No Seat for Me at This Table novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: Five Plates
Gianna walks into a Sunday dinner where the pact held for everyone but her, and carries her mother's table out in front of a live video. On the stairs her oldest friend admits he has known about her boyfriend for six weeks.
At 8:14 on Sunday night I opened our apartment door and found five plates on the table and four sets of cutlery.
Nobody looked up.
My brother was laughing with his mouth full.
My boyfriend had his arm along the back of my cousin's chair.
My cousin's phone leaned against a candle jar, pointed at the three of them, with a red LIVE in the corner of the screen.
The candles had burned down to stubs.
The roast chicken I had marinated on Saturday night was a carcass in a pan, and the cannoli box was empty.
I was holding a tray of tiramisu I had made on my break.
I had worked a double at the restaurant and run from the subway with the tray against my chest.
On our first day in this apartment, the five of us had made one rule.
Every Sunday we ate dinner together, and nobody touched a fork until all five of us were at the table.
The first week, my cousin Carla was late finishing a project, and my brother Marco said it wasn't a family dinner without her.
We sat for two hours with the food going cold, and I never once complained.
At 6:52 that night, on the train, my boyfriend Rocco had texted me: Take your time babe. We'll wait for you.
Rocco had never waited for anything in his life, but I had read that text and been grateful.
Now I looked at my own plate.
It sat at my usual chair, plain white and completely clean, with no fork and no knife.
Carla's plate sat across from it with a gold rim.
Marco took that one out of a box in his room every Sunday and set it for her himself.
He had done it since the day we moved in, and I had always thought it was sweet.
"Gia, you made it!" Carla said brightly, and turned the phone toward me. "Everybody, this is Gia. She's always the late one."
"We didn't want it to go cold," Marco said.
"You waited two hours for Carla," I said.
"Aw, I'd have told you to start without me," Carla said.
Rocco leaned back and gave me the smile he used on clients.
"Babe, don't make it a thing."
"You said you'd wait."
"I said take your time. That's not the same."
I looked at the candle stubs.
I looked at the empty cannoli box.
Then I looked at Dino.
He was at the far end, our oldest friend from the block, and he was the only one whose plate was full.
His food had gone cold, his knife and fork lay beside it, and his hands were in his lap.
"I'm not hungry," he said, to nobody.
Marco rolled his eyes. "Dino's being dramatic."
The table they were eating at was my mother's.
It was solid oak and had come from her mother's kitchen.
I had carried it up four flights of stairs myself two years ago, with Dino on the other end, and nobody else had ever lifted it.
So I stepped out of the doorway and put the tiramisu on the counter.
Then I took Carla's phone off the candle jar and looked into it.
"My name is Gianna Ruggiero," I said. "I cooked this dinner, and this is the last one."
I pressed the red button and the screen went black.
"Hey!" Carla grabbed for it. "That was live! There were more than forty people on there."
I set the phone down in front of her.
"Take your plates and your glasses off my mother's table," I said. "All of you."
Nobody moved.
"Gia, come on," Marco said. "You're being insane."
"The lease is in my name. I'll deal with that tomorrow."
I turned to Dino.
He was already standing.
He put his cold dinner on the counter, then picked up Rocco's glass and Marco's plate and cleared them, one trip after another, while nobody stopped him.
When Carla's gold plate was last, he looked at me, and I nodded, and he set it on the counter too.
Rocco finally stood up.
"Babe. I said we'd wait."
"The candles are down to nothing, Rocco."
He opened his mouth, and I walked past him.
Dino took the end by the door and I took the end by the window.
We lifted my mother's table together and carried it into the hall.
Behind us, Carla was already talking to her phone, and I could not hear what she was saying.
On the second landing Dino shifted his grip, and the table scraped the wall.
"Gia," he said. "I have to tell you something, and you're going to hate me."
"Then tell me on the way down."
"Rocco has been going to Carla's door at night for six weeks."
I stopped, and the whole table stopped with me.
"I saw them on the back stairs. I told Marco, and he asked me to wait until after your father's birthday."
I stood with the weight of my mother's table in my hands.
Six weeks of Sundays, and Dino had passed me the salt every single time.
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