Breaking the Cycle

“Good evening. Welcome to Emeril’s. How many in your party?”

“Two,” I replied.

“How long is the wait?” Candy asked.

“One second.” The hostess looked over her seating chart. There were people in there, but it wasn’t what I would call packed. The hostess grabbed two menus and asked us to follow her.

“This is so nice. I wonder when he’s going to come back. You know he was here for the grand opening? I wanted to make it down here, but… Damn, I can’t remember why I didn’t.”

I looked over the menu and noted the prices. Not too over the top, but not all that inexpensive either. “You sure you don’t want to go to Preston’s? You did say you were craving it the other night.” Not that Preston’s was any cheaper; it’s just hard to find something to eat whenever you go to a restaurant for the first time.

Candy leered at me. “I’d much rather be here.”

“Now that was a real nice experience,” Candy said excitedly after dinner. “I must say, the food was excellent.”

“Yes it was,” I agreed. “Now, where to?”

“Hmm, let’s see…” She placed her finger to her chin. Pretended to be deep in thought.

“You know…” I kissed the back of her neck. “We could go back upstairs to that beautiful room we have…” Another kiss. “And make use of the bed…”

“Now, what fun would that be? We do that all the time. I want to go to a club. Oh, I know… Let’s go to Club B.E.D.”

“Why there? You know ain’t nothing there but a bunch of people trying to be seen by a bunch of other people who really don’t care about seeing them at all.”

“And what’s wrong with that? That’s what this entire scene is about anyway.”

“You mean, like staying in one of the most expensive hotels out here? Dining at one of the trendiest restaurants?”

“First of all, if being seen was what it was about for me, we would be at the Delano and not the Loews. Instead of the measly two hundred, you’d be really dishing out the dough.”

I knew the evening wasn’t going to go the way I planned from that moment.

“Are we going to the club or not?”

I realized if “no” had been the answer, the fate of my weekend would’ve been sealed. So, against all that raged inside of me, I followed as she made her way around to the valet stand.

“Why can’t we walk over there?” I asked.

“Walk! You must be crazy if you think I’m going to walk all the way over there in these!” She lifted her foot to show me the four-inch skinny heel of her shoe.

I pulled the valet ticket from my pocket.

We pulled up to the club where there was another charge for parking. Finding parking anywhere along Washington Street was a challenge, so it seemed fruitless to argue. We walked to the front of the club. A few people were standing around in hopes of being allowed the opportunity to party with the “in crowd” of the moment.

The cover charge was a ridiculous price. I looked at Candy long and hard. Never compromise your happiness for someone else, came to me loud and clear. Here I was doing exactly that. It didn’t matter that I could more than afford it. What weighed heavily on me was the fact that it came back to everything being about what she wanted. Never was it about me, or we.

As bad as I knew things could end up, I stood back at the door as she started to walk in. “Candy…”

She looked back at me like I had lost my mind. Then she slowly made her way back to me. “What?!” she said between clenched teeth. Clenched fists at her side.

“As much as I know you want to be here, I’m really not feeling it. I mean, I can’t see shelling out that type of cash just to say I was here. Can we just go?”

I was given the kiss of death when it comes to looks. I should’ve rolled with the flow in order to keep the peace, but I had been doing that for far too long.

“I can’t believe you’re going to embarrass me like this.” Her response was more of a hiss than anything else.

“Do you have money to pay for this? I mean, if you do, I’ll go in and we can hang all night.”