Vintage Attraction by Charles Blackstone Page A

wanted to do that afternoon, I accepted the proposal because I wanted to give Izzy the impression that I was an easygoing, up-for-anything sort of guy. It was more important than my own happiness. Why would she want to be with anyone who was a drag in paradise?
    I changed out of my button-down and khakis, wrapped a heavy towel around my waist, enveloped myself in a luxurious robe, and met Chef Dominique in a sensory-assaulting, epithelium-eroding tiled box. The hulking enabler of Izzy’s fame and misfortune was amply frightening in the semi-nude. I struck up uncomfortable chitchat with the chef, but he did most of the talking. He didn’t seem at all concerned whether or not his audience of one remained attentive—or even present—and prattled away. The balmy viscosity in the air made it increasingly difficult to see his face. Soon all I could perceive was a giant talking stomach.
    â€œWhat’s the meaning of life?” the stomach suddenly asked me.
    â€œI think . . . You know, the usual things. Being able to love, to be loved, to produce something of lasting significance—”
    The steam stopped flowing. Without the ambient hissing noise the heat brought, the box became alarmingly quiet. We just sat there as the air began to dry up and clear. Neither of us seemed to have any idea of what to do, whom to seek for help. Then there was a sharp, jarring clang, and a rusty-sounding rumble, and the steam began to pump in again.
    â€œAll my years of the restaurant, all of my awards, it is meaningful to me, absolument , but it is . . . eh, Peter Hapworth, how do I say? That is all behind me. Now I am TV producer and business manager.”
    â€œDo you ever miss cooking?”
    â€œAh, Peter Hapworth. To be executive chef is not the same. You’re a celebrity. All you do is hug and kiss and smile for the cameras and then you die one day. If you live like me”—he patted his belly here—“maybe one day is sooner than you think?” He chortled complacently. The amplified sounds reverberated exponentially as they bounced against the tiles.
    â€œIzzy doesn’t really strike me as the type who needs a manager,” I said. “You trusted her to run your wine program, to order and stock and sell thousands of dollars’ worth of inventory every night, for years. Isn’t she capable of handling her speaking engagements, now that she’s off the floor, just as well? Besides, wouldn’t it free you up to do other things?”
    â€œAh, mon ami , she is only the sommelier.” He snorted crudely. “And a sommelier knows wine, but not about life.”
    The smugness was almost as difficult to inhale as the steam. “Isn’t that kind of . . . I don’t know . . . a little patronizing?”
    Chef Dominique laughed again, so strongly and for such an extended duration that I was almost certain he was going to asphyxiate. Then he said he was done. We returned to the locker room.
    â€œYou want to know the meaning of life, Peter Hapworth?” he asked. I looked at him. “There is no meaning of life. That’s what it means.”
    An attendant reminded Chef of his own massage appointment, which, apparently, he’d completely forgotten. He excused himself, and I dried off in the locker room alone—able to breathe for the first time since I got to the sauna—changed into a clean robe, and went to wait for Izzy.
    Later on, after Izzy and I returned to our room, I kept thinking about what the chef said in the haze. His caustic remarks were bewildering. I hoped it was just that something had gotten lost in translation, or that the chef—or I—was having a momentary grandiose delusion brought on by the surplus heat. This was too nice a weekend to have bad feelings.
    Izzy wanted to take a shower—with me. We stood, romantically entwined, in the glass-and-marble Kohler booth big enough to rain on us in comfortable tandem. Following