“Soon we’ll have to find our table,” he shouted, glancing out at the vast room filled with a hundred white-clothed circles, flickering with candlelight. Small vases of heather sprigs that could easily catch fire had been placed in the centers as well. So were little chrome cardholders declaring the table numbers. “What number are we?”
Suzy pulled the tag from what he facetiously called her “darling little bag,” then shoved it back in. “Seventy-nine,” she said. “I hope that’s near the restroom.”
“I hope it’s near the exit.”
“Let’s make a dash for it now!”
“Let’s scream ‘fire!’ ”
“Let’s fake heart attacks!”
“Do you have any pot?”
“We flew here — remember? I wouldn’t bring pot on an airplane.”
“We’re losing our sense of adventure. In all things.”
“This is an adventure!”
“You see, that’s what I mean.”
At the ringing of a small bell everyone was to sit — not just the ones already in wheelchairs. Bake let Suzy lead as they wended their way, drinks in hand, between the dozens of tables that were between them and number 79. They were the first ones there, and when he looked at the place cards and saw that someone had placed Suzy far away from him, he quickly switched the seating arrangements and placed her next to him, on his left. “I didn’t come this far not to sit next to you,” he said, and she smiled wanly, squeezing his hand. These kinds of gestures were necessary, since they had not had sex in six months. “I’m sixty and I’m on antidepressants,” Bake had said when Suzy had once (why only once?) complained. “I’m lucky my penis hasn’t dropped off.”
They remained standing by their seats, waiting for their table to fill up: Soon a young investor couple from Wall Street who had not yet lost their jobs. Then a sculptor and her son. Then an editorial assistant from 3LJ. Then last, to claim the seat to his right, a brisk young Asian woman in tapping heels. She thrust her hand out to greet him. Her nails were long and painted white — perhaps they were fake: Suzy would know, though Suzy was now sitting down and talking to the sculptor next to her.
“I’m Linda Santo,” the woman to his right said, smiling. Her hair was black and shiny and long enough so that with a toss of the head she could swing it back behind her shoulder and short enough that it would fall quickly forward again. She was wearing a navy blue satin dress and a string of pearls. The red shawl she had wrapped over her shoulders she now placed on the back of her seat. He felt a small stirring in him. He had always been attracted to Asian women, though he knew he mustn’t ever mention this to Suzy, or to anyone really.
“I’m Baker McKurty,” he said, shaking her hand.
“Baker?” she repeated.
“I usually go by Bake.” He accidentally gave her a wink. One had to be very stable to wink at a person and not frighten them.
“Bake?” She looked a little horrified — if one could be horrified only a little. She was somehow aghast — and so he pulled out her chair to show her that he was harmless. No sooner were they all seated than appetizers zoomed in. Tomatoes stuffed with avocados and avocados with tomatoes. It was a witticism — with a Christmasy look though Christmas was a long way away.
“So where are all the writers?” Linda Santo asked him while looking over both her shoulders. The shiny hair flew. “I was told there would be writers here.”
“You’re not a writer?”
“No, I’m an evil lobbyist,” she said, grinning slightly. “Are you a writer?”
“In a manner of speaking, I suppose,” he said.
“You are?” She brightened. “What might you have written?”
“What might I have written? Or, what did I actually write?”
“Either one.”
He cleared his throat. “I’ve written several biographies. Boy George. King George. And now George Washington. That’s my most recent. A biography of George Washington. A captivating man, really, with a tremendous knack for real estate. And a peevishness about being overlooked for promotion when he served in the British army. The things that will start a war! And I’m not like his other biographers. I don’t rule out his being gay.”
“You’re a biographer of Georges,” she said, nodding and unmoved. Clearly she’d been hoping for Don DeLillo.
This provoked him. He veered off into a demented heat. “Actually, I’ve won the Nobel Prize.”
“Really?”
“Yes! But, well, I won it during a year when the media weren’t paying a lot of attention. So it kind of got lost in the shuffle. I won — right after 9/11. In the shadow of 9/11. Actually, I won right as the second tower was being hit.”
She scowled. “The Nobel Prize for Literature?”
“Oh, for literature? No, no, no — not for literature.” His penis now sat soft as a shrinking peach in his pants.
Suzy leaned in on his left and spoke across Bake’s plate to Linda. “Is he bothering you? If he bothers you, just let me know. I’m Suzy.” She pulled her hand out of her lap, and the two women shook hands over his avocado. He could see Linda’s nails were fake. Or, if not fake, something. They resembled talons.
“This is Linda,” said Bake. “She’s an evil lobbyist.”
“Really!” Suzy said good-naturedly, but soon the sculptor was tapping her on the arm and she had to turn back and be introduced to the sculptor’s son.
“Is it hard being a lobbyist?”
“It’s interesting,” she said. “It’s hard work but interesting.”
“That’s the best kind.”
“Where are you from?”
“Chicago.”
“Oh, really,” she said, as if he had announced his close connection to Al Capone. Anyone he ever mentioned Chicago to always brought up Capone. Either Capone or the Cubs.
“So you know the presidential candidate for the Democrats?”
“Brocko? Love him! He’s the great new thing. He’s a writer himself. I wonder if he’s here.” Now Baker, as if in mimicry, turned and looked over both of his shoulders.
“He’s probably out with his terrorist friends,” Linda said.
“He has terrorist friends?” Bake himself had a terrorist friend. Midwesterners loved their terrorist friends, who were usually fine and boring citizens still mythically dining out on the sins of long-ago youth. They never actually killed anyone — at least not intentionally. They aged and fattened in the ordinary fashion. They were rehabilitated. They served their time. And, well, if they didn’t, because of infuriating class privilege that allowed them to just go on as if nothing had ever happened, well, they raised each other’s children and got advanced degrees and gave back to society in other ways. He supposed. He didn’t really know much about Chicago. He was actually from Michigan, but when going anywhere he always flew out of O’Hare.
“Uh, yeah. That bomber who tried to blow up federal buildings right here in this town.”
“When Brocko was a kid? That sixties guy? But Brocko doesn’t even like the sixties. He thinks they’re so … sixties. The sixties took his mother on some wild ride away from him.”
“The sixties made him, my friend.”
Bake looked at her more closely. Now he could see she wasn’t Asian. She had simply had some kind of plastic surgery: skin was stretched and draped strangely around her eyes. A botched eye job. A bad face-lift. An acid peel. Whatever it was: Suzy would know exactly.
“Well, he was a young child.”
“So he says.”
“Is there some dispute about his age?”
“Where is his birth certificate?”