Models held trays of cocktails and tables groaned with food - pates, cheeses, shellfish, smoked fish, suckling pig - at the grand opening of the Marriott Marquis in downtown Miami last night. Sometimes it's fun to pretend there's no recession.
I carried my glass of Champagne into the bar - feeling not at all like a struggling freelancer - and sat next to a couple from Miami Beach. "It's a different crowd here than in South Beach," Elsa observed.
"In what way?" I asked.
"More breasts and ass over there," she said. "Here people are wearing clothes."
A little after eight the models began walking around with illuminated signs that read: "Come play with us on the 19th floor." I didn't get too excited, because I knew from a tour of the hotel a few weeks earlier that the 19th floor held a full-length basketball court. I took the elevator up and the space that had looked quite impressive on the tour now resembled a high school gym that had been decorated for the junior prom. (Except for the bar set up at one end.)
Elsa showed me her new camera and then left me and Brian as she went off to take pictures. Minutes later she returned with one of Anna Kournikova. Then she was gone again. When she got back, she showed us a close-up of Alex Rodriguez.
"Do you ask if you can take their pictures?" I asked.
"No. I use the zoom. I'm bad," she said laughing.
As the court filled, Brian noticed an increase in people who were "surgically enhanced."
Venus Williams was introduced, but she didn't take part in the foul shooting contest, conducted by Tim Hardaway. I said goodbye to my new friends and, about mid-court, ran into Sara, whom I'd met on the tour.
"What do you think?" I asked her.
"It's the best Bar Mitzvah I've ever been to," she said.
