I’m looking through the latest Conspicuous Consumption at the newsstand around the corner from where I have croissants and cappuccino on Saturday mornings when somebody next to me whimpers. The somebody’s a babe who pretends not to notice me noticing her, pretends to be wrapped up in Rolling Stone’s latest cover story on Bruce Springsteen. I look for my place in the caption on the third page of the four-page spread on Gianni Versace’s new stuff for fall.

I haven’t even found it when I realize she’s started to cry. I’ve got a pale blue Polo by Ralph Lauren handkerchief with me, as I always try to, and I offer it to her. She takes off her sunglasses and uses it to dab at her eyes. She says, “Thank you,” and looks embarrassed. I do what seems the considerate thing and get back to my caption again while she sniffles.

Just when it sounds like she’s got herself under control, she lets out a sob I bet they can hear in the croissant place. “Hey,” I say, “it’s going to be OK.” I touch her on the shoulder. The next thing I know she’s sobbing into my Giorgio Armani sportshirt. “But it isn’t,” she says. “As much as I love him, I’ve got to admit to myself that I’ll never change him. We’re just too different, that’s all.” She stops crying. She’s trying to be brave. “Just too different,” she repeats, as though to prove to herself that she can without bursting into tears again.

She can’t. I put my arms around her, but that only makes her sob harder. “I mean, did you see what he wore at last year’s Grammys, or on stage at the L.A. Coliseum?” she sobs. “Do you have any idea how I pleaded with him not to? Do you have any idea how embarrassing it is for me, going out with somebody who always looks like he just crawled out from under his car? I’m a model, for Pete’s sake. My family’s got money. We always tried to look our best. I can’t stand having to look like an out-of-work steelworker’s wife anymore. I just can’t.”

More sobbing.

She’s wearing jeans and a ponytail. Any make-up she might have started out with was washed off two sobs ago. In other words, she doesn’t look much at all like the femme fatale she played in that hideous Southern hippie band’s video. But as she regains control of herself and blows her nose softly into my handkerchief, I put two and two together without even meaning to and realize that she’s Mrs. Bruce Springsteen.

“You’ve been so kind,” she says, embarrassed by the sight of the large damp spot on my chest. “Why don’t you let me buy you brunch or something?” I tell her she doesn’t have to. “But I want to,” she says. I dress for success, and look a lot more like I stepped out of the pages of CC than crawled out from under somebody’s Trans Am.

I make small talk with her as we walk over to the bistro where she wants to brunch, but God knows what I say, since my mind’s on something else entirely. My mind’s busy imagining what might happen if we don’t stop at brunch, but really go for the full nine yards and fall in love. They’d talk about me in Random Notes and Us and People.

I could become a rock star in my own right. I could give up being an investment counselor without having to give up the Porsche and the condo at the Marina.

Weirder things have happened. When I was social chairman of my frat in college, I used to get a good response whenever I got the band I’d hired for a particular mixer to back me up on “Smoke On The Water” if they knew it, and they always knew it. Maybe I’m not the world’s greatest singer, but don’t tell me you’ve got to be. Have you ever heard Lou Reed? How about Tom Petty? (Has the guy ever heard of Dristan, for Christ’s sake?)

You can see where The Boss might look a little out of place in the restaurant his wife takes me to. The pinks and grays it’s decorated in are so muted that it seems illuminated by subdued track lighting even though it’s 11:30 in the morning and there’s sunshine streaming through the miniblinds. The waiters all look like they were recruited from the pages of CC. For what one of them probably pays for a haircut, he could have gotten a bottle of the best wine on the place’s list. And the eggs Benedict they’re doing for brunch are just about the only thing on the menu that isn’t cooked over mesquite. “Doing” is the waiter’s word. “And Alain’s doing eggs Benedict too,” he says, “if you’re into something more breakfasty.” You seem to get shiitake mushrooms with everything.

The Boss’s wife lights up a cigarette. The muted lighting makes up for her lack of make-up. She’s looking better and better to me. She’s looking fairly sensational. She asks me to tell her about myself. As I do, I reach for the hand she’s not using to hold her cigarette under the table. It’s a terrific hand, and she lets me hold it.

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I tell her about how bored I am with the investment game. She looks a little bit disappointed, but doesn’t let go my hand. I tell her about “Smoke On The Water” and my secret ambition. She sighs, looks real disappointed, and does let go my hand. I realize I might be getting a little bit ahead of myself, and try to figure out how I can smooth things over without sounding like I ordered crow (grilled over mesquite, with shiitake mushrooms) instead of something more breakfasty. But before I can get very far, who comes over to our table but Michael Jackson.

You always read about how shy he is, but he doesn’t seem so shy at all. He says, “Hey, how you doin’, babe?” and smooches Mrs. Springsteen right on the mouth before she can even pucker up. He doesn’t seem to remember her name. He hasn’t got a world of things to talk to her about. “So how you doin’?” he asks again, leaning hard on the “do” this time.

“So you’re interested in a career as a rock ’n’ roll singer,” he says to me, having apparently overheard what made Mrs. Springsteen let go my hand. That’s right, I admit. “Well,” he says, “I’m going to be going out on the road for my first solo tour—you know, without Jermaine and Marlon and Tito and all the rest—in a couple of months, and I’m going to need an opening act. So get a tape to my manager if you think you might be interested.”

As I’m sure you can picture, this leaves me speechless, and for the 30 seconds or so, I don’t even come close to holding up my end of the conversation. Which consists of his asking Mrs. Springsteen for the third time how’s she’s been doin’ and her telling him fine again, this time with obvious annoyance.

We just sit there in silence for a minute, and then his bodyguard finally comes in, and to our table. A jowly guy in his early 50’s, he must go through an awful lot of mousse—he’s got an awful lot of gray hair, and every bit of it is right in place. He looks familiar.

Michael Jackson forgets his manners. He neither excuses himself to go sit elsewhere with the guy, nor introduces him to me and Mrs. Springsteen. It occurs to me that that’s probably because he doesn’t remember Mrs. Springsteen’s name. So the guy has to introduce himself. “Little lady,” he drawls at Mrs. Springsteen, offering her a big fleshy mitt with about 350 rings on it, “my name’s Elvis Presley.”

TO BE CONTINUED