After breakfast, Clayton reminded Isabel that even though it was Sunday, he had to work, the glamorous life of a home-shopping host being what it was. She thanked him for breakfast—he had paid for that too—and said she hoped they could hang out again some time. He said sure.
Clayton walked east across Seventy-Second Street until he reached Central Park, where a steady stream of joggers and bicyclists were headed south in their great counterclockwise loop. He crossed through them when given the opportunity and into Sheep Meadow. Though it was empty now, later in the day this well-manicured lawn would be packed with people his age who couldn’t afford a vacation house in the Hamptons, Fire Island, or the Jersey Shore. He knew this because he was one of them. He was less than halfway across the lawn when he decided he couldn’t bear the thought of his polo shirt touching his body—perhaps it was the humidity of this August morning—so he took it off and held it limply by his side. He wanted so much to lie down on the grass but he knew he might fall asleep there, probably for too long. He considered the embarrassment of being discovered by an acquaintance who had come to the park to get some sun and be flirty with guys on other blankets and continued his trek.
When Clayton arrived at his building, he put his shirt back on, feeling sufficiently like a degenerate. He unlocked his apartment door to find Pete, standing in the hallway wearing pajama bottoms and no shirt, sipping coffee from an oversized mug, which looked particularly large because of Pete’s small body. “Looks like someone had a fun night,” Pete said.
“I don’t know if I’d say that, but it was a night.”
Pete offered Clayton coffee, which he accepted, and while he was pouring it from the carafe, he asked, “What time do you go to work?”
“I have to be there at one,” Clayton said. “So I’ll leave around twelve thirty. Why?”
“I was wondering if you wanted to have sex.” Pete smiled. He had big, perfect teeth, which Clayton envied. “I’ve never even had braces,” he had told Clayton on their first date.
“Sure,” said Clayton. “Why the hell not.”
So Pete and Clayton had sex (the details of which will be left to the reader’s imagination). When it was over, Clayton ran the shower and when the temperature was to his liking, entered the tub and sat down, his head resting on the back wall. He stayed like that for more than half an hour, until Pete knocked on the bathroom door to remind him to go to work.
On Monday morning Clayton went to the office for meetings with buyers and executives. Around lunchtime while he was checking his sales figures on his computer, Isabel plopped onto his desk again. Her legs were crossed at the ankles and her hands clasped along the edge on either side of her knees, the way a schoolgirl might sit while waiting her turn in a spelling bee.
She looked around for witnesses and, seeing none, said at a conversational volume, “So that was fun.” When Clayton responded with an mmm hmmm and an obvious lack of eye contact, Isabel dropped her head closer to his. “I could have you fired, you know,” she said. Her tone seemed remarkably upbeat and flirty.
Clayton, too tired for games, looked Isabel in the eye and said, “Actually, I don’t think you could.” And he went back to his computer screen.
Some small part of Clayton wondered whether Isabel would tell her boss the truth, a fiction, or anything at all. But as the days went by his concern diminished steadily. Soon the channel laid off almost half its employees, including Isabel.
*
Eight years later, Clayton was walking in the West Village one evening with his boyfriend, Alex, and someone—Isabel!—grabbed his arm. “How are you?” she asked warmly, as if addressing a best friend she hadn’t seen in years.
It took him a second to place her; to be honest he couldn’t remember her name immediately. “I’m good, thank you,” he said. “You?”
“I’m . . . great,” she said. “Yeah, I’m great.”
And that was it. They said good-bye. A few steps later, Alex asked, “Who was that?”
“Just some girl I used to work with,” Clayton said. “Do you want to go back to your place and have sex?”
“Sure,” said Alex.
(And the details of which—oh, you get the idea.)
* * *
* All names have been changed, including my own.
I’M WAITING
I haven’t waited a table since March 1993, but I still wake up in a cold sweat a couple of times a year because I forgot to bring a third whiskey sour to the naked old lady dining with Idi Amin. Or because the management has changed the computer system without telling me, so every time I type the code for a menu item it gets all garbled by the time it reaches the printer in the kitchen.
“Is this some kind of joke, you little prick?” The expediting chef screams at me as soon as I enter through the swinging doors.
I’m confused. “Is what a joke?” I ask.
“What did you order?” He looks like he wants to rip my head off.
“A turkey club, hold the mayonnaise.”
“Look at this!” He thrusts the ticket toward me. It’s got my name on the top, so it must be my order except, for the life of me, I don’t know why it doesn’t say TURK CLB, NO MAYO. “Read it out loud,” he says, “so these fine chefs don’t miss a single word.” A half-dozen surly types in white coats glare at me.
“Ass rape, no mayo,” I say.
“Louder, boy!”
“ASS RAPE, NO MAYO, SIR!”
Then the chef—he has become Brad Pitt in Inglourious Basterds—paces back and forth in front of the steam table where they keep the soups: Manhattan Clam, New England Clam, and whatever the soup du jour is. I probably should know it, but I forgot to memorize the specials. “Did ya hear that, fellas? This fine sonofabitch wants nonconsensual sodomy! With a categorical lack of lubricant!”
All of a sudden I’m confused because I don’t know how my customer is going to get his sandwich. “No,” I say. “That’s not what I want at all. Nobody wants that. Can somebody please make me a turkey club?” The next thing I know, I’m running and running. I’m the only waiter for the entire restaurant. All the water glasses need to be refilled, ashtrays are overflowing, my name tag says Charlene.
“Noooooooo!” I sit up in bed.
“Are you OK?” Damon asks.
“Just another restaurant dream,” I say and try to go back to sleep.
If I ever become president of the United States, which I won’t because I want that job about as much as I want bacterial meningitis, I vow to institute a draft. Not for military service, but for mandatory restaurant work, which will result in a more kindhearted society overall.
Hear me out.