and boozery, however, didn't cause my downfall, either.
---
In retrospect, I realize that my co-worker friend was probably egging me on. He can't possibly be that inexperienced with intoxicated women not to know what kind of reaction his ill-chosen words would have induced. He's lucky he didn't end up with a drink on his shirt.
"You should straighten your hair," he said.
"Ha ha ha! I have pictures of me with a straight hair wig! Trust me, I shouldn't straighten my hair."
"I think you should."
"Why?"
"I find women with straight hair to be the most attractive."
"Ha!" I said angrily, and before my Inner Sober Woman could intervene, I retorted, "I don't need to be any more attractive to you than I already am!"
Oh, and that was after I pet him.
That's right. In public, at a company function, in front of customers, I pet a coworker.
---
Shortly before the dangerous hair-related remark was uttered, I was standing alone, observing those around me. After that second drink that had rendered me so silly, I set my glass, thoroughly drained of any residual gin-flavored ice water, on the bar. From behind me, I heard a voice.
"Hello. I don't think we've met," said a voice. I turned to look; a man in his late twenties was extending his hand to me.
I shook his hand as he told me his name. "I'm Sarah," I replied, trying to smile congenially and with a minimum of awkwardness. All business, I asked him which client he was with.
He answered, and said, "It's nice to meet you, Sarah. So you work for (name of our company)?" It dawned on me then that he was flirting. This was flirtatious small talk! Even I, oblivious to most male advances, could see that!
I decided to tactfully end the chatting up. "Yes, I started working here two years ago, for my father. That's him over there." I pointed to the intimidating figure--a tall, loud Irish man.
As he turned to look, a voice spoke up behind me.
"You're driving tonight, Ms. Sarah?" It was my co-worker friend; apparently the cloud of women had dispersed. Similarly, the flirting client disappeared and left me alone at the bar with my co-worker friend.
thought, What is he, stupid? Isn't it obvious that I am in no position to drive? That I am DRUNK!?
Apparently, I said some of that out loud.
My co-worker friend was unfazed. "Why don't you have a drink in your hand?" he asked, smiling. I know that smile, and I should have known that smile last night. It was the same smile that precedes an offer of a Long Island Iced Tea to a fourteen-year-old.
"I don't know what to get!" I said. I was truly overwhelmed.
"Well, what do you like?"
"Everything!!!"
It was true. When we arrived, I stood at the bar and stared at the wide array of high-quality liquor--as much as I wanted, at the expense of someone else. What would I get?
"Do you like...appletinis?" he asked me.
"I think so!"
He signalled to the bartender. "Could you get her one of those appletinis like they have over there?"
Holding a very large martini glass, I began to remark on how different he looked now that he shaved his beard.
"I haven't seen you like that in almost two years, and I didn't see you when you were growing the beard so when I saw you the first time, with the full beard, I had a hard time not laughing! I didn't like it! Then I guess I got used to it and I don't know which I like better! But," I reached out my hand, "you look so different!"
My fingertips were intertwining with strands of his hair. The hair on his head. My Inner Sober Woman was mortified, saying, "That is the hair on his head, you idiot! It has nothing to do with the hair that used to be on his face! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?"
His face, too, said, "What is she doing?" His look of terror awoke my Inner Sober Woman, so that I snapped my hand back. I don't remember if I backed away from him, or maintained the drunkard's inability to determine personal space boundaries.
Fortunately, no customers seemed to notice the petting going on by the bar.
But I couldn't NOT draw attention to myself. Oh no.
A group of customers and co-workers approached to join my co-worker friend and me at the bar. The customers introduced themselves to us. I suddenly blurted out in response, "He told me to straighten my hair!"
Everyone laughed, or said, "No, don't do it!" and "What!?" and "Are you crazy?"
"I did not say that!" he argued. "I said for a day! Just to see what it looks like. For a day!"
"That is not what you said!" I retorted.
"Yes it is...for one day--"
"No, forever!"
"I-"
"He said I should get that Japanese ionic straightening thing done!"
The men erupted into laughter. Without realizing it, I had brought it to another level by bringing his manhood into question. Perfect!
"Japanese what?" asked one.
"You know about those things?" inquired another.
"What the hell is that?" demanded a third.
"No! I don't even know what that is!" sputtered my co-worker friend.
"Yes you do! You told me to get it!" I insisted.
And so on.
Shortly after this, my father said it was time to leave. Good, I thought, maybe I can convince him to stop at Wendy's or something.
But we were halted outside, by a customer and another co-worker, smoking cigarettes, huddled under an awning so as not to get rained on. My father, unaware of my ravenous hunger for cheeseburgers, stopped to socialize with the other two men. After some time, through the glass door, an interruption came in the form of my co-worker friend marching purposefully towards us.
The group of men and I acted like cranky children, as though my co-worker friend was somebody's parent come to spoil our party.
My co-worker friend sensed this vibe. "What?!" he asked, hurt. "Can't I just come out and say hi?"
The Devil or the Desire for Cheeseburgers or some sort of evil spirits took over my body, at that point, and I looked at the customer, pointed at my co-worker friend, and exclaimed, "He told me to STRAIGHTEN MY HAIR!"
"Oh no! Why would you do that?" the men began saying.
"No I didn't!"
"Yes you did you told me to get Japanese ionic straightening!"
"I...I'm going inside."
---
Finally, finally, the men finished their cigarettes. My father began walking toward the car. They were all still within earshot when I said, "Daddy, I'll give you ten bucks if you stop and get me a cheeseburger!"
My father stopped at a nearby drive-thru, and I spent the remaining car ride indescribably happy with my cheeseburger and my memories of how I'd embarrassed my poor co-worker friend.
0 comments:
Post a Comment