Like Dizzy Gillespie's Cheeks

Seventy-nine

The lobby overflowed with humanity. It was as though there was a fire drill and everyone was still in the lobby waiting for the "all clear" sign. Stewart had a line at his desk a mile long, which I suspect was the reason a blond, slender woman manned the desk with him.

Since I sort of felt Stewart and I bonded earlier that evening, I didn't really feel the need to wait in line. Besides, no matter what Kate believed about the clocks in Springer's pad, in my mind, if we were late, we were late.

It was simple really, all I wanted to do was ask Stewart if he might suggest where I could get a dry tux at 10:00 p.m. on the eve of the millennium—it didn't even have to be clean, just dry. And who would know more about how to satisfy odd requests like that than a concierge at a major hotel like the Four Season's?

Nonchalantly as possible, I sidled up to Stewart, but the blond girl intercepted my move, protecting Stewart as though he were a politically relevant figure in our society.

"There is a line, sir."

"Sure there is, but I just have a quick question for my friend, Stewart."

"I'm sure you do, sir. But that's what this line is for. And I'm sure if you ask every person in the line you're not in, they'd tell you, they've got a 'quick' question as well," said the woman whose nametag read Bertha.

The name fit the personality, but not the body. The body's name was Sophia or Anastasia, or 'I'm hot and you're not'... I ignored her nonetheless.

"Stewart, just a quick question."

Stewart looked over, squinted, saw a man in a wet, disheveled tux, with damp, stringy hair plastered to his forehead, sporting an irritated third eye, and went back to what he was doing.

"Stewart, just ..."

"Sir, I will have to call security if you don't step back," said Bertha.

"Sam, let's get out of here. It'll take forever to get any help from Stewart, and besides which, our security friend from the pool is casing the lobby."

I was stubborn; I didn't want to give up. If Stewart was going to ignore me, I might as well try Bertha.

"Do you answer questions, or are you strictly crowd control?" I gave Bertha the big smile.

It seemed to work. "I'm actually training. I just started yesterday."

I looked closely at Bertha and noticed a long nose hair extending out of her left nostril, which reminded me that there is nothing more unattractive than a long nose hair hanging out of the nostril of a beautiful woman. I proceeded nonetheless.

"Crash course tonight, huh? I bet Stewart is a pretty good teacher, isn't he?"

"He's the best. You better get in line, or you'll never get to ask him ... whatever it is you need to ask."

"If you're in training, does that allow you to answer questions?"

"I'm really not suppose to have any contact with the public in that capacity ..."

"What if I asked you a hypothetical question? Sort of like a fake question, just to get you used to things?"

"Sam, I think the meathead spotted us ..." Kate said.

"Just a sec ..." I said to Kate. "Suppose it was about 10:00 on the eve of the millennium, and I needed to get a tux—what would you tell me?"

She looked at Stewart to see if he was listening, but he was up to his ears in rich people with unfortunate backgrounds.