The waiter pulled out the table wide, not only to accommodate her girth but also because she had all uncoordinated movements of a woman who was feeling her liquor a bit too well. She threw herself into the adjacent booth, and with a clumsy backhand threated to knock over my glass of wine, which I quickly moved to the other side of the table. "No No No. I need no menu," she beckoned the waiter. "I know what I want and what I want is a big plate of seafood. Pronto."
The seafood plateau arrived with due speed. I tried to mind my own business, but couldn't avoid hearing the crunching and squishing--exoskeletons crushed between the woman's massive hands. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw her shove a lobster tail into her mouth with the fleshy part of her palm. Seafood juice dripped down her arm to her elbow.
She caught me looking. "Hey," she said, leaning over toward me. I could feel her breath on my cheek. "Hey, you like oysters?"
"Yeah I like oysters," I said, nodding, not really comprehending until I watched with horror as she grabbed two Malpecs and threw them on my bread plate. "Well there you go. Enjoy!"
"Thanks." I stared at the Malpecs. And then to return the gesture of friendship, offered her a piece of my catfish. I asked her what drives a person to manhandle shellfish in such a manner (OK, I didn't ask her that, but you get the idea).
Her date had ditched her earlier that night. During the main course, he got up abruptly, throw money on the table, and then ran out. I was curious about the conversation immediately preceding her companion's hasty departure, but I felt it was awkward to ask even if she didn't appear to be the shy type. She left dinner humiliated, spending the remainder of the evening belting out show tunes at a karaoke bar. "I'm a good singer," she said. "I'm an actress, you see. Trying."
She pointed to the platter before her, adding: "Really, I can't even afford this. I'm forty years old, nobody will have me, too old to have children, and I'm still having my 80-year-old father in Rome pay for my meals. So yeah, I'm a loser."
This made me feel very sad for her and at the same time self-conscious. To me, dining alone is great pleasure, but one that borders on pathetic when it is an elaborate compensatory measure. Although I suffered no insult that evening, I was compensating for the consecutive nights spent at the office working into the wee morning hours. Blue Ribbon was consolation for an entire day deprived of food, fueled on coffee alone. It was a way pretending that I didn't need people to care for me--the ones that used to drag me out from the office before midnight, to call me and demand where the hell I was, and to tell me "I miss you, please come home soon."
Instead, I was here with a struggling Italian actress, who at the moment was swirling the contents of my wine glass. "Ah, so you're drinking a Bordeaux," she said, tipping the glass sideways. "I work as a wine captain at [**restaurant**]."
This could be me in 10 years: older, impoverished, struggling, alone and miserable. I watched her play with my wine. She appeared unsuspecting of the unkind thoughts running through my mind and I immediately felt ashamed for it.
"I think you're beautiful," she said. "So what I want to know is how come someone like you are here like this, eating by yourself?" She meant this as a compliment. But any response acknowledges that implicit notion:
that only losers eat alone. So what's my excuse?
"Well, I'm hungry," I said trying my best not to sound defensive. "And I treat myself well." This last bit was, of course, a lie. I do not treat myself well at all--bestowing energy on the wrong people and never demanding my due. These are all the hallmarks of those who posses a low regard of their own worth.
"What? You don't have someone out there to treat you well?" she asked. "You shouldn't be by yourself. I can't believe there aren't half a dozen guys out there..." Again, she intended this as some sort of compliment. And for someone so compromised by drink, she certainly strikes to the nerve with deadening accuracy.
"Yes, I do," I said. "But, er, it's 3 a.m. and I don't like to bother people at this hour. I'm okay by myself..." I trailed off. It was already too much and I needn't have said more. It was an indictment on me, my loneliness, my failings. Next to me was a woman who out of desperation allows herself to be mistreated, one who drinks herself to such blithering stupor that she will readily admit to any stranger how far she has fallen with respect to her aspirations. So why was it that I felt like the lame one? Empathy is only part responsible. But perhaps it is our uncomfortable similarities--only in my case, I lack the honesty to admit to my own shortcomings and vulnerability.
For this very reason, I felt a sudden and strange protective impulse toward her. After she finished her meal, I made sure she collected her scattered belongings and I made sure that she arrived safely at her apartment.
And she, in her own way, took care of me, defending my honor from the catcalling dudes in her neighborhood: "Boys, boys, boys, a little respect here," she said, arms akimbo teetering on a pair of three-inch stacked heels. "This is my good friend and you to don't talk that way to my good friend." I thought her slurred speech and demeanor would have the opposite intended effect, but to my surprise, it chastened the pack. Then she turned to me and said: "You see, Chiik, I take care of my good friends."
"Yes." I said good night and hoped that in the morning she would have no recollection of the night's events. Perhaps she may, instead, do what I do in similar situations--that is fabricate from imagination a sort of revisionist history, filled with romance and adventure:
I went on a hot date, ate a belly full of seafood, drank a whole bottle of whiskey, and sang a lot of show tunes. That was a fun night! Woo woo!"
