I thought of my kitchen magnet back home: ‘Do one thing every day that scares you’ – Eleanor Roosevelt’s wise words printed on it. One thing every day that scares me… Well, lunch at this place had scared me, and here I was. I had conquered my fear of the day, but the next and much more challenging one that showed was overcoming my fear of beauty. Fear of beauty! – How silly and how true this was.

Luckily, I had a few lessons in beauty and knew that once I was relaxed and opened up more, beauty began to fascinate instead of frighten me. It even turned out that beauty was just as curious as me and often was as much into me as I was into her – or him. I have had those lessons, but right now, I felt as if I was starting all over again, just as in a game of Monopoly: You’ve played a few rounds, and then you have to go back to start and start all over again. Ok, if this was to be, ‘Well hello, let the next round begin!’. As scared and shaky as I was, I was even more excited and curious, ‘Bring it on!’.

The waiter returned.

“They do have all the ingredients for the Cocktail,” he said.

“What’s it called?” I asked.

“Genevieve. It’s really good. You wanna try it?”

“Yes, super. A Genevieve then.” He noted it down into his writing pad.

“And I’ll have the burger,” I added. I had just remembered that Erika had said the burgers were supposed to be great and only available on the lunch menu, besides: I just love a good burger.

“With cheese and special sauce?” I was asked.

“Oh yes, please, with cheese and special sauce,” I smiled and wondered what the special sauce might be. Would it be made of special herbs and spices only picked at a new moon? But then, what’s the point of knowing all the secrets to specialty?

“Do you serve anything else with it?”

“It comes along with greens or fries.” – The classic.

“Sounds excellent, I’ll have the fries.”

Off he was once again, placing the order with the kitchen. I had to go to the ladies and asked the smiling girls at the entrance where it was. One of them had short brunette hair. Not the stylish haircut one might expect at such a fancy pansy place, but she clearly dazzled in her very own way. ‘She’s good here, I’m good here,’ I figured.

“Down the stairs, then to your right, and then left,” she said smilingly. Her voice had an angelic tune to it; she was almost singing.

When I returned to my table, there was cornbread waiting for me. Cornbread. The last time I’d had cornbread was in Montana, 15 years ago, and no one – of the people I knew – ate it because it was perceived to be too Indian. Feathers not dot. Two men who had just arrived hadn’t noticed that my seat had already been taken, and one of them was just about to take my seat himself.