The chairs are black lacquer with red damask cushions that match the red damask tablecloth. Bunny takes a seat alongside Albie, which is sort of against dinner party rules, but no one says anything about it because of how Bunny is mental. Julian sits to her left. As if to avoid her gaze, he busies himself with his napkin, shaking it free of the intricate folds of a lotus flower, or perhaps it is meant to be an artichoke. Western silverware is set alongside the napkins, and black lacquered chopsticks rest on a diagonal across white plates. Each table setting also comes with a red paper party hat, conical, and dusted with gold glitter, and one of those party favors, the kind that unfurl like a snake’s tongue. Because the proximity of the paper hat disturbs Bunny, she slides it away, closer to Albie’s paper hat. Lydia is at Albie’s right, which he doesn’t mind, really. He is fond of her, although he does wish she wouldn’t try to engage him in discussions about the Oort cloud or game theory or string theory, subjects about which Albie is not particularly knowledgeable, and about which Lydia, despite being a devoted reader of the Science section of the Times, understands nothing. Lydia is determined to be an egghead, but as Trudy has put it, “Soft-boiled, at best,” as opposed to her husband, Elliot, whom Trudy considers to be a genuine genius, in a way that inspires Bunny to imagine him as a giant brain equipped with spindly arms and legs and a pair of black glasses. Something like Mr. Potato Head.
The waiter comes to the table to ask if they’d like to start with a cocktail, and Julian says, “Six Hanoi Holidays.”
Trudy quips that a Hanoi Holiday sounds like it should come with a Happy Ending, to which Elliot says, “That’s funny.” Elliot never laughs, but when he is amused, he will say, “That’s funny.” His voice is permanently pitched in a dry tone, as if every word he utters is sardonic even when he means to be genuine, which is an affect Albie chalks up to a touch of Asperger’s. Bunny, never as generous as Albie, chalks it up to further indication that Elliot is a fraud. Elliot is something of a fraud, and his fraudulence is perpetuated by other frauds in service of their own fraudulence. Elliot is, like Bunny, a writer, but unlike Bunny, Elliot is taken seriously. Seriously seriously. Elliot is money in Bunny’s piggy bank of self-debasement.
The Hanoi Holidays come in large goblets garnished with wedges of lime, sprigs of lemongrass and a plastic monkey that dangles on the edge of each glass by its tail or an arm. There was a time when Bunny might’ve slipped her blue plastic monkey into her purse, but not now. Trudy raises her goblet. “To happy endings,” she toasts, “and new beginnings.” Glasses clink all the way around.
“And to President-Elect Barack Obama.” Lydia lifts her glass in a way closer to a salute than a toast, and they pay tribute to America’s first black president.
“And next time,” Trudy adds, “a woman.”
Stalwart liberal Democrats, Julian, Lydia, Trudy, and Elliot are passionate, at least in terms of lip service, about issues like illegal wars, global climate change, and saving the Chelsea Hotel. Bunny and Albie do not define themselves as good liberal Democrats. Albie is a far-left Democrat. Bunny refers to herself a right-of-center Marxist. Nonetheless, they, too, toast Barack Obama because they are proud that America, that they elected a black man for president. They. Even now, Albie does not know that instead of going out to vote, Bunny stayed home and cried.
The conversation at their table buzzes with talk of the Iraq War and thank God Obama is going to bring it to an end and about his vow to close Guantanamo. Albie notes Obama’s promise to take on climate change, and Julian signals the busboy to clear away their empty glasses. Trudy is thrilled that the First Lady plans to tackle childhood obesity.
Julian tells the busboy to let their waiter know that they are ready to order their appetizers.
“I’d have preferred she get involved with the arts,” Lydia says, “but don’t get me wrong. She is amazing.”
“I’m not ready to order,” Elliot says. “I haven’t even looked at the menu.”
“Trust me.” Julian assures Elliot that he will chose well and wisely.
Trudy and Elliot exchange a look.
When the waiter appears, as unobtrusively as an apparition, at their table, Julian orders: roasted aubergines, shiitake croquettes, garlic shrimp wrapped in sugarcane, confit of charred octopus. “And we’ll start with a bottle of, make that two bottles of Sancerre,” he says. “The Vacheron. You can bring the menus back after we’re done with our appetizers.”
The waiter collects their menus, and Albie, because he is a decent person, says, “Thank you,” and Bunny says, “Octopus?”
It’s a gesture of affection, the way Albie closes his hand over Bunny’s forearm, but also it’s a signal for her to stop right there, to refrain from the lecture on the intelligence of octopuses and their pronounced nerve endings. To know that an octopus experiences pain in the extreme is the sort of thing that causes Bunny pain, too. It is also the sort of thing she uses as a weapon, an arrow of reproach at the insensitivity of others.
