Champagne Life

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Champagne Life Page 4

by Nicole Bradshaw


  “Stopping in to pick up lunch.” He watched me blot away. “You know, you really should use seltzer water. It’ll keep the stain from setting.” He grabbed the first waiter that walked by. The kid carrying two plates full of food in his hands and one plate nestled in the crook of his arm looked irritated. “Hey, can you get us a bottle of seltzer water…quick?”

  The peeved waiter nodded and headed toward a corner table to drop off the food. He then went back into the kitchen and a minute later returned with two blue bottles in his hands. “Anything else?”

  I took the bottles. “No, thank you.” I opened up one of the bottles, wet another napkin and began blotting at my blouse. After a few minutes the stain faded.

  “Told you.”

  “Thanks.”

  “You’re welcome.” He hovered over my table like a vulture would a carcass. “So, where’s your husband? You know, the one you’re having lunch with today.”

  “Couldn’t make it.”

  “That so?”

  Shanteska, the waitress, walked up and placed a small stack of napkins onto the table. She looked at Jeremy. “Will you be joining her today?”

  He looked down at me. “Do you mind?”

  I wondered how rude would it have been to tell him that I was really looking forward to having a nice, quiet lunch by myself, but he looked so pitiful, looking down at me.

  I took another bite of my burger. “Sure.”

  Shanteska, obviously excited to get more of a tip, bounced back toward the kitchen to get an extra set of silverware. Before she disappeared behind the swinging kitchen door, Jeremy called out, “I’ve already ordered. You can put my food on a plate and bring it out to me. It should be a veal parmigiana for a Jeremy Butler. Thanks.”

  A few minutes later, Shanteska returned with a steaming hot plate of food and sat it in front of Jeremy. She disappeared back into the kitchen.

  “Let me order you a drink.” He turned around, looking for a waitress. “What are you having, a martini?”

  “A martini at lunch?” I asked. “It’s only noon, plus, I’m not a big drinker.”

  “Then let me get you something lighter.” He looked at Shanteska, who had come back over to our table. “Give us two wine coolers, please.” He turned back to me. “Is that light enough for you?”

  “Make it one for him,” I told Shanteska.

  “Oh, c’mon. Stop being such a little girl. Did you forget I am in tight with the manager?”

  “Would you stop saying that?”

  “Saying what?”

  “How you know the manager, how tight you are with the manager, anything at all pertaining to the manager. We get it. Everyone gets it. She’s your aunt. You don’t need to remind us every single day. And I told you, I really don’t feel like drinking this early.”

  “Okay then, bring over two beers,” he told the waitress, ignoring me. “Beer is like drinking soda with a little extra kick.”

  This guy was unbelievable. “Didn’t you hear me?”

  “One beer. That’s it.”

  I threw my hands in the air, flopped back into my seat and surrendered. “Fine. Bring the beers. Make mine light, please.” I had no intentions of drinking it. I simply wanted him off my back.

  When the waitress returned, she plopped down two beers onto the table and left.

  Jeremy lifted up the tip of his plate and peered under it. “No extra napkins? Who does that? The waitress sees we’re eating greasy food and she doesn’t leave extra napkins.”

  I shrugged and took another bite. Burger crumbs fell down the front of my blouse. “It’s not that serious.”

  “That burger must be good,” he commented.

  I nodded, taking another full bite. “Sure is.”

  He took a sip from one of the bottles of water on the table and then one from the beer bottle in front of him. “I’m not trying to be a dick here, but I can’t stand incompetent people. Sometimes servers have to be the most ignorant people in this world. How hard is it to slap some extra napkins onto a table?”

  “Oh, let it go, please.” I stuffed a fry into my mouth. “And most times it’s not even the server’s fault.” I felt the personal need to defend servers, especially since my husband was one. “The restaurant tells the servers to only give out extra napkins if the customer asks for them.”

  “That’s not the only issue. She’s slow, she’s sloppy and she has a bad attitude. “

  “She’s fine to me.”

