Jean peers into my office, knocking gently on the half-open door. I pretend not to acknowledge her presence, though I'm not sure why, since I'm kind of lonely. She moves up to the desk. I'm still staring at the crossword puzzle with my Wayfarers on, stunned but for no real reason.
She places a file on top of the desk before asking, "Doin' the crossword?" dropping the g in "doing" - a pathetic gesture of intimacy, an irritating stab at forced friendliness. I gag inwardly, then nod without looking up at her.
"Need help?" she asks, moving cautiously around the desk to where I sit, and she leans over my shoulder to offer assistance. I've already filled in every space with either the word meat or bone and she emits only a slight gasp when noticing this, and when she sees the pile of No. 2 pencils I've snapped in half lying on my desk she dutifully picks them up and walks out of the room.
"Jean?" I call.
"Yes, Patrick?" She reenters the office trying to downplay her eagerness.
"Would you like to accompany me to dinner?" I ask, still staring at the crossword, gingerly erasing the m in one of the many meat s I've filled the puzzle with. "That is, if you're not... doing anything."
"Oh no," she answers too quickly and then, I think, realizing this quickness, says, "I have no plans."
"Well, isn't this a coincidence," I ask, looking up, lowering my Wayfarers.
She laughs lightly but there's a real urgency in it, something uncomfortable, and this does little in the way of making me feel less sick.
"I guess," she shrugs.
"I also have tickets to a... a Mills Vanilla concert, if you'd like to go," I tell her casually.
Confused, she asks, "Really? Who?"
"Milla... Vanilla," I repeat slowly.
"Milla... Vanilla?" she asks uncomfortably.
"Milla... Vanilla," I say. "I think that's what their name is."
She says, "I'm not sure."
"About going?"
"No... of the name." She concentrates, then says, "I think they're called... Milli Vanilli."
I pause for a long time before saying, "Oh."
She stands there, nods once.
"It doesn't matter," I say - I don't have any tickets to it anyway. "It's months from now."
"Oh," she says, nodding again. "Okay."
"Listen, where should we go?" I lean back and pull my Zagat from the desk's top drawer.
She pauses, afraid of what to say, taking my question as a test she needs to pass, and then, unsure she's chosen the right answer, offers, "Anywhere you want?"
"No, no, no." I smile, leafing through the booklet. "How about anywhere you want?"
"Oh Patrick," she sighs. "I can't make this decision."
"No, come on," I urge. "Anywhere you want."
"Oh I can't." Helplessly, she sighs again. "I don't know."
"Come on," I urge her, "where do you want to go? Anywhere you want. Just say it. I can get us in anywhere."
She thinks about it for a long time and then, sensing her time is running out, timidly asks, trying to impress me, "What about... Dorsia?"
I stop looking through the Zagat guide and without glancing up, smiling tightly, stomach dropping, I silently ask myself, Do I really want to say no? Do I really want to say I can't possibly get us in? Is that what I'm really prepared to do? Is that what I really want to do?
"So-o-o-o," I say; placing the book down, then nervously opening it up again to find the number. "Dorsia is where Jean wants to go..."
"Oh I don't know," she says, confused. "No, we'll go anywhere you want."
"Dorsia is... fine," I say casually, picking up the phone, and with a trembling finger very quickly dial the seven dreaded numbers, trying to remain cool. Instead of the busy signal I'm expecting, the phone actually rings at Dorsia and after two rings the same harassed voice I've grown accustomed to for the past free months answers, shouting out, "Dorsia, yes?" the room behind the voice a deafening hum.
"Yes, can you take two tonight, oh, let's say, in around twenty minutes?" I ask, checking my Rolex, offering Jean a wink. She seems impressed.
"We are totally booked," the maitre d' shouts out smugly.
"Oh, really?" I say, trying to look pleased, on the verge of vomiting. "That's great."
"I said we are totally booked," he shouts.