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"  Geoff Schmidt is shredding his napkin. We&amp;#039;re sitting in a booth in the Esquire and he&amp;#039;s pretending to listen to me while he shreds and checks out the room. Long white strips curl under his fingers. I&amp;#039;m on my third Bud Light, the first two consumed while I waited for him to show up. He has a reputation for being punctual, polite, humble. But he&amp;#039;s a half an hour late, and he seems frazzled. There are dark circles under those famously hazel eyes, and he keeps looking toward the door, toward the back, toward the bar. I ask him about Clooney. I heard he and Clooney got tight on the set of those movies he ghosted.   &amp;quot;What&amp;#039;s not to like?&amp;quot; Geoff says. &amp;quot;George is a prince. He bought my kids jetpacks. We hung out last Easter. Big Papi stopped by.&amp;quot; It&amp;#039;s all flirty in the Esquire now. Grey Goose and Belvederes. Double-breasted suits and double-breasted Women We Love. Geoff&amp;#039;s eyes skitter over the surface. Everyone&amp;#039;s eyes skitter over us. Esquire tumblers chunk on bartops and tables. Geoff waves at Angelina. He waves at Halle. He lights a cigar and blows a perfect, heart-shaped smoke ring at Sienna, who laces it with her slender arm as though it were a bracelet.  He looks at me suddenly. &amp;quot;Does this seem weird to you?&amp;quot; he says. I admit it does. I look at the crinkles at the corners of his eyes. The strands of gray somebody somewhere will airbrush out.  &amp;quot;It seems like just yesterday I was walking the kids down to the bus stop,&amp;quot; he says, in that sort of dreamy, declamatory voice he sometimes uses. &amp;quot;I remember the pang I felt when they shouldered their backpacks and stepped on. I remember the crush I had on their bus driver.&amp;quot; He pauses. &amp;quot;I wonder if she&amp;#039;s still driving a bus.&amp;quot; Looking at Geoff Schmidt, you know the night is about a drink away from settling into strangeness. Who are you, Geoff Schmidt? What happened to you when you first set words to paper? What happened when people started reading them?  What is it that&amp;#039;s making you shred napkins?  About the author: Geoff Schmidt is the author of Write Your Heart Out: Advice from the Moon Winx. His stories, poems, and essays have appeared in Fiction, The Southern Review, The Gettysburg Review, Crab Orchard Review, The Massachusetts Review, Agni, Other Voices, The Chicago Tribune Sunday Book Review, and elsewhere. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.esquire.com/entertainment/books/a4482/geoff-schmidt-napkin-fiction/>