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Lunch for One

She did not want to see that guy again.
Okay maybe she did.
No she didn’t.
Yes! She did!
It had been so long since she had allowed herself to look at a guy like that and think, “wow, he’s pretty nice looking.” Nope, she hadn’t done that in a long time and now it was imperative that she ignore it. But she didn’t want to.
He seemed nice, but the conversations that they’d had so far had been small talk and nothing that quite constituted as knowing anything about the other. She wasn’t even sure if he knew her name. They hadn’t even introduced each other. Of course she knew his name, that was a given, but did he know hers?
What the hell was she obsessing about! She’d been a lot closer to getting somewhere with the guy who thought she was dressed in drag than she was to this one. Besides, she couldn’t deal with that kind of relationship now as it was. Like she said in her comedy routine, “No guy wants to hear this voice saying I love you.”
Moving onto other considerations. Why did he come to her in the first place? That she couldn’t understand either. Whatever it was she was sure that whatever she thought it was supposed to mean, was wrong.
After another hour or so in the bar, finishing off her second beer she went to the front desk to see if she had any messages before she went back to her room to decide what to do with the rest of her day. She had only one message.
Meet me for lunch at one thirty at Marlo Grego on Marister Avenue.
When asked, the desk clerk only knew that the message had been taken at about twelve or a little before and by another clerk that had gone home for the day.
“And you don’t have a name?” she asked, confused as to who might be asking her to meet them somewhere.
“I’m sorry Miss, whatever is on the note is all I know.” She sighed and took the note back to her room with her.
She had a feeling it was him, but she was worried that it might be someone else. She didn’t know and wasn’t sure she wanted to take the chance if it was. It was a public place though and she would be safe enough. Just in case, she left a notice at the hotel, with her mother and sisters, as well as her producers where she would be, how she was getting there and anyone she’d been in contact with in the last two days. If she didn’t call by two thirty they were to know something was up and she was not okay. She didn’t expect to need this plan, in case she did however, she was sure it would work.

She didn’t know where Marister Avenue was even, so she got explicit directions from the concierge. It was close enough to walk to, but she decided, just in case, to go by taxi cab, considering she was in a strange city and wasn’t too sure how long it would take. At one fifteen she was in the cab and on her way, armed with cell phone and pepper spray if need be.
She arrived at 1:25 and was escorted inside by the doorman who recognized her and asked for an autograph. She was happy to oblige and then went to the seating hostess who didn’t need her name and automatically seated her out on the terrace.
“Would you happen to know who it was that asked me here?” she asked the hostess as she was furnished with a glass of ice water and a menu.
“I’m not supposed to tell you, but I can reveal that it was a man, and he said not to wait for him, order whatever you like and not to worry about the bill.” The woman replied. This wasn’t helping.
“The bill is not what I’m worried about,” she chuckled slightly and the hostess gave her apologies before walking away.

Across the street watching from the window of another restaurant, two dark haired men with dark sunglasses watched her. The one was obviously older than the first, much taller, longer and leaner with a close buzzed haircut and a simple black suit devoid of a tie. The other made no attempt to conceal the arm length and fistful of tattoos that he boasted almost everywhere on his body with a plain white wife-beater for a shirt and stone washed jeans.
“She’s pretty,” the taller one remarked.
“Of course she is.”
“She’s the one with the voice, right?’
“Yeah.”
“You’ve spoken to her I assume?”
“Yeah.”
“And we’re staking her out, because?”
“Because it’s a boring Thursday afternoon and you got nothing better to be doing, that’s why.”
“I could be spending time with my wife you know?”
“And you know that she appreciates the time that she gets with her secret FBI lover.”
“You know about that?”
“Who doesn’t?”
“He’s not FBI, just a cop.”
“Don’t spoil the fantasy for her.” The taller man snorted, he hated being reminded of the fact that his wife was cheating on him. Him, the definition of tall dark and handsome, a musician and loaded to boot. To be cast aside for a minimum wage cop that had no prospects and spent his weekends drinking beer and watching the football games.
The woman across the street sipped at her water and looked around, it was exactly 1:35 and there was no one in sight.
“How long are you going to keep this up?” the taller man asked.
“Until about 2:30, she’ll have it figured out by then.”
“Why did you ask me to come anyway?”
“Because, like I said, you were bored.”
“And staring at some chick across the street is supposed to qualify as interesting?”
“You could go back to your house and listen to your wife fuck the guy senseless if you’d prefer.” The shorter man bit out this last comment as he turned to his companion. He shut his mouth and stared hard at the woman now reading over the menu.
“The way I look at it Kevin,” he said turning to his friend, noticing that he was trying not to hear anything that was being said as he just stared, “you have two choices. You can a, let her go on, and do whatever with him, or b, you can dump the bitch and move on.”
“She’s my wife AJ, and she’s not a bitch.”
“She’s fucking somebody else when she’s supposed to be married, I consider that, a bitch.” Kevin took a harsh and heavy breath but not before he turned to AJ. He decided not to say anything yet and just turned to watch her again. It was a long moment before either of them spoke.
“Yeah, she is a bitch.” AJ looked over at him with a bit of surprise, but happy none the less that the guy had finally figured it out.
“Ah, some movement,” AJ checked his watch and watched as she spoke to the waitress and ordered. When she finished she sat back, drank some more water and looked around. He was able to see her face full on from where he sat, her shaded face and body underneath the umbrella at her table as she waved a piece of paper in front of her face.
“Why’d you have to stick her on the terrace?” Kevin asked.
“Better place to see her from.”
“You should have been smart enough to have them seat her inside, it doesn’t look like she’s a fan of the heat.”
“She’s not.”
“And you would know that how?”
“Because I do.”
“And the reason you had them seat her on the boiling hot terrace is why?”
“Because it’s the only place to see her from.” Kevin shook his head. There was something going on in AJ’s brain that wasn’t transmitting to his, and damned he was if he could figure it out. The younger man was infatuated with this woman, he knew that for certain, but why he was playing this cat and mouse game, he wasn’t sure. Then again AJ often had always acted as though he knew everything before it happened. He pretended that he was never surprised by anything. But Kevin knew that this girl was something special.
AJ was certainly infatuated with this girl. He’d gone to one show at the Trimount Theater and just managed to snag one ticket to each of the shows over the next two months right before they sold out. He’d even grabbed one to the extra Saturday show they’d only announced the other day. Kevin wasn’t exactly sure what he saw in this woman, he hadn’t even met her yet, and AJ hadn’t divulged anything past a comment that she was a great comedian.
“Why is it that you are so enamored of her?”
“Enamored? Twenty-four dollar word,” AJ snickered before turning back to his charge.
“Have you actually spoken to her?”
“Yes.”
“Past a hello my name is?”
“We didn’t exchange names.”
“So she knows who you are?”
“Yes, and I know who she is. We’ve covered the bases Kevin.”
“How many bases.”
“She knows I’m interested.”
“Really now?”
“What is it with you today? You got a bug up your ass or something?”
“I got a new excuse this morning from Kristin.”
“Oh, and what was that?”
“She had to visit her grandmother across town.”
“Nice of old grandma to offer her an opportunity to get laid by a stranger.” Kevin snorted and took a sip of
his coffee. The woman across the street was still gazing around, looking for whoever it was that was supposed to meet her. Kevin had to laugh a bit, she was looking around for nothing, no one would be there.
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