Chapter 29: Table for Two

By Friday the photograph had been shared eleven thousand times, and my week of nobody knowing was over.

June read me the comments at breakfast.

The top one said: Finally.

The second said: Is she still on payroll, though?

The third was from a stranger who wanted everyone to know he had always said it was real.

"I'm taking him to lunch," I said.

"In public?"

"At the Aldine."

June put down her spoon.

"The Aldine is where you ate lemon cake for fourteen months."

"That's why."

Cain was waiting at the curb in the gray sedan, because Gus had been given the day off and was using it, he said, to do nothing in a loud way.

The Aldine's maitre d' saw us come through the door and stood up very straight.

"Mr. Rourke. Ms. Bell."

"Mara," said Cain.

The maitre d' blinked.

"Mara," he said carefully. "This way."

The dining room was full, and it went quiet in a wave from the door to the window.

Forks stopped.

Cain walked beside me with one hand at the small of my back, exactly where it had always been.

Then I felt it hesitate.

"Is this still all right?" he asked, very low.

"It's more than all right. Keep it there."

His hand stayed, and the maitre d' led us to the table by the window, the one with the chair that always faced the room.

The waiter pulled out my chair.

Cain was already reaching for it, and the two of them looked at each other over the back.

"I have it," Cain said.

"Thank you," I said. "But first."

I walked around the table to his chair, and I pulled it out.

I held it for him.

He stood there for one full second in the middle of the Aldine with every eye in the room on him.

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