Bad Games

22



The restaurant known as The Walnut Creek Grille had been recommended highly by both Lorraine and Norman, who claimed it was easily the nicest and most romantic place in the area. Amy had embraced their friends’ recommendation without pause, but now grew skeptical as Patrick pulled the Highlander into the strip mall just off Walnut Creek Road.

“This can’t be it,” she said, ducking down, looking hard through the windshield.

Patrick drove slowly through the crowded lot. “This is where Norm said it was.”

“We’re in a strip mall,” she said.

“You knew that.”

“Yeah, but I didn’t think it was part of the strip mall. I thought it was detached— like next to it or something.”

Patrick continued cruising the length of shops. The strip was long and common: a pharmacy; a book store; a pizza place; a barber shop; a video store. So far no Walnut Creek Grille.

“What does it matter?” he asked.

“Well, I didn’t get this dressed up so we could eat at Dairy Queen.”

“Come on, baby,” Patrick said, eyes still fixed on each passing shop as he spoke. “Norm and Lorraine wouldn’t have recommended it if it wasn’t any good.”

Amy shrugged. “I guess.”

The rows of shops began bending towards the right. They appeared close to the end.

“Maybe this isn’t the right place,” Patrick admitted. “I didn’t see it anywhere, did you?”

Amy said, “Huh, uh.”

Patrick hung a right and rounded the strip mall’s corner. Both he and Amy shouted: “There!”

The Walnut Creek Grille was the very last shop, a useful detail Patrick felt Norm could have mentioned earlier.

“Jinx,” Patrick said after their simultaneous blurt. “You can’t talk until you buy me a martini.”

“Gay.”

“Hmmm…already breaking the rules and bigoted?”

“I have a gay brother. I can say what I want with immunity.”

“I’m gonna call Eric and ask.”

“Go ahead. He’ll call you gay himself.”

Patrick grumbled.

An empty parking spot was right in front of the restaurant.

“Ooh, look at this, baby,” Amy said, pointing. “Rock star.”

“They obviously knew we were coming.”

Patrick parked the Highlander and the couple got out. Their spot was practically on top of the entrance.

“You sure this isn’t a handicap spot?” Patrick asked, checking the ground beneath the SUV, searching for even the tiniest hint of blue paint.

Amy took hold of his arm with both hands and pulled him towards the entrance. “We’re fine, come on.”

Patrick’s first words when they entered the restaurant were, “Whoa.” He looked at Amy. She looked back, a delighted smile on her face. “Deceptive isn’t it?” he said.

The exterior of the restaurant was modest. The interior was extravagant, but hardly overt in its accomplishment. It was subtle with its décor and ambience, choosing to embrace the patrons with a sense of warmth and comfort as opposed to flaunting its stature by making them feel privileged to bathe in its presence.

The restaurant was small and concise. To the right was a bar whose back mirror was lit with a dim, pleasant glow that illuminated rows of top-shelf liquor and cast a faint shine down onto a smooth marble top.

To the left was the dining area. The surrounding walls held appreciable art and small lamps shaped as ornate candles, lighting the room with a soft touch as if they were the real thing. Waiters and waitresses dressed in posh garb weaved deftly between tables covered in fine cloth and silverware, pouring wine and delivering silver trays of cuisine.

Directly ahead an attractive male and female host stood behind a wooden podium. Both smiled genuinely as Amy and Patrick approached.

“Hi,” Patrick said. “Lambert? Party of two?”

The female glanced down at the appointment book, smiled again and said, “Follow me.”



* * *



Their salads had come and gone—Patrick’s a Caesar, Amy’s a garden with fat-free Italian.

“This place is so nice,” Amy said. She sipped her glass of Pinot and sighed a deep, contented sigh.

Patrick smiled with his eyes. “Feeling better?” he asked.

“Much,” she replied. “I had no idea it would be this nice.”

Patrick sipped his martini. “No, I mean do you feel better about…everything.”

Amy took another sip of wine. “I don’t think I’ll ever feel better about that.”

“But you’re feeling a little better, right? A bit more at ease?”

Amy set her glass down and stared at it for a few seconds before replying. “I don’t think I’m ever going to feel a hundred percent about all that’s happened. On a scale of one to ten, I’d say this sojourn has been a two thus far—this restaurant being the only thing keeping me from rating it a one.”

