William had gotten into an elite Ivy League graduate program in Philadelphia otherwise known as the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He was incredibly young for this program as generally business schools of this caliber required solid work experience prior to admission. William had been awarded an academic scholarship. Wharton will not figure again in our story. It is about a restaurant and bar called Le Terrasse. This was a French Restaurant with a bar about 1 block from the Graduate Towers Buildings A & B where the University housed its graduate students. It served reasonable French style food, but everyone went there for the upmarket bar in the middle of an otherwise nondescript and sad neighborhood. The graduate towers were referred to as the sad towers. Concrete relics of a communist past that thankfully never existed and yet somehow East Germany had made it to Philadelphia.
William went to the bar one night to meet a girl from NY City who he had sort of gotten into it with the previous week at a crowded party. She was a recent graduate. Things went far but not so far from the point of view of propriety or for that matter potential parenthood. William arrived somewhat early. His drink of choice was a seven and seven. He had no idea how or why this had become his bar drink. He ordered one and he noticed two attractive women in the immediate vicinity. The dark-haired member of the pair knew that look from William as she had perhaps seen it far too often but then again, she was at the bar, dressed for the evening.
Fair game to at least approach. She told William that they were waiting for friends. William replied, sorry for bothering you, I am waiting for someone myself. My name is William, but everyone calls me Billy. I go to school here. That was enough to at least open lines of communication. They talked for about an hour, most of Billy's discussions were with Lauren, the dark-haired temptress who eventually identified herself. The other woman was mighty fine as well named Alex, but Alex was a blonde. Billy was once engaged to a woman named May who had always hated blondes. It was hard for Billy to work through that mental interference. He still loved May but had to move on. She had left him for someone else. He did not however want to anger her memory. She seemed to know everything and was capable of being everywhere. He someday thought that she might reappear, so Billy did not want to anger the gods.
In walked Billy's date for the evening whose name has long since eluded him. Try as he might he could not recall her name or even conure up a description of her years later. Billy bid Lauren a good night who of course had no one really waiting to arrive for her. Lauren and her friend withdrew a discrete distance away to a corner of the bar. After a few minutes Billy's actual date evening date withdrew to the bathroom to adjust the make-up and Lauren came over and prepared to hand Billy her card and wrote her personal phone number on the back. She said, "That conversation was far too good for me to just walk away." Lauren handed him the card and walked back to the end of the bar. Billy's date returned and announced that her old college boyfriend had just arrived and would be joining them for a drink. Billy did not really fancy her or a threesome with her and her invited guest.
So let's summarize the situation so far. The mysterious Lauren that Billy remembers almost 40 years later or the girl that Billy could not remember even the next year. Billy knew how to discount something back to the present and decide. This is a finance joke that does not get better with age. Billy said to his date, why don't you guys use this time to figure yourselves out and I will go hang out over there, motioning to Lauren and her friend. Billy headed over towards Lauren and said, I kind of like you as well. Next thing Billy knew they were headed downtown to a Center City restaurant.
This was the affluent section of Philadelphia. Billy and Lauren continued to chat. Chat is an expression Billy would pick up a few years later in London but it seemed to fit. He was chatting her up. It was easy to like Lauren's breasts as they struggled to be restrained by her clothes. From this distance (clothes on) they looked to be rather fine, large and round. She had nipples capable of shining through several layers of clothing for a cold Philly night. She had fit thighs as Lauren wore boots with a reasonable short but not that short skirt. At the bar they ordered fondue. This was the only time in Billy's life he could recall ever having fondue. Maybe the closest thing style wise would be Shabu Shabu in Tokyo a few years later. Way less cheese but the idea seemed similar.
