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I usually bring a book to a restaurant when I dine alone. Indeed, I'm used to carrying books everywhere. I once thought that this would attract women to me.
My tour through Europe allowed much time for reading. I must have been on my fourth or fifth book when, breaking away from my bus group for an evening, I went to a restaurant on via Della Parione, near the Ponte Alla Carraia, where I had dined many times a few years ago.
The proprietors, the Baldi family, recognized me instantly. The rewards for regularity kicked in and I was seated near the antipasti table and told take what I wanted. In my pasta dish were a dozen mussels, whereas the normal serving was three or four. An extra scallop of vitello graced the main course. For an afterdinner drink, the elder Baldi suggested Vin Santo, a Tuscan version of sherry, and left it on the table. I poured a glass and opened my book.
The nearly unlimited time one is allowed to sit in an Italian restaurant contrasted sharply with this current whirlwind tour from London to Athens. The bill (il conto) would not be placed on the table until I asked for it. And even then it would take another twenty minutes. One nearly had to pry it from the waiter, as if you were insulting the establishment by wanting to leave. This was one of the differences between American and European businesses. The Italians really wanted the customers there, whereas the American restaurant can't wait to get rid of those "intruders."
I had actually read a few pages between pasta and main courses. In fact, this was the third time I had read The Guinea Pigs, a novel from Czechoslovakia by Ludvig Vaculik. Taking the book from my pocket, I absently opened the back end and saw a few remarks written.
Probably notes I had made about the text during my college years when I had first read it.
Actually, there were three quotations but not from the book. I had recorded bits of conversation while I was reading the book in another restaurant. But where?
Over a second glass of Vin Santo, I read the first snippet:
"They must get a lot of young people here," said the woman.
"Why?" he replied.
"The waitress only gave me two sugars. And there aren't any sugars on the table."
Summer. Ninety degrees. A man and woman had sat behind the Sardine's booth. A restaurant at the seashore. The two were headed for Cape May.
She wore an all-white casual outfit with a white hat; he wore yellow pants and thin white shirt. His face was red from the heat while she appeared invigorated and ten years younger. From the meager evidence of having no sugars on the table, this woman damned the under-thirty crowd as petty thieves. Although she would have had trouble maintaining her hypothesis if she had come to the place in the evening: sugar packets were in the bowls! Indeed, there were no sugars in the bowls in the afternoons to prevent the geriatric crowd from stuffing the Sweet n' Lows into their pockets.
Another glass of Vin Santo was needed to reflect on the second passage.
[The Logged-In Public: Excuse us for interrupting.
Don't think anything of it. . .since I know you won't.
L-I P: We noticed that you are having you're third drink.
You are a very observant bunch.
L-I P: Thank you. But we are concerned that you might become intoxicated and further degenerate your health.
Who said my health is bad?
L-I P: Isn't that why you are on trial?
I might drink more heavily if I have to deal much longer with your encroachments.]
"What time is it?" the woman asked. "Have to keep on your schedule."
"Twelve twenty-nine."
Now I have the exact time of the luncheon. The DGE: Digital Clock Era. Exactness as progress. I don't wear a watch but keep sardine time, figuring it's never too hard to figure out the time within fifteen minutes.
What most intrigued about the remark was the idea of keeping the guy to his schedule. She was leading him around. Were they man-wife, brother-sister, father- daughter? He seemed helpless, his red face huffing and puffing between slurps of New England clam chowder. The woman, meanwhile, seemed authoritative in her role: she may not have had a watch but she did wear the pants in that family.
The third bit of dialogue may clarify their personal hierarchy:
The meal was very good," he said.
"It was good." She hesitated. "But it wasn't 'very good'."
She held veto power over his opinion. He ruled; she controlled. She also laid the foundation (with the remark) for leaving an inadequate tip.
I wondered, then and now, how "good" a lunch can be. Hamburgers, hot dogs, tuna melts, grilled cheeses, montecristos, reubens (an exception here perhaps), steak sandwiches, hoagies, club sandwiches. These foods rarely ascend to the "very good" or "excellent" plateau. Like certain book and movie genres, especially the supernatural, horror, and mystery. Good or bad. No equivocation.
Not like this Vin Santo, of which I had poured myself four excellent glasses. Yet, the Baldi's didn't seem to mind, charging me only for one.
Soon, I had to return to my Florence hotel, checkout time was six o'clock for the bus to Rome. And I hadn't even packed myself an alarm clock.
The Sardine's essays, articles, and stories have appeared around the Internet in the last few years at 3 A.M., Facets, Eclectica magazine, Fiction Funhouse, The Fiction Warehouse, 5_trope, and several film journals. Who and what he is probably will be revealed at various points through the articles appearing at this site. The first fifteen installments of his saga can be viewed at the old Unlikely Stories.