Nichelle looked to Emma, raised her glass. “For both of us.”
After a sip she pooched her lips toward Emma’s belly. “But I hear you two are going to the planet of ‘natural childbirth’ next. I’m sorry, but that’s too far for me.”
These natural childbirth conversations weren’t ever meant for Apollo, even if he was in the room, at the table. When they’d told Lillian about the plan, she’d practically short-circuited from fear. “Concern” is what Lillian called it. And so on with most of the women in Emma’s life. Only her older sister, Kim, supported the plan, but she had good reason: Kim Valentine was their midwife.
While Nichelle told Emma all her concerns about natural childbirth, Apollo made the mistake of finally looking down at his menu. There were three appetizers on the table, already finished. The oysters cost thirty-two dollars. The mushrooms were forty-two. Forty-two motherfucking dollars for a small plate of mushrooms. He couldn’t guess what the hell the last plate had been—there was only a white soup dish with some broth in it now—so he couldn’t figure what the price might be. But why not be conservative and guess twenty-two? Twenty-two dollars for a dish of broth might not even be a joke in a place like this. That meant this meal already cost nearly one hundred dollars. He and Emma were down fifty bucks, and he hadn’t even eaten anything yet.
Apollo finished the wine to calm himself; an exquisite Chablis. How much could it have cost? The wine list hadn’t been left at the table. If he’d known, just then, that this Chablis Grand Plus cost three hundred and seventy-five dollars per bottle, what would he have done? Run screaming, probably. His thirty-eight-weeks-pregnant wife up on his shoulders.
Writing for television sure had to pay better than an independent bookseller and a part-time librarian ever made. At least Emma, his beautiful and thoughtful wife, drank only water tonight.
Perrier, he corrected himself. Not tap water. And just how much in sweet black Jesus did Bouley Restaurant charge for sparkling mineral water? Did they infuse it with fucking diamond dust before they served it? The women turned their attention to Apollo only when he audibly whimpered in his seat.
Emma leaned close and touched his back gently. “I know you’re hungry,” she said. “Let’s get the waiter over here.”
Nichelle ordered the Organic Long Island Duck (forty-five dollars). Emma the Organic Colorado Lamb (fifty-three dollars). The waiter then faced Apollo.
Apollo handed over the menu. He pointed at the empty little basket in the middle of the table. “I’ll just have more bread.”
BY THE TIME the second bottle of Chablis had been finished, Nichelle practically levitated from her chair. She’d cycled from tipsy to tornado. She spoke loudly enough now that Mrs. Grabowski and her son might’ve heard her out in Queens. The surest sign that she’d become truly drunk was neither her slurred words nor her lack of bodily control—though there was a little of both—but the way she’d stopped listening to the others at the table. Tipsy people are chatty, drunks harangue.
This wasn’t so bad, though, because by ten o’clock both Emma and Apollo had lost their ability to make conversation. Emma, hardly napping at all these days, had drifted into the half sleep of her long nights. She “slept” propped partway up with pillows in their bed, so it wasn’t all that different to drift in her seat at Bouley. Apollo, meanwhile, had ingested nothing but tap water and the restaurant bread. While the bread tasted magnificent, it wasn’t enough. By dessert, Apollo and Emma had low batteries, but Nichelle seemed wired to a generator.
“Limbo? Coolimbo? I can’t remember what the damn thing was called,” Nichelle said. She’d ordered port to go along with her Hot Caramelized Anjou Pear. Emma asked for the Amaretto Flan, though she swore she wanted only one bite. Apollo didn’t know what either cost because by then his vision had gone fuzzy. He couldn’t have read the menu if he tried. He only hoped there wasn’t such a thing as a “second dessert” or a “digestif tasting menu” or some other high-tone shit that might require him to go into their savings just to pay for it.
“This girl tried to get me to watch a movie about a slave uprising when I was busy trying to figure out how to marry that boy out of New Edition.” Before Apollo could say anything, she waved her hand dismissively. “No, not Ralph or Bobby. I liked Michael Bivens. He could ball.”
A pause during which neither Apollo nor Emma seemed to blink or breathe.
“Quilombo!” Nichelle said, slapping the table hard enough to knock over her port. “Oh damn,” she muttered, then looked to the waiter and signaled for another, though, really, there had hardly been enough left in the glass to make a spot the size of a nickel.
“I watched that movie one time with her and about ten minutes in I’m like, ‘What the hell kind of English is this?’ Emma says it’s Portuguese. I took the headphones off and left her right there by the VCRs.”
Emma finally took a fork to her dessert. “You liked Bye Bye Brasil.”
“Betty Faria,” Nichelle said, puckering her lips and shutting her eyes.
The new glass of port arrived. Emma bit into her flan. Despite his exhaustion and his terror of the upcoming bill, Apollo felt a blush of happiness. He liked to think of these two women as girls in Boones Mill, Virginia, lucky enough to find each other, to love each other.
He’d made a friend, a fellow book dealer, not too long ago. Patrice Green, an army vet who’d gone into the trade when he came back to the States. Usually they were the only two black book men at local estate sales. They might as well be two unicorns that happened into the same field. Of course they’d become close. Thank God for friendships, that’s what he sat there thinking. Nichelle and Emma, Apollo and Patrice. Before he could talk himself out of the gesture, he raised his hand for the waiter and ordered a glass of bourbon.
By the time the drink arrived, Emma huffed quietly beside him. Apollo worried for a moment, but she was touching her throat, not her belly.
“That flan wants to come back up,” Emma said quietly. Nichelle suggested water, but that would only make it worse. “I’ll find the bathroom,” she said.
Apollo helped her up and watched her shuffle toward their waiter. The waiter nodded quickly and led her out of the dining room. When she’d disappeared, Apollo looked back to Nichelle and found her watching him with an unnerving seriousness. It was as if her drunkenness had all been playacting, and now she had dropped the play.
“There’s a nude photo of your wife in an art gallery in Amsterdam,” Nichelle said.
Is there a proper response to such a revelation? “Color or black and white?” Apollo asked. It was the best he could do.
“You know she went to Brazil. She told me how you waited for her at the airport when she came back. Very sweet. Big points for you. While she was down there, she had a few adventures. I’m sure she told you about some of them.”