August 7, 2011

Friends & Embarrassment

On Saturday night my husband and I went to dinner with the writer Mark Dapin and his partner, Claire. We arrived at the restaurant perfectly on time, partly because I am very punctual, and partly because I like to be on time with Mark to remind him of the fact that he was half an hour late to my book launch. Which would have been fine, except that he was launching it.

I scanned the room, but Mark was nowhere to be seen.

"Shall I zeet you at yer tubble?" asked the waiter*.

"Sure," I said.

"You are tu?"

"No, we are four."

"You are fur?" he asked, and indicated a woman standing by the bar. "You are weez zis lady here?"

I looked at the lady. She was tall with long brown hair and long pale arms. I had never met Claire, so didn't know if it was her. However, I figured that as long term partners frequently ended up looking like each other, she would probably be short, balding and covered head to toe with tattoos.

"I don't think so," I said.

"But mebbe she iz weez you?" the waiter insisted.

So I had to ask.

I tapped the woman on the shoulder. "Are you Claire?" She shook her head haughtily, which I took as a 'no'. The waiter gave an unconvinced hurrumph, as if I was deliberately making things difficult.

"Come zees way," he said. We followed him to a table where a pretty, blonde woman sat alone.

"So. You are weez zis lady here?"

I hoped fervently that there weren't 25 single women in the restaurant because this could get old very quickly.

"Are you Claire?" I asked the woman.

"Yes," she told me, just as a short, balding, tattooed man appeared behind her. Thank god. The waiter looked triumphant. We were all seated.

The four of us chatted for a while, and then it was time to order drinks.

"I'll have a beer," said Mark.

"I'll have a champagne cocktail," said Claire.

"I'll have a glass of pinot noir," said I. And then I winced, bracing myself for the inevitable.

"I'll have a chocolate orange martini!" said my husband, and I felt a slight wave of relief. A choc orange martini wasn't that bad. Okay, so it wasn't exactly beer, but it also wasn't a 'Sunset Kiss', a 'Cosmopolitan' or a 'One For The Girls, all of which are cocktails my husband has ordered in the past**.

(Now, let me clarify: I am not implying that my husband should be a real man and order a beer. But... would it kill him just once in a while to be a real man and order a beer?)

The conversation drifted to New York, which we had all recently visited. Mark pointed out his shirt, which he had bought there for $150, after it was reduced from $850. I tell you this because he repeated it several times, and that snippet of information is now seared into my brain like the alphabet, or the names of all the Young Talent Time members.

He then mentioned to my husband the amount of his advance for his latest book, which was large, and also seared into my brain, because I had heard him tell me before, and you don't forget a figure like that.

Keenly aware of my own, comparitively small, advance, I struggled to say something impressive. "I read somewhere that it is the job of a good agent to ensure that your advance is so big that you will never get a royalty cheque," I said knowledgeably, confident that I would generate an interesting line of conversation.

"Er... yeah.... I told you that," said Mark. And that was that.

We chatted some more and ate an enormous amount of French food, which was lucky as I am wasting away after our recent holiday to the states***. And nothing else of note happened, which seemed to disappoint Mark, as he was hoping to get some material for his next column.

I, on the other hand, can make a blog post out of pretty much nothing, which is why you are reading this now.

*who was French, as I am attempting to demonstrate in my prose, but I am really shit at accents.
**except for the latter, which I made up.
***using 'wasting away' in the sense of  'gained three kilos'.

19 comments:

  1. You know what they say about a man with a big advance....


    (That he should bloody well buy the drinks, even the girly ones with umbrellas in them that Tony favours. Great blog!)

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  2. haha! Love your work.
    Absolute gold.
    xxx

    http://emmaodettebarnett.com

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  3. PS  I would be worried about this choc martini business!

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  4. Hi Kerri - just wanted to thank you for your book I was fortunate to win via Diminishing Lucy. I am loving it - I have been raving about it to friends. There is SO much in there that I can relate to! Thanks again....Karen. http://ramblingmum-mummabear1970.blogspot.com/

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  5. Oui oui that is lovely post to be reading in bed on a Sunday night. Except now I'm hungry.

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  6. so, Mark and you are having an asterisk war, huh? don't think i haven't noticed …  xt

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  7. I thought of it first*.
    *That was a lie.

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  8. SO glad you enjoyed it! Lovely to hear the feedback xxxxxx

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  9. You can indeed make a blog post out of anything. You are the Seinfeld of blogging. How was this brilliant and funny? Have no idea but it was!!

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  10. very funny! Clicked on Mark's blog which is also very amusing. The shirt featured in the first ine!

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  11. Yes, he is remarkably proud of that shirt...

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  12. It may be nothing to you,
    but it's always a giggle for me! :)

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  13. A Choc Orange martini ?  That flavour is only to be consumed at Wendy's. I must talk to that man......

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  14. "zeet you at your tubble" - GOLD. 

    Thank you for your always entertaining posts, even if they are about nothing. 

    Now if only posts about something were as much fun to read... 

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  15. Actually the accent wasn't too bad - bloody funny actually.  Just like the rest of your writing.  Really enjoying it.  Thank you.x

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  16. Chocolate should never be mixed with orange, I don't know why people insist on doing it. Although at this point, any martini will do - I have a baby on my lap, I am supposed to be working and all I want to do is read more of your posts. xx

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  17. Lucky you. My husband always orders the same thing - Sex on the beach. It sounds a little awkward at formal dinners...

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