The F-Word

But Bailey is looking at me. I try not to shudder.

“Amazing,” I say briskly. “That’s exactly what I was going to suggest.”

* * *

The eggplant turns out to be okay.

It’ll never replace prime rib, but it’s edible. Maybe it’s even good. I can’t tell, because I’m too caught up in conversation with my PA. Politics. A comedy skit on SNL it turns out neither of us understood. Nothing big, but it’s fun to talk with her and I don’t really pay much attention to the food, even when we get t

o dessert.

Which is, mercifully, not a problem.

Maybe our waiter clued his boss in, because James brings our dessert himself, no questions asked: two glorious dishes of something he calls Strawberry Chouf, which turns out to be a melt-in-your-mouth pastry filled with gelato and strawberries, all topped with whipped cream.

“Umm,” Bailey sighs at the first bite, and when she licks a tiny crumb off her top lip, I have to look away.

“So,” I say briskly, “you like classical music.”

She nods. “Especially orchestral stuff. You know. Symphonies.” She hesitates. “But I like other kinds too.”

“For instance?”

“Eric Clapton. He’s amazing.”

We agree. He is. What’s equally amazing is that after a little more prodding, she admits she likes Neil Young. And Bonnie Raitt.

I get the crazy feeling this is the kind of thing she doesn’t tell many people. One secret deserves another, so I admit that after my folks took me to a July Fourth concert in some park out on Long Island when I was maybe twelve or thirteen, I went online and downloaded The 1812 Overture.

“Tchaikovsky,” she says with delight.

“Yeah. You know it?”

She laughs. “I can play it!”

I laugh along with her. “What? The cannon part?”

She makes a face. “Very funny. No, not the cannon part. But the rest…I played the flute when I was in school.”

I can see it. Hear it. She’s the perfect girl for an instrument that makes such soft, sweet sounds. Hey, I’m not a complete barbarian. I know what a flute sounds like.

“Do you still play?” I ask.

“I haven’t. Not in years.” She does the teeth-into-the-lip thing. “But I still have that flute, packed away somewhere.”

It’s time for an obvious joke. A reference to the flute. The skin flute. Except, I don’t want to make jokes like that. Not with her. Not involving her. Instead, I pour us some more wine—I ordered Montrechat, did I mention that? I pour, and I tell her that in my salad days, I was hell on guitar.

She smiles. Lifts her glass. Sips at her wine. “I bet you had a band.”

I grin. “We called it Passport.” She looks puzzled. “We wanted to be Journey or Foreigner, but both names were already taken, so we settled on—”

“Passport. Of course.” She laughs. Then she sighs. “That all seems long ago, doesn’t it? High school. Worrying about getting A’s. Football.” She makes a face. “Proms.”

“I bet you never had to worry about getting A’s.”

She shakes her head. “No. Not really.”

“And I bet you were never much for going to football games.”