I’ve blogged about my oh-sh** moments in the past. See The Worst Interview of All Time. Personally, I think real-life bloopers empower novelists. Every time we go oops, we take one step closer toward the mental anguish of our characters, right?
But ‘tis the season. Time to move on. Sort of.
Here’s the thing. Every year during Hallowmas—that crazy time between Halloween and Christmas when retailers declare open season on our wallets—stuff happens. With all the rush, rush, rushing and the egg, egg, eggnogging, something always goes wrong. If anything, ’tis the season for oh-sh** moments IMHO. This year I kicked off the holidays with another one of mine:
An ethical dilemma no less.
Let me set the stage. Mary and I have some new friends in Narragansett. I’ll call the couple Husband and Wife, in part to offer them anonymity and in part because J.R. Moehringer uses this function technique to name a few characters in Sutton. (Great book and the perfect Christmas gift, especially if you need something last minute. But I digress.) To celebrate the season and cement our growing friendship, Husband, Wife, Mary and I went out to dinner at the Matunuck Oyster Bar.
Rich and Meaty Bolognese (Photo credit: Mrs Magic)
The restaurant, as you might guess, is known for fish. But I opted for Sausage Bolognese. It was cold outside. I had bicycled that day. The weather and the workout seemed like reasonable excuses to eat sausage and pasta rather than something from the bay.
The Oyster House was neither dark, nor particularly bright. It was comfortable. And the evening was perfect, warm laughter in the room, Mary and me drinking a decent bottle of wine with new friends. Somebody in our group ordered oysters. Most days, those mollusks are freakin’ ugly. But that night they looked spectacular on the platter, fresh, briny, evocative of the sea and that classic paragraph from Hemingway:
“As I ate the oysters with their strong taste of the sea and their faint metallic taste that the cold white wine washed away, leaving only the sea taste and the succulent texture, and as I drank their cold liquid from each shell and washed it down with the crisp taste of the wine, I lost the empty feeling and began to be happy and to make plans.”
But, again, I digress.
There we were, the four of us, sitting and eating and enjoying each other’s company, when something on Husband’s sleeve caught my eye. Like I said before, the room was neither dark nor bright, the light just enough to toy with my eyes which are feeling a little more wear and tear every year. I squinted and, much to my horror, identified the object as a remnant from some philistine’s Sausage Bolognese.
American author Ernest Hemingway with Pauline, Gregory, John, and Patrick Hemingway and four marlins on the dock in Bimini, 20 July 1935. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
That philistine was me. I was the only one who ordered the dish, both at our table and the ones surrounding us. The errant Bolognese, about the size of a small button, had lodged above Husband’s right elbow. He was sitting to my left. The sausage looked like a third eye on his white shirt, winking every so often to remind me that with all the yak, yak, yakking, I had somehow spewed Bolognese on a neighbor and our new friend.
In milliseconds that could have been a lifetime, I cycled through my choices:
- Say nothing. Order dessert. Let the good times fly and forget the Sausage Bolognese.
- Excuse myself and, while standing up, rub briskly against Husband’s arm so as to dislodge my dinner from his sleeve and, through the camouflage of motion, avoid the introduction of an awkward moment into our budding friendship.
- Fess up and insist on picking up the check, because Bolognese requires at least three trips to the dry cleaners.
I was lost in this personal reverie of choices when Mary began calling my name. “Norb, Norb, why are you so quiet?”
What would you do?
I’ll be back on New Year’s Eve, right here in this post, to tell you what happened, how I handled the situation with Husband and Wife. And if somebody makes a particularly pithy observation, I’ll send him/her a free copy of The Gods of Greenwich.
Happy holidays to all.
The New York Times describes my novels as “money porn,” “a red-hot franchise,” and “glittery thrillers about fiscal malfeasance.” Through fiction I explore the dark side of money and the motivations of those who have it, want more, and will steamroll anybody who gets in their way.
Umm… sausage, onion… what could that blob have been?
What in the world did you do? LOL
Come back on December 31!
Hint: the room was neither bright nor dark.
Got the date marked on my calendar.
The only answer is to blame the waiter for dropping it as he served. Then tip him double. Then order another bottle of wine. Drinking to forget is the best solution.
Nice, Janice. The old blame-it-on-the-waiter trick. 🙂
I would have fessed up before asking the waiter for some club soda and a washcloth. The finest servers have been through this thing before and know what to do.
Warmer, warmer.
Ah, a character test! I’d like to think I’d swipe the errant sausage eye off husband’s sleeve with a napkin, an apology, a self-effacing joke, and an offer to pay for his dry cleaning. Pay for dinner? Um, sure, but who goes to an Oyster Bar in their best duds? Seriously, any restaurant serving sauces, slimy oysters, and alcohol should post a “Danger: food splatter potential” sign on the door anyway.
Wait. The room was neither bright nor dark? Candlelit, perhaps? Did you set his sleeve on fire?
Love your anecdotes, Norb. I hope husband responded with class.
I just couldn’t help but stare at that spot. 🙂
So here, as they say, is the rest of the story.
“Norb, Norb, why are you so quiet?” asked Mary.
Turning to Husband, I said, “I have a confession to make.”
The room went silent and, to my eye, slightly darker. The waitress, sensing a pivotal moment, turned round and headed back to the kitchen.
Husband, Wife, and Mary stared at me with what-gives eyes.
“I’m sorry, but I got a piece of Sausage Bolognese on your shirt.” Simple and to the point without embellishment or humor. It was a just-the-facts-ma’am moment.
“Where?” asked Husband.
“Above your elbow.”
Husband peered closer. Wife peered closer. Mary peered closer. I wanted to crawl under the table and hide. I promised myself, a million times in that moment, to never, never, eat sausage Bolognese in a fish restaurant again. From now on, I vowed, it’s oysters all the way even though I’m not much of a fan and can’t imagine who was the brave soul (not sole) that ate an oyster for the very first time.
At that moment the waitress returned and interrupted what I thought was the overwhelming tension of a faux pas moment. Husband said, “My friend needs another glass of wine. But not for the reason he thinks….”
“I do?”
“Norb,” Husband said. “That’s not Sausage Bolognese. That’s a button.”
This time, I leaned in close. I lifted my glasses over my head and squinted to get a better look. At some point, I became acutely aware the other diners in the restaurant were wondering what I was doing with my nose in Husband’s elbow. “It is a button! What the hell are you doing with a button over your elbow?”
There was nothing especially memorable about the button. Up close, it didn’t even look like Sausage Bolognese.
“I don’t know. That’s how the shirt came.”
“Oh.”
Like I said before, the restaurant was neither bright nor dark. But at that moment I was the one feeling a little dim, however relieved I was that Husband’s shirt was not a casualty of my dinner.
Happy New Year to all. If we happen to break bread together during 2013 (during a book club event, for example), you now understand why I won’t be eating Sausage Bolognese. That dish is one of the items on my New Years resolutions.