MATTHEW AND BELINDA leave the restaurant, walk to the end of the alley, and turn toward Matthew’s apartment, which is only two blocks away. Matthew says, “The most incredible thing happened when I was coming out of the men’s room. ...

     Matthew samples Belinda’s pork, the sauce, the aïoli (it is aïoli), the vegetables, the rice. While they’re having coffee, he consolidates his mental notes as he sometimes does, by reciting to Belinda important judgments he hopes to include in BW’s review. This postprandial draft is a risky business. ...

BELINDA RETURNS to the table, the waiter arrives with the drinks, and, in a moment, the redhead returns to her table. All this traffic in a small space occasions some confusion, jostling, stepping aside, shuffling of chairs, asking to be excused. The waiter stands to one side, holding his tray, aloof from the fray, frowning through a thin smile. Belinda seems upset. She’s trying to smile, but her forehead’s furrowed, and her smile slips, now and then, down to a frown. ...

WHEN BELINDA arrives in the ladies’ room, the redhead is standing at the sink, wiping her face with a wet paper towel, snarling at her reflection in the mirror and saying “B***h!” and “C**t!” Belinda scoots into a stall, locks the door, and pees as quietly as she can. . ..

SEATED at the table to Matthew’s left is a trio of young women. One is very young, a girl, still in her teens, delicate and lovely, dressed in a boxy black dress. She has pale, pale blond hair, almost white, long, smooth, and even, with a black velvet bow in it. ...

BELINDA’S STUDYING her menu. Matthew’s giving the appearance of studying his, but actually he’s studying the room. Since every dish on the menu is, according to Boston Biweekly dogma, supposed to be an equally good representative of the quality of the food, what he orders is never terribly important to the review. It’s more important that he be aware of the context. ...

HE COULD HAVE said this: “When I was eleven or twelve, a rumor was spread about me, in school, that I never took a bath or a shower, never bathed. But rumor isn’t really the right word. Not everyone believes a rumor. Everyone believed this. ...

“YOUR TABLE is ready, sir,” says the wrestler. “Good. Fine. Good,” says Matthew. As they walk off he mutters to Belinda, “Is it just my imagination, or has sir become a sarcastic remark?” ...

THOUGH THE ROOM IS CROWDED with people who are all gesticulating animatedly, he doesn’t spill a drop in carrying the drinks to the outskirts of the crowd, where Belinda’s standing in front of an arrangement of enormous obscene flowers, bizarre-looking things with penile elements and great leaves shaped like escutcheons of pubic hair. ...

WHEN HE WAS YOUNG, Matthew developed an affection for the martini well before he ever drank one, an affection that came in part from watching William Powell and Myrna Loy down them in the Thin Man movies and in part from his careful study of Esquire, the text from which he hoped to learn sophistication. The martini seemed to be an essential item among the equipment of a sophisticated adult. ...