Heartbreak for Dinner: It's Kind of a Long Story (6 page)

Ever had one of those days where a single event triggers
a chain reaction that only leads down Disaster Road?
Awesome.

Back in ’04, I used to have an assistant position at a consulting
firm I loathed with the very essence of my being. My boss was a fat fuck with a
BMW complex – men who solely drive BMW’s to overcompensate for their lack of good
looks and bedroom skills – who demanded I make him Cuban coffee every morning and
go on pastry runs in the afternoons to fill the endless void in his stomach and
soul. On that fateful day, my mother rang me up around noon and told me she’d made
rice and beans with pork for lunch. Needless to say, I was home within the hour.

I was living with my parents at the time, their house a two-story
place with seven dogs, five cats, and a thousand roaches lurking in the dark just
waiting to strike when you least expected. I had a one-hour lunch break and my boss
was a stickler for punctuality, so I grabbed my plate of food with a cup of water
as soon as I arrived, making the trek two steps at a time. I ate in my room while
surfing through MySpace (that was totally cool back in the day) and I could hear
my mom yelling after me to be careful since I have a tendency to drop everything
I touch. After devouring my meal in 10 minutes flat, I started downloading music
and eventually lost track of the time. When I finally looked at my watch, I had
exactly 17 minutes to get back to the office. I snatched the empty plate and cup
and made a run for it down the stairs.

I was wearing stilettos that day and, of course, a heel got
caught on my pant fold as I attempted to take the first step downstairs. The rest
unfolded pretty quickly although it’s more fun to imagine it in dramatic slow motion.

I didn’t care about my bleeding face or the throbbing pain in
my left shin that immediately had me limping across the living room to where my
mom stood with her mouth wide open. The crucial and immediate matter was that I
hadn’t broken the china.

I took three Advil and hauled ass back to work with my busted
face and limp, arriving only five minutes late to the office.

That afternoon before it was time to go home, my boss called me in
and inquired why I’d been late from lunch. I pointed at my face and explained the
situation, horrified at his lack of sympathy. As I spoke and retold my lunch time
horror story he simply nodded in silence, unfazed by my tribulations and possible
need of a face transplant. When I was done, he complained I’d been late once “two
months ago” and suspended me for a week without pay.

I went home that night determined to ice my wounds and drown in vodka,
when Olivia called me a little after 10 p.m.

And 45 minutes later . . .

We hit up a bar in South Beach where we had a few cosmos. Olivia
seemed upset about something and finally confessed she had been seeing this guy
who told her he was a club owner but instead ended up being a bartender.

“What’s wrong with bartenders?” I pointed at my cosmo. “Free drinks!”

She rolled her eyes and patted my hand like a grandma would her favorite
grandson, “Nothing’s wrong with bartenders, Annie,” she lied. “It’s just the principle.
Why would he lie about something like that?”

“Because he could tell you don’t like broke guys and wanted to impress
you?”

“That’s not true,” she said indignantly and sipped her drink greedily
while I stared at her in silence.

“Alright. There’s nothing wrong with a little money,” she admitted.
“I’m a broke ass. I don’t need another broke ass. Two broke asses don’t work well
together.”

“Bartenders make good money, Olivia,” I sighed. “Forget about all
that and let’s have fun,” I insisted, pulling her toward the jukebox.

But she didn’t forget.

Two shots down after her third cosmo and she decided it was time for
a confrontation. I tried my best to persuade her otherwise, but she dragged me down
to
Automatic Slims
and marched straight to the bar when she spotted him.
She kept repeating that he was a scumbag to everyone at the bar, her left eye all
squinty as she slurred her hatred for Bar Boy at the top of her lungs. With a martini
in hand, she waved her arms frantically and repeatedly roared the phrase, “I Foogled
you, you liar!” After wading through a pool of confusion, I realized she meant she’d
Googled him, discovering he was no club owner and instead a provider of delicious
alcoholic beverages. Two minutes worth of her tantrum was all I could withstand,
so I grasped her by the shirt and pulled her away as she spewed the same thing over
and over.