The morning after. Happy, hungry… this is the way daybreak ought to be.

“They were always hungry but they ate very well. They were hungry for breakfast which they ate at the café, ordering brioche and café au lait and eggs, and the type of preserve that they chose and the manner in which the eggs were to be cooked was an excitement…

On this morning there was brioche and red raspberry preserve and the eggs were boiled and there was a pat of butter that melted as they stirred them and salted them slightly and ground pepper over them in the cups. They were big eggs and fresh and the girl’s were not cooked quite as long as the young man’s. He remembered that easily and he was happy with his which he diced up with a spoon and ate with only the flow of the butter to moisten them and the fresh early morning texture and the bit of coarsely ground pepper grains and the hot coffee and the chickory-fragrant bowl of café au lait…

They had made love when they were half awake with the light bright outside but the room still shadowed and then had lain together and been happy and tired and then made love again. Then they were so hungry that they did not think they would live until breakfast and now they were in the café eating and watching the sea and the snails and it was a new day again.”

I quietly shelled pistachios and let Christopher talk about Mobile for the rest of the evening. But, there was that knee, so close to mine… Sipping, waiting, wishing—I wondered if his fine, linen fabric would brush against me, just once more?

He told me about his first swim across Mobile bay, catching Blue Marlin thirty miles offshore in the deep, navy waters, getting an exclusive with a Texas oil rigger while he was still a stringer, how to make Oysters Bienville just so—“it’s the amount of sherry in the béchamel, Belle. The alcohol cuts into the cayenne and garlic leaving you with a perfectly dressed oyster.” Finally, when we were outside hailing a cab, he turned to me and said,

“So, you’re set on becoming a journalist.”

“I already am a journalist.

“Alright, you are a journalist. What I don’t understand is why you want to hide your pretty face behind the typeset of the Times. Why not try something in front of the camera? You’d be a natural for broadcast news.”

The thought had crossed my mind. Wait, forget about the job, had he said that I was pretty? It must be the jacket, the clever way it nips in at the waist and hides my ass. What would happen if I took it off? “I guess that’s an option,” I started. “But, wouldn’t I have to have some sort of reel—me standing in front of a burning building, reporting from the eye of a hurricane—something like that?”

“Not necessarily. I know the News Channel’s operation and they’re starved for talent. Ever since the network started in 96’ they’ve been calling me for exclusives and sources they can’t get off the Reuter’s feed—Christ what a bunch of incompetents,” he muttered.

“And those are the people you want me to work with?” I asked.

“They don’t matter. All you do is use them like they’re going to use you. Get their name on your resume and move one. Put in a good, long year and then transfer to a real news station. But, first, you’ve got to cut your teeth on their conservative bullshit.”

“What about Granddaddy and newspapers and…” My voice sounded light and unsure in the night air full of whiskey, car exhaust, desire.

“Maybe you shouldn’t tell him a thing.” A taxi parted from the stream of Fifth Avenue traffic and pulled over to the curb. “Listen,” Christopher said grabbing me, his hand overwhelming my small wrist, “you’re not in Alabama anymore. Things happen fast. If I call the station tomorrow morning, they’ll want to see you before the 7 o’clock broadcast. Will you follow through if I get you in there?”

“Yes, of course,” I said, trying to ignore the touch of his warm, rough hand. “If I interview and we reach an agreement then I’m in it for good. That’s just how I am.” His rough hands excited me more than the job. What did he do for those calluses?

Christopher opened the taxi door for me and I slid across the leather bench seat.

“Aren’t you getting in?” I asked. “We can drop you off on the way downtown.” He closed the door and leaned down into the window.

“No, I think I’m going to take a walk. It’s a hot night and I’m 25 again, walking down Palafox Street, past the Gazette and down to the bay.” A pleasant smile passed over his face while his knuckles rapped nervously against the window ledge. “Are you okay? Is this too much?”

“You really want to know?” I said and then stopped myself. He was a real journalist–a God over at that ivory tower on 43rd and 8th. Christopher couldn’t know that I was overwhelmed, that the city and its media circus petrified me. I reached into my purse and felt around for my keys, wishing I were already home. “Give me a call tomorrow morning and…thank you.

“Tomorrow’s the day,” he said stepping away from the taxi, raising his eyebrows.

“Sullivan and Prince please,” I quietly told the driver, sinking back into the seat. We pulled away and then I heard Christopher yelling from the curb.

“Stop! Taxi!” He pulled several bills from his breast pocket and ran toward the driver’s side. He wanted to pay for my ride.

“Go! Go! There aren’t any cars coming!” I urged the driver. We pulled out onto Fifth Avenue and I looked back at him standing in the street. His money trembled in the breeze and then slowly, quietly sank to his feet.

My adventures at the “Pierre” will continue tomorrow…

“Fountain Avenue, where Ms. St. Guillen’s body was found, is a service road that leads to a landfill. It has a guardrail on one side, where Old Mill Creek runs through marshes to Jamaica Bay, and is littered with rusted car parts, old hubcaps and scraps from construction sites… Smashed clam shells, dropped by seagulls, litter the area.” (The New York Times, 3/1/06)

The fifth cocktail and the ready laugh and the meticulously chosen Friday night dress were far away from Imette St. Guillen when she was found early Saturday evening. It would have been a night like any other for her—at a watering hole disturbingly close to my apartment—perched on a bar stool talking about men and the city and where her new degree would take her. But, then there was a shift. A split second decision was made. The girlfriend went home. Imette stayed. Although the authorities can’t pinpoint the subsequent series of events, they are chilled by the condition in which she was found. The bright, promising smile was masked by packing tape, her young body defiled, her long brown hair shorn from her head.

