The night appeared
all the more dark because of the overcast sky and the
damp roadway. My old eyes didn't help either. They
become blinded by the headlights of oncoming cars and
are then slower to recover than they were in my
youth. I was driving with Ms Keogh, my more
significant other, along the winding River Road that
traced the New Jersey side of the Delaware River. We
were en route to the Artists' Gallery, a cooperative
gallery of about twenty painters, sculptors, and
photographers.
The Artists' Gallery is located in Lambertville, a
small Victorian town that hugs the river, a community
dense with antique dealers, galleries, and fine
restaurants, peppered with bed and breakfast
residencies. It is a great place to stroll. Artists'
Gallery is where Ms Keogh has been hanging her
paintings ever since she graduated the Pennsylvania
Academy of the Fine Arts. The artists meet on the
first Monday of the month to concoct and discuss
strategies, to resolve problems, and to start
replacing the art work. The exhibit changes every
month.
At the monthly meeting of the Artists' Gallery, I
stayed alone in the front room and read from the book
I had brought along (The Club Dumas,
by Arturo Pérez-Reverte). Ms Keogh sat in the second
room, the middle of three rooms, where the fellow
members of the gallery formed a circle on the floor
and some chairs for their monthly meeting. Ms Keogh
could not find the appropriate moment to make her
declaration. It almost went unsaid. When the meeting
was breaking up, she tried to capture everyone's
attention for her announcement, but already the group
had dissolved into several private conversations and
no one was paying attention to her. To Ms Keogh the
time did not feel auspicious and she considered
postponing her decision.
She mentioned to Stacie, fellow artist and the
gallery's Recording Secretary, that she wanted a
statement put into the minutes. Stacie responded by
quickly taking the initiative, and with a command
that the sometimes shy Ms Keogh lacked, called
everyone to order. Now everyone was listening with
keen interest, curious as to what Ms Keogh would have
to say.
Ms Keogh announced how she would be quitting the
gallery at the end of the month. She gave as her
excuse the difficulty of preparing work for the
monthly deadlines. The deadlines forced her to throw
work together in a haphazard manner and without
heart. The work she produced was a disappointment to
her. The others were shocked and obviously saddened
by the news. It was not a decision that came easily
to Ms Keogh. She has been tormenting herself for a
long time with the pros and cons.
We weren't even out of the door of the gallery and my
darling began to cry, slightly - although she insists
it was a single furtive tear. I rushed her into the
privacy of the deserted street. Once we were outside
and a few feet further down the block, I hugged her
to bolster her strength. She insisted she still felt
she had made the right decision, but it was nothing
less than a momentous occasion, a milestone in her
career and life. Ms Keogh determined that it called
for a Compulsory Compensatory Commemorative Meal. Now
I must explain the tradition of the Compulsory
Compensatory Commemorative Meal.
In 1987, mere days after we were married, with the
suddenness of an assassination, Ms Keogh was fired by
her employer. They gave "incompetence" as
the reason for her dismissal - a curious thing
considering they gave her a glowing report on her
last review. She had never been fired before, and she
had never been declared incompetent in her vocation,
Physician's Assistant, a role for which she feels a
profound enthusiasm. She was devastated, her life
shattered. I did not want to burden her further by
taking her home to a house occupied by two adolescent
children and my father, an unmanageable old man. I
drove east and we talked it out. Fifty-two miles
later we were in Sea Girt, where the Atlantic Ocean
blocked our further progress east. In Sea Girt, I
took her out for dinner and drinks.
It was meant as an act of defiance to the cruel
rulings of Fate. It was a show of confidence to
buttress Ms Keogh's faith. It was also an effort to
force what would have been a gloomy day in the
history of our lives into becoming an absurdly joyous
day that we could remember proudly. I was absolutely
certain that she was not incompetent in her job and
that she would find a better one, and I meant to
prove it by gambling with confidence, buying a meal
we couldn't afford on credit. And that is what it
was, a day when we, in typical Ms Keogh and Bruce
fashion, defied misfortune by imposing happiness.
That was the night of our first Compulsory
Compensatory Commemorative Meal.
Rather than leave my reader hanging, I should point
out that it was discovered that Ms Keogh had actually
been fired because of an unfounded and misguided
concern about the cost of insurance to the employer.
Ms Keogh has a chronic illness. Firing her for that
reason is against Federal and State laws, which is
why they lied. They settled out of court. She didn't
want to return to her employer, someone who in order
to protect their budget would be willing to destroy
her self-esteem and career. She didn't want to hurt
her employer, who does good work for society, so the
settlement was for a check of one dollar and a
written reference. And Ms Keogh went on to a
blossoming career elsewhere of more money and
accolades for her abilities.
We now return to this recent night, when Ms Keogh
resigned from that excellent body of artists who
occupy the Artists' Gallery. This time we traversed
the winding River Road that traced the Pennsylvania
side of the Delaware River, returning home to where
only our cat was waiting. This trip brought us to the
Yardley Inn, built in 1832. Mind you, we couldn't
afford such an expensive restaurant for dinner. We
are once again suffering a financial crisis. But this
was our Compulsory Compensatory Commemorative Meal!
We decided to forgo the tables overlooking the river.
After all, it was a dark night. We sat at the bar,
and actually this is a general practice with us. The
practice originated as a way of avoiding long waits
for a table, but we have also discovered we enjoy
watching and interacting with people while we eat.
We began with a bowl of tomato and crab bisque. This
was followed by escargot in puff pastry sautéed with
hazelnut, roasted shallots, and Pernod; also, a
shrimp cocktail with lemon and cilantro cocktail
sauce. And then, for our main course, we ordered the
eight ounce filet mignon topped with jumbo lump crab
and black trumpet Maderia sauce, accompanied by
mashed potatoes and asparagus. The steak was
Pittsburghed. [Pittsburghed: quickly cooked in a very
hot oven so as to burn the surface to a crisp, but
leave the interior rare.] With our meal, she drank a
mandarin cosmopolitan and I had two glasses of St.
Francis Cabernet Savignon. We shared everything else,
but the dessert. We ordered separate Grand Marnier
crèmes brûlées. My sincere thanks to Executive
Chef, Alecia Angioletti for making Ms Keogh happy
again.
Artists' Gallery
http://lambertvillearts.com/
Yardley Inn
http://www.yardleyinn.com/ |