Untitled by sam peloquin
The first moment I doubted I was having a good
time occurred while I was holding a piece of crystal stemware, my hand raised and askance, aloof, yet at the same time somehow posed self-consciously. The glass contained about three ounces of 1998 Côtes du Rhône, which to me tasted far too bitter and tannic, but perhaps that was due to my unrefined palate. Our host and hostess lived in the fine chasm between too young to hold such dull dinner parties and overwhelmingly old, (a purely psychological condition). She had gone to a women’s college, (visions of too-cheerful, slightly plump young women in 1930’s bathing suits naively beaming up from a black and white photograph plagued my thoughts), and was now the Editor-in-Chief of an acclaimed magazine that focused mainly on Victorian pottery. He taught mathematics at the local community college and had attended Harvard as an undergrad, and Yale law school, (at his parents’ expense). I suspected that attending two rival schools in succession had been an indication of his self-loathing. I was wearing a charcoal turtleneck under an open camel blazer and had opted for horn-rimmed glasses over contacts. I wanted to appear as though I knew what I was doing, appear as if I were steadily employed and a broodingly intellectual. I had consciously selected clothing that had been recently dry-cleaned and did not smell of sweat, mothballs
72
the courant