Up & Out - Ariella Papa [14]
That was it. They got off the stage. They didn’t take questions. They didn’t say who was going to get fired or what the hell they were thinking. They just announced the merger and ran. Nobody in the audience moved. We were all in shock. I took a deep breath and looked at my team. Janice shook her head, John was picking and eating the cookie crumbs off his pants, and Jen looked like she was going to cry.
“Did I hear what I think I heard?” someone in front of me asks. “You mean to tell me that we are a television company and we just got bought by a bank?”
3
32 Flavors
I was late to meet the girls, as usual. And it didn’t help that the directions Beth left on my voice mail didn’t make any sense to me. I wandered my way around the West Village, which can be the most confusing place on earth and finally found the restaurant they were at, Poor Man.
“She made it in under an hour, this time,” Beth says. “That’s quite an improvement, isn’t it, ladies?”
All my friends were convinced that Esme was based on them. Kathy knew Esme was her because of the glasses. She never fell for the “men don’t make passes at women with glasses” bullshit and more than once convinced me to spend far too much money in Selima. Selima is the funkiest eyeglasses shop in the city. One look behind their glass cases and I was hooked. Beth thought it was her because she was sure that Esme was Portuguese like her and Tommy. And of course, Lauryn was certain that Esme’s detective skills were derivative of her discoveries of Jordan’s money troubles and infidelities.
The girls are already sloshed. They’ve been filling up on bread and booze. Kathy is dressed up the most. Her nights away from the fiancé are becoming more of an event, and she is more put together than she used to be. Beth looks like a hip, cold New Yorker, and Lauryn seems to be working some New Age thing with an Indian-print shirt and no makeup.
“I’m sorry. We got bought today—I mean, Explore! did.” I sit down and order a gimlet from the waiter.
“By who?” Lauryn asks. I tell them the whole story and explain how I had to stay at work late, not working but rehashing with my co-workers, except Jen, who left as soon as she could. I tell them all the theories people had, and Kathy gives me some anecdotes about corporate takeovers that depress me. The waiter comes over, his presence admonishing me for being late and not looking at the menu.
“You guys order, I’ll be last.” I like menus. I like to travel around the city and look in restaurant windows to see what they offer and decide what I would get if I ever went there. I like to be prepared. Lately, I’m always rushing to order something, so my friends could be a little less mad at me for always being late. I’m doing that now, trying to hurry up and figure out what to get.
I had, of course, read the review of Poor Man online at Zagats and Citysearch. I also saw the write-up a week and a half ago in the Times’s “Dining In/Dining Out.” I had done some research, but looking at a complete menu was a different story.
“And for you?” the waiter asks. My time is up. This restaurant is supposed to celebrate the food of the poor in various countries yet with an “upscale twist.” That twist is apparently the price.
“I’ll take…” I am still scanning the menu, desperate. Fuck! I need more time. “Um…”
“Oh, boy,” Kathy says, giggling.
“I’m thinking about…” What do I want?
“Here we go,” Beth says, sounding bitter.
“Okay, I think I’ll have…” Wait! Should I get a starter? Of course I should. But, what?
“She does this all the time,” Lauryn explains to the waiter. She might have been flirting.
“Okay, I just have a question,” I say. They all groan. “No, seriously. I want to ask you, sir. What do you recommend? The puttanesca or the mutton pie?”
“The mutton pie.”
“Really.” I look back at