Free Bobby Gold Stories by Anthony Bourdain

watched herself drain yet another drink, looking like nothing more
     than the kitchen slut — stringy brown hair, a pullover shirt from the fish company, baggy jeans and sneakers. The scent of
     smoked salmon still lingered on her fingers.
    "What the fuck am I doing?" she asked herself, more than once, as she walked somewhat unsteadily over to her 11th Avenue apartment.
     She hauled herself up four flights of narrow stairs, the hallway smelling of cabbage and boiled corned beef, unlocked her
     door and, after peeling off her clothes, poured herself another drink and headed for the shower.
    Bobby Gold at three-thirty in the morning. Standing outside NiteKlub. Feeling bad.
    Nikki woke up fully dressed, sunlight blinding her.
    "I can't believe it!!" she wailed, her eyes filling.
    Her shoes were still on. A black Danskin top, tiny black leather skirt. "I can't believe it! I can't fucking believe it!!
     I am such an . . . asshole!"
    The bed was barely disturbed. She'd come home last night, best as she could reconstruct it, showered, washed her hair, done
     her fucking nails (toenails too, she noticed). She'd brushed. She'd combed. She'd dressed. Jesus fucking Christ — she'd even
     waxed! Eau de toilette . . . lipstick . . . mascara — even rolled a joint for her three o'clock meeting with the moody security
     chief. Then she'd rested her head on her pillow for, what? . . . One fucking second? And promptly fallen asleep.
    She'd jilted him. The tall, morose Bobby Gold would have been disappointed. She knew that. She could tell he could be hurt.
     Something about the way he wore his hair long, the way his long forelocks hung down over his face, concealing his feelings.
    "Shit!!" she rasped, kicking her best knock-me-down-and-fuck-me shoes onto the floor petulantly, wondering how long he'd waited.
     Standing there in the dark and the cold outside NiteKlub.
    Story of my life, she thought. More questions to which she'd never know the answer. Another road not traveled. Another missed
     chance. Now she'd never look inside, past those dead shark eyes, past that look — of resignation, acceptance — she'd never
     know what the other thing was in there, that thing she'd seen for a second or two outside the bathroom that day, the whatever
     it was that she'd glimpsed somewhere at the sea bottom.
    If she'd gotten him in the sack, she'd have known. Another vain, body-worshiping jerk, in love with his own reflection? She
     didn't think so. He wasn't a cook. There wouldn't have been the bluster, the cynicism. The false bravado, the endless talk
     about dick dick dick. No smell of garlic and seafood, no corn starch caked under his balls - none of that towel-snapping,
     jock-like, locker room mindset that Nikki now lived and breathed, it felt sometimes, with every pore and atom.
    For the first time in six months, she thought, I put on a skirt. Do my nails. Wax my fucking pussy - and then I pass out.
    She wriggled out of her clothes and lay face down on the bed for a while. She had to be at work in three hours. In three hours,
     she'd have to put on those scratchy poly-blend kitchen whites again, the damp, food-spattered clogs, she'd pick up her knife
     roll and walk down the long flight of steps to the kitchen and the noise and the boys who loved her but would never understand
     her . . . the endless, relentless flow of incoming orders, the soul destroying . . . stupidity of it all.
    What would Bobby say when he saw her again? What would she say?
    She had to get out of this someday. She needed a plan. She thought, for the first time, about what Lenny had been talking
     about a few days ago in the walk-in. His latest, knuckleheaded get-rich-quick scheme. For a few seconds, Nikki pictured herself
     on a Caribbean beach, in a bathing suit. A tall umbrella drink in her hand. No burn marks on her wrists. Where would she live
     in such a place? And with whom? She couldn't picture a house. Or a person.
    When she found she was wearing earrings, she