The lunchtime crowd in the Union League’s elegant dining room had been gossiping about the improbable couple long before the yelling started. He was Chris Faber, the local news TV anchorman, and in his usual Armani suit, white shirt and striped tie, he might have otherwise gone unnoticed in the surrounding herd of bankers, politicians and lawyers. His blond hair sported a razor-line part and topped a gaunt, boyish face that was beginning to betray the first lines of middle age. Set before him was a hard roll, a half-finished salad and an empty highball glass. Chris hadn’t been seen at the club for months (not surprising, given his top billing on the Delinquent Accounts list posted in the lobby), but what was really buzzing the room was his companion. She wasn’t another of the post-divorce bimbos that he’d paraded in and out of the club with depressing regularity. This one had strutted into the century-old main dining room like she owned it, a short, beach-ball shaped woman dressed in a stained khaki blazer and blue polyester slacks. No one could place her, despite her pocked, moonscape face and graying hair that stuck-out from her head like a chemical warfare injury. A nearby Philadelphia City Councilman opined that while it was too bad Chris had hit a rough patch, couldn’t he take his tacky new friends somewhere else to eat?
“Why not talk about my contract?” Chris asked.
His guest looked around at the other tables, conscious of the growing attention. “Do we have to do this here? Now?”
Read the rest of this entry »