ABSTRACT
Armadillo. Karangahape Road. A Thursday evening. Paul Rennie Brown is drunk again. Okay, not really drunk. Happy. Voluble. Okay, a little more than happy and voluble. He’s LOUD. Well actually – to be fair – everyone’s loud. Loud in a pleasant, raucous, Chardonnay-ed, Sauvignon Blanc-ed, kind of way. All eleven of them. A group of 40 plus somethings. All single, a string of sticky, confusing, messy, divorces behind them. Solo parents with no kids, as Paul likes to call them. They are having a dinner party for no other reason than that Paul thought that they might like each other. It might be fun. Come along. Enjoy yourself. Make connections. Paul likes these New Age-ey management book phrases. It is part of his charisma, his attractiveness. It keeps things interesting. Conversation flows, although it isn’t really about anything much. Nothing immediately earth shattering. Talk about business. Other evenings in similar restaurants. Lots of things. Tonight was a great night.
