Vintage Attraction Read Online Free PDF Page A

good to me.”
    We trudged in the cold along Wacker, across the bridge, to Smith & Wollensky, which sat in Marina City and overlooked the river. I followed Izzy down the stairs to the grill below the expensive steakhouse, and revolved inside.
    The place was packed. People with domestic beer bottles and mixed drinks were double-parked at the bar, watching the White Sox game from one or both of the screens. They talked, laughed, ordered more cocktails from the bartenders who never seemed to stop moving, and occasionally cheered on the baseball players. All the tables thrummed with conversations and the clinking of silver and glassware. I watched a fraternity of similarly sized and shaped servers, smiling tightly, emerge from the kitchen with a slam and a creak of the swinging door. They ported to the martini-sodden an endless parade of charred steaks and tall burgers beside heaps of fries and salads and plates of mashed potatoes and creamed spinach. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d eaten in a restaurant that wasn’t a campus food stand.
    A manager quickly came over and greeted us. “Miss Conway, Chef, step up, step up. Right this way. Sorry to keep you waiting. We just finished setting your favorite table.”
    As much as I tried to pretend this was just a typical Friday night, it was still surreal. I was out, on a chaperoned date of sorts, with a celebrity. First dates were strange enough. The goal always was to pretend like the sudden juxtaposition of two strangers was the most ordinary, comfortable pairing in the world. But when your first date was with someone who was on television, and when there was another man at the table alongside you to oversee the proceedings and make sure you weren’t a psycho stalker, there was little mistaking the situation for an everyday occurrence. Still, I enjoyed being here with Izzy and Chef Dominique. Somehow we made an effortless trio—then, anyway.
    Izzy scanned her menu and selected a burger. “Rare,” she said, after the waiter inquired how she wanted it cooked. When it was my turn, I asked for the same. I figured the unusually low degree of doneness and choice of Swiss cheese instead of my cafeteria customary American would win me culinary sophistication points with Izzy and also with the chef.
    â€œWhen did you first become interested in wine?” I asked. “It’s not exactly something you can major in at college.”
    â€œWhen I was six,” Izzy said.
    Chef Dominique laughed. “Tell him, tell him,” he said.
    â€œI grew up in Carbondale, Illinois,” Izzy began. “Three hundred and thirty three miles south of the city, population twenty-five thousand. And the people who raised me weren’t wine drinkers. They knew one beverage for all occasions: beer. Football games, summer barbeques, weddings, wakes, birthday parties, Saturday nights, Monday nights, Tuesday nights. Beer, beer, beer. Classy, right? But at parties, our neighbor Shirley refused to partake. Absolutely refused. She said ladies only drank wine . My dad—my foster dad—Ernie ran a liquor store, so he’d always have something for her. This wasn’t sophisticated wine, by any means. We’re probably talking Bartles & Jaymes.”
    â€œI think that’s how a lot of us first got to know alcohol,” I said. The chef squinted at me.
    â€œSo, anyway, there was this one Super Bowl Sunday and Ernie had brought home these peach-flavored wine coolers. And I remember looking at the bottles and thinking this sounded like the most delicious drink I’d ever heard of. I snuck one out of the six-pack in the refrigerator, went off to my room, and had a sip. Well, as you can imagine, I didn’t find the peach pie I was expecting, but instead discovered something that tasted . . . pretty unpalatable. Still, though, I couldn’t get it out of my head that the label said ‘peach.’ Who’d drink this and taste