“A gorgeous day,” she says through lips as plump as her steak.
Her friend, or maybe daughter (it’s hard to tell), noses through a salad, and between them, the bottle of white chills in stainless steel. Their small tabletop, draped in white linen, sat secure behind a short iron fence beautified with flowers, and protected them from the stumbling drunk with a tattered sweater and grimy black beard. He picks up a discarded bag of sour cream and onion chips sitting below the tire of the Rolls Royce. Perhaps my eyes deceive me, but I am quite certain I saw the lovely Flying Lady scowl at him from her perch atop the shiny ivory hood.
There are no chips in the bag, so he tosses it and moves on, past the old lady barking at a borrowed driver, past two million dollars of aluminum and carbon fiber.
I move quickly to dodge the young, brown-skinned valet as he runs for his life to fetch a man’s car.
A young-ish woman laments to her server, in no uncertain terms, that the tuna tartar will simply not do. She doesn’t want it remade, however, she only demands a steak as plump as her lips. (She, too, has supersized lips.) Her husband, or maybe father (it’s hard to tell), sits coolly, polishing his deep thoughts, or more likely, admiring his Rolls.
“It’s too warm,” cries a woman from a sunny spot amid flowers and shrimp and wine. She digs into her enormous, branded brown leather bag for something. It will take her awhile, and I’m not waiting for the big reveal.
Clipity-clop. Clipity-clop. A middle-aged diva totters on her heels from Porsche to podium, where a judgmental young woman with purple eyes awaits to oblige her.
The two tables on the fringe sit empty, filled with possibility.
It’s quieter here, but I smell steak ahead.
neuspaper 