You’ve just begun to internalize it. You’re in a café ordering a cappuccino. You do this every morning before you walk across the street to the office. The boffice—that purgatory with elevators. You’ve intentionally, somewhat loudly, asked for a “medium,” because you want someone to acknowledge you, but also because you think that naming coffee sizes in Italian is idiotic. Because you don’t want to take part in another marketing gimmick—sometimes it feels like the whole universe is just a marketing gimmick—and you say, “a medium with an extra shot, please,” and you tell the girl your name even before she asks you and you pay and you put the change in the clear plastic box and you stand aside to await the arrival of your personal cup of cappuccino when this thing happens to you:
You’re a bit startled that she knows your name, but you did just tell the girl at the counter and she probably overheard. A woman, a rather tall woman with a short black bob, not quite Chinese—Singaporean maybe—in a smart-looking gray suit, has just approached you; nobody you know, it’s certain. Nobody you’re likely ever to know: fortyish, elegant, self-assured in her movements, her posture, her voice. She has gorgeous dark sparkly eyes, tiny freckles beneath both of them like a photographic negative of a constellation. She’s addressing you by your name as you stand by the rack of New York Times, beneath the muted TV screen, waiting for your cappuccino.
“Neville,” she’s saying because Neville is your name. “Neville, I’m sorry to bother you but I have to ask: Do you—have you—ever done voice work?”
What does this mean? What? Is there someone standing behind you—some other Neville—the true target of her inquiry? (Don’t betray yourself. Don’t look.) Her eyebrows are raised. Her look is inquisitive, but friendly. She knows your name. She’s waiting for an answer.
“I’m sorry?” you say.
“Voiceover work. Radio. Commercials. That sort of thing. You know—Have you?”
“Not that I know about,” you say lamely.
“Well excuse me for being so forward,” she’s actually an inch or so taller than you. You’re looking up into her limpid, infinitely black eyes and her wide sensual lips are moving. Her impossibly white teeth are suddenly exposed to this uncertain light, her Asiatic face, her earnest magnetic beguiling face, is looking at you inquisitively and she’s using words she expects you to understand. You barely notice she’s handing you her card which you take and hold awkwardly at your side without looking at it.
“My name is Alana and I’m scouting today for a company called, Real Voices. You know how commercial voices have become so phony-sounding in recent years? Have you ever noticed that?”
You’re nodding your head as if this could possibly be of interest to you, as if you lacked absolutely any sense of irony, as if you were so insufficiently jaded as to have been walking about silently critiquing the stylistic evolution of voices that blurt through black mesh wafers scattered like lice in every nook and cranny of civilization. Yes, you keep nodding because it’s important to agree that it is odd the way commercial voices have become less authentic and, behind her, behind this alluring Asian Aphrodite, you see the barista with the goatee leaning over the counter and gesturing, waving, trying to get your attention, holding up a cup and pointing to a name scrawled, all caps, an inch tall, in fat black sharpie. “Navel,” it reads.
“That would be mine,” you call out to the barista with an aggressive edge to your voice that feels foreign to you. To the beautiful Alana you say, “Excuse me, I’ll be right back,” before you angle your way to the bar.
He’s set down the cup with the name facing out and as you pick it up you hide it with your palm. Normally, you’d want to go to the service bar for cinnamon, for pulverized chocolate, for Splendida in the yellow wrapper, but not now. Not now, certainly. In your haste you nearly knock down a tiny shellac-haired woman with a severely botoxed face and you manage to reach Alana just as she’s turning her attention to a sensitive-looking young man dressed like a lumberjack.
“Sorry?” you say as you step between them.
“I thought your name was Neville,” she says, focusing on you again, raising an exquisite eyebrow.
“It is. It is. Absolutely. Spelling’s not a requirement in coffee bars.” You release a chuckle and immediately wonder if it’s authentic-sounding. You’re holding out your hand to her for no clear reason.
Rather than simply shake it, she slides her own hand between your fingers—small and warm. It’s as if her hand were snuggling up against your own.
“I love the name, Neville,” she says. “It reminds me of the British Prime Minister who tried to appease Hitler.”
You’re looking into her eyes now, holding her delightful hand. “I would have spit in his face,” you say. There’s a new huskiness to your voice. Where did it come from?
She takes her hand away quickly. “Who?”
“Hitler,” you say meekly.
“Oh yes,” she says. “Neville and Hitler. They are kind of paired by history.”
“I guess,” you say.
“Like lovers,” she says as she tilts her head, looks directly into your eyes and smiles warmly. It’s definitely a meaningful look but you have no idea what it means. You are absolutely flummoxed. You blink.
“Neville,” she says.
“Yes.”
“Have you noticed that the voices in commercials have begun to sound all show-businessy these days?”
“Yes,” you say softly.
“Can I give you my card?”
“You did already.” You lower the cappuccino in your left hand as you begin searching your pants pockets with your right.
“It seems you’ve lost it,” she says teasingly. “It seems you don’t need my card!”
“No. It’s somewhere.”
“Don’t worry.” She proffers you a second card. She’s holding it by the corner; her nail polish is a bright sort of persimmon. She’s positioned the card in front of your face so that you will be sure to read it.
Alana, it says in a large florid script that ends with a doodle of a lavender butterfly. No last name. Talent Development Specialist.
Her area code is 212. Below the number, handwritten with fine looping girlie letterforms in blue ballpoint: Monaco 709.
“Your office?”
“My hotel,” she says with a broad smile and a distinct flutter of lashes. I’m visiting from New York. Three days only.”
“I see.”
“Right by Union Square. It’s the penthouse suite.”
“That’s nice.”
“I’d love to have you audition for me. I think you’d be lovely.”
When the universe throws you a bone, you have to grab it. In the nether-world they’re watching you. What were you going to do tonight anyway? Comb your cat? Clean your kitchen? Watch Girls on TV?
“What time do you do the auditions?”
She locks eyes with you. These are the eyes of a movie star, a diva. What sparkles here isn’t a reflection. This tiny nebula emanates from somewhere inside her.
“Come at 7:30,” she says. “After—maybe we can get a drink.”
Checkmate. You’re frozen. You can’t come up with a response but she, by contrast, is completely fluid, brushing a nonexistent speck of dust off your shirt front, in the neighborhood of your left pectoral, and lingering with her fingers there.
“It’s a date then. Call me just before, so I’ll have time to get ready.”
And with that, she turns and crosses the room with a mincing walk, her hips rising and falling along with the hemispheres of her not insignificant ass, sheathed tight in her gray business suit, undulating across this little slice of the universe for you to observe, to scrutinize, to memorize; the mystical silent promise of the Real Voices brand.
Loved the "navel" bit -- Neville is a tough name to have. This was a charming "meet cute" kind of scene - though I suspect that the connection is not romantic, but rather that Alana really wants to get him to do some voice work -- which is itself a fascinating subculture of radio/podcasting/acting, etc.
You captured me at "cappuccino"...and the marvelous illustration.