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Paris, Burbank is burning
Feb. 23rd, 2008 | 3:24 pm
What I do for a living isn't important because work is over for the day. I'm sitting in a deep, plush burgundy
booth and it's dark and cool. I'm waiting for a friend to join me. Her afternoon meeting ran late, so I've
settled back into the anonymity of the dark to sip my kir royale and eavesdrop on the couple seated in the
adjacent booth:
"My phone died..." I hear, in a strained, masculine sing-songy whine.
"Do you tell her that you love her, too?" A stern feminine nag replies with a question.
Evidently this is an argument. They struggle to keep their voices down by talking in that closed mouth way
that might look like a fake smile to a deaf person.
The woman is not the man's wife, but there is a wife. And she's somewhere else, thinking that she is
happily married. I learn this from their urgent, hushed deceitful tones.
I'm in agreement with the couple on just one thing: If I decided to cheat, I'd arrange to meet the man here, at
French 75. The place reeks of lies and mistresses and casual sex and broken promises and too many
secrets. French 75 feels like Scarlett O'Hara's red dress.
My friend shows up with apologies and orders a champagne cocktail, too. With some whispering and
obscene pantomine, I tell her what's going on with the couple next to us. We snicker righteously and are
equally scandalized. With the height and depth of the booths, though, neither of us can see what the man
and the woman look like.
The hostess comes by with the tray of complimentary sliders as an appetizer and hands us each one on a
toothpick. We devour them and then hide the evidence, in case she makes a second pass. Hopefully she
will see our clean empty table and serve us the free mini-burgers smothered in carmelized onions again.
And so we will have had our dinner.
We listen to Our Couple, whom we hate. Or rather, I listen and interpret the mumbling for my friend. She is
sitting further away, so she pipes in intermittently with, "What'd he say? What'd she say?"
I wonder why we hate them. Have we always been beyond reproach?
"Something's different in here," my friend says, looking around.
"It's the TVs. They've put up plasma televisions," I answer.
We look up at the Dodge Ram commercial over the rouge bar and cluck about how televisions in a proper
restaurant are so uncivilized.
"What's next," I ask, mostly serious, "men in short pants?"
Another car commercial and then tonight's Laker game starts.
"Yes," my friend answers.
The Couple is sweet-talking now. I almost hear nuzzling. I think about my camera in my purse, and how I'd
like to be a hero and jump up and flash a photo of them together then email it to the wife, wherever she is,
thinking her husband is working late. The wiser part of me stays seated: If she doesn't know, then she
doesn't want to know.
A French 75 is a cocktail made from gin, champagne, lemon juice, and sugar. And the place resembles
that cocktail... darkly drunk from gin yet still tasting the stars with a splash of champagne. Then there's the
sourness that a lie leaves on the tongue mixed with the sweet rudeness of someone else's mouth.
It's our hangout. We meet here for drinks after work or before parties. We celebrate our birthdays here. It's
comfortably too dark to be a place to meet new people: It's a place to go with someone whom you know
well. The décor is an homage to classic French brasseries. The deep red leather booths, stamped tin
ceilings, and bohemian posters transport us over the pond. When I visited Paris a couple of years ago,
every bistro I entered, I (embarrassingly) thought, "Hey, it's just like French 75 in here!"
The Couple gets up to leave and we finally have a chance to look at them as they pass our table holding
hands. The two are surprisingly unglamorous and ordinary, him in a wrinkled suit with last year's tie and
her in a dress that screams secretary. Soon everything will be on a floor somewhere by the look in their
eyes.
This will be our last happy hour. French 75 is closing and reopening as Savannah, "a clubby joint with a
Southern accent" according to the flyer hanging in the lobby. When we saw the announcement a few weeks
ago, we stood there staring at the stylized pink neon paper promising the changeover in a month,
crestfallen.
"Who wrote this?" I kept asking my friend. "Is 'southern accent' supposed to entice me?"
And now there are televisions. I'm sure hot wings and foamy pitchers will soon slither in to replace our
bistro fries and formage platters and Cote du Rhone.
I'll have to find a new dark place if I ever want to have an affair. Or at least a new place to hear other people
doing so, because surely Savannah will turn on the lights.
