Chapter 12: Thursday Table

"He's keeping us both," Lydia said from the corridor door. "I heard it too."

Her face was white.

"Let's go," I said.

"We can't leave in the middle of dinner," Lydia said.

"Nina will cover," I said.

"With what?" Lydia asked.

"A pocket," I said.

We walked out through the kitchen and into the cold air on the pier.

"I want soup," I said.

"The soup place by the boathouse stays open until eleven on Saturdays," Lydia said.

"How do you know that?" I asked.

She looked at the water and did not answer.

Her small blue car took us to the boathouse, where the soup place next door glowed yellow behind steamed-up windows.

The man behind the counter looked up from his pot and smiled at Lydia.

"Saturday," the man said. "That's new. I kept your table."

"Tables get kept," I said. "It's a soup place."

The man pointed his ladle at the table by the radiator.

It had a candle in a jar, two place settings set square, and a folded white card that said RESERVED.

"Anyone can reserve a table," I said.

"Not every Thursday since September," the man said. "I wrote that card for her myself."

"Two coffees, please," Lydia said, very fast.

"Two," the man said, looking at me. "She's brought someone."

"She brought me," I said.

"Well, it's about time," the man said.

He set down two mugs and did not leave.

"I'll say it anyway," the man said. "Two bowls of the lentil, no cream, extra pepper. She orders both, and one bowl stays full."

"Maybe she likes a second dinner," I said.

"She hates lentils," the man said.

"I'm learning," Lydia said, into her hands.

"For an hour she waits," the man said. "Then she eats hers and takes yours home in a container."

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