Reservations, Darling

by Eugene Murray

Almost a month after he had given up on her, they began going out again when she called him, on Christmas night, and slurred that she thought she may have overdosed on gin and Seconal.  After a frantic drive in his pajamas, never thinking to call for help, he pounded on her apartment door. She opened it, droopy eyed and naked, and then collapsed.  He wrestled her into a robe and brought her to a hospital.  An exam, blood test, and a long talk with a psychiatric intern revealed that she had taken about a third of a bottle of gin, and two Seconal, and that she would be fine in a day or so. 

“Just take her somewhere she can sleep it off,” they told him.

He put her on the couch and found a quilt for her, and slept on the chair across the room.  Logy and sleepy, they stumbled around each other for the rest of the day, and that night they finally slept together.

“Oh, my,” she said to him, only once actually, but several times in his memory, “this is really special.”

And later, spooning, she said, “I’m so sorry I spoiled your Christmas.  It’s just, you know, this is me.  This is just me.”

“Oh, no, no,” he said.  “This is the best Christmas ever.”

“Oh, that is so wonderful to hear.  Maybe we should plan something for New Year’s?”  He just nodded.

Classes were cancelled and his part time job in the mailroom was closed for the holiday, so he had time to make phone calls that afternoon.

“Chez Veronique. Maurice speaking,” the squeaky French accent answered his first call.

“Hello, I’d like to make a reservation, s’il vous plait.  Dinner for two on New Year’s Eve, please.”

“Ah, monsieur, you are too early.  Reservations for next New Year’s will not be taken until the summer.”

“No, I meant for this New Year’s Eve.  This Sunday.”

“A thousand pardons, mon ami.  Chez Veronique has been booked for New Year’s since Thanksgiving.  Je suis desole.  I mean I am very sorry.”

“Oh, I didn’t realize.  Well, how about if I stop down there this afternoon, and provide you with some motivation.  Something green and foldable perhaps?”

“Listen, Jack,” the French accent was gone now, “you can fold up your little five dollar bill and stick it in your ear.  We’re booked, got it?”  He hung up.

When they met, she was a bartender at one of the few clean, well-lit places near where he worked sorting and delivering mail. The first time he saw her, standing behind the bar pulling on a beer tap, he felt like he had swallowed a stone.  He leaned against the wall near the rest room and just watched her move up and down behind the bar, flirting and schmoozing.  She did this tiny flip of her head to move the hair out of her eyes that stayed in his memory for days afterward.  He abandoned the friends he had come with and sat at the bar until his cash ran out.

“This is Trattoria Napoli.  May I help you?”

“Yes, hello, I’d like to make a reservation, please.”

“Oh, yes, sir.  For this evening? And how many?”

“No, I’m hoping for a table for New Year’s Eve.  It’ll just be two.”

“I’m sorry, we are booked for New Year’s.  We stopped taking reservations around Halloween.”

“Ryan’s Steak House.  Will Ryan speaking.”

“Hello, Will.  I’d like to see about a reservation for this Sunday?  Just two people.”

“We have a brunch we should be able to squeeze you into.”

“No, I don’t think a brunch is going to do it.  Any possibility for dinner?  An early dinner maybe?”

“We start serving at four, but we’ve been booked since Labor Day.  Have you tried any of the sushi places?”

He came to her bar about twice a week after that first meeting, and always got that stone-swallow feeling again.  She was cordial to him, but professional, and always busy with other customers.  She still did that hair flip, usually about five times per minute, and he was transfixed by the way her blond hair leaped obediently into place, if momentarily, with each nudge.

They went out once to a movie, and once to an afternoon concert, but that was a month before Christmas.  She was pleasant, but distant, and rolled her eyes a lot. His name was Jim, and twice she called him John.  She seemed to always be looking behind him.

Her desperate phone call on Christmas night was a complete surprise.

“Anita Sushi and Martini Bar.  This Mae, can I help you?”

“I’d like to book a table for New Year’s Eve, please.  Just two people around nine o’clock?”

“Oh, sorry, sorry.  We close New Year Eve.  Whole family go to Times Square watch ball come down.”

“Really?  I don’t think I ever knew anyone who went to Times Square on New Year’s Eve.”

“Oh, yes.  Great big fun.  Drink champagne, shiver all night, look for TV camera to scream.  Great big fun.”

“I’m having trouble getting a reservation for New Year’s Eve,” he told her.  “I never realized that places seem to be booked months in advance.  Why don’t we just maybe have something here?  We can set up a nice late dinner, snuggle up for a movie, a chick flick if you want, and then watch the ball drop on TV.”

She looked at him for a long moment. “Yes,” she said, “I used to love to do that, you know, when I was twelve.”

“We can make it fun.  We can decorate the place, cook something exotic, and drink champagne.  You know.  We just need to get creative.  Make it fun.”

“I’m not much of a cook,” she told him.  “Coffee and toast on a good day.  On a not good day, I wouldn’t attempt to even boil water.  I don’t think I would be much help to you in the kitchen making a big meal like that.”

 “Katie’s Country Kitchen. ‘We Make Eggs The Way You Like ‘Em’. Can I help you, honey?”

“Are you accepting reservations for New Year’s Eve?  I know it’s late.”

“Well, we’re usually pretty busy for New Year’s, but Mr. Anderson is a fast eater, and we could give you his stool at the counter when he’s done with his usual fried chicken on a waffle special.”

”There’ll be two of us.”

“Two?  Oh, that presents a problem.  I’m not sure I can promise two stools together.  But how about this?  You wait out in the parking lot, and I’ll give you the high sign if something opens up.  How’s that sound?”

“Number 118.  118 is next”

He dropped his ticket with the bright red 118 into the bowl on the counter and said to the butcher, “I’m looking for something special for New Year’s Eve Dinner.  Any suggestions?”

The butcher, about seventeen with an eyebrow ring said, “Turduckhen is very popular these days.”

“Turduckhen?  That’s a new one on me.  What is it?”

“A combination roaster.  It’s chicken stuffed into a duck, and both stuffed into a Turkey.  Comes with regular stuffing too.  Usually for the holidays we make up complete dinner platters, appetizers, a turduckhen, veggies and a pie for desert.”

“That sounds great.  Can I get a turducken dinner for two, please?”

“Oh, sorry.  We stopped taking orders day before yesterday.”

“Oh.  Well, a turkey then?  Can I get a good-sized turkey, maybe a twenty pounder or so?  I’ll do the veggies somehow.”

“Sorry again.  No turkeys left.  Maybe I can interest you in a capon?  It’s kind of like a turkey, but in miniature.  It’s a little bird, not much meat on them, but I’m told very tasty.”

He came back to her apartment with two large grocery bags; three capons, potatoes, carrots, peas, ice cream and an apple pie.  Just to be sure he bought a baster, a roasting pan, some knives, an apron and a couple of oven mitts.  He had rented three Jennifer Aniston movies, she had to like one of them, and spent fifty bucks on two bottles of champagne.

The door was unlocked, but the chain was on and he could only see into the hallway.  In the mirror he saw her, naked again, pressed against the wall by a man.  Apparently he had said something she agreed with because she was shouting, “Yes!  Oh, Yes!” in his ear.

He tried to yell something at them, but nothing came out.  He took his groceries home.

Next day, New Year’s Eve, he left a different bag of supplies at her door; a quart of gin, a bag of ice and two boxes of sleeping pills. 

He added a note, “Sorry these are not prescription strength, but hope they do the trick.”