Merlot Page 5

  “Great, you guys want those again, I’ll have them sent back to you or if you feel comfortable I’ll have a table arranged for you in the dining room.”

  “We have to prepare for the show. I’m thinking a big crowd, man. So if you can get six salads, just like last night, some Cokes, we’re good.” Dildo quickly looked around, received nods of agreement from the other five, then stuck his fist out to Merlot.

  Merlot bumped off dead center and reminded himself how he hated phony shit.

  * * *

  Cindy stood in her underwear holding a new top next to a half dozen different pairs of slacks, unhappy with all the combinations. She was painfully aware she was due for dinner in twenty minutes and it was a ten-minute drive. And, since the air conditioning in her car wasn’t working she would be completely pitted out by the time she arrived. None of which was helping her decision-making process.

  She had wondered off and on what it would be like having dinner with the owner of a restaurant. Would he say something like? “Let’s order off the special menu.” Or, “I hope you don’t mind but I took the liberty of preparing something completely unique, just for the two of us.”

  Would they be eating at a special table? Maybe a couple of waiters standing at the edge of the candlelight, ready to take care of her every wish? They’d pour the wine. Maybe he was a champagne guy, he would pull her chair out, a waiter would dish up a half dozen courses.

  It was bound to be romantic. All she had to do was decide what to wear, in the next four minutes. With time slipping away she threw up her hands, dropped the top on a pile of slacks and pulled a slinky, tight dress out of the closet, wiggled into the thing and walked through a cloud of perfume she misted on her way out the door.

  * * *

  It had been a normal busy night of narrowly averted catastrophes. Merlot sat for the first time in three hours. He was sipping a Coke with Tommy the bartender in the Lounge room, pleased to see the dinner rush hour extending this late on a Saturday.

  “I’ll tell you Tommy, it’ll probably curse me once I say it, but with this crowd tonight, I thought for sure something would get screwed up. I mean no major headaches, just the usual nonsense.”

  He had been dogged all night long by the feeling he had forgotten something, but he couldn’t remember what, until he saw her step into the Lounge bar and search the crowd. She waved and walked toward him.

  “Hi, sorry I’m late, there was an accident on Snelling and they had it down to one lane of traffic. You didn’t invite anyone else in my absence, did you?”

  “No, Cindy, no problem, just catching a quick Coke with Tommy here, while I waited,” he lied.

  “Cindy, you remember Tommy,” he introduced the bartender.

  “Yeah, hi, nice to see you again.”

  “Merlot?” Tommy asked, meaning her drink, not his boss.

  “What else? Nothing but the best, right?” She half laughed, wishing to god she didn’t always say stupid things when she was nervous.

  “Okay, let’s grab a seat for a minute and take it easy before we sit down to dinner.” Merlot said once she had her glass of wine. He directed her along a carpeted ramp outlined with runway lighting that led up to a pink-and-red upholstered booth. There were three separate levels of booths, all sort of loosely facing a small stage area where a Neil Diamond impersonator was doing a last minute sound check.

  “Gee, Cindy, I really can’t thank you enough for coming here on such short notice. I mean, I know you’re swamped at work, and it sounds like you have just a hell of a week lined up ahead of you, so thanks for making time for me.”

  “My pleasure, it’s really no trouble at all,” she replied, suddenly feeling famished, ready to kill for whatever special romantic dinner he had prepared.

  “Merlot to the dining room, Merlot to the dining room, please,” a rather urgent page over the loudspeaker.

  “God, I’m sorry, would you give me just a minute? I’ll be right back. Can I get you anything while I’m up?”

  “No, no, just fine, I’ve got this glass, go ahead, take care of whatever it is, I’m fine, honest.”

  “Okay, back just as soon as I can.”

  * * *

  “God, Merlot!” Allie the dining room hostess sounded more than a little flustered. “We are seriously overbooked in here and there’s some weirdo really putting the pressure on to talk to you. He’s giving me the creeps and, well, the whole thing is just weird.”

  “Point him out to me without being obvious,” said Merlot.

