… it’s Fashion Week and you’ve tired of the pretense and now just want to stop and smell the Haut-Brion while attending the cookbook launch party for Christophe Pelé, chef at the Michelin-2-starred Le Clarence, on the third floor of the Dillon mansion just off the Champs-Elysées.
Yet ever since you’ve spiraled up the staircase, passing the main dining room of Le Clarence along the way, a question has been nagging you, so as a waitress stops before you with a sweet smile and a tray of crab canapés you ask, “Why is the restaurant empty this evening?”
She responds, “Because there’s a private party this evening.”
“Where?” you ask.
She offers you a strange look, glances quickly to her bottle-cradling colleague, who offers a similarly strange look, then she says, ever so politely, “You’re at it, sir.”
“Oh,” you say, now feeling special, as you reach for a crab canapé from her tray and accept another pour from her colleague.
© 2019, Gary Lee Kraut