  “I forgot. I’m sorry.”

  “For what?”

  “I forget your husband does this for a living. I really should know when to shut the hell up sometimes.” He took a bite of his veal. “At least the sandwich is good.” He took another drink from the beer bottle. “Maybe your husband should get out of the lower end of the restaurant business and look into becoming a chef or some other higher-up position.”

  The flush rushed up to my cheeks. At that moment, I was embarrassed for my husband. Not really for him and what he proudly did for a living, but by the fact that Jeremy, a bank teller, thought that DeShaun was on the lower end of the food chain at his job. I expected this from my parents, whom I only speak to on a monthly basis, but coming from a co-worker, it left me speechless. It was best to let that comment go, however, I made a mental note never to have lunch with this ass again.

  “You really should come to the gym with me some time.”

  The last time I went to the gym, I was still single. “I’m not much of a workout person.”

  “Really? You’re in great shape. It gets harder for women to keep that BOOM POW! as they get older, you know.”

  “I’m not old.” I took a bite of my burger and downed it with a swig of beer. One tiny sip couldn’t hurt. The ice-cold beverage felt refreshing going down.

  “Go one time with me and I’ll show you how to lift weights properly. If you like it, you’ll continue. If not, then you can go off and be fat, old and happy. Just look at Deb over there.”

  “Who?”

  “Deb, over in the corner. She works at the Lower Merion branch. You’ve probably never seen her. She rarely comes to the office. She was there the other day for only a quick minute. She’s only thirty but looks like she’s over forty with that extra weight. Nice girl, but if you don’t watch it and hit the gym every once in a while, you’ll end up looking way older than you are.”

  “Oh, gee, thanks.” I took another tiny swig from the bottle. “When you put it like that, how can I refuse?”

  “So you’ll go with me tonight after work?”

  “Nope.”

  “I thought you couldn’t refuse me?” Jeremy said. “What about tomorrow night?”

  “It’s called sarcasm and nope.”

  “You seem busy this week, so how about a week from Thursday? We can sweat a little. When we’re wet, we can begin the real exercise.”

  I glanced up from my burger. “I don’t think so.”

  “One time,” he begged. “It will be fun.”

  “I said, no.” I was beginning to understand why he got on people’s nerves so quickly.

  “Am I getting on your nerves?”

  I stuffed the last of my burger in my mouth and started in on the fries. “It’s cool, but I don’t think it would be right if I hung out with you, that’s all.”

  “It’s not a big deal. It would be two co-workers getting together after hours and you know, if something happens after that, we can take it from there.”

  I dropped my fry onto the plate. “Dude, really? Don’t you get that you make women feel totally uncomfortable when you make comments like that?”

  “I was kidding.”

  “If that was your idea of a joke, your sense of humor sucks.”

  “Wow. That stung.”

  “I don’t mean to hurt your feelings, Jeremy, but you sometimes have that reputation of being, well, creepy.”

  “Seriously? I thought I was being funny.”

  “Really?” I asked incredulously. “I’m not tryin
g to be mean. I simply want to tell you the truth.”

  “No, no, I get it,” he said. “I thought I was being friendly. I didn’t know you thought I was some serial rapist or something.”

  I looked at the hurt expression on his face. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said anything.”

  “No, don’t be. I’m glad you did.” There was an uncomfortable silence as he took a sip of his beer. “I’m uncomfortable around pretty women so I over compensate by trying to be this confident guy with all these jokes that apparently aren’t funny.”

  “You really didn’t know that?”

  “Seriously, no. I feel like an idiot. I always do this.”

  Oh, God, please don’t let him tell me his life story. All I wanted was a quiet lunch to myself, not some psychology session. I got enough of that from my mom, with wanting to talk about my feelings all the time.

  “I’ve always done that,” he said. “When I was younger, I had absolutely no confidence and now I work out and take care of myself and feel good. I want to make sure everyone understands how good I finally feel inside.”

