When restaurateur Hugh Neumann rebukes Oliver Nicholas’s very public proposal to his boyfriend during a Valentine’s Day dinner, the diverted Cupid’s arrow strikes Hugh not in the heart, but in the ass.<br><br>After a media storm of commentary, ironically pro and con, gains national steam, what Hugh begins to refer to as his personal “St. Valentine’s Day Massacre” begins to affect home life with his partner, Dominick Brodie.<br><br>Was Hugh’s overreaction pandering to his largely heterosexual clientele? Or did the incident trigger his own panic about same-sex marriage? Will the public scrutiny threaten his decade-long commitment to Dom?

Bended Knee

As thinner Blues Brothers we rushed back to the plaza where Platte shared space with Saks Fifth Avenue, Crate and Barrel, and maybe twenty other businesses, including restaurants like Samba, a Brazilian steakhouse, and Simmer, a fondue place. My parents had never properly appreciated their good fortune when the working-class area began to thrive and names like Coachand The Sharper Image lit up. Instead, they got very turfy, grousing about reduced parking and the walk-ins who had so many shopping bags they couldn’t fit under the table. They snubbed a newly formed merchants’ association, wouldn’t participate in co-op advertising, waved off competing restaurants that offered coupons as desperate. After cutting 2.1 million calories from the menu, I had spent a fair amount of time politicking and forging alliances among fellow tenants.


Chapter 3