“THREE MARTINI LUNCH” (SHORT STORY)
Two women poets meet at the Ritz.
Anne Sexton, brash and bold, arrives late. Sylvia Plath, precise and poised, waits patiently. They drink, they smoke, they talk of men and love.
“Three Martini Lunch” is a literary short story about creativity and self-expression, about friendship and poetry.
How will their lives twist and braid?
What secrets will they share?
2,000 words / 8 minutes of vivid reading pleasure
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‘I was made at right angles to the world and I see it so. I can only see it so.’ Elizabeth Bishop
STEFANO BOSCUTTI
THREE MARTINI LUNCH
Copyright 2024 Stefano Boscutti
All Rights Reserved
It’s spring, 1959.
A sky-blue Ford Saloon veers across Arlington Street in downtown Boston and lobs into a loading zone beside the Ritz hotel.
It shudders to a sudden stop with ANNE SEXTON, 30, behind the large plastic-coated steering wheel. She plucks a Salem menthol cigarette from her lips and crushes it into the overflowing metal slide-out ashtray in the dashboard, bracelets rattling. Clips open her bag and takes out a favourite lipstick she whips around her lips. Then quickly blushes on her high cheekbones. Pushes back her raven hair.
She highballs out of the car. Smooths her silky, tight-fitting dress over her slim hips and strides toward the hotel entrance.
‘You can’t park there, lady,’ a HOTEL WORKER calls out. ‘It’s a loading zone.’
Anne turns and smiles brightly at him in a voice husky from endless cigarettes.
‘It’s okay, I’m going to get loaded!’
She waves at him.
‘I promise!’
Anne hurries into the hotel foyer, reaches into her bag and taps out another cigarette from a Salem soft pack. A MAN flicks and flames a lighter.
She reaches over and cups the man’s hand to draw the flame closer. Inhales so deeply her cheeks hollow, and looks up at him with large, shining green eyes. Blows out a thin stream of blue smoke.
‘Aren’t you a sweetheart?’
Anne turns and scampers down a stone stairway into the plush, deep dark red bar. It’s the middle of the day so there’s hardly anyone there. There’s a HANDSOME MAN and a YOUNG WOMAN at a table near the bar.
In a corner table sits another woman with her back to Anne. Upright, a little tense. Anne calls out to her.
‘I’m here. I’m here.’
As always, Anne is running late. The woman turns to see her. It’s SYLVIA PLATH, 26. Sylvia is always early. More studious, earnest and quietly charming. She lifts her hand in acknowledgement and smiles.
Sylvia’s hair is dyed a few shades darker than her natural light brown. Shoulder length, parted on the right and carefully trained to dip with a precise and provocative flourish over her left eyebrow. To hide an irregular brown scar.
Her eyes are very dark, deeply set under heavy lids. Her cheekbones are high and sharp. She wears a tightly buttoned print blouse and neat cardigan.
Anne’s eyes sparkle.
‘Sylvia, your lipstick is a delight.’
Sylvia pouts a smile.
‘Cherries in the Snow.’
‘Revlon?’
Sylvia nods.
‘It matches your nail lacquer perfectly.’
‘Also my pin.’
Sylvia always adds a pop of red to any outfit. Anne laughs and sweeps into a seat by Sylvia, entwining her legs as she leans forward.
‘Isn’t this delicious. Just you and me and the ghosts of the old Ritz.’
Anne and Sylvia had first met earlier that year while auditing a creative writing seminar at Boston University led by Robert Lowell. They hit it off immediately, edging each other to new forms of poetry, more personal works. They’d made a quick habit of heading off for martinis at the Ritz with another poet George Starbuck after each seminar.
Today is the first time Anne and Sylvia are catching up for lunch before an afternoon seminar. Sylvia is worried about turning up tipsy. Anne is thrilled by the prospect.
A BAR ATTENDANT, 40s, thin, wearing narrow glasses and white single-button linen jacket appears. Anne beckons him closer.
‘Two martinis, please. Extra dry and extra full.’
‘Olives?’
‘Of course. Olives are so much better for the skin.’
Anne turns to Sylvia.
‘All that vitamin E.’
Bar Attendant heads to the bar, past the seated couple. Anne nods her head towards them.
‘He’s married and they’ve been having a love affair. She has no idea he’s about to break it off.’
Sylvia steals a glance, mortified.
‘How can you tell?’
‘He doesn’t love her anymore, if he ever did. Just a pretty fling but now he hates her, despises her. Because she brings him no pleasure, no delight. She’s no longer a distraction. She’s become a burden to him.’
‘Perhaps he’s realised he loves his wife.’
Anne’s lips almost curl into a sneer as she softly shakes her head.
‘He doesn’t love anyone but himself.’