  I put down my fry and set aside my plate. I was about to channel Mom, the psychologist, for a quick second. “I get that. I really do, but all you’re doing is pushing people away. You can have confidence without telling the world how great you are. You feel good on the inside, people will see that by how you act, authentically.”

  “I never told anyone this,” he said. “But, in college, I was seventy pounds overweight and let me tell you, college is not the place to be when you’re fat. Trust me on this.” He laughed nervously, finally showing an authentic emotion. “I don’t even know why I’m telling you this.”

  Jeremy didn’t seem that bad of a guy, but he was always so hot and cold. That time at the bank with old lady Pritcherd and her jar full of change, he wanted to genuinely help me out. Minutes after that, the smug Jeremy resurfaced and he was back to making inappropriate comments.

  “Seventy pounds isn’t all that heavy.”

  “It was bad,” he said. “And add that with being a virgin. The fellas were relentless.”

  “You were a virgin in college?”

  “See? Even you want to laugh.”

  “It’s not that, it’s just that I never pictured…that…from you.”

  “I was, and right up to my senior year.”

  “Contrary to popular belief, that’s a good thing,” I told him.

  “I don’t know why, but it feels good to finally tell somebody. You know what I mean?”

  I nodded. “I do.”

  “Do you have any deep secrets that you haven’t told anybody?” he asked.

  That I did, but unlike him, I most definitely wasn’t going to divulge any here today sitting in front of a plate full of grease and a light beer. “Maybe.”

  “Most people do,” he said. “I was tired of hiding my past. It wasn’t like I killed somebody. I know I shouldn’t be ashamed of being fat and a virgin throughout college, but I was a guy, and it was embarrassing.”

  The waitress came back and asked us if we would be having dessert. Jeremy looked at me and I shook my head.

  “Not a big dessert fan?” he asked.

  “I prefer to bake my own.”

  The waitress smiled, told us to have a good day and placed the bill down onto the table and left.

  Without hesitation, he grabbed the bill, reached into his wallet and placed a twenty on the table. “You bake?”

  “A little.”

  “What’s your favorite thing to bake?”

  “I’m a big fan of chocolate chip cookies.”

  “Me too.” He took a sip of his beer. “I mean I was, but I had to knock that out in college with my big ass.”

  I waited until he laughed before I chuckled a bit.

  “Well?” he asked.

  “Well, what?”

  “You were giving me your deep dark secret.”

  I normally didn’t tell people my private business, but watching Jeremy tell me something about his past, I felt his relief. It prompted me to want to do the same. “Okay, mine’s a college secret too.”

  “Really? I pictured you as the homecoming queen or the captain of the cheer squad.”

  “I was those, too.”

  He laughed. “Should’ve known.”

  “But that’s not all I was.” I had never told anyone about my college days, not even DeShaun, but it seemed okay at that point. “During my freshman year, I needed money for books so I danced as a stripper.”

  “You’re lying. That sounds like a movie.”

  “Seriously, it’s true.”

  “How the hell did you get into college then?”

  “I had a partial scholarship, plus my parents made a lot of money and paid for the rest.”

  “So what was the problem? Why didn’t you hit up your parents?”

  I couldn’t believe I was telling him this. Even DeShaun had no idea of my dancing past. “When I was in college, I was a bit of a fashion freak and totally into myself.” I hesitated for a second, deciding if I should give him the entire story or the condensed version. I settled on the shorter story.

  “My parents gave me money for books, but I spent it all on clothes and shoes. I had to make money somehow and my roommate knew this girl who knew this girl, and to make a long story short, I danced at a local spot for a month.”

  “Topless or full nudity?”

  “Only topless, but that was bad enough.” I thought a second. If I was going to come clean, I was going to come clean completely. “Okay, I lied. It was full nudity.”

  “Get outta here!” he exclaimed, but quickly added, “but hey, I don’t judge. You had to do what you had to do. At least you had the sense to figure out how to get money.”