Patrick nodded slowly and now it was his turn to look at his drink. He played with the toothpick, spearing his olive multiple times, searching for levity. “Yeah. Still, it’ll make a pretty outlandish story to tell when we get home, won’t it?”

“Maybe in time we can find the humor in it, but at the moment I’m afraid I just don’t see it,” she said.

Patrick quickly shook his head. “No, I’m not saying it’s funny, baby, I’m just saying…it’s over now, so…”

Amy raised an eyebrow. “So?”

Patrick stopped torturing his olive, plucked it and ate it. “Forget it,” he said, chewing. “I don’t know what I’m trying to say.”

And he didn’t. He wasn’t even sure he should have brought the whole thing up— the last thing he wanted to do was ruin their evening. It just seemed appropriate to mention for some reason, the way somebody asks for an update involving a terminally ill loved one. You know the news will be bad, but if it’s discussed more than ignored, perhaps it may ultimately lose a bit of its impact, become a therapeutic way of coping.

“It doesn’t bother you at all does it?” she asked.

Patrick first thought about Arty and the gas and Carrie’s doll. It was indeed bothersome, but confusing took more of a lead between the two. In fact, the more he thought about it now, the more he decided that bizarre had won the race. Bothersome and confusing had finished and earned their respected spot, but bizarre was indeed the clear winner.

The man who had crudely propositioned Amy in the supermarket before leaving the rice on the car was different. That was truly upsetting, but it was something that could have just as easily happened back home. As for that same man looking into their window while they made love? Yes. Of course that had initially angered him. Angered the hell out of him. He still wasn’t sure if Amy’s eyes had betrayed her or not, but the mere possibility that she’d truly seen what she claimed boiled his blood.

And finally there was the finger in the bait. That bothered him. It did. But the whole incident seemed so random, so unrelated to all the bizarre goings-on that had already transpired. Logic simply had no say on that one. So what choice was there but to ultimately laugh at the absurdity of it all?

“You don’t think it bothers me?” he said.

Amy shrugged. “It doesn’t seem to. At least not a whole lot.”

“I think it’s too surreal,” he said. “Everything that’s happened…it’s just so absurd. I don’t know. Maybe I’m just not digesting it all yet. Call it a defense mechanism. Call me a stubborn dummy.”

Amy took another sip of her wine. She smiled at Patrick, weak and small, but there. “I know you want everything to be okay, baby,” she said. “You’re like Chevy Chase from the Vacation movies in your quest to showing your family a good time—nothing’s more important to you.”

Patrick smirked at her wit.

“And I’m willing to write off the whole weird experience with that Arty guy. But the other guy I just can’t let go of,” she said. “Even if I didn’t see him in our window; even if my eyes were playing tricks on me, the whole incident at the supermarket and in the parking lot with the rice is enough to stay with me for a bit.”

Will she mention the finger? Patrick wondered.

“And let’s not forget about the finger,” she said.

Patrick sipped his martini, kept his eyes down and chose silence. Amy reached across the table and took hold of his free hand. “Don’t get me wrong, baby—I’m enjoying myself tonight, I really am. But I wonder if we should even be here.”

“Out to dinner?”

“Crescent Lake.”

Patrick asked something he already knew. “Do you want to leave?”

She looked at her wine again. There was a small sip left that she swirled in her glass with two fingers on the base of the stem. “No,” she said. “I don’t. But don’t expect me to suddenly forget everything that’s happened. That finger could have been made of rubber, been a prank from a kid. And I could have been seeing things when I looked out the window and saw the supermarket guy last night. But it still doesn’t put my mind at ease, Patrick. You can’t expect otherwise.”

“I don’t. You know I don’t. And if I was in your shoes I’d feel exactly the same way.” He picked up her hand and kissed it.

She smiled, a stronger one this time, then gulped the remainder of her wine. “I think I need another.”

“Then another you shall have.”

Another good smile. “Why did we even start talking about all this crap again?”

Patrick shrugged. “Beats me. Small talk until the main course arrives?”

She pursed her lips. “Oh right—that conversation definitely qualified as small talk.”

Patrick laughed and kissed her hand again. The waiter came by and cleared their salad plates and Patrick used the opportunity to drain the rest of his drink as well.

“Would you folks care for another round?” the waiter asked.

“Yes please,” Patrick said.

When the waiter brought their next round, Amy said, “So is the plan to keep drinking until we forget about everything?”

Patrick raised his glass. “Works for me.”