15
Jan 18
Weekly Worthy List #22: Too Strange To Be Fiction
Editors note: This is the last of the Weekly Worthy articles our operations manager Michael wrote sometime around September 2014 and was never edited / published at the time. I may have to ask him to write #23 or at least tell me the rest of the story.
Part 1
Nevada County, California, 1993
Cold snowy night in the restaurant, I was just finishing setting the final tables in the dining room and adjusting random aesthetics for the next day’s dinner service. Craig and Verona were already on their 6th or 7th glass of wine and I could smell the chefs cooking my dinner in the kitchen, a New York strip with some sauteed prawns…and a salad with Russian dressing…the owners loved wine so it was in everything…the salad dressing would have made Napa Valley proud! I took off my waiter’s bib and put my salad together and sat down and began eating. I had a glass of wine, Merlot, and started to relax as I ate my salad. Juan Gouza was still playing solo acoustic jazz, there were a few remaining bar patrons that were tipping and enjoying the music. Janet, the bartender, was now also having a glass of wine, ha…this is my work…in retrospect, I didn’t know that this was to be the easiest time of my life! The dim lights and shadows being cast from the uneven 19th century brick-masonry made life seem especially romantic at this particular moment. This is my book…my movie…my life!
As Juan finished the last chorus of Ditty Wah Ditty my steak was delivered to me by Sandy the chef; she had given me extra prawns and I could tell the steak was cooked perfectly. Mmmm…mmmm…mmmmm. I knew that I would get home and Penelope would already be asleep, might as well comatose myself with a steak and a couple glasses of wine so I could trudge through the snow and hopefully fall right asleep when I got home.
The prawns were cooked perfectly, the were springy but not rubbery, and the steak was 1/4 cooked on top, 1/4 cooked on the bottom, and 1/2 pink in the middle…oh Lord!!!! Delicious!!! I cut a piece of the steak and took a sip of wine, then took the bite, oh man…I am living the good life! My waiter friend Tom’s girlfriend, Francesca, came over to sit with me, she was an interesting sort…she did a lot of flirting and eye-batting, flattering sometimes, but when you are just DYING to devour a dinner, company didn’t seem necessary, I maintained a polite front…or at least I think I did.
“So, how are you and Penelope doing? I never see you guys together anymore.”
“Oh we’re doing pretty good, I’ve been working so much that we don’t hang out in town as often as we used to, we had lunch at the coffee roasters yesterday…but mostly, because of the heat, we’ve been spending my off days down at Matthews Crossing swimming and trying to stay cool…it was snowing outside, and I was dying to know if she even listened to what I said or whether drooling and scheming took all of her available brain waves.”
“Oh that’s so nice…I am happy for her.”
No available brainwaves…I wasn’t even slightly shocked.
Ok, worth noting, this girl was obviously carnivorous and, truthfully, needed to be avoided at all costs. I chatted it up as Tom finished closing out and counting his tips. He finally came over to retrieve his girlfriend and we toasted our last sips of wine. I shook Tom’s hand and of course Francesca insisted on hugging me, then of course a sneaky kiss on the cheek, I just know there is bright red lipstick all over my cheek now, goodness gracious that girl is mischievous. Tom just laughs at her, he obviously sees some humor in her scheming. They walked out dancing to what was probably Juan’s last song of the night, closing time indeed.
I went to the bathroom to wash my hands and put my jacket and scarf on, and sure enough, HUGE red lips on my cheek. I wiped it off and headed out through the dining room and out the side door by the kitchen and salad station. The moon was now casting a blue light on the snow…I headed up the street toward Indian Flat, I almost slipped a few times, but I managed to maintain footing. The moon was casting it gray blue haunt on all of the brightly colored Victorian homes on Broad street and when I finally made it up and over the hill I saw the old graveyard, iron gates covered in snow and obelisk headstones now whitened and glowing, I was overcome with a sense of awe and a type of spooked fascination. Who sees this on their way home? Who?
But what made this night strange was still awaiting me….
When he’s not enjoying fishing, road testing cables, or fielding musical or instrument cable questions over the phone/e-mail, Michael handles operations and purchasing and is simply loving life.