  “The whole ordeal was so disgusting. Men looked at you with their tongues practically hanging to the floor. When I danced, on the stage, I could look down and see the bulges in their pants getting bigger and bigger. I was seventeen years old and the first time I stepped onto that stage to dance, I felt like a little girl. Eight minutes later, at the end of the routine, I had felt like a hoodrat who had been around the block a few times.”

  The longer version of the story went something like this; dancing for a month, dabbling in drugs in order to force myself onto that stage every night and even a few times being approached by “movie producers” who wanted to feature me in their films.

  “It’s still embarrassing when I think about it.” I was glad to finally admit that to someone. No one, except for my freshman roommate, Tanisha, knew about my dancing days as “Victoria.” Last I heard, Tanisha was doing adult movies under the name, “Wicked Wanita.”

  “Your secret is safe with me. I told you about my fat, back-brace-wearing days, and you told me about your dancing days. I’d say we’re even.”

  “Back brace, too?” I didn’t know whether to laugh or feel sorry for him. “You had it bad.”

  He laughed. “Well, now we know something about each other that no one else knows.”

  I grabbed my purse and stood up, ready to leave. For some reason, his last statement made me feel slightly uncomfortable as well as a tad bit guilty. Another man knew something even my husband didn’t. I wasn’t sure how to feel about that.

  DeShaun and Naomi

  DeShaun prepared dinner almost every night. He didn’t have to be at work until after six most evenings, so often times I walked through the front door and was met with the sound of food sizzling in a frying pan and to the smell of various spices. Tonight, as I unlocked and entered through the front door, I heard no sizzling and there was no scent of spices wafting in the air.

  DeShaun was at the kitchen counter with his back to me. “Hey, you’re home.” There was something sexy about seeing him prepare food at the kitchen counter he’d refurbished for me. He spent the last of our savings to install the granite countertop because he knew I wanted it. Plus, the fact that he was completely nude was a plus, too.

  I glanced do
wn at his tight body and felt myself getting slightly turned on. “Are you kidding me? You cannot be serious.”

  He raised his arms and in a slow motion, turned around wearing a grin as wide as the Grand Canyon. Aside from two white chef’s hats on both heads, a pair of white tube socks was the only other thing he wore. He handed me a glass of wine. “For you, my love.”

  “You are crazy. You know that, right?”

  He eased his way up to me. “I thought we’d try something a little different tonight.” Little D poked my thigh as DeShaun took the glass from my hands and raised it to my lips. “Taste this. It’s good, right? The restaurant changed wine sellers. I knew you’d like this one.”

  With DeShaun still holding on to the glass, I took a quick sip. “This is really good.” I took the glass from his hand and took another sip. “It’s delicious.” With my free hand, I reached down and cupped Little D. “And so is this.”

  DeShaun took a step back. “Hey, hey, hey. Before you go and get yourself all worked up, I’ve got good news to tell you. In fact, I have two pieces of good news.”

  I looked at his naked butt and laughed. “Is that what prompted this little outfit, or should I say, lack of one?”

  He looked down. “This old thing?”

  “You are stupid.” I couldn’t help but laugh. “So what’s this good news?” I glanced down at Little D, who was standing at full attention in his tiny white chef’s hat. “You ordered some Viagra or something?”

  “Nope. That’s all you. But the good news is that Berti and Jenn Herjavec came in for lunch today.”

  “Did she corner you in the pantry and rip off your clothes again?”

  DeShaun was always telling me stories about Mrs. Herjavec and how she flirted with him right under her husband’s nose. I never got jealous. Maybe it was because he told me every time she flirted with him, or maybe it was because I was secure in my marriage and didn’t feel she posed any threat. In some weird perverted way, it excited me to hear about another woman wanting my husband. That meant I had something special.

  DeShaun grabbed the glass from my hands and took a sip. “No cornering this time, but she did drop me a one-hundred dollar tip.”

  “Oooo, good. Now I can go shopping.”

 

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