Read Online The Matzo Ball Heiress by Laurie Gwen Shapiro - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Laurie Gwen Shapiro
Tags: Fiction, General, Humorous, Humorous fiction, Romance, Contemporary, Sagas, Domestic Fiction, New York (N.Y.), Jewish, Jewish fiction, Seder, Jewish Families
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was a picture of a black hole. The real guy was a black hole as well: the memory of waiting there with all those people looking at me still fills me with horror.
As soon as I hang up with Steve, I spend a thousand hours picking out the right outfit, finally settling on a hopeful purchase I made at Fred Segal during a business trip to Santa Monica last April—a romantic soft sheer dress in muted pink—unworn to date. The weather doesn’t know what it wants but I decide on a mauve pashmina shawl instead of a coat for a sexier effect.
When it starts to drizzle I realize meeting a date on the street is a bad call. I’m thankful that my mascara is waterproof as I run back and forth from the bookstore lobby to the curb.
As Steve crosses from the north corner of Union Square Park and Seventeenth Street, he spots me and waves. He’s dressed in a hip dark gray suit, tapered so it fits his slim and tall build. I don’t know if I’ve ever been on a date with a man in a suit.
“Hey, you look beautiful,” he says as an opener when he’s close enough.
Lightning illuminates the dark skies. It’s followed by a loud rumble of thunder that lends the short stroll to the restaurant a slightly kinky ambience.
Safely dry inside the Union Square Café, Steve lifts the shawl off my shoulders, folds it neatly and hands it to the coat clerk. According to city lore, this is one of the hardest restaurants in town to get a last-minute reservation. So when the maître d’ comes over to say hi to us with a broad smile, and then insists on a dozen iced oysters on the half shell as a complimentary appetizer, I am duly impressed.
After I’ve decided on my dish, Steve flags a striking waiter to order the Atlantic salmon for me. As he talks out the merits of his two final contenders for his main meal, the steak frites and the yellowfin tuna burger, I sneak another look at Steve’s own striking face. The only flaw I can spot is a little scab on his chin from a tiny razor nick. What would happen if I ran a finger down the edge of his pretty nose?
We’re left alone again to talk. “Nice suit, by the way.” What a dull thing to say in the company of major charisma. Could I be more nervous?
“Thank you. I actually wore this to work today. A memo went around last month reminding us that in the office there’s a dress code. For men that means slacks or a suit.”
Inwardly, I’m disappointed that Steve Meyers hadn’t raced home to the wardrobe for Heather Greenblotz. “How did it go over in your office?” I say.
“The code wasn’t heeded at all until a second memo came the next week telling us that black jeans are not slacks.”
The salmon is outrageously delicious and the expensive pinot makes my head swim.
Steve leans forward toward my side of our candlelit table to ask, “So why are you a filmmaker when you could sit pretty on your family’s matzo laurels?”
I answer honestly. “There’s something about filmmaking that really turns me on. Its excitement, its novelty, its emotional pull. Most of all its unexpectedness.”
Steve nods his head enthusiastically and tells me about the last time he truly loved his job, the two years he spent in the Peace Corps stationed in Lesotho. “I switched my religion major to television management in my senior year. The Peace Corps recruiter, who loved my résumé, confused a television major with a telecommunications major. He thought I could wire poor towns with fiber optics. It was too late to get a new recruit when I arrived, so the field manager put me to work building a schoolhouse instead.”
I laugh. “Was the Peace Corps your first job?”
“No.” Steve smiles. “My dad always made me work so I wouldn’t grow lazy. My first job was at an Adirondack resort. I was a security guard on Lovers’ Lane. It was difficult to break people up.”
I laugh again and Steve feels comfortable enough to make a deeper confession: “I’m good at what I do now, though. It’s fun, but
As soon as I hang up with Steve, I spend a thousand hours picking out the right outfit, finally settling on a hopeful purchase I made at Fred Segal during a business trip to Santa Monica last April—a romantic soft sheer dress in muted pink—unworn to date. The weather doesn’t know what it wants but I decide on a mauve pashmina shawl instead of a coat for a sexier effect.
When it starts to drizzle I realize meeting a date on the street is a bad call. I’m thankful that my mascara is waterproof as I run back and forth from the bookstore lobby to the curb.
As Steve crosses from the north corner of Union Square Park and Seventeenth Street, he spots me and waves. He’s dressed in a hip dark gray suit, tapered so it fits his slim and tall build. I don’t know if I’ve ever been on a date with a man in a suit.
“Hey, you look beautiful,” he says as an opener when he’s close enough.
Lightning illuminates the dark skies. It’s followed by a loud rumble of thunder that lends the short stroll to the restaurant a slightly kinky ambience.
Safely dry inside the Union Square Café, Steve lifts the shawl off my shoulders, folds it neatly and hands it to the coat clerk. According to city lore, this is one of the hardest restaurants in town to get a last-minute reservation. So when the maître d’ comes over to say hi to us with a broad smile, and then insists on a dozen iced oysters on the half shell as a complimentary appetizer, I am duly impressed.
After I’ve decided on my dish, Steve flags a striking waiter to order the Atlantic salmon for me. As he talks out the merits of his two final contenders for his main meal, the steak frites and the yellowfin tuna burger, I sneak another look at Steve’s own striking face. The only flaw I can spot is a little scab on his chin from a tiny razor nick. What would happen if I ran a finger down the edge of his pretty nose?
We’re left alone again to talk. “Nice suit, by the way.” What a dull thing to say in the company of major charisma. Could I be more nervous?
“Thank you. I actually wore this to work today. A memo went around last month reminding us that in the office there’s a dress code. For men that means slacks or a suit.”
Inwardly, I’m disappointed that Steve Meyers hadn’t raced home to the wardrobe for Heather Greenblotz. “How did it go over in your office?” I say.
“The code wasn’t heeded at all until a second memo came the next week telling us that black jeans are not slacks.”
The salmon is outrageously delicious and the expensive pinot makes my head swim.
Steve leans forward toward my side of our candlelit table to ask, “So why are you a filmmaker when you could sit pretty on your family’s matzo laurels?”
I answer honestly. “There’s something about filmmaking that really turns me on. Its excitement, its novelty, its emotional pull. Most of all its unexpectedness.”
Steve nods his head enthusiastically and tells me about the last time he truly loved his job, the two years he spent in the Peace Corps stationed in Lesotho. “I switched my religion major to television management in my senior year. The Peace Corps recruiter, who loved my résumé, confused a television major with a telecommunications major. He thought I could wire poor towns with fiber optics. It was too late to get a new recruit when I arrived, so the field manager put me to work building a schoolhouse instead.”
I laugh. “Was the Peace Corps your first job?”
“No.” Steve smiles. “My dad always made me work so I wouldn’t grow lazy. My first job was at an Adirondack resort. I was a security guard on Lovers’ Lane. It was difficult to break people up.”
I laugh again and Steve feels comfortable enough to make a deeper confession: “I’m good at what I do now, though. It’s fun, but
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