The usual evening dinner chatter filled
the restaurant. Waiters moved about the room; taking orders from
recently-seated parties of two or more, reciting the wine list from
memory, recommending the guinea filet with wild mushroom sauce
alongside a selection of cluttered fresh asparagus wrapped in
prosciutto with a hint of crème fraiche.
A pair of waiters were cleaning off a
couple tables after a party of six had finished dining. The waiters
talked amongst themselves, both young, twenty-something males still
doe-eyed amongst the world – their only knowledge of the outside
world coming from the half-nights with college co-eds in smokey piano
jazz bars and steamy hashish lounges until drink and smoke coalesce
with their teenybopper senses.
The sounds from the kitchen only
further ennobled the men and women in there – head chef calling out
dish names, busboys dodging verbal lashings from worked up sous
chefs. Each dish plated with repetitive accuracy – lamb shanks a la
bourgeoisie, steamed mussels with long cut seasoned potato skins,
fennel salad with grilled chicken marinated in ginger root, orange
zest, and hoisin sauce.
A bartender flips a vodka bottle
through the air twice, catching it and pouring three fingers worth in
a shaker already containing some grenadine, a little lemon juice,
some lime and orange zest, and a cherry. Shaking the drink for a few
seconds to allow the contents to hurl themselves together creating
alcoholic glory within a gleaming metal bullet, the bartender pours
the fresh drink into a martini glass, handing it off to a
clean-pressed-waisted waitress who delivers it to it's rightful
drinker.
The hostess seats yet another couple
for the night, this time sitting them next to the window overlooking
the rainy water-colored streets lit up by fading flickering yellow
street lamps in the old city. Menus are handed over to the couple as
mentions of a waitress being right with them are given. The hostess
finds herself at her command station, looking over her map of the
restaurant as a commander overlooking her troops and formations –
finding open territory for each new brigade upon arrival to the feast
of war and food.
The arrival of the waitress in front of
me heralded the end of my leisurely visual stroll through the
restaurant. After taking my drink order, she disappeared towards the
bar, flirting with the bartender while simultaneously ordering my
glass of red wine. I closed my eyes and massaged
the worn bridge between the eyes who had seen love born, stoked,
grown, rekindled in the cold of winter, only for love to roar again.
The eyes have seen love, yes, but they had also seen death young and
sporadically as they aged. Opening my eyes, the sight of the wine was
welcoming indeed. Taking but a small drink, I held the small
jeweler's box in my hand, opening it slowly, smiling as the ring
echoed the freedom call as hope escaped into my world with each catch
of the restaurant lighting. Warmth from the wine slowly coursed
through my body, massaging every tension and fear out of me. Another
sip wouldn't be out of place. Placing the box back into my pocket, I
set the glass down. The wine was
definitely warming my body, teeth to toes, as final apprehensions
wore away. Sultry silky smooth peace ebbed and flowed over and
through my body, the alcohol relaxing me further as the sounds of the
kitchen lulled me into another stroll through the restaurant.
As my eyes meandered around the restaurant
again, passing and admiring dish and patron alike, the sound of the
hostess called the eyes back home. Looking over in her general
direction, every fiber, every muscle gained a slight tension of
nervousness from desertion.
She walked in the room. The forest
green-eyed woman with short brunette hair in a silky cream dining
gown walked in the room and smiled as her eyes found and met the
welcoming if not yearning sight of mine. With each step, the
heartbeats began to rise, not out of fear or nervousness now, but from excitement and love and holding a secret in my pocket. She gets
to my table and I rise, holding her seat out for her and letting her
in. She smiles as she sits. Her eyes embrace mine, reading every
pool within the iris for emotional tea leaves, emotional tells for
what lay hiding near my breast. Her eyes widen with shock as I get to
one knee, procuring the box from its hiding place.
I look
down at the box and up into her eyes. Shock, fear, apprehension,
nervousness, excitement, love, joy, fear some more – all of it
mixing and hiding in the forests of green within her eyes. As I let
the hope escape from within the box and run rampant into her world; I
grin, the words spoken normally but feeling as if they tumbled,
stumbled on the restaurant carpet, and only just before falling flat
on their faces did they adjust themselves and become a single
coherent thought that knelt before her with box in hand and ring
within the box;
