individuals, but I knew they were seated at
festively decorated tables, with full plates before them and glasses of Dom
Perignon waiting to be lifted. No words were distinct, but the sounds of gaiety
and laughter were unmistakable. Maybe the welcoming of those who had gone on
before was not a myth. A welcoming
dinner!
To my left was a
buffet table.
It had been a
long time since that fatal chocolate bar. The whole process of dying had taken
a while, and the Hershey’s had been a preprandial chocolate. Now that I was no
longer distracted by apprehension, I realized I was famished. And I couldn’t
have been in a better place. I was delighted that this was not to be a formal
dinner with choice limited to underdone chicken breast or tasteless white fish
and a slab of Neapolitan ice cream for dessert. For me a buffet was the perfect
welcome.
The buffet table
was very long and wonderfully full. Before me were bowls of fruit. Not just
oranges or canned fruit cocktail, but slices of fresh guavas and peaches, of
mangoes and kiwi fruit, hunks of ripe pineapple without one brown spot, and
maraschino cherries that I could gorge on without fear of carcinogens. As I stood
pleasantly salivating, I knew that here at the celestial buffet I could eat
pineapple and ice cream without getting indigestion, mountains of coleslaw or
hills of beans without gas. And as much of them as I wanted. Never again the
Scarsdale Diet. No more eight glasses of water and dry meat. Never another day
of nine hundred or fewer calories. I could consume a bunch of bananas, thirty
Santa Rosa plums, enough seedless grapes to undermine the wine industry, and
remain thin enough for my neighbor’s husband to covet me.
But that was a
topic I did not want to consider in depth. Surely, in business, in the
twentieth century, in California, a bit of extramarital coveting was taken for
granted. I hadn’t, after all, coveted my neighbor’s husband (he was sixty, and he only coveted a weed-free lawn). I hadn’t really coveted Amory as
much as I did his ability to make me district manager. After the promotion I
hadn’t coveted him at all. And his wife never knew, and Raymond only half
suspected, so that could hardly be considered Mortal Coveting. Besides, there
wouldn’t be guavas in hell.
A plate, really
more of a platter than a mere one-serving plate, hovered beside me as if held
up on the essence of a cart. Balancing the plate and the cup and holding the
silver and napkins was always such a nuisance at buffets (and balancing, as I
had so recently been reminded, was not my best skill). So this floating platter
was a heavenly innovation. I was pleased that things were so well organized
here. I scooped up some guava, just a few pieces, not wanting to appear piggish
at my welcoming dinner. I added a few more, and then a whole guava, realizing
with sudden sureness that at this banquet greed was not an issue. I heaped on
cherries, berries, and peeled orange sections soaked in Grand Marnier. Had this
been an office brunch, I would have been ashamed. But all the fruit fit
surprisingly well on the platter and, in truth, hardly took up much of the
space at all. It must have been an excellent platter design. Each fruit
remained separate, none of the juices ran together, and I knew instinctively
that the juices would never run into any of the entrees to come.
I moved along
and found myself facing lox, a veritable school of fresh pink lox, accompanied
by a tray of tiny, bite-size bagels, crisp yet soft, and a mound of cream
cheese that was creamy enough to spread easily but thick enough to sink my
teeth into. And there was salmon mousse made with fresh dill weed, and giant
prawns in black bean sauce, and a heaping platter of lobster tails, and
Maryland soft-shell crab, and New Jersey bluefish that you can’t get on the
West Coast, and those wonderful huge Oregon clams. I could have made a meal of
any of them. But meal-sized portions of each fitted easily onto the platter.
More
festively decorated tables, with full plates before them and glasses of Dom
Perignon waiting to be lifted. No words were distinct, but the sounds of gaiety
and laughter were unmistakable. Maybe the welcoming of those who had gone on
before was not a myth. A welcoming
dinner!
To my left was a
buffet table.
It had been a
long time since that fatal chocolate bar. The whole process of dying had taken
a while, and the Hershey’s had been a preprandial chocolate. Now that I was no
longer distracted by apprehension, I realized I was famished. And I couldn’t
have been in a better place. I was delighted that this was not to be a formal
dinner with choice limited to underdone chicken breast or tasteless white fish
and a slab of Neapolitan ice cream for dessert. For me a buffet was the perfect
welcome.
The buffet table
was very long and wonderfully full. Before me were bowls of fruit. Not just
oranges or canned fruit cocktail, but slices of fresh guavas and peaches, of
mangoes and kiwi fruit, hunks of ripe pineapple without one brown spot, and
maraschino cherries that I could gorge on without fear of carcinogens. As I stood
pleasantly salivating, I knew that here at the celestial buffet I could eat
pineapple and ice cream without getting indigestion, mountains of coleslaw or
hills of beans without gas. And as much of them as I wanted. Never again the
Scarsdale Diet. No more eight glasses of water and dry meat. Never another day
of nine hundred or fewer calories. I could consume a bunch of bananas, thirty
Santa Rosa plums, enough seedless grapes to undermine the wine industry, and
remain thin enough for my neighbor’s husband to covet me.
But that was a
topic I did not want to consider in depth. Surely, in business, in the
twentieth century, in California, a bit of extramarital coveting was taken for
granted. I hadn’t, after all, coveted my neighbor’s husband (he was sixty, and he only coveted a weed-free lawn). I hadn’t really coveted Amory as
much as I did his ability to make me district manager. After the promotion I
hadn’t coveted him at all. And his wife never knew, and Raymond only half
suspected, so that could hardly be considered Mortal Coveting. Besides, there
wouldn’t be guavas in hell.
A plate, really
more of a platter than a mere one-serving plate, hovered beside me as if held
up on the essence of a cart. Balancing the plate and the cup and holding the
silver and napkins was always such a nuisance at buffets (and balancing, as I
had so recently been reminded, was not my best skill). So this floating platter
was a heavenly innovation. I was pleased that things were so well organized
here. I scooped up some guava, just a few pieces, not wanting to appear piggish
at my welcoming dinner. I added a few more, and then a whole guava, realizing
with sudden sureness that at this banquet greed was not an issue. I heaped on
cherries, berries, and peeled orange sections soaked in Grand Marnier. Had this
been an office brunch, I would have been ashamed. But all the fruit fit
surprisingly well on the platter and, in truth, hardly took up much of the
space at all. It must have been an excellent platter design. Each fruit
remained separate, none of the juices ran together, and I knew instinctively
that the juices would never run into any of the entrees to come.
I moved along
and found myself facing lox, a veritable school of fresh pink lox, accompanied
by a tray of tiny, bite-size bagels, crisp yet soft, and a mound of cream
cheese that was creamy enough to spread easily but thick enough to sink my
teeth into. And there was salmon mousse made with fresh dill weed, and giant
prawns in black bean sauce, and a heaping platter of lobster tails, and
Maryland soft-shell crab, and New Jersey bluefish that you can’t get on the
West Coast, and those wonderful huge Oregon clams. I could have made a meal of
any of them. But meal-sized portions of each fitted easily onto the platter.
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