Today’s city rag sheets (New York Daily News, New York Post) dole out more details, leaving us young Manhattanites bewildered, terrified, anxious. I’ve made the exact same crawl as Imette—moving from “Pioneer Bar” on the Bowery to “The Falls” on Lafayette (the latter bar owned by friends). Walking east to west on Spring Street is always a harrowing affair. But, still, I walk it alone… Near the Bowery, the crumbling, abandoned buildings possess large doorways and windows with extended stoops and ledges. I’ve always thought that their midnight shadows could accommodate any number of evils. But, still, a taxi is too expensive… The street lights are frequently broken at Elizabeth Street and Spring, Mott and Spring. Instead of the bright, white of street lamps, an eerie orange glow cast from emergency lights must suffice. But, just a few more blocks to go, I tell myself, a block or two more and I’ll be home free…

Today would be Imette’s 25th birthday. I want to say that we should go out, be with friends, remember what had been a beautiful, young life. But, then again, I’m afraid to leave the house alone.

(If you live in the area and have any information, please call the police at 800-577-TIPS)

(a continuation of last Thurday’s and this Monday’s post… the pictured cocktail-Delicious Excess)

“I suppose that’s why I’m here speaking with you,” I said, stammering, fixing my eyes on the light fixture behind his left ear. His gaze was intimate and distracting; looking at him was like gliding your legs over smooth, cotton sheets.

“You were once in my position, right? One way or another you made the jump from Granddaddy’s paper to the Times. Someone helped you, someone guided you in the right direction.” I stopped, already exhausted by my position and what I would be forced to ask. Christopher continued looking at me, hard. I re-crossed my legs.

“Brilliant son-of-a-bitch,” he began. His words casually ran together in that familiar languid cadence that reminded me, despite appearances, we came from the same place. That, and an occasional lazy vowel, divulged his past. But that was it. Christopher had exorcised the rural South from his demeanor, politics and whiskey. A skinny knee pressed against the fine linen of his pants, my leg just an inch away. “Does your grandfather still wear that Stetson hat of his?” he asked, reaching for the crystal decanter.

He didn’t give me time to respond.

“It was my first year at the Gazette, I must have been around your age.” Christopher stopped for a moment, acknowledging the waiter in the doorway. He walked over and, with great fanfare, began rearranging the landscape of our table. Starched, white napkins preceded the tumbler of whiskey and chilled ice bucket. The requisite salted peanuts were removed and replaced by three gorgeous little bowls: hills of fresh pistachios, hand-cut potato chips and olives peaking over their silver rims. Finally, the waiter nestled a set of sterling silver prongs deep into the ice bucket. The rumbling ice cubes reminded me of Fitzgerald and cocktails with playwrights at the Plaza. The sound was soothing and expensive. Christopher took a handful of pistachios and rolled them around in his cupped palm as if he were about to throw lucky 7’s at the Craps table.

“Working at the paper shook my scrawny frame. I was always scared of something or someone. One day, around lunchtime, the newsroom got very quiet—it was an important hush. I didn’t know what was happening so I kept eating my sandwich, hunched over the typewriter keys.

“‘Sugar Bowl’s this weekend, son. You comin’ to New Orleans with us to figure out which team has the sorriest quarterback?’ That was all your granddaddy had to say and I was hooked. Next thing I know, we’re flank to flank in the stadium cheering along with, who I thought, were 80,000 of his closest friends. I was sure that he knew everyone there. ‘You having a fine time, son?’ he asks me. ‘Your folks know what you’re doin’ this weekend?’

“Jesus, I don’t know if I managed a response. I’m not sure if it was the booze or all that time in the sun…” Christopher winced. “No, no it was him,” he said definitively. “He was the most important man I had ever met and there he stood next to me, six feet, five inches tall with that white cowboy hat. He looked at me out of the corner of his eye, ‘See those cameramen down a ways, a few rows off the 50 yard line? Why don’t I get them to put you on national television? Whadya say, Randolph?’”

I noticed that he went in and out of character with ease. All it took was a subtle shift in posture, a turn of his upper lip and suddenly Granddaddy peered out at me through Christopher’s thin, tortoise frames.

“All of a sudden, I was an insolent bastard. I said he couldn’t do it. It sounded wrong coming out but I couldn’t stop myself. Your grandfather faced me finally and said, ‘Today’s gonna be the day that all of Mobile sees you at the big game. Just watch what I do.’ He reached into the breast pocket of his jacket and pulled out a stack of crisp $1 bills. All it took was a light breeze and a flick of his wrist and the bills flew everywhere. They went above us, below us, down to the cameramen. It was like spring in Central Park and a strong gust of wind had stripped the blossoms from their branches. People were jumping and shouting—”

“And?” I asked, setting my drink down on the table.

“Anyone else would have stopped, not your grandfather. He threw more bills into the air. Then came the cameramen. Like he promised, we were all over the evening news, in every newspaper south of the Mason-Dixon…”

I quietly shelled pistachios and let Christopher talk about Mobile for the rest of the evening. But, there was that knee, so close to mine… Sipping, waiting, wishing, I wondered if his fine, linen fabric would brush against me, at least once more?