Steffi |
7:
November 15, 1996
The Whitney, Detroit MI
Naomi, with wide-eyed amazement, beheld the beauty of the elegantly elaborate Whitney Mansion Restaurant. With its whimsical architecture of gabled rooftops and arched windows, it stood proudly against the midday sky. As soon as Amelie noticed Naomi standing outside, she waved to Naomi through one of the grand, sweeping windows. Naomi and Tommie had to swim through a sea of people before they arrived at the table. “Hello loser boyfriend Tommie!” Amelie chirped, as she sneered in Tommie’s direction.
“Amelie, what have I ever done to you?” Tommie shot back defensively.
“Ooh, somebody didn’t get laid this morning. Naomi, you know that Tommie gets really cranky when he hasn’t had his morning dose of sex. You really shouldn’t let him out in public before he’s had it,” Amelie taunted. Tommie’s eyes were like a wounded doe’s. “Relax Tommie! God, you’re so damn nice and sensitive all the time. You have to learn to take a joke. You know I'm just joshing with you.” Finally, Tommie relaxed his facial expression. Yet it did not last for long; as soon as he saw Brendan Shanahan approach them, his eyes welled up with nervousness.
“Hey Brendan, thanks for coming today, I know there’s a game tonight. Lunch’s on me?” Naomi offered, as she smiled politely at Brendan.
“God, she can be such a conniving bitch sometimes. Being pleasant when she needs something. Being horrible when she doesn’t” Brendan deliberated with himself. But that glowing smile. It could illuminate the entire restaurant. Before Brendan could contemplate any longer, an anxious Tommie extended his hand out. Brendan presented his façade, a fake grin, and engulfed Tommie’s hand with his own.
“Like Brendan Shanahan needs an introduction! I can’t believe it’s really you,” garbled Tommie in disbelief.
“God, he’s worse than a two year-old,” Brendan thought to himself.
“You are my favourite player in the league. When Naomi sent me that autographed puck, I freaked,” Tommie recollected eagerly. Then Tommie launched into a monologue about Brendan’s career, reciting facts from memory from the countless hours that he had spent studying Shanahan statistics. More often than not, Brendan would be impressed when someone demonstrated such awareness for his accomplishments; but for some reason, he was not impressed with Tommie, and even considered him to be an obsessive, compulsive fanatic. Brendan found Tommie’s discourse uninteresting, and he fixated his concentration on anything that he laid his eyes on. Anything to distract himself from Tommie. The white, fluffy clouds that were dancing across a bright, blue sky. The child that was licking an ice cream cone cheerfully, as he skipped along the pathway. The Sunday afternoon shoppers who were hastily scurrying from store to store. A pair of mesmerizing brown eyes. Naomi’s eyes. She bashfully turned away when she realized that he was looking at her. However, his eyes beckoned, pleading for her to look at him again. When she looked into his eyes once more, they were satiated with indulgent intensity. A kind of intensity that she had only seen once before, in Tommie’s eyes, when they had made love for the first time. Yet again, she shied away and before Brendan could attract her attention for a second time, the waiter came by with the receipt. Brendan was dumbfounded; had time actually passed by that rapidly? After arguing with Tommie for the bill (with Naomi victorious), Naomi excused herself from the table and headed for the ladies room. Brendan abruptly excused himself and followed her into the ladies room. He locked the door when he ensured that nobody else was present.
“What was that about?” Brendan commanded as Naomi ran her hands under the balmy faucet water. Naomi, taken aback by his presence, was wordless for a minute, as she struggled to compose herself.
“What the hell are you doing in the ladies room Brendan? What if you get caught in here?” reprimanded Naomi, as she started towards the door.
“First, you have to tell me why you were staring at me like that,” Brendan insisted as he seized Naomi by the wrist.
“As I recall, I think you were staring at me first! And well, I felt um…I felt embarrassed because you seemed so bored with Tommie. You really are his favourite player, so you have to forgive him if he’s been acting like a giddy schoolgirl. You could have at least pretended to listen,” Naomi whimpered. She was not about to tell Brendan the actual reason.
“Hey, I met your little boy toy didn’t I? I did my charity work for the day,” raged Brendan.
“Well, sorry! You didn’t have to come! If I knew you weren’t even going to pretend to enjoy yourself, I wouldn’t have asked Amelie to ask you to come. I don’t even know how we can be in the same room together. Every time I see you at the Post, you always find some reason to argue with me. Snap, snap waitress girl, my order’s taking too long! Well have you ever thought, ‘Hm, maybe she can only serve the drinks as fast as they’re making them at the bar?’ Hey waitress girl, why are you flirting with my teammates? Well have you ever thought, ‘Hm, not everyone has millions of dollars. Maybe she’s just trying to earn a tip.’ Well, in case I forget, thank you Superstar, for taking the time out of your busy schedule to meet my needy boyfriend. He would have died today without your charity. And tell that girl that you would have been screwing during this time, that I am so regretful for depriving her of her Irish Casanova for half an hour,” Naomi ranted, almost ready to leave the ladies room. Brendan covered the doorknob with his hand, and assuaged his tone.
“Look, why don’t I bring Tommie to the Post later tonight so we can hang there, and he can be around you at the same time,” Brendan proposed.
When Brendan mentioned the Post, Naomi became apprehensively hesitant. She had not informed Tommie about her secondary occupation yet. “Why don’t you meet him elsewhere, anywhere besides the Post…Actually, you don’t really even have to meet him again, he’ll understand, I think he’ll be reliving this lunch forever,” pleaded Naomi.
Brendan stared at her questioningly. “Okay, first you reprimand me for being impolite. Then when I try to make amends, you won’t let me. You’re not leaving until you tell me what’s going on.”
“Look, Tommie doesn’t know that I waitress at the Post. If he finds out, he’ll be angry with me. So let’s just keep that a secret between you and me, okay?” Naomi beseeched, her eyebrows knotted with trepidation.
“Well, this bit of information is interesting. Before I keep your secret safe, I want to know why this is such a big deal. I wouldn’t want to be unknowingly taking part in a crime or anything of that sort,” Brendan argued.
“Well,” Naomi started, “it goes something like this. Tommie comes from a wealthy background. And me, I don’t. Luckily, his parents don’t disapprove of our relationship, because they respect the fact that I am educated and have a good job. But Tommie doesn’t know about the student loan debt. And he doesn’t know that Deloitte Touche is not paying me enough to cover my living expenses and my student loan. And he doesn’t know that I’ve been waitressing at the Post to help pay the bills. If I ever told him about my financial hardships, he would just offer to pay everything off for me. And I would absolutely hate that, because I don’t like depending on people. Plus, if his parents found out that I relied on his money, they would not be impressed with me, and that might strain my relationship with them. So that’s the short version of the story. Please keep it a secret.” Brendan nodded, agreeing to help Naomi.
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