  “Point him out? God, no problem! He’s at table sixteen, the creepy guy with the mustache, that Neanderthal kind of guy and the slut in the nurse costume with the boob job. Little early for Halloween, don’t ya think? Look, look, there she is wiping the menu before he holds it, some kind of germ nut if you ask me.”

  Merlot immediately recognized Osborne, just as Osborne glanced up and caught his eye.

  “Shit! Make sure he gets top service, anything he wants, and no bill. Bring him a bottle of champagne, some good stuff, with their dinner. Make sure you tell him it was compliments of me and that everything is on the house.” Merlot smiled and waved across the room at Osborne.

  “You kidding me?” Allie asked, having known Merlot to bitch more than once about getting a round of beer.

  “No, I’m not kidding, use every ounce of charm you’ve got,” he said, then walked to the rear of the dining room and Osborne’s table.

  “Thank you for coming,” Merlot said, “no please, please, sit down Mr. Osborne, you’re our guest. The prime rib is excellent, or if you prefer, the lobster tails are great and I’ll gladly pick some out for you myself.”

  “Thank you, but I think I’ll look at the menu, if it’s all the same. Nice to see you again,” Osborne said making no effort to introduce the nurse.

  There seemed to be just the hint of a medicinal scent in the air, the table glistened from a recent sheen of disinfectant spray. Merlot noticed that Osborne wrapped his fingertips with the cloth napkin before picking up his menu.

  The larger man, Milton, had a swollen right hand sporting a series of small purplish gashes. He rested his hand on the table, holding the menu with his left.

  “Call me if you need anything Mr. Osborne, otherwise I look forward to our meeting in a few days. Enjoy your evening. Ma’am,” he inclined his head to the nurse.

  ***

  “You want another drink, hon?”

  The cocktail waitresses had come on duty. They were dressed in what could only be described as black velvet French maid outfits, with little white aprons and very low cut tops. The Lounge room was filling up with the Saturday night meat-market crowd. Cindy felt as if she had a large spot light shining directly on her, dressed to the nines, alone in the booth.

  “Yeah sure, I’ll have another.”

  “What are you drinking, hon?” The waitress asked, not sure by the outfit if Cindy was a working girl or not.

  “Merlot,” she said, blushing as she said it.

  “Five fifty, hon,” the waitress said, returning ten minutes later balancing the tray, almost spilling out of her low cut top when she set the drink on the table.

  Cindy nodded and hoped Tony returned quickly.

  “Five fifty, hon,” the waitress repeated, smiled sweetly, not meaning to be sweet, then looked bored and waited.

  “Oh yeah, sure. Here you go, thanks” Cindy said, finding a ten in her wallet.

  “Did you want change?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “I’ll be back, hon,” suggesting maybe she wouldn’t.

  Cindy wasn’t pounding it down, she was just sipping, but they were big sips. She wanted to leave, but she would be damned if she was going to leave four dollars and fifty cents of hard earned cash with a bitchy cocktail waitress.

  “How’s it going?”

  She turned, expecting to look into Tony’s eyes, but instead found herself looking at a class A Lounge Lizard. He wore an open collar shirt, the top four buttons und
one, exposing what looked like wall-to-wall carpeting. Tight, iridescent slacks with a large brass buckle and cowboy boots she couldn’t help but notice since he’d placed one on the seat next to her. His orange tinted glasses were bifocals, with very large steel frames. He had a pencil line mustache. If he’d had hair Cindy figured it would be combed back in a sort of bouffant style from the 1960s.

  It was at that moment that the Neil Diamond impersonator opened his act, launching into a rendition of “Cracklin’ Rosie”. The Lounge Lizard began snapping his fingers, bouncing to the beat.

  “Yeah baby, yeah, come on, Sugar what do you say?” he yelled at Cindy over Neil’s alter ego, taking a step back waiting for her to fly out of the booth.

  “Come on sugar, let’s shake that thing,” he spun round in front of the booth as she sat dumbfounded. “Yeah, let’s go, baby!”

  That was enough. She wasn’t going to wait all night looking for all the world like an hor d’orve for some sexual feeding frenzy. She drained her wine glass, gathered her purse and was sliding out of the booth just as Merlot slid in alongside of her.

