Round Two

By E.C. Haskell

(~1200 words)

I am looking at my friend and thinking about throwing a punch straight at her surgically-enhanced nose. Bam! I can practically see the blood gushing down her décolleté. I can hear the screams from the over-dressed crowd around us. I feel empowered. I …

Won’t do any such thing. I mean, really, Jan and I have been friends for nearly thirty years and if she wants to ditch me for some guy she just met, I guess that’s her call. Only now I’m stuck, alone, at what promises to be the most boring charitable dinner ever.

So I’m pissed. And I want a drink. As I watch her walk away, I whirl. And nearly collide with a wall of black. It jumps as my elbow nudges its bulk. Slowly, it turns and I’m staring into the face of a hefty, and unhappy, waiter.

He sticks a tray out at me. Offense as the best defense. “Have a roll.”

I glance down at puffs of dough surrounding god-knows-what. 

“They’re quite delicious,” he says. My intestines growl. “Perhaps it will settle your stomach.”

I go for a withering glance but suspect it’s spoiled by the fact that I’ve grabbed five of his miniature rolls and upset a careful arrangement of napkins.

No matter. I storm off for the bar and from there into the neighboring room. Where I stop to stare in amazement at a sea of white-covered surfaces gleaming beneath crystal chandeliers. There must be more than a hundred tables here, suggesting that the diners could number over a thousand. Service for all those folks, plus speeches, plus awards …. I groan, thinking I’ll be lucky to get out of here by midnight.

So I’d better find a good place to sit. Fortunately, the room is still mostly empty. I decide to seat myself at one of the tables in the back, conveniently located near an exit. A moment later, I’m ensconced in a chair, my rolls arranged before me. I’m just reaching for one when something rustles behind me. 

“Mmmm,” says a deep voice. “Mind if I steal one of those?”

“Please,” I say, waving one hand. ”But for all I know they’re filled with cockroaches.”

“My favorite,” the voice says and a large hand takes a roll.

“Lobster,” he pronounces and then bends down to rustle something from beneath my seat. It’s a briefcase, which he deposits beneath the seat next to mine. 

I flush. “Did I steal your seat?” 

“Not at all. I just traded it for a lobster roll.” He sits next to me, a smile twitching at the corners of his mouth. For the first time, I look at him. He’s not tall, maybe five-ten or eleven, but he looks fit and, with a thatch of gray hair and startlingly blue eyes, he’s quite attractive.

“Fair enough,” I grin and plop a roll into my mouth.

“I’m Thomas,” the man says.

I point to myself. “Geneva.” 

“Ah. I used to know a Geneva. Back in high school.”

“A million years ago.”

He mock gasps. “Do I look that old?”

“I was speaking for myself.” 

“Fair enough but,” he leans forward, “it’s about a million years for me too.”

I grin, suddenly feeling better.

And his pocket growls. Well, not his pocket, but the sleek new iPhone that he pulls out of it. 

“I’ve been waiting for this,” he says as he clicks on a document that has appeared on the screen.

So okay. I know how mobile phones have turned us all into non-stop workaholics. I decide to amuse myself by studying the people who are now straggling into the dining area.

They’re interesting but, after fifteen minutes, I’ve had more than enough study  

I clear my throat. “Are you usually this congenial at social events?” 

He looks up, startled. “Sorry. It’s just a contract I’ve been expecting.”

“I was beginning to think it was Martin Luther’s ninety-five theses.”

“Nothing near that interesting.” He pockets the phone and leans closer to me. “Why do I get the feeling that you’re having a bad day?”

“Just a bad evening. I got ditched.”

He raises his eyebrows. “Excuse me?”

“The friend who invited me here went off with someone else.”

“That wasn’t very nice of him.”

“Her. My supposed best friend.”

“Ah. You’re angry then.”

“More or less.”

“Seems like everyone is angry these days.”

I shrug. “Lot to be angry about.”

A mischievous smile plays around his lips. “The world is in a bit of a mess at the moment.”

“No kidding.”

“But,” he touches a small pin on his lapel, “at least we live in a free country.”

I lean forward to study the pin. It’s an American flag, so shiny that it looks radioactive.

I groan. “Don’t tell me you’re one of those.”

“One of what?”

“America firsters.” 

He hesitates a moment, then says, “I do think this country has to take care of itself first. We need to stand up for our freedom.”

 “Sure. But isn’t it time we start admitting that this country is not and never has been the holy grail of freedom?”

He’s still smiling which makes me what to whack him when he says, “Why don’t you explain that?”

I sigh with exasperation. “Just think about it. We started off as slave owners, graduated into robber barons, went through a brief but glorious phase around World War II, but then screwed everything up with a trickle-down theory that’s resulted in more than 47 million people living in poverty while the top one percent of U.S. households owns forty percent of the wealth.” 

“You sound like a socialist.”

I shrug. “There’s a lot to be said for socialism. According to the United Nations –“

“An organization run by a pack of moral relativists.”

“Oh, excuse me,” I mime shock. “Did the middle of my sentence get in the way of the beginning of yours?”

He pushes back from the table. “Let’s not get sarcastic.”

“Sorry. It’s my knee jerk reaction to stupidity.”

By this time, people have started arriving at the tables around us and one of them begins to titter. From the scowl on his face, I’m afraid that the man sitting next to me is gearing up for an explosion. He rises. People groan. I’m ready to hurl my wine at him, if necessary. But then … he starts to laugh. Doubled over, his thatch of gray hair shaking like a Hulu doll, he gives in to great, heaving guffaws and suddenly it’s all too familiar. 

“Thomas Endmark?” I say.

“Oh Geneva,” he moves forward to engulf me in a hug. “You never could turn down a good fight, could you?”

“And you never got tired of leading me into it!”

“No,” he says as he plants a kiss on my forehead. “As soon as you suggested that the rolls might be boobytrapped, I knew it had to be you. I’ve missed our fights.”

“So have I,” I say. And suddenly, I’m glad that Jan found someone else to sit with. #