Bar Attendant returns with two extra dry martinis on a tray and a bowl of free potato chips. Places down two paper coasters and the martinis. Then the bowl of chips.
Anne and Sylvia pick up their cocktail glasses and clink. Sylvia takes quick sip of her martini. Anne downs hers and sits the empty cocktail glass down with a grin.
‘All men are rats.’
‘Even your husband?’
‘Especially my husband.’
‘Off for another business trip across the country. I’ve no idea where he is. Or when he’s coming back.’
‘While you’re left to look after the children, after the girls.’
‘The worms!’
Anne shivers.
‘Hopefully his mother will come over for them, feed them. I simply don’t have the time. My day is jam-packed. After lunch, we’ve got class. Then I’ve got to dash to my therapist, my psychiatrist - second time this week. Then see Maxine. Oh, and I promised I’d meet Lee today.’
‘Such a busy girl.’
Anne laughs.
‘Life’s a whirl.’
Anne smiles. Waves over the Bar Attendant who checks their next order.
‘Two martinis? Extra dry?’
‘With extra olives.’
As the Bar Attendant heads back to the bar. The Young Woman seated with the Handsome Man stands and grabs her bag and leaves.
The Young Woman tries not to burst into tears as she hurries past. Anne’s smile breaks as she turns to the Handsome Man.
The Handsome Man finishes his drink and tips the top of the empty glass towards Anne.
‘They always tell them in public spaces like restaurants and bars so the women won’t make a scene. Won’t yell at the top of their voices at the betrayal. Won’t scream and cry out.’
Anne thinks for a moment that she should run after the Young Woman. Comfort her, tell her that everything is going to be alright. That men a bad because they don’t know any other way. They cannot help themselves. So grab any glimpse of happiness you can. Hold it tight inside you.
In last week’s class, Anne felt that happiness between the words of her poems. She’s the livewire in the small class. Sylvia is always early. Anne is always late. Smoking, coughing, dropping books and papers. Reading her poetry aloud in class with extravagant enthusiasm and life. Her hands shake when she reads her poems aloud.
She often smokes in the class using her shoe as an ashtray.
Anne crushes her cigarette into the ashtray and two extra dry martinis with olives are placed on their table. Along with a fresh bowl of potato chips.
Anne takes the Salem soft pack out of her bag and a matchbook. Strikes a flame and inhales a gush of smoke. Sylvia looks at the cigarette packet.
‘You smoke an awful lot of Salem cigarettes.’
Anne laughs and arches a brow.
‘That’s because I’m a sophisticated, modern woman.’
Sylvia smirks. Anne leans in.
‘Do you really want to know why I smoke Salem cigarettes?’
‘Because you’re in fact a witch and have ben sentenced to burn at the stake?’
Anne blushes.
‘It’s because Salem’s cigarette paper air-softens every puff.’
Sylvia looks amused. Anne recounts a Salem magazine advertisement from memory.
‘An important breakthrough in Salem’s research laboratories now brings you an entirely new kind of cigarette paper - HIGH POROSITY paper - which breathes new freshness into the flavour.
‘Each puff on a Salem draws just enough fresh air in through the paper to make the smoke taste softer, fresher, more flavourful than ever. If you’ve enjoyed Salem’s springtime freshness before, you’ll be even more pleased because of this amazing new development. Smoke refreshed - smoke Salem!’
Sylvia almost claps.
‘You’re such a poet, Anne.’
‘My husband hates the way I read poems. He says I sound like a minister. But you have to give it a certain tone, a certain rhythm.’
‘That’s what a poet does.’
They both giggle. They have so much to talk about.
How at the last class Lowell kept asking the students why is this line so good, what makes it good? How no one said a word. How there was total silence. How everyone was afraid to speak. And how finally, because Anne couldn’t stand it any longer, she spoke up and said she didn’t think it was at all good. Said it was sloppy language. The kind of sloppy language Lowell would never allow. Now everyone thinks Anne is aggressive. A harpy, a fury. A harridan.
How Anne can no longer entertain or have any guests over because her poetry, her work has taken over the dining table. Typewriter, typewritten proofs everywhere, books stacked on top of books.
How Anne needs a bigger house. Not as big as her parents, not with a four-car garage. One garage is all she needs.
They have so much to talk about. Anne leans over to Sylvia with a glint in her eye, whispers.
‘Let’s get another martini. Let’s get loaded.’
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Copyright 2024 Stefano Boscutti
All Rights Reserved
The moral rights of the author are asserted.
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This is a work of fiction. While many of the characters portrayed here have counterparts in the life and times of Anne Sexton, Sylvia Plath and others, the characterisations and incidents presented are totally the products of the author’s slippery imagination. This work is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. It should not be resold or given away. Thank you for your support. (Couldn’t do it without you.)
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