  “Sorry that took so long, things just got crazy.” He looked at her empty glass. “You should have ordered from one of the girls,” he said and waved to “bitchy” still standing at the bar hoping to pocket Cindy’s change.

  Cindy thought she could lip-read a reaction when the woman looked up and saw who had joined her in the booth. The dancing Lounge Lizard was suddenly nowhere in sight.

  “Heidi,” Merlot said to “bitchy”, “I’ll just have a Coke, and,” he looked at Cindy.

  “Ahh, ma’am,” Heidi smiled weakly, a hint of terror in her eyes.

  “The same, please.”

  “A Coke?” asked Merlot.

  “A merlot?” asked Heidi, simultaneously.

  “The merlot. Oh, and then you were going to get me that change,” Cindy smiled icily into Heidi’s wide eyes.

  “I’ll be right back,” Heidi assured them.

  “So, sorry about that, just a little headache in the dining room, actually the right kind of problem. We just overbooked and didn’t have quite enough tables. It’s all taken care of,” Merlot said, casting an eye across a sea of baby boomers dancing to Neil Diamond tunes.

  “So, how would you feel about dining in an exclusive part of the operation tonight?” he asked.

  “Here we go,” Heidi said returning with the Coke and glass of wine in Olympic-record time.

  “Your wine ma’am, and your change,” she said making eye contact with Cindy as she slid a crisp ten-dollar bill across the table.

  “Thank you,” Cindy replied then turned to give Merlot her undivided attention.

  “The dining room is full and will be for a while, like I said, the right kind of problem,” he half lied, not wanting to take the chance of having to talk with Osborne any more than necessary.

  “I was thinking, if you wouldn’t mind, we could dine in my office. It would be private, the service will still be good, and the food excellent. Plus, it will give me a chance to get away from all this, and have an uninterrupted conversation with you. I feel like, well, between me running around tonight and what was your friend’s name, Kari?”

  “Karen,” corrected Cindy.

  “Yeah, well either way, I feel like we haven’t talked and, to tell you the truth, as long as I’m out here, they’re going to keep calling me.”

  “Your office sounds wonderful,” Cindy said, envisioning candlelight and personal waitstaff.

  It took them fifteen minutes to make their way through the bar. Merlot talked to people, gave the word he wasn’t to be disturbed and checked with the hostess Allie about some special situation. Eventually they made their way to his office.

  Whatever Cindy was hoping for wasn’t what she found. She had conjured up some sort of elegant, romantic private table, a waiter or two. Most likely a rose or something on the table, not to mention candlelight, probably a sound system playing soft music, lights dimmed for romance.

  “Let me just clean this shit off,” he said over his shoulder, stacking piles of invoices one on top of the other and dumping them on a dreadful striped couch with torn, duct taped arm rests. He set two coffee mugs onto the credenza behind his large, black chair. Each mug still held coffee and as he picked them up they dribbled a small puddle across the desktop.

  He grabbed a soiled terry-cloth rag and attempted to wipe at some sort of stain that seemed as if it didn’t want to leave, moistened the rag by dipping it into the trail of coffee and garnered moderate success, then nodded at a green Naugahyde chair.

  “Just pull that damn thing up here to the desk and I’ll get some food for us. What do you feel like?”

  “Ahh, is there a menu?” Cindy asked, still a little in shock.

  “Oh yeah, sure, let me get one for you,” he said, leaving before she could say no wait.

  She looked around, remembered the new top she had purchased now lying on her bed and her ridiculous dreams about a romantic evening and started laughing. The guy runs a God damned restaurant and it’s Saturday night. He doesn’t have time to have a romantic dinner.

  He quickly returned with a menu, a couple bottles of wine in hand and things began to look better.

  “Recommendation?” she asked.

  “If it were me I’m partial to the bruschetta appetizer, and we have the best prime rib,” he said, knowing they had plenty of both in the kitchen.

  “Okay, you sold me. Is there more merlot, Tony?” she asked sliding her glass across the desktop.

  He filled her glass, left with the menu, returned in short order with silverware and napkins.

