September 2004: Florida Hurricane Bitch
I mean that with the greatest respect, love and kind wishes. She has been my favorite bar-pardner thus far!
Sitting in the TGIFridays when this thin blonde lady already holding a martini walks up to the end of the bar, beside me. She is talking loudly on her cell phone.
"Do you think I'm attractive?" she barks at me. I'm momentarily confused about whether she's talking to me or to her cell phone. She stares me down, says, "Hold on" to the phone and commands me to respond,"Do you think I'm attractive?" My merlot actually ripples and I hold the glass with both hands.
"Of course" I respond.
"HE thinks I'm attractive," she says, proving her point into her phone.
The lady, the phone and I continue to hold a three-way conversation. I'm never quite sure whether she's talking to me or the phone, but I find enthusiastic or sympathetic head nods and an occasionally "of course" satisfy her and we proceed. I order another merlot.
She tells me that the west wing of her house--her son's wing--has been destroyed and double destroyed by the two hurricanes that hit Stuart, Florida this summer, Francis and Jeanne. They are fleeing to LA to recover.
"The servants are in a tither," she tells me with a wide arm flourish (actually using the word servants), "but they'll handle the clean-up, contractors and reconstruction." She nods at me knowingly. I nod back. She orders a 3rd martini (3rd since I've been with her, at least.)
She is a tennis pro. "Maybe you've heard of me," she says pulling the new martini's olive off with her teeth.
I had not.
"I'm also an underwear and swimsuit model," She says, "among other things. You've seen me" She pokes the empty toothpick toward me, "Really, when people ask what I do, I say, GOD! What DON'T I do?"
I nod. She's well over 50 and looks it. She has an I-picked-oranges-in-the-sun-when-I-was-young-but-hide-it-with-surgery look. Her facelifts have not held. Yet she repeats after brushing some of her spilled martini down onto my luggage, "I'm a swimsuit model." in present tense, "you've seen me." She winks.
I suppose that possible. I'm falling in love with her energy. She is so bold and brash! In normal circumstances I'm sure she's be awful to deal with, but in the DFW TGIFridays, she's fabulous!
Her son, an overweight, slovenly young man with greasy black hair slouches in. He is dressed entirely in black. He had wires sticking out out of his ears and his hips. He is holding a GameBoy. He orders a beer. She pays. He slouches back out. I wonder if it's legal to take your beer into the terminal, and I ponder how some folks are amazing confidant breaking rules.
"He's so torn up about the loss of the west wing," she tells me, talking a bit more quietly than before and shaking her head side to side. We watch him lumber back to the gate area with his beer and GameBoy. Suddenly her phone is ringing and we're off on a three-way again. "It's my agent in LA," she tells me. Soon she is pacing and yelling. He apparently did not arrange for their limo at LAX. "Incompetent bastard!" she screams into the phone and dumps the remains her 4th martini onto the bar.
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