AND WHO IS THATWITH HIM? Oh my God, Mitchell Hertzog is here with a date. A DATE! Oh, and look at her. Just look at her. SHE had a blow-out. SHE didn’t take the advice of the style editor for theNew York Journal. She looks great. Well, if by “great” you mean seven feet tall and a hundred pounds. She actually looks like a praying mantis, if you ask me.
Oh God, why did I eat all those leftover cold sesame noodles for dinner?
Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center program
Maybe I can slip out before he sees me with my hair like this. If I get behind that pillar
Quintet for Clarinet and Strings in A Major,K. 581. . . . . . . . . . .Mozart
and slither over to the coat-check thingie, I can probably make it. Oh please God let me make it
Sextet for Clarinet, String Quartet and Piano. . . . . . . . . . .Copland
NOOOOOOO! He’s seen me! What do I—
Quintet for Two violins, Viola, Cello, and Piano in F Minor, Op. 34. . . . . . . . . . .Brahms
Journal of Kate Mackenzie
Why is it that every time I see Mitchell Hertzog I manage to make a total and complete ass of myself? If I’m not dribbling along about chicken in garlic sauce, I’m dealing with my lunatic ex-boyfriend or acting like I know something about art and classical music, when clearly, CLEARLY, I do not.
And he looked SO nice, too. I mean, really, really, really nice, in his tuxedo. He looked SKIBOY nice. Seriously, even Skiboy’s shoulders paled in comparison to Mitchell Hertzog’s.
He acted nice, too. He was all, “What are YOU doing here? I would’ve thought a girl like you would have something better to do than hang at a thing like this.”
Like I was too glam for the place, or something. Ha, I wish. I told him I’d just come to keep Dolly company, on account of her having an extra ticket.
He looked around for Dolly, but of course she had gone off with Skiboy. The two of them were behind the cellist with their hands down each other’s pants.
And then, me, idiot girl I am, I can’t leave it at that. Oh, no. I keep foaming away at the mouth:
Me: Oh, yes, well, Dolly and I, we go way back. In fact, right now we’re roomies, can you believe it?
Him: Roomies? Really? How did that happen?
Me: Well, you know, I’m between apartments right now, and Dolly, she has that big penthouse, way up on East Eightieth and East End Avenue and I don’t know, she asked and I jumped. . . .
LAME LAME LAME LAME I’m sure the Praying Mantis is a better conversationalist. At least until she bites his head off after they’re done mating (it’s praying mantises that do this, right?)
Then he went, “Well, it’s probably good you’re in the penthouse. That way your musical friend might find it a little harder to serenade you. Since you don’t seem to find his serenades all that appealing.”
Dale! God! I’d managed to forget all about Dale. I’d managed to forget for a minute there that the last time I saw this man, I was begging the NYPD not to use their nightsticks on my psychotic ex.
“Oh,” I said, trying to sound all—what’s the word?Je ne sais quoi, I guess. I’m sure the Praying Mantis would know. “That. Yes. Thanks so much for your help with that, by the way. Um, Dale and I, we, well, we broke up, and he’s not, um, taking it well.”
And he went, “So I gathered. Listen, if you need anything, any kind of legal help with that, a restraining order, or something—“
Oh my God! He wants to help me get a restraining order! Against Dale! I mean, I probably should. Only I don’t want Dale to go to jail. I just want him to go away.
But still. Like if I ever needed a restraining order, I’d go to HIM! I mean, Hertzog Webber and Doyle charge like five hundred bucks an hour, or something. Maybe even more. I could use up my entire savings account for what this guy charges in three hours.
But I swear to God, there I was, standing there thinking, “If I don’t take him up on his offer, he’ll think maybe I’m not serious about breaking up with Dale, and then he’ll never ask me out.”
Mitchell Hertzog, I mean.
Yeah. That’s what I was thinking. About Mitch Hertzog. While I was standing there talking to him at an opening to which he had CLEARLY BROUGHT A LONG, BLONDE, SLINKY DATE! Who was staring right at me from over by the Ingres (which she did not exactly not resemble, if you get my drift. I wonder if Ingres used praying mantises as models for his subjects)!
God, I am pathetic. Give me a guy in a tux—even a guy who is clearly taken—and all I can seem to think about is sharing the SundayTimes and strolls through Central Park.
So then, just to make things REALLY awkward and lame, I laughed all breezily and went, “Well, you know, ha ha, I’m on a human-resources-department salary, I really doubt I could afford you.”
Then Mitchell said the nicest thing. I mean, seriously, the nicest thing. He said, “I’d be happy to do it at no charge. Why don’t you stop by my office on Monday and we’ll talk about it? Say, lunchtime?”
But then he added, “I know a great place for chicken in garlic sauce.”
I have to admit, for a minute I was so shocked I just stood there staring at him, probably with my mouth hanging open. I was trying to figure out what to do—whirl around and make a beeline for the door, or tell him where to get off—when it was like he realized I wasn’t laughing and he poked my arm and went, “Whoa. Joke. That was a joke. What, they don’t joke in human resources?”
And the thing is, the last thing I want to do is fall for a lawyer. And I seriously don’t want to get a restraining order against Dale—I mean, he isn’t a threat to me—my ego, maybe, but not my body.
But Mitch just smiled so nicely when he said the wordjoke, and he seemed sincerely to want to help me, and, well, hepoked me. Like a friendly poke. How many lawyers give people friendly pokes? I mean, really?
And I will admit that maybe all of that—and the fact that the Praying Mantis was glaring so hard at me—caused me to, I don’t know, lose my head all of a sudden. Because the next thing I knew, I was promising him I would do it, I would have lunch with him on Monday, even though he’s a lawyer and his brother is the most heinous man in the world and he has a seven-feet-tall, hundred-pound girlfriend already and the T.O.D. SPECIFICALLY SAID I WAS NOT TO SEE MITCHELL HERTZOG AGAIN UNLESS SHE WAS PRESENT!
Except that I’m not meeting him about Mrs. Lopez. I’m meeting him about Dale. Which is, you know, totally unwork-related. Well, except for when Dale shows up at my workplace with a bouquet and a new song for me. But whatever.
I just thought that was the sweetest thing—I mean, this very high-powered lawyer, offering to help me with my stupid, boring problem. . . .
Well, I practically started crying right there on the spot. If he had offered me a lease on a studio apartment for nine fifty a month, utilities included, within walking distance of my office, I could not have been more touched.
And then of course, I had to go and ruin the moment by saying, “Well, okay, yeah . . .” and then because he was still standing there and I was still standing there and Miss Praying Mantis in a Dior wraparound evening dress was also still standing there, having seen the whole thing—you know, her date make a date with me, even though it wasn’t really a date, because it was lunch, and work-related—for him, anyway—I couldn’t just leave it, I had to be all, “Aren’t you going to introduce me to your friend?”
And Mitchell looked kind of startled—really, like he’d forgotten she was even there—and went, “Oh, of course. Clarissa, this is Kate Mackenzie. I’m working with her on a breach-of-contract arbitration. Kate, this is Clarissa Doyle.”