  She attempted to sit gracefully in the green Naugahyde chair and failed, miserably. The arms on the thing kept it from moving any closer to the edge of the desk and the angle of the chair’s seat placed her butt about a foot lower than her knees. With her skirt up above the top of her thighs she would have killed right now for a pair of jeans, but had to settle for the napkin, quickly unwrapping her silverware and draping the cloth across her thighs. It was a little like having a GYN exam. The only thing the chair lacked was a set of stirrups.

  He sat opposite and just a bit higher in his black leather office chair.

  “Who’s that?” She gestured with her third glass of wine to the only photo in the room; a man with a small boy in a Little League uniform

  “That’s my dad, and that goofy looking kid in the baseball uniform is me.”

  “Is he still alive, your Dad?”

  “No, but I still miss him every day. We were real pals.”

  She attempted to wedge her knees underneath the overhang of the desk but the arms of the chair prevented her from moving any closer. She felt like she was slumping into the back of the chair.

  He seemed not to notice, and he chatted on about work, her work mostly. Asking what she did in a day? How crazy was it working through the fair week?

  “Well Merlot, isn’t this cozy,” cackled a waitress. She carried four plates, another bottle of wine and pushed the door open with her hip. She set the food on the desk, looked around then down at Cindy who suddenly felt on display.

  “I’ll get some candles, honey, never enough time for romance.”

  He rolled his eyes and remained quiet while she was in the office. Once the door closed he said,

  “She’s been with us for over thirty-five years. My dad hired her, she’s a good worker, loyal, and she gets away with murder.”

  “Ahh, that’s so sweet,” Cindy said, about to finish another glass of wine. She wiggled down ever so slightly into her chair and felt a warm glow coming all over her.

  It was toward the end of the meal and she pushed food around her plate, not really hungry anymore. He set the bruschetta and salad plates on top of a stack of files on the credenza. Candles flickered in the draft from the air conditioning as melted wax dripped on the worn surface of the desk. In the background, Kiss of Death pounded out their final set for the night.

  He poured
more wine into her glass, not that it was empty. In fact it hadn’t been empty all night. He’d kept it reasonably full. Every time he filled it she would say, “Oops, not too much.”

  Eventually, she stopped worrying about getting drunk and was cautioning herself about getting drunker, although that didn’t seem to be working either. She was draped sideways in the green Naugahyde chair, legs swinging freely over the arm of the chair, shoes somewhere on the floor below. A half-eaten plate of chocolate gateau rested on her chest. She gestured with the wine glass as she spoke.

  “The money these fuckers bring in, oh Jesus, I didn’t mean to say it that way.”

  “Customers?” suggested Merlot.

  “Yeah, the fucking customers, Tony. That’s what the fuckers are, customers. Anyway, you wouldn’t believe it. It’s sticky, all covered with sugar and fruit drinks. And it smells like grease, you know all that shit they have at the fair. By the time I get home I just peel my clothes off and take a long hot shower.”

  “There’s this one guy, really weird, he’s always eyeing up the tellers. Get this, he wears a Vikings jersey, these really baggy shorts, a baseball hat and hunting boots or something. Oh, he’s so gross,” she shivered at the thought.

  “He’s all sweaty, and at the bank about a hundred times a day, always in a hurry. Know what we call him? Porky Pig. That isn’t very nice. He has this crew cut and a Donald Duck tattoo, I mean what’s that?” she laughed, took another sip.

  “I’d want to take all my clothes off and just burn them if he touched me.”

  “Sounds interesting,” Merlot said a bit luridly.

  She didn’t react.

  “I smell like the fair after handling all that money, and I haven’t even had my butt inside the gate.”

  “More wine?” asked Merlot.

  “I’d better not, I’ve got to be at work early on Monday to count weekend deposits,” then inclined her glass so he could refill it.

  “Tomorrow’s Sunday, you can sleep in,” he poured.

  She seemed to think about that for a half moment, sipping. “There’s so much of this cash from the deposits we balance our drawers about ten times a day, haul the cash into the vault. They separate it into the various denominations.”