LUNCH WITH THE GOOD LISTENER

"Listen," she was saying as she sat down across from him in the booth. He was mid-forties unless he had let himself go, she maybe a day younger. His hair had a flattened, unwashed, look about it and it topped a face that had allowed a lot of butter to pass through it. He stared at the menu and said nothing. She, dark hair- severely pulled back, white white skin with black magic-marker drawn eyebrows, a pointy nose and a large mouth with what seemed to be a permanent frown, was speaking. The subject was Chanukah or more precisely, Chanukah at her apartment, who was coming, who was not coming, if they were coming why they were coming, if they were not coming, why they were not coming, if they were coming where they were coming from and who they would be spending the time with previous to their arrival at her apartment. If they were not coming where she surmised they might be spending the time, time lost as far as she was concerned. She was just about to start on what people would be bringing when the waiter re-arrived with their coffees.

She ordered his lunch. He nodded a couple of times and made a little thumbs up sign as an answer to a question about wheat toast. He looked at her. She looked at him for a moment as the CD/ROM in her head spun around to the place she had stopped. There would be food. None of it would be homemade apparently. That was good because at least there was a chance that the food would be good, I mean, did he remember the latkes Aunt Rosalie brought out last year? But it's bad too, and too bad, that people just don't have the time to really cook, not that she had the time either. He looked at his water glass, the ice was melting. Rocking around the Christmas Tree burbled from the P/A and there was the usual clamor of dishes and silverware and conversation. She was going on about going downtown to Barney's Co-op with her sister on Sunday to pick out a dress. Her sister already had two dresses she could wear but she wanted to look and see if anything struck her.

The lunch arrived. She made moves like a chessmaster, placing and replacing everything swiftly, just where it ought to be. She picked up his water glass, did he want it? The ice had completely melted. He looked at it as if he had something to say about it, but she was already handing it to the busboy. Oh and the most awful thing had happened to her best friend's husband Ziggy. They had been upstate looking for something, she didn't know what, a house, a car, a something. Anyway, just outside of White Plains or maybe Yonkers, he gets this pain in his leg. It was like it was in a vise and he couldn't get it out. They had to stop the car on the highway and she, her friend, was calling 911 and 311 and he was leaning on the car and it was awful, but it turned out to be nothing. Just a cramp, but what a scare.

The waiter brought another glass of ice water. He took a grateful sip and set it down. "Listen," she was saying. He looked at her face, at her hands, the shape of her lips. She was saying how it might snow on Sunday. Yes, he thought, it might.