The waiter holds the bottle of wine for Julian to read the label, and after a seamless uncorking and smooth pour of a splash in Julian’s glass, he stands there like he’s made of marble while Julian lifts his glass by the stem and turns it ever so slowly as if to catch light. A gentle swirl is followed by his sniffing the wine like a dog sniffing at an unidentifiable splat of something on the sidewalk. After gargling with a mouthful of Sancerre he pronounces it excellent. “Soft, zesty, yet purely structured,” he says.
The incongruity of the words—soft, zesty, yet purely structured—confounds Albie. “How do you arrive at soft, zesty, yet purely structured?”
“I can see it,” Elliot says. “Soft, zesty, purely structured. Sounds like Trudy.”
Trudy thanks her husband for the compliment, and Lydia mentions having read recently about balsamic vinegar being served as an after-dinner drink. “They said it was unimaginably delicious,” she says.
“It is,” Julian weighs in, “but it’s got to the very best tradizionale, the stuff that goes for four to five hundred bucks a pop.”
Elliot wants to know if there is really that much difference between the tradizionale and a good condimento, and Julian asks, “Are you kidding me?”
“No,” Elliot says. “I’m asking.”
“Don’t get me wrong,” Julian says. “There are some very decent condimentos out there, but even the best of them can’t be compared to a tradizionale”
“There’s a lot of counterfeiting with the condimentos,” Albie tells them. “Adding caramel to simulate the aging process. It’s a problem.”
Lydia asks how would you know if it’s not genuine, and Julian drones on about the complexity of flavors, and how only someone who knows absolutely nothing about balsamic vinegar would be fooled, and Trudy says she uses the commercial grade when making a honey-mustard vinaigrette, and Julian says, “Oh, Trudy, how could you?” and Bunny wonders how much longer she can sit at a table with five people engaged in passionate discourse about balsamic vinegar, the answer to which turns out to be three seconds. “Excuse me,” she breaks into the conversation, “but do any of you really give a shit? I mean, you’re going on about balsamic vinegar like it matters. Does it?” Bunny realizes that she is dangerously near to tears or hysteria or both. “Does it really matter?”
The moment that follows is awkward. No one responds until, as if she were about to approach an animal who might or might not be friendly, Lydia asks, “What would you like to talk about?”
Bunny doesn’t want to talk about anything in particular, but put on the spot, she says, “Olive oil,” and they are relieved because it’s Bunny being Bunny. Elliot says, “That’s funny,” and the others laugh, although Lydia’s laugh skitters along the edges of anxiety and fear.
But, before any conversation about olive oil gets off the ground, their food arrives, and Albie reminds Julian, “No octopus or shrimp for Bunny.” Then he adds, “I think I’ll pass on the octopus, too.”
“You don’t like octopus? You should’ve said something.” Julian’s distress is genuine. “I just assumed everyone liked octopus. I should’ve asked. Let me order something else.” Julian’s need to please Albie, to win his admiration, is staved off by Albie’s ability to deflect obsequiousness. “Julian, it’s fine,” Albie says. “There’s more than enough food here, and it looks fantastic. It’s no big deal.”
Bunny begs to differ. “It’s a very big deal for the octopus,” she says.
It could be that she was speaking too softly to be heard, or at least it seems that way. She gets no response, but Julian says to Albie, “Okay. All the more for me then.” Julian thinks that to own up to gluttony is disarming.
“You?” Trudy asks. “What about the rest of us?”
Trudy and Julian banter about the size of the portions. Lydia says, “This is way too much. I want to save my appetite for the entrée.” Albie expresses ecstasy over the aubergines, and a buzz, a high-pitched persistent buzz, shimmies its way into Bunny’s ear and into her head where it amplifies and spreads out in all directions. Her nerves are jangling like bangle bracelets, and she grows more and more agitated, as if she can’t remember if she turned off the stove or not, as if while she and Albie are out having their lovely dinner with lovely people, Jeffery could be dying of asphyxiation. She springs up from her chair. “A cigarette,” she says. “I need a cigarette.”
“Do you want me to go with you?” Albie asks.
“No,” Bunny says. “I just need a cigarette. I’ll be right back.”
“You’re sure?” Albie says.
“It’s a cigarette,” Bunny snaps. “I’m going out to have a cigarette, okay?”
Albie takes off his jacket, and drapes it over her shoulders.
Elliot pushes back from the table and says, “Do you mind if I join you?” and Bunny says, “You don’t smoke.”
They watch her walk across the dining room and out the door. “She’ll be okay,” Albie tries to sound as if he believes this for a fact, and Trudy tells Elliot, “Go out there. Stay with her.”