LESSON 22

LESSON 22

Her bracelet, the polished sheen and its gems (they’re not glass, trust me) keep beckoning me towards her, although usually I wouldn’t dare. She’s done well for herself by marrying a movie director whose films are hot right now. The bastard.

I look at the frayed sleeve of my Salvation Army jacket as though it gives me reason for my question. I can see she still hasn’t noticed me sitting on a booth near the gilded front door.

People far better dressed than I am make their entrances as though this place belongs to them. They must be wondering why a dirt poor flake like me is sitting at the front door. 

She’s still sitting alone, I notice, as I finally get to my feet and amble slowly towards her.

“Hey, sis.”

She looks up at me, startled, batting her heavily shadowed eyes and then she pastes on a smile with her pearly whites. Uncertainly, she spits out, “Why, Kevin! What are you doing here?”

I feel myself quaking inside but I manage to keep standing there. I indicate the chair opposite hers and say, “May I?”

She takes a sip of her wine and looks around her. I know she’s wondering if her being seen with me will lessen her value as the director’s wife.

Finally she nods, eyeing me suspiciously and says, “Make it quick, bro. Please.”

A well dressed waiter comes by with a wine bottle and my sister shakes her head. The waiter throws a glance in my direction and she seems to decide that she can override my presence by not appearing to be altruistic.

“So tell me, Kevin,” she says with a tight smile.

The waiter reappears with a Caesar salad bordered by a skirt steak, dressing and croutons on the side. He places each dish in front of my sister and throws another glance my way. She again shakes her head. 

As she takes a quarter of a forkful and lifts it carefully to her mouth so as to avoid her lipstick, I manage to say, “I need a favor.”

The fork pauses in front of her lips. Then she puts it down. Her familiar hiss is, “What is it this time?”

Leaving the fork in the salad, she lifts up her empty wineglass and the astute waiter reappears, and refills it with the wine.

At that moment, her director husband shows up at her table for two. With him is his entourage of who knows who they are and he makes a big deal of seating them in the surrounding tables for two from which other diners, already there, need to be reseated. Every one of them is obliging, even pleased, due to his fame. 

Out of deference to my sister and her famous husband, I get up and back away. He throws me a who-the-hell-are-you glance as the astute waiter places another wineglass in front of him. 

I hang back, just observing them, as I retake my post at the front door. The feeling that I in no way belong here is drowned out by how she and her husband are interacting. She is talking rapidly to him while he keeps glancing around, taking in the appreciative looks the other diners are giving him. 

From my post, it looks like a one-sided relationship, but then, what do I know?