Two fire trucks pull up outside the restaurant, lights flashing, but without sirens. Red light sweeps the length of the restaurant, again, again, again. The waif leads a beautiful young couple into the dining room. The woman is slender and extraordinary. She has the kind of cool beauty that has always attracted and intimidated Matthew. She’s dressed in the thinnest of silks, surely no more than an ounce and a half in all. The man is of what Matthew considers the same type, elegant and slim, even beautiful, apparently moneyed, quite at ease. The waif seats them and they look around the room, insouciant, mildly curious, apparently blind to the pulsing red.
Beautiful, BW remarks. Thinner than what you usually like, probably bulimic, but a beauty of the highest order. Beyond your reach, I’d say.
“What’s going on?” asks Liz.
Firemen in rubber suits enter the restaurant, occasioning the same ripple of interest in the bar that Matthew observed earlier, no more.
“Well,” says Matthew. “The restaurant may be on fire.”
The firemen look around quickly, and the bar crowd watches, interested, but not terribly.
“Should we leave?” asks Liz.
“Well,” says Matthew, “that would probably not be hip. We’d look kind of stodgy. You know — uncool.”
The firemen dash down the steps, trot the length of the dining room, and disappear through the door to the kitchen. The slim beauties look at the waif, who shrugs and, wearing a puzzled look, follows the firemen into the kitchen. The beauties pick up their menus.
“Apparently,” says Matthew, “everyone has decided not to give a shit, or at least not to appear to give a shit.”
“Well, what the hell,” says Liz. “You’ve got to go sometime.”
The firemen emerge from the kitchen, at a slower pace, on their way back to their red trucks. The waif follows them.
“Um, excuse me,” says Matthew.
The waif stops, spins around. “Two more?” she asks brightly.
“Sure. Why not? But actually I was going to ask you what’s going on.”
“Oh, you noticed the firemen? There’s no cause for alarm.” She spins around again, and off she goes.
“So, what do you think?” asks Matthew.
“Probably blackening some snapper or something. Do they do that here?”
“No, I mean about the wisdom of renting for a while. Look things over, check things out.”
“Check things out”? Did I hear you say that? asks BW.
“Oh, I don’t know. I’d wind up stuck in a lease — ”
“Hey,” says Matthew. “I’ve got an idea.”
“Oh, no.”
“What?” What does she mean, “Oh, no”?
She reaches across the table and takes his hand. “Matthew, I don’t want to move in with you, you know.”
Shit. I ruined it.
“Oh, no. Of course not. I didn’t think so. I — ”
“I thought maybe you were working your way around to asking me to move in. Move in with you. Move into your place.”
“Huh? Oh — no. No, no.” He chuckles. “No, no. I don’t mean that you couldn’t stay there. If you had to. Until you got settled. But, no, I wasn’t going to suggest you move in. That wouldn’t work.” He chuckles again, in a fair imitation of a man who finds it surprising that she would think such a thing possible, now, when so much has changed, when his life is so different. “You know — well — things are different for me now, and — ”
“You’re not expecting Linda to move in?”
“Belinda.”
“Belinda. Right.”
“No, I’m not expecting Belinda to move in. I’m not expecting anyone to move in. It’s just that my life is quite a bit different now.” He smiles. He hopes this smile suggests that his bed is rarely empty, that Belinda is only one of many.
“Well, that’s good. Belinda’s — she’s kind of up in the air, I think,” says Liz, letting the remark dangle. Back in her smoking days, she would have taken a puff now and let the smoke out slowly, making visible the teasing thread of her remark.
It’s a shame she doesn’t smoke anymore. She used to handle that tantalizing interruption very well. Now she has no real substitute for it.
[to be continued]
In Topical Guide 536, Mark Dorset considers Communication: Nonverbal: Smoking from this episode.
Have you missed an episode or two or several?
You can begin reading at the beginning or you can catch up by visiting the archive or consulting the index to the Topical Guide.
You can listen to the episodes on the Personal History podcast. Begin at the beginning or scroll through the episodes to find what you’ve missed.
You can listen to “My Mother Takes a Tumble” and “Do Clams Bite?” complete and uninterrupted as audiobooks through YouTube.
You can ensure that you never miss a future issue by getting a free subscription. (You can help support the work by choosing a paid subscription instead.)
At Apple Books you can download free eBooks of Little Follies and Herb ’n’ Lorna.
You’ll find overviews of the entire work in An Introduction to The Personal History, Adventures, Experiences & Observations of Peter Leroy (a pdf document) and at Encyclopedia.com.
🎧 536: Two fire trucks . . .