My favorite tablemate was Trudy, whose husband was back
home in Tamarac managing some sudden crisis at the couple’s cellular
phone business and had given his ticket to Alice, their heavy and very
well-dressed daughter, who was on spring break from Miami U, and who was
for some reason extremely anxious to communicate to me that she had a
Serious Boyfriend, the name of which boyfriend was Patrick. Alice’s part
of most of our interfaces consisted of remarks like: “You hate fennel?
What a coincidence: my boyfriend Patrick absolutely detests
fennel”; “You’re from Illinois? What a coincidence: my boyfriend Patrick
has an aunt whose first husband was from Indiana, which is right near
Illinois”; “You have four limbs? What a coincidence:…,” and so on.
Alice’s continual assertion of her relationship-status may have been a
defensive tactic against Trudy, who kept pulling professionally
retouched 4 × 5 glossies of Alice out of her purse and showing them to
me with Alice sitting right there, and who, every time Alice mentioned
Patrick, suffered some sort of weird facial tic or grimace where one
side’s canine tooth showed and the other side’s didn’t. Trudy was 56,
the same age as my own dear personal Mom, and looked — Trudy did, and I
mean this in the nicest possible way — like Jackie Gleason in drag, and
had a particularly loud pre-laugh scream that was a real
arrhythmia-producer, and was the one who coerced me into Wednesday
night’s Conga Line, and got me strung out on Snowball Jackpot Bingo, and
also was an incredible lay authority on 7NC Luxury Cruises, this being
her sixth in a decade — she and her friend Esther (thin-faced, subtly
ravaged-looking, the distaff part of the couple from Miami) had tales to
tell about Carnival, Princess, Crystal, and Cunard too fraught with
libel-potential to reproduce here, and one long review of what was
apparently the worst cruise line in 7NC history — one “American Family
Cruises,” which folded after just sixteen months — involving outrages
too literally incredible to be believed from any duo less knowledgeable
and discerning than Trudy and Esther.
Plus it started
to strike me that I had never before been party to such a minute and
exacting analysis of the food and service of a meal I was just at that
moment eating. Nothing escaped the attention of T and E — the symmetry
of the parsley sprigs atop the boiled baby carrots, the consistency of
the bread, the flavor and mastication-friendliness of various cuts of
meat, the celerity and flambé technique of the various pastry guys in
tall white hats who appeared tableside when items had to be set on fire
(a major percentage of the desserts in the 5stars C.R.
had to be set on fire), and so on. The waiter and busboy kept circling
the table, going “Finish? Finish?” while Esther and Trudy had exchanges
like:
“Honey you don’t look happy with the conch, what’s the problem.”
“I’m fine. It’s fine. Everything’s fine.”
“Don’t
lie. Honey with that face who could lie. Frank am I right? This is a
person with a face incapable of lying. Is it the potatoes or the conch?
Is it the conch?”
“There’s nothing wrong Esther darling I swear it.”
“You’re not happy with the conch.”
“All right. I’ve got a problem with the conch.”
“Did I tell you? Frank did I tell her?”
[Frank silently probes own ear with pinkie.]
“Was I right? I could tell just by looking you weren’t happy.”
“I’m fine with the potatoes. It’s the conch.”
“Did I tell you about seasonal fish on ships? What did I tell you?”
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