“You been thinking about work?”
“Little. You?”
“Guilty.”
“All your patients are still gonna be there when you get back, especially the ladies. Oh, Dr. Stahl. Fix my nose, Dr. Stahl. Suck the fat off my legs, Dr. Stahl.”
They talk by candlelight as the storm rages on the other side of the glass, Ron in the middle of describing the book he’s brought along to read, a biography of Calvin Coolidge, when Jessica’s face suddenly darkens.
“What’s wrong?”
“We’ve been sitting here fifteen minutes, and no one’s even come over to bring us water.”
They survey the restaurant, not another table occupied, no waiters to be seen, only the faintest sound coming from swinging metal doors that presumably lead to the kitchen.
“I’ll go get someone,” Ron says, rising from his chair.
He heads toward the back of the room, his face flushed with heat—anger—and just as he reaches the doors to the kitchen, a woman in a white oxford shirt and black apron bursts through carrying a tray of waters.
Ron sidesteps, avoiding a collision.
“I was just coming back to get someone,” Ron says. “We’ve been sitting out here for fifteen minutes and nobody’s—”
“I apologize for the delay,” the waitress says.
“No, it’s fine. Looks like you’re slammed out here.” Ron motions to the vacant restaurant.
The waitress laughs, just a teenager, and he feels bad for the sarcasm as he follows her back to their table and takes a seat.
“My name’s Mary-Elise, and I’ll be taking care of you. You folks decided on dinner yet?” She sets their water glasses on the table.
“We were only given the wine list,” Jessica says.
The waitress runs to the podium, grabs a pair of menus, hustles them back to the table.
“Any specials tonight?” Ron asks.
“I’m afraid not.”
The waitress turns to leave, but Jessica says, “No, honey. You wait right here. We won’t be long in deciding.”
The Stahls peruse the menu, place their orders, Ron buying a $175 bottle of Côtes du Ventoux, and everything seems temporarily better knowing food and wine is finally on the way.
-10-
The waitress presents the bottle to Ron, who holds it in his hands like a new baby and affirms that she brought the vintage he requested.
Mary-Elise finesses the corkscrew, expertly withdraws the cork, then pours a little wine into Ron’s glass.
He swirls it, sniffs, says, “No, something’s off.”
“What?” Jessica asks.
“Here, smell.”
Jessica inhales a whiff. “Vinegar.”
Ron says, “This wine’s spoiled. Do you have another bottle of the Côtes?”
“I’m sorry, this was our last.”
“Then just bring the Bordeaux.”
-11-
Jessica smiles when the waitress presents her entrée.
“Tell the truth,” Ron says. “You got the chicken pot pie just because it was forty dollars.”
“It’s an intriguing price for such a simple dish.”
Outside, it still snows, impossibly harder than before, and with the waitress gone, they have the restaurant all to themselves.
“Looks good,” Ron says, pointing his fork at Jessica’s dish.
The chicken pot pie barely fits on the plate, the crust perfectly gilded, steam rising through tiny holes in the center.
“I’m so hungry,” Jessica says, piercing the crust with her fork, scooping out a bite. “My God, worth every cent. How’s yours?”
Ron swallows a bite of his penne pasta with scallops and clam sauce.
“Unreal. You know, if we had to go through all this shit today just to have this meal, it might actually have been worth it.”
He lifts his glass, and as he tilts it up, wine running down his throat, eyes shut with pleasure, trying to think of a toast to make, Jessica gasps.
Ron looks across the table, sees blood pouring down his wife’s chin, two fishhooks dangling from her bottom lip. She spits something onto the table—a half-inch black oval that he mistakes for a rock or a seedpod until it scampers away.
Other roaches crawl out of the pot pie, and Ron instinctively stands and steps back, noticing now that more than fishhooks and roaches fill the pie. Mixed in with the carrots and potatoes and chicken, shards of glass glint in the candlelight.
Jessica vomits on the floor, and Ron feels the urge as well, his mouth watering heavily.
He helps his wife to stand and they back away from the table, Ron wondering what might be lurking in the pearl-colored clam sauce of the dish he already took two bites from, decides not to even contemplate it.
Jessica trembles, tears streaming down her face.
“Calm down, baby. Let me look.” In the lowlight, he sees that one of the hooks has barely lodged. “I can get this one out right now.”
Delicately, with surgeon’s hands, he works the hook out of the corner of her lip.
“This other one’s really embedded. I think the barb’s under the skin.”
“My tongue,” she cries.
“Let me see.”
She sticks it out, and even in the poor light, Ron can see the deep slice halfway up the right side of her tongue.
“Jesus, it’s bad. Do you think you swallowed any glass?”
“I don’t know.”
“All right, stay here.”
“Where are you going?”
“To hurt somebody.”
“No, wait.” Her mouth has already begun to swell, blunting the sharpness of her consonants.
“Why?”
“Let’s just go find the sheriff.”
“No, fuck that.”
Ron rushes toward the back of the restaurant, his fists already clenched as he kicks open the metal doors.
The kitchen stands dark.
He says, “Anybody in here?”
-12-
They arrive at the front desk of the Lone Cone Inn, find the same stodgy clerk who they spoke with earlier in the day leaning back in a swivel chair, engrossed in a paperback romance.
“Excuse me?” Ron says, the clerk startling.
“Yes?”
“Where’s the hospital?” He gestures to Jessica, holding a burgundy cloth napkin over her mouth. “My wife needs medical attention.”
“I’m sorry, we only have a clinic, and it’s closed.”
“No hospital?”
“Nearest one’s thirty miles away, and as you know, the passes are closed tonight.”
“Okay, how about a sheriff?”
“Yes, but I’m sure his office is closed as well. It’s almost nine.”
“What’s your name?”
“Carol.”
“Tell me, Carol, what do the residents of this town do when they need an officer of the fucking peace?”
“Did something happen?”
“Yeah, something happened.”
“I guess I could try Sheriff Hanson at his home.”
“Really? I mean, I don’t want to put you out or anything just ‘cause someone put glass and hooks and roaches in my wife’s fucking dinner and almost cut her tongue in—”
“It’s not her fault, Ron.”
Carol lifts the phone, dials a number, after a moment, says, “Arthur? Hey it’s Carol. I’ve got the couple from out-of-town standing here at my desk, and I think they need your help…I don’t know…yeah, I think so…okay.”
She hangs up the phone.
“He’s coming down.”
“Thank you,” Ron says. “Now we were hoping you might have some other good news for us.”
“Like what?”
“We’ve had a really rough evening, and we need a…”
She shakes her head. “I’m sorry, we’re booked.”
“I’ll pay double. Triple. I don’t—”
“Sir, what do you want me to do? Kick someone out? I’m sorry, there’s no vacancy.”
-13-
They sit in the leather sofa by the fireplace, Ron holding Jessica, running his fingers through her hair, thinking they should be sitting in this lobby under completely different circumstances, cuddling by the fire with glasses of wine, musing on what the future has in store. In those rare moments when his mind cleared of all the things he needed to do, he’d come close to admitting to himself that despite all the money he and Jessica were accumulating, they were sacrificing the primes of their lives—him for the superrich and the ultra-shallow, that elite class who could drop seventy-grand to buff a few dents out of their noses, Jessica for faceless pharmaceutical companies in pursuit of the next billion-dollar drug. Between the ninety-hour workweeks and all the Saturdays in the office, even in those fleeting idle moments, he had to remind himself to look around and enjoy what he had, to tell himself how good he had it—the Lotus, the collection of ancient single malts, the four point two million dollar view of the Valley from his Mulholland mansion.