Once In a Lifetime

Mar 28, 2010

Deborah came home from work on Friday with a craving for Beef Goulash. There's a Viennese restaurant not far from our apartment, and she'd been fantasizing all day long about going there for dinner. "How's that sound?" she said.

It's a good restaurant and we hadn't been to it in a while, so it was fine by me.

We've never had trouble getting a table there; in fact, one time we were the only customers, so we were surprised to walk into a packed house. "Do you have a reservation?" the hostess asked. When we said no she scrunched her face and winced. "Sorry, we don't have anything available."

"Can we wait?"

"Umm..."

"How about the bar? Can we eat at the bar?"

"I'm afraid there's no room."

It was true, the bar was seething with gray hair, fur, and tuxedos, barely enough room to squeeze through to use the bathroom. The busboys and waitresses somehow managed to blaze trails through the crowd...excuse me...watch your back...pardon me...but it was otherwise impenetrable. We stood at the entrance in a standoff with the hostess, dodging the waitstaff, and getting bumped on every side from the all people coming and going.

"Let's go," I said. "We'll find something else."

But Deborah had her mind -- and stomach -- set on beef goulash, and wasn't going to be denied,

"Can we wait?" she said.

"Nothing will open up until 7:30," the hostess said. "After the show starts."

The restaurant is directly across the street from BAM (The Brooklyn Academy of Music), and apparently dozens of people had chosen to have dinner at the restaurant before that night's show.

"Ah, is that what's going on?" said Deborah. "We were wondering why it was so crowded. We've been here a bunch of times, and we've never seen it like this."

When the hostess realized that we weren't just there for the show and that we were, in fact, regular customers, she suddenly became much more accommodating. "Wait here one moment," she said, and disappeared into the mass of perfume and bow ties.

"I wonder what the show is."

"It must be an opera or something."

The hostess returned and told us that if we didn't mind sitting with a few strangers, she could seat us right away at a large table in the middle of the room.

"I don't mind," said Deborah, "What do you say?"

"Why not?"

The table was large enough that we could keep to ourselves, more or less, but it was impossible not to at least make some acknowledgement to the people that were sitting with us. We nodded and smiled at the couple across the table -- a gray-haired old woman draped in a colorful silk scarf and a man with a full head of bushy gray hair dressed in a light colored linen suit with enormous shoulder pads and an extra-wide polka dot tie. The woman nodded in return, but the man didn't seem to even notice us, except to slam his water glass down onto the hardwood table with a loud thump. Was that intended for us? He took another sip of water and slammed the glass down again.

The old lady next to him picked up her conversation with an elegant older woman to her right who was dressed to the hilt in department store finery, her long gray hair sprayed and coiffed into a motionless newscaster style. When the old man slammed his glass down a third time, the old lady whispered to him and they got up and switched seats. There was a half-full glass of whiskey on the table and the woman was careful to take it with her, swapping it with the old man's water glass.

The old man instantly perked up and began flirting shamelessly with the newscaster.

I ordered a Jever while we looked over the menu, and a minute later the waitress brought it to me in a cartoonishly oversized beer mug.

"Are you going to drink all of that?" the old lady, now sitting directly across from me, asked.

"I was just wondering that myself," I said.

"That's too much," she said.

"You're probably right."

"My husband ordered this whiskey," she said, picking up the whiskey glass, "And it was filled to the brim. They poured it like a soda. I had to take it away from him so he wouldn't drink it all."

"Now we know why the old man was in such a lousy mood," I whispered to Deborah.

The hostess came by and asked Deborah if she could seat someone in the empty seat next to her -- the last open seat at the table. "Sure, " said Deborah.

A moment later, a guy squeezed into the chair. I smelled him before I saw him. He was a bit of a schlub, his blue dress shirt straining at the buttons across his ample belly, but he appeared to have made an effort, anyway. That is to say, he was wearing a tie.

Our food came and we dug in. "Oh my god, this is so good," said Deborah, finally realizing her dream.

"The food here is excellent," said the schlub. "It's just like Austria. In fact this whole place is just like Austria."

It was a Viennese restaurant, after all, so they'd made an effort in that regard, but the guy's comment was simply intended to let us know he'd been to Austria. You could tell he wanted us to ask, "Oh, so you've been to Austria before? Tell us all about it." But we didn't bite.

"Do you live in the area?" he asked.

"Not far. We live over by the Navy Yard. How about you?"

"I was born in Brooklyn, if you can believe it."

I'm not sure why he thought we wouldn't be able to believe it -- people are born in Brooklyn every day, after all.

"I live in Manhattan now," he said. "Brooklyn is changing a lot. There are a lot of new buildings going up in this area."

"There are a lot of new buildings all over Brooklyn," I said. "Manhattan, too."

"Yes, but I think this neighborhood in particular"

"I take it you haven't been to Williamsburg," I think I said, or maybe I just thought it.

"You live by the Navy Yard? Have you ever seen those big mansions over there?"

First of all, they are impossible to miss. Second of all, how did he know we didn't live in one?

"Of course," said Deborah.

"A childhood friend of mine grew up in one of those mansions. I used to visit him sometimes. The house was enormous."

"Uh huh."

"Are you going to the show?" he asked.

"No. We don't even know what show is playing."

"Oh, it's Henry Purcell's The Fairy Queen."

"Oh."

"It 's been getting tremendous reviews."

"You don't say."

"It was sold out in Paris."

"No kidding."

"It's with Emmanuelle De Negri," he said, pronouncing the star's name with his best French accent. "Are you familiar with her?"

"No."

"Oh, she's phenomenal."

Sorry, pops, Opera's not our bag.

Meanwhile, the old couple across from us had left the table, presumably to use the bathrooms, but when the old lady returned, she asked us if we had seen her husband.

"No," I said, "I assumed he was with you."

"He has Alzheimer's," she said. "I have to keep tabs."

"Oh no," said Deborah. "We'll keep our eyes open for you."

"That explains the David Byrne-sized shoulder pads," I whispered to Deborah.

"What do you mean?"

"You know, ‘This is not my beautiful house, this is not my beautiful wife.’"

She scolded me with her eyes.

"Sorry."

"Maybe someone should tell him that the lady he's been flirting with is not his beautiful wife."

Soon, we saw the old man being escorted back to the table by the hostess. "I see your husband," Deborah said to the woman.

"Oh, thank you," she sighed. "Can I ask you something? My husband and I haven't been to BAM in years. Where is it exactly?"

"Oh, it's right across the street," I said. "Walk out this door..."

The man next to Deborah interrupted me, "Wait," he said, "Are you looking for the Opera House?"

"Yes."

"Oh, it's right across the street."

“Yes, thanks.”