He told me to meet him at F&B; he was sure I had mentioned wanting to go there, but I knew I hadn’t.
I wanted to go there; I’d wanted to visit for a proper meal since the night of hors d’oeuvres and drinks with my mom and the editors and publisher of FLAVORS Magazine. I’d wanted to visit long before then: since first driving down Peachtree Street into Buckhead one late October night, not long after returning to Georgia. I’d spotted its black patio peeking across the street from under the boughs that drape Roxborough Road and frantically searched the building for the name before the light changed; the white letters stood just where they should, above the black cloth awning.
The valet service impressed me, as it always does, as it did the first time. I stepped out of Dad’s black 1990s Mercedes feeling excited and luxuriously spoiled, relinquishing my responsibility to a young man in black and felt my mind turn powerfully to the clicking of strappy high heels laced around my ankles, vaguely noticing myself placing them one-before-the-other as I’d learned to do in modeling class as a teenager, the better part of my mind swirling with what-to-do-when-I-saw-him.
That’s the funny thing about falling in love, isn’t it? You focus on so many small details that normally don’t seem to matter with anyone else, at any other time. You try to pull away and find yourself again, and you just get swept back into the madly powerful emotion.
The restaurant mattered so much to me; being there with him was like having dinner with two favorite men, each competing for my attention. I had been so aware of the decor, the first time: the small French pots on an overhanging shelf near the bar charmed me intensely; the lighting from the darkened windows made the nook where our group sat on high stools at a long, high table feel all the more intimately intense. I had lightly teased the server for his small negligences of my mother’s non-alcoholic beverages and later connected with the owner, impressed with his charm, grace and hospitality; had indulged in bite-sized appetizers that I’d enjoyed more and less. But my attention was entirely on this place.
This time, my companion fought for my mind, first teasing the hostess and then our server on my behalf – the same server I’d teased on my first visit; my date worked hard to alight my senses with gestures, conversation, attention I’m unused to. My mind and heart were caught in a massive tug-of-war between my way of typically experiencing meals, during which no one really pays me attention, my mind and senses becoming one, savoring every drop of a meal and the environment – and this new man, who both wanted me to enjoy myself and yet somehow demanded to sample and intermingle with every drop of my delight.
The subtle became nearly lost: I drank a bold, organic red wine with our meal of appetizers, my palate finding, despite my distraction, the hints of tobacco, currants, blackberries amidst the dry tannins. We discussed the merits of the puff pastry, which I enjoyed with its fresh arugula, broiled grape tomatoes and creamy, warm goat cheese atop eggplant paste; he thought it needed to be stuffed with cheese. The mussels in their light white-wine-and-cream broth we agreed, as we fed each other on half-shells, needed more depth; he asked for a plate of lemons and some fresh thyme.
My mind flitted to the other guests as he improved the meal for me, bite-by-bite, and I enjoyed it more; I found myself worrying, at first, and then accepting our irreverent indulgence and obviously sensual enjoyment of the food and each other that was, at this point, no longer for the other’s seduction; he’d captured my attention and won me from the restaurant.
It is a strange game, to be captured by a man, especially when one’s interest is native and well-entrenched; stranger still to be stolen from something as inanimate as a restaurant. And even more strange to have the restaurant turn around to compete again….
I had an unspoken taste for something rich and chocolaty-sweet, though I was settled on going home. A moment later, with no instigation on our parts, our server brought us a sample platter of desserts, on the house. The plate contained three delicious desserts, none of which I remember so well as the dark chocolate ganache that was precisely what I had wanted; my senses were now reeling, spinning out of control at the madness of this night, at the dizzying vie for my attentions and affections. I sipped a double-espresso in an attempt to balance my mind, steeling myself against the sweet delights and my companion’s deft and intriguing conversation with the female half of F&B’s ownership – again, on my behalf – by focusing on the hot, bitter liquid.
It was clear, by the time we exited, who had won me this night, though I regretted the loss for the restaurant I had loved so much since first seeing it, to which I felt such a strange connection, that had left me with so little to applaud.
I hear it’s since changed owners, which makes sense from the new look and feel of their website, from the new, white awnings above the black-glassed patio.
He won me that night, my gentleman; for the night and for most of the following months. And I lost that restaurant, lost F&B….
“Won the battle but lost the war,” they say….
For there’s not yet a man who can take me from my love of being, of experiencing a moment in its fulness, be the moment good or bad, passionate or blasé, deep or shallow, intimate or excruciatingly distant; and not many restaurants that fail to indulge.
Tempted as well as I am, they’re all just moments of falling in love.
Oceans of Mine 