Match Made in Heaven

Matt has spent most of his adult life in Los Angeles. But he still thinks of himself as a Chicagoan. He still has that Windy City sensibility. During baseball season, he never talks about Raul. He talks about Sammy. And although Phil Jackson now entertains for Jack Nicholson and Dyan Cannon, he can’t be bothered with the Lakers. Unless they’re playing the Bulls. Matt says they don’t have real bagels in L.A. “They’re more like doughnuts.” And the pizza here? Forget about it.

But he loves Los Angeles. He swears it. So much so that getting him to have dinner with me in Orange County is a major undertaking. Like flying to Australia. He has only made the journey twice. The first time was to go to a screening at UC Irvine to see Robert Towne, the screenwriter of “Chinatown,” who Matt, a screenwriter himself, considers to be one of the few intelligent movie writers in Hollywood. And the second time was about a month ago after he’d called to tell me that a woman he was thinking of marrying had dumped him.

I think women have an easier time of it when their hearts get broken. They get together with their girlfriends and cry and talk about what a rat the guy really was. Men don’t do that. Instead, they get a sudden interest in going to sporting events--any sport will do--and they say stuff like, “Long distance romances never last anyway.” At least that’s what Matt does.

“You know what you need?” I tell Matt when he calls to say he isn’t moving up to San Francisco after all.

“What do I need?”

“You need a big steak and a real drink.”

“Fine,” he says.

A week later, we meet at the Arches, which I consider to be quite possibly the best place in the world for two guys to have dinner when one of them has a broken heart. It’s romantic in a purely masculine way, the way tuxedos and cigars can be manly and romantic, and the bar pours the best drinks in Orange County. No carefully measured shot glasses here. They just flip the bottle upside down and let it pour, which is what you need when a woman puts you on the ropes.

When we walk in, I say hello to Jimmy, the elegant white-haired maitre d’ who has been here forever, and tell him we’ve got reservations for 8. “But you’re an hour early,” he says, presenting his completely full dining room to me with a slow sweep of his hand, as if he were a conductor asking his orchestra to take a bow.

“I know,” I tell him. “We’re in no hurry. We’ll be in the bar.”

Matt and I sit next to the cocktail waitress station watching the bartender make a double White Russian that looks bigger than a chocolate shake. Our martinis are so huge we haven’t finished them when Jimmy comes 45 minutes later to tell us our table is ready. So we take them with us.

There are two dining rooms in the Arches. The back one is narrow and away from the crowd and the perfect place to be if you have a date. Particularly if you don’t want anyone to see you with this date. We don’t want to sit there.

Instead, we go into the main dining room, which is filled with red leather booths and dark hardwood paneling and a very low wood ceiling. There’s a floral arrangement in the center of the room that looks like something you’d find in the lobby of the Four Seasons, only here they are silk flowers, and on the walls are what I consider to be masculine paintings in the Leroy Neiman school of bad art of the Statue of Liberty and Havana and Churchill Downs.

As soon as Matt and I sit down, a tuxedoed waiter comes by with a glass dish of crudites--Italian peppers and carrots, celery and baby corn. We nosh, we drink, we talk about this woman who has broken his heart.

“I think I try too hard,” Matt says.

“Absolutely.”

“I mean, I was the one making all the effort. I was willing to quit my job, move to San Francisco, have children, not have children. Maybe I shouldn’t have been so flexible.”

“Next time.”

“Forget next time,” Matt says. “I think I’m going to try celibacy. Easier on your heart.”

“Don’t count on it.”

He shrugs, finishes his martini. “I’m gonna try it anyway.”

We both order veal. Giant veal steaks. Stuffed and slathered with sauces and mushrooms and God knows what. The sort of meal you couldn’t finish in two days. And more martinis. A flower girl comes by carrying roses and sunflowers, takes one look at us and hurries away.

At the next table, where three couples are finishing a meal, they ask the girl for a birthday bouquet. She sells them a single sunflower bloom with ferns, wrapped in plastic, for $6. This is handed to the birthday girl, who blushes and smiles and kisses her date. All of which makes Matt sigh.

Our waiter, Bobby, comes by and asks us how everything is. “Best veal I’ve ever had,” Matt says. Bobby bows, pleased, and moves on.

“You hardly touched it,” I say.

Matt shrugs. “It was the martini talking.”

A few minutes later, Jimmy, the maitre d’, comes through the dining room carrying a Polaroid camera. “Picture night,” he murmurs. “It’s picture night.” He leans back, like he is standing on the edge of a cliff and takes a picture of an older couple sitting across from us. Then he tries to take a picture of the birthday party. But they are too spread out. “Move closer,” he says, clapping his hands together. He still can’t get everyone in the frame. He takes down a vase of flowers in the way and steps back a few more feet. “Everybody say ‘Arches.’ ” The group does as instructed and the flash goes off.

Finally Jimmy comes over to our table.

“I don’t think so,” Matt says.

Jimmy smiles. “Ah, come on,” he says. “It’s picture night.”

As we are paying the bill, Jimmy comes back carrying a handful of Polaroids tucked into little white paper frames with the words “The Arches” embossed in red ink at the bottom.

“Lovely,” he says to the older couple, handing them their picture. “So festive,” he says to the birthday party table. And then he comes over to me and Matt and, leaning over the table, hands us our little souvenir. ‘Cheer up, boys,” he says in a hushed tone.

Just that and nothing more.

The Arches, 3334 W. Coast Highway, Newport Beach. Open 11:30 a.m.-3 p.m. Monday-Friday; dinner served daily until 1 a.m. (949) 645-7077.

David Lansing’s column is published on Fridays in Orange County Calendar. His e-mail address is occalendar@latimes.com.