Stephen Dixon - Fall and Rise

“Who are your favorite American authors, contemporary and late?”

“Wait. Let me eat first.”

“Quiche lorraine?” the man behind the table says. “It’s the old quiche lorraine, before all the rage. French recipe. The real McCoy.”

“Sure, a slice, please. Thin.” He does.

“And our curried veal? You won’t forgive yourself if you don’t.”

“My appetite’s got better but not that much, thanks.”

“Tomorrow or the days after your friends here, when you discuss the party, will ask if you had it. It’s the house speciality — one of a kind.”

“Go on, be brave,” Arthur says.

“You be brave. Grab a plate.”

He gets a plate and holds it out. The man gives us a portion each. “Now, how about a côtelette de mouton? It’ll melt in your mouth. I won’t even ask your permission.” He puts a piece on my plate. Arthur sticks out his plate and gets a piece. “Now you’ll have eaten our best except for the chicken breast l’orange.”

“No room for it,” I say, “in my stomach or on my plate.”

“Mandarin oranges flown-in for us expressly from Valencia, Spain? — Very well, but sit down while you eat. And drink a beverage with it. I don’t want you coming back to me saying I made you choke on the small servings I gave.”

“I promise I won’t. Thank you.” He bows and we walk away.

“That guy was another who had an instantaneous crush on you. And his language, when he was alluding to food to you, was so subtly erotic.”

“He was only being nice while doing his job.”

“How come he wasn’t as nice to me?”

“You really want to know?”

“Yes, I do.”

“No. As I said I don’t know you that well and I have a way of either being too much of everybody’s therapist or saying too quickly how I feel, which makes them think they or I need one. I just want to eat.”

“How do you feel? Well, do you think I need one? Then can I get you some Perrier or wine?”

“Perrier. Thanks. I’ll be sitting over there — give me your plate.” I go to an empty table and put the plates down. “And napkins, Arthur,” I yell. “There’s plenty of everything else here.”

“You betcha, Helene,” and he blows me a kiss. He blew me a kiss. I don’t want him blowing me those. Oh, let him blow all he wants to me, but I won’t give him my phone number when he asks. I’ll tell him it’d be useless. Not useless, but something. Pointless, because I know he’s so infatuated with me when I’m about as far from that to him as I can get. Like that other one tonight I told how to reach me, then shouting out the window at me like a goof. If that one calls I’ll tell him he truly embarrassed me. No, I’ll say I’m too busy to see him and then put him off forever. No, but I’ll be blunt. “Can you take a dose of truth? After I left Diana’s I immediately knew it was a mistake to have encouraged you to call, so that’s the way it is, goodbye.” No, I’ll tell him I’m too busy and put him off forever or maybe I will be that blunt. I have some veal. De-lish. Sublime. Quiche. Divine. I should have somehow made room on my plate for the breast. God, I love feeling and eating well. Then I see Peter. Last man I wanted to see tonight and maybe also the first. Be honest with yourself — no. Dorothy said there was a slight chance he’d be here but nine out of ten he’d be in Lucerne. Heading straight to me. Hello, Peter — why Peter, hello. Hiya, Peter, didn’t think you’d be here — Peter, what a surprise, even if Dorothy did say you might show. Oh, just let him say what he wants to say and I’ll say whatever comes to me too. I slice off some lamb.

“Helene, nice to see you,” and I look up and show surprise and say hello and stand up and stick my hand out to shake and he starts shaking it when he says “Shake? Come on now, I need a kiss. It’s been more than six months since we’ve had one — between us, of course,” and holds onto my hand as I give him my cheek to kiss and he kisses it and straightens my chin with his other hand and pecks my lips and lets go of me, steps back and says “What’s there to say? — you look great.”

“So do you — very good. Like some food?” pointing to mine.

“I’ll get my own later.”

“Mind if I continue?” and I sit and he sits at Arthur’s place.

“This somebody’s?” meaning Arthur’s plate.

“Champagne?” a waiter says, holding a tray of filled champagne glasses. Peter takes off two.

“Not for me. And there is someone I’m sitting with, but I can move his plate to one of the other chairs.”

“No, wouldn’t want to disturb anything,” and he gives me a glass, goes around the table and sits opposite me and says “And come on now, we have to drink to Dot and Sven.”

“All right, for them. I think I’m feeling better. I wasn’t before.”

“That-a-way.” He clicks my glass. “Oops, should have first made a toast. To Dorothy and Sven. May they have a long life together and a fruitful marriage with much abundance, which is redundant, but what a marriage often is. Well, came out of that one okay. But let’s drink,” and we click glasses and sip.

“Now,” he says, “—and eat, don’t let me stop you. What have you been up to lately? Much the same?”

“With minor backflips and minuscule variations. How about you? You’ve been to Cologne, Zurich, Lucerne—”

“Lausanne, not Lucerne.”

“Lausanne, Lucerne, Lorraine, Laraine. Excuse me, but just for a moment there I thought I had a private joke going between my fork and me. Dorothy said for a curators’ convention and then on a buying-selling trip for your museum, but she didn’t think you’d be back in time.”

“That could have been cause for jubilation.”

“Why, what’s it to me? You’re here, good. Was it a good trip? I’m sure it was, so, good again. A third good coming up might be my own going to Europe next summer for a few weeks. Italy. Maybe France. Maybe just Italy.”

“Remember ours? I still have dreams of us — real dreams, when I’m asleep — of the barge we stayed on, the canals and frogs. It kills me when I wake up.”

“So? Go back with someone, or alone. That’s how I plan to do it: solo.”

“Greetings,” Arthur says, putting a glass of bubbling water with a lime slice in it in front of me.

“Peter, this is Arthur Rosenthal, as in the china. Peter Gray, as in the color, spelled the American way. Sorry I went at my food before you got back. Couldn’t resist.”

“I can see. This my seat?” He sits, pushes his plate away.

“Arthur’s a lawyer. We just met here. He’s an old friend of Sven’s.”

“Sven and Dorothy’s, and not old. Served in the Queens District Attorney’s office with him. You in law too?”

“No,” Peter says.

“So, tell him what you do. It’s not fair not to.”

“I didn’t mean it that way.”

“You still haven’t told him. What is it with you? Peter curates for the Met. The new primitive wing.”

“Being built. An assistant curator. One of.”

“And you’re an assistant or associate professor,” Arthur says to me, “or just a lecturer. Not that I’ve anything against lecturers. I want to see if we’re all assistants here tonight or once were. Sven and I — assistant D. A.’s. But Dot wasn’t one that I know.”

“I’m sure we can make her an assistant in something,” Peter says. “Assistant organizer for this wedding. Wait. Wasn’t she an assistant editor for a theater mag before she—”

“Associate,” I say. “Maybe assistant. Anyway, I’m an assistant. Listen, I’m not feeling too well again and I have to leave.”

“I’d take you home,” Arthur says, “but I actually would like to stay. I have no excuse for going.”