***
I go for lunch with my friend (acquaintance might be a better word) Russell at an Italian restaurant which is more expensive than nice. The prices are in fact ridiculously high, the service pretty nonchalant and the food varies from delicious to decent. But many celebrities go here and of course all the wanna-see and wanna-be celebs too. I'm no celebrity myself, not unless you're in advertising or read business magazines from two years ago, but I like to be around them. It makes me feel special. And I’ve got the money to eat here, which is good, because all this place wants is my money and plenty of it.
Russell is half-an-hour late as usual and I’ve already emptied two glasses of a 200-dollar bottle Amarone Italian wine when he arrives in his professional attire: a dark-grey suit, white shirt and pink tie. He even put time into gelling and combing his chestnut hair backwards, making him look more like a Wall Street shark than a real estate broker. This is in stark contrast to his casual attire, which basically consists of things homeless people wouldn't wear. Russell is a self-championed fashionista who mixes and misses more than he matches. He's always out of place and therefore always stands out, which is what he wants, of course.
“Fuck man,” I say loudly and point to my Rolex Submariner as soon I see him nearing our table. A Gwyneth Paltrow look-alike at the table next to us gives me a look.
Russell looks guilty. He knows he fucked up. Again.
“Let me take a moment to teach you how time works, Russell. You see this watch here? You see how the small arrow is moving and the bigger arrows are still? Well, the bigger arrows move too! And they move especially fast when you’re about to be somewhere at a said time.”
“Sorry man,” Russell says, “had a slow client.”
“You sold anything?”
“No signed papers yet, but yes, I think so. They're an older New York couple who moved to Florida a few years ago, got tired of the gated communities and people reversing without looking and now want to get back to the big city. Jack and Jill - can you believe that’s actually their real names? I showed them a townhouse on Upper West Side which isn’t very modern, but it’s spacious and good value if you do it up properly, and the look on their faces told me it's pretty much a done deal.”
To be fair, Russell doesn't have to work much. Property in New York sells itself and through his father's agency he has enough contacts to always have wealthy clients knocking on his door, ready to pay a hefty sum for a slice of the Big Apple. Russell only has to show them where the slice is and take quite a piece for himself.
“So I think I have a buyer for lunch today?” I say. Paying for lunch is good compensation for being late.
“Sure,” Russell says, flashing me his breadwinner smile.
My friendship with Russell is simple on the border of mundane, meaning Russell is like a Homo Erectus in a suit. We're mostly drinking and lunching buddies and rarely meet without an unhealthy dose of alcohol, although I always seem to be around alcohol these days. He's younger, more energetic, and still very much in the fast lane of things. We're probably too alike to be closer friends, the difference being that, while I worked my ass off to get here, he got everything pretty much served on a silver plate. This might sound like I'm jealous, and yes, sometimes I am.
Most of our conversations revolve around things we like to buy or women we like to bone, which is Russell's caveman expression for it. We don't really discuss politics, sports, or any other topics, except for maybe real estate. It's a shallow friendship and it would bore me to death to hang out with him on a more permanent basis, but for hitting the nightclubs he's the best friend you can get. I always had a natural talent for meeting women, but Russell’s one level above me, he’s born for it.
I tell Russell about Mindy, concentrating on the hotness and not the breakdown I had in the end of the interview, as I'm still trying to figure out what the hell happened there.
“She sounds interesting. I like the dark hair. Kansas girl, you say? Reminds me of Nicki, you know that girl with the boyish haircut? Fantastic body and crazy as a coked-up rabbit in bed. We had some good times. Why don't you invite this Mindy out for a drink?”
“I don't know man, I've been there, done that. I don't sleep around with people at work anymore.”
Russell looks to the side, over at the Paltrow look-alike and says “true”, but I can tell he's not really listening. This kind of common sense wisdom is very difficult to impart on a shallow brain like Russell's. He picks up his glass, sniffs the wine and looks at me and says: “Well, if you don't want her, maybe you can set me up?”
I quickly regret having mentioned Mindy, as Russell’s hornier than a Viagra-popping rabbit. He's one of those guys who writes every girl down in a notebook and rates her. But he wouldn't admit it to me, as I think he still looks up to me somewhat.
I want to stop where this conversation’s going and say: “Yeah, we'll see. Maybe.” And then I change the subject to Russell's new Bugatti. It's not a very interesting topic and I soon realize how bored I am with guys like Russell - they never have anything interesting or important to say, and today, for whatever reason, Russell seems more distracted than usual and doesn't get into his somewhat entertaining, “girls I slept with recently”-routine. Instead he keeps thumbing away on his iPhone from time to time. We finish our octopus angel-hair pasta and the bottle of wine and when we’ve left the restaurant he says:
“Did you see Gwyneth Paltrow over there? Man, she's still hot!”