Famished Night Part 1 of 3: Hors D’oeuvre
By Toni Juliette Leonetti
What hunger wakes in the night? How much will you taste, blind? Nuit Affamée invites you to sate your appetite at our Dining in the Dark event September 1, Half Moon Bay, California.
Julia read the advertising card. “Connie. Are you sure this is a restaurant? Called Famished Night? It sounds like a vampire convention. That should happen in Full Moon Bay.”
“Very funny. We’re booked at eight.”
“We?”
“You’ve talked a lot about that restaurant where they started dinners in the dark. You always wanted to go.”
“I wanted Paris for more than that.” She flopped onto the sofa beside Connie.
“When’s Tyler coming back?”
“Who knows? He stayed in France longer than expected. Then he left yesterday for
Zurich.”
“So you’re free.”
“I’m beginning to think he is.”
“Beginning? What was your first clue?” She patted Julia’s arm. “Sorry. But some people in his office take—significant others—with them on business trips.”
“I’m not that significant. And he mocks them. Says, if you mix business and pleasure, you break up and go broke. Not that he ever has time for unmixed pleasure. Or—desire for it.” She sank deeper in her burrow.
“Wow. As bad as that? You almost make me look forward to dying alone.”
“Don’t worry. We can die alone together.”
“Best offer I’ve had. But you’ve been with Tyler for—what?—a year? You can do better. What do you see in him? Except for the tall, dark, handsome bit. When’s the last time he brought you to a French restaurant?”
“You have to ask? After those cooking classes you and I took? He wouldn’t sample a thing I made. Couldn’t risk going over his seven percent body fat.”
“And zero percent fun. You have nothing in common—”
“I’ll try to take that as a compliment. Not a hint you’re pushing his all-protein plan on me, too.”
“Of course not. You’re perfect.”
“Ha! The depression and chocolate plan. Nine pounds more since he left. Damn.”
Julia caught herself mirrored in the black television screen facing them. Brown eyes and hair dissolving into that black—like her spreading slump, powered off. She forced herself to sit straighter. Nope. No improvement. Even her reflection dreaded his return, whenever that was.
Dreaded? The word tolled. She’d dreamed of Paris since watching Amélie at ten. Imagined wandering those streets as she sat in high school French 101, the same course she taught now. Tyler’s not wanting her there had felt like a punch. But that ache finally subsided enough to bare a different one. Travel with him would have been miserable. Lonelier than her empty home. Hungry.
Julia rose, turning her back on the screen. “A man who calls what he eats protein—not beef or chicken or anything delicious—doesn’t belong in Paris. And what’s he doing in Zurich? Not having fondue, I’ll bet. The bastard!”
“That’s the spirit. So, we’re on for dinner in four nights?”
“Why not? At least, there, it won’t matter how I look.”
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Toni Juliette Leonetti is a lifelong resident of the San Francisco Bay Area. Her writings include short stories, poetry, plays, and a mystery novel. Her work appears or is forthcoming in Okay Donkey, Literally Stories, DarkWinter Literary Magazine, and Elegant Literature.