Comments
Feb. 23rd, 2008 | 3:24 pm
What I do for a living isn't important because work is over for the day. I'm sitting in a deep, plush burgundy
booth and it's dark and cool. I'm waiting for a friend to join me. Her afternoon meeting ran late, so I've
settled back into the anonymity of the dark to sip my kir royale and eavesdrop on the couple seated in the
adjacent booth:
"My phone died..." I hear, in a strained, masculine sing-songy whine.
"Do you tell her that you love her, too?" A stern feminine nag replies with a question.
Evidently this is an argument. They struggle to keep their voices down by talking in that closed mouth way
that might look like a fake smile to a deaf person.
The woman is not the man's wife, but there is a wife. And she's somewhere else, thinking that she is
happily married. I learn this from their urgent, hushed deceitful tones.
I'm in agreement with the couple on just one thing: If I decided to cheat, I'd arrange to meet the man here, at
French 75. The place reeks of lies and mistresses and casual sex and broken promises and too many
secrets. French 75 feels like Scarlett O'Hara's red dress.
My friend shows up with apologies and orders a champagne cocktail, too. With some whispering and
obscene pantomine, I tell her what's going on with the couple next to us. We snicker righteously and are
equally scandalized. With the height and depth of the booths, though, neither of us can see what the man
and the woman look like.
The hostess comes by with the tray of complimentary sliders as an appetizer and hands us each one on a
toothpick. We devour them and then hide the evidence, in case she makes a second pass. Hopefully she
will see our clean empty table and serve us the free mini-burgers smothered in carmelized onions again.
And so we will have had our dinner.
We listen to Our Couple, whom we hate. Or rather, I listen and interpret the mumbling for my friend. She is
sitting further away, so she pipes in intermittently with, "What'd he say? What'd she say?"
I wonder why we hate them. Have we always been beyond reproach?
"Something's different in here," my friend says, looking around.
"It's the TVs. They've put up plasma televisions," I answer.
We look up at the Dodge Ram commercial over the rouge bar and cluck about how televisions in a proper
restaurant are so uncivilized.
"What's next," I ask, mostly serious, "men in short pants?"
Another car commercial and then tonight's Laker game starts.
"Yes," my friend answers.
The Couple is sweet-talking now. I almost hear nuzzling. I think about my camera in my purse, and how I'd
like to be a hero and jump up and flash a photo of them together then email it to the wife, wherever she is,
thinking her husband is working late. The wiser part of me stays seated: If she doesn't know, then she
doesn't want to know.
A French 75 is a cocktail made from gin, champagne, lemon juice, and sugar. And the place resembles
that cocktail... darkly drunk from gin yet still tasting the stars with a splash of champagne. Then there's the
sourness that a lie leaves on the tongue mixed with the sweet rudeness of someone else's mouth.
It's our hangout. We meet here for drinks after work or before parties. We celebrate our birthdays here. It's
comfortably too dark to be a place to meet new people: It's a place to go with someone whom you know
well. The décor is an homage to classic French brasseries. The deep red leather booths, stamped tin
ceilings, and bohemian posters transport us over the pond. When I visited Paris a couple of years ago,
every bistro I entered, I (embarrassingly) thought, "Hey, it's just like French 75 in here!"
The Couple gets up to leave and we finally have a chance to look at them as they pass our table holding
hands. The two are surprisingly unglamorous and ordinary, him in a wrinkled suit with last year's tie and
her in a dress that screams secretary. Soon everything will be on a floor somewhere by the look in their
eyes.
This will be our last happy hour. French 75 is closing and reopening as Savannah, "a clubby joint with a
Southern accent" according to the flyer hanging in the lobby. When we saw the announcement a few weeks
ago, we stood there staring at the stylized pink neon paper promising the changeover in a month,
crestfallen.
"Who wrote this?" I kept asking my friend. "Is 'southern accent' supposed to entice me?"
And now there are televisions. I'm sure hot wings and foamy pitchers will soon slither in to replace our
bistro fries and formage platters and Cote du Rhone.
I'll have to find a new dark place if I ever want to have an affair. Or at least a new place to hear other people
doing so, because surely Savannah will turn on the